Why the evil of the One Ring cannot be resisted by anyone - lessons for "conservatives" and those who "study the arts of the enemy"

Honest, Frodo - I'd only be using the One Ring for the Greater Good!

It is striking that the possession of the One Ring is rejected by even the most good and most powerful characters of The Lord of the Rings.

Why this should be, is explained at The Notion Club Papers blog. 

**

The reason is a variation of what I have often termed The Boromir Strategy - or "Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron!".

The Boromir Strategy is the usual form taken by would-be resistance to global totalitarian leftism - which is why so much time and effort is expended in the mass media and blogosphere in "studying the arts of the enemy" in order (supposedly, purportedly) to discover and use the enemy's methods against the enemy...

Yaas...  

In the NCP-blog post I make clear that to do this is already to have joined-with the enemy. 

To claim The Ring is a counter-productive pseudo-attempt to fight the enemy by moving onto the enemy's own ground; or - more precisely - trying to fight the enemy after opening the door and inviting him right inside the castle keep.

The reason the Boromir Strategy is so popular as to be near universal, is that it is a mask of good intentions used to cover the reality of evil motivations.

The argument was deployed in Lord of the Rings to justify Boromir forcibly trying to take the One Ring from Frodo in order to use it himself - for his own purposes, including his greater power and glory. 

The pretence was that this was done only to save Gondor, and to defeat Sauron - but that was not true. 

Well - Boromir realized this, and he repented (and confessed); and did his best to atone for the damage he had done. 

And... what Boromir did in the story, anybody can do in "real life". 

 

The Boromir Strategy (as advocated by the Boromirosphere)

We have been hearing recently discussion of the Benedict Option for resisting Secular Leftism -

http://www.jrganymede.com/2015/07/02/the-benedict-option

which derives from Thomist philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre writing in After Virtue (1981), recently popularised by Rod Dreher.

But this is regarded as effete and defeatist by the Secular Right of the Boromirosphere - so named by this blog's commenter Ingemar after the (pre-his-repentance) Tolkien character from Lord of the Rings, and summarised by the phrase:

Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron!

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-secular-right-alternative-right.html

The Boromir Strategy correctly diagnoses that we are in a state of warfare with Secular Leftism/ Political Correctness/ Social Justice Warriors which are evil - but fails to recognise that this is essentially a spiritual war, which must be 'fought' with spiritual weapons - and that evil cannot be defeated by evil; and that the weapons of the Good are all Good.

The Boromirosphere is easily recognised by its tone of hatred, gloating Schadenfreude, and foul-mouthed invective. The Boromir strategy is that the opponents of Leftism need to beat Leftism at its own game - fight one-sided feminism and women-preference with one-sided macho posturing and women-oppression, fight antiracism with pro-racism, fight uncontextualised kindness with shock-and-awe cruelty - in sum, to be even-more ruthless, hardline, expedient, and materialistically-focused than The Left.

An example of the Boromir Strategy is the 'No Enemies to the Right' meme; which argues that because the mainstream political Left do not reject vicious Leftist extremists - whatever their methods and motivations; then their opponents should not reject vicious Right Wing extremists - whatever their methods and motivations; because that would be to weaken the movement.

However, all this is understandable given that the Secular Right are... Secular. They do not believe in the reality of God, the unseen world, the spiritual realm - so the only effects they will recognise and advocate are in the exact same material world that is approved and taken-seriously as valid public discourse by the modern mass media.

In sum, the secular Left and Right are two sides serving the same (demonic) masters - exactly like Labour and Conservative, Democrat and Republican, and all the rest of mainstream politics.

Whereas, the simple reality is that we live in a world of divine entities and communications - mostly un-perceived by the five senses - a world in which all Goodness is necessarily effectual, and where apparent defeat of real Goodness can only be temporary.

The motives and methods of Good are identical; Good ends can only be attained by Good means - and all Good means will sooner-or-later lead to Good ends. We need not be concerned by expediency - if we do the right thing then we will be on the side of eternal destiny, and all manner of synchronicities and unforeseen eucatastrophes* will come to our aid.

That is all that ought to concern us in a world created by a God who is Good and is our Heavenly Father. Politics is, after all, very simple - if we truly understand it.

And this attitude is called faith.


Note: Eucatastrophe is a Tolkien coinage meaning good-catastrophe - the 'fortunate' but once-experienced-known-to-be-destined last minute twist in a story to achieve a happy ending in the face of apparently-inevitable defeat by evil.

Self-blinded optimism and Christian convergence with The System

It is somewhat dismaying to see Christians embarking, again and again, decade after decade, on delusory projects of "re-taking culture", including the established churches - and instead ending-up fundamentally (and whether they realize it or not) assimilated-to ("converged-with") mainstream (left-totalitarian) ideology.

This is often associated with the Boromir Strategy: "Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron!" - either deliberately ("It's time we learned from the success of the Left"), or else by unconsciously and incrementally becoming more like the Left in order to infiltrate the structures of power and (so the original intention is) seize control. 

This usually begins with some local and small scale goal; like getting control of a magazine or journal, reforming a college or a school, placing "our people" in local government, or electing a single national politician. The idea is that this then serves as a base and bridgehead for the next step, and the next... and eventually the whole System will be re-orientated in a Christian direction...

There are two things to be said: firstly, people have been saying this and trying it for more than fifty years, and therefore by any realistic and this-worldly appraisal it has an effectively zero chance of working. 

Therefore, by all reasonably probabilities, the needful investment of time, energy and resources Will Fail to achieve the strategic and cultural objectives (although, in the short term and on a small scale, the attempt may make a living for a smaller group of people - which is perhaps why the strategy keeps getting revived). 

So there are large opportunity costs; because if you are prioritizing one thing, you are not prioritizing another thing*; and personal resources expended on pursuing futile (or selfish) ventures are unavailable for potentially valid and successful projects.   

(*There can only be one priority: therefore choose it well!)

The second and more important thing to be said is from an inferred spiritual perspective. 

All talk about re-taking the culture is essentially to do with the material and physical realm, and is framed in terms of a communal activity. 

Now, many Christians have assimilated and committed to the idea that Christianity is essentially a group, communal activity; that must be pursued via an intermediary and material, this-worldly social system (i.e. their favoured church or denomination) - so they are self-painted into an ever-shrinking corner from which they can only imagine (or will only entertain the possibility) of the same-old form of Boromir Strategic escape: no matter how often this has failed, no matter how counter-productive is the attempt in practice. 

My own understanding is almost the opposite; which is that Life is trying to teach us that retaking culture, taking-over The System, or any version of the Boromir Startegy... is not what we should be attempting; because we are spiritual Beings with a direct-line to God and direct guidance from the Holy Ghost. 

And this decision has been made easy for us, by the repeatedly proved fact that church-centred, institution-centred, collective strategies will not work, anyway - so it ought to be facile for us to abandon them.  

Of course; if one is indeed painted-into a this-worldly corner, then this sounds like a counsel of despair! 

But if we are instead prepared to learn from the divine teachings of this-world; we can be completely hope-full that pursuing the strategy which God has laid-out for us, will be far more successful (when success is defined correctly - i.e. spiritually) than the same old useless delusions. 

Indeed, we can be utterly confident that - in the long-term and where-it-matters - we certainly will be successful; so we ought to feel joy, not despair. 

In other words, the reaction of despair is a product of self-blinding and a delusion; but joy is a consequence of that hope which derives from faith in God the creator, our Heavenly Father+, and we His children. 

+This argument works equally well; whether one believes that God is our Heavenly Father only; or, as I believe, our Heavenly Parents.

What would happen if The Right 'rebooted' modernity, purged the mass media and took over all leadership positions? Or, How the mass media is like the One Ring

*

A comment to yesterday's post from 'Christian in Hollyweird' suggested a comparison between the mass media and the One Ring of Tolkien; and asks Boromir's question - can we use the One Ring against Sauron?

In other words, can the mass media be used against the Left?

This is a good question - indeed it is a test question for my thesis that the modern Left IS the modern mass media - in a definition of the mass media to include not just print, broadcast and internet media - but also government propaganda (civil administration), education and all other few-to-many communication systems.

*

An example of the Boromir parallel would be the idea, proposed by Mencius Moldbug and taken-up by many of the blogosphere secular Right, of taking-over the mass media in toto - by purging the mass media leadership of all Leftists and replacing them with sensible, realistic people (i.e. Rightists).

What would happen if this societal 'reboot' was to succeed and the Right really did take-over?

*

The two possibilities are 1. That the vast power of the mass media/ One Ring would become available to the forces of Good; or 2. That the mass media - being intrinsically Leftist - would inevitably turn the Right into the Left.

To me it seems obvious that the second possibility would certainly happen - the Right would become the Left; because the nature of the mass media is that it cannot be used, but will itself use.

*

(In this sense the mass media has used the Old Left, and now cast it aside. Because for a century or more the Old Left was focused on the proletariat, the native-born working man, and his grouping such as Trades Unions. The mass media/ primary-Left is primarily anti-Good; and this true Leftism used the partial-Leftism of the partly-Good Old Left (with its genuine desire to alleviate poverty, its William Morrisite socialist utopias, its residual ethical/ Christian aspects) for as long as this worked towards net destruction. But now, the New Left is much more wholly destructive, and its old-time heroes of the proletariat are not just cast-aside and ignored, but their destruction is actively-sought and well-advanced.)

*

The Right could only sustain the power of the mass media in its vast attention-seeking, mind-filling and hyper-addictive form by subordinating itself to the fundamental grammar of the mass media, its modus operandi, the evaluations of the mass media - and by so doing, the Right would become Leftist - which is to say subversive, destructive, anti-reality - hence reality-denying or 'nihilist': hence anti-Good.

*

My conclusion is that the choice is we can have either The Good or The Mass Media - since the mass media cannot be taken-over by The Right, only the reverse.

Therefore, for a society to reverse Leftism entails destroying (not taking-over) the mass media; and, in our own individual minds, escaping the toils of Leftism means first to escape from the mass media in our lives.

So Gandalf was correct and Boromir was wrong: nobody can use the Ring to overcome the Dark Lord without himself becoming a Dark Lord.

*

"4-Dimensional Chess" in politics is a variant of The Boromir Strategy (hence always evil)

Even Spock was limited to Tri-Dimensional Chess...

Recent and forthcoming events in relation to the US "President" elections, have once again filled the mass media and blogosphere with complex, labile, incoherent "4-Dimensional Chess" explanations of what is really going-on...

We know that the official story is never true; nonetheless it's a snare to get drawn into these attempts to discover the real truth. 

Not only because they are necessarily false explanations (although the truth is that we cannot ever know, because some key relevant information is unavailable to outsiders, and the insiders are all evil liars). And not only because even-if the truth was discovered, and the villains and their villainy identified, justice would not be done.   

I fully accept that there are indeed many people playing 4D chess in politics; that is, adopting multi-layered strategies whereby the meaning of a "move" on one level may (or may not) mean the opposite, on another level; and where the overall strategy is only apparent by a multi-level and dynamic awareness.

And, of course, other people (and probably most of them) are merely using 4D chess explanations to cover-up incompetence, ignorance and insanity. 

But complex and long-term 4-Dimensional Chess strategizing is how many of the leadership class operate; as I know from my own experiences working inside large bureaucracies such as the National Health Service, Universities Think Tanks and the like. They discuss and make such plans, and they try to accomplish them.

(The 4D strategies are always derailed by endemic dishonesty, incompetence, and corruption. They invariably end by having different outcomes from intended, and by destroying capability and efficiency. Nonetheless, there are many such plans in the pipeline and operative.)

 

What I am saying is that reasoning about politics on the lines of 4D chess, demonstrates that participants in this kind of strategy and analysis are on the side of evil. 

In other words: regarding politics as any kind of four-dimensional chess problem, is an evil-stance on human society; because it derives from a perspective on other people that is deceptive and manipulative. 

Typically, complex schemes of deception and manipulation are presented as being "in a good cause" - e.g. to defeat some evil, or in order that "we" (the supposedly good side) can win, and then do good things...

 

In short, 4-Dimensional Chess is a version of our old friend The Boromir Strategy - which is an ancient demonic temptation to encourage a moral separation between ends and means; to encourage the delusion that we can pursue good ends by evil means. 

By contrast; when good is genuinely being pursued in politics (a rare situation, and currently absent) then means and ends are in obvious, up-front harmony; because both are clear and simple, and fit-together. 

That's the only way that good is ever achieved in a top-down fashion.

Paging Boromir! Anyone who approves of (real or imagined) "4-dimensional chess" strategies in politics is on the side of evil

Let me explain what's really going-on...

There has been, I notice, another and severe outbreak of 4-dimensional chess attribution among political commentary in relation to the current US President's foreign policy. 

I would suggest that politics when it is Good is actually very simple.

Whenever politics actually is, or aspires to be, complex, nuanced, multi-faceted - then we should know that we are confronted with our old friend the Boromir Strategy. 

Under all the rationalizations it's just another case of: Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron! 

It's not that the US President and his gang couldn't or wouldn't play some kind of 4-D chess game; but that insofar as they do operate thus - then they objectively are on the side of evil. 

And those political commentators and analysts who approve such modes of operation are part of the pseudo-alternative, but in fact totalitarian Establishment-allied, "Boromirosphere"...

They are doing the work of Satan; however they may self-identify or self-present as one of the Good Guys. 

Boromir versus Faramir, prophecy and The Fellowship

Boromir and Faramir by Magali Villeneuve

How Providence shaped, and failed to shape, the membership of the Fellowship of the Ring - and the consequences; at The Notion Club Papers blog.

