Socio-political optimism is merely an estimate of probabilities - not a virtue (Christian hope is "not of this world")

Socio-political optimism is merely an estimate of probabilities - not a virtue. 

The Christian virtue of hope is properly "not of this world". It is directed beyond death, beyond resurrection  - towards Heaven.  

So, an optimistic estimate of this-worldly (including socio-political) probabilities may be honest or dishonest, objective or manipulative, well-informed or blind, rooted in joy or in fear.

On the other side: pessimism about this world, including pessimism regarding the future socio-political situation, is neither a virtue nor a sin. 

In and of itself, pessimism is just a different estimate of future probabilities. 

What makes pessimism a virtue or a sin, is the true motivation behind a declaration of pessimism.  

In these times, one besetting sin is to despair existentially; to despair of salvation and God's loving creation; because of our personal (incomplete, biased) understanding of the events and probabilities of this-world. 

Another besetting sin of these times is optimistic despair... A Micawber-like clutching-at-straws type optimism; motivated by the reality that someone cannot psychologically tolerate the reality of a pessimistic evaluation. This is a refusal to face fear - therefore itself a species of despair; driven by lack of faith in Christian hope.

Whereas; it is virtuous (albeit a fine-line to walk) genuinely to be a joyous, hope-filled, pessimist!

 

On the limitations of a palantir: Tolkien on the irrationality of despair

That greatest of Tolkien scholars, Tom Shippey, noticed something profound yet hidden in the Lord of the Rings - which provides narrative 'evidence' for Tolkien's frequent theme that it is always wrong to despair. 

Despair is wrong primarily because we live in the ongoing creation of a God who loves us as his children; so this world is being-created, moment by moment, with an eye to the primary purpose of life: which is providing each of us with the experiences we most need to learn from in terms of our Christian choice of resurrected life in Heaven. 

 

(Conversely, this world is Not designed for atheist-materialists, who disbelieve in Heaven. Their lives are indeed, by their own assumptions, meaningless and pointless.)

So, 'general' despair is wrong, and a consequence of lack of 'faith' - that is, lack of trust in God's loving goodness and personal concern for each-of-us. But specific causes of despair are also a mistake; mistakes of inference. 

Why? Because despair is the certainty of bad outcome, such that one gives-up hope. And - simply put - despair is always wrong because we never have conclusive reasons to give-up hope. 

 

Despair is not based on probability, but certainty - and that certainty is always false. A high probability of a bad outcome should be called pessimism. It is not despair because it is a best guess, and estimate; and we realise that even the very improbable sometimes happens. 

Note: It is vital to distinguish between despair and pessimism; and between hope and optimism. 

Despair is a sin, and is always-wrong; hope is a virtue and (for a Christian) always-right. Optimism and pessimism are merely conjectural judgments about the likely future - constrained by individual ability, information and honesty...

 

But more fundamentally, despair is not even about strict-probabilities of the future of a known situation; since we are very unlikely to be framing, to be understanding accurately, the real nature of the situation.

Even if we know a lot about a situation, we never know every-thing about it; and some specific thing (some 'fact') that we do Not know, may have the capacity to transform our understanding. 

If we knew that particular fact, then our 'conclusive reason' for despair would go. 

 

In the Lord of the Rings, there is a seeing-stone device called a palantir, which may be used to gather information. Yet, whenever we see a palantir in use to gather more information and make a judgment, an error is made.

Always, something important about the user's assumptions are wrong, and some vital fact is missing; and therefore his interpretation of the factual information is in error. 

 

For example, when Sauron sees Pippin in the Orthanc stone, Sauron assumes this is the hobbit ring-bearer ('Baggins') who has been captured by Saruman - and he dispatches a Nazgul to collect this precious prize. 

This is a mistake, which happens because Saruman does not realise that the palantir is no longer in Saruman's hands - and because he assumes the stone is being deliberately used, rather than merely the object of hobbit curiosity - an 'accident'. 

Later, Aragorn shows himself deliberately to Sauron, after Sauron has discovered that Isengard was defeated and (presumably) the stone taken. 

Sauron then assumes that Aragorn, as the heir of Isildur, has taken the Ring and is learning to use its power. Sauron therefore 'hastily' launches his assault on Gondor before this has been fully prepared - and is defeated. 

 

A third example is easily missed (I missed it! - but this is where Tom Shippey contributed his key insight) because it can be inferred only by a careful calculation of chronology. It is that Denethor uses the palantir at the time when Frodo has been captured by Sauron - and sees a hobbit in the enemy's hands. 

Denethor assumes that this is the Ring bearer hobbit whom Gandalf sent into Mordor, and that Sauron now has the Ring. Denethor therefore despairs, his mind breaks, and he descends into madness, suicide; and the attempted murder of his son Faramir (who Denethor assume, also falsely, to be certainly fatally injured). 

What Denethor does not know is that although this is indeed Frodo, and he is indeed in the enemy's hands - at that time Sam has the One Ring; and is not in captivity. 

And it turns-out that this small unknown fact is enough to transform the entire situation from one of 'certain' despair - to the success of the quest. 

This warning of Tolkien's is of crucial significance to these times. 

There really has been a successful global coup, and the world really is ruled by an evil totalitarian government. And there probably are a large proportion of the population who have taken the side of evil. 

From what I know, according to my framing of the situation, the probabilities for the future seem extremely adverse: therefore I am a pessimist about what is coming.

 

Yet my understanding is at least distorted, and may be wrong; and my information is certainly incomplete. There are many facts of which I am unaware. So I have zero grounds for certainty. 

On the other hand, I know that this is God's creation and is being-created moment by moment; and that (since we are all God's beloved children) this creation is always taking into account each individual in ways that I cannot comprehend - but can guess-at based on the way that loving parents regard all their individual family members. 

God does Not see mankind as an homogeneous mass; but instead sees each person as a beloved son or daughter in relationships with other sons and daughters. 

And God is not trying to optimise our temporary, mortal earthly happiness (although that is a factor); but is instead primarily focused on our eternal salvation and life as participants in the work of divine creation.  

We do not have the advantage of a palantir, which always shows the factual truth. But even the palatir does not show the whole truth; and it cannot interpret what its pictures mean. So, even a palantir may well be deceptive - fatally deceptive. 

Our information is much less honest and reliable than that of a palantir; and we are even less 'wise' than either Sauron or Denethor...

So, as Christians we do not have grounds for general despair; and being poorly-informed fools, neither do we have specific grounds for despair - there may well be a transformative fact of which we are unaware. 

 

Therefore, be not afraid; be of good cheer! That is the only faithful and accurate way.

Trust in God! Follow Jesus Christ! 

And you cannot be wrong. 

 

Where lies hope? A Schumpeterian analysis

*

The greatest weapon of the enemy is despair - it is against despair that we must fortify.

Yet not by false optimism.

Because false optimism does not work.

In a situation where realistic evaluation leads to pessimism about the outcome, where lies hope?

*

What seems futile is to hope that the mass of population, and all powerful institutions (including most churches) can be persuaded to abandon their path of suicidal, hedonic distraction.

Absent an almost-instantaneous switch to Christianity, any of the ruling elite who abandon secular materialism will instantly be thrown into a despair which is paralysing.

They will be denied their pleasures, their goals, their social status and support - yet they will have nothing to replace them.

(A grim satisfaction derived from the greater accuracy of one's world view will not be of any practical consoling value - certainly it provides near-zero motivation for most people most of the time.)

*

To reform a thoroughly corrupt and rotten 'institution' like the Church of England, state schools and universities, the legal system, political parties, the civil service, health services, or the mass media - to reform any these in a world of dominant and interlinked bureaucracy, and a world where a change of direction in any one place will be fought by all the other places... well, it really is inconceivable.

*

And yet we must hope for change. 

And I mean must: Despair is such an overwhelming sin that it sweeps away all virtue.

If reform is impossible (or, more accurately, something an informed and rational person cannot believe-in) then replacement is the only alternative.

Replacement, not reform.

*

The master theorist of this simple but unfamiliar perspective was, I think, Joseph Schumpeter:

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=schumpeter

The idea was that economies grew mostly by replacement of large units - as when one whole industry (automobiles) replaces an other (horse drawn carriages and carts).

That human societal adjustment was not typically incremental but categorical.

*

On this basis, we can assume, realistically, that the current secular, hedonic society of nihilism and self-loathing suicide will not last, and will be replaced; and we can assume that it will be replaced by a religiously-based society - but we can also assume that on present trends that, in most places of the modern world, that religiously-based society will not be Christian.

The trends are against Christianity.

*

So, we have a situation in which we await a Schumpeterian period of 'Creative Destruction' in which we anticipate wholesale replacement of many or most social institutions - but most Christians in most places must realistically anticipate that the wholesale replacement will not bring in a Christian society.

And yet we must hope.

*

My conclusion is that Christians need to transfer their hope away from dying institutions that want to die. 

These are hope-less.

And instead channel their hopes to living institutions that want to live: no matter how small and powerless they may currently seem to be compared to the vast lumbering cancer-riddled dinosaur institutions which constitute modern socio-political life in the West.

*

Life in the dinosaurs is one of mutual parasitism - success comes to the tumours which can most efficiently feed on the masses of rotting flesh which they themselves have caused and are exacerbating.

Modern leadership therefore celebrates neoplasia, and admonishes us to join-with the most malignant metastases; to focus on first killing, then consuming, the dwindling supply of healthy, living tissue

*

This metaphor of malignancy seems to capture the weak-strength, the effete-vigour, the docile-domination displayed by modern bureaucratic 'leadership'.

Modern leadership is a matter of organizing the forces of destruction more effectively to exploit the destruction they themselves create and continue.

Replacing a modern leader with another who is more 'effective' is usually akin to a malignant transformation; in which a slow-growing local tumour - that might take many years to kill you - undergoes swift evolution into an invasive, metastatically seeding and rapidly-lethal sarcoma.

*

The message of hope is not to cling to delusive optimism, not to seek by persuasion to reform suicidal institutions which do not want to be reformed.

Much of my life has been a serial (typically delayed) realistic recognition of the fact that things have now gone too far - and a withdrawal of hope from institutions, organizations, professions, groups that have now, one the whole and in overall tendency, abandoned their proper role and embraced self-destruction.

Realistic hope therefore depends on each of us finding at least one alternative group of at least some people who, one the whole and in net effect, embrace life not death, proper function not parasitism, creation and making not novelty and decomposition, Heaven not Hell.

*


Clarification:

Lest I be misunderstood.

I am not advocating the utopian, impossible, unreal idea of quitting the evil bureaucracies of modernity - bureaucracy is in fact the world in which we all live, even when we do not work directly for a bureaucracy - bureaucracy, hence our complicity in evil-motivated institutions, is inescapable.

But I am stating that we must learn not to place hope in these institutions, not to hope that they will become self-reforming, or be persuaded to become good from the inside, or even significantly better.

Indeed, we must not 'give them the benefit of the doubt', as if they were basically well-meaning. If in doubt, we should assume (on the basis of past experience and organizational inertia) that they are always (except by accident) up to no good - any and all bureaucratic 'initiatives' are to be considered destructive (unless preceded by explicit repentance). 

Nor am I suggesting that we must join any or every group in which we have hope (that may, or may not, be possible, to varying degrees) - most of our hopes will necessarily remain theoretical and at-a-distance.

But if we cannot or do not join an institution in which we have hope, we should try to support it; and also I think we must endeavour to find at least one or two, or some group of, people with whom we can ally, meet, speak face to face. 

*

Political optimism is an Antichrist phenomenon

Just a reminder, eight years on - referencing the current environment of optimism among the self-styled "based" online - that we live in a totalitarian civilization; and that to desire for its revitalization by the results of an election is the kind of sin implied by the Antichrist phenomenon - to place one's hope in one who is not Christ, but in important and fundamental respects - a this-worldly net-opposite of Christ*. 

Recall too, that this-worldly pessimism Is Not Despair. 

Nor is optimism a Christian virtue; indeed, it may be an evil coping-mechanism. 

With matters as we know they are in The West; we should hope for the best (because we do not know everything) -- yet our hope needs to be not of this world;  but we should expect things to get worse - because that is where we are+, and the trend for generations, with self-destruction baked-in; and "the worst" is what Western people deeply and overwhelmingly want.

*Of which the "queue a-none" PSYOP was a prime instance: its mantra being that we ought-to "trust" [i.e. assume the positive inner motivations of a mainstream politician, and team], "the plan" [i.e. The System - i.e. external and human guidance; and do not take personal responsibility for your value-discernment]. 

+Things are much worse than you think: progressing over more than two centuries, by now the rot goes very deep and very wide. Reset to an earlier phase is impossible - it has never happened, and it never will.   

Superstitious fear of nemesis thwarts joy and hope - Colin Wilson, William Arkle and optimism

The superstitious attitude assumes that there is some cunning and perverted consciousness presiding over all our acts and, if we fail to keep to the special and secret rules, this presiding entity causes unpleasant things to happen to us and our loved ones.

From 'Justice' in William Arkle's Geography of Consciousness (1974).

This above passage struck home hard with me, and I have returned to it often; since it describes a besetting problem of mine - which is that I fear to speak explicitly and honestly about my happiness and hope, or my appreciation of the goodness of things, for fear that this will be seen as arrogance (hubris) and will attract retribution form some kind of 'cunning and perverted consciousness' - that I will be punished for my presumption - I and those I love will suffer the nemesis of the gods.

This attitude runs deep: very deep.

I seem to worry that displaying a sunny and optimistic aspect will attract cosmic schadenfreude, and will get me noticed and singled-out for humiliation and degradation and torment -- that I will be like a butterfly broken on a wheel - and the wheel could be any one (or more than one) of so many hazards and horrors of the world.

Yet this fear-full, dread-full, superstitious attitude may itself be one of the major hazards in the world. If (as I believe) the world is alive and responsive to our attitudes - full of sentient entities, many benign; then this attitude of suspicion and supplication cannot fail to bring out the worst in our environment.

Of course, nobody wants to be 'taken for granted' - but on the other hand we want our good intentions to be appreciated - and if despite we are treated as cunning, perverted, hostile; if we are treated as an implacable foe looking for any excuse to inflict harm - then we are likely to be wounded and dismayed even if we are the most virtuous of entities, and be irritated and angered and proviked if we are neutral.

I have therefore come to recognize a great courage in explicit declarations of joy and hope.

Our culture tends to admire the cynic, the pessimist, the hard-boiled, slyly-corrupt hedonist - the anti-hero. But I feel that the greatest Christian hero is the one who really believes in the goodness and love of God such that full value is accorded to those moment of joy, hope, beauty and inspiration which come our way.

It was a subject that Colin Wilson worked-through over many decades: the difficulty of being an overall-and-in-the-end optimist in a culture which regards pessimism, nihilism and assertions of the meaninglessness and purposelessness of life as being deeper and truer. Wilson got himself called naive, childish, shallow, insensitive - but he was right; and he was braver than his critics.

William Arkle took this optimism even further such that he started even Wilson (the two men were friends). Arkle had been in war, he knew about the harsh, tough and terrible things of life; but he would not allow himself to be deflected from his deepest convictions that this is a benign world, set up by loving Heavenly parents; that we are surrounded by helpers; and that in the end, so long as we strive and stay true, so long as we don't succumb to bitterness and despair, we will be given a prize, a situation, a world more wonderful in its scope and nature than our sweetest dreams.

Why I am socio-politically pessimistic...

It is not surprising, but even Christians mix-up hope with optimism, and this-world with eternity. 

But in reality our Hope of salvation (getting to Heaven) and theosis (spiritual development during mortal life); have almost nothing to do with Optimism about our socio-political situation - with 'saving The West' - or, in my case, with restoring Albion. 

Therefore, while Christians must have hope, we are not obliged to be optimistic. And while despair is a sin; my pessimism about the prospects of a Western (or English) Christian revival rolling-back the Global Satanic Establishment coup, is merely my current personal evaluation about future socio-politics. 

And although I sometimes have preferences among the various powerful/ high-status/ famous/ influential persons and institutions of public discourse and organisation - from what I actually know; I regard them - one and all - as being On The Wrong Side in the great spiritual war of this world. 

 

Therefore... I am generally un-impressed by bravado and sabre-rattling among Christians when it comes to what Christians should Do, what Action we should take, and how important it is to Fight - when it comes to this-worldly socio-politics.  All this amounts to a vague wish that first somebody-else will make a Big Strong Army of God - and then I will consent to join-in the battle.

By my judgment, Kristor - at the Orthosphere - gives better strategic guidance, when he says:

The only question then is whether we shall die nobly, as faithful Christian witnesses and vassals of Christ our Captain and Head, or debased, as defectors from the cause of Truth in favor of the Father of Lies, and so for the sake of some lesser and impermanent good.

So; while it is indeed appealing to suppose we might engage in some modern, idealised version of The Crusades, side-by-side with other brave men and as part of an Army of God; it seems more likely that we should be preparing for a 'fight' requiring far greater courage and resolution: to make the choice that leads to a reviled death alone - or (if we are fortunate) with a handful of faithful family.

You know the kind of thing I mean...   

Delusional optimism on the political Right

I see a lot of this, especially online.  The 'tough' people who talk about 'winning' against the mainstream Left: some even believe that they are winning, that the tide has turned...

They pour scorn upon those who do not 'fight' - because they seem to feel that they can - from where we are now, and with people as they are now - actually 'win'! And roll society back to some earlier stage a few or many generations ago (which was, itself, in fact, a transitional phase en route to current Leftism).

It is delusional nonsense, however well-meant. The Left is not losing, the Right is not winning - because there is no 'Right' in the mainstream of public discourse: None. At. All.

Because even when a genuinely non-Left (i.e. religious) group speaks in the public sphere, that aspect is filtered; such that what appears has moved the debate onto the core secular Left ground of 'utilitarianism' - the calculus of human pleasure or suffering in this mortal life.

So the Right (whether actual or self-styled) is just proposing a different means to the identical Leftist goal of a comfortable and stimulating mortal life - full-stop - nothing else matters...

Therefore all supposed 'victories' of the 'Right' are merely reinforcing the deep-Left agenda.

The Right is Not winning, Nothing substantive has changed, Pessimism is the only rational calculation.

Yes, we must always hope and must never despair...

But someone can only be optimistic about the socio-political probabilities if they are deluded about the pervasiveness, depth and inertia of present realities.

If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst

Thus said Thomas Hardy - a man rather notorious for his unChristian pessimism. Yet he was surely right on this point.

At least, that is my philosophy, and that of this blog. Some readers sometimes comment and send e-mails assuming I am on the cusp of some kind of despairing breakdown; but the truth is that I regard ignorant, self-blinded optimism as a feeble kind of pseudo-faith.

Before being cheerful stoical, and 'making the best of things'; we ought to consider, in a realistic fashion, if not exactly 'the worst' - at least where this situation is planned to go (by its architects); and also where it might go if it escapes from the plans (which happens often enough).

That is, at any rate, what I have attempted over the past few weeks. I think the plan for the world is a very evil one; and the actuality may be even worse; but having looked at that  - I have found many compensations in the almost-palpable (well, actually palpable!) daily (hourly - when looked-for) evidences of the presence of the Holy Ghost and the work of God 'behind the scenes'.

(In between the usual 'wobbles' and waves of despair...) I have felt a deepending and strengthening of my Christian faith, an improvement in the scope of my perspective, a more solid hope and anticipated joy.

But all this exacts a full look at the worst - which ought not to be denied or ignored.