The 'ad hominem' argument is Not a fallacy - but you need to get it right!

"The argumentum ad hominem, is an attack on an argument made by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, rather than attacking the argument directly."

This is usually regarded as a logical fallacy; but most of the time it is Not - and especially in a world ruled by evil liars, hence permeated by Satan-serving lies.

In such a world the single most important fact to establish is the nature and motivation of the arguer of a purported source of information - in other words, (here-and-now) all argument ought-to-be 'ad hominem': directed towards the person (or institution/ organisation) making an assertion.


Since this world is ruled by a single, linked bureaucracy: The System; and since The System communicates with us via the Public Relations (PR) interface and the Mass Media (which now structures and controls what used-to-be autonomous sources such as academia) - the main task we have is trying to understand and interpret PR and Media communications.

It ought to be clear that it is utterly futile even to try and analyse and compare the fire hose of PR-Media propaganda which deluges us every day (and which is, for the past few months) mandatory - if we fail to know the latest diktat on, for example, social distancing; we might get a hefty on-the-spot fine. Such a task would be combinatorially impossible; as well as more than a full-time job and intrinsically corrupting.


Fortunately, there is an alternative; which is to make an inference about the motivation of the source/s of communication; and understand and interpret the communication on that basis.

And (again fortunately) that is easy; because we know (we ought to know) that all the highly prioritised and sustained information which comes to us from PR and the Media emanates from a unitary origin that is an evil liar (or, more exactly, a relatively small community of evil liars).

There we have it! An immediate solution to the much-agonised-over problem of Information Overload!


Of course; it means that the majority who assume that the PR-Media communications are basically well-motivated and truthful will call you a 'conspiracy theorist' - but, we can put up with that (I assume?) when we are about the (clearly more vital) business of our theosis and our salvation!

Is there any positive value to debating "AI"?

I have long been sceptical about the benefits of arguing; because the result of any significant argument is settled in advance by fundamental (metaphysical) assumptions concerning the nature of that reality under discussions. 

Unless the metaphysical assumptions can first be acknowledged, then the argument will necessarily be futile or counter-productive - at least in the short-term.

(Sometimes an argument may have a delayed beneficial effect - that can happen.) 

But since "AI" is the current major project of the global totalitarian leadership, which they devised, launched (on November 30th 2022), and have implemented internationally and coercively (at a cost (probably) of tera-billions of dollars and vast quantities of energy) - then an argument on the subject can hardly fail to be revelatory of the nature of personal assumptions. 

And, thereby - by observing somebody's quality and strength of attitude towards the actuality of "AI"; we can sometimes discover which side that person has chosen to fight-upon, in the spiritual war of this world.

And I mean the actual side that person is actually on - regardless of his self-identification and self-image; because the vast majority of those who believe they oppose the mainstream of Leftist are in fact actively in service to that agenda of this-worldly ideologically-hedonic materialism.

This can be valuable; because "AI" is one of those Litmus Test issues; which evidently has a strong tendency either to reveal, or indeed actively to shape, a person's entire ideology. 

I have myself observed, in multiple instances, the way that a failure to understand and inwardly-reject the net-evil of the globalist "AI" project; crystallizes an individual into assumptions, attitudes, behaviours etc. that sustain the totalitarian Establishment project.  

In a spiritual sense, what is happening is that external evil can only enter our hearts, souls, inner selves... by invitation. 

But, when we do invite evil into our heart - and especially when we publicly apologize for, defend, and even promote evil...

Then this is a capitulation that (un-repented) Will Have (and demonstrably does have) rapidly adverse consequences.

We then Just Are a servant of evil, in the spiritual war; and it does not matter that we may suppose or advertise ourselves to be based, or Christian, or whatever.  

Insofar as it is helpful for our own spiritual quest to identify such people, and not to be misled by their surface protestations; then debating "AI" has value.

It can hep us learn something important about another person.  

But argument does not help, or very seldom - and may actually hinder - any intent of persuading such people to abandon their support of an obviously-evil mass project.

NOTE ADDED: As usual, the problem with this latest strategy of evil is that it is so pervasive, so lavishly funded, and so multiply-incentivized; that people who are (whatever their protestations) fundamentally this-worldly and action-orientated, cannot help but get on-board with it. "AI" advocacy, including pseudo-debate that accepts the fundamental assumptions offers (at least in the short term) many opportunities for enhanced status, influence, and a sliver of the money. Because the totalitarian System is almost ubiquitous, it can effectively be resisted "only" spiritually (not materially) and by individual persons (not organizations or institutions), and in their souls (not in socio-politics)... I put scare quotes around "only" because this is the issue at stake. The Issue wrt "AI" (as with other Litmus tests) is about whether or not the spiritual, the individual and the soul are genuinely to be primary in our own personal spiritual lives; whether or not we inwardly affiliate with God, Divine Creation and following Jesus Christ. What I personally find so dismaying is that So Many public-Christians will willingly (indeed eagerly) subordinate their inner commitments to external pressures and propaganda.   

Yes but, no but - the futility of argument

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The reason I prefer blogging over writing books and articles is that argument is futile.

All arguments take so much for granted, make so many assumptions, that they can always be rejected by anybody - according to what that anybody pre-wants

If the argument is short and clear, then it can be rejected because it didn't mention abcxyz.

But if the argument is long and mentions abcxyz it will not be read, or if it is read it will not be followed, or if it is followed it will not be understood. And anyway it still misses-out alpha, beta and gamma.

All that can be hoped-for is to provide the missing piece that completes somebody-else's jig-saw.

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"What do I think about X? Excuse me, I'll just ask..."

The idea that what we think, believe, do; ought-to-be derived from some external authority - which is, in practice, always some institution/ organization/ corporation... some formal group of people - is something that we recognize in others, but seldom acknowledge in ourselves. 

I had a friend who had recently become a member, or some kind of associate, of the UK Trotskyite "Socialist Workers Party"; and he described to me how things worked there, ideologically. 

Whenever there was some big new news story - an invasion, an economic crisis, a strike, civil disorder - a meeting would be called at which the event was ideologically framed and explained, and members were told how The Party could make use of it: therefore what to think and do about it. 

This is how communists work, and this has been well known and obvious to others, whenever any argument with them is attempted.

It is why communists can and do, in lockstep, make 180 degree turns of policy as required by Part expediency; as when Hitler made a pact with Stalin, then again when Germany invaded the USSR.

In 2020 there were several such 180 degree No-then-Yes instant turns: whether Testing was needed; whether Masking was needed; was Christmas to be cancelled?

Analysis, debate, argument was futile: what was false, wicked, unnecessary yesterday; becomes true, good and compulsory today - and this is all rational, consistent and absolutely necessary. 

When authority lies with an institution, so does truth and legitimacy; so there are no valid grounds for dissent.

There is only either obedience, or just-punishment. 

This is also, by somewhat different procedures, how churches work when they are powerful in the lives of people. 

(This fundamental identity of control procedures is one reason why people - mistakenly* - assume that "ideology" and "religion" are the-same-thing - and that totalitarianism and theocracy are fundamentally identical.)

When some new "thing" emerges for which the church view is not immediately obvious; there is a some mechanism by which the churches framing, explanation and instructions are handed-down.

Because the church is the essential and only mediator of the divine; it is the ultimate repository of truth, beauty and virtue - so that all anyone absolutely needs to know is what the church thinks, and then to obey it.

Outwith which there is nothing but selfish, sin-rooted, individual will.  

This model of institutional authority represents a world-view - a mode-of-consciousness - for which the ultimate responsibility for important attitudes, beliefs and behaviours lies in some external and formal social grouping. 

It was (apparently) not always and everywhere thus, but it has been thus for recorded history: with ultimate authority variously - but always externally and institutionally - located.  

The "job" of each individual in such a System is to internalize as much as possible of the approved views and ways of reasoning that characterize "that social institution" there-and-then given custody of his conscience; and when the answer is not obvious - to seek and follow appropriate guidance. 

Such an external-authority-based set-up dictates the role of intellectuals in terms of the social institution. 

The job of an intellectual in this scheme is that of a commissar: to learn, defend, and transmit the institutional view. 

When there is dissent or opposition to the institutional view, the job of the intellectual is overcome it - by whatever means he can, by whatever means are effective - while staying within the institutionally-ratified assumptions, evidences and methods. 

The point is that the intellectual's own thinking is in service of this task. He will not think in any way that might lead to another conclusion than that of the institution he serves.

This is why institution-serving individuals will never, under any circumstances, acknowledge or even discuss their fundamental - including metaphysical - assumptions. 

