No such thing as Neutrality: Either everything is political (for the Left); or else everything is spiritual (for Christians)

Sensible and decent people have spent the last five or six decades complaining that the Left makes everything political; and have thereby mostly-destroyed marriage, family, science, education, law, churches... whatever... everything... 

But indeed this process of politicization stretches back several centuries, and can be seen in the French Revolution; and later abolitionist, socialist, communist, nationalist and other secular Left movements. 

That every-thing is primarily political, is termed 'ideology' - and ideology is intrinsically totalitarian and evil. Because ideology assumes primarily and fundamentally a this-worldly and utilitarian perceptive, which is itself intrinsically anti-moral; and also because it assumes an anti-Good and inverted value-system (now in place and increasing all over the world). 

Leftist political ideology is thus oppositional-to - and has by now substantially displaced - Christian faith. 

It is this oppositional nature that leads to value-inversion: to the current mainstream and coercive assertion of lies, ugliness, sin and chaos; the hatred against that which is Good. 

But for the Christian (by aspiration and hope) everything is spiritual - not political; and the ultimate Christian perspective is beyond and after 'this world' - in Heaven; and relates to eternal spiritual dispositions and situations; rather than to temporal pleasures and pains. 

During recent decades, as a consequence both of materialistic assumptions permeating more and more of life, and in response to the ratcheting pressures of the Left and fear of 'fundamentalist' religiosity; resistance to totalitarian convergence has often asserted the importance of Neutrality.

Neutrality would entail the separation and autonomy of functional social systems from the prevalent politicization. For examples, that science, literature, law, education, the media should Not be explicitly Leftist - and should Not be subject to any other ideology or faith. This neutrality was approximated during the middle of the twentieth century in The West. 

Another aspect of this Neutrality aspiration is Free Speech - which seems to have begun as as a demand from functional specialists (including the arts and sciences, especially) to be independent of church constraints in their professional (as well as personal) lives, but later was expanded to meet the escalating attacks from the Left. 

The demand for Neutral areas and subjects therefore has its roots in an earlier phase of the materialist, leftist, ideological takeover; which is probably why it has been so utterly ineffective at resisting the movement further left - towards a single global, totalitarian ideology. 

More than this, Neutrality is itself an undesirable ideal for a Christian; since it is rooted in the idea that only some aspects of life are Christian - while others are outside of Christianity; only some aspects of life are spiritually important - while other aspects are unspiritual. 

Any plausibility in such assertions derives from the false idea that 'facts' are independent of metaphysical assumptions. The idea that there can and should be agreed facts - and agreed concepts by-which facts are interpreted - that are outside of our fundamental (metaphysical) assumptions regarding the nature of reality. 

But Neutrality is untrue philosophically - since it is metaphysical assumptions that enable us to know what is a fact and what counts as an explanation. 

In any public argument between Leftism and Neutrality; the Leftists always win! Why? 

First; because their basic understanding is correct: the basic framing understanding that there is no such thing as Neutrality. That every-thing depends on the overall and fundamental 'ideology'...

Except that 'Leftist ideology' is not a positive and substantive description of metaphysical reality - but itself merely a demonic inversion of Christian spirituality. 

Thus Leftist ideology 'encompasses everything' in the same kind of way that Christian spirituality does (or should do) - because we live in a reality created by God. 

But Leftist ideology is rooted in the choice of chaos instead of creation; and chaos has no meaning, purpose or explanatory power. 

Secondly; Neutrality is also untrue 'empirically' in that if you have (as I have, many times!) tried to argue with an ideological Leftist from a position of Neutrality; you will rapidly discover that there is no agreement as to what are he relevant facts and appropriate concepts. 

Furthermore, in such actual arguments; all facts and concepts are subordinated to Leftist values and morals - such that even personal observations and logic which seem to conflict with the ideology are described in terms of being merely 'symptoms' of anti-Leftist motivations. 

Trying to argue from a Neutral perspective against a Leftist, it is therefore empirically apparent that there is no non-ideological ground from which the Neutral argument can be made. The Leftist ideologue can expand his assumptions - instantly, easily - to encompass whatever grounds are offered by the Neutral proponent. 

The Leftist will thereby 'prove' that Neutrality is Not Truly Neutral - but itself depends on multiple value-assumptions; and thereby defeat the Neutrality arguments.  

Overall, it now seems clear that the era of Neutrality was merely a transitional phase between Christian Church religiosity and Leftist ideology. Of itself Neutrality (including 'free speech') has no metaphysical coherence. 

Therefore our proper choice excludes Neutrality; and lies between explaining everything (everything) in terms of the purpose and meanings of divine creation; or 'explaining' everything by destroying (i.e. fake-explaining, non-explaining, destroying the possibility of explanation) all that is of God, is Good, and naturally-created... by means of Leftist ideology. 

It is the choice between two 'projects' - the divine and the demonic. 

It is the taking of one side or another: God or Satan. 

How to make this discernment in relation to any particular 'thing' in modern life (of which there are zillions) used to be so difficult that it was convenient to pretend some things were Neutral. 

But not any more. The global triumph of the side of Satan, evil, chaos - has meant that more-and-more of the things they approve of - the things that will advance Their agenda - are being grouped-together ideologically. 

Leftist ideology is now a Package - what is 'in' and what is out-with that Package is being made very clear to everyone on the planet when it comes to what They regard as vitally important to Their agenda. 

Our discernment is therefore easy! We know the Package, and what is in it; because that is made crystal clear, approved, propagandized and coerced - thoroughly and globally; officially, by mass media, in education, science, law etc. 

Our personal choice is Very Simply to accept or reject the Package; and the only place that the Package can coherently be rejected from is, apparently, Christian spirituality. 

When They make some thing a part of the ideological Package, and say that it is Good; we know that it is part of the package of chaos, and that it is evil. 

How that specific Thing fits into the divine creative agenda may not be clear - indeed, it may Not fit into the divine agenda! But we can easily know to reject it, even when we can't explain in detail why*; simply because it is a core part of the ideological Package of totalitarian Leftism.  

*Note there will be explanations why Package contents - either individually or together - are indeed advancing the evil agenda; but (at any given point in time and space) we personally may not know these reasons, perhaps due to lack of relevant information or capability to understand it. Nonetheless, we do not need to know these reasons in order to recognize and reject what comes as a core part of the ideological Package emanating from the powers of evil. God is the creator and our loving Father, and will always make it possible for us to discern evil when this threatens our salvation or theosis. But we can ignore such obvious grounds for discernment; we can refuse God's help - that is our choice. Each Man's choice - and no others.  

The delusion of being non-PC (and other ramblings)

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Perhaps the biggest group of examples of people thinking that they are not politically correct when they actually are) is when they argue in favour of impartiality/ neutrality of procedures.

I will call such a person 'would-be anti-PC' - they want to be anti-PC but are trapped into supporting politcal correctness by the unavoidably-PC nature of modern discourse.

The would-be anti-PC are, in fact, trapped into supporting PC by their desire to 'make a difference', by their desire to engage with the modern socio-political-managerial discourse, by their wish to appeal as widely as possible and to build a 'movement'.  

High level (roughly 'managerial') modern discourse only permits variants of PC arguments, such that people who wish to oppose PC either have no effect, or lose their positions, or actually strengthen PC.


*

For example, if someone opposes 'diversity'/ 'affirmative action'/ group preferences for college admissions then it seems almost inevitable that his argument be made in terms of wanting (for instance) a 'sex blind' system.

And in a sense that is almost-exactly what he does want, the would-be anti-PC wants sex not to be an important feature in college admissions, wants other factors (educational, cultural, moral etc) to predominate.

So a person who opposes mantras such as 'we ought to appoint a woman', and opposes the cyclical celebrations of appointments being made to 'a woman' will argue (usually, indeed almost invariably) that it 'shouldn't matter' about the sex of the appointee.

But this is a mistake at multiple levels. 

*

In the first place, as we should (by now) know from experience, arguments for neutrality are utterly ineffective against PC.

They are, however, acceptable within PC.

Arguments in favour of procedural neutrality are acceptable precisely because they are utterly ineffective!

*

(If such neutral arguments happen to become effective at some point - for example in Ward Connerly's anti-AA initiatives - then the neutrality argument become demonized by PC precisely as if it was not neutral but was advocating the opposite of PC-approved affirmative action. Since PC intervenes to reverse the natural and spontaneous effect of neutral systems, and judges by outcomes not processes, then for PC you must  discriminate; and the only substantive debate is who are the favoured groups.)


 *

Yet the sex of the appointee does matter, that is the whole reason for the debate in the first place.

For proponents of procedural neutrality to say that it 'shouldn't' matter is already to be creating an abstract ideal world of pure impersonal functionality - a world in which the 'efficiency' of systems (efficiency being inevitably measured on the basis of a selected criteria over a limited time frame, and with no reason to assume the measure is generalizable to other variable and other time frames)... in which efficiency of systems is intrinsically more important than the people in the systems and the people who are affected by the systems.

