*
One of the evil signs of the times is the increased prevalence of intensive weight-training.
This is part of a narcissistic, self-regarding, self-advertizing and physiologically- and psychologically-deranging package of extreme exercise regimes, extreme diets, and extreme chemical intake (especially androgen and growth hormones, but other drugs as well - continually expanding).
*
The purpose of this strategy of self-remaking.
At its most focused, intensive weight-training is about the making of an extreme body - of a kind never before seen in human history - transhumanism.
But at every level it is about focusing the best efforts of your life on trying to look a certain way. A futile, vain and distorting activity.
*
All this is self-consciously 'macho', but non-masculine.
Manly men just don't behave that kind of way, and they never have done.
The culture of intensive weight-training just is an epicene environment: dressing-up in muscles, posing in front of the mirror, parading oneself for admiration.
*
It is anti-Patriarchal.
It is an adolescent activity - the product of excessive self-consciousness in the pathologically unattached - not the behaviour of the mind of a mature, married, adult family man who embraces responsibility.
It is also evidence of an anti-Christian mindset.
*
Think of a Christian man you admire.
Then try to think of him engaged in a regime of extreme weight training - bulking up, seeking a sculpted physique, gulping supplements and drugs and all the rest of it...
In fact don't bother. The idea is absurd, obscene and impossible.
*
Attitude to intensive weight-training is a litmus test on the political Right.
The secular Right have embraced the new world of intensive weight training as a focus for a lifestyle of strategic hedonism, aggressive posturing and promiscuous sexual warfare; the Christian Right ignore or are hostile to the whole thing.
*
If you are an intensive weight-trainer wanting to become a Christian but finding this difficult: then quit.
Intensive weight-training is exactly the kind of rooted, habitual sin which makes it very difficult to become (or remain) a Christian.
*
Thursday 13 December 2012
Wednesday 12 December 2012
The UK census: in rationalistic, secular modernity numbers mean nothing at all
*
I have just been reading some of the summary data released from the 2011 UK census.
The picture it paints is objectively terrifying; yet essentially nobody has taken any notice, and nobody will take any notice - the whole things just provides a couple of low-ranking 'talking points' for a couple of days in 'the news'.
*
I am not going to try and summarize the data, nor highlight anything in particular; but the 2011 census was bad news all round; very bad news indeed: it screams unsustainable. It declares not just the death of Britain but that this has already happened.
*
For me there were no surprises - yet I still find it shocking to consider the numbers, to consider the implications, to consider the complete and total and absolute incomprehension of these implications in... well pretty much everybody in the UK, so far as I can tell.
In a rational world, such as modern Britain imagines itself to be, data like this would evoke a seismic change in the whole strategy of the nation; except of course that numbers like this could not have happened if it were not for dishonesty and wicked intentions on a scale that would have beggared the belief of earlier generations.
But it is clear that people simply don't understand numbers. Numbers mean nothing to them.
*
I am not an adept mathematician - I have above average ability, for sure; but distinctly less above average than in most subjects.
Yet I understand the meaning of numbers as they apply to life in a way that is clearly very rare indeed among human beings - in this sense I am a 'natural' statistician.
This emerged around the period when I was a lecturer in epidemiology (the statistics of disease); I spent most of the time trying to explain what numbers did and didn't mean. Not as a matter of my opinion, but simply trying to translate what the results of studies implied
Or in most cases did not apply - the striking thing about almost all epidemiological studies is that they were worthless, yet interpreted as meaningful, hence much worse than nothing. For example the vast majority of randomized controlled trials of drugs were not just worthless with respect to clinical management, but actively (indeed deliberately) misleading.
*
Anyway, in this project of getting people to understand the meaning of numbers, I got nowhere: and this continues.
I am not talking rocket science - I am talking (perhaps mostly) about the meaning of a statistic such as an average.
Yes, just a plain old average - what does it mean? What are its implications?
Well, it turns out the the meaning of averages is way, way beyond most people - including professional statisticians; for the simple reason that meaning of an average depends on the specific context - and cannot therefore be reduced to a single definition or put onto a protocol.
*
Anyway, my point is that exercises such as the Census are truly terrifying revelations of the intractable and bone-headed incomprehension of numbers which is intrinsic to human beings (except for a few freaks, such as myself, who simply do not count - since we cannot communicate with nor convince anybody else - indeed most people find this questions so boring that they cannot even attend for two minutes: literally).
My solution is not, not, not that somehow humans should be educated into an understanding of the implications of numbers - but simply that we should acknowledge that for 99 point something percent of the population numbers mean not just nothing, but worse than nothing - they are dazzled by numbers like worthless sparkly trinkets.
We should (and I mean should in a moral sense) stop collecting numbers, stop publishing numbers, stop pretending to discuss numbers, stop imagining that plans and policies are or ever will be made on the basis of numbers.
*
Just stop: and look around us, and observe what is to be observed, and develop our understanding on the basis of personal experience - supplemented by the personal experience of those (few) who are competent and whom we trust.
Forget the Census and all the rest of it; the Census merely confirms what we could easily see with our own eyes; yet the Census displaces what we see with our own eyes - and in the end we see nothing at all.
*
I have just been reading some of the summary data released from the 2011 UK census.
The picture it paints is objectively terrifying; yet essentially nobody has taken any notice, and nobody will take any notice - the whole things just provides a couple of low-ranking 'talking points' for a couple of days in 'the news'.
*
I am not going to try and summarize the data, nor highlight anything in particular; but the 2011 census was bad news all round; very bad news indeed: it screams unsustainable. It declares not just the death of Britain but that this has already happened.
*
For me there were no surprises - yet I still find it shocking to consider the numbers, to consider the implications, to consider the complete and total and absolute incomprehension of these implications in... well pretty much everybody in the UK, so far as I can tell.
In a rational world, such as modern Britain imagines itself to be, data like this would evoke a seismic change in the whole strategy of the nation; except of course that numbers like this could not have happened if it were not for dishonesty and wicked intentions on a scale that would have beggared the belief of earlier generations.
But it is clear that people simply don't understand numbers. Numbers mean nothing to them.
*
I am not an adept mathematician - I have above average ability, for sure; but distinctly less above average than in most subjects.
Yet I understand the meaning of numbers as they apply to life in a way that is clearly very rare indeed among human beings - in this sense I am a 'natural' statistician.
This emerged around the period when I was a lecturer in epidemiology (the statistics of disease); I spent most of the time trying to explain what numbers did and didn't mean. Not as a matter of my opinion, but simply trying to translate what the results of studies implied
Or in most cases did not apply - the striking thing about almost all epidemiological studies is that they were worthless, yet interpreted as meaningful, hence much worse than nothing. For example the vast majority of randomized controlled trials of drugs were not just worthless with respect to clinical management, but actively (indeed deliberately) misleading.
*
Anyway, in this project of getting people to understand the meaning of numbers, I got nowhere: and this continues.
I am not talking rocket science - I am talking (perhaps mostly) about the meaning of a statistic such as an average.
Yes, just a plain old average - what does it mean? What are its implications?
Well, it turns out the the meaning of averages is way, way beyond most people - including professional statisticians; for the simple reason that meaning of an average depends on the specific context - and cannot therefore be reduced to a single definition or put onto a protocol.
*
Anyway, my point is that exercises such as the Census are truly terrifying revelations of the intractable and bone-headed incomprehension of numbers which is intrinsic to human beings (except for a few freaks, such as myself, who simply do not count - since we cannot communicate with nor convince anybody else - indeed most people find this questions so boring that they cannot even attend for two minutes: literally).
My solution is not, not, not that somehow humans should be educated into an understanding of the implications of numbers - but simply that we should acknowledge that for 99 point something percent of the population numbers mean not just nothing, but worse than nothing - they are dazzled by numbers like worthless sparkly trinkets.
We should (and I mean should in a moral sense) stop collecting numbers, stop publishing numbers, stop pretending to discuss numbers, stop imagining that plans and policies are or ever will be made on the basis of numbers.
*
Just stop: and look around us, and observe what is to be observed, and develop our understanding on the basis of personal experience - supplemented by the personal experience of those (few) who are competent and whom we trust.
Forget the Census and all the rest of it; the Census merely confirms what we could easily see with our own eyes; yet the Census displaces what we see with our own eyes - and in the end we see nothing at all.
*
Tuesday 11 December 2012
Music in church? Unaccompanied choir, organ, guitars, drums?
*
One of the problems - and it is a real and permanent problem - about music in church, is that it is divisive: I mean that people have very strongly differing opinions on the matter.
I can't see how it could ever be otherwise: who is indifferent about music?
I am personally one of those fairly highly musical people (something between, say, the 95-98 centile - high in appreciation compared with average, but certainly not among the very highest) who has such strong musical likes and dislikes, that I would rather hear nothing at all than music I dislike: music I dislike can be very painful, very aversive: dysphoric.
*
So I can never honestly say that I like church music: because most of it I don't.
I find most modern (19th century onward) English church music fussy, prissy, show-offy. I generally dislike most of the the stuff purveyed in English Cathedrals and Oxbridge colleges (e.g. on BBC Radio 3 choral evensong) - dislike it pretty strongly in fact.
Most of it seems to me a display concert for jaded palates - far from the idea of musical worship.
*
I am even picky about the specific music I like: for example, among English Tudor church music I like most of Thos Tomkins, some of Tallis, Weelkes+, not so much of Byrd (yes, I know Byrd is supposed to be the best). Although I am always happy with the general sound of this stuff.
*
In general I do not like church organs to accompany singing - and this goes back to childhood: I find this usage of the organ to be turgid and dreary. (Harmoniums are worse.).
Indeed the miserable droning of church hymns accompanied by organ is my abiding memory of 'Christianity' as a child. I enjoyed singing hymns and carols in school assembly, accompanied by piano - but I remember feeling actually angry (aged about 7) at the sluggish and lifeless singing of these same hymns or carols in church.
Yet I will happily listen to Buxtehude, Bach or Handel played on solo organ - for hours on end!
(Organs replaced mini string and wind bands in rural English churches during the late 1800s, as described in Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree. I'm pretty sure I would have preferred the bands.)
*
What about 'worship songs' accompanied by guitars, drums, electric piano etc?
Well, I don't like them either!
But perhaps mainly because the words and music are never sublime, but banal.
*
But I would say that - on the whole - I would regard the piano and electric bass guitar as better instruments for accompanying church singing than the organ: much better.
Indeed the combination of amplified piano and bass would be just what is needed for the purpose: providing reinforcement to melody harmonic infill, rhythm, and a nice comfy bass cushion to sit upon!
*
+ - Just in case anybody has not come across Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623), he wrote the following setting of 'When David Heard' - suffice to say that no greater short piece of music has ever been written by anybody ever.
(Equally great? Yes of course - but none better.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRA52VS8a-Q
*
One of the problems - and it is a real and permanent problem - about music in church, is that it is divisive: I mean that people have very strongly differing opinions on the matter.
I can't see how it could ever be otherwise: who is indifferent about music?
I am personally one of those fairly highly musical people (something between, say, the 95-98 centile - high in appreciation compared with average, but certainly not among the very highest) who has such strong musical likes and dislikes, that I would rather hear nothing at all than music I dislike: music I dislike can be very painful, very aversive: dysphoric.
*
So I can never honestly say that I like church music: because most of it I don't.
I find most modern (19th century onward) English church music fussy, prissy, show-offy. I generally dislike most of the the stuff purveyed in English Cathedrals and Oxbridge colleges (e.g. on BBC Radio 3 choral evensong) - dislike it pretty strongly in fact.
Most of it seems to me a display concert for jaded palates - far from the idea of musical worship.
*
I am even picky about the specific music I like: for example, among English Tudor church music I like most of Thos Tomkins, some of Tallis, Weelkes+, not so much of Byrd (yes, I know Byrd is supposed to be the best). Although I am always happy with the general sound of this stuff.
*
In general I do not like church organs to accompany singing - and this goes back to childhood: I find this usage of the organ to be turgid and dreary. (Harmoniums are worse.).
Indeed the miserable droning of church hymns accompanied by organ is my abiding memory of 'Christianity' as a child. I enjoyed singing hymns and carols in school assembly, accompanied by piano - but I remember feeling actually angry (aged about 7) at the sluggish and lifeless singing of these same hymns or carols in church.
Yet I will happily listen to Buxtehude, Bach or Handel played on solo organ - for hours on end!
