Bruce Charlton's Notions

There is an answer, and the correct answer is Communists.

But the chances are you may think that you disagree, or regard them as equally bad, or that it is too close to call.

However, if so, you are mistaken, and for one of two reasons:

1. Most likely, almost certainly, you do not know enough about Communism. Even I, who am no friend to Communism, continue to be surprised by what I did not know about the evils of the USSR. It has only been during the past year* I have begun to appreciate this, and even in the past week some major new horrors have come to my attention. But don't take my word for it, find out for yourself.

2. The Texas Sharpshooter fallacy

I described the TSF here: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/06/measuring-human-capability-moonshot.html

The way it work in this instance is that Nazism is defined as the ultimate evil - then other evils are measured according to how closely they resemble Nazism. Naturally, when this is done to Communism, it seems less evil than Nazism.


The relationship between ideologies (over the past couple of thousand years in the West) is as follows:

1. First came Christianity: primary sin = pride; primary virtue = love (i.e. the type of love which is agape/ charity). These defined ultimately in terms of spirituality, transcendentals, other worldly factors.

2. With leftist/ progressive atheism (e.g. Communism) the primary sin became selfishness; the primary virtue = unselfishness (a.k.a. altruism). These being defined in this worldly and materialistic terms - as 'worldly goods' ('goods' including all valued materials factors such as money and also socially-defined factors such as status).

Unselfishness is operationalized as altruism on behalf of others - e.g. other classes, other races, other sex, animals, climate, the planet...

3. Rightist/ reactionary atheism (of which Nazism is a type) reacts against the self-hatred and suicidal effects of leftist altruism on behalf of others, by reversing the morality of unselfishness to regard this-worldly materialist selfishness (under some communitarian description) as a virtue rather than the primary sin.

(In this sense, Nietzsche was indeed the philosopher of Nazism.)

Selfishness is operationalized by right-wing atheism as distributing worldly goods to one's own class, nation, empire, race, sex or whatever.

To be paradoxical about it, Nazism is aggressive altruism on behalf of oneself!


Both Communism and Nazism are relativistic/ nihilistic - they do not aim at a specific state of affairs, but a permanent revolution in a particular direction - secular leftists aim at continually increasing altruism to others, secular rightists aim at continually increasing selfishness.

Hence atheist ideologies of both right and left are capable of unrestrained evil, so their regimes are the worst in human history - but atheist leftism is capable of attracting vastly more widespread and sustained support and idealistic zeal by its pseudo-morality of un-selfishness.

Hence Communism has spread almost everywhere and accomplished (and is accomplishing) vastly more evil than Nazism - which was a narrow and unsustainable product of unique circumstances.


So - Christianity promotes transcendental love, Communism promotes worldly unselfishness on behalf of others, Fascism promotes worldly selfishness.

Leftists and progressives therefore regard Communism as intrinsically superior to Nazism - in a way that takes no account of evidence, since they see Communism as having the highest possible human aspirations - albeit they are usually corrupted.

Leftists regard Nazism (and other forms of secular rightism) as intrinsically evil because its advocates openly promote their own interests: its primary morality is selfishness. Since this is the exact opposite of leftism - indeed, an exact inversion of leftist morality - it is the ultimate evil.

**

Leftists also regard supernaturalist Christianity as intrinsically evil because it promotes non-worldly goods, which do not exist; thereby ignoring or neglecting the moral centrality of enforcing the altruistic distribution of worldly goods.

But, for leftists, Christianity is not the ultimate evil, since it is not the exact opposite of leftism. Rather, orthodox Christianity is seen as a hypocritical mask for secular rightism - which is seen as primary. Christians are therefore seen as promoters of selfishness who cleverly disguise it under a cover of nonsensical transcendental aspirations.

Explicit, open, un-ashamed secular rightism is the primary enemy.

So, Communists fear Nazis - because they understand and respect them, but despise Christians - who are seen as fools and cowards.

Communists want to fight real Nazis (if they think they can win), but want to exterminate Christians (as mere vermin.)