Procedural neutrality therefore contradicts spontaneous common sense just as PC contradicts common sense ; and in this specific domain PC is in fact closer to common sense (in its assumption that men and women are different and need different treatment) than is procedural neutrality, which is presumably why PC wins most of these debates.

*

(Another example: Common sense says that bad people are more likely to do bad things than good people, so the law should take character into account in determining guilt. But specialized procedural modernity has it that guilt must be established by objective facts that take no account of personality.

(At the end of this process of abstraction, schoolteachers find that they are unable to take account of character in determining guilt: a well behaved and habitually truthful child accuses a badly behaved and dishonest child of theft; the bad child denies theft; lacking objective evidence (the stolen money has been spent) the situation is framed as 'one person's word against another' and the bad child goes undetected and unpunished.)

(Multiply this situation by ten million and you have modern justice. )

(The situation arises because the PC advocate realizes that the good child might for once, be lying. And that, since humans are sinful and corruptible, the good child might for once be dishonest. Worse, the good child has an incentive to be dishonest. And that any system which believes good people and disbelieves bad people is an oligarchy of the good over the bad (yet nobody is wholly good, nor wholly bad); and the good will also tend to become corrupted and (in principle) good may become bad and bad good.)

(All of these criticisms are true - but all of these are taken to be reasons why abstract systems are preferable to common sense - which is merely an assumption unless you believe that it is possible for an abstract system to be free of human sinfulness; and that humans would know when this was the case; and would adopt, implement and sustain the sin-free abstract system. To believe this is pure unfounded assumption with zero evidence in favour and vast shoals of evidence against. However all of these things are indeed believed by PC, which is why PC is psychotic - in the sense of being based on absurd premises.)

*

We cannot pretend that a system of men and a system of women is or should be seen as 'the same' - except in a very narrow, selective, partial and biased sense of 'the same' which begs all the important questions.

In effect, to say that men and women are 'the same' (or the same in practice) is to make an assumption - not to report an empirical situation.

Modern systems have not discovered that men and women are the same - they have assumed it.

Empirical evidence, as usual, cannot settle the question (although almost all evidence shows differences between groups of men and women - this is never enough, and can always be reinterpreted to favour either side).

Neutrality about important matters (such as whether a position is held by a man or a woman) is in the first place impossible, and in the second place actually undesirable as a goal even if it were not impossible - although the problems of neutrality typically do not emerge quickly.

*

(Indeed, and this is Charlton's Law - really just a generalization, rather than a law - i.e. that all actually-enacted policies that are harmful overall in the long term, are specifically advantageous in the short term - which is why they get adopted. And since specific advantage is easier to define and measure, the fact of overall harmfulness is not effective at getting the policy removed or reversed. E.g. a policy which benefits a specific interest group - e.g. subsidies to mohair farmers - can survive for generations despite causing overall harm.)

*

My contention is that the West took a wrong turn about these matters around AD 1000 (the Great Schism) when the Roman Catholic church (gradually) broke away from the Eastern Orthodox - and like most mistakes it was initially richly rewarded (otherwise the mistake would not be made) - by tremendous 'progress' in philosophy and scholarship (especially Thomas Aquinas), then in science, and later in the economy.

The mistake was built-in specialization; progressive specialization of all functions, with no end or limit.

And the Great Schism built-into the thought systems of the West a fatal error, of which PC is a remote and indirect consequence.

*

By secularizing knowledge, by creating The University - autonomous philosophy (instead of having learning focused in monasteries) the West eventually made political correctness - which is now everywhere and inescapable in the West.

(My contention is that PC is not a sideshow, but the main feature in the West.)

And PC is the West's Nemesis, because the West cannot decisively overturn PC without overturning that which made it The West.

The West cannot overcome PC without ceasing to be The West. 

Yet, if this overturning of PC does not happen, then the West will itself be overturned.

*

This is not a paradox: it is an outline of possible futures.

And the delusion of being non-PC is widespread ultimately because to be anti-PC is to be anti-West (in tendency, albeit not in intention).

Yet at the same time, to be pro-PC is (obviously) to be anti-West (sometimes in intention, but always in tendency).

But then The West never was sustainable, it was a blip (albeit a thousand year 'blip'!).

And as soon as The West began to implement its assumptions towards completion (which is political correctness), just so soon The West began actively (as well as passively) to destroy itself.

*


NOTE: The apparent exception is those who advocate orthodox Roman Catholicism as a theocratic principle. By the exception is only apparent, in my opinion.

My critique is that RC is semi-modern, hence has never been able to hold the line against ever more progressive functional specialization.

Aquinas created the 'perfect' philosophy - but it was almost immediately swept-away (by Scotus, Occam etc) - since when philosophical change has been almost continuous, generation upon generation, and attempts to hold the line with Thomism have never succeeded - never remotiely succeeded.

Since the philosophical base of RC has continually been changing, RC has continually been changing - modernizing: become ever more functionally specialized. 

This is because RC includes decisive features of modernity: independence of philosophy from theology, universities from monasteries, the Pope from tradition - in a nutshell, ideology from holiness...

And once modernity (progressive specialization) has been built into a system, it is cannot stop itself - and it cannot stop itself because continual specialization creates continual autonomy, so there is no way of one part of the system stopping another.

You just get more and more specialization until the whole social system falls apart into dysfunctionally small fragments; and all the King's Horses and all the King's men cannot put Humpty together again.

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The impossibility of neutrality

Supposing that it really is impossible that a society can be neutral with respect to anything important - that it must either tend to support or suppress it - then this explains why things can move so swiftly from being forbidden to being compulsory.

If neutrality really is impossible, then to argue that something should not be subject to stigma is - in the long run - precisely equivalent to saying that it is desirable.

If neutrality really is impossible, to argue that 'x' is not evil, is the same as arguing that 'x' is good.

If neutrality really is impossible, then to argue that people should no longer be punished or suffer for doing 'y' is de facto to argue that they should be rewarded and feel good about doing 'y'.

If neutrality really is impossible, then when society ceases to persecute a group, it will always begin to privilege that group.

*

Of course, one might argue that it is not necessarily true that neutrality is impossible; one might argue that theoretically it is possible and desirable that society might maintain an attitude of impartiality with respect to important matters.

But looking back over the past fifty years, what does it look like to you?

To me it seems blazingly obvious that when society ceases to sanction a thing it always, always, always starts to honour that thing.

Nativism, alienism and neutrality

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Mencius Moldbug has some very interesting stuff in his latest blog posting

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/

(although, as usual, it takes a long while to get up to speed).

I was struck by the division of democratic politics into nativism - favouring natives; versus alienism - favouring aliens.

I presume that this is at some level an inevitable choice - although the choice is likely to be particularly stark, simplistic and extreme for democracies (given the crudity of the democratic cognitive process).

This reminded me of a point I made earlier, about the impossibility of neutrality:

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-ideal-of-neutrality-impartiality.html

Suppose that neutrality really is in practice impossible - just suppose that for a minute...

I am very reluctant to admit this, I still find myself habitually defending the ideal of neutrality; but just suppose it really is always a choice between favouring one option or the other (naturally there will be degrees of favouring - but suppose that favouring really is inevitable).

Indeed, this is hard to take in, hard to acknowledge, the resistance is strong...

That really would be a blow at the very core of rationalism, of modernity; of philosophy - even.

It would be to admit that we have been deluded for centuries, that we have been barking up entirely the wrong tree, that we have been rendering our civilization helpless in the face of its opponents - worse, making our civilization abet its own downfall.

Just this simple error - to suppose neutrality, impartiality of process, really was a possibility - hence really was desirable - instead of the fact (as it seems) that always we must make a choice.

Maybe it was this flaw which led to democracy, to voting, to committees, to bureaucracy; which led to our self-immolation?

Amazing thought...

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How the ideal of neutrality/ impartiality actually serves a radical agenda

Neutrality is a lynch pin of elite political thought. Much of modern quasi-scientific social research is dedicated to demonstrating that some modern social system (law, education, the military) is not behaving neutrally. All that is required of such research is to show that people of different sex, ethnicity or whatever are treated differently, and points are scored, the system is discredited and demonstrated as being ripe for radical reform.

(Actually, it is worse than this, because any research which fails to find differences between sexes or whatever is suppressed or ignored - while even clearly erroneous or made-up research showing differences – e.g. radically-motivated research which is actually based on pre-selected anecdotes or fails to control for major confounders like age may be given tremendous publicity.)

However, if it is impossible for an individual, an organization or a culture to be neutral - then this debate takes on a different complexion altogether; because if impartiality is unattainable, then the debate would not *really* be about failure to attain the ideal of neutrality, but *actually* a debate over *who* should be favoured.

The ideal of impartiality in social systems probably derived from the ideal of Roman law, in which (as I understand it) the same system is applied to everyone - everyone goes through the same basic process.