(Organs replaced mini string and wind bands in rural English churches during the late 1800s, as described in Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree. I'm pretty sure I would have preferred the bands.)
*
What about 'worship songs' accompanied by guitars, drums, electric piano etc?
Well, I don't like them either!
But perhaps mainly because the words and music are never sublime, but banal.
*
But I would say that - on the whole - I would regard the piano and electric bass guitar as better instruments for accompanying church singing than the organ: much better.
Indeed the combination of amplified piano and bass would be just what is needed for the purpose: providing reinforcement to melody harmonic infill, rhythm, and a nice comfy bass cushion to sit upon!
*
+ - Just in case anybody has not come across Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623), he wrote the following setting of 'When David Heard' - suffice to say that no greater short piece of music has ever been written by anybody ever.
(Equally great? Yes of course - but none better.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRA52VS8a-Q
*
Monday 10 December 2012
Rise of the Guardians (Dreamworks) - movie review
*
I was surprised and very impressed by the new Dreamworks movie Rise of the Guardians. I'd rate it at Four-and-a-half Stars (from a possible Five 5 - see the postscript for why I deducted half a star).
*
I had expected a humorous action adventure, like the Ice Age movies, for instance; but I got a lot more.
Indeed, RotG resembles Pixar's Toy Story 3 in being a very ambitious philosophical statement of the best kind of modern, post-Christian metaphysics - but takes things a step or two further.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/toy-story-3-superb-depiction-of-best-of.html
*
In other words, RotG presents a complete and complex new myth (derived and developed from various bits and pieces of old and recent myths and folklore); yet although perhaps not quite so accomplished a movie as TS3, the result is much more hopeful - probably because of the underpinning presence of a benign deity (The Man in the Moon).
(I found TS3 so very sad and nihilistic that, despite regarding it as one of the best movies I have ever seen, I have never been able to re-watch it.)
*
The existential basis of RotG is that modernity is utterly lost in jaded, materialistic, empty alienation; and that the only residue of The Good is in the imagination of young children, and their fantasy beliefs.
These fantasy beliefs are represented by the Guardians.
The premier and most powerful Guardian is the Sandman who brings to children their wholesome dreams. He is depicted as a mute Harpo Marx character that communicates by mime and symbols.
The other Guardians are associated with particular emotions: Santa Claus/ Father Christmas with (wide-eyed) wonder; the Easter Bunny with the renewal of Hope; the Tooth Fairy with happy childhood memories (made accessible in later life because stored in the milk teeth) - and eventually Jack Frost who embodies innocent, shared fun.
*
All of these characters depend on the idea (maybe from Peter Pan, or Terry Pratchett's Small Gods) that the Guardians power, size and existence is linked to the belief of children; thus the happiness and innocence and redemptive power of children are guarded by the consequences of their own beliefs.
Against them is the evil bogeyman, Pitch, who is a classic Satan/ Sauron/ Voldemort villain that intends to engulf the earth in darkness and fear; since the only way he can get people to believe in him (and therefore the only way he can really be alive) is when they fear him.
*
The set up is therefore superficially a witty and suspenseful action movie; but underneath it there is a well-structured and emotionally-satisfying symbolic depiction of spiritual warfare between God and his angels (the Guardians) and Satan and his demons (the Night-Mares).
The moral drawn is rather like that of Tolkien's in On Fairy Stories - the importance of fantasy in our era; as being the last means of contact with reality for many or most people.
*
Naturally, RotG is not explicit about all this; and indeed I doubt whether any kind of Christian symbolism was deliberately intended.
But, by implication, such an interpretation is a natural outcome of the underlying honesty and seriousness of this movie.
***
POSTSCRIPT: I deduct half a star from my rating of this movie because of the disgusting and gratuitous 'sleeve' tattoos on Santa's forearms; which are very frequently on display, including the movie poster. I regard this as a deliberate and strategic act of wicked subversion on the part of (at least) the animator responsible for Santa, and also the producer and publicity people - intended to 'normalize' this gross form of self-mutilation ( http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/actually-modern-christians-do-not-need.html ). It is a measure of the rapidity of our cultural corruption this this kind of thing now passes either unnoticed, or with a cynical grin of approval at making Santa 'edgy', 'relevant' (or something of the kind).
*
I was surprised and very impressed by the new Dreamworks movie Rise of the Guardians. I'd rate it at Four-and-a-half Stars (from a possible Five 5 - see the postscript for why I deducted half a star).
*
I had expected a humorous action adventure, like the Ice Age movies, for instance; but I got a lot more.
Indeed, RotG resembles Pixar's Toy Story 3 in being a very ambitious philosophical statement of the best kind of modern, post-Christian metaphysics - but takes things a step or two further.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/toy-story-3-superb-depiction-of-best-of.html
*
In other words, RotG presents a complete and complex new myth (derived and developed from various bits and pieces of old and recent myths and folklore); yet although perhaps not quite so accomplished a movie as TS3, the result is much more hopeful - probably because of the underpinning presence of a benign deity (The Man in the Moon).
(I found TS3 so very sad and nihilistic that, despite regarding it as one of the best movies I have ever seen, I have never been able to re-watch it.)
*
The existential basis of RotG is that modernity is utterly lost in jaded, materialistic, empty alienation; and that the only residue of The Good is in the imagination of young children, and their fantasy beliefs.
These fantasy beliefs are represented by the Guardians.
The premier and most powerful Guardian is the Sandman who brings to children their wholesome dreams. He is depicted as a mute Harpo Marx character that communicates by mime and symbols.
The other Guardians are associated with particular emotions: Santa Claus/ Father Christmas with (wide-eyed) wonder; the Easter Bunny with the renewal of Hope; the Tooth Fairy with happy childhood memories (made accessible in later life because stored in the milk teeth) - and eventually Jack Frost who embodies innocent, shared fun.
*
All of these characters depend on the idea (maybe from Peter Pan, or Terry Pratchett's Small Gods) that the Guardians power, size and existence is linked to the belief of children; thus the happiness and innocence and redemptive power of children are guarded by the consequences of their own beliefs.
Against them is the evil bogeyman, Pitch, who is a classic Satan/ Sauron/ Voldemort villain that intends to engulf the earth in darkness and fear; since the only way he can get people to believe in him (and therefore the only way he can really be alive) is when they fear him.
*
The set up is therefore superficially a witty and suspenseful action movie; but underneath it there is a well-structured and emotionally-satisfying symbolic depiction of spiritual warfare between God and his angels (the Guardians) and Satan and his demons (the Night-Mares).
The moral drawn is rather like that of Tolkien's in On Fairy Stories - the importance of fantasy in our era; as being the last means of contact with reality for many or most people.
*
Naturally, RotG is not explicit about all this; and indeed I doubt whether any kind of Christian symbolism was deliberately intended.
But, by implication, such an interpretation is a natural outcome of the underlying honesty and seriousness of this movie.
***
POSTSCRIPT: I deduct half a star from my rating of this movie because of the disgusting and gratuitous 'sleeve' tattoos on Santa's forearms; which are very frequently on display, including the movie poster. I regard this as a deliberate and strategic act of wicked subversion on the part of (at least) the animator responsible for Santa, and also the producer and publicity people - intended to 'normalize' this gross form of self-mutilation ( http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/actually-modern-christians-do-not-need.html ). It is a measure of the rapidity of our cultural corruption this this kind of thing now passes either unnoticed, or with a cynical grin of approval at making Santa 'edgy', 'relevant' (or something of the kind).
*
Sunday 9 December 2012
Imagine... national repentance
*
Imagine if the English people would start and end the day in reciting and believing Psalm 51 from the Authorized Version of the Bible.
Imagine these words resonating in our minds, over and again until they had permeated our being:
*
Imagine if the English people would start and end the day in reciting and believing Psalm 51 from the Authorized Version of the Bible.
Imagine these words resonating in our minds, over and again until they had permeated our being:
1. Have
mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto
the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
2. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
4. Against
thee, thee only, have I sinned...
5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
9. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
10. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
11. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
14. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
15. O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
*
What is the point of creeds, dogmas, articles of faith etc?
*
I can remember - as an intellectual atheist - regarding creeds, dogmas, articles of faith and the like, as encapsulating exactly the kind of absurdity which demonstrated the wrong emphasis and irrelevance of Christianity.
This is, indeed, almost a cliche among those who are 'spiritual but not religious'.
Such people are not against Christianity; but only want from it the aesthetic side - the divine intoxication of music, robes, rituals - perhaps monasticism conceptualized in a guru-like way.
*
So why are creeds and the like - formal, explicit statements - things which Christians 'must believe'.
Why must Christians believe these things?
*
One answer is that:
The creeds describe the structure of reality
and
Christians must acknowledge reality - because reality is truth.
*
Further
Christians must not only acknowledge reality, but live by reality.
Knowing reality is one thing; but Christianity is the understanding that reality is about us specifically, as individuals - so the creeds give us the reality of the whole of creation, and our own place in it.
This is why the creeds (etc) have moral implications: morality is living in accordance with the nature of reality.
*
So it is the creeds which describe truth, and relate truth to virtue; subtract the credal elements from Christianity and you are left with an almost wholly aesthetic religion - which is the 'Christianity' of many modern spiritual intellectuals (such as I used to be).
Aesthetic, non-credal 'Christianity' has one 'pleasant', or self-gratifying, attribute - which is that it makes no demands on the adherent. It is simply a resource for living - like the arts, therapies, entertainments.
But - on the other hand - non-credal/ aesthetic 'Christianity' leaves the adherent isolated in his subjectivity; solipsistic; without conception of the structure of reality and without any relationship between his living experience and the objective universe.
Thus non-credal 'Christianity' leaves the fundamental problem of modernity untouched - I mean alienation; detached, lonely subjectivity without external meaning or purpose - all being arbitrary, labile. Nihilism.
*
So, intellectuals need utterly to reinterpret the meaning and function of explicit creeds, dogmas and other statements.
They are revelations of reality; not laws-which-we must-obey-or-else.
Of course creeds are also laws-which-we must-obey-or-else - but only because they describe the structure of reality and our place in it.
And if we do not understand or reject reality and our place in it; this will naturally have bad consequences - how could it be otherwise?
Hence the 'or else'.
*
I can remember - as an intellectual atheist - regarding creeds, dogmas, articles of faith and the like, as encapsulating exactly the kind of absurdity which demonstrated the wrong emphasis and irrelevance of Christianity.
This is, indeed, almost a cliche among those who are 'spiritual but not religious'.
Such people are not against Christianity; but only want from it the aesthetic side - the divine intoxication of music, robes, rituals - perhaps monasticism conceptualized in a guru-like way.
*
So why are creeds and the like - formal, explicit statements - things which Christians 'must believe'.
Why must Christians believe these things?
*
One answer is that:
The creeds describe the structure of reality
and
Christians must acknowledge reality - because reality is truth.
*
Further
Christians must not only acknowledge reality, but live by reality.
Knowing reality is one thing; but Christianity is the understanding that reality is about us specifically, as individuals - so the creeds give us the reality of the whole of creation, and our own place in it.
This is why the creeds (etc) have moral implications: morality is living in accordance with the nature of reality.
*
So it is the creeds which describe truth, and relate truth to virtue; subtract the credal elements from Christianity and you are left with an almost wholly aesthetic religion - which is the 'Christianity' of many modern spiritual intellectuals (such as I used to be).
Aesthetic, non-credal 'Christianity' has one 'pleasant', or self-gratifying, attribute - which is that it makes no demands on the adherent. It is simply a resource for living - like the arts, therapies, entertainments.
But - on the other hand - non-credal/ aesthetic 'Christianity' leaves the adherent isolated in his subjectivity; solipsistic; without conception of the structure of reality and without any relationship between his living experience and the objective universe.
Thus non-credal 'Christianity' leaves the fundamental problem of modernity untouched - I mean alienation; detached, lonely subjectivity without external meaning or purpose - all being arbitrary, labile. Nihilism.
*
So, intellectuals need utterly to reinterpret the meaning and function of explicit creeds, dogmas and other statements.
They are revelations of reality; not laws-which-we must-obey-or-else.
Of course creeds are also laws-which-we must-obey-or-else - but only because they describe the structure of reality and our place in it.
And if we do not understand or reject reality and our place in it; this will naturally have bad consequences - how could it be otherwise?
Hence the 'or else'.
*
Saturday 8 December 2012
Why remain a Church of England Anglican?
*
Given all my nasty (and well-deserved) criticisms of the Church of England, why am I a member?