They will only-and-always operate-from those assumptions; they will only assume the rightness of the institution they serve. 

This is the cause of a feeling we must all have experienced, must all have come-up-against - even if our own thinking is in service to a church or other societal institution. 

Perhaps the most usual encounter to evoke this feeling is with a bureaucrat who is trying to enforce the institutional will upon us; trying to get us into-line with the current strategies and priorities and behaviours. 

We may be lured into defending our case for dissent or disobedience (or inadequate enthusiasm!), or arguing against the institutional POV; but we Will realize (later if not sooner) that we are just talking into sand. 

Our interlocutor is not interested in what we think, not interested in the validity of our arguments - he already knows what we are supposed to think and do.  

His only interest in our arguments is to refute them using institution-approved arguments, to bring our views into-line with institutional views...

Or else to discredit our perspective (usually by discrediting us).  

Most of the people, most of the time, behave in this way - in all walks of life. 

It might be most obvious in political ideologies, churches, and bureaucracies - but it is the same everywhere nowadays; including the areas I worked in: medicine, academia, teaching, and science. 

This is proximately because in modern life all social institutions have become primarily bureaucratic; and all bureaucracies are linked to (and indeed form) the global totalitarian System. 

But it is also because many people, and nearly-all intellectuals in particular, regard ultimate authority as residing in some social institution such as their ideology, or employer, or their church (or The System) - and see their ultimate job to be defending and propagating that institutional authority. 

This reality is what underpins and causes the futility of argument; here and now. 

Most argument that we encounter in the media and professionally, is between individuals "representing" institutions. 

The main exception to this commissar-like situation, is when individuals are more or less "psychopathic"; when they are selfish, self-seeking, short-termist - and are using institutional camouflage - faked attitudes and assumptions, subverted/ inverted procedures etc), to pursue to their own personal agenda - seeking wealth, sex, power, fame, admiration; or whatever "turns them on". 

Anyone who is seeking spiritual truth, trying to understand his own situation in this world and larger reality; anyone who seeks a religion and a way of living - will come up against this commissar or bureaucratic externalization of authority. 

In effect; the seeker is supposed to strive for a situation in which he accepts the external authority of one church or another. 

In practice; this means that the seeker is supposed to accept some external authority (e.g. the truth and validity of Church X) as the first step - from which all-else follows. 

Because once a particular external institution is accepted as the fount of authority, validity, goodness and correct procedure - then the seeker can (and is expected to) hand-over his conscience and honesty to that institution.     

From then on - his ultimate role in life, or at least the role that dictates what counts as ultimate - is to himself learn, defend, and transmit the institutional view. 

It is difficult, it may be impossible, for any individual to find anyone who will engage on any other basis than that of first accepting (or being rhetorically-duped into accepting) the primacy of some external authority - some denomination, church or other institution. 

Life becomes a choice between actually-existing social institutions. 

Duty becomes a matter of serving the chosen institution. 

And if you are not happy about this situation - you will probably have no alternative but to accept responsibility for yourself.  

You can then expect to be attacked by everyone who serves any institution (i.e. almost everybody!)

But in a totalitarian-bureaucratic world where all social institutions are orientated towards evil; this path of personal responsibility is the only alternative to serving one or another (or several) organizations assimilated to the demonic agenda. 

You real choice is between serving overall-evil body, heart, and soul; or seeking a direct and personal knowledge-of and relationship-with something better.  

*"mistakenly"; because when religion is sincere, it is regarded by adherents as being ultimately spiritual and underpinned by the divine. This makes a difference. The question is how much difference - and in what ways different? The difference may be so feeble as to be ineffectual; the ways of difference may be for worse, as well as for better.  

Is it worth expending time and effort on 'educating' strategically-dishonest propagandists like Stephen Jay Gould?

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Yesterday I heard (in private) of yet another example of an eminent scientist who spent several years trying to educate Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), on the assumption that he was a well-meaning but misguided individual who would be pleased if his mistakes were corrected - and whose public influence could then be brought to bear on behalf of truth rather than error.

Even just from people whom I have personally known, this activity of 'Educating Stevie' seems to have been something of a cottage industry among the more rigorous scientists and philosophers - Gould's daily post must have been a deluge of careful, friendly letters and offprints from major scholars earnestly pointing-out sources of better evidence by which he could correct his work.

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How Gould must have sniggered, and rubbed his hands with delight at the thought of all that brain power being wasted in futile argument based on the false assumption that Gould was making honest mistakes - instead of engaging in deceitful propaganda.

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Because of course Gould never corrected his errors, never engaged his friendly critics, continued to make false assertions, to ignore conclusive evidence and to use emotional manipulation and moral blackmail instead of logic.

SJG was indeed skillful and industrious in service to evil  - specifically to lies; and like all effective evil this was mixed with good; lies embedded in truths; vicious venom coated with smooth and pleasant prose - precisely in order that it could be influential.

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Gould would engage in utterly unfair, go-for-the-jugular, character-smearing and reputation-assassination - but was himself exempted from tough attacks.

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Why was this? I would say that one reason was that Gould was a man of the extreme Left, a Marxist - and his critics were men of the moderate Left - socialists, Liberals, Democrats, Labour party supporters - thus they were all on the same side.

The lying, incompetent Gould was therefore indulgently treated by the academic community as if he were an over-enthusiastic, impatient but fundamentally good-hearted teenager - and the adults were patiently waiting for him to grow-up and be sensible and reasonable.

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The reality that Gould was deliberately wicked, strategically lying by seeding public discourse with self-serving errors, assassinating the characters of good men, encouraging the worst kind of mob thinking and blind self-righteousness... this reality seems to have been excluded from consideration on principle. Perhaps the critics actually denied - in the face of common sense and experience - that evil people exist? Or maybe they assumed such people existed only on the Right? But no matter how many times Gould ignored corrections, and re-printed and re-printed his lies in the face of overwhelming refutations, he was given another chance, and another.

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The lesson I draw from this is that Leftism goes deeper and further than most people realize, and includes a much wider range of people - such that it is literally unthinkable for a prestigious and influential academic to abandon Leftism - because then there would be no place for them to inhabit.

To not-be of the Left, to be truly of the Reactionary Right (which includes being primarily religious) is to be professionally and publicly isolated in the world of today.

Yet unless you inhabit the Right, it cannot be thought that someone like Gould might genuinely be motivated by a desire to harm, including the desire to divert, annoy and waste the time of those better than himself in non-reality-based and futile attempts to argue.

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When reasonable people, rigorous academics, claim that SJG, and his like, are well-intentioned but misguided, and deserve education rather than robust rejection, they are actually revealing not that the Leftist destroyers have good motivations but that they themselves, the rigorous academics, share the motivations of the subversive Marxists.

I am sorry to say this, but it is accurate: wickedly motivated lying Leftists get a free pass or kid gloves treatment because those who police them are merely dilute versions of the same type.

So the 'academic police', the 'good guys' are themselves wickedly motivated (Leftists), just as wickedly motivated as those they purport to regulate; and the argument between Gould and his critics is merely a matter of ends and means: the critics agree with Gould's goals, they merely quibble over his blatantly dishonest means. No wonder they never got truly angry with him, never treated him with the toughness he so abundantly deserved.

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The phenomenon of Stephen Jay Gould is evidence of the sheer extent of corruption in science, academia and elite culture - a corruption based on shared Leftism trumping - in practice - considerations of truth; and so very extensive that it is hard to perceive an edge, hard to perceive anyone powerful or influential who is truly exempt.

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Using common sense arguments against politically correct Leftism is worse than futile: the secular Right, and Neoreactionaries, need to ask themselves *why* the modern West does not apply common sense, and ponder the strength of anti-common sense adaptations

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So many of the major hazards of modern Western life - whether the Ebola epidemic, of one of the chronic problems of the economy, crime, education, mass migration... - could simply be solved by the simple application of simple common sense.

And the secular Right are the party of common sense, and within the secular Right Neoreaction is the party of hard-nosed engineers who know how to fix things - and both and delight in explaining that the problems of modern Leftism are caused by insufficient common sense, and could be cured by the application of more common sense.

Indeed the bulk of secular Right and Neoreactionary discourse is precisely the use of common sense to ridicule the Left. 

But they fail to ask why common sense is not, in fact, actually applied.

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This is the 64,000 dollar question.