The same idea applies to bureaucracies, as described by Max Weber, in which administrators are required to devise and apply procedures impartially, treating sufficiently-similar cases as operationally-identical.

But in the real world there are major differences in the application of the law and the application of bureaucratic procedures - differences such as: who gets investigated, who gets prosecuted, the type of sentence they receive, who has regulations enforced on them - and so on.

***

One classic political scenario nowadays involves someone (a radical) attacking a procedural system (such as the legal process, employment practice or educational evaluations) as being biased, while another person (a libertarian or conservative) defends the system as being impartial-enough for the purposes.

The radical pretends to argue that impartiality is attainable but requires change, while actually seeking privileges for a particular group. The libertarian/ conservative always gives ground in the direction the radical is pushing, because any actually existing system is indeed partial – if you look hard enough.

Hence the evaluation system is overturned. That group which used to be privileged is now suppressed, and vice versa. This can most clearly be seen in employment policy relating to gender.

A reactionary perspective, by contrast, would accept the radical’s assertion that one group or another must in reality be privileged, and would challenge the radical on the grounds of which group ought to be privileged. The focus of debate changes.

For example, if it is accepted that neutrality is impossible, then employment policy must favour either men or women – the proper question then becomes which is it best for employment policy to favour?

For example, the organization of the military or care for young children will inevitably favour either men or women – the proper question to ask is: which is the most functionally-appropriate favoured group in each specific case? (Clue: the answer is different for each of these two examples…)

***

One big advantage of acknowledging the inevitability of partiality is that this is what most people believe anyway and always have believed – in fact it is only a minority of the intellectual elite (libertarians and conservatives) who really believe in impartiality as a desirable and attainable goal of social systems.

But radicals, socialists, liberals and corrupt politicians are simply exploiting the failure to attain impartiality as a justification for imposing a revolutionary inversion of values.

Hence a belief in the ideal of neutrality unwittingly serves a radical and nihilistically-destructive agenda, since it actually leads to partiality in the opposite direction from that which is socially functional.

All in The West must take the side of evil (Nobody is allowed to be neutral - not even a bit)

True neutrality with respect to any question concerning values is not a possibility, and never has been; yet degrees of 'official' neutrality used to be conceded, and commonplace - as pragmatic realities in public life. 

While every person and nation will almost-inevitably take sides over any particular question - at least overall, and to some degree - it used to be allowed that people and nations could stand-apart from conflicts, and remain un-declared. 

Even during the massive conflict of World War II, there were several neutral counties in the heart of the conflict (Switzerland) or on its border (Spain, Sweden). 

And, as recently as a couple of decades ago; it used to be quite normal for people or nations to opt-out of taking sides on questions of value in public life. 

This is no longer allowed in The West; because the powers on the side of evil are now dominant, their evil is more advanced; and They have forbidden neutrality. 

Each and every person (with no allowed exceptions) must now - publicly and with a display of enthusiasm - actively participate in celebration and promotion of Litmus Test issues relating to sex, sexuality, antiracism and so forth. 

All must take the side of evil (called good, in the official system of Western inverted-values) - or be attacked as an enemy. 

Anyone - any single individual - who opts-out and tries to be neutral in any of the Litmus Test issues; may be punished by the full force of global media and public opinion mobilized against them; exclusion from work, removal of financial services, demonization of status - and many other possible punishments (officially imposed, and unoffically allowed and encouraged), without limit to severity or duration.  

We are seeing the same phenomenon in relation to the Fire Nation* war. No Western nation has been allowed to remain neutral on this issue - even Switzerland and Sweden have been compelled to abandon long term principles of neutrality. 

Furthermore, active participation in the war is also being compelled - until recently by participation in war-sanctions. And currently by mandatory military participation through sending weapons to the battlefront. 

And this military participation must be done publicly, proudly; and backed with explicit aggressive statements. 

Presumably the next step will be sending military personnel from all nations - with no opt-out allowed. 

This is not about military effectiveness - because from such a perspective it makes no sense. It is about ideological - hence spiritual - allegiance. 

Western nations are being compelled into active support for an open-ended campaign aimed at existential annihilation of the Fire Nation; either its destruction, fragmentation, or vassalage. 

Nations are being forced (by their puppet-'leaders') into making themselves existential enemies - not only of the FN, but of an alliance that (increasing month by month) includes the two most populous nations in the world, and indeed most of the world's population and land mass. 

Those who do not paint a target on their own backs by choice (like the UK did thanks to its cravenly-servile US-obedient leadership); will have it done for them, at the point of a sword.

In other words; the ideology of annihilation of the Fire Nation serves as yet-another factor in the suicidal self-destruction of The West - and all its (compelled-) allies, such as the North East Asian vassal-states of the USA, who are now actively and rapidly being prepared to operate as agents of their own destruction. 

In sum, underneath the cover of fake Geopolitical reasoning and led by the dominant Western power; the whole world is being set-up for an all-inclusive world war - the first ever - which will be sustained for as long as possible, and with as much all-round destruction as possible. 

Such a war will (if it happens) serve the dual purpose of lethally damaging Western civilization, and doing something similar to all those who - in any way - dissent from the Western-leftist-atheist-materialist ideology of the globalists. 

 

For a Christian; the vital matter is to recognize and remember that this is primarily 'just' the latest and biggest material manifestation of the long-established spiritual war; and that we need to discern and understand what is really going-on in terms of ultimate spiritual values. 

Not, therefore, to become distracted by merely proximate, materialist explanations of the war in terms of Geopolitics, economics, or even of ideology. 

These are merely means to an end; because evil is about damnation, that is about spiritual and eternal death - therefore not only, nor mostly, about physical death.

Note: Anyone confused by any of the terminology I use, here or elsewhere, should do a word-search on this blog (i.e. using the Search box on the upper left extreme corner).  

Peace-ifism - Establishment-weaponized pacifism

Leftism (conceived as a long-term Satanic plan directed against God, divine creation and The Good; and aiming at - pretty much - exactly where the world is now) was originally defined by its opposition to Christianity.

More subtly it was framed as anti-'clericalism' directed at the 'abuses' (real or imputed) of whatever specific church was dominant in some place. 

But when Leftism began to become more strategic; and began its highly successful efforts to infiltrate, subvert, invert and (now) substantially co-opt Christianity - it started to advocate (apparently) Christian-compatible 'single-issue' doctrines such as the abolition of slavery and pacifism. 

Both apparently emanated from Nonconformist Protestants in Britain, especially the Quakers - who included many wealthy and successful businessmen (and who were, moreover, probably the best employers of their day - i.e. providing the best remuneration, housing and conditions for their workers). 

Leaving aside abolition; pacifism has remained a constant and strongly supported ideology ever since - and it re-emerges whenever there are a significant section of The Establishment who oppose a particular war; or as now when the entire Establishment takes one side in a war. 

But since The Establishment certainly are Not pacifists (are, indeed, exactly the opposite!) - pacifism takes the more subtle form of 'Peace-ifism'; with concerted demands for 'peace' from the right hand - accompanied by left-hand actions that directly aim to maximize innocent civilian casualties. 

In practice, peace-ifism is always one-sided. 

It means that the side disapproved-of should give-up, surrender, retreat - and face whatever punishment The Establishment choose to inflict upon them.

(And especially their leaders; who can expect to be scapegoated and punished severely up to and including execution - whether judicially or by mob.)

Peace-ifism is not, therefore, about peace!

Under the New Leftism of perpetual revolution - peace is not on-offer from our Global Establishment; but instead perpetual-revolution.

From the Establishment we get multiple sources of violence as excuses for ever more repression, monitoring and control; all being positively-propagandized, organized, funded, encouraged and legally-allowed.

Anti-peaceful riots and lootings, destruction, violence - operating with impunity under whatever Leftist banner is currently being deployed: birdemic-peck, antiracism, climate emergency, compulsory mass immigration/ refugee crisis... Whatever.     

Thus, peace-ifism shares the soft-and-cuddly, wouldn't-harm-a-fly vibe, feel-good/ virtue-signaling attributes of pacifism; yet is in practice (and by intent) also integral-to and accompanied-by (deniable but deliberate) encouragement of severe physical punishment, violence and killing. 

In other words; peace-ifism is just-another morally-corrupting manipulation of the masses by The Establishment. 

And when all The Establishment institutions (which includes the major Western Christian churches) are united in propagating peace-ifism; and when this evil manipulation (with its obviously evil provenance!) is blotted-up and regurgitated by our docile, cowardly, unthinking and uncritical masses - as currently... 

Well, it makes for a profoundly unedifying spectacle! 

Note added: 

Another way of conceptualizing peace-ifism is that it is net-evil - evil overall - because it is intrinsically dishonest, deceptive and manipulative.

Peace-ifism pretends to neutrality ("all we want is peace!) yet always and necessarily it takes one of the sides - and yet denies the fact. 

There is no neutrality in peace-ifism: firstly because there is no such thing as neutrality; and secondly because when you analyze any specific case you will find this to be so. 

I have recently been studying the American Civil War; which was a horrible and destructive business - and if ever there was a candidate for peace-ifism, surely this was one of the strongest? 

Yet there was no neutral way of imposing peace - one side or the other was bound to be the loser. If we assume that the South wanted to retain its agrarian life based on slavery; then this was not possible so long as the USA remained unified. 

For slavery to continue, the abolitionist North would need to enforce slavery laws (such as capturing and returning escaped slaves) and thereby be complicit in a practice they found abhorrent - and the North would lose. 

Yet if slavery was to be abolished, the South would lose their way of life (as actually happened when they lost). 

The obvious solution - that the South separate from the North, was exactly what the North would not allow - and this was indeed the original cause of the war. 

Yet the South was smaller, poorer, and much less industrialized - so if the South did not separate, then the South would lose (as actually happened). 

In sum, there could be no peace without losers; so peace-ifism was just taking one side or the other - but pretending not to by calling vaguely for 'peace'. 

As then, so now: All calls for peace, when made concrete and implemented, are always a matter of taking sides. 

To take sides but dishonestly pretend to neutrality, is intrinsically sinful. 

And if you really cannot decide which side is the less-evil (a discernment that is nowadays made easy by noticing the provenance of propaganda) then you should neither have nor express any opinion. 

Barfield misunderstanding Barfield...

One of the difficulties about understanding Owen Barfield, is that he did not really understand himself! 

I mean that Barfield did not really understand the nature of his own philosophical work; and thereby said some misleading things about it. 

Barfield's major work was Saving the Appearances; and in his introduction to the 1988 edition of this book (which are Barfield's first published, and framing, words in the reprinted editions since then), Barfield tries to provide a helpful framework to avoid what he terms a misunderstanding, and a difficulty. 

What Barfield regards as the 'misunderstanding' is that "some readers have treating the work as claiming to provide a complete metaphysical theory of the nature of reality. Not so". 

(Leaving aside the weasel word "complete" - because nothing finite ever is complete...) 

But Of Course Barfield is exactly providing a metaphysical 'theory' of reality! Metaphysics is that philosophy which deals in the fundamental nature of reality; and Barfield is claiming in StA that reality is inextricably consequential of both 'chaos' and consciousness; because chaos is meaningless and unknowable without consciousness. 

Also, Barfield asserts that consciousness has changed through time; and therefore (says Barfield) reality itself (and not just perception of reality) has changed through time: "Nature itself [has] changed in the course of time in a mode not covered by the doctrines of biological evolution".

Furthermore; without consciousness (says Barfield) - there is no knowable reality - only chaos. 

So that from Barfield's assumptions: it is incoherent to theorize about a world without consciousness. 

Thus, a cosmology which - like both Big Bang and Steady State theories - speculates on the formation of a non-alive universe in the absence of consciousness is not so much mistaken as simply incoherent; as are similar speculations on the formation and evolution of an inorganic earth before the advent of Life.  

Barfield's (drawing heavily upon Rudolf Steiner's - albeit not identical-with Steiner) is indeed a fundamentally different understanding of reality than anything in the Western or Eastern mainstream of philosophy or theology. 

Therefore, whether Barfield acknowledges it or not: in StA he is indeed "doing metaphysics", and proposing a particular metaphysical description. 

Barfield claims he "tried to preserve neutrality towards all such [metaphysical] speculations, by referring to objective reality (that is to say, reality insofar as it is independent of our awareness of it)... sometimes as 'the particles' and sometimes as 'the unrepresented'. 

But this is not neutrality - because neutrality in metaphysics is impossible. 

Barfield's conceptualization of 'objective' as 'unrepresented'/ 'particles' is itself a metaphysical division and definition.  

Barfield then says: "The subject of this book is not the nature of reality; it is the evolution of consciousness". 

This translates as Barfield saying he is not doing metaphysics, but is (implicitly) doing a kind-of 'science' that he claims to be independent of ('neutral' about) metaphysical assumptions. 

So, Barfield's detailed account of the way that word-meanings have changed through human history; is claimed to be (in effect) 'empirical' and independent of metaphysical assumptions. 

But this is false, because Barfield's understanding of the implications of meaning change being located in consciousness; and consciousness being inextricably a part of reality; are excluded by the implicit and unconscious metaphysics of mainstream linguistic history. 

The changes of word meaning through history are interpreted using a very different and incommensurable significance than that which Barfield proposes - and the mainstream linguists would regard Barfield's interpretation as bizarre and obvious nonsense. 

Likewise, astro- and geo-physicists would regard Barfield's assertion that their theories of the formation of the universe and of earth were incoherent - because excluding any "observing consciousness" from such theories - to be absurd nonsense. 

Such physicists would almost certainly assert that their theories 'work' empirically, have been cross-checked by multiple mathematical analyses and physical observations - and that there is just No Problem.  

The difference between Barfield and the physicists is precisely metaphysics: each is arguing from different basic assumptions concerning the nature of reality. 

 

My understanding of Barfield is that he was Just plain wrong about what he was doing; just as Rudolf Steiner was wrong in The Philosophy of Freedom. 

Barfield claimed to be doing 'science' and Steiner claimed to be doing epistemology; but in fact both were doing metaphysics: both were (in these works) putting forward a different way of describing ultimate reality from that which was mainstream. 

This wrongness had an unfortunate effect in terms of obscuring the reader's understanding; because a convinced reader is given the false impression that Barfield and Steiner have 'proved' their arguments in a neutral fashion (which ought to be universally acceptable); rather than having provided a radically different framework for the structuring of arguments. 

Furthermore, by failing to notice that they themselves are 'doing metaphysics'; Barfield and Steiner both leave out God as a primary explanation for their understandings of reality. 

I have said before that it would be Much easier for the reader to understand Saving the Experiences if Barfield had set-out at the beginning that the 'evolution of consciousness' which Barfield describes is a divine plan, which aims at the incremental divinization of Man towards the level of God as creator.

Lacking this structuring and explanatory reference to God; Barfield's attempted-neutral description of the evolution of consciousness sounds like he is proposing a kind of 'law of nature' - a biological principle that sounds like a rival theory of the same kind as mainstream biological evolution by natural selection.   

I believe the consequences of this confusion can be seen in most of mainstream Barfield scholarship since the 1960s; and this has been exacerbated by a failure to engage with the work of Rudolf Steiner. Yet, if we begin by stating Barfield's metaphysical assumptions as such, including the presence and role of God; it really is not difficult to understand - because then its validity does not hinge on understanding and following complex, multi-step arguments or evidence. 

Blogger 'Benedict Seraphim': "neutrality is not only impossible, it's damning"

*

From: http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2003/08/19/that-hideous-strength-chs-10-13/

*

“I mean this,” said Dimble in answer to the question she had not asked. “If you dip into any college, or schoool, or parish, or family–anything you like–at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous.

Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing.

The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder. . ..”

(That Hideous Strength - by C.S. Lewis - p. 283)

*

One might well argue with Lewis whether Dark Age Britain was a place where one could be both Christian and develop knowledge about the elemental powers of the world. Lewis, is, after all, writing a fairy tale, and borrowing from Tolkien.

But what is most certainly true, since the coming of Christ and the bringing forth by the Spirit of the Church, the Truth of the narrowing of choices, the Truth of the two paths and the two masters, has been becoming ever more real.

If there is a narrow and squeezing path, the one of life, there is only one other path, the broad and level one leading to death. This is no melodrama. It is the stark reality of the Gospel. It is why we must repent.

Which does not mean adding a bit here, a bit there, some of this, some of that, and icing it over with some “Christian” words. Christ is the stone on which we are broken, or underneath which we will be crushed. We either know his love as mercy or as judgment. We cannot know it as indifference.

*

While some Christian teachers would focus on various world events to foretell the scheduled events of the Apocaplyse, it seems to me that a look at the Christian world of thousands of denominations is perhaps a better barometer.

*

Take for example, the Great Schism. In the sixth century, when the council of Toledo introduced the filioque, one could perhaps afford to be somewhat tolerant of the innovation.

But when combined with the Roman bishops’ quest for political supremacy, with the ever-growing distance in language and culture, by Christmas Day 1054, such neutral choices were no longer available.

*

Or the Protestant Reformation. At the time, it was intended as, indeed, a reform.

But with social and political retrenchments growing on both sides, excommunication surely came. By the time of Trent, it was no longer possible to be neutral.

*

One could bring up lesser, if not the less important, matters of our own recent days. In the Episcopal Church, one might have found it possible to be neutral on the sexuality issue.

But this is no longer a possibility. For good or for ill, one must now choose one’s allegiance across the divide of a non-celibate gay bishop.

*

In the evangelical world, the choices are more numerous because the divisions are so rife, and the consistencies of constituencies so inconsistent.

But with the proliferation of choice, one’s actual choices narrow.

Simply because one can choose from dozens of Bible translations, worship styles, ecclesial polities, and ministries, one is finally faced with only one choice: the serving of self or God. (...).

*

This, I think, is what C. S. Lewis means through his Dr. Dimble. And I agree with the thought: we live in an age where neutrality is not only impossible, it’s damning.

If we cannot answer “Yes” that some decision will more clearly reveal the Lordship of Christ in our lives, then to make that decision will be to unmake ourselves.

For the reality is that we are servants. It is given to us, in the multiple thousands of choices each day, to decide whom we will serve.

*

From: http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2003/08/19/that-hideous-strength-chs-10-13/

*

A word of advice to Traditionalist, Latin Mass, Roman Catholics

As someone who wishes you well and to see you prevail - since you seem to contain most of the real Christains in the RCC; I suggest that you ought to argue positively for what you really believe: that the Tridentine Latin Mass is superior to the vernacular Novus Ordo Mass. 

This does not mean that the vernacular Mass should be forbidden altogether - nor that those who want the Vernacular/ New Order should not be able to have it; but that its inferiority ought to be officially recognized - and the Novus Ordo should be 'tolerated' rather than approved. 

I say this because I have too-often seen supporters of the Latin Mass using the same kind of 'negative' (indeed liberal) arguments used by supporters of 'free speech'.

In other words, Latin Mass advocates too-often try to be value-neutral about the two forms of the Mass.  

They try to avoid stating that either form is superior - and try to to take a line that says both Masses are equivalent, and ought to be 'equally' tolerated. 

Such an argument is wrong; because decades of experience has demonstrated (if it was ever in doubt) that there can be no such thing as value-neutrality: things are either good or bad; and if there are two different forms one must (and will, in practice!) be acknowledged as better than the other. 

So to argue negatively, from a statement of value-neutrality is both inaccurate, and ineffective. 

Therefore, the Tridentine Latin Mass should be supported as explicitly the superior and preferable form. 

How to fight (and beat) The System (Ahrimanic bureaucracy)

What follows is a train of thought, of reasoning. It was stimulated by watching a fantasy TV program in which the hero fought demons, that is Luciferic evil embodied in actual personal beings that wanted to enslave, torture and murder. The fight was to contain or kill such beings.

It was difficult - for the hero; but the evil was locatable and understandable - the difficulty was in beating the demons.

Then I reflected that the evil we mostly encounter in this, our modern lives, is Ahrimanic - which means it is The System (the Matrix) - which is bureaucracy, which is impersonal, which is dispersed - behind every bureaucracy lies another. There are (it seems) "bureaucracies all-the-way-down"...


But then I realised: this is not so.

Ultimate metaphsyical reality is of beings and their relationships. The ultimate spiritual reality of modern evil is of actual Ahrimanic beings; that is persons, who have motivations and seek satisfactions in a way exactly analogous to the more familiar Luciferic demons. The Ahrimanic demons are motivated, living, conscious beings of a different kind, different nature; that is all.

So, ultimately The System, the bureaucracies are merely a mask, a disguise, a distraction from the reality of purposive evil pursuing its purposes.

What, then, can I actually do about all this? The answer became clear (or so it still seems).


I need to bear in mind - actively, deliberately - that nothing is dead, all is alive.  Consciousness is universal - motivation is everywhere.

The ultimate truth is that everything real is personal. There are no coincidences, no accidents - all has meaning - and there is no neutrality.


No neutrality means that the officials, the drones, the myrmidons, the petty agents of bureaucracy that we see all around (and our-selves very probably: aye, there's the rub!) are actually personal, purposive agents.

The minor implementors of The System - the slaves, serfs, servants - the clerks, managers, security guards, people who deliver... all of them (of us) are active participants in Ahrimanic evil - all have chosen to regard themselves as non-persons, all seek to avoid ultimate responsibility by sharing in the Ahrimanic assertion that 'nobody is to blame' - which means that in The System we are not persons - we are dead, lack consciosuness and purpose...

This is what must not be accepted - must be brought to conscious knowing, and refuted.


Primitive or psychotic paranoia - in which each person understands himself to be the centre of the universe, with life organised around-himself; is basically correct factually; but is wrong insofar as it is regarded as a passive situation - regarded as unavoidable. (The typical paranoid regards himself as a passive victim of external realities. He sees reality as outside himself.)

We are all and each actually at the centre of the universe; because we are co-creating that reality We are never passive (or, insofar as we are, then that is an evil choice: false, a pretence, a shirking of good, a service to evil).

We don't know everything here-and-now (of course!); but everything is potentially know-able - by each of us - in principle; and that 'in principle' makes All The Difference.

(About this Rudolf Steiner, in Truth and Knowledge and Philosophy of Freedom was profoundly and vitally correct).


How to fight demons? With 'magic' - obviously! But what kind of magic?

We know (from fantasy TV, movies and books) how magically to fight Luciferic demons... How then magically to fight the Ahrimanic demons that stand-behind The System; or rather hide behind The System? And use The System magically to make each of us Ahrimanic too. That is to make each of us choose to regard ourselves as material, non-personal, non-responsible - 'functional units' of that System.


The magic of fighting the Ahrimanic demons is knowing; and the effects of knowing. And victory is possible because the Ahrimanic beings assume their own passivity; that is their basic assumption, their metaphysical world picture.

When we are (or become) active and participating knowers; then They are defeated. But they do not realise how They have been defeated. Such is unknowable to Them.

The Ahrimanic magic is to induce people to regard the world passively, with detachment (as if meaning was out-there); to induce people passively to serve this machine, to deny their participation in the construction of this machine. 

Our magical challenge is therefore to see beyond the self-presentation of our world as dead, abstract, impersonal, mechanical, unconscious -- and to know the world as it really is.

The Ahrimanic magic is to make us believe the world is merely material; our counter-spell is to (our-selves) regard that world as also spiritual: more exactly the magic happens when we personally actually consciously experience the world as alive, of-beings; and embrace that experience as valid. 


This good magic will work when we know the servants of Ahriman (including our-selves) as deluded, self-suppressed, evil in avoidance of knowledge - hence respobsility for this vast structure of evil.

Good magic unmasks the beings behind the machine, unmasks the choices behind the obedience, unmasks the active promotion of evil behind the fear and despair.

A day at the office, a visit to the shops then becomes the front-line in the battlefield of spiritual warfare.

Our magic against Theirs.

Curmudgeon time... A deliberately non-sensical ritual over for another year...

Now that another objectively fake 'new year' pseudo-celebration has passed*, what next? Well, nothing special, because it is an unnatural and bogus 'beginning' - we may choose to force our personal lives into a January-First-shaped cycle - and the mass media and calendar makers will support us in this; but it is unsupported by anything profound in The Real World, including in Religion.

As long-time readers may know - I used to be an active scientist and theorist in the field of intelligence, personality and creativity; and therefore I noticed that the (vastly-over-rated) media pundit Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been doubling-down on some objectively false and demonstrably ignorant remarks he made about intelligence testing (IQ tests).

No surprises there; but a useful reminder of the way that someone's personality flaws are amplified by cultic admiration until these flaws become... well, I was going to say 'undeniable', but that is wrong: let's just say 'very dominant'. The same can be seen with Jordan Peterson. The thing is, in this world here-and-now nobody gets rich/ influential/ famous and stays that way, unless they really want to be rich/ influential/ famous as (pretty much) their primary priority in life.

And that's the top and bottom of it. The influential maverick is an oxymoron. Anyone who is looking for spiritual and Christian leadership among those who have significant impact in the mass media, those who are high in the establishment, those at or near the head of major institutions - is making an error. Such seekers will not find even 'neutrality' among such eminent individuals (not least because there is no neutrality in the spiritual war) - they will find only those who are more, or less, completely aligned to purposive evil.

That isn't to deny that there is some good in such persons, something valid to be learned-from them; of course there is. There is always some good to be learned from even some of the most evil people in history (or in personal life). But it is a matter of choosing your mentors with discernment. To learn good from someone acknowledged to be net-evil is a very different matter from being guided by someone whom you regard as a worthy mentor. In neither case should discernment be set-aside; but the basic mind set is extremely different according to the nature of the person.

What of this matter of being 'influential'? It is interesting that the whole thing is impossible except for that handful of truly 'Great Men' as they used to be called. 99.9% of influential people in The West are obedient servants or slaves to The System, The Establishment - and ultimately the demonic powers behind it all. The individual servants/slaves may perhaps suppose they personally have harnessed great powers to their own ends; but the reverse is the case.

To be corrupted by evil entails convincing oneself that one's harness is a self-controlled tool; that obedience to evil is a roundabout strategy for good. Ultimately, that whatever The System dictates and imposes is what you yourself actually always wanted, all along. That what is, is best. 

The more influence such persons crave, the more compromises they make; the more compromises they make, the more fully they are enslaved - because compromise is just as euphemism for submission.

Corruption at the higher levels is universal. The promise is that by moving to a higher level in the hierarchy, one will be able to 'make a difference', 'work from inside' and shape matters for good... This promise is made to a thousand, ten thousand, people a day - usually in the context of taking-on managerial roles.

https://babylonbee.com/news/nations-fathers-engage-in-time-honored-ritual-of-telling-their-kids-they-havent-seen-them-since-last-year Some, may, initially believe it, and genuinely intend to do it. But it never happens. And once a person has been through cycle of this corruption a couple of times, they know in their hearts that it never happens... but they choose promotion anyway.

Indeed, the better you do the job, the stronger The System becomes; whatever contrary fantasies you may indulge.

And The System is evil in its intent - that is, its strategic intent is the destruction of Good.


*From The Babylon Bee yesterday: U.S.—In a beloved custom, every single father in the nation told their kids this morning that they haven't seen them since last year, according to sources across the country. "Hey look at you, sleepyhead," said one man in Nebraska as his son came downstairs. "Say, I haven't seen you since last year!" "It's an important tradition," he told reporters as his son groaned and shook his head. "Everyone loves it, especially our kids. They enjoy seeing their father employ a little cleverness and wit." He added that when your kids act like the joke is tired, unfunny, and embarrassing, that's when you know it's actually really funny. "It's all part of the dance," he said. Millions of other fathers all over America partook in the tradition as well, dutifully reciting the joke, which relies on the conflation of the colloquial and literal understandings of the term "next year." "Frankly, if you're a father and you haven't made a joke like this in the past 24 hours, you should probably get right with God," said Paul David Tripp. "It's an essential part of gospel-based, grace-centered parenting."

The necessity of prejudice plus feedback (more on the impossibility of neutrality)

*

If neutrality is impossible, as certainly seems the case; and if humans are simple creatures capable only of dichotomous evaluations (as certainly seems the case) - then it is both futile and dangerous to regard prejudice as 'a bad thing'.

Futile because prejudice is inevitable, a bad thing because in attempting the impossible task of eradicating the inevitable, prejudice is not eliminated but inverted.

*

So we find that a Leftism which affects to be eliminating 'prejudice' has merely inverted prejudice; and to the extent that traditional prejudices were broadly valid (true for most aspects of most of the people most of the time, as a general rule), Leftist prejudices are broadly invalid (true only for exceptional individuals under exceptional circumstances).

*

So if prejudice is inevitable, and if the alternative to prejudice is evil - then prejudice is good.

Yet of course we all know (because our culture continuously points this out, and continuously depicts it fictionally) that prejudice is often mistaken and may serve as a basis (or excuse) for evil.

Then the obvious conclusion, which all wise and decent people have spontaneously reached in the past, is to accept traditional prejudices but be prepared to revise them in specific instances in the light of further knowledge.

*

Prejudice plus feedback equals wisdom. 

*

Really, this isn't rocket science!

We regard the average 8 year old child as less intelligent than the average adult, and this prejudice is usually correct; but should be prepared to revise our evaluation on the basis of further knowledge that this specific child may be more intelligent than the average adult.

We regard as dangerous a young man with a fierce face running at us wielding a weapon (and act accordingly); but should (after taking the necessary action) be prepared to revise our evaluation on the basis of further knowledge that this specific knife-wielding youth is a member of an ancient warfare re-enactment society with a blunt weapon about to join a choreographed battle behind us (which we hadn't noticed). 

And so on.  

*

Is that really so difficult?

No.

*

Then why all this evil nonsense about eliminating prejudice?

Is it:

A: The evil nonsense is an accidental by-product of extreme stupidity, inability to follow a very simple and obvious line of reasoning?

(i.e. Primarily nonsense, accidentally evil.)

B: The evil nonsense is an elaborate form of rational selfishness by which elite Leftists feather their own nests.

(i.e. Primarily evil, but not nonsense.)

C: The evil nonsense is a product of evil purpose+.

(i.e. Primarily both evil and nonsensical - the lack of sense itself being a part of the evil.)

*

+Note: Further elucidation requires an understanding of the origin and nature of evil in the world.

*

There is no such thing as amoral

*

To tolerate, approve or actively advocate a policy on the basis that it is amoral (or supposedly has no moral significance) is to advocate immorality.

'A-moral' is therefore a dishonest or delusional characterisation of im-moral. 

*

This is a sub-category of the fact that there is no such thing as neutrality - except that to advocate neutrality is, indeed, to take the side of evil.

Everything, without exception, has a moral dimension - or, more accurately, everything is more or less Good, more or less evil (Good is moral, beautiful and true in unity - evil is the destruction of these).

And this is a sub-category of life being recognised as a field of unseen or spiritual 'warfare' - with every  choice we move closer either to Heaven, or to Hell.

*

Indeed, the characterisation of something as amoral is a particularly insidious form of wickedness - because it helps create a mode of analysis which purports to elude the intrinsic Good-evil axis.

It tries to suggest that some things are 'not significant' (not worth worrying about) which is a step towards saying that nothing is significant - nihilism, in other words.

Amoral is part of the bureaucratic mindset.

*

The Left are right - in practice and over the long haul, ideology/ religion trumps effectiveness/ efficiency (or Moralizing beats Modernizing)

*
The ideal of functional efficiency entails enforcing zones of moral neutrality - this was part of the development of modernity in the technical sense of modernity as functional specialization of society. Functional specialization is when science is operated primarily with scientific criteria, law with legal criteria etc. But perhaps it has been most important, and most closely approached as an actuality, within science.

Originally, society was primarily and explicitly religious in all its aspects, all its functional units - and science (etc) had to operate within this framework. But the idea of functional efficiency went against this.  

The idea of functional efficiency is that - for example - science works best if you appoint the best scientists rather than the best Christians or Communists. Or, to put it the other way round, if science is conducted with the focus on ideology or religion, then this will significantly impair science.

This has been an ideal for something like 150-250 years in England - at least among theorists - but has never been accepted by everybody - indeed it was never accepted by the mass of people, because it is too impersonal to be natural.

However, for a while - maybe a hundred years between the mid 1800s and 1900s - functional efficiency was accepted by the vocational, professional scientists themselves; and they ran science explicitly and with the ideal of 'functional' criteria - you appointed the best physicist to be your professor, you awarded your Nobel Prize to the best chemist - and whether he was a Christian, Jew or  Atheist; Conservative, Liberal or Socialist; man or woman, English or Japanese did not matter.

Communism never accepted functional efficiency, neither did Fascism - in the USSR biology was politicized under the leadership of Lysenko; so that ideology trumped science - and this strategy has been applauded, and implemented, by the 'hard' Left through most of its history.

(Although, typically, the politicization has been and is dishonestly and incoherently presented as its opposite - so, the introduction of explicit and formal bureaucratic Leftist bias is presented, at least initially, as being instead the elimination of covert and informal class/ sex/ race bias.) 

But the ruling elites turned decisively against the ideal of functional efficiency from the middle 1960s as they adopted the New Left ideology (feminism, antiracism, imposed diversity etc); and it has not applied for several decades. For the New Left, functional efficiency was always a lie - it was interpreted as merely a mask for partisanship, a cloak for class interest, patriarchy, racism etc.

So, in a nutshell, science used to be conducted primarily within the Christian  religion, for awhile science was conducted by scientific criteria (i.e. functional efficiency), but for the past half century science has again become subordinated to an external 'ideology' - this being the anti-Christian ideology of Leftism.

So: Christian - Neutral - Anti-Christian...

*

Functional efficiency depended upon science being regarded as a zone of relative moral neutrality - a zone where science trumped politics. But, this is no longer the case, and has not been the case for some decades - now science is  - both in practice and as its explicit ideal - a zone conducted within the ideology of Left wing politics.

Moralizing has replaced the functional focus of the modernization era. Prestigious jobs, promotions, awards or prizes are given on moralistic grounds - and the celebration is that a woman or a minority has been favoured. A scientific rationale for the conferring of status may, or may not, be manufactured post hoc - but that is not primary.

Likewise the evaluations of science. Whether some bit of science is regarded as 'true' or not, depends on whether it fits the prevalent Leftist ideology - if it does not fit the ideology, then it is evaluated as 'not true' - and necessarily the work is seen as incompetent or dishonest.

*

Taking an overview - modernization (functional efficiency) defeated moralizing in the public ... for a while. In doing this, modernization also defeated Christianity.

But modernization did not defeat moralizing in men's hearts. As science became enlarged and professionalized, moralizing returned - but as the prevalent anti-Christian ideology of New Leftism.

And that is where we are now in science, and in all other large and powerful social institutions: the ideal of functional efficiency has been discarded and modern society has returned to the primacy of religion/ ideology.

*

Case study of Leftist resentment, moral inversion and the corrosion of character: J.K Rowling

*

From a Charlie Rose interview with JK Rowling, broadcast in October.

http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/charlie-rose-interviews-j-k-rowling/

*

JKR: Well, for example, I’ve just talked about the fact that I was in a very precarious situation for a few years. I was probably as poor as you can go without being homeless in the U.K. Which is not to say that friends and family didn’t help me, because they did. But, you know, it was tough.

CR: And you were writing a book, and had to depend on the government.

JKR: Well, yeah I did, although I was working part-time. The law, at that time, was that you could earn up to a very small amount a week without forfeiting housing benefit, which was the thing that was keeping us homed. So I worked up to that amount. I had a clerical job in a church at one point, and then I was teaching, but we were still existing partly on benefits. I couldn’t wholly support us.

Then the miracle happened. Harry was published, and we really didn’t look back after a few months. It changed my life.

But that period of my life was a formative experience for me. It shaped my world view, and it always will shape my world view.

The experience of having been part of a mass of people who are very voiceless, the experience of being scapegoated and stigmatized – because that was the political climate at that time – really has colored my world view ever since. I don’t think I’ll ever lose that.

*


This is very interesting, yet very typical of the way that Leftism has inverted reality; and the way that when state bureaucracy replaces individual charitableness it not only drains love but induces hatred.

JKR and her daughter were dependent on the government because she had separated from her husband who lived abroad, and had returned to Britain with the young child needing to be supported by 'other people'.

This support of the separated mother and child was in fact achieved by coercive extraction of resources from 'other people' by taxation, and distribution of some proportion of these extracted resources by the state bureaucracy manned by officials.

*

Naturally JKR does not feel gratitude for being kept alive at a level which was luxurious by world-historical standards; why would she feel grateful to other people who had no choice in the matter but pay their taxes?

And naturally she is not grateful to state officials who make their living (often a very good living) from the job of collecting and distributing such resources.

Instead (since there is no such thing as neutrality of attitude) JKR feels a burning, and apparently lifelong, resentment that she was supported by others at a lower-than-average level for Scotland at that timepoint (i.e. relative poverty - not absolute poverty, where people are in danger of death from starvation, disease, exposure etc), and that she was supported in such a way, and in such a cultural climate, that she was regarded as having low status ('scapegoated and stigmatized').

*

Ever since this time, JKR supports a set of Leftist political programs that would apparently entail (since neutrality of attitude is not possible) that people such as her former self (e.g. women who leave their husbands and ask to be kept alive by the labour of others) are not 'scapegoated and stigmatized' but instead regarded as high status and admirable, and privileged by being supported at least at the average material level for their societies, maybe higher - but certainly not in relative-poverty.

*

In almost all societies before the twentieth century, and in much of the world even now, a woman and child in the position of JKR (having left her husband in another country) would have been dependent on the active and chosen charity of specific people (her family or a patron, or pehaps an exploiter), or from specific charitable institutions of a religious nature; or else first her child and then she herself would have died from starvation, exposure or disease.

Presumably JKR would regard this as unacceptable, since voluntary charity might not be forthcoming; yet she also regards the Leftist welfare state as unacceptable in its actually-existing form, since it is unloving and supports at the below-average level of some degree of relative-poverty.

Consequently JKR (by her expressed preferences and charitable giving) advocates a 'rights'-based model of support; dependants having the right to be supported at average (or above) levels of material welfare by 'other people' whose resources are coercively extracted; and with the additional element of moral inversion (encouraged by 'education' and other forms of propaganda, and sanctions against those who resist it) such that the welfare dependent becomes officially of higher-status than the welfare funder.

Indeed, the welfare funder gets not just zero credit for supporting welfare dependents, but less-than-zero; since under Leftism the producers are regarded as having zero right to the fruits of their labour, and are actually blamed for having obtained a larger share of resources in the first place.

*

The welfare state is often criticized for its economic unsustainability, but the damage it does is far deeper and worse - as exemplified by the corrosion of character produced in someone like JK Rowling.

It is understandable (from all I describe above) why she (and those like her) are not grateful to be supported by the state, and it is understandable how they would tend to react by an assertion of moral superiority to those whose resources have been coercively extracted in order to support them (at a lower level than they think they deserve).

All this is understandable, and in a sense natural.

But the really significant damage comes from moral inversion, the failure to recognize one's own resentments as evil; and instead the elevation of such resentments into a source of pride, of boastfulness - as Rowling rationalizes her shameworthy response to soulless bureaucratic humiliation into what purports to be a ringing declaration of conviction politics: her solidarity with, championship of, the "mass of people who are very voiceless."

This is to boast of one's own sinfulness, to encourage others to share in your sin; and to work to create and sustain a coercive bureaucratic state in which the incentive to this particular sin will become even further institutionalized than it already was, back in the time when JK Rowling was a single mother on benefits.

*


[Note:  To understand the context of the above post, new readers should search the blog using 'Potter' to access the many previous discussions of JKR and the greatness of her achievement with HP.]

Are there *really* No Good Men?

A couple of days ago I stated that there are No Good Men. 

Yes, I meant it: there are none.

As I explained: No Good Men in high positions of wealth, social status, power, or influence.

But to comprehend this simple fact you have to understand what is a Good Man.

By Good Men, I mean simply Men on the side of Good - Men on God's side in the spiritual war. 

This is not a matter of behaving well - either at peak or on average. It is not a matter of being free from sin - absolutely or relatively. It has nothing necessarily to do with a person's behaviour. 

Being Good or Bad is a matter of taking sides. 

(And there are only two sides. In 2021 neutrality is impossible, the middle ground has gone, once grey areas have a bright-line through-them. Claiming neutrality is merely to take the side of evil, dishonestly.)

Bad Men are Men who are on the side against God: men who have taken the side of the devil - who are working against God, the Good and divine creation; against truth, beauty and virtue --- Men who agree-with and advocate value-inversion - lies presented as truth, ugliness as beauty, vice as virtue. 

Bad Men may be well-behaved, nice, kind, generous, hard-working, intelligent, creative... They may have any or many such behavioural virtues; but if they have taken the side against God then they are Not Good Men. 

(Indeed, their behavioural virtues merely make them more effective in pursuit of evil purposes.) 

By such criteria, and as of 2021, there are - pretty obviously - No Good Men that are high in wealth, social status, power, or influence. 

It is time to acknowledge the fact; and to act accordingly. 

Not that there's anything wrong with that*

There can be no neutrality about anything that matters at all - certainly not about anything as important as sex.

Every-thing - Every Possible Choice - is either positively or negatively inflected; and must be explicitly acknowledged as such.

If not, and if the proper direction of evaluation is denied; then in practice we Will get moral inversion.

This has happened many times, with respect to many themes, over the past fifty years; is continuing; is accelerating...

It is better to be a Christian or not? If it is not explicitly said that Christianity is better; then the result will (after a few intermediate steps) be anti-Christian.

Is marriage better than not? If it 'doesn't matter', then The System will inexorably organise against marriage, until marriage is eliminated. Eliminated either explicitly, or de facto - hollowed-out and replaced; such that a solemn marriage contract becomes The Only legal contract that can be unilaterally broken, at will, without sanctions.

The same with all sexual preferences. If it is explicitly said that there is 'nothing wrong' with something which goes against Christian sexual morality - then it will be (has already been) encouraged, propagandised and enforced - while Christian morality is discouraged, demonised, and persecuted.

There is no neutrality; never believe that there is.

When there are two alternatives one is always better than the other. 


*If you don't get the reference, search for it with "Seinfeld". One of the funniest, best-structured, sitcom episodes - ever. 

Understand that what we are seeing is 'things coming to a point': and that this is our best hope

I know I have said this many times over the years I have been blogging, but not all current reader have been around that long; and it is terribly important to understand!

(To see what I have previously written - word-search 'coming to a point'.)

In the public domain, the mass media, the politics-government, in education and all other major social systems we are seeing 'things coming to a point' - this process is very far advanced, continues, is apparently accelerating.

The phrase comes from That Hideous Strength by CS Lewis, which is available free online at Project Gutenberg in Canada; it means much the same as what people imply by the misuse of the word 'polarisation' - it means that Good and evil are becoming so extreme as to lose the grey areas and be starkly separated; it means that there is no neutrality and every-thing of any possible public significance is now-and-increasingly either positively/ actively/ purposively-Good or positively/ actively/ purposively-evil.

This creates all kinds of problems, suffering, hardship, But in a world such as this one, coming to a point is a Good-thing. By 'Good' I mean in a spiritual and eternal sense - not a materialist and this-worldly sense. The process is Good for our souls, even when it is bad for our minds and bodies.

It is Good because it is better than the alternative; which is more of the same as we have been getting for the past fifty years; and which has led-to, is leading to ever-more, materialism, hedonism, short-termism, hopelessness, cowardice, despair... and consequently the active-embrace-and-propagation of lies, ugliness, sin and all other forms of evil.

The news, the law, the workplace, the schools and colleges, the mainstream churches - are pushing the evil agenda more and more aggressively, extremely, and rapidly. Whether this is because they can't help themselves, or because they feel that all opposition has now been crushed - or whether they fear that people might wake-up and push back (or from some blend of these) doesn't really matter: It Is Happening.  

Because things are coming to a point, it gets easier to notice and understand what is happening; and this a Good because it is something that each individual can only do For Himself. If he does not do it For Himself, then it merely passive, therefore it has Not Actually Happened.

Of course, so far, things have been coming to a point, Good and evil are ever-more-clearly distinct - and people have been choosing evil en masse. So be it. People have agency, people can choose evil, and they are apparently doing so in very large numbers. If so, they have made their choice and Will live with that choice (unless or until they repent it, which usually gets harder with time).

This is a test for everyone: it is a test for Christians. Christians are confronted with worldly-expediency versus spiritual virtue again and again, every day and in multiple situations; and their response (I mean their response in their own thinking) will necessarily go one way, or the other way.

Our true motivation is recurrently being tested, hence refined and strengthened.

This is Good and we ought to be grateful; because this is exactly theosis; it is how we grow in divinity (or the opposite).

**

Excerpt from Chapter 4 of That Hideous Strength, giving the origin of the concept of 'Things coming to a point':

"Have you ever noticed," said Dimble, "that the universe, and every little bit of the universe, is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?"

His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them.

"I mean this," said Dimble, in answer to the question she had not asked. "If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family--anything you like--at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow-room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder. Like in the poem about Heaven and Hell eating into merry Middle Earth from opposite sides . . . how does it go? Something about 'eat every day . . . till all is somethinged away.' It can't be eaten, that wouldn't scan. My memory has failed dreadfully these last few years. Do you know the bit, Margery?"

"What you were saying reminded me more of the bit in the Bible about the winnowing fan. Separating the wheat and the chaff. Or like Browning's line: 'Life's business being just the terrible choice.'"

"Exactly! Perhaps the whole time-process means just that and nothing else. But it's not only in questions of moral choice. Everything is getting more itself and more different from everything else all the time. Evolution means species getting less and less like one another. Minds get more and more spiritual, matter more and more material. Even in literature, poetry and prose draw further and further apart."

Mrs. Dimble with the ease born of long practice averted the danger, ever present in her house, of a merely literary turn being given to the conversation.

"Yes," she said. "Spirit and matter, certainly. That explains why people like the Studdocks find it so difficult to be happily married."

"The Studdocks?" said Dimble, looking at her rather vaguely. The domestic problems of that young couple had occupied his mind a good deal less than they had occupied his wife's. "Oh, I see! Yes. I dare say that has something to do with it. But about Merlin: what it comes to, as far as I can make out, is this. There were still possibilities for a man of that age which there aren't for a man of ours. The earth itself was more like an animal in those days. And mental processes were much more like physical actions. And there were--well, Neutrals, knocking about."

"Neutrals?"

"I don't mean, of course, that anything can be a real neutral. A conscious being is either obeying God or disobeying Him. But there might be things neutral in relation to us."

"You mean eldils--angels?"

"Well, the word angel rather begs the question. Even the Oyéresu aren't exactly angels in the same sense as our guardian angels are. Technically, they are Intelligences. The point is that while it may be true at the end of the world to describe every eldil either as an angel or a devil, and may even be true now, it was much less true in Merlin's time. There used to be things on this earth pursuing their own business, so to speak. They weren't ministering spirits sent to help fallen humanity, but neither were they enemies preying upon us. Even in St. Paul one gets glimpses of a population that won't exactly fit into our two columns of angels and devils. And if you go back further . . . all the gods, elves, dwarfs, water-people, fate, longaevi. You and I know too much to think they are just illusions."

"You think there are things like that?"

"I think there were. I think there was room for them then, but the universe has come more to a point. Not all rational things perhaps. Some would be mere wills inherent in matter, hardly conscious. More like animals. Others--but I don't really know. At any rate, that is the sort of situation in which one got a man like Merlin."

"It all sounds rather horrible to me."

"It was rather horrible. I mean even in Merlin's time (he came at the extreme tail end of it), though you could still use that sort of life in the universe innocently, you couldn't do it safely. The things weren't bad in themselves, but they were already bad for us. They sort of withered the man who dealt with them. Not on purpose. They couldn't help doing it. Merlinus is withered. He's quite pious and humble and all that, but something has been taken out of him. That quietness of his is just a little deadly, like the quiet of a gutted building. It's the result of having laid his mind open to something that broadens the environment just a bit too much. Like polygamy. It wasn't wrong for Abraham, but one can't help feeling that even he lost something by it."

"Cecil," said Mrs. Dimble, "do you feel quite comfortable about the Director's using a man like this? I mean, doesn't it look a little bit like fighting Belbury with its own weapons?"

"No. I had thought of that. Merlin is the reverse of Belbury. He's at the opposite extreme. He is the last vestige of an old order in which matter and spirit were, from our modern point of view, confused. For him every operation on Nature is a kind of personal contact, like coaxing a child or stroking one's horse. After him came the modern man to whom Nature is something dead--a machine to be worked, and taken to bits if it won't work the way he pleases. Finally come the Belbury people, who take over that view from the modern man unaltered and simply want to increase their power by tacking on to it the aid of spirits--extra-natural, anti-natural spirits. Of course they hoped to have it both ways. They thought the old magia of Merlin, which worked in with the spiritual qualities of Nature, loving and reverencing them and knowing them from within, could be combined with the new goeteia--the brutal surgery from without. No. In a sense, Merlin represents what we've got to get back to in some different way. Do you know that he is forbidden by the rules of his order ever to use any edged tool on any growing thing?"

"Freedom" and "Protest" here-and-now = criminalization of Christianity

From my book Addicted to Distraction (2014) - In the global totalitarian world from 2020; what applies to the Mass Media applies equally to government, corporations, and all bureaucratic institutions (including the main Christian Churches); and all large-scale public campaigns and demonstrations (including those that self-present as oppositional and dissenting): 

The modern Mass Media only unleashes hype for bad things – for things destructive of traditional values (of truth, beauty or – especially – virtue). 

From the Mass Media perspective, therefore, that which is traditionally Good is re-presented as bad; and vice versa. 

People and events presented by the media as Good are always in reality bad; and people or events presented by the media as bad are usually (but not always) Good* – and when bad people or events are not presented as Good, then they are condemned as bad for the wrong reasons. 

Also, if genuinely Good things happen to be presented as Good by the Mass Media; then it will invariably be the case that they also are said to be Good for the wrong reasons. 

Thus, the major output of the modern international Mass Media consists of only four categories: 

1. Good presented as bad 

2. Bad presented as Good (That is to say simple inversion) 

3. Good presented as Good for a bad reason 

4. Bad presented as bad for a bad reason (That is to say explanatory inversion) 

These four categories, which can be summarized as either simple or explanatory inversion, account for all sustained and high impact modern major Mass Media stories without any exceptions.

The one I wish to draw attention to is: 3. Good presented as Good for a bad reason 

This I would apply to any movement advocating Freedom, Free Speech and Free Expression; and to any and all groupings with a negative agenda of 'anti', 'protest' and 'resistance'. 

The simple reason is that there is no neutrality in the modern world; so there is no freedom - and in The West there is only the choice to follow, or to oppose, Jesus Christ. 

Any-thing which says it just opposes 'evil'; which presents itself as a neutral Good - any-thing which presents itself as merely-permissive (asking for generic freedom, human rights, for universal allowing) - any-thing which is supposedly just common sense, or pragmatism, or 'decent'...

Any and all such will in practice, for sure, (whether immediately or soon) be differentially interpreted and differentially enforced against Christians; and Christians-only.   

So, unless a group or movement or any-thing is explicitly really-Christian and also explicitly repents and rejects all Leftist projects - including all the litmus tests of birdemic/peck, antiracism, climate-environmentalism, social/femin-ism and the sexual revolution...

Unless this, we can be sure that the institution, group, movement, demonstration, protest is actually serving the Enemy agenda, the demonic agenda - and is actually opposed to God, the creation and The Good. 

(It was not always thus, but as of 2021 it is thus.) 

*Note added: I have changed my view on this since 2014; because I now believe there are no Good people in public life (indeed there seem to be extremely few people allied with God and creation at all anywhere; nearly-everybody is on the other side whether explicitly or passively. The totality of public life is secular, leftist and demonically-motivated - variations are just a matter of degree). In other words, things have either become a lot worse in the past 7 years, and/or the evilness of public people has become more obvious. Yet 'public people' are often attacked in the media and elsewhere. Good/ God-aligned people may well be attacked - but statistically nearly-all of the people attacked are themselves evil - merely a different type of evil than the attackers. This reality needs to be understood as just one aspect of the evil plan; with concepts such as 'office politics' inside the one ruling party-bureaucracy, controlled-opposition, distraction, PSYOPS etc. Things nowadays are Very Simple.