Herding cats? - individual evaluation and agency is the only proper opposition to totalitarianism

If Romantic Christians want to oppose totalitarianism, there is a temptation to 'organise', to create an oppositional 'army' (an 'army of liberation'); but - even if it were possible, which it is not - that would essentially be the Boromir Strategy - Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron!

Because the core problem is The System, and organisation involves creating a Sub-System with The System - using System features such as money, laws, media etc - then attempting to use this Sub-System to destroy The System.

It never works because it can't work.


This was brought to mind on this day when UK people are having an election for MEPs, i.e. members of the European Parliament - and there is a chance to register a vote in favour of Brexit. A Brexit 'party' (a Sub-System of The System) has been created, plus a couple of other Brexit possibilities. So this is a protest election, therefore a chance for each individual vote to be 'make a difference', perhaps?

But to make a political party, to support a party, to join an election, to vote is to participate in The System; is to become complicit - and to become a part of the controlled-opposition (spiritually to join oneself with Emmanuel Goldstein, who is The System's manufactured-fake enemy). To vote is the Boromir Strategy...


If not, then what? If I suggest that organising, voting, participating-in The System is actually making-things-worse - then what should people do instead?

('Instead', since whatever we have-been doing is clearly ineffective.)

Instead, we should beach of us become really and truly self-motivated self-evaluators, agents who thinf for our-selves, from our freedom - who believe not what we are told but what we know from personal experience understood by direct intuition, who think not as we are told but as what arises from-with; be individuals whose behaviours can neither be predicted nor manipulated en-masse.

We should behave like cats; and cats cannot be herded.


Thirty-plus years ago - government Health Service policy broke ineffectually over the barrier of General Practitioners - Family Physicians - because each was an independent agent, and spiritually each was stubbornly independent (for better and for worse - but independent).

I worked in the NHS bureaucracy for a couple of years, and the government officials often complained that that trying to control General Practice by changing policies and rules was like herding cats - their exact words - in other words it could not be done, because GPs were not predictable in their behaviour; under the same policy, each was likely to go off in his own direction, without regard for the group.

It did not much matter what you did to one GP, because most of the others regarded themselves as living in a different world. In practice, The System either had specifically to control each GP as ?50,000 separate units; or else there would not be much control.

That was then, this is now> Now there is a massive system of detailed (patient by patient) online surveillance and monitoring, a single imposed-contract for all, and the work and payments is broken up into multiple separate (monitored) units; and GPs are increasingly organised in increasingly-large groups. The GP is de facto (when not in practice) an employee of The System.

British GPs are no longer cats but instead sheep - or, increasingly, archetypal-movie-lemmings; who were, in reality, being herded off cliffs by unseen Disney technicians...

(An exact analogy for Western Man with respect to the Global Establishment.)


And what applies to GPs in microcosm applies to Western Man. This is what it is to live under a totalitarian system - no longer to be an agent, not to have one's own unique motivation, to be monitored and manipulated in large, impersonal units, by bureaucratic systems of rules, incentives and punishments. 

We need to become cats, cease being lemmings.

The Boromir Strategy revisited: or, the spiritual war is primarily spiritual (not political)

Assertions of spiritual war against the truth of Christianity and the Heavenly resurrection that Jesus offers; will inevitably be regarded as sick, paranoid, persecutory delusions by the dominant, mainstream, secular-materialist majority. That, or regarded as dishonest manipulation, insanity, or sheer foolishness.

Since the spiritual realm is denied reality in all power-full public discourse, since Christianity is seen as Nothing But a socio-political phenomenon - then any damage to Christianity from the totalitarian Global Establishment will only be regarded by the mainstream as collateral damage, accidental to some other prime purpose...

But if spiritual war is real, and if The Enemy is indeed behind the successful 2020 international coup and current-escalating systematic subversion of social cohesion (e.g. Project Fear, Project Resentment, Project Despair) -- then Christianity will be the true (albeit deniable) focus of all major political change. 


By this analysis; the Main Thing about the past few months has been the closure of the Christian churches, the cessation of their core activities. This has been a devastating blow against actual Christians.

This strategy has been most effective against the Catholic churches that were historically the most interwoven with 'the State'; churches which are built around the priesthood, ritual, symbolism and specific consecrated buildings (churches, cathedrals, monasteries, temples etc); since it is the material side which is easiest to suppress.

But even if you are a low church Protestant or unaffiliated Christian; you should bear in mind that the three largest international denominations are Episcopal (i.e. administered by Bishops): The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican. So, if not an actual majority, still a very large proportion of the world's serious Christians have-been and are severely affected by the recent suppression.

And even the most low church/ home church Protestants are severely affected by the rules against gathering, and the physical separation of all (middling, respectable) people; because of course, there are many exemptions. No Christians are to be exempted, in the end. It's just that the Powers of Evil have to start somewhere; and the converged Establishment leaderships of Episcopal churches make them an easier target.

There it is pretty much a case of Job Done. The Christian churches are here-and-now at the lowest ebb in their history. Next, the Powers of Evil will move on to suppressing the other social manifestations of Christianity: meeting, Bibles, prayer, teaching, theology. Wedges will be inserted; divisions made and widened; Christian set-against Christian... 


In a nutshell, if you agree with me that serious Christians are to be found spread across many denominations (including, I assert, many of those regarded as 'heretical' or 'cultish' or in some way unsound by the mainstream - distinctions which I believe mainly served the corrupt, now utterly discredited, church leaderships); then serious Christians should not let Them drive a spiritual wedge between Us.

At the spiritual level, it really is Us against Them: Us being all serious Christians of all kinds; Them being Satan, the demons, the Global Establishment who serve them, and the mass Godless majority who obey them, and believe whatever they are being told today...

(Some souls have been sold, the majority surrendered.)


And the war is spiritual.

We must therefore discern Good from evil (because the mass majority as well as leadership are on the wrong side). But, on the one hand, Christians should Not discern on the basis of those Political Categories by which They are dividing Us (class, sex, race, sexuality)...

While, on the other hand, we should not be manipulated into supporting evil by the fact that our discernment is spiritual rather than political.


The refusal of serious Christians to be spiritually divided from brothers and sisters in Christ on the basis of spiritual categories means opposing any political agenda based on these categories.

Do not get drawn into the Boromir Strategy!

You cannot use the One Ring to fight the Dark Lord, who made it. You cannot use political categories such as aristocracy, patriarchy, nationalism or race/ism to fight the Left; because ultimately all primary politics is of-the-Left: on the side of the Dark Lords. 


Again: all those who discern primarily by Political categories, are on the side of the Enemy - even when they favour those categories that are (apparently) against the Leftist Establishment.

The primary battle of the spiritual war is to assert the primacy of the spiritual.

Totalitarianism and/or Chaos: Ahrimanic backlash and/or Sorathic escalation in response to the latest global Litmus Test

The latest global Litmus Test (aka the most recent Establishment agenda theme) is playing-out negatively and for evil - as any change must, when not motivated by positive good. 

Whatever the original intent of the event and its propagation may have been, the existing Establishment power blocs are competing over what it implies.

Competing, often within different parts of the same media outlet! - as would be expected when there is a genuine schism and "civil war" within the Establishment.  

We need to be clear that in this war, both sides are of evil intent; but different types of evil. 

On one side, and this includes the political "Right" (actually, part of the Left); and this also includes the nationalistic "Christian Right" - there are the Ahrimanic totalitarians. 

These desire - first and foremost - an efficient and effective international System... A coherent political-bureaucracy-media complex. 

And the Ahrimanic totalitarians are trying to escalate and use the new Establishment agenda to make the System work better, mainly so-far by undoing some of the more egregious consequences of political correctness. 

This is the true nature of whatever is real in the "anti-woke" backlash assiduously reported by the mainstream sources. 

What motivates these System-reformers is a materialistic and this-worldly desire for a more comfortable, prosperous, and secure life (first and especially for themselves, and those of whom they approve). To be done by means of working-towards an effective and efficient System. 

This is why there is such a strong enthusiasm among such people, for ruthless coercion of individuals justified by "rational" objectives and "the common good." In other words: "enemies" are to be made to conform to the new rules of a better System.

For a truly Ahrimanic totalitarian, this coercion of conformity is done impersonally, without sadism - because it is the result of "objective" calculation of System necessity.  

In sum: For mainstream Establishment totalitarians; it is the individual person's role, whether voluntarily or coerced, to serve the System...

The only difference between the "Political Right" and the "Christian Right", is that the System to be ruthlessly imposed is intended to be one that is explicitly Christian in its forms: a Church System*. 

(Insofar as any totalitarian bureaucracy can really be Christian when it is intrinsically evil!)

Consequently; our old friend The Boromir Strategy is very much in evidence! 

The Political/ Christian Right advocate using the "weapons" of the enemy, including the psychological motivations of leftist materialism - rationalized by the excuse that this is the most effective way to win... 

Under the assumption that "our System winning" (by whatever means are judged to be expedient) is the same thing as "Good". 

In sum: For Christian totalitarians; it is the individual person's role, whether voluntarily or coerced, to serve the Church System...

Mixed-in with totalitarianism (of various stripes) - and sometimes dominant - is explicit expression (across the board, including the "Right", including among self-identified-Christians) of the characteristically "sadistic" emotions of spiteful Schadenfreude. 

In other words, we see the fingerprints of strengthening Sorathic Chaotic Evil.

This is motivated mainly by personal gratification at the sufferings and destruction of "enemies"; or, at first enemies... 

Instead of the impersonal and calculating Ahrimanic justification of coercive imposition for reasons of Systemic-necessity; the Sorathic "Right" will characteristically express positive pleasure in the "need" for imposing suffering on their enemies. 

They typically express delight at the prospect of the misery and destruction of those who will not conform to the new programme. 

...But later, as evil feeds-upon-itself, they will go on to enjoy the suffering and destructions of anybody and anything that opposes or ignores our personal interests and enjoyments.

(And finally the ultimately nihilistic destruction of divine creation - and at last, the suicidal annihilation of their own self; as something created by God.)  

In other words - because people are currently riled-up and feel free to express their dark and usually-secret motivations - we can currently observe the inevitable waxing of evil that happens when both "sides" are actually rival factions of the spiritual war that opposes God and Divine Creation. 

Both totalitarian and chaotic evil are, in their different but overlapping ways, de facto working towards the self-chosen damnation of self-righteous sinners. 

In other words, all varieties of evil are working towards an increase of the self-exclusion of the unrepentant from Heaven; which self-exclusion includes those unrepentant for whom this-worldly expediency is affirmed as primary...

Those for whom their superficial assertion of wanting a more-Christian world and future Heaven, has become an insincere excuse for advocating and doing More Evil Now.

**

*NOTE ADDED: I would like to clarify that I intend the term Church System - which I judge to be the large (or at least vociferous!) majority of Christians who identify with "the Right" or nationalism - to refer to those whose priority is System. here-and-now, in This World - and starting from where we actually are. I mean those many who, at worst (explicitly or covertly), regard their favoured Christian Church as the best or only means to what they really and most deeply want: which is an effective, efficient and "us"-orientated social System. 

(Looking back some 15-plus years; I can see that I was one of these at the time I converted to Christianity. I wanted what I hoped the right Church might do for society during my mortal life and those I love; more than I wanted to follow Jesus to Heaven.) 

I also mean the term Church Systematists to include others, less culpable perhaps, who - sincerely and without covertly-pursued primary self-interest - regard System as a necessary materialistic means to the salvific and next-worldly and spiritual end, of what the uncorrupted Christian Churches advocate. That is to say the Church System totalitarians include those who want System-reform first, to be followed (some unspecified time later) by top-down and imposed Christianization, made possible by the attainment of power (i.e. the Boromir Strategy). These are blind or foolish (if sincere), but not so strategically-bad as those who merely desire to use the Churches for material ends  

But I do Not mean to include in the Church System category, those real Christians who retain loyalty to the spiritual goals of their Church in its ideal form - those who, by discernment and personal evaluation, seek and follow the Christian Truth among the lies and expediencies of the totalitarian-affiliated human institutions of the actual Churches of 2025.  

Some Christian Churches yet retain the capacity to help individuals in their Christian Faith; with political considerations as secondary and derivative consequences of this primary faith. 

My experience of booking a room in a bureaucratic-totalitarian society...

In the spirit of Vaclav Havel's 'poster test' (complete essay here); I had an illustrative experience about a decade ago trying to book a room for informal weekly meetings.

What Havel showed is that the totalitarianism of our society can be seen many times a day in multiple apparently trivial experiences. However, these experiences are seldom identified; I think because (unlike the Czech society under communism) modern Western societies have been extensively corrupted, and are complicit in their own oppression.


Inspired by The Inklings; I wanted to book a room for evening weekly conversation meetings of a floating, flexible population of some half a dozen people - from my friends and colleagues, and their friends and colleagues. The idea was that we might read and discuss work in progress or half-baked ideas; and follow the conversation wherever it might lead; broken up by cups of tea and coffee...


I found a suitable space in the rooms attached to a nearby nonconformist protestant church, and was asked to meet with the person whose role it was to rent out these rooms (the person was a somewhat motherly elderly woman - a fairly typical nonconformist; she was probably an unpaid volunteer).

I was rather surprised to be asked to meet with someone; but I guessed that it was a screening process, to make sure the rooms would not be let to anyone who might abuse them, or leave them in a bad state. Since I am a 'respectable' person, who has lived locally for decades, and the participants were people such as doctors, professors, Anglican priests... I didn't anticipate any problems.


But there was more to it than that. Before being allowed to rent the room, I was asked exactly who would be attending, and what we would be discussing.

I was stunned by this - but managed to respond that I had no clue, we would simply be having a conversation; I asked for clarification. Then it became clear that the church did not want to be associated with certain types of ideas, being discussed on its premises. These were not defined, were left vague and rather menacing; but it was pretty clear that the concern was with 'right wing' ideas.

So, the implicit situation was, that I was not going to be allowed to rent a room to have conversations, unless the representative of the church could be assured that (vaguely) 'right wing' ideas would be off the agenda.

By this point I had decided not to pursue the matter - but the excessively large amount of money asked for rental gave me an easy excuse to get out of the situation.


My interpretation of this situation is that this is a good example of how totalitarian power works, and the everyday, micro-level.

First: everything nowadays is run by committees - and committees are intrinsically left wing and atheist; because personal responsibility is eliminated, hence there is 'no morality' in committee decisions - which is another way of saying that they are always and intrinsically immoral; which is another way of stating the plain fact that Committees Are Evil.

All committees are evil, and this is how it works...

My understanding is that the church committees (and their representatives) are plugged-into the the church bureaucracies, local and national government bureaucracies (including the bureaucracies that inspect and grant permissions to churches, the national Lottery bureaucracies - which often subsidise/ bribe churches; and the bureaucracies that award prizes, medals and titles).

In other words there is a dense web of regulatory, permissory, and reputational bureaucracy surrounding each and every publicly operating institution. Any of these could trigger an investigative avalanche in response to a few accusatory words from... well, anybody.

All institutions live in fear of mass media bureaucracies; which can initiate and orchestrate and sustain mass hatred against anybody at any time. And the national bureaucracies are linked to the European Union (and its laws, regulations, and potential funding), the United Nations and beyond.

Functionally, all public bureaucracies are parts of a single system. What is the characteristic of this system? They are evil, but in what way? We can (and should!) observe that (whatever individuals may believe and think) all component bureaucracies are in basic, ideological agreement about social priorities and threats - and this includes even such low level outfits as volunteers working for local nonconformist churches.


These are the facts; but the implications are so far-reaching as to be unacceptable to almost everybody.  Because if all bureaucracy is evil, then all institutions that engage with the social realm are compelled to become a part of the bureaucratic system, and therefore complicit in evil.

If I had gone ahead and booked the room, then my loose gathering of conversationalists would necessarily have become a public institution, a part of the global totalitarian system; existing only by the grace and favour of this system - which could be withdrawn at any time.

So - here and now, already-existing - all existing and possible public institutions are intrinsically corrupt, since they are part of the primary manifestation of evil in the world. If you are pinning your hope on Any institution. 

The only way to avoid this is Not to be a part of the institutional world. Don't rent rooms! All publicly recognised groups are institutions and all institutions are One.


The only exemptions are groups of family and friends whose cohesion is from Love and have no 'official' or organised reality.

And this is precisely why the family and (that rare thing) real friendship are under constant and vicious attack from The System; who constantly try to infiltrate legal concepts into these affectional relations (under excuses such as rights of children, payment for housework, protection against forms of abuse, limitation of freedoms etc) - and to make these primary and definitional.

Things are coming to a point; and the old individual-group compromises which served Christianity (more-or-less well) for two thousand years, are already impossible - and this will get worse. The world of true knowledge gets ever further divided from the pervasive lies of public discourse.

We are already confronted with multiple, daily situations in which our inner, intuitive knowledge is contradicted by institutional authority - and most people, most of the time (including Christians) are coping by denial of this reality; which is simply to side with The System: i.e. the primary manifestation of evil in the world.


Note added: The usual response to something like this is - But what should we do? Where, implicitly, the 'do' implies some 'effective' This-World sociopolitical action. 

And with the (usually unconscious) assumption that 'we' already know how things ought-to be, and the only live question is how best to achieve this (within existing constraints of resources and time, given the supposed-probabilities of success and risks of failure... and so on). 

The whole thing rapidly becomes absorbed into the question (seldom understood as such, however) of how to activate one part of The System (that we like) and set it against some other part of The System that we don't like - because (we recognise) only The System has the power to compel and punish its errors and evils... 

But the lesson we ought to be learning is that this only strengthens The System. It is just office politics, bureaucratic infighting. It is the 'Boromir Strategy' (as advocated by the Secular Right 'Boromirosphere' - "Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron!" - https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-boromir-strategy-as-advocated-by.html).

We need to see that this is precisely the triumph of bureaucratic totalitarianism. And then realise that the solution of rejecting totalitarianism in toto in a world where totalitarianism is Everywhere and doing Everything... which is something so radical as to be almost unthinkable - yet that is what we must think (or else fail the test). 

Review of The Nature of Middle Earth by JRR Tolkien (2021; edited by Carl F Hostetter)

The Nature of Middle Earth by JRR Tolkien; edited by Carl F Hostetter. HarperCollins: London, 2021.

This book is significant as being the first collection of mostly-unpublished JRR Tolkien writings to emerge since the death of his son Christopher; being edited by Carl Hostetter. It is a book that serious Tolkien readers will want to own and use; because it is something like a cross between The History of Middle Earth Volume XII and an addition to Unfinished Tales. 

Therefore, those who regard HoME and/ or UT as important, will not want to miss this one: there are many things here which I regard of permanent value; and I am very grateful to know them. 

These are too many to list. Perhaps the essay Osanwe-kenta may take pride of place (I had already read this, but it was previously only available in a small circulation magazine). This is a detailed consideration (relevant to both Middle earth and our own world) of the 'communication of thought' by what might be termed telepathy, including the implications for free will. This was of extraordinary depth and interest to me.   

Another section is given the title of Description of Characters, and is Tolkien's commentary on Pauline Baynes's illustrated map of Middle Earth from 1970. For example, Tolkien regarded the back-view of Boromir as an almost perfect representation of his imagination; while Sam and Gimli were 'good enough'. On the other hand he was critical of several (most!) others including Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn, Shelob and the Black Riders; and in making these criticisms he gives further detailed accounts of how he saw them.

The bulk of the book is about elves; including a great deal about their different types (also why they ended up different) and very large scale considerations of the justice and wisdom of the Valar in their dealings with elves. All this was absolutely gripping, and operates at a very deep spiritual level. 

 

The book does, however, have a significant flaw in that it begins badly - i.e. boringly. There are 166 pages under the section title of Time and Ageing - with repeated developing drafts of Tolkien's consideration of the time-lines, time-experiences (relative between the undying lands and Middle earth, and between races), movements of elves; and a lot about the elves rates of growth and reproduction. These are often presented in terms of tables of figures, and lists.

There was a great deal to interest me among these 166 pages; but there is no denying that there is a great deal of repetition and minutiae. There is considerable relevance - even here - for those of us fascinated by Tolkien's mind and creative processes. But I think it was - I believe - an error to begin the book with this material; because some readers who open and start reading at page one, will probably get no further. I would have placed this material in the middle of the volume; and probably relegated some of the repetition and tables to an optional appendix.   