Any explanation for the triumph of the Left which is fundamentally rooted in the history of ideas, has to account for the ability of propaganda (per se) - but in this instance emanating from a small, localized, fluid, and far-from-cohesive (mutually competing) elite - has been and is is able to overcome common sense - a psychological attribute which is solidly located in everybody, does not change, and is the default state.

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The more that the secular Right/ Neoreaction expose and mock and dissect the ludicrous incoherence and inefficiency and ineffectiveness of Leftism - using a baseline of common sense evaluation - the more extraordinary the continued existence and dominance of Leftism becomes.

The weaker its common sense basis, the stronger must be the real strength of Leftist ideas; else they would not have won. It is he source of the strength of Leftism that needs to be known and analyzed, not their weaknesses - which are clearly irrelevant!"

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The basic fact is that Leftism does in practice, and now, overcome common sense arguments - so it is futile to try and use common sense as a knock-down argument against Leftism.

Indeed, it must be that Leftism feeds-off common sense arguments - otherwise Leftism could not have grown-up and thriven in a context of universal common sense - therefore common sense arguments are worse than futile -

Common sense analysis actually fuels the engines of Leftism.

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The "AI" propagandists payroll: You can't possibly persuade people whose pay depends on Not being persuaded

The vast and endless stream of drivel on the subject of the supernatural superpowers of "AI" continues - and it will continue until the funding dries-up. 

Those many thousands of propagandists on the "AI" payroll will keep doing what they are being "paid" to do (remembering that "payment" comes in many shapes and forms) until the totalitarian system has other priorities, or that part of it collapses. 

But "AI" pockets are deep - because the "AI" money comes from you and me, and millions of others like us. They are spending our money on their project spiritually to destroy us, and materially collapse the civilization. 

This is an area in which it is wise to recognize that analysis and argument is futile, logic and evidence are futile, insofar as these oppose or fail-to-support The Agenda. One cannot persuade those whose livelihood and status depend on not being persuaded - try as you might.  

I have, in earlier years, wasted a good deal of effort on trying to accomplish this Quixotic task of trying rationally to persuade professional manipulators of opinion - and can attest that it is both frustrating because futile; and that - even worse, it is playing into their hands. 

By allowing dissent, yet maintaining the torrent of evil-motivated AI-dolatry regardless; the "powers that (should-not) be" create an impression that logical and evidential counter-arguments have all been thoroughly aired and considered... but these counter-arguments have been overcome!

What I try to do nowadays; is identify the totalitarian strategies as they emerge; from which point all work of analysis and clarification is done from my own interest in the problem, and for my own spiritual benefit.  

 

What makes Good good?

All Christians believe that God is Good and loves us. 

But what does this actually mean? 

What does it mean to be Good? 

In particular; is Good a matter of preference merely, as modern materialistic ideology would have it. Are Good and evil "relative" and interchangeable? 

What this "relativism" of values seems to mean in current Western/ Globalist culture, in an underlying and implicit way, is that what matters are peoples' feelings (or more exactly, some peoples' feelings) - especially their "hedonic status", i.e. whether they are happy or suffering. 

What counts as Good is what is believed to lead to happiness, while evil is whatever causes suffering (or is asserted to cause suffering) - and Good and evil can therefore change places according to the cause of gratification/misery in the current situation. 

It should be noted that this modern Western hedonic morality as the basis of values, is rooted in the assumption that we can objectively know, and indeed measure, the hedonic outcome of choices... 

The assumptions that we know and can quantify other-people's state of happiness; and that we understand the relationship between present action and future emotions - including in large numbers of people; and that that we can predict the major psychological consequences of material actions.

These assumptions seem to me nothing but wishful-thinking at best; and most often sheerly-obvious nonsense...

Nonetheless; these are among the assumptions upon-which modern mainstream morality and values are based.  

  

Or is there instead some objective basis to Good and evil? By "objective" I mean here to ask: is there something about the nature of reality that distinguishes Good from evil? And if there is something objective about Good - what is it? 

Traditional orthodox mainstream Christian theology has it that God is Good because God created everything from nothing, because God is "omni" in nature. 

This is the argument of monotheism, something that this type of Christian shares with Jews and Moslems, and which is rooted in an assertion that God is Good because there is nothing else. 

In other words, by this argument, God is Good because God is everything, so that it is irrational, meaningless, to believe otherwise. Because there is nothing else but God - to be evil is meaningless, futile, insane... evil (by this account) has nowhere to go, and nothing to believe-in. 

The obvious objection to the monotheistic omni-God argument; is that if God made everything, is everything, controls and knows everything - then this abolishes the difference between Good and evil. 

The trad-orthodox definition of evil is more a matter of "Good is God" than "God is Good"; because (by this account) there is ultimately nothing except God and that which is wholly made by God - and God has been defined as Good. 

Apparent differences between Good and evil can therefore only be illusory, or temporary... But, even then, it is unclear why God should make or allow such illusions. 

(Indeed, it is unclear why the omni-God should do anything at all - since everything that has happened, is happening, or could happen - is all God Himself and his own 100% God-made creation. Creation seems to change nothing essential, to have no purpose or direction; because everything always was/is/shall-be.) 

Therefore, if we regard Good as relativistic, we just get a kind of this-worldly hedonic therapy, in which anything and everything is "justified" by assertions that it will make "people" happier, or less miserable. 

Or else, by trying to make Goodness identical with an omni-God, by asserting that all-is-God and God-is-Good; we end up actually abolishing the distinction between Good and evil. 

Anyone evil is then insane by his opposition to the only actual reality... Yet even this statement does not stand, because God must have made that person the way he is - i.e. insane.

The omni-mono-God philosophy explains nothing because it explains everything!

And such a conception of God seems especially antagonistic to Christianity; which must surely have an essential place for the divine Man Jesus Christ, and his doings at some point in history; and for the necessity of (in some meaning) "following" Jesus.

For a Christian; Jesus must make a difference, and that difference must be deep, cosmic, temporally-located, crucial. 

My own views on this subject have been expounded scores of times on this blog; but I will focus on the major objection to it. 

My understanding of Good: If God is a Being (or indeed two Beings - Loving Heavenly Parents) who found-themselves among a multitude of other Beings; and if this God began creating at some point in time; and if this creation is founded upon Love...

So that creation is something like "the purposive and mutually loving relationships between Beings that were previously and otherwise mutually unloving, lacking in shared-purpose"...

Reality is therefore a growing creation in an environment of chaos...

By this "model", Good is defined as God's project of creation; and evil is some kind of opposition to this project (anything other than joining with the project of creation - is may be any kind of opposition, from trying to exploit creation for selfish reasons, or trying to destroy creation). 

In theory, there is also the alternative of opting-out from creation. 

By my understanding of Good; Beings such as ourselves find-ourselves in an ongoing divine creation; and we need to decide whether we are on the side of creation or not.  

Good is the decision to join with God's creation. 

Opting-out is the decision Not to join with creation. 

Evil is the decision to oppose creation. 

Main objections to my understanding: Some things that some people find wrong with this scheme, are that I regard God as "just" a Being (actually two Beings) among a multitude of other Beings; that God's creation had a beginning and has therefore not been eternal; that God is finite in knowledge and power...

And that Good is only one among other rational possibilities. 

By my understanding; to be evil is to oppose the project of divine creation; but that opposition need not be irrational. Evil may be short-termist, evil will be un-loving, and may be manipulative, sadistic, spiteful... 

But evil need not be irrational (evil is only irrational when it denies the reality of divine creation). 

By my understanding: There really is no compulsion to be Good, because Good is one side in the spiritual war arranged around the actually-existing reality of divine creation. 

There is indeed One God, in the sense that there happens-to-be one divine creation, and this was an is the creation of God. 

There is one creation which is that we know, and which includes all other Beings that we can know. One creation within-which we and other Beings find-themselves when they become self-aware, when we/they become "conscious" of reality and their places in it among other Beings, and having relationships with these other Beings.  

Such matters could have been otherwise, but were not otherwise: this is reality - this is the situation within-which we exist.   

To loop back to the original incoherent ideas that Good is relativist because choice is rational and real; or else that Good is objective and necessary because there is mono-omni-God creating everything; I would say instead that Good is objective because God is The Creator; but the choice of Good versus evil is also real, has consequences that may be permanent, and it is a coherent choice to choose evil - even when the reality of one divine creation is acknowledged. 

By my understanding: To choose Good is to choose to affiliate with God's objectively real project of creation, and this project is built from love, because creation is the product of love.

Any Being capable of love is capable for choosing to affiliate with creation.

But evil may be a coherent choice, because creation takes place amidst continuing chaos - and continuing chaos is termed "death" (by the Fourth Gospel" and is spiritually-analogous to the scientific-material concept of "entropy". 

Evil is not entropy, but coherent evil entails an ultimate commitment to entropy and chaos in preference to divine creation, because entropy/ chaos is all that would remain when evil has done its work...

After evil has worked through to its conclusion; there would be a world without creation, which is a world without love; and that would be the return to a pre-creation world of mutually un-conscious and unloving Beings; i.e. the end state of evil would be Beings uncomprehendingly existing in a situation that has no coherence and no direction.

Thus evil is a possible and coherent thing to desire.   

In other words, by my understanding, divine creation is incomplete and (in principle) vulnerable to evil, and to entropy; or, this would be the case without the Second Creation of Jesus Christ. 

Primary creation of God is of-itself therefore incomplete and contingent; and Jesus Christ is therefore essential to the triumph of Good. 

But the triumph of Good is not the imposition of Good across all that exists - it is a Second Creation that consists of Beings that are only and wholly Good. That situation called "Heaven". 

This is why Christianity is the only coherent religion; and why Jesus Christ is and was essential. Jesus was Not essential to the primary divine creation; but Jesus is essential to the indomitable and eternal triumph of creation - in Heaven. 

   

Note added: What makes Good good is loving-creation - but only if you agree that love is, indeed good. Otherwise not. That which is good is therefore objectively real; but what makes the real objective, is personal. 

Discussing free will: A problem with arguing about Christianity, is that most people most of the time don't understand what they are arguing-for

I'm a bit obsessed with this business of "understanding" as a pre-requisite!

As a spontaneous "philosopher"; I am naturally an argumentative person, who has striven for the past couple of decades to suppress this trait because it was (mostly) a pointless waste of my life... More exactly, it was pointless in terms of trying to change other-people and the-world (which is what I was trying to do)... 

Actually, the arguing was sometimes useful to me, in clarifying my own understanding; especially when I became aware that I did not really understand what I was arguing-for. 

This was also something that sometimes happened when I was teaching... I'd be standing writing something on the board and expounding it; when I realized that it didn't make sense or I was just putting-out a black box assertion. 

These were significant moments of learning. 

It has happened on this blog too. Early on in its history; I was trying to explain to William James Tychonievich what was "free will" and how it worked - because he did not seem to be able to grasp what I was saying and kept on questioning me...

When I realized I myself did not understand what I was saying about free will. 

Ultimately, I was parroting forms of words that I had heard or read elsewhere, and they really didn't make sense. I was repeating the classical theological arguments about free will, that I had come across in Boethius, CS Lewis, and scholarly accounts of Aquinas - and I recognized that I could not understand them, not really.

Further thought led to a recognition that my personal inability to understand was not (in this case) from inadequate intelligence or insufficient thought; but that the arguments were intrinsically un-understandable because they contained abstractions that served the role of a black box; a logical package the role of whose content was asserted but could never be grasped. 

The classic theological argument I was defending was that God was assumed to be omniscient, omnipotent (an "Omni-God" and created everything from nothing including me; and that free will was then gifted to me by God. 

The particular incomprehensible abstraction was that God could and did give free will - which is the agency of an individual to act from-himself and independently of God. 

This is incomprehensible because if literally everything - including everything about me and my environment is made by God; then it makes no sense that God could "give" something that was independent-of and autonomous-from God. 

In other words: The assumptions excluded the answer; the assumption was that absolutely every-thing came from God, was contradicted by the assertion that God could make something independent-of-God, and then give it to me.   

 

 

How is it that such a stark contradiction became Christian dogma - how is it that so many very intelligent and thoughtful people have ignored (or not seen) it? 

One answer is that such people were not really interested either in understanding or in explaining free will, but were instead absolutely committed to the assumption that the Christian God was an Omni-God. 

So the fact that they personally did not really grasp what is is free will or how free will worked; did not really matter to them.

Another reason that the contradiction is ignored; is that the contradiction was re-named a "mystery"; and thereby safeguarded from critique.  

What they were (evidently) most focused-on was winning any possible argument directed against the idea of the Christian God being an Omni-God - and the statement that an Omni-God could and did create autonomous beings by an act of gift did not really need to be understood. 

How such a gift actually made sense was of secondary importance to them. 

Also, having made this assertion of gifting free will; the incomprehension was sustained by the fact that their definition, their understanding, of free will was negative - free will was being defined in terms of independence-from God. 

Significantly, the scientific assertions about free will have a closely analogous negativity - being defined in terms of something that is not caused. 

Something I have learned is that when something is negatively-defined, it becomes ungraspable in itself, of itself. 

So, the mainstream orthodox statements about free will have the effect of making it mysterious at best and ineradicably incomprehensible at worst... 

...As anyone knows who has tried to discuss free will in the public forum. Argument devolves to assertions that some-thing was done by free will, versus assertions that it was instead the inevitable outcome of preceding causes - whether scientific causes, or caused by God. 

Free will is a particularly stark example of the problems of un-comprehended "abstraction", and definition by negation. It results in making mysterious, and indeed unreal, something that is one of the primary spontaneous experiences of every human being! 

Something, moreover, that is essential to being a Christian (at least by my IV Gospel rooted understanding.) If people cannot freely decide to follow Jesus Christ or not, then this excludes values from Christianity. 

Arguments against those whose assumptions make free will incomprehensible (whether orthodox traditional Christians, or mainstream secular people) is futile - since these people do not really themselves understand what they are asserting - and do not see any need why they should understand it!

To repeat: such people often have a fixed and committed belief that personally genuinely-understanding what they affirm is not necessary. 

(As indeed, it would not be necessary if free will had indeed the negative, abstract, subordinate role they assert for it.) 

The general lesson I draw from this is related to the importance of really understanding for oneself - and of not being satisfied by black box abstractions, or parroting stuff taken from other people... 

This is true, no matter how prestigious is the source of the black box argument. 

And further; if we are to avoid intractable error, our personal understanding needs to be in positive terms. 

It might be objected that this cannot possibly happen in practice; given the sheer number of things that must be taken on trust in any complex civilization. 

This is true in a quantitative sense, about most matters of assertion; but is false when it comes to those matters which are of core significance to our-selves. 

And there we come to the crux, for a Christian at any rate. What really is most important for us to understand - what, indeed is it vital for us personally to grasp? 

In the past, Christians regarded belief in the Omni-God as vital and necessary; but understanding free will was merely optional; to the point that it was not understood - and indeed not understandable within the assumptions. 

Yet; here and now, for myself and probably for most people; it is vital to understand - that is really to grasp in positive terms - free will, agency, the basis of individuality. To say it is "real but a mystery" is an evasion, when something looms so large at the heart of our existence. 

The needful understanding is something made impossible both to those who accept mainstream orthodox Christian theology (and indeed theologies of most other religions); as well as the much larger numbers of people who regard "science" as the basic assumption behind all explanations. 

As so often; the individual cannot look to any of the most powerful influential, prestigious, ancient or modern external sources for an understanding of some-thing that he may regard as a matter of prime importance. 

As so often; the individual must either do it for himself - i.e. discover by his own efforts a genuine understanding of the reality of free will...

Or else must take the consequences of assimilating, living-by, and thinking in-accordance-with, the socio-cultural insignificance of his own agency.  

 

*

Note added: It is pretty obvious why it has suited, and still suits, the powers that be; to create and maintain a situation in which free will is kept mysterious, contradictory, un-understandable -- while top-down and collective imperatives are by contrast clear, simple, easily comprehensible. This endemic doubt and uncertainty keeps people obedient to external authority. When people cannot satisfactorily conceptualize them-selves; then they are controllable at the deepest spiritual level. 

Same sex marriage and the counter-productive effect of reasoned argument

*

There is a tremendous outpouring of arguments in the public arena, emanating mostly from real Christians, which - taken together - demonstrate that current legislation first to permit, then to enforce, then to impose same sex marriage will (with a very high degree of probability) inflict deep and permanent damage on society.

Yet the legislation proceeds apace.

Why?

*

Simple: because the infliction of deep and permanent damage on society is a feature not a bug of this legislation; it is not an unintended by-product but the actual motivational core of the movement.

The more conclusively harm is proven, the more convinced SSM advocates become that the legislation is desirable.

Thus the more that real Christians argue in the public arena, the worse the consequences - because the more powerfully their arguments encourage and energize the forces of darkness.

Argument is not just futile, but counter-productive.

*

The only proper response is a clear, plain, simple and uncompromizing statement of refusal - and then courage and endurance to withstand the consequences.

If courage and endurance are lacking, then there is an end of the matter.

*

Hope for this world? And/or the next?

As Christians, we hope for the next world - for life beyond the portal of death. It is this hope that prevents despair; and this hope is the natural (unforced) consequence of trust in Jesus Christ; which is trust that he can and will lead us to resurrection into Heaven; also trust in God (the creator) who will ensure that we are able to do this, if we choose.

But what of hope in this world and for this-world (the temporary world of our mortal life)? Well, such this-worldly hope is not necessary. I see no reason why a Christian must live in hope of betterment of this-world.

The main thing that can be said in favour of hope in this-world is that we never truly know all the relevant information, nor how other people will choose; thus we never know for sure that the worst will happen. This is the best argument for never-giving-up.

We may calculate that there is zero hope; but our calculations may be defective and will certainly be based upon incomplete - hence distorted - information; plus at least some of the information in our calculation will be false - lies or misunderstandings.

However, there is nothing wrong with a Christian having no realistic hope in this-world - so long as it does not lead to despair and giving-up. A Christian might perfectly well write-off this world, and work for the next.

But a hope-less Christian would also need to recognise that - in the meanwhile - there is a reason for his being alive, here and now, in the situation he actually is-in; and that therefore there is something important that he ought to be doing - some lesson that he yet needs to learn.

The point I wish to make here is that I think it is probably a waste of time for Christians desparately to try and generate some grounds for hope in this world - but I would observe that many Christians (including myself) are prone to do this. I mean, we tend to use the wriggle-room of uncertainty about the future to insert some grossly improbable scenarios about what might happen - like tens of millions of people suddenly becoming Christian (at the last minute).

Of course it might really happen, such is not precluded --- but really it is futile to waste our time on such scenarios - and certainly we should not Pin Our Hopes upon them - or else despair is even more likely.

I think it would be better to say something like: I see no realistic hope for the world from our present situation and on current trends; but I might be wrong... And leave it at that.

If we try to define one or several of the most probable directions of the (highly improbable) saving of this world, and if then we then put most of our (finite) resources of time and work into accomplishing this remote hope - then we are probably misdirecting our efforts.

When the future of this world is evaluated as hope-less, this means it is unworthy of any specific hope; and it is wrong to push for (almost-certainly) futile hopes - when there are so many other things that need to be done, that we personally can do, and which have much better hopes of yielding fruit.

Our proper task is most likely to be something specific and close-to-home, and directed at preparation for Heaven, which has reasonable hope of yielding fruit --- rather than some-thing directed at saving a world/ civilization/ nation etc. that (our honest evaluation tells us) does not want to be saved and very-probably is not salvageable.

The intractable problem of moral legalism in Christian discourse

If there is one area of life in which discussion is futile, it is when trying to persuade a Moral Legalist in a situation where somebody has transgressed a law, rule or principle, that he regards as both absolute and primary. 

Such people cannot be made to recognize that the crucial move in their argument has been their own personal choice to regard values as existing ultimately in the form of laws. 

As well as, secondly, the choice to place This Law, here-and-now, as above all other laws that could (in principle) be applied to the situation under discussion. 

In other words; any possible argument has already-been pre-decided by the prior choice of These-Laws as necessarily valid and supreme, and the prior choice to apply This-Law here-and-now. 

Moral legalists have taken a vastly complex situation unfolding in real-time; and applied-to-it a grossly simplified model, that begs all the most fundamental questions. 

On the one hand we have Life; but on the other hand a set of Laws and relations between Laws. These Laws are then claimed to be descriptive of The Ultimate Truth about Life. The claim is that Life derives from Laws.  

In other words, the Man-assumed model of reality which is The Laws; is given primacy over all the multitude of details of that existence in which we find ourselves. 

There can be no relevant "evidence" for this assumption of the primacy of Law. It is an act of faith, a personal decision.  

Such moral legalists (and they are legion, and occur in all Christian denominations) cannot be persuaded; because they regard every attempt to point-out the fact of their assumptions, and that all such assumptions depend upon a personal choice of what-to-believe; as a challenge to their core moral values - hence as necessarily emanating from an evil tempter. 

One who debates a moral legalist, is subjectively assigned a (literally) demonic role. 

The reaction to any challenge to the assumption of the validity and applicability of Law is therefore typically extreme, and always negative. 

And also projective - in the sense that it attributes motivation in absence of knowledge. Any pointing-out of "my" assumptions as assumptions is experienced as an evil-motivated attack on what I have assumed to be ultimate good. 

Naturally enough, albeit mistakenly and sinfully; this may subjectively be regarded as "justifying", or even requiring (moralistic zeal!) - justifying an extreme response against this threat. 

Thus moral legalism is, I believe, a major cause of the extraordinary extremity of hostile rhetoric from some Christians online, and sometime IRL; and a cause of the inability of so many Christians to learn from experience, from Life. Because when These-Laws have-been accorded metaphysical primacy, primacy by-assumption; then anything that happens in Life can have nothing to teach us about the validity and applicability of These-Laws.  

Note added: If not, then what? If not Moral Legalism, then what instead? 

The answer lies in distinguishing the limitations of this actual mortal life from the ideal situation of Heaven - and in remembering the ultimate primacy of Heaven. Here-and-now in this vast and impersonal world as-is; we are stuck with legalism and bureaucracy as inevitable evils. Laws can be improved and reduced, implementation should be supervised and shaped by wise human judgment - but all Laws are ultimately wrong. 

And yet we are stuck with them, especially when it comes to public and societal morality (we can, and should, try to exclude laws and law-like rules as much as possible from a loving marriage, family, and strong friendships. 

(For the same reason, we should resist the temptation to conceptualize loving marriages and families in terms of societal-derived models - destructive errors such as regarding the family as essentially structured like a "social institution", as analogous to a mini-nation; as properly "ruled" by monarch, or "democracy", or whatever...) 

However; Heavenly morality and values are wholly relational, i.e. rooted in love between persons - and there is no place for Laws in Heaven. 

This is what we need to hold in mind, in order to avoid the self-blinded and destructive zealotry of the self-defined-Christian - but often net-evil, and in-practice demon-aligned - Moral Legalists. 

Who is on the spooks' "AI" payroll?

I am increasingly aware of the extent of "intelligence" activity in some of the most unexpected areas of life - such as the esoteric/ new age and religious domains - ("spook spirituality", as I recently termed it - spook here meaning intelligence agent or operative). 

I also recall that many who were funded by the USSR intelligence services before 1980 did not know that this was the ultimate source of their grants, and subsidies necessary for their survival - until after the fall of the Soviet Union; when their organizations suddenly went-under.  

My inference is that something analogous but much bigger, is going-on with respect to current so-called AI. 

Anyone who spends five minutes on understanding how the post-November-2022 top-down, totalitarian, global phenomenon of "AI" actually works; will know For Sure that such "AI" cannot possibly, ever, under any circumstances perform those core socially-functional activities that it is being touted to do.  

So how come So Many people, including many self-styled Christians, fail this easy-peasy Litmus Test, and end-up supporting what is currently and by-far the globalist totalitarian's major strategic programme? 

At some level; these AI-apologist people know they are spouting evil poison.

So why do they do it? 

Best guess: They are on the payroll!

They are benefitting, or hoping or expect to benefit (maybe directly, probably indirectly; perhaps via one of the numerous multiple intelligence fronts); from the multi-trillion dollar program - benefitting in some way that is important to them. 

Going forward, this is going to be my assumption.

Consequently I shall do my best to shun such folk; because, (obviously!) spooks, spook-servants, and spook-dupes are Not open to persuasion otherwise.

Nor to an appeal to their "better judgement".  

Thus: argument with such agents is futile.

Futile for me that is; although it is exactly what they want; which is... 

To waste my attention, effort, and time. 

The question of "evidence" of life after death - from Philip K Dick

I feel as if I am channeling WmJas Tychonievich, in reporting this following (sort-of) "synchronicity" -- which is that immediately after writing my post on the question of evidence of God; I continued my re-reading of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K Dick (1982), in which I came across the following (edited, and with my additional emphases):

**

"Is there any proof of God's existence?" Bill said. 

After a pause, Tim said, "A number of arguments are given. Perhaps the best is the argument from biology, advanced for instance by Teilhard de Chardin. Evolution - the existence of evolution - seems to point to a designer. Also there is Morrison's argument that our planet shows a remarkable hospitality toward complex forms of life. The chance of this happening on a random basis is very small... 

"There are proofs," Tim said. "But God doesn't talk to anybody," Bill said. "No," Tim said. He rallied, then; I saw him draw himself up. 

"However, the Old Testament gives us many instances of Yahweh addressing his people through the prophets. This fountain of revelation dried up, finally. God no longer speaks to man. It is called 'the long silence.' It has lasted two thousand years." 

"I realize God talked to people in the Bible," Bill said, "in the olden days, but why doesn't he talk to them now? Why did he stop?" 

"I don't know," Tim said. He said no more; there he ceased.... "I really wish you would explain it to me," Bill said to Tim. "Because it's impossible. It's not just unlikely; it's impossible." ... 

"Jeff [i.e. Tim's deceased son] has communicated with the two of us," Tim said. "Through intermediary phenomena. Many times, in many ways." ..."It is God Himself working on us and through us to bring forth a brighter day. My son is with us now; he is with us in this room. He never left us. What died was a material body. Every material thing perishes. Whole planets perish. The physical universe itself will perish. 

"Are you going to argue, then, that nothing exists? Because that is where your logic will carry you. It isn't possible right now to prove that external reality exists. Descartes discovered that; it's the basis of modem philosophy. All you can know for sure is that your own mind, your own consciousness, exists. You can say, 'I am' and that's all... 

"What you see is not world but a representation formed in and by your own mind. Everything that you experience you know by faith. Also, you may be dreaming. Had you thought of that? Plato relates that a wise old man, probably an Orphic, said to him, 'Now we are dead and in a kind of prison.' Plato did not consider that an absurd statement; he tells us that it is weighty and something to think about. 'Now we are dead.' 

"We may have no world at all. I have enough evidence - your mother and I - for Jeff returning to us as I have that the world itself exists. We do not suppose he has come back; we experience him as coming back. We have lived and are living through it. So it is not our opinion. It is real.

"Real for you," Bill said. "What more can reality give?" "Well, I mean," Bill said, "I don't believe it." 

"The problem does not lie with our experience in this matter," Tim said. "It lies with your belief-system. Within the confines of your belief-system, such a thing is impossible. "Who can say, truly say, what is possible? We have no knowledge of what is and isn't possible; we do not set the limits - God sets the limits." ...

"What do you believe, then? In objects you get into and drive around the block. There may be no objects and no block; someone pointed out to Descartes that a malicious demon may cause our assent to a world that is not there, may impress a forgery onto us as an ostensible representation of the world. 

"If that happened, we would not know. We must trust; we must trust God. 

"I trust in God that he would not deceive me; I deem the Lord faithful and true and incapable of deceit. For you that question does not even exist, for you will not grant that He exists in the first place. 

"You ask for proof. If I told you this minute that I have heard God's voice speaking to me-would you believe that? Of course not. We call people who speak to God pious and we call people to whom God speaks lunatics. 

"This is an age where there is little faith. It is not God who is dead; it is our faith that has died." 

"But -" Bill gestured. "It doesn't make any sense. Why would he come back [from the dead]?" 

"Tell me why Jeff lived in the first place," Tim said. "Then perhaps I can tell you why he came back. Why do you live? For what purpose were you created? You do not know who created you - assuming anyone did - and you do not know why, assuming there is a why. 

"Perhaps no one created you and perhaps there is no purpose to your life. No world, no purpose, no Creator, and Jeff has not come back to us. Is that your logic? Is that how you live out your life? Is that what Being, in Heidegger's sense, is to you? 

"That is an impoverished kind of inauthentic Being. It strikes me as weak and barren and, in the end, futile."...

**

It strikes me that these are strong, valid arguments; despite that "Tim" - Timothy Archer - is depicted as the worst kind of trendy-leftist, self-justifying hedonic Episcopalian Bishop from the 1960s! And despite that Tim's belief in the return of his deceased son is depicted by the agnostic narrator (his daughter in law, widow of the deceased son) as merely a wish-fulfilling yet dangerous delusion. 

The modern mainstream idea of "evidence" has always (as seen above) been ultimately incoherent in its own rationalistic terms - even when its professional practice was honestly-applied and coherent in terms on a basis in circular assumptions and reasoning. 

Yet nowadays (and since the 1990s) the public and in-practice conceptualization of evidence, of facts, of reality has been thoroughly corrupted into (literally) nothing more than the current, official, Establishment consensus; as currently propagated by the official mass media. 

"Evidence" in practice therefore means nothing more than a very vague, diffuse, and open-endedly changeable impression of what seems acceptable to those with power, wealth and high status... 

The more that people (or institutions, or algorithms) talk-about and assert evidence/ facts/ realism and their importance - the more manipulative, dishonest and intentionally-evil is the actuality. 

Earlier standards of evidence (which existed - at least in England! - within several discourses such as science, academia and law) have by-now been annihilated, as coherence of reasoning and statement have themselves been annihilated. 

Therefore arguments such as those of Bishop Timothy Archer in the above passage, have altogether lost traction. 

There can be no basis for argument (or evidence!) when there is no commitment to truth, and no interest in knowing reality.

 

Law versus Chaos, and Balance of Things as an alternative modern morality

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There is an alternative morality - or anti-morality - that I have come across; and which seems to reflect a genuine modern alternative to the traditional morality of good and evil; this is the idea of a Balance of Things.

The idea is that there is no good and evil - or rather than good is one-sided, and in order for society and a person to be in a proper state, there needs to be a mixture of what-used-to-be called-good with what-used-to-be-called-evil. Both sides (good and evil - light & dark) need to be represented.

I think the idea may have come from Nietzsche, and it was prominent in Jung's ideas about the  light and shadow aspects of a person, the crown of his tree needing support from the roots; the need to know your 'shadow'. acknowledge it, give it its due...

The notion is that personal development, integration or growth, may entail doing things that are 'traditionally' discouraged or forbidden - in the name of Balance.

*

But the most influential version of this is that there ought to be a balance - both in society and in persons - between order and disorder; between Law and Chaos.

This has become a staple of much modern 'alternative' literature and narrative - I first came across it explicitly in Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius Quartet (published from the nineteen sixties counter culture) and related books - which have a pervasive anti-moral-morality in which nothing is forbidden and anything may be good or necessary, according the the contextual need for 'balance'.

However, although The Balance is supposed to be the goal, in practice chaos is the most positively regarded - presumably because the baseline is seen as the crushing tyranny of Law (The Establishment, The Bourgeoisie).

The same basic idea seems to have received much wider circulation and approval from the Dungeons and Dragons alignments Lawful versus Chaotic , with the implication that a balance of the two is necessary in the desirable society - and again there is a pervasive preference for chaos.

The idea here is that a good character can be either chaotic or lawful (or neutral); and so can an evil character. As such this does not challenge the polarity of good and evil, but in practice the effect has been to popularize the 'chaotic' character whose behaviour, and morality, is unpredictable, may be selfish and short-termist, is unpredictable, unfaithful and random - yet who may nonethless be 'good' in the sense of morally-approved.

*

The matter of balance was memorably, albeit indirectly, dissected by Mencius Moldbug (the old pseudonym of Curtis Yarvin) when he concluded that there was in reality no such thing as 'chaotic good', and that this idea was subversive of good - especially subversive of the possibility of a good society.

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/what-if-theres-no-such-thing-as-chaotic.html

But Moldbug was writing from a secular perspective, and the Law and Order versus Chaos polarity comes from a necessarily secular perspective - in particular it comes from the perspective which sees Law as merely man-made, expedient at best, and often arbitrary and corrupt.

*

To break Law when Law is considered to be an arbitrary (and to some degree corrupt) system of man-made rules; and to behave in a chaotic fashion can be seen as a necessity - and indeed a matter of freedom.

Even sheer destruction is justifiable, when that which is destroyed has no intrinsic validity, but is just one among many possible and 'equally valid' alternatives.

From such a perspective; Law and order are stasis, and intrinsically totalitarian; The Balance requires destruction in order to achieve dynamism, energy, and to create hope. 'Evil' is a necessary part of 'good'.

At root it is a matter of psychology - Law and Order are seen as merely Weber's Iron Cage of bureaucracy, The System, The Establishment -- rule by the rich and powerful and successfully selfish - in such a context, random acts of defiance, rebellion, destruction - even sheer selfishness, sexuality and greed - become 'desirable'; especially from non-establishment people.

*

It is as if since there is no intrinsically-good Lawful-order, but only exploitation of one set of humans by another; then 'at least' the 'balance' of perpetual disorder (chaos) gives as many people as possible a chance to take a turn at being the exploiters.

And, this is 'at least' more interesting that a static society of docile rule-followers trudging through futile and meaningless observances that merely serve to justify the status quo.

When order is man-made and for men's purposes, it cannot be more than merely expedient.

*

As I say, these inferences come from a secular perspective; a world where God is dead, and where psychological satisfactions are the bottom line.

Mencius Moldbug's argument for the superiority of Law over Chaos is utilitarian; that Law is to be preferred over Chaos because a Lawful society allows more people to have more pleasure and to suffer less - especially the latter: Law minimizes human suffering - that is Moldbug's primary argument and assertion.

This perspective has become the basis of the Neo-reactionary movement - the assertion that Order is necessary and Law is good - and the focus is on developing a system which maximizes Law and Order; with society regarded as a problem of engineering (esp. computer engineering), and the task being to engineer an optimal system; (to reiterate) 'optimal' being defined in terms primarily of minimizing human suffering, then secondarily of enabling human fulfillment.

*

What this or any other secular perspective does not tell us is why the suffering of 'other people', most of whom we do not know or know only via the mass media, ought-to concern us.

(And if it does concern us, why it is not easier to treat that concern rather than treating its cause. So if I am feeling bad because of other people's suffering, maybe I ought to be more selfish and could train myself to be so; or maybe I could take a tranquillizer - then I will no longer feel concerned about other people. Problem solved!)

When social law and order are seen as merely expedients, means to an end, for producing states of mind; why should anybody care about the well-being of 'society' - which is long term, remote and may never happen - when it conflicts with our own happiness (or pleasure, or avoidance of some degree of suffering) immediately and in the short term.

Indeed, it seems to be impossible to operationalize utilitarianism in any objectively valid - or even merely publicly agreed - way, because there is insufficient consensus about measuring and summating the degree of suffering or happiness of other people.

In practice, the ruling elite merely make assertions concerning whose suffering is to be regarded as the most significant and severe; and whose suffering is to be disregarded, minimized or mocked.

These assertions are then coercively-imposed on the population - enforced by laws (such as hate crime legislation), regulations and rules (such as those about equality and diversity), backed by propaganda from the mass media and officialdom.

*

There is, of course, no secular reason why anybody should care about anything other than their own current state of mind. Life necessarily becomes expediency.

At bottom, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky were correct when they simply observed that in modernity God is Dead, and without God Anything is Permitted. The thesis can be elaborated to any degree desired, but that is the plain fact of the matter.

*

So the Law versus Chaos distinction should be seen as a false antithesis deriving from secularism. Properly, Law is a means, not an end - and when Law is treated as an end it leads to the demand for Chaos - and the false ethic of goodness as a matter of Balance between Law and Chaos.

*

Clearly, although Chaos would indeed be evil from a religious perspective, Law would only be good if it was consistent with God's Law. For a Christian, Law and Order that operates (on average, net) to subvert, destroy or invert Christianity - is evil Law and Order. It would be crazy for Christians to support a system of anti-Christian laws merely because they are Laws!

For a Christian, a well-ordered and obedient society which adhered to evil laws would itself be evil. Not wholly evil, of course, because order is a good - but Law is only a partial good, not good-in-itself; but such a society would be mainly evil; and if its Laws were mostly aimed at destruction of good (i.e. destruction of truth/ promotion of untruth; destruction of beauty/ promotion of ugliness; destruction of virtue/ promotion of sin) - then the society would be systematically evil.

This is already, and increasingly, the case.

*

In sum, religion trumps law; and if this is properly understood, it is not a matter of preference, but a matter of logic.  Law without a basis in religion, Man's Law that is not God's Law, Law as an end-in-iteself is merely arbitrary and expedient - and not necessarily nor always preferable to more-chaos.

(More chaos may lead to a better situation when Law is evil.)

When secular Law becomes oppressive, or itself destructive by subversion and inversion (i.e. the current situation), and a human mind feels crushed and demotivated, then there is compelling reason from the secular perspective not to want 'a bit of chaos', to 'liven things up' and 'give other people - especially, ahem, 'myself ' (i.e. the subjective individual) - a chance'

*

In sum, the whole Law/ Order versus Chaos/ Revolution analysis is flawed, because secular - and because secular, purposeless. Secularism offers no basis for Law concerning which state of affairs is preferable, or what a desirable 'balance' might be, except for assertions concerning optimal psychological states; and in practice these will be enforced top-down elite preferences concerning the significance of these imputed states of mind, and decisions on whose (supposed) states of mind are primary and whose may be ignored.

**

Our decades-deep problems of incoherence

Yesterday I was re-reading Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances; which was published in 1957, more than 60 years ago. This book is not an easy read (and most readers seem not to have understood it - including most Barfield scholars), but it is tremendously rigorous and incisive to the point of being life-changing. 

Barfield reaches the conclusion - which I cannot fault - that the way of thinking and reasoning, the mainstream philosophy and ideology, of the 'modern world' of the 1950s, is utterly incoherent. In his analysis, I think Barfield goes deeper than almost anyone else I have encountered. 

[I will not engage in the futile attempt to 'summarize' StP - the 'point' of the book is to work-though the argument. But, anyway, the purpose here is simply to accept the main thrust of the book's reasoning and conclusions, and consider the implications.]

This is my first point: that by the 1950s it was already clear to any thoughtful person that mainstream and ruling ideas in the major areas of culture did not make sense. Barfield analyzed this fundamental incoherence better than anyone perhaps; but the insight was pretty general. 

At any rate, I am sure he was correct - and he was correct that the set of ideas that are foundational to the whole functioning of the modern world as it was in the 1950s was so absolutely, fundamentally, self-contradictory that... Well what? 

In 1957 Barfield assumed that such a degree and depth of incoherence could not possibly survive, and that therefore it must change. Barfield, at points, warned what kind of consequences there must be if the world view did Not change; but he clearly assumed that things would change - and that the prevailing philosophy-ideology would move decisively in the direction of recognizing the primary of the spiritual over (and before, in terms of existence in time) the material; the guideingness of 'evolution' of consciousness in the history of reality; the way that reality is necessarily co-created and shaped by the presence and interpreting consciousness... and so forth. 

But it did not happen. Although there have been intermittent recognitions of the unsatisfactory nature of mainstream 'reality', these have taken the form of attempts to return to the instinctive and unconscious; as with the 1960s counter-culture, or the 1980s New Age - both of which have remained culturally-active; in private subjectivity and in mass culture. Or else less influential attempts to return the world to the lesser, but still fundamental, incoherences of 'the past'. 

[Barfield, following Steiner, was guilty of this; insofar as both attempted to fight the incoherences of system with alternative - somewhat less-incoherent - systems; a venture that began with Goethe's attempt to make biology into a differently-systematic science incorporating a systematized version of imagination. Steiner's ideas for agriculture, education, medicine, threefold societies etc, and Barfield's advocacy (in StA) of a new 'system of imagination', are both examples of laying this false trail. Imagination just is Not systematic, and a new world view based on intuitive direct-knowing or heart-thinking cannot be systematized. Cannot means can not.)   

The incoherent world-view of public discourse did Not change; but, necessarily, continued to worsen since it developed from the same incoherent assumptions.

What happened was that instead of becoming coherent; over the past decades more-and-more cultural ways evolved (and were successfully imposed) to make that incoherence not-apparent, or to deny its significance. 

Until we reach The World Now - where incoherence is extreme, global and mandatory - but is almost completely occult; hidden by the universality of bureaucracy, micro-specialization and dishonesty - fueled by mass emotional manipulation via the mass/ social media. 

We now experience a world of astonishingly vast and increasing chaos of incoherence; in which the monolithic nature of global totalitarianism is itself regarded as The Objective Reality (objective because there is nothing else in official public discourse, and only this reality is 'shared'); and where any individuals who recognize its incoherence and strategic evil are already and increasingly labelled as merely isolated instances of cut-off (insane, idiotic and/or wicked) pure-subjectivity.

[The official consensus of world experts versus... just your personal opinion.] 

Steiner and Barfield did indeed foresee these consequences - and wrote prophetically of the nature of our current world 'if' we failed to awaken to their insights. A Steiner lecture of 1918 and remarks by Barfield in StA and his (1984 published) novella Night Operation, are instances. 

But neither Steiner nor Barfield emphasized such 'if not, then...' prophecies; because both expected that culture would correct itself - because the problems were so obvious, and were getting worse.  

I think the actual state of the world now was (and is) missed, because modern people focus upon abstract and specialized matters such as politics, science and philosophy - and the impulses which drives these; whereas the dominant impulse throughout has been purposive evil - the agenda of the devil/ Satan and the demonic spirits. Steiner and Barfield were both guilty of this - seldom discussing God and never (I think) framing their arguments in terms of God and his creative aims. 

When we are up-against supernatural evil; no amount of reform within the domains of politics/ science/ philosophy - nor any other social system such as law, education, medicine, the military or churches - can effectively oppose it. Any local improvement in a specific area of discourse is quickly outflanked by continued degeneration in many or most others. 

It is akin to trying to correct the dishonesty of the global establishment. If an official statement or line-of-argument is revealed as a gross and deliberate lie (that is a lie-rooted discourse such as the birdemic-peck, climate change, antiracism, feminism or the trans-agenda - or any of the multiple sublies within these discourses); then the lie is still operating and indeed accelerating in all the other social systems - media, corporate, legal and so forth. 

The societal assumption is that any number of proven Establishment lies are specific and encapsulated; while the validity of the total system is unchallenged because assumed. 

In other words, the actual root and motivation of that expanding incoherence which Steiner and Barfield exposed was undying evil spirits operating across many human generations; whose agenda is the destruction of God, the good and divine creation. 

The problem of incoherence was Not based in philosophical error, nor the limitations of science; nor the aims of politicians, bureaucrats or judges. 

We have - all along - been dealing-with the war between, on the one hand, God and Jesus Christ - with their aim of saving mortal Men to a resurrected life of growing more divine; and on the other hand, the many-fold powers of evil that oppose all this.

Evil is not trying to sustain any particular alternative evil reality; but to oppose The Good by whatever means seem to be effective at any particular time or place. Hence evil is protean, mutating, and cannot positively be defined in terms of what it 'wants'. 

For evil, incoherence is a feature, not a bug; and the more that actually-existing incoherence is accepted, embraced, and defended as real, true, necessary and Good - the greater is the triumph of evil. 

So here we are Now! The most extreme adverse prophecies of Steiner and Barfield have come true; evil is globally officially endorsed and imposed - and yet so extreme and pervasive is Man's corruption that he (mostly) does not even notice (and strenuously denies) that ruling-evil, and its explicit and implicit tendency.

And/but insofar as Modern Man can perceive evils - he sees No Alternative. 

After so many decades; Modern Man has incoherence baked-into his world view - which is a measure of his evil nature; and therefore sustains the only 'unity' and possibility of public that he can believe-in - which is that ever-shifting consensus of demonically-controlled, monolithic global totalitarianism.

 

The heart of A Geography of Consciousness by William Arkle

Edited from A Geography of Consciousness by William Arkle (1974) - the chapter 'Relating Levels of Consciousness', pp 134-7. This, coming halfway through the book, probably represents the centre of the argument and the key teaching. It represents Arkle's diagnosis of why our life is typically and mostly so dull and oppressive; and how a fundamental change of attitudes and assumptions about this world could make it qualitatively better.  

The seat of consciousness is in the Absolute, and not in what is ordinarily considered as manifestation at all.

The proposition is that the function and purpose of manifestation [or creation] is to create the ground for experience and the communication of experience. The experience itself is only valid when it is a part of this absolute consciousness which we ourselves are not normally in a position to be aware of and properly identify with. The manifested worlds are consequently no more than the ‘stuff’ of communication itself.

To put the idea very simply, the whole of manifestation is a communication on the part of the creative cause. Manifestation with its many universes and planes is something which God wished to say. We are the individuals that God wishes to say it to. Thus the real significance of every instant is the response being made by us to events... not the events themselves.

This suggests that the world we live-in is the world of absolute consciousness; and that the worlds we are identified-with are statements - are communications of qualities and principles. When we look around us what we are really seeing is a prolonged lecture; but the language it is given-in is not the one used in man-to-man communications but an infinitely more complete and efficient language.

This language is the one of the rain and sunlight, trees and grasses, children, mountains, clouds, colours, scents, sounds, responsibilities, loves, dangers, mothers, fathers, wives, lovers, friends, facts and foods, happy times, sad times, beautiful times, absorbing times, boring times and futile times.

To try and equate reality with the physical worlds of communication and to try and equate human consciousness with the human body, is like trying to understand and identify the reality of a book by measuring its proportions and analysing the paper and the ink. Such an attitude could only arise if it was not realised that a book was meaningless as a physical phenomenon but meaningful as a communication.

While the book is a real phenomenon and capable of physical analysis, the secret of understanding it is to realise that it is a continuing statement of qualities and attitudes of consciousness. To know what a book is one has to let it speak, and speak to one’s real Self.

If this is not done, the most searching analysis of the paper and the molecules and atoms and atomic particles and energies and proportions of the paper, will completely fail to explain the reality of the book as a phenomenon. We may gather a very impressive knowledge of the way that the universe is built, but this will be as nothing to understanding what the book and the universe is saying.

The stuff of the physical world we live in is thus no longer to be considered as ‘mere stuff’, if we ourselves are to be more than ‘mere clever things’. If we are to discover ourselves as significant living consciousness, we must accept the world we live in as an important communication. A tree must not only be a potential source of timber and money. A tree must be one side of a conversation, the language of which we must take the trouble to learn and respond with.

The sort of statement that has just been made will not be understood by anyone unless they want to understand it. It is a statement from outside the accepted culture of our day and would be easily ridiculed by any person wishing to do so. Nevertheless it is intended to be a serious factual suggestion as to why so many people find so little meaning in life.

The painful part of failure to observe and read the communications that are continually being made to us through natural phenomena is the experience of extreme boredom. If the theory is correct the boredom arises because the valid and most real part of the individual feels itself to be fulfilling no purpose, in fact it feels ignored and forgotten. It knows it is something of great value and potential, but for some reason it is unable to become responsive and alive except in a few minor ways.

Without knowing it, the individual is creating this misery for himself because he is living in certain restricted categories with which he has classed earlier experiences and has long ago ceased to let events speak for themselves. The person lives in a world of labels of his own making, perhaps in the grounds that he thinks he will be unable to cope with real events themselves and perhaps be unable to make the significance of the events fit into his ‘safe’ but ‘uncomfortable’ philosophy of reality.

Because of this situation such a person is extremely aware of the apparently concrete unalterability and stony-faced aspect of the world around him. He is very aware of matter seeming to be dead, heavy and dull and monotonously unalterable, in fact the walls of a prison. When, however, responsiveness is felt within his being, then immediately the situation alters. The boredom ceases, the unalterability is not noticed, the prison vanishes and time goes quickly. Meaning and purpose creep back into life and the question of what it is all about seems partly answered and, indeed, only an important question is thought of as ‘what can be done in co-operating with life?’

This sense of being aware of matter as a prison, as the beginning and ending of something hopeless and meaningless is not uncommon, particularly among people who have grown beyond the first hectic and unconsidered flush of youth. The world of physical material becomes part of a ‘solid’ identification which, for the purposes of this argument, can simply be termed 'matter'.

This is not the matter of the physicist but matter as experience. Not the matter that is measured but the matter that is felt. Not analysed but identified-with. In this context the following statement can be suggested as a verbal equation: ‘Awareness of matter is failure to communicate.’

Non-awareness of the materiality of matter is thus the result of success in communication.

Matter as materiality only exists in the experience of human beings who have ceased to remain responsive. To the rest of nature materiality presents no problems. It is consciously or unconsciously accepted as a most interesting and absorbing communication of qualities related to survival at the lower end of the third vector or related to beauty and idealism at the upper end of the third vector.

Matter can also be thought of as space and time experience. In the imprisoned mood of materiality, time drags and assumes very obvious characteristics of its own. It intrudes. Together with this the size and number of phenomena becomes over important. The daunted observer reflects on the littleness of his own body and the insignificance of his own single identity among so many thousands of his fellows. 

...He looks from the world out into the universe and his senses are numbed at the thought of the vastness of the cosmic system and the distances that are involved on every side. The background of his whole existence becomes unmanageable by his consciousness. It does not even appear hostile for what is worse is the fact that it appears indifferent, quite unaware of him.

Solidity of life as an experience, or matter as an experience can now be related to a degree of responsiveness of the true Being. It can also be related to the level of consciousness of the individual Being. When 'matter' in this sense obtrudes into our life, it indicates that we are not being our-Self.

When matter does not obtrude, whether we are at a chronic high level or low level of consciousness, we are being ourself as much as we can be, responding with all we have available... A false personality has not been allowed to form and insinuate itself between our Self and the world of communication.