1. I was baptized into into it, I attended a Church of England Primary School (although I was an atheist for all of my conscious life until a few years ago).
2. I always loved the language of the Book of Common Prayer and Authorized Version of the Bible - and since I became a Christian I have come to regard them as divinely inspired.
3. The architecture, music etc.
4. Great figures such as Thomas Traherne, Sam Johnson, C.S. Lewis...
OK, let's stop the list. The point is that I have an historical allegiance, as an Englishman - I feel comfortable and natural in the CoE; and its traditions, rituals, language etc are potent for me.
Obviously, I regard the historical Anglican church as a real, proper, catholic church, as sacramentally valid etc and as having had goodly numbers of extremely Godly people among its mostly secular orientated adherents. It has not hit the heights of saintliness of Eastern Orthodoxy, but there has been very great Holiness, and even now contains a few people of considerable spiritual stature.
Being who I am (English, lazy etc) and in my situation (geographical, social etc) the Church of England is probably the highest form of Christian life to which I could reasonably aspire.
*
Yes, but but but - all that is problematized, critiqued, inverted, rejected by the modern Church of England.
And the modern Church of England has been infiltrated and subverted by Antichristian extreme Leftists.
The point is why do I remain?
*
The reasons get fewer with every passing year, and change with the continuing decay and corruption around me.
What it boils down to is that I regard all the major Christian denominations (not just the C of E) as mostly-corrupt, with almost-wholly-corrupt secular Leftist leaderships.
Therefore I am not seeking perfection, I am not even seeking anything with long-term viability; so I look not for a denomination but for a specific church, a specific pastor and congregation.
*
And so... I attend a large, alive, family-oriented, scripturally-faithful conservative evangelical Anglican church; and sometimes visit a few other more catholic Anglican churches, especially for Eucharist.
And this keeps me going, for now.
*
But it is not an example applicable to others, and the solution is fragile and incomplete, and it is probably going to break down one way or another in months or years (due to continued deterioration in the C of E) - and then I will either move out of the C of E with this church (and presumably with other conservative evangelicals - maybe staying within the larger Anglican communion - indeed this is de facto pretty much the case already); or else I personally will have to move to another church (if I can find one - I have not yet been looking) and therefore, necessarily, to another denomination.
I think the most that can reasonably be hoped for under present conditions, and even this may not be available, is that there are a few individual congregations which a real Christian might join with reasonably safety - and these seem to be scattered across the denominations.
*
While loyalty is natural, and natural is good (so far as it goes); loyalty may be a snare; and, especially in conditions of strategic Leftist subversion, loyalty to the history of an institution has often ended-up (in many situations, in most situations - not just the churches but schools, colleges, regiments, trades and professions, regions etc) as treachery to the core and original nature of that institution.
In this case, loyalty has led many well-motivated individuals to support the strategic destruction of Christianity in the Church of England and to use the CoE for this purpose in wider English society.
If such corruption continues to spread, for each real Christian individual there will come a point (fork in the road, a crisis) where loyalty and all the rest of it must be abandoned, or else one will oneself become part of the corruption: an agent of Antichrist, alongside the majority of current Church of England leaders and pastors.
All I can say is that I haven't, yet (I don't think) reached that point.
*
Note: By 'an agent of Antichrist' I mean something fairly specific and objectively definable: a person who serves the (demonic) agenda of subverting Christianity by means not of direct attack but by propagating a perversion of Christianity, by advocating a deceptive and evil simulation of partial aspects of Christianity, which is motivated by covert Anti-christian objectives (I mean, the 'bottom line' values of an agent of Antichrist are non-Christian). This is an exact description of mainstream liberal Christianity and its adherents, among others.
*
Given all my nasty (and well-deserved) criticisms of the Church of England, why am I a member?
1. I was baptized into into it, I attended a Church of England Primary School (although I was an atheist for all of my conscious life until a few years ago).
2. I always loved the language of the Book of Common Prayer and Authorized Version of the Bible - and since I became a Christian I have come to regard them as divinely inspired.
3. The architecture, music etc.
4. Great figures such as Thomas Traherne, Sam Johnson, C.S. Lewis...
OK, let's stop the list. The point is that I have an historical allegiance, as an Englishman - I feel comfortable and natural in the CoE; and its traditions, rituals, language etc are potent for me.
Obviously, I regard the historical Anglican church as a real, proper, catholic church, as sacramentally valid etc and as having had goodly numbers of extremely Godly people among its mostly secular orientated adherents. It has not hit the heights of saintliness of Eastern Orthodoxy, but there has been very great Holiness, and even now contains a few people of considerable spiritual stature.
Being who I am (English, lazy etc) and in my situation (geographical, social etc) the Church of England is probably the highest form of Christian life to which I could reasonably aspire.
*
Yes, but but but - all that is problematized, critiqued, inverted, rejected by the modern Church of England.
And the modern Church of England has been infiltrated and subverted by Antichristian extreme Leftists.
The point is why do I remain?
*
The reasons get fewer with every passing year, and change with the continuing decay and corruption around me.
What it boils down to is that I regard all the major Christian denominations (not just the C of E) as mostly-corrupt, with almost-wholly-corrupt secular Leftist leaderships.
Therefore I am not seeking perfection, I am not even seeking anything with long-term viability; so I look not for a denomination but for a specific church, a specific pastor and congregation.
*
And so... I attend a large, alive, family-oriented, scripturally-faithful conservative evangelical Anglican church; and sometimes visit a few other more catholic Anglican churches, especially for Eucharist.
And this keeps me going, for now.
*
But it is not an example applicable to others, and the solution is fragile and incomplete, and it is probably going to break down one way or another in months or years (due to continued deterioration in the C of E) - and then I will either move out of the C of E with this church (and presumably with other conservative evangelicals - maybe staying within the larger Anglican communion - indeed this is de facto pretty much the case already); or else I personally will have to move to another church (if I can find one - I have not yet been looking) and therefore, necessarily, to another denomination.
I think the most that can reasonably be hoped for under present conditions, and even this may not be available, is that there are a few individual congregations which a real Christian might join with reasonably safety - and these seem to be scattered across the denominations.
*
While loyalty is natural, and natural is good (so far as it goes); loyalty may be a snare; and, especially in conditions of strategic Leftist subversion, loyalty to the history of an institution has often ended-up (in many situations, in most situations - not just the churches but schools, colleges, regiments, trades and professions, regions etc) as treachery to the core and original nature of that institution.
In this case, loyalty has led many well-motivated individuals to support the strategic destruction of Christianity in the Church of England and to use the CoE for this purpose in wider English society.
If such corruption continues to spread, for each real Christian individual there will come a point (fork in the road, a crisis) where loyalty and all the rest of it must be abandoned, or else one will oneself become part of the corruption: an agent of Antichrist, alongside the majority of current Church of England leaders and pastors.
All I can say is that I haven't, yet (I don't think) reached that point.
*
Note: By 'an agent of Antichrist' I mean something fairly specific and objectively definable: a person who serves the (demonic) agenda of subverting Christianity by means not of direct attack but by propagating a perversion of Christianity, by advocating a deceptive and evil simulation of partial aspects of Christianity, which is motivated by covert Anti-christian objectives (I mean, the 'bottom line' values of an agent of Antichrist are non-Christian). This is an exact description of mainstream liberal Christianity and its adherents, among others.
*
Friday 7 December 2012
The *what?* of England
*
This is a statement on same sex 'marriage' from an organization calling itself a 'church', a Christian church in fact:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm/2012/12/7/Church-of-England-responds-to-PMs-same-sex-marriage-statement
I can't see any reference anywhere here to religious morality, specifically not to any Christian reasons for opposing same sex 'marriage', such as Scripture or Tradition.
Lacking any such reference, this is just a set of debating points, more or less convincing, but in no sense compelling.
I suppose any reference to Scripture or Tradition would set a dangerous precedent: if Scripture and Tradition was referenced on this issue, then people might get the idea that the organization ought to be constrained by them in other matters - such as priestesses.
What was actually required is something very simple and clear along the lines that Scripture and Tradition forbid this, so we won't do it.
But presumably, something so simple and obvious and effective is what is meant by 'knee jerk resistance to change'.
*
This is a statement on same sex 'marriage' from an organization calling itself a 'church', a Christian church in fact:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm/2012/12/7/Church-of-England-responds-to-PMs-same-sex-marriage-statement
I can't see any reference anywhere here to religious morality, specifically not to any Christian reasons for opposing same sex 'marriage', such as Scripture or Tradition.
Lacking any such reference, this is just a set of debating points, more or less convincing, but in no sense compelling.
I suppose any reference to Scripture or Tradition would set a dangerous precedent: if Scripture and Tradition was referenced on this issue, then people might get the idea that the organization ought to be constrained by them in other matters - such as priestesses.
What was actually required is something very simple and clear along the lines that Scripture and Tradition forbid this, so we won't do it.
But presumably, something so simple and obvious and effective is what is meant by 'knee jerk resistance to change'.
*
The desire for 'equality' is natural to humans; as natural as sin
*
The desire for 'equality' is natural to humans but that don't make it good.
Natural in the sense that children (for instance) will spontaneously plead for 'equality' and will (loudly, repeatedly) assert the injustice of inequality.
*
A five year old boy claims it is not fair that he must go to bed at seven when his nine year old brother goes to bed at eight.
The five-year-old claims equality with the nine-year-old on this particular matter, insofar as it gets him (more of) what he wants.
The context makes clear that the demand for equality is evil - because dishonest (at least: it misrepresents reality and subverts good order).
*
But why does the demand for equality have any rhetorical force?
That too must be natural.
Well, equality reduces to 'same'; and a genuine claim of equality is a claim of sameness.
*
But sameness is indivisible.
Sameness is sameness.
What is irrational, incoherent, evil - Leftist - is to divide identity and demand sameness in specified areas (where more is wanted) and not in others.
And to claim sameness where there is difference is an evil; just as it is to claim difference where there is sameness.
*
Thus all claims of equality which stop short of sameness are evil (including such sacred cows as 'equality before the law' - which has not ever been and cannot ever be and should not ever be true).
*
NOTE: I am, of course, talking about human beings. In physics things are different - in physics sameness is divisible. I wonder to what extent the error of dividing sameness/ equality into specific domains came from a false application of what works in physics?
*
The desire for 'equality' is natural to humans but that don't make it good.
Natural in the sense that children (for instance) will spontaneously plead for 'equality' and will (loudly, repeatedly) assert the injustice of inequality.
*
A five year old boy claims it is not fair that he must go to bed at seven when his nine year old brother goes to bed at eight.
The five-year-old claims equality with the nine-year-old on this particular matter, insofar as it gets him (more of) what he wants.
The context makes clear that the demand for equality is evil - because dishonest (at least: it misrepresents reality and subverts good order).
*
But why does the demand for equality have any rhetorical force?
That too must be natural.
Well, equality reduces to 'same'; and a genuine claim of equality is a claim of sameness.
*
But sameness is indivisible.
Sameness is sameness.
What is irrational, incoherent, evil - Leftist - is to divide identity and demand sameness in specified areas (where more is wanted) and not in others.
And to claim sameness where there is difference is an evil; just as it is to claim difference where there is sameness.
*
Thus all claims of equality which stop short of sameness are evil (including such sacred cows as 'equality before the law' - which has not ever been and cannot ever be and should not ever be true).
*
NOTE: I am, of course, talking about human beings. In physics things are different - in physics sameness is divisible. I wonder to what extent the error of dividing sameness/ equality into specific domains came from a false application of what works in physics?
*
Self-Diagnosis, Self-Treatment and Self-Monitoring
*
The following is an excerpt from an editorial I wrote for Medical Hypotheses, which is designed to assist people in treating themselves for psychiatric symptoms - but the principles are applicable to other phenomena such as pain:
http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/sub-types-of-depression-and-self.html
It may seem over-complicated, but the key point - most likely to be missed - is the self-monitoring phase: especially in the hours following the first dose of a new agent.
I have slightly edited the excerpt.
*
The process by which self-diagnosis may be accomplished requires some elucidation. I have previously termed the sequence S-DTM – meaning Self-Diagnosis, Self-Treatment and Self–Monitoring. The aim is to introduce to self-management a helpful degree of thoroughness and formalization to make the process both safer and more effective than unstructured self-management.
The first step involves developing self-awareness of symptoms. The word ‘phenomenology’ refers to the process of introspection or inward-looking by which a person can become aware of their inner, subjective states – psychiatric symptoms are one of the body states which may be accessible to such introspection.
*
To self-diagnose by introspection requires a skill which may be unfamiliar. For example, it is possible to be anxious but unaware of the anxiety. To become aware of anxiety as a feeling, a person needs to be able to recognize their own state of mental angst, muscular tension, rapidly beating heart, sweatiness, ‘butterflies in the stomach’ and so on.
Furthermore, inner states must be identified in terms of a system of classification – because body sensations tend to be experienced as formless and undividedly ’holistic’ unless there is a systematic classification which can describe them. Without some such analytic scheme, it may not be possible for someone to be aware of, and to express even to themselves, much more than a simple dichotomy of feeling either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Self-treatment, however, requires that different types of ‘feeling bad’ can be distinguished and identified.
*
In terms of ‘depression’ – the process begins with recognition of a depressed mood, in other words a negative or unpleasant mood state which could be characterized by some kind of unhappiness. Then there is a further introspective process by which the sufferer tries to identify some inner physical, bodily state which may be the main cause of this unhappiness. The assumption is that if this causal symptom can be alleviated or eliminated then the person may become happier.
Happiness is not necessarily entailed by removing the cause of unhappiness, but it is easier and more probable that a currently-unhappy person will become happy if they are relieved of unpleasant symptoms. For example, it is hard to be happy when suffering a headache and relief of the headache may therefore cause a person to become happy who would otherwise have remained miserable.
*
Having identified a particular aversive body state as a probable cause of depressed mood, this symptom is then made the focus for self-treatment; and the symptom is monitored for its response to treatment.
A treatment agent or mode is selected as being both safe and potentially able to alleviate the specific symptom, and a trial of this treatment is made.
So, if the symptom underlying depressed mood is identified as anxiety and unstable emotions then stabilizing drug is chosen (such as St John’s Wort or chlorpheniramine – see below); and the symptom is monitored to see whether it responds to this treatment.
*
Self-diagnosis
1. Recognition of a depressed, unhappy, low mood.
2. Introspective self–diagnosis of the symptomatic and emotional cause of depressed mood: its core feelings.
3. Matching the symptoms and emotions to one of the four sub-types of ‘depression’.
4. Matching the sub-type of depression to the drug class which is most likely to alleviate those symptoms and emotions.
5. Researching the scientific literature on the effects, side effects and possible interactions of the drug class – and choose a (probably) safe first-line agent.
*
Self-treatment
6. Begin trial of treatment.
*
Self-monitoring
7. Very careful monitoring for effects and side effects for the first 4 hours after taking the agent, and continued vigilance for several days. Keep a record.
8. If there immediate problems of side effects, or feeling worse after taking a drug, consider stopping immediately – or continue with vigilant self-monitoring.
9. If no benefit at all after a few days consider increasing dose or stopping and trying another agent.
10. If side effects are bad, or there is concern over dependence, or if unsure about whether or not the drug is having benefit, or if wanting to stop taking the drug; consider stopping the drug and self-monitoring the result of stopping – then consider restarting and monitor the results of restarting.
11. Go through the process for each new drug tried. Avoid known interactions between the drug stopped and a new one being started, and between multiple agents.
*
The following is an excerpt from an editorial I wrote for Medical Hypotheses, which is designed to assist people in treating themselves for psychiatric symptoms - but the principles are applicable to other phenomena such as pain:
http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/sub-types-of-depression-and-self.html
It may seem over-complicated, but the key point - most likely to be missed - is the self-monitoring phase: especially in the hours following the first dose of a new agent.
I have slightly edited the excerpt.
*
Self-awareness, phenomenology
The process by which self-diagnosis may be accomplished requires some elucidation. I have previously termed the sequence S-DTM – meaning Self-Diagnosis, Self-Treatment and Self–Monitoring. The aim is to introduce to self-management a helpful degree of thoroughness and formalization to make the process both safer and more effective than unstructured self-management.
The first step involves developing self-awareness of symptoms. The word ‘phenomenology’ refers to the process of introspection or inward-looking by which a person can become aware of their inner, subjective states – psychiatric symptoms are one of the body states which may be accessible to such introspection.
*
To self-diagnose by introspection requires a skill which may be unfamiliar. For example, it is possible to be anxious but unaware of the anxiety. To become aware of anxiety as a feeling, a person needs to be able to recognize their own state of mental angst, muscular tension, rapidly beating heart, sweatiness, ‘butterflies in the stomach’ and so on.
Furthermore, inner states must be identified in terms of a system of classification – because body sensations tend to be experienced as formless and undividedly ’holistic’ unless there is a systematic classification which can describe them. Without some such analytic scheme, it may not be possible for someone to be aware of, and to express even to themselves, much more than a simple dichotomy of feeling either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Self-treatment, however, requires that different types of ‘feeling bad’ can be distinguished and identified.
*
In terms of ‘depression’ – the process begins with recognition of a depressed mood, in other words a negative or unpleasant mood state which could be characterized by some kind of unhappiness. Then there is a further introspective process by which the sufferer tries to identify some inner physical, bodily state which may be the main cause of this unhappiness. The assumption is that if this causal symptom can be alleviated or eliminated then the person may become happier.
Happiness is not necessarily entailed by removing the cause of unhappiness, but it is easier and more probable that a currently-unhappy person will become happy if they are relieved of unpleasant symptoms. For example, it is hard to be happy when suffering a headache and relief of the headache may therefore cause a person to become happy who would otherwise have remained miserable.
*
Having identified a particular aversive body state as a probable cause of depressed mood, this symptom is then made the focus for self-treatment; and the symptom is monitored for its response to treatment.
A treatment agent or mode is selected as being both safe and potentially able to alleviate the specific symptom, and a trial of this treatment is made.
So, if the symptom underlying depressed mood is identified as anxiety and unstable emotions then stabilizing drug is chosen (such as St John’s Wort or chlorpheniramine – see below); and the symptom is monitored to see whether it responds to this treatment.
*
Self-diagnosis
1. Recognition of a depressed, unhappy, low mood.
2. Introspective self–diagnosis of the symptomatic and emotional cause of depressed mood: its core feelings.
3. Matching the symptoms and emotions to one of the four sub-types of ‘depression’.
4. Matching the sub-type of depression to the drug class which is most likely to alleviate those symptoms and emotions.
5. Researching the scientific literature on the effects, side effects and possible interactions of the drug class – and choose a (probably) safe first-line agent.
*
Self-treatment
6. Begin trial of treatment.
*
Self-monitoring
7. Very careful monitoring for effects and side effects for the first 4 hours after taking the agent, and continued vigilance for several days. Keep a record.
8. If there immediate problems of side effects, or feeling worse after taking a drug, consider stopping immediately – or continue with vigilant self-monitoring.
9. If no benefit at all after a few days consider increasing dose or stopping and trying another agent.
10. If side effects are bad, or there is concern over dependence, or if unsure about whether or not the drug is having benefit, or if wanting to stop taking the drug; consider stopping the drug and self-monitoring the result of stopping – then consider restarting and monitor the results of restarting.
11. Go through the process for each new drug tried. Avoid known interactions between the drug stopped and a new one being started, and between multiple agents.
*
Thursday 6 December 2012
Abp Rowan Williams doing what he does best: talking b*ll*cks
*
Sometimes I think I may have been too hard on Archbishop Rowan Williams, head of the Anglican church, the third largest Christian denomination in the world...
And then he says something; and I realize that nothing I could possibly write could begin to measure up to the weaselling mendacity of the man.
*
Take a look through his latest outpouring:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2732/archbishops-advent-letter-to-anglican-primates
For those of you who have a life, here is the choicest tidbit:
In the work done around evangelism, healthcare, the environment, the rights and dignities of women and children and of indigenous peoples and many more areas, what drew people together was this halfway formal model of a global community of prayer and concern maintained by deep friendship and common work. This is where you are probably most likely to see the beauty of the face of Christ in the meetings of the Communion; this is where the joyful hope of Christian believers is most strongly kindled.
*
Now, the first and most obvious impression is that this is nonsense on stilts: complete and utter b*ll*cks.
That would be bad enough, but it is in fact far worse than meaningless drivel. He is stating his conviction of what the Anglican communion is about; and it is clearly not about Christianity. A cursory reference to 'evangelism' is overwhelmed by Leftist politics "healthcare, the environment, the rights and dignities of women and children and of indigenous peoples".
And what is this vacuous (but recurrent) trope about 'face' of Christ? For Williams, this seems to be as specific as he can get about the nature of what he terms Christianity.
*
Aside from this, there is his usual dishonesty, in passages such as:
Despite many questions about how our decisions about doctrine and mutual responsibility are made in the Communion, and some challenges to the various ‘Instruments of Communion’, the truth is that our Communion has never been the sort of Church that looks for one central authority.
The Truth (as contrasted with Abp Rowan's 'truth') is that the Anglican Communion did not 'look for' one central authority because it actually had one.
There was a single central authority in the Anglican Communion, when it was a thriving Christian church; and that was The Book of Common Prayer - used by all Anglicans everywhere and supported by the Authorized Version of the Bible.
*
But let the man speak for himself:
This doesn’t mean that we are not concerned with truth or holiness or consistency. It simply acknowledges that all forms of human power and discipline can become corrupted, and that in the Church we have to have several points of reference for the organising of our common life so that none of them can go without challenge or critique from the others.
Our hope is that in this exchange we discover a more credible and lasting convergence than we should have if someone or some group alone imposed decisions – and that the fellowship that emerges is more clearly marked by Christlikeness, by that reverence for one another that the Spirit creates in believers.
Another way of saying this is that ... we are a ‘community of communities’. And perhaps in our own time we could translate this afresh and say we are a ‘network of networks’. Certainly this language has something to recommend it in an age when, so we’re told, networks are the decisive social fact for most younger people, often networks that are maintained through the new electronic media.
*
Minus the BCP liturgy and the single scripture, the Anglican Church is indeed precisely that unChristian and incoherent 'community of communities' or 'network of networks' that Williams describes, celebrates and advocates: that is, the Anglican Community is nothing more than a bureaucracy with memories of greater things.
And RW and his ilk want to eradicate all links to these greater things; and leave nothing but an international 'spiritual' bureaucracy; bureaucratically-enmeshed with the explicitly-secular Leftist bureaucracies, and evolving open-endedly into whatever Leftism requires it to become.
*
Sometimes I think I may have been too hard on Archbishop Rowan Williams, head of the Anglican church, the third largest Christian denomination in the world...
And then he says something; and I realize that nothing I could possibly write could begin to measure up to the weaselling mendacity of the man.
*
Take a look through his latest outpouring:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2732/archbishops-advent-letter-to-anglican-primates
For those of you who have a life, here is the choicest tidbit:
In the work done around evangelism, healthcare, the environment, the rights and dignities of women and children and of indigenous peoples and many more areas, what drew people together was this halfway formal model of a global community of prayer and concern maintained by deep friendship and common work. This is where you are probably most likely to see the beauty of the face of Christ in the meetings of the Communion; this is where the joyful hope of Christian believers is most strongly kindled.
*
Now, the first and most obvious impression is that this is nonsense on stilts: complete and utter b*ll*cks.
That would be bad enough, but it is in fact far worse than meaningless drivel. He is stating his conviction of what the Anglican communion is about; and it is clearly not about Christianity. A cursory reference to 'evangelism' is overwhelmed by Leftist politics "healthcare, the environment, the rights and dignities of women and children and of indigenous peoples".
And what is this vacuous (but recurrent) trope about 'face' of Christ? For Williams, this seems to be as specific as he can get about the nature of what he terms Christianity.
*
Aside from this, there is his usual dishonesty, in passages such as:
Despite many questions about how our decisions about doctrine and mutual responsibility are made in the Communion, and some challenges to the various ‘Instruments of Communion’, the truth is that our Communion has never been the sort of Church that looks for one central authority.
The Truth (as contrasted with Abp Rowan's 'truth') is that the Anglican Communion did not 'look for' one central authority because it actually had one.
There was a single central authority in the Anglican Communion, when it was a thriving Christian church; and that was The Book of Common Prayer - used by all Anglicans everywhere and supported by the Authorized Version of the Bible.
*
But let the man speak for himself:
This doesn’t mean that we are not concerned with truth or holiness or consistency. It simply acknowledges that all forms of human power and discipline can become corrupted, and that in the Church we have to have several points of reference for the organising of our common life so that none of them can go without challenge or critique from the others.
Our hope is that in this exchange we discover a more credible and lasting convergence than we should have if someone or some group alone imposed decisions – and that the fellowship that emerges is more clearly marked by Christlikeness, by that reverence for one another that the Spirit creates in believers.
Another way of saying this is that ... we are a ‘community of communities’. And perhaps in our own time we could translate this afresh and say we are a ‘network of networks’. Certainly this language has something to recommend it in an age when, so we’re told, networks are the decisive social fact for most younger people, often networks that are maintained through the new electronic media.
*
Minus the BCP liturgy and the single scripture, the Anglican Church is indeed precisely that unChristian and incoherent 'community of communities' or 'network of networks' that Williams describes, celebrates and advocates: that is, the Anglican Community is nothing more than a bureaucracy with memories of greater things.
And RW and his ilk want to eradicate all links to these greater things; and leave nothing but an international 'spiritual' bureaucracy; bureaucratically-enmeshed with the explicitly-secular Leftist bureaucracies, and evolving open-endedly into whatever Leftism requires it to become.
*
Let's be clear: equality is *not* good
*
That's it, really: equality is not good.
*
Equality is not some kind of noble ideal which sometimes/ often/ always goes-wrong in practice - it is not a noble ideal at all not even in theory; but it is unreal (nature is all difference and hierarchy), thus nonsensical and (therefore) evil.
*
But where did it come from?
Where on earth did so may people get this notion that equality is an ideal.
Even in the only (approximately) egalitarian human societies ever known, that is equal sharing by age and sex among among simple hunter gatherers with low technology and no food storage, equality is not a noble ideal so much as an equilibrium state of the desire that nobody-should-have-more-than-me!
In other words actually-existing-equality was driven by envy and resentment and fear and expediency: not at all a noble ideal.
( http://hedweb.com/bgcharlton/evolpsych.html )
*
One big mistake was to suppose (as did the early communists, socialists and egalitarians) that poverty was a consequence of inequality and therefore equality was the solution to poverty.
But, this was an error (or dishonesty) since poverty never-was a consequence of inequality; but of low per capita wealth.
And socialism emerged just as per capita wealth began to increase; and egalitarianism only slowed the increased in per capita wealth and delayed the abolition of poverty: honest and knowledgeable people can see this clearly now, it is just an objective fact.
*
So all of these are bad, not good: equality, egalitarianism, socialism, communism - bad in theory as well as in practice.
Equality is bad, bad, bad...
*
Bad...
*
Bad.
*
That's it, really: equality is not good.
*
Equality is not some kind of noble ideal which sometimes/ often/ always goes-wrong in practice - it is not a noble ideal at all not even in theory; but it is unreal (nature is all difference and hierarchy), thus nonsensical and (therefore) evil.
*
But where did it come from?
Where on earth did so may people get this notion that equality is an ideal.
Even in the only (approximately) egalitarian human societies ever known, that is equal sharing by age and sex among among simple hunter gatherers with low technology and no food storage, equality is not a noble ideal so much as an equilibrium state of the desire that nobody-should-have-more-than-me!
In other words actually-existing-equality was driven by envy and resentment and fear and expediency: not at all a noble ideal.
( http://hedweb.com/bgcharlton/evolpsych.html )
*
One big mistake was to suppose (as did the early communists, socialists and egalitarians) that poverty was a consequence of inequality and therefore equality was the solution to poverty.
But, this was an error (or dishonesty) since poverty never-was a consequence of inequality; but of low per capita wealth.
And socialism emerged just as per capita wealth began to increase; and egalitarianism only slowed the increased in per capita wealth and delayed the abolition of poverty: honest and knowledgeable people can see this clearly now, it is just an objective fact.
*
So all of these are bad, not good: equality, egalitarianism, socialism, communism - bad in theory as well as in practice.
Equality is bad, bad, bad...
*
Bad...
*
Bad.
*
Why managers inflict so much harm on modern society
*
Because the job of a manager, that upon which managers are evaluated, is to change things.
So managers do not leave things alone: but change things.
And in changing things they wreck things.
*
Why do managers so reliably wreck things?
Here are some reasons:
1. Because of the decline in intelligence, the large majority of managers are heirs to organizations more complex than they can comprehend; hence they are (as a class) over-promoted and incompetent to maintain, repair and change institutions; plus there is dilution of talent due to the excess of managers, plus there is the deliberate dysfunctionality of appointing managers by affirmative action (i.e. on the basis of an inversion of group aptitudes).
2. Due to the principle of entropy, almost all possible changes are destructive; increasing of chaos, maladaptive, dysfunctional, efficiency-reducing - so only a few of the unbounded number of possible changes can, in principle, improve organizations.(Just as most genetic mutations are deleterious or fatal, and only few will enhance reproductive success.)
3. Managers are not competent to improve things (by their changes) unless they have specific relevant knowledge and experience of the core organizational function. But hardly any managers do.
4. Managers cannot improve organizations by changing them unless they are motivated to improve organizations - this is a personal thing: does the manager really rejoice in improvement, does he mourn a decline in functionality? To ask is to answer.
5. Managers live in a culture of dishonesty: half-truths, hype and spin. They lie to non-managers, to each other and (sooner rather than later) to themselves. Therefore, they do not change things such as to produce real world improvement, but such that they can plausibly claim improvement (to non-managers, to each other, and to themselves).
etc.
*
Because the job of a manager, that upon which managers are evaluated, is to change things.
So managers do not leave things alone: but change things.
And in changing things they wreck things.
*
Why do managers so reliably wreck things?
Here are some reasons:
1. Because of the decline in intelligence, the large majority of managers are heirs to organizations more complex than they can comprehend; hence they are (as a class) over-promoted and incompetent to maintain, repair and change institutions; plus there is dilution of talent due to the excess of managers, plus there is the deliberate dysfunctionality of appointing managers by affirmative action (i.e. on the basis of an inversion of group aptitudes).
2. Due to the principle of entropy, almost all possible changes are destructive; increasing of chaos, maladaptive, dysfunctional, efficiency-reducing - so only a few of the unbounded number of possible changes can, in principle, improve organizations.(Just as most genetic mutations are deleterious or fatal, and only few will enhance reproductive success.)
3. Managers are not competent to improve things (by their changes) unless they have specific relevant knowledge and experience of the core organizational function. But hardly any managers do.
4. Managers cannot improve organizations by changing them unless they are motivated to improve organizations - this is a personal thing: does the manager really rejoice in improvement, does he mourn a decline in functionality? To ask is to answer.
5. Managers live in a culture of dishonesty: half-truths, hype and spin. They lie to non-managers, to each other and (sooner rather than later) to themselves. Therefore, they do not change things such as to produce real world improvement, but such that they can plausibly claim improvement (to non-managers, to each other, and to themselves).
etc.
*
Wednesday 5 December 2012
Be careful about the principles upon which you 'reform' - the example of slavery
*
When justifying a change which is to be called a reform, it is especially important that the reason, the principles behind, the reform be carefully considered.
It is not enough to get the change through by any argument, by any means, using whatever it takes - because the world does not stop but continues to develop; and if the reform is for the wrong reasons, then these wrong reasons will (sooner or later) bend back and bite you.
*
Take slavery.
Slavery was abolished on the basis that slavery was evil.
Therefore it was abolished by use of extreme force and without any consideration for the well being of the ex-slave populations after abolition - they were assumed to be better-off by definition.
More importantly, by abolishing slavery on the basis that slavery was evil, all slave holding societies in human history were then condemned as evil; which had the implication that modern society, modern people, you and me are all defined as essentially superior to everybody that lived through recorded history and up to the point of abolition.
Therefore we are not just free to discard tradition (since it is the tradition of slave holding societies) but the destruction of tradition becomes a moral imperative.
Hence modern secular Leftism; which is founded upon precisely this conviction: that destruction of the moral legacy of the past is a positive good.
*
If, on the other hand, slavery had been abolished because it was often cruel, and cruelty was difficult to prevent; matters would have turned-out very differently. The principle would have been established that cruelty to slaves was bad, not slavery as such, and society would proceed on that basis - presumably by some kind of laws against cruel treatment, maybe inspections. These anti-cruelty inspections would presumably spread and become applied to other social situations than slavery.
Or if slavery might be attacked in the basis that it made the slave's Christian practice conditional upon the Master's whim - in which case there would perhaps be imposed mandatory and public Christian practices from which slaves were not exempted. These Christian worship laws would then, presumably, be applied to the population at large.
*
The point is that each different reason for 'reforming' slavery will tend to continue after they have been applied to slavery; and the tougher and longer the fight to 'reform' slavery the more likely this is.
But the point applies generally. The Church of England introduced priestesses in 1992 and was narrowly prevented from introducing priestess-bishops a couple of weeks ago.
The principle upon which this major change was introduced was that 'exclusion' of women from the clergy is an evil act of repression.
Pragmatically speaking, this visceral conviction of the evil of preventing women having these 'jobs' is what drove (and drives) the 'reformers - it is the argument that apparently 'works' most effectively in terms of ramming these changes through in bureaucratic and media debate.
*
The consequence of the triumph of this argument is that all previous Christians who did not have female clergy were evil and repressive - and that therefore:
1. the legacy of the Christian past and its traditions can and should be rejected; plus
2. modern 'Christians' are superior to all Christians of the past since modern 'Christians' 'include' women clergy.
*
You and I might look at modern liberal Christians and seen only self-indulgent apostates; but in their own estimation they are superior to all the Fathers and Saints of Christian history - in their own estimation they are superior to the Apostle Paul, to St Augustine or St Anthony of Egypt, to anyone you like to name: St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, St Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, CS Lewis - all of 'em!
Moderns are superior because all of these old Christians were sexist, but liberal Christians are not: the argument is sexism is evil, ergo all of previous Christians are evil and inferior, every last one - and liberal Christians are better than them.
And this consequence follows as night follows day; and leads on to further change based on the reforming principle because of the reason used to justify the 'reform' of introducing women clergy.
*
Ideas matter, reasons matter, principles matter - if we get them wrong, the consequences can be chronic and catastrophic.
What 'works' pragmatically, in the short term, may lead to disaster in the long term.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason can be catastrophic; and the righter the thing, the greater the catastrophe - since the wrong principle draws force from the right action.
*
Thus it is that the abolition of slavery - with slavery having been argued against as an absolute evil, and therefore naturally leading to the inference that all slave holding societies (that is all historical sedentary societies) were absolutely evil - led to the rise of secular Leftist progressivism.
At the very least, abolition fuelled secular Leftism, lent it moral zeal, and made its growth exponentially rapid: (thus far) unstoppable.
*
When justifying a change which is to be called a reform, it is especially important that the reason, the principles behind, the reform be carefully considered.
It is not enough to get the change through by any argument, by any means, using whatever it takes - because the world does not stop but continues to develop; and if the reform is for the wrong reasons, then these wrong reasons will (sooner or later) bend back and bite you.
*
Take slavery.
Slavery was abolished on the basis that slavery was evil.
Therefore it was abolished by use of extreme force and without any consideration for the well being of the ex-slave populations after abolition - they were assumed to be better-off by definition.
More importantly, by abolishing slavery on the basis that slavery was evil, all slave holding societies in human history were then condemned as evil; which had the implication that modern society, modern people, you and me are all defined as essentially superior to everybody that lived through recorded history and up to the point of abolition.
Therefore we are not just free to discard tradition (since it is the tradition of slave holding societies) but the destruction of tradition becomes a moral imperative.
Hence modern secular Leftism; which is founded upon precisely this conviction: that destruction of the moral legacy of the past is a positive good.
*
If, on the other hand, slavery had been abolished because it was often cruel, and cruelty was difficult to prevent; matters would have turned-out very differently. The principle would have been established that cruelty to slaves was bad, not slavery as such, and society would proceed on that basis - presumably by some kind of laws against cruel treatment, maybe inspections. These anti-cruelty inspections would presumably spread and become applied to other social situations than slavery.
Or if slavery might be attacked in the basis that it made the slave's Christian practice conditional upon the Master's whim - in which case there would perhaps be imposed mandatory and public Christian practices from which slaves were not exempted. These Christian worship laws would then, presumably, be applied to the population at large.
*
The point is that each different reason for 'reforming' slavery will tend to continue after they have been applied to slavery; and the tougher and longer the fight to 'reform' slavery the more likely this is.
But the point applies generally. The Church of England introduced priestesses in 1992 and was narrowly prevented from introducing priestess-bishops a couple of weeks ago.
The principle upon which this major change was introduced was that 'exclusion' of women from the clergy is an evil act of repression.
Pragmatically speaking, this visceral conviction of the evil of preventing women having these 'jobs' is what drove (and drives) the 'reformers - it is the argument that apparently 'works' most effectively in terms of ramming these changes through in bureaucratic and media debate.
*
The consequence of the triumph of this argument is that all previous Christians who did not have female clergy were evil and repressive - and that therefore:
1. the legacy of the Christian past and its traditions can and should be rejected; plus
2. modern 'Christians' are superior to all Christians of the past since modern 'Christians' 'include' women clergy.
*
You and I might look at modern liberal Christians and seen only self-indulgent apostates; but in their own estimation they are superior to all the Fathers and Saints of Christian history - in their own estimation they are superior to the Apostle Paul, to St Augustine or St Anthony of Egypt, to anyone you like to name: St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, St Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, CS Lewis - all of 'em!
Moderns are superior because all of these old Christians were sexist, but liberal Christians are not: the argument is sexism is evil, ergo all of previous Christians are evil and inferior, every last one - and liberal Christians are better than them.
And this consequence follows as night follows day; and leads on to further change based on the reforming principle because of the reason used to justify the 'reform' of introducing women clergy.
*
Ideas matter, reasons matter, principles matter - if we get them wrong, the consequences can be chronic and catastrophic.
What 'works' pragmatically, in the short term, may lead to disaster in the long term.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason can be catastrophic; and the righter the thing, the greater the catastrophe - since the wrong principle draws force from the right action.
*
Thus it is that the abolition of slavery - with slavery having been argued against as an absolute evil, and therefore naturally leading to the inference that all slave holding societies (that is all historical sedentary societies) were absolutely evil - led to the rise of secular Leftist progressivism.
At the very least, abolition fuelled secular Leftism, lent it moral zeal, and made its growth exponentially rapid: (thus far) unstoppable.
*
Tuesday 4 December 2012
Did you know? The Salvation Army...
*
is a non-sacramental Christian denomination.
I had always assumed that the Salvation Army was something done by various Protestants (nonconformists) when they put on the uniform some evenings and at weekends. I had never realized that it was a distinct denomination - and one that rejected baptism and communion.
And yet I have SA members in my own extended family (ex Plymouth Bretheren from Ulster) although clearly I was never interested enough to ask them what it meant.
I got this from AJ Kreielsheimer's Conversion and the chapter on the SA founder General William Booth.
I found it encouraging that the Salvation Army seemed for several generations to preserve a strong and genuine Christian life despite the lack of sacraments; but with a traditional and patriarchal heirarchy.
This seems to expand the realm of possibilities for Christian resiliance and survival.
*
is a non-sacramental Christian denomination.
I had always assumed that the Salvation Army was something done by various Protestants (nonconformists) when they put on the uniform some evenings and at weekends. I had never realized that it was a distinct denomination - and one that rejected baptism and communion.
And yet I have SA members in my own extended family (ex Plymouth Bretheren from Ulster) although clearly I was never interested enough to ask them what it meant.
I got this from AJ Kreielsheimer's Conversion and the chapter on the SA founder General William Booth.
I found it encouraging that the Salvation Army seemed for several generations to preserve a strong and genuine Christian life despite the lack of sacraments; but with a traditional and patriarchal heirarchy.
This seems to expand the realm of possibilities for Christian resiliance and survival.
*
Over-promotion and euphemism: a lethal combination
*
In a world where almost all leaders are over-promoted and cognitively incompetent, compared with previous generations, it become particularly important to be clear and concise; since nuanced or lengthy explanation cannot and will not be comprehended.
*
Yet since the mid 1960s, political correctness has enforced euphemism on an increasing range of subjects, so that they may only be discussed in complex and qualified terms.
On the one hand, most people can only comprehend plain statement - yet on the other hand, plain statement is taboo.
The consequence is predictable - the mass of decision makers are clueless about issues and therefore necessarily make wrong decisions; yet are protected from awareness of their cluelessness and bad decisions by precisely the euphemism that led to the problem in the first place.
*
Of course, this situation is ripe for manipulation by the intellectual elite who, if they cannot do anything useful, can nonetheless readily perceive the advantage in being able to communicate among themselves in a secret language in the public arena.
Intellectuals have generated and sustain a cult of sensitivity whereby clear and concise statement is seen as simultaneously naive, ignorant, dangerous, and fanatical.
The secular Leftist elite have made a world in which the nuance of enemies is translated into simple and bipolar terms that are ridiculed as incoherent and pointed-at with horror; yet themselves shelter behind what is, to the mass of their audience, impenetrable complexity; yet this impenetrable complexity masks simplistic evil and nonsense (nonsense being evil).
*
Opponents to the secular Leftist order may be tolerated so long as they remain within the approved style of euphemistic, long-winded, ambiguous discourse - either in professional media, or in the public domain; but if they dare to clarify the underlying situation by revealing the essence of underlying reality in easily-comprehensible terms, or are perceived as being likely to do this - then they may be dealt with using extreme severity.
*
Thus the intrinsic damage of an over-promoted society is amplified by euphemism.
An over-promoted society might be able to function reasonably well if the participants were honest about what they could and could not do, and if they took note of the results of their actions; but once societal expression, observation and evaluation are couched in euphemistic terms, then the possibilities for disaster become open-ended.
When what is apparent and obvious is taboo, and personal observation must be re-interpreted in terms of second order theories that purport to prevent 'dangerous' misinterpretation and remove offensiveness and hurt feelings, then even very straightforward causality becomes obscured, and permanently.
*
The feedback loop of cause and effect is broken by enforced euphemism, and society becomes unable to learn from experience; because, unless a feedback loop between action and its consequences is conceptualized clearly and simply, then it might as well not exist.
*
In a world where almost all leaders are over-promoted and cognitively incompetent, compared with previous generations, it become particularly important to be clear and concise; since nuanced or lengthy explanation cannot and will not be comprehended.
*
Yet since the mid 1960s, political correctness has enforced euphemism on an increasing range of subjects, so that they may only be discussed in complex and qualified terms.
On the one hand, most people can only comprehend plain statement - yet on the other hand, plain statement is taboo.
The consequence is predictable - the mass of decision makers are clueless about issues and therefore necessarily make wrong decisions; yet are protected from awareness of their cluelessness and bad decisions by precisely the euphemism that led to the problem in the first place.
*
Of course, this situation is ripe for manipulation by the intellectual elite who, if they cannot do anything useful, can nonetheless readily perceive the advantage in being able to communicate among themselves in a secret language in the public arena.
Intellectuals have generated and sustain a cult of sensitivity whereby clear and concise statement is seen as simultaneously naive, ignorant, dangerous, and fanatical.
The secular Leftist elite have made a world in which the nuance of enemies is translated into simple and bipolar terms that are ridiculed as incoherent and pointed-at with horror; yet themselves shelter behind what is, to the mass of their audience, impenetrable complexity; yet this impenetrable complexity masks simplistic evil and nonsense (nonsense being evil).
*
Opponents to the secular Leftist order may be tolerated so long as they remain within the approved style of euphemistic, long-winded, ambiguous discourse - either in professional media, or in the public domain; but if they dare to clarify the underlying situation by revealing the essence of underlying reality in easily-comprehensible terms, or are perceived as being likely to do this - then they may be dealt with using extreme severity.
*
Thus the intrinsic damage of an over-promoted society is amplified by euphemism.
An over-promoted society might be able to function reasonably well if the participants were honest about what they could and could not do, and if they took note of the results of their actions; but once societal expression, observation and evaluation are couched in euphemistic terms, then the possibilities for disaster become open-ended.
When what is apparent and obvious is taboo, and personal observation must be re-interpreted in terms of second order theories that purport to prevent 'dangerous' misinterpretation and remove offensiveness and hurt feelings, then even very straightforward causality becomes obscured, and permanently.
*
The feedback loop of cause and effect is broken by enforced euphemism, and society becomes unable to learn from experience; because, unless a feedback loop between action and its consequences is conceptualized clearly and simply, then it might as well not exist.
*
Monday 3 December 2012
What gave me the idea for the over-promoted society?
*
In a phrase:
Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM).
It was my engagement (or rather, lack of engagement) with the advocates of EBM that first made me realize that most of the intellectual leaders in modernity are simply unable to understand the issues which they claim to dispute.
These writings summarize my activities in relation to EBM
http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/journalism/ebm.html
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/zombie-science-of-evidence-based.html
The term 'over-promoted incompetent' applies to pretty much all of the EBM advocates I came in 'contact' with, either in conversation or in correspondence - although in my judgement the primary leader of the movement was dishonest rather than incompetent.
*
In a phrase:
Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM).
It was my engagement (or rather, lack of engagement) with the advocates of EBM that first made me realize that most of the intellectual leaders in modernity are simply unable to understand the issues which they claim to dispute.
These writings summarize my activities in relation to EBM
http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/journalism/ebm.html
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/zombie-science-of-evidence-based.html
The term 'over-promoted incompetent' applies to pretty much all of the EBM advocates I came in 'contact' with, either in conversation or in correspondence - although in my judgement the primary leader of the movement was dishonest rather than incompetent.
*
How to tell if someone is over-promoted
*
How do you know if people are over-promoted? - in the sense that I have been describing in the posts over the past days; I mean by over-promoted that they lack the competence, specifically the general intelligence, to understand their job.
(Not that they are unable to do their job; but they they lack the requisite understanding to maintain, repair, and if necessary replace the complex entities of the modern world.)
*
The simplest way is to see if people can understand what you are telling them.
How can you tell if they have understood?
By them correctly summarizing what you have said, but in different words.
(I mean really doing this - not just by reflecting-back what you have just said in a formulaic fashion, nor by 'hypnotizing' you into thinking they have done this. Of course, this also requires honesty on your part - you must be prepared to acknowledge that an accurate, if not perfect, summary has been provided.)
*
So, if you never hear your own position correctly re-described; then you can never know that the other person has understood you.
And you must therefore assume, by default, that you are not being understood.
*
The usual reason for failing to provide such a re-description is incompetence - the other person has not understood you because they are cognitively incapable of understanding you.
Less often - or mixed in - are when people rhetorically re-describe your views using deliberate false descriptions (setting-up easily demolished straw men); or that a person is so in the grip of ideology, or involved in the heat of argument, that they lack patience, or there is insufficient time for communication, or that people want to coerce rather than persuade.
Or, they do understand but do not want to engage - perhaps because they recognize that if there was a rational argument they would lose it.
*
I think it is normal to ascribe the failure and futility of modern discourse to the fact that one's opponent is evilly-motivated - and in the case of the mass media and leaders of major social institutions, this is could well be true.
Indeed, it is characteristic of the Left that they always regard opponents as evil, ignorant (of facts) or insane.
But (I am asserting here) more often than not, it is the incompetence of the over-promoted which underlies all of this - because people cannot understand opponents, then they can only assume that opposition is evil, ignorant or insane; and no matter how long you were to spend explaining and them patiently listening - it would be to no avail: they cannot understand because they cannot understand.
*
All this is inevitable in a society significantly more complex than the cognitive capability of the people who have inherited it.
Over-promoted cognitive incompetence, by and of itself, is not the root of the problem - but if it is pridefully denied, and indeed not just denied but inverted such that incompetence is reinterpreted as superiority...
Well, then that is getting much closer to the root of the problem.
*
How do you know if people are over-promoted? - in the sense that I have been describing in the posts over the past days; I mean by over-promoted that they lack the competence, specifically the general intelligence, to understand their job.
(Not that they are unable to do their job; but they they lack the requisite understanding to maintain, repair, and if necessary replace the complex entities of the modern world.)
*
The simplest way is to see if people can understand what you are telling them.
How can you tell if they have understood?
By them correctly summarizing what you have said, but in different words.
(I mean really doing this - not just by reflecting-back what you have just said in a formulaic fashion, nor by 'hypnotizing' you into thinking they have done this. Of course, this also requires honesty on your part - you must be prepared to acknowledge that an accurate, if not perfect, summary has been provided.)
*
So, if you never hear your own position correctly re-described; then you can never know that the other person has understood you.
And you must therefore assume, by default, that you are not being understood.
*
The usual reason for failing to provide such a re-description is incompetence - the other person has not understood you because they are cognitively incapable of understanding you.
Less often - or mixed in - are when people rhetorically re-describe your views using deliberate false descriptions (setting-up easily demolished straw men); or that a person is so in the grip of ideology, or involved in the heat of argument, that they lack patience, or there is insufficient time for communication, or that people want to coerce rather than persuade.
Or, they do understand but do not want to engage - perhaps because they recognize that if there was a rational argument they would lose it.
*
I think it is normal to ascribe the failure and futility of modern discourse to the fact that one's opponent is evilly-motivated - and in the case of the mass media and leaders of major social institutions, this is could well be true.
Indeed, it is characteristic of the Left that they always regard opponents as evil, ignorant (of facts) or insane.
But (I am asserting here) more often than not, it is the incompetence of the over-promoted which underlies all of this - because people cannot understand opponents, then they can only assume that opposition is evil, ignorant or insane; and no matter how long you were to spend explaining and them patiently listening - it would be to no avail: they cannot understand because they cannot understand.
*
All this is inevitable in a society significantly more complex than the cognitive capability of the people who have inherited it.
Over-promoted cognitive incompetence, by and of itself, is not the root of the problem - but if it is pridefully denied, and indeed not just denied but inverted such that incompetence is reinterpreted as superiority...
Well, then that is getting much closer to the root of the problem.
*
Sunday 2 December 2012
Why don't British evangelicals use the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible?
*
The short answer is that they believe it to be inaccessible and off-putting.
But in this they are mistaken; and as proof I have found an unsurpassed authority: Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981).
*
I have been listening to Lloyd-Jones sermons over the past few weeks (there are about 1500 available on http://www.mlj.org.uk/home )
If he was not the greatest preacher of the twentieth century, then my imagination fails to conceive of how anyone could be better.
Anyway, the point is that he was a huge success as a preacher, and always used the AV as his primary text.
And Lloyd-Jones was a nonconformist Calvinist - not an Anglican.
*
Indeed, in the classic evangelical style of expounding scripture - short passages, often a single verse, maybe a couple of words - there is ample opportunity for explaining any difficulties with unfamiliar language.
But why use the King James Bible in particular? Lloyd-Jones explains
(H/T http://www.holybible.com/resources/tavant.php):
Part of an address given at the National Bible Rally in the Royal Albert Hall, London, on October 24, 1961 - emphasis added by me.
*
I suppose that the most popular of all the proposals at the present moment is to have a new translation of the Bible.... The argument is that people are not reading the Bible any longer because they do not understand its language—particularly the archaic terms. What does your modern man...know about justification, sanctification, and all these biblical terms?
And so we are told the one thing that is necessary is to have a translation that Tom, Dick, and Harry will understand, and I began to feel about six months ago that we had almost reached the stage in which the Authorized Version was being dismissed, to be thrown into the limbo of things forgotten, no longer of any value.
Need I apologize for saying a word in favor of the Authorized Version? Well, whatever you may think, I am going to do it without any apology.
*
Let us, first of all, be clear about the basic proposition laid down by the Protestant Reformers: we must have a Bible which is, as they put it, “understood of the people.” That is common sense; that is obvious.
We all agree, too, that we must never be obscurantist. We must never approach the Bible in a mere antiquarian spirit. Nobody wants to be like that or to defend such attitudes.
But there is a very grave danger incipient in much of the argument that is being presented today for these new translations. There is a danger, I say, of our surrendering something that is vital and essential.
*
Look at it like this. Take this argument that the modern man does not understand such terms as “justification,” “sanctification,” and so on. I want to ask a question: When did the ordinary man ever understand those terms?...
Consider the colliers to whom John Wesley and George Whitefield used to preach in the eighteenth century. Did they understand them? They had not even been to a day school, an elementary school. They could not read, they could not write. Yet these were the terms which they heard, and the Authorized Version was the version used. The common people have never understood these terms.
However, I want to add something to this. We must be very careful in using such an argument against the Authorized Version, for the reason that the very nature and character of the truth which the Bible presents to us is such that it is extremely difficult to put into words at all.
*
We are not describing an animal or a machine; we are concerned here with something which is spiritual, something which does not belong to this world at all, and which, as the apostle Paul in writing to the Corinthians reminds us, “the princes of this world” do not know.
Human wisdom is of no value here; it is a spiritual truth; it is something that is altogether different. This is truth about God primarily, and, because of that, it is a mystery. There is a glory attached to it, there is a wonder, and something which is amazing.
The apostle Paul, who understood it better than most, looking at its contents, stands back and says, “Great is the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim. 3:16).
*
Yet we are told, it must be put in such simple terms and language that anybody taking it up and reading it is going to understand all about it.
My friends, this is nothing but sheer nonsense!
What we must do is to educate the masses of the people up to the Bible, not bring the Bible down to their level.
*
One of the greatest troubles in life today is that everything is being brought down to the same level; everything is cheapened. The common man is made the standard of authority; he decides everything and everything has to brought down to him. You are getting it on television and in newspapers; everywhere, standards are coming down and down.
Are we to do that with the Word of God? I say, No!
What has happened in the past has been this: an ignorant, illiterate people in this country and in foreign countries, coming into salvation, have been educated up to the Book and have begun to understand it, to glory in it, and to praise God for it.
I am here to say that we need to do the same at this present time. What we need is, therefore, not to replace the Authorized Version.
We need rather to reach and train people up to the standard and the language, the dignity and glory of the old Authorized Version.
*
Very well, my friends, let me say a word for the old book, the old Authorized Version. It was translated by fifty-four men, every one of them a great scholar, and published in 1611.
Here is another thing to commend it to you: this Authorized Version came out of a time when the church had not yet divided into Anglican and Nonconformist. I think there is an advantage even in that. They were all still as one, with very few exceptions, when the Authorized Version was produced.
Another important point to remember is this. The Authorized Version was produced some time after that great climactic event which we call the Protestant Reformation. There had been time by then to see some of the terrible horrors of Rome and all she stood for. The early Reformers had too much on their plate, as it were; Luther may have left many gaps; but when this translation was produced, there had been time for men to be able to see Rome for what she really was.
These translators were all men who were orthodox in the faith. They believed that the Bible is the infallible Word of God and they submitted to it as the final authority, as against the spurious claims of Rome, as against the appeals to the Church Fathers, and traditions.
Here were fifty-four men, scholars and saintly, who were utterly submitted to the Book. You have never had that in any other version. Here, and here alone, you have a body of men who were absolutely committed to it, who gave themselves to it, who did not want to correct or sit in judgment on it, whose only concern and desire was to translate and interpret it for the masses.
*
In view of all this, my argument is that the answer does not lie in producing new translations. They are coming out almost every year, but are they truly aiding the situation?
No, and for this reason: men no longer read the Bible not because they cannot understand its language, but because they do not believe in it.
They do not believe in God; they do not want it.
Their problem is not one of language and of terminology; it is the state of the heart.
Therefore, what do we do about it? It seems to me there is only one thing to do, the thing that has always been done in the past: we must preach it and our preaching must be wholly based upon its authority.
*
The short answer is that they believe it to be inaccessible and off-putting.
But in this they are mistaken; and as proof I have found an unsurpassed authority: Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981).
*
I have been listening to Lloyd-Jones sermons over the past few weeks (there are about 1500 available on http://www.mlj.org.uk/home )
If he was not the greatest preacher of the twentieth century, then my imagination fails to conceive of how anyone could be better.
Anyway, the point is that he was a huge success as a preacher, and always used the AV as his primary text.
And Lloyd-Jones was a nonconformist Calvinist - not an Anglican.
*
Indeed, in the classic evangelical style of expounding scripture - short passages, often a single verse, maybe a couple of words - there is ample opportunity for explaining any difficulties with unfamiliar language.
But why use the King James Bible in particular? Lloyd-Jones explains
(H/T http://www.holybible.com/resources/tavant.php):
Part of an address given at the National Bible Rally in the Royal Albert Hall, London, on October 24, 1961 - emphasis added by me.
*
I suppose that the most popular of all the proposals at the present moment is to have a new translation of the Bible.... The argument is that people are not reading the Bible any longer because they do not understand its language—particularly the archaic terms. What does your modern man...know about justification, sanctification, and all these biblical terms?
And so we are told the one thing that is necessary is to have a translation that Tom, Dick, and Harry will understand, and I began to feel about six months ago that we had almost reached the stage in which the Authorized Version was being dismissed, to be thrown into the limbo of things forgotten, no longer of any value.
Need I apologize for saying a word in favor of the Authorized Version? Well, whatever you may think, I am going to do it without any apology.
*
Let us, first of all, be clear about the basic proposition laid down by the Protestant Reformers: we must have a Bible which is, as they put it, “understood of the people.” That is common sense; that is obvious.
We all agree, too, that we must never be obscurantist. We must never approach the Bible in a mere antiquarian spirit. Nobody wants to be like that or to defend such attitudes.
But there is a very grave danger incipient in much of the argument that is being presented today for these new translations. There is a danger, I say, of our surrendering something that is vital and essential.
*
Look at it like this. Take this argument that the modern man does not understand such terms as “justification,” “sanctification,” and so on. I want to ask a question: When did the ordinary man ever understand those terms?...
Consider the colliers to whom John Wesley and George Whitefield used to preach in the eighteenth century. Did they understand them? They had not even been to a day school, an elementary school. They could not read, they could not write. Yet these were the terms which they heard, and the Authorized Version was the version used. The common people have never understood these terms.
However, I want to add something to this. We must be very careful in using such an argument against the Authorized Version, for the reason that the very nature and character of the truth which the Bible presents to us is such that it is extremely difficult to put into words at all.
*
We are not describing an animal or a machine; we are concerned here with something which is spiritual, something which does not belong to this world at all, and which, as the apostle Paul in writing to the Corinthians reminds us, “the princes of this world” do not know.
Human wisdom is of no value here; it is a spiritual truth; it is something that is altogether different. This is truth about God primarily, and, because of that, it is a mystery. There is a glory attached to it, there is a wonder, and something which is amazing.
The apostle Paul, who understood it better than most, looking at its contents, stands back and says, “Great is the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim. 3:16).
*
Yet we are told, it must be put in such simple terms and language that anybody taking it up and reading it is going to understand all about it.
My friends, this is nothing but sheer nonsense!
What we must do is to educate the masses of the people up to the Bible, not bring the Bible down to their level.
*
One of the greatest troubles in life today is that everything is being brought down to the same level; everything is cheapened. The common man is made the standard of authority; he decides everything and everything has to brought down to him. You are getting it on television and in newspapers; everywhere, standards are coming down and down.
Are we to do that with the Word of God? I say, No!
What has happened in the past has been this: an ignorant, illiterate people in this country and in foreign countries, coming into salvation, have been educated up to the Book and have begun to understand it, to glory in it, and to praise God for it.
I am here to say that we need to do the same at this present time. What we need is, therefore, not to replace the Authorized Version.
We need rather to reach and train people up to the standard and the language, the dignity and glory of the old Authorized Version.
*
Very well, my friends, let me say a word for the old book, the old Authorized Version. It was translated by fifty-four men, every one of them a great scholar, and published in 1611.
Here is another thing to commend it to you: this Authorized Version came out of a time when the church had not yet divided into Anglican and Nonconformist. I think there is an advantage even in that. They were all still as one, with very few exceptions, when the Authorized Version was produced.
Another important point to remember is this. The Authorized Version was produced some time after that great climactic event which we call the Protestant Reformation. There had been time by then to see some of the terrible horrors of Rome and all she stood for. The early Reformers had too much on their plate, as it were; Luther may have left many gaps; but when this translation was produced, there had been time for men to be able to see Rome for what she really was.
These translators were all men who were orthodox in the faith. They believed that the Bible is the infallible Word of God and they submitted to it as the final authority, as against the spurious claims of Rome, as against the appeals to the Church Fathers, and traditions.
Here were fifty-four men, scholars and saintly, who were utterly submitted to the Book. You have never had that in any other version. Here, and here alone, you have a body of men who were absolutely committed to it, who gave themselves to it, who did not want to correct or sit in judgment on it, whose only concern and desire was to translate and interpret it for the masses.
*
In view of all this, my argument is that the answer does not lie in producing new translations. They are coming out almost every year, but are they truly aiding the situation?
No, and for this reason: men no longer read the Bible not because they cannot understand its language, but because they do not believe in it.
They do not believe in God; they do not want it.
Their problem is not one of language and of terminology; it is the state of the heart.
Therefore, what do we do about it? It seems to me there is only one thing to do, the thing that has always been done in the past: we must preach it and our preaching must be wholly based upon its authority.
*
Saturday 1 December 2012
Progressivism is merely: What will be, ought to be (Liberal Christianity)
*
In trying to understand progressivism, and what 'motivates' it; I recall my own time as a progressive, and it seems like the whole business boils-down to optimistic fatalism.
*
For a progressive there can be no root in the past, because there is an expectation of change.
For progressives (liberals, leftists) in the Christian church there is a rejection of Holy Tradition, a rejection of Scholastic logic, a rejection of Hierarchy, a rejection of the inerrancy of Scripture... all these are rejected, and Christianity is declared to be open-ended and to move with the times and reject the past - and so on.
But, if Christianity can change, what keeps it Christian?
There are those who say it is a complex mish-mash of all the above, so complex that the inter-relation cannot be pre-defined; and that view is coherent, albeit very difficult to evaluate and tending to deliver over Christianity into the hands of academics (which must be a bad thing).
*
But the mainstream of reformers in the modern Christian churches, almost all of the church leadership and the majority of self-described Christians - do not ever put forward a description of the basis of their changes.
They never state that basis upon which there 'reforms' are based.
I mean, traditional Orthodox might point first to Holy Tradition, Roman Catholics might point to the Magisterium, or catechism; Evangelicals would probably point to Scripture (in its plain or 'literal' meaning) - but the mass majority of progressive self-described Christians do not point to anything: they do not point at all.
*
Progressives do not reason from a basis, instead they reason from how things are, and how things are shaping-up to become.
(So-called) Liberal Christianity is therefore the process of adjustment of Christianity to how things are and how things are shaping up to become.
Is this good or bad? Well, the faith of Liberal Christianity is that it is good.
What is and what things are shaping-up to become is good; thus Liberals are optimistic about change; change is seen as getting better, change is seen as leaving-behind evil - as progress.
*
Thus, change is progress - change is always therefore called reform; and progress will happen, and progress is good: hence this is optimistic fatalism - because (for Liberal Christians - a Leftists in general) what will be, will be and that is how it ought to be.
To fight what will be will be is not just futile, but evil - because what will be is (by definition) better than what was; and traditionalism is evil because what was, is precisely what we are superseding.
Liberal Christians moral force is therefore an act of faith in what is and what will be; their moral disapprobation is restricted to those who regard what is and will be as evil: this is seen as perverse, but also in and of itself wicked: perversely wicked.
*
But what direction does this progress take us, where will we end-up, will that be good?
None of these questions can be answered.
Rather, the belief is that we will continue in the same direction - which has been good, and will continue to get better (why not?).
And if it does not seem to be better, then that is simply because we ourselves have been superseded and ought to be replaced by something better.
*
Is that a good thing? I mean, that those who cannot or will not 'get with the programme' are crushed or discarded? Well, yes, because the programme is primary.
Progressivism IS the programme.
Liberal Christianity is the open-ended process of moving Christianity to the Left - and since Christianity has been uprooted from tradition, scripture, authority and reason - then Christianity is what progressives say it is - and the only non-Christians are those who disagree with what progressives are today proposing as the next inevitable change.
*
In trying to understand progressivism, and what 'motivates' it; I recall my own time as a progressive, and it seems like the whole business boils-down to optimistic fatalism.
*
For a progressive there can be no root in the past, because there is an expectation of change.
For progressives (liberals, leftists) in the Christian church there is a rejection of Holy Tradition, a rejection of Scholastic logic, a rejection of Hierarchy, a rejection of the inerrancy of Scripture... all these are rejected, and Christianity is declared to be open-ended and to move with the times and reject the past - and so on.
But, if Christianity can change, what keeps it Christian?
There are those who say it is a complex mish-mash of all the above, so complex that the inter-relation cannot be pre-defined; and that view is coherent, albeit very difficult to evaluate and tending to deliver over Christianity into the hands of academics (which must be a bad thing).
*
But the mainstream of reformers in the modern Christian churches, almost all of the church leadership and the majority of self-described Christians - do not ever put forward a description of the basis of their changes.
They never state that basis upon which there 'reforms' are based.
I mean, traditional Orthodox might point first to Holy Tradition, Roman Catholics might point to the Magisterium, or catechism; Evangelicals would probably point to Scripture (in its plain or 'literal' meaning) - but the mass majority of progressive self-described Christians do not point to anything: they do not point at all.
*
Progressives do not reason from a basis, instead they reason from how things are, and how things are shaping-up to become.
(So-called) Liberal Christianity is therefore the process of adjustment of Christianity to how things are and how things are shaping up to become.
Is this good or bad? Well, the faith of Liberal Christianity is that it is good.
What is and what things are shaping-up to become is good; thus Liberals are optimistic about change; change is seen as getting better, change is seen as leaving-behind evil - as progress.
*
Thus, change is progress - change is always therefore called reform; and progress will happen, and progress is good: hence this is optimistic fatalism - because (for Liberal Christians - a Leftists in general) what will be, will be and that is how it ought to be.
To fight what will be will be is not just futile, but evil - because what will be is (by definition) better than what was; and traditionalism is evil because what was, is precisely what we are superseding.
Liberal Christians moral force is therefore an act of faith in what is and what will be; their moral disapprobation is restricted to those who regard what is and will be as evil: this is seen as perverse, but also in and of itself wicked: perversely wicked.
*
But what direction does this progress take us, where will we end-up, will that be good?
None of these questions can be answered.
Rather, the belief is that we will continue in the same direction - which has been good, and will continue to get better (why not?).
And if it does not seem to be better, then that is simply because we ourselves have been superseded and ought to be replaced by something better.
*
Is that a good thing? I mean, that those who cannot or will not 'get with the programme' are crushed or discarded? Well, yes, because the programme is primary.
Progressivism IS the programme.
Liberal Christianity is the open-ended process of moving Christianity to the Left - and since Christianity has been uprooted from tradition, scripture, authority and reason - then Christianity is what progressives say it is - and the only non-Christians are those who disagree with what progressives are today proposing as the next inevitable change.
*
What happened to the geniuses? (Where will they pop up?)
*
The concept of the over-promoted society where general intelligence has been declining since around 1800, and where the average person from 100 years ago would probably be in the top 10-15 percent of the modern population, provides an explanation of what happened to the geniuses.
Because, looking around the intellectual world, there seem to be approximately zero geniuses.
(At least it is apparently zero if the criteria of the past are applied.)
*
In intellectual history it is interesting to observe how different subjects dominate at different eras; and how genius tends to migrate from one area to another.
For example, one of the last eras of genius was biology, especially genetics; and a significant number of the biology geniuses had migrated from physics - which had been the previous dominant area of science.
From this I assumed that the decline of genius in biology would be accompanied by a rise in some other area - and I was continually on the look-out for where this might be.
*
My first idea was computing science; but it seemed clear that the breakthroughs had been made several decades ago and the field was no longer alive.
A second idea (please don't laugh) was economics; and I read a great deal of economics in the mid 2000s - partly to see whether this was correct.
However, I realized (from about 2007-8) that economists as a class lacked basic honesty and were not motivated to know the truth. Any impression of genius in modern economics was mere public relations, hype.
*
I still kept scanning the intellectual horizon; on the assumption that there must (surely!) be geniuses just as there had been for 100s of years, and they must (surely!) be doing great work somewhere.
But this was challenged by a careful reading of Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment which made clear that zero (detectable) geniuses was the norm in world history - and that the distribution of genius across time and space was very uneven, and shown no tendency to equilibrate (fill the gaps).
Of the near geniuses/ unacknowledged geniuses whom I knew, only one was successful in career terms (and that after their scientific apostasy) while the others were grossly under-promoted and indeed persecuted by academe.
*
So at that point I thought that there were the same number of geniuses as for the past few hundreds of years, but that they were held back and not recognized; and therefore they failed to have impact.
This is clearly correct, and genius is discriminated against while various types of mediocrity are promoted and celebrated with moralizing zeal.
But it is not likely that all geniuses of the past were able to fulfil their potential, nor is it likely that discrimination would be able utterly to crush genius had it been as numerous and vibrant as it was a century ago in the West.
*
My current view is that the age of genius is over - and the West has returned to the normal default state for humankind.
That is, genius is now a very infrequent occurrence; and while it may have a significant impact, it does not change the fundamental nature of society because each genius is isolated and the breakthroughs generated are not frequent enough (in the same domain) as to alter the way society as a whole functions.
Furthermore, genius is now 'misunderstood' in the sense that the general standard of intelligence is too low for their work to be comprehended; so in fact the work of a genius (those rare isolated instances) can seldom be acted upon any more - and therefore the fact that there has been a genius is not longer obvious.
*
What we have, then, is that the decline of intelligence means there are many-fold fewer geniuses in the West (ten-fold, twenty-fold fewer? Or an even greater decline?); plus that those geniuses who are born are less likely to get into a position to make a significant contribution due to Leftism and bureaucracy; plus, even if they do excellent work and make a theoretical contribution, this cannot be recognized (because their work cannot be understood by enough people) - and they will not make a significant practical difference.
So there are now many-fold fewer geniuses; and the few there are, are invisible. And even if not invisible, they make little or no difference to society at large - because modern society is incompetent to use the products of genius.
*
The concept of the over-promoted society where general intelligence has been declining since around 1800, and where the average person from 100 years ago would probably be in the top 10-15 percent of the modern population, provides an explanation of what happened to the geniuses.
Because, looking around the intellectual world, there seem to be approximately zero geniuses.
(At least it is apparently zero if the criteria of the past are applied.)
*
In intellectual history it is interesting to observe how different subjects dominate at different eras; and how genius tends to migrate from one area to another.
For example, one of the last eras of genius was biology, especially genetics; and a significant number of the biology geniuses had migrated from physics - which had been the previous dominant area of science.
From this I assumed that the decline of genius in biology would be accompanied by a rise in some other area - and I was continually on the look-out for where this might be.
*
My first idea was computing science; but it seemed clear that the breakthroughs had been made several decades ago and the field was no longer alive.
A second idea (please don't laugh) was economics; and I read a great deal of economics in the mid 2000s - partly to see whether this was correct.
However, I realized (from about 2007-8) that economists as a class lacked basic honesty and were not motivated to know the truth. Any impression of genius in modern economics was mere public relations, hype.
*
I still kept scanning the intellectual horizon; on the assumption that there must (surely!) be geniuses just as there had been for 100s of years, and they must (surely!) be doing great work somewhere.
But this was challenged by a careful reading of Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment which made clear that zero (detectable) geniuses was the norm in world history - and that the distribution of genius across time and space was very uneven, and shown no tendency to equilibrate (fill the gaps).
Of the near geniuses/ unacknowledged geniuses whom I knew, only one was successful in career terms (and that after their scientific apostasy) while the others were grossly under-promoted and indeed persecuted by academe.
*
So at that point I thought that there were the same number of geniuses as for the past few hundreds of years, but that they were held back and not recognized; and therefore they failed to have impact.
This is clearly correct, and genius is discriminated against while various types of mediocrity are promoted and celebrated with moralizing zeal.
But it is not likely that all geniuses of the past were able to fulfil their potential, nor is it likely that discrimination would be able utterly to crush genius had it been as numerous and vibrant as it was a century ago in the West.
*
My current view is that the age of genius is over - and the West has returned to the normal default state for humankind.
That is, genius is now a very infrequent occurrence; and while it may have a significant impact, it does not change the fundamental nature of society because each genius is isolated and the breakthroughs generated are not frequent enough (in the same domain) as to alter the way society as a whole functions.
Furthermore, genius is now 'misunderstood' in the sense that the general standard of intelligence is too low for their work to be comprehended; so in fact the work of a genius (those rare isolated instances) can seldom be acted upon any more - and therefore the fact that there has been a genius is not longer obvious.
*
What we have, then, is that the decline of intelligence means there are many-fold fewer geniuses in the West (ten-fold, twenty-fold fewer? Or an even greater decline?); plus that those geniuses who are born are less likely to get into a position to make a significant contribution due to Leftism and bureaucracy; plus, even if they do excellent work and make a theoretical contribution, this cannot be recognized (because their work cannot be understood by enough people) - and they will not make a significant practical difference.
So there are now many-fold fewer geniuses; and the few there are, are invisible. And even if not invisible, they make little or no difference to society at large - because modern society is incompetent to use the products of genius.
*
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