The last section of the book, entitled The world, its lands, and their inhabitants - may have the broadest appeal to those whose interest is focused on Lord of the Rings. It consists of 100 pages of extra 'snippets' about all kinds of things. I was particularly pleased to learn more about Numenor (everyday life, reproductive life, ageing etc).

In general; this volume is (I think) the first to provide abundant new authorial material on what might be termed demographic, social and organizational aspects of Middle Earth (and the undying lands) - which are often stated to be neglected by Tolkien because they are omitted from Lord of the Rings. The Nature of Middle Earth proves that Tolkien had indeed considered such matters, often in considerable detail - albeit often after the publication of LotR. 

Overall, this is a book aimed at Tolkien aficionados such as myself; but for us it takes its place alongside John D Rateliff's two volume History of The Hobbit - valuably supplementary to the many earlier (and uniquely, filially, authoritative) volumes edited by Christopher Tolkien. 

Creative genius in Tolkien - the pride of Feanor

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Being himself a creative genius of a high order, Tolkien felt a temptation of pride which was perhaps greater than for most.

In his depiction of the elf Feanor - he showed how pride can destroy everything which the greatest creative genius can achieve, and more.

*

Feanor was by far the most gifted among the gifted race of elves: as a scholar he invented the written script, as a craftsman he created many wonders but especially the Silmarils: three indestructible jewels of beauty unequalled by any products of human art, in which the light of the Two Trees was captured.

Gandalf said that, above all else in the world, he would wish to see the incomparable hand and mind of Feanor at work at the height of his powers.

Even the greatest of 'the gods' (except for 'the One' creator God - Eru) - the premier Archangel Melkor (later re-named Morgoth, by Feanor) could not match Feanor's creative genius, and coveted the Silmarils above all.

*

Yet Feanor's pride, his possessiveness concerning his own creations, was such that it led to many disasters for the elves: failure to restore the light of the Two Trees (after Morgoth had them destroyed), mass disloyalty, dishonesty and disobedience among the Noldor elves for generations, slaughter of the Teleri and destruction of their wonderful ships, betrayal and death of Noldor kindred, fruitless wars in Middle Earth with huge suffering and death for many centuries, exile from the care of the Valar - most of the major tragedies of the Silmarillion stories.

And all stemming back to the pride of Feanor.

*

Tolkien depicted the same process at many levels, from Melkor himself, to the first and primary Fall of Man into the worship of Morgoth (unpublished in his life but described in the History of Middle Earth Volume X), to the second Fall of the men of Numenor (who developed the most powerful technological civilization ever in Middle Earth), to individual examples such as Sauron and Saruman (minor gods or angelic figures), to Boromir and Denethor.

In Tolkien's world, as in ours, prideful creative genius often leads first to astonishing achievements of power - else there would be no temptation - then to ruin and loss.

For Tolkien, there is no creative achievement so great that it cannot be undone and reversed by pride.

*

And yet - we live, now, in a society which esteems and promotes pride - indeed depends upon pride for its very sustenance.

Of all the many moral inversions of political correctness - this is the most serious, the most damaging, the most damning.

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The question is not which side will win, but which side you will choose (and how you find the strength of belief necessary for making the right choice)

Wise words, edited from a blog post by John C Wright:

In the Christian worldview, no final victory here in this world is possible, but final victory when the world is remade is inevitable. 

Hence, in Middle Earth, the men of the west struggle onward without any glimmer of hope. The hopelessness of the quest is emphasized in many places (including in the true meaning of Strider’s true name). In Narnia, nothing done by Tirion can halt the Last Battle or the final downfall of night. In both cases, the protagonists are humble: schoolchildren or hobbits... 

For the Christian worldview the question is not which side will win. In Christian stories, evil is strong, but evil destroys itself. The question is which side will the protagonist cleave to. 

Lucy (particularly in Prince Caspian) was loyal; Edmund was not. Sam was loyal, and gave up the Ring; Boromir was not... 

Another example is the story of David and Goliath. From a pagan point of view, the story of David and Goliath is absurd. Hercules kills giants, not shepherd boys. There is no drama, no conflict, because a boy slaying a giant with a lucky shot is ridiculous. 

But this is a story as oft retold and as dramatic as anything in literature: because the drama is in the fact that the army of professional soldiers, and David’s own older brothers, are terrified, and will not fight, and David will fight. 

There is no mystery as to who will win: God Almighty is on David’s side. The mystery is why and how David finds the strength to believe that impossible, unlikely, unearthly truth.

Read the whole thing at:
http://www.scifiwright.com/2017/01/hope-in-secondary-worlds

Censorship, Excuses, Value-Inversion: Why suppression of truth is Not defeated by true information - The example of "genocide"

There is a very strong tendency among anti-Establishment radicals (and indeed among Establishment-supporting radicals - the legions of deluded Leftists) - that true information can, and shall, defeat the distortions of censorship and untruthful propaganda. 

That is the theory, but you may have noticed that this does not actually happen!  

Some fact or facts are being suppressed by those with power, and it is claimed that "if only" these were made publicly and widely available - then the real (and evil) nature of those is power would be revealed, people would cease to believe and support them - and a stop would be put to this kind of wrongdoing. 

But mostly this does not happen. 

"Real facts" get revealed, or something more like facts than previously was the case - but the desired outcome goes not happen, as revealed by "genocide". 

"Genocide" could roughly be defined as the i.e. purposive annihilation - e.g. death or/and exclusion/ displacement (e.g. "ethnic cleansing") - of a culture and a people. 

And (whether or not this is correct) genocide is widely agreed to be The Worst evil of all; but in practice especially when "genocide" was done (or alleged to have been done) to left-approved groups and categories. 

It is the (supposed) prevention of genocidal cultural exclusion/ annihilation that is regarded as a bottom line justification for several of the major leftist strategies of recent decades - e.g. antiracism, feminism, and sexual-orientation radicalism. 

(Yet?) Genocide is - of course - a core activity of the dominating Atheist-Left-West Establishment leadership class; in the past, recently, and at present. 

The explicit and multiple examples of so-called "regime change" imposed all around the world, and attempted far more widely; are often the tip of an iceberg of longer-term - and often highly successful - strategy of cultural annihilation and absorption. 

This is culturally- and spiritually- "genocidal" - although this may not become physical annihilation unless the genocide-absorption is resisted.

(e.g. The threat of physical genocide coerces the imposition of cultural genocide.) 

So what are the lines of defence of evils such as "genocide"?

1. Censorship - there is no evil

2. Excuses - the evil is real but justified, expedient for some greater good

3. Value-inversion - evil becomes good 

1. Censorship

The first line of defence for genocidal activity is "censorship", cover-up, suppression of evidence, a denial that it has happened, and still is happening - and is deliberate, strategic, top-down, and mandatory.  

But in spiritual terms, a wholly successful denial is almost worthless. Because what people do not know, they do not excuse or support - and people may remain good-orientated, but merely ignorant. 

Therefore, the more spiritually-orientated forms of strategic evil will ensure that "the truth" gets-out, somehow, somewhere...

Such that some kind of "evidence" for genocide having-happened or ongoing, will "leak", or be discovered by some investigator - and this evidence will be (less- or more-widely) enabled to spread. 

2. Excuses

The second line of defence - when people discover, and are at least somewhat convinced by - evidence of "our side" committing some evil such as genocide, is to excuse it. 

To say "Yes, this is evil; but it is necessary".

For instance to acknowledge that "we" are doing evil - even genocidal evil - but that this is necessary for some larger, more vital, and positively moral purpose. 

Perhaps that "we" have been compelled to do it by circumstances (out of our control) - perhaps it needs to be done in retaliation for greater evils (perhaps of the same kind) done to us by them? 

The idea is tha tevil can - and should - but used against evil: the Boromir Strategy.

But - whatever the excuse and how it is done - this excusing of evil is a step on the road to spiritual corruption and distortion of values. 

3. Value-inversion

The "end-stage" of value-inversion - when that which was regarded as the greatest evil, is now instead understood to be "a good thing"; has been reached in at least two instances known to me recently.  

This has been evident from government officials and the mass media "bragging" about genocidal activities and intent, and positive reporting of strategies to continue and extend this. 

As another common example; filmed evidence of the doing of sadistic atrocities has been disseminated by the people who did them. 

And the loop of evil is closed by a positive public reaction to such communications. 

In other words, what was a negative value - indeed for many people The Most negative value - has been inverted into a positively approved and morally-admirable action.  

So, the idea that overcoming apparent suppression and censorship by revealing "evidence and "facts" - actually achieves the extremity of moral corruption in those (apparently many people, often a significant majority) for whom partisan loyalty to a cause, ideology, or religion - is more powerful than their understanding, discernment and basis for choosing between good and evil.   

This applies across the broad range of moral issues - from war and war crimes; to social categories of sex, race, religion; to particular behaviours of particular people in such areas of sex, violence, theft, fraud, bribery, nepotism - or whatever. 

Our society in The West is already so deeply corrupted, so completely un-moored from any strong basis in values; that revelations of evil and wrong-doing are usually, in practice, spiritually counter-productive. 

Doctor Who: from wizard to superhero

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The early Doctor Who (canonical incarnations one to seven - from William Hartnell to Sylvester McCoy) was a wizard - but the revived Doctor Who is a superhero.

This shows itself in many way, but mostly in relation to sex: a wizard is celibate and asexual - the revived Doctor is sexually-interested and sometimes has girlfriends - even a wife.

*

Obviously a wizard cannot be married!

Think of the great wizards: Merlin, Gandalf, Dumbledore, Getafix...is it imaginable that any had a wife?

Equally, they cannot have a girlfriend nor indeed any kind of sexual infatuation; and if they do, then they will be punished and lose their powers - if they do not repent.

Think Merlin and Nimue - which got him imprisoned in an oak tree/ crystal cave; think Dumbledore and Grindlewald - which led to the death of his sister but then repentance.

*

The new Doctor Who is all about smutty innuendos, snogging, declarations of undying love to (serial) companions, besotted companions, and so on - that is the stuff of superheroes.

The sex prohibition for wizards is absolutely non-negotiable, because we are dealing with an archetype: a basic, universal, fixed, symbolic figure.

However, in making the Doctor a sexual being, he has changed archetype: the revived Doctor Who is now a warrior, not a wizard - because the superhero is a version of the warrior archetype.

Warriors are, of course, exactly the kind of people to have a string of (ahem) 'girlfriends' and to become the objects of sexual infatuation like the revived Doctor.

*

So with the revived Doctor Who we have gone from Merlin to Lancelot, from Gandalf to Boromir, from Dumbledore to Sirius Black, and from Getafix to Asterix (sort of...).

A poor exchange, in my opinion.

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If a strategy or policy is net-evil - like AI - then we should not be distracted by its partial (and personal) advantages

The world has been corrupted, over the past several/ many generations , by embracing policies, strategies, technologies, social arrangements that are decisively and predictably net-evil over the long term; because they offer upfront personal and specific advantages - or even just conveniences and fashionability.

Examples would include pretty much everything that has happened over the past few decades, from the internet to so-called AI. 

The bureaucratic and ideological changes that (in my experience) demolished science, education and medicine are all of this kind - but the generalization applies to global (especially Western) culture as a whole. 

I am not arguing this from a traditionalist perspective - that it would have been better for things not have have changed; because I know that people have changed and therefore culture and society will change. 

I am saying instead that the actual changes have made things worse and worse - until now we are so degraded (including in our own estimation) that there seems no basis for resisting anything. 

The reason that we invariably choose the wrong changes, the ones that destroy and demoralize, is that we have abandoned "religion" - and without religion our motivations are pathological and perverse. 

(The "morality" of mainstream young people is a prime instance: they almost invariably are "passionate" about one or several of the evil-motivated Litmus Test issues - climate "emergencies", some remote and never experienced foreign people, something about sex or sexuality, something about abstractions like inclusion and equity - or whatever crisis or scandal is fed them by the media.  

Such concerns are not just stupid and futile- but actively harmful overall and by strategic design. 

The only substitute is religion (and serious religions converge upon Romantic Christianity). 

This need for religion is not simple, because for known history religion has meant churches, and (because of the underlying changes in Men) the churches do not suffice and cannot be made to suffice - they are part of the problem in what they actually do, and the ways of thinking they encourage. 

This, in turn, means that there cannot be organized resistance to wrong changes, which means that resistance at the material level will be feeble. 

We must therefore do what we ought to do anyway, which is aim at spiritual reform of the world by spiritual reform in our-selves; which must be (by default, as well as because desirable) an individual activity. 

My observation is that hardly anybody puts any effort into this at all - certainly not compared with the vast effort they put into other (and net/ long-term destructive attitudes and activities. 

Neither can I see any way of persuading people to do this. Good cannot be done to those who do not desire Good. 

The best motivation is faith in the power of genuine spiritual endeavour, on the basis that God (who is creator) can (in mostly unknowable ways) amplify whatever individuals can do. Our job is simply to do what we can do. 

NOTE ADDED: I think this strategy of individual spiritual endeavour is an example of Gandalf's strategy in The Lord of the Rings, of sending Hobbits into Mordor to destroy the One Ring - as contrasted with the more short-term-expedient Boromir Strategy that cannot possibly succeed.  

To "Make the world a better place"?

You didn't want to make things perfect. You just hated things the way they are.

Rocket the Raccoon - from the 2023 movie Guardians of the Galaxy 3. 

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I grew-up (didn't we all?) with the idea that the best kind of people wanted and worked "to make the world a better place".

This ideal has knocked around in the west for more than two centuries, and by-now is almost mainstream: a platitude of innumerable uplifting speeches in politics, the mass media, education, law, medicine, science, the military and the police - as well as churches...

Yet, see where this ideal has led us? 

It turns out that abstractions such as The World and "better" are - in practice - subject to colossal disagreement of definition, and are capable of infinite distortion. The worst, most evil, most destructive people are exactly those who most use the rhetoric of making The World a Better Place. 

Modern Men can certainly make The World a Worse place, but I see not a shred of evidence that it (whatever 'it' is) can be bettered by such ideals. 

Such is reality: methods that work well for evil cannot be used to attain Good: the side of God and of Good cannot use the One Ring to fight Sauron, because then they would become as bad as Sauron. 

If the side of Good takes up the ideal of making the world a better place - as happened in all the major Christian churches of The West - then it is adopting exactly this Boromir Strategy - which can only end by making the world a worse place. 

So, real Christians cannot allow themselves to desire to "make the world a better place". And Christians should eschew such rhetoric. 

Indeed, what "the world" and "better" ought to mean, is precisely the major point at issue between God and Satan. 

The world is a calculatedly evil loaded-abstraction, and better is a weasel word.

If asked: "Don't you want to make the world a better place?" The proper response is No! Not what you mean by the world and not what you mean by better. 

I want, instead, to live in accordance with God's purposes and methods. Which are (very briefly) To love God (first) and my "neighbour"- i.e. actual individual persons; and to follow Jesus Christ. 

What happens to "the world" in some vast and overall sense, and the evaluation of what is best for it; is not my business, nor am I capable of bettering such vague abstractions: 

"The world" is God's concern.  

I may resist those who are trying to destroy The World - i.e. God's creation; but not by having my own alternative ideals of making a "better" world. 

The absurd Secular Right delusion that the reason for the triumph of the Left was a strategic blueprint for the "long march through the institutions"

Following on from my earlier post; I'd like to add a comment on the absurdity of that oft-repeated claim or insinuation that the (undoubted) triumph of the New Left in the West; was planned and driven by some kind of blueprint for a "long march through the institutions" - a scheme devised by intellectual theoreticians such as Gramsci, Marcuse and their disciples. 

This is nonsense of a kind that this only possible to those with an inverted understanding of the world. 

I mean the kind of people who believe that "the history of ideas" is something caused by top-down influences from the words of philosophers - for instance that the subjective-objective split in modern minds derives from the publications of Descartes; or that the pronouncements of Professor Kant in Konigsberg led to the common belief that reality cannot be known directly and therefore "everything is relative/ a-matter-of-opinion".

The kind of people who see the Left as a Christian heresy, as caused-by Christianity! Rather than the truth that the rise of Leftism reciprocally mirrored the decline in Christian faith; and that the triumph of Leftism was completed only after Western apostasy from Christianity, and the establishment of fully secular social institutions and discourses. 

The non-religious opponents of mainstream New Leftism, or the Secular Right, are very keen on attributing the triumph of the Left to theories and plans; because radical Right theorists intend, or at least hope, to use the same kind of strategy to impose their own ideas. 

That is, the Secular Right believe that if only they could come-up with the correct theoretical strategy, disseminate it sufficiently widely, and then get it implemented - they will be able to influence the West in the direction that they desire. 

In other words - and this is often stated explicitly - the intent among at least the more radical members of the Secualr Right is to to use what they suppose to be the methods of the Left, but to redirect them to supposedly "Right Wings" objectives: Leftist means to Rightist ends. 

Aside from the fact that this is an instance of the Boromir Strategy - or Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron! - and therefore will inevitably have the actual effect of promoting the Left; this theoretical, top-down, Rightism is based on false understandings of the reasons for the triumph of the Left. 

This false understanding of the Left derives, ultimately, from the fact that the Secular Right actually is itself of-the-Left in that it is based in materialist non-religious assumptions, and rooted in values that are psychological - in some version of a utilitarian and hedonic calculus of gratification and suffering. 

The only true opposition to the Left is religion; and the only true religion of salvation is by following Jesus Christ. 

But this is a religion "not of this world" in its essence... 

Therefore; socio-political theories rooted in denial of a personal creator God, materialism, and exclusion of the spiritual from life, can only do net-harm.  

Living a Lie: is Your bottom-line reality a social institution?

The way things have been shaping over the past years; I think that the biggest spiritual challenge is related to social institutions; specifically the question of whether or not people (including you and I, as individuals) are going to root our fundamental understanding and support of reality in a social institution?

It has in the past been normal, usual, spontaneous, unconscious - sometimes even mandatory - for people to root their sense of reality in a social institution, such as a church, or perhaps a tribe, or in recent generations a nation. 

The challenge of being an increasingly self-aware Being in an increasingly-obviously evil totalitarian society; is that we are now becoming aware of what this entails - it is no longer spontaneous and unconscious - instead people make a deliberate choice of the social- institution/s in which they will "invest" their sense of reality.   

This immediately introduces a paradox, a contradiction - we choose where we invest "objective reality" - and this choosing of external objectivity is only psychologically effective when this choice can subsequently be hidden from our-selves. 

Hence we find ourselves in a world where almost everybody is dishonest with themselves concerning their most fundamental choices: most people make ultimate choices about the nature of reality, and the authority for that nature... then they pretend to/ deny/ forget that have made these choices. 

People continue to invest their ultimate reality in social institutions, continue to insist that this is where ultimate reality is indeed located - yet this assertion is based on falsehood; and when challenged this falsehood is absolutely insisted-upon in a way that inevitably corrupts an inaccuracy to a lie. 

So "people", that is almost-everybody, is literally Living a Lie - a calculated untruthfulness; when it comes to what they regard as deepest and most important...

And this corruption in action comes through to consciousness more and more obviously, with more and more people, as the months roll by.  

Note added: What lies behind the above; is my continued dismay at the "falling-away" from spiritual commitment to divine creation (and then doubling-down on fallenness) of more and more of the online people whose work I peruse. 

This, because these people stubbornly adhere to the primacy of some social institution - whether that be their (chosen) church; or their (chosen) spirituality, ideology, political affiliation or whatever it might be. 

In particular; I am dismayed that (and this is my interpretation) they find-themselves (although this is denied) supporting the functionality of The System - which is (I believe) intrinsically evil - on the (correct) basis their chosen bottom-line social institution depends on the functional continuation of The System. 

And because these folk are (naturally) afraid of the waxing influence of the Agents of Chaos - which they seem to suppose they can do something personally to stop and reverse, whether locally or globally. 

In other words; they are becoming more and more active spiritual supporters and sustainers of the materialist strategy of Ahriman, because of their fear of - and (pragmatic) desire materially to oppose the ever more destructive Sorathic powers. 

This lapsing into the Boromir Strategy was something I predicted would happen several years ago - and I am sorry that I was so right about it.