So, for leftists, the difference between the mainstream secular right and Nazis is merely that Nazism is more honest and brave: the secular right with the gloves-off. Mainstream rightists are seen as nothing more-than - or other-than - feeble Nazis.

**

Note added: The inferiority of Soviet Communism to German National Socialism can be seen in their military.

Perhaps it is unfair to compare any other nation with Germany in terms of military prowess - but the German army (and most of the people) apparently loved their leaders and fought for them with absolutely remarkable tenacity and effectiveness until utterly defeated. (The way in which the Allied invasion was held-up in Italy for a year and a half from autumn 1943 was evidence of the Germans' man-for-man supremacy.)

By contrast, from the beginning of the Bolshevik revolution, the government waged permanent war upon its own nation. In WWII the Soviet officers *drove* their cowed troops into battle from behind - guns aimed at their own men. On the Eastern Front I have read that the Russians lost ten men for every German killed. 

*The above is reposted from this blog in 2011. I stumbled across it today, and thought it still interesting, and increasingly topical - as (superficially repackaged) communism is making a mainstream comeback.

At Albion Awakening...

...How did Brexit ever get off the ground? 

Although everyone who is remotely honest and informed knows that the British people want to leave the EU and have wanted to leave the EU for more than two decades - Britain remained because the ruling class (Parliament and the leaders of the major social institutions) wanted to Remain.

How, then, did we get so close to leaving; when essentially everybody with power wants to Remain? This is truly remarkable! It ought to have been impossible!

In the first place, why was the referendum result allowed to be Brexit - given the massive level of voting fraud (mostly via the postal vote system)? ...

In the second place why was the official referendum result not ignored - in the way that previous referenda have often been ignored? ...
   
One would have supposed that if the British and European elites had worked-together to prepare a fake Brexit package, then that is what would have happened. For the UK really to leave the EU, with 'no deal' - as appears to be scheduled for March 29th - should have been impossible. It should - from the Establishment perspective - never even have been on the table.

It is the failure to reach a Fake 'deal' with the EU that is so remarkable. Surely it was in all the elites interest that it should happen. And yet it has not...

Read the whole thing... 

When I try to imagine the most perfect form of society, I come up with the family: a conscious and creative return to family.


We begin as unconscious family members, taking it for granted and having no alternative. In adolescence our consciousness becomes detached from the family - and we become aware that it is not the only option, that as individuals we are distinct from the family.

Ideally, at the moment of complete conscious separation, we will choose to return to the family in love - and that is adulthood.

The 'utopian' family (which has been, in fact, realised in real-life practice many times - albeit briefly and insecurely) is a 'structure' which forms around individuals who are held-together by love.

In other words, the family is not a structure but a process; it 'dynamically' coheres because of the love between members (the family being defined by this love; and different families linked-by this love - as with marriage or true-friendship). It remains coherent because each family member individually is 'pointing in the same direction', has the same ultimate goal.

Individuals in a family are infinitely-various means to the same end.


In an ideal family we do not pick-from and fit-into a finite set of predetermined roles; but instead (held together by love, aligned by sharing God's purpose) the family adjusts around the actual nature of each individual, the individual doing the same for other family members. This adjustment is always on-going, never fixed; and so long as love prevails, it can accommodate all true developments - that is all developments that come from the real, divine, inner-nature of the members.

If a family member develops in some unique and unforeseen way (and, in a sense, everybody does this, all the time) - if he develops needs and drives - then that individual and the family will make mutual adjustments to accommodate and make the most of this situation.

The family group, together, gets things done; the individuals are each unique and can develop in unplanned, unpredictable ways due to their unfolding inner natures. 

In mortal life, we cannot always attain or maintain this perfection of mutual love. Mortal life is intrinsically changeable, as befits a time of learning. But, having learned this from living; I do not find it difficult to imagine how this is exactly what happens in Heaven - but there, always and permanently.

When family members are permanently aligned in aim and bound by love - that is, when each member has been resurrected to life everlasting, has made the eternal choice of Heaven, and has become permanently aligned with God's creative will through love... then they all can work together creatively; participate with existing creation; work together in extending the divine work.

(That is the 'job' of Heaven.)


I cannot imagine anything I could want more that this open-ended life of eternal and loving creation - each person contributing what he is uniquely able and wanting to contribute, from his developing nature - which is why I am a Christian, since this is exactly what Jesus offered, and was able to give-us.

On the other hand, I can perceive - with sadness - that such a vision of Life Eternal does not seem to appeal to everyone; and not even to all of the people that I have loved and do love.

So I try to inspire people with a vision of this possibility.

However, love just-is and must-be voluntary, and participation in creation likewise - and that constraint is its strength.

...Then look at the backs of the hands...


Cosmetic plastic surgery and careful makeup can make the face superficially appear 15, maybe 20 years younger; and hair technology can do much the same.

But so far, nothing much can be done to the backs of hands except to cover them, keep them out of sight or - for celebs - photoshop/ defocus/ smear vaseline on the lens.


The backs of hands have thin skin with only just enough to allow the fingers to bend (so, no possibility of nipping or tucking); and they typically collect a lot of sun damage in a time-linear accumulation (especially from those who like to sport a sun tan - exactly those most likely to use plastic surgery to create a more youthful appearance).

So (assuming you know what to look for - e.g. including subcutaneous-fat thinning, as well as sun damage) skin condition on the backs of hands tend to be a highly sensitive and reliable measure of chronological age - even distinguishing girls in their late teens from those in their early twenties. Indeed, under normal circumstances*, it is the only reliable index - which is why so many older women trying to pass as younger wear gloves, on the slightest excuse or none

Such is our societies fear and loathing of age - especially among women but strongly increasingly among men - that if/ when it became technologically possible to live one's life in a virtual-simulated young-attractive 'skin suit' - there would be many, many takers; despite the reality a increasingly decrepit body within.

For secular hedonic modernity, honesty has been discarded as a value, expedience is all, and deception is limited only by fear of detection.

Appearance is everything; it is the only 'reality'.


*Note: If a woman was to wear gloves or total sun block on the backs of hands from early childhood, this would greatly delay the signs of skin ageing - the skin of the buttocks usually appears less-aged for many-more years than the hand backs, for this reason.

As infants in school; we sometimes used to make a gang by the simple expedient of going around the playground and asking other boys if they wanted to be in our gang. Most would say yes, simply because they wanted to be inside the new gang; not outside.

The standard threat to some other boy who displeased was to say 'I'm going to get a gang on you'. Typically nothing was done; but the idea was that the threatener would form a gang against the threatened. It could be done, quite easily, because plenty of kids could be found to go along with it - on the side of any random kid who asked, and against any other random kid... at least for a while.

And a great deal of adult life depends upon the innate desire to join gangs and to avoid being ganged-up-on. This is the primary social basis of tribal society and probably of our ancestors.


Yet this gang-forming propensity is very weak among modern Westerners. In a sense, we want to be gang members a lot more than we want actually to be In a gang. We want protection and a share in the power of a gang; but will not, we cannot accept the necessary group standards of behaviour, leadership, loyalty.

The key thing is 'cannot'. Modern Man just-is an individualist. He cannot form groups.


This is just a fact - but the problem is that he is a weak individualist. He is enough of an individualist not be be able to form groups, even when he wants to. But he is not enough of an individualist to take responsibility for his beliefs, for his thinking.

Indeed, modern Man does not take his individuality seriously enough to find out what it is. He accepts what he is told about his real nature, his true self. He expects to find his real true self outside himself, in the culture! So nearly everybody simply goes-along-with making a choice of self, a selection from prevalent mainstream notions of how 'we' are - all of which happen to be false, incoherent, and demotivating.

In effect: Modern culture gives us a finite, approved, checklist of characteristics; and we are invited to tick-off which apply. The uniqueness of that selection is supposed to be our individuality. The checklist's limitation is what makes us 'belong'. 


Genuine individuality of thinking is a glorious and optimistic thing; but the individualism of the large majority of modern Men is a pathetic and grovelling sham; with most of the disadvantages of group membership and very few of the advantages.

If modern man is regarded as being stuck in spiritual adolescence; then we can see that the problem of adolescence is that it is a transitional state between child and adulthood. When what should be a transition becomes permanent, then we get our situation.

The adolescent is individualist enough to be rebellious against parents and tradition; but groupish-enough that he is slavishly conformist to the fashion driven whims of peers - and these adolescent fashions are imposed top-down and with an exploitative and corrupting agenda. That is the permanent state of modern Man.

In sum the adolescent is primarily negative: knowing what he does not want, but unsure and labile; changeable about what he does want. And that is precisely the nature of the mainstream, modern, secular, Leftist socio-politics. It is essentially negative, defined by what it opposes (here and now) - but without any stable or coherent notion of what it wants and aims-for in the future.


It is understandable that the solution for the self-destructiveness of modern Man is seen in a restoration of traditional forms of groupishness - ie. individual conformity to churches. Traditional groupishness is vastly superior to the arrested-half-rebellion of modernity. If that was the choice, the choice would be straightforward.

But it is not the choice. It is not possible. Once adolescence has been reached we cannot return to spiritual childhood, not genuinely nor honestly. Childhood is not an option. Our actual choice is between arrested adolescence and growing up.

In spiritual Christian, and cultural, terms: we began as individuals subordinated and loyal to the group-church of our environment. We entered a semi-individualist adolescent phase of rejecting the church; and ideologically self-subordinating to the partial, expedient individualism of a rebellious teen gang mentality. We need to continue through adolescence, and out the other side, to become fully individual.

As spiritually grown-up individuals, we may choose to work with traditional groups, with churches - but the relationship is then conscious, voluntary, and contingent upon the behaviour of the church. Since we have become adult individuals, we no longer regard loyalty to the church as the primary value.


Much of the desire for a strong church; and to be in a church, of a church - is an unrealistic and impossible yearning for that lost playground security of being 'in a gang'; and not having the gang set against you. Modern Man finds he is not, and cannot be, truly in a gang; yet the fact scares him - it scares him at an existential level, a pervasive and intolerable angst - from which he escapes into distraction and intoxication and Not Thinking.

Having a developed sense of self-consciousness - being rooted in this; we cannot help but evaluate and judge the 'external' church against our personal standards. Internal standards, personal intuition, is the only evidence we will accept - yet modernity undercuts all personal intuition as arbitrary, epiphenomenal, self-deceptive, lacking any objective validity.

This is why we need, more than anything else perhaps, to understand how and when intuition has objective validity; to develop confidence in genuine intuition - as being a form of direct knowledge of the divine: the divine within that makes us Sons of God, and the divine without: the Holy Ghost, which is the living Jesus Christ.

Reading Kevin Bazzana's biography of Glenn Gould; it was clear that, despite being a musician of genius, Glenn Gould was prone to the same kind of unrealistic fantasies as the rest of us.

In his case it was being a composer. From the beginning of his career (aged about 15) through to the end of his life, Gould would talk about his intention of composing - yet he finished only one piece - a string quartet, written in his twenties.

Over a span of 35 years, nothing else substantive got further than announcements, concepts and sketches - despite that for 18 of these years he had retired from concert life, ostensibly in order to have time and energy for composition.


I emphasise 'being' a composer - because it was pretty clear that it was more this that Gould wanted than the actual business of writing music. He wanted to 'be' a composer, rather than 'doing' composing.

Bazzana, through his analysis of the string quartet and the sketches, is convinced that Gould lacked the ability to be a significant composer*. On the one hand he lacked the creative drive in that direction, as evidenced by his inertia; and on the other hand he lacked sufficient compositional technique for writing the kind of complex contrapuntal music he was most drawn to, and did nothing to acquire it - he did not study or take lessons.

Yet, somehow, Gould didn't want to give-up on this fantasy - and kept-on, even in later life, implying that a compositional breakthrough was just around the corner...


I find this interesting; and it happens a lot - including at the lower levels of ordinary non-genius folk including myself and my friends and colleagues. Many people have a tendency to undervalue what they can do and hanker after what they cannot; and many of these take the hankering no further than vague aspiration, yet fail to draw the conclusion that their daydream is thereby invalidated.

This can, in some people, have serious consequences - such as a wasted life. It is, I believe, a deep fault of character; which ought to be recognised and repented - because it is a species of avoidance by self-dishonesty.

It amounts to living a lie.

*On the other hand, Bazzana demonstrates that Gould was genuinely compositional - and in a musical way - in his radio 'documentaries'. If you do not know these, I would strongly recommend the 'Solitude Trilogy'. For this blog's readers, perhaps the third would be the best to start-with: The Quiet in the Land (1977) is about the Mennonites in 'modern' Canada. I was later inspired to attempt this genre myself.   

"That is simplistic. It's more complicated than that - the situation is extremely complex..."

Such terms mean: I understand and you do not; so shut-up and do what I say.


Things are, in a sense, much too complicated for any-one to understand - and if no-one understands than no-body and nothing understand.

When a single person cannot understand as-a-whole, then it is not understood (and people are in reality merely implementing simple algorithms, which they do not understand).

A group of people, each understanding a little bit - nobody understanding the totality, and called a Team; does Not amount to understanding. They are flying blind.

At another level - it is all terribly simple, and every-body understands... understands well enough to be going-on with.

At the level of data/ information things are impossible; but at the level of intuitive knowing (if we can reach-down and touch-this, swamped as it is beneath a swirling mass of data/ information) then everything needful is known and everything necessary is possible.

These little limbs,
These eyes and hands which here I find,
These rosy cheeks wherewith my life begins,
Where have ye been? behind
What curtain were ye from me hid so long?
Where was, in what abyss, my speaking tongue?

When silent I
So many thousand, thousand years
Beneath the dust did in a chaos lie,
How could I smiles or tears,
Or lips or hands or eyes or ears perceive?
Welcome ye treasures which I now receive.

(Read the whole thing)


It seems to be characteristic of Romantic Christians that they - we, including myself - have a belief in having lived before this mortal life.

Often this takes the form of some version of reincarnation - which seems to be a basic, default belief among tribal people, and many Eastern religions. But the key things seems to be not reincarnation, but the direct, intuitive conviction of having lived before this mortal life; of having lived as a spirit, before being incarnated.


In the poem above Traherne describes (or imagines) the memory of being incarnated; and many people - perhaps all Romantic Christians - have some such memory, although they may be unsure of its validity.

William Blake explicitly believed in a pre-mortal existence; Wordsworth described it in glorious detail in his Intimations of Immortality; Coleridge in a poem to his son. But of these, Coleridge seemed especially uncomfortable about his statements - and rejected the  reality of pre-mortal life; and Wordsworth became similarly negative about in his later life - because it conflicts with the metaphysical assumptions of traditional Christianity.

(The reality of pre-mortal spirit life is, however, consistent-with the Fourth Gospel - being specifically asserted for Jesus; and indirectly in the discussions of the Baptist's identity, and at John 9:2.) 


I have come to recognise that a belief in my pre-mortal existence is more powerful and more causally-important for me than a belief in post-mortal Life Eternal.

This is so, because the pre-mortal implies the post-mortal; and the pre-mortal is more sure.

Memory of my pre-mortal life, albeit dreamlike and hazy, is a direct and personal experience. And since I also believe that pre-mortal life had no beginning, but was from eternity; then this implies to me that post-mortal life is also eternal.

Since I have lived from eternity, then I expect that I shall live - in some form - to eternity; since I was transformed (not created) at birth, then I expect to be transformed (not annihilated) at death. 

By contrast, post-mortal life eternal (after biological death) can, for me at least, only be known indirectly*.


*Those who know post-mortal life directly are (I guess) those who (potentially) believe in reincarnation; but I do not have such memories or intuitions.
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no neutrality; never believe that there is.

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


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

In theory I certainly do believe in spiritual power (and want to exercise it); but I find it impossible consistently to believe it in practice (I lapse from that belief frequently); and this is a classic example of the mortal condition.

We can choose what we believe, and endorse; but we cannot always stick to that belief at all times. Therefore, what we are choosing is what we repent.

(In this instance, I repent my lapses from knowing - and behaving in light of that knowledge - that spiritual power is supreme.)

However, I reject the semi-technological idea of spiritual power that I quite often see among Christians - which seems to have it that the best way to influence the world is along the lines that to effect change one should organise prayer, especially mass prayer, to achieve specific material ends.

This I would regard as a materialist strategy. Material strategies - such as habits of prayer, or rituals - may assist the spiritual, probably have done, as some kind of generalisation, in some eras and situations; but there is no causal connection at the specific level - and nowadays (in our context) this reduces the spiritual to the material, reduces spirituality to a mechanism.

But if, instead, we regard spiritual power as of vast power, vast scope, capable of massive effects - but genuinely spiritual; then we can see that it is not really a 'power' at all. Power might be defined in terms of imposing our will; and this is not allowed, not possible, unless and until our will is wholly-aligned with creation.

For most people - this alignment is only sporadic and short-lived. During these times we can, I believe, indeed participate in God's work of creation; and therefore exercise real spiritual power. However, that which we most 'want' is not necessarily or usually that which is aligned with unfolding creation.

In a nutshell; only when we want Good are we personally able to exert spiritual power; but in those circumstances we can.

Therefore if we 'want' more spiritual power; we first must come to want what is Good.

I find that hardly anybody has any conception of what is going-on, the times we are living in. There is a blindness to reality that is so nearly complete, that it might as well be total.

The only people who do seem to comprehend are the small minority of serious Christians; but the great majority of self-identified Christians in the mainstream churches are every bit as bad as the most fanatically Leftist atheist.

So we live in a totally divided world - a small minority of serious Christians and a mass majority of unserious Christians and mainstream materialists - and these two side cannot really connect because their basic assumptions are so vastly different, and there is no middle ground.

Anglican Unscripted is an excellent series that includes three serious Christians in the Anglican communion who discuss current issues - and here they address this divide that goes right through the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the USA, and the Roman Catholic Church and the major non-conformist Protestants.

In their polite and friendly way Kevin, George and Gavin are absolutely clear about the appalling, historically unmatched evil of our current situation in The West - and the utter incomprehension of the Bishops and bureaucrats, the media and the politicians, and the great bulk of 'normal' people...

That the medium is the message is true so far as it goes. The message is direct-knowing; so it is not the content that provides for that possibility. 

Direct-knowing requires participation; so when the medium encourages, requires participation - That is the aim...

Because what God most wants from us are these 'moments' of direct apprehension (sharing-in) truth, beauty, goodnesss. Each such moment is indelibly inscribed in reality... if an indelible thing was Not permanently fixed; but instead permanently present as a creative possibility. 

Passive, immersive, purely emotional or intellectual assent is useless (except as preparation). Without participative moments... well we may get marks for trying (if we are indeed trying - rather than merely pleasantly marking-time or avoiding misery) - but it would a kind of encouraging rejection rather than an accepted contribution. 

We must meet reality halfway, and join with it to make some new creation. And this happens in the realm of thinking, not of making. 

What then of the making, what of media? It should aim to meet us halfway; we should aim to meet it halfway... Any aim of manipulation or takeover on either side will invalidate the possibilities.  

This objective of mutual participation is not a kind of modesty or self-limitation, but a vaulting ambition; an insitence on taking life seriously. The preference for failure in a high goal over success in a lower. 

And, of course, a different criterion of success.   

Glenn Gould famously announced in 1964 that he was retiring from live performances to focus on recorded and broadcast music-making - and kept his vow for the next 18 years until he died.

This ceasing of public appearances created considerable international criticism and debate; since Gould was one of the most famous and successful solo pianists of his (or any) era; and no-one of his stature had ever previously done anything like this. But Gould had his reasons.

I too have, at times, made vows about retiring from activities - and stuck by them, mostly - but I, of course, did not announce my resolutions, nor would anyone have been interested if I had!


Probably the first was back when I was an Anatomy lecturer at Glasgow University, doing research on the human adrenal gland and its nerve supply; when I resolved not to apply for any more research grants. And I never did.

My reason was that I had failed to get several grants in the previous year, yet wasted considerable time and energy (and morale) applying for them - until it became clear and undeniable that the adrenal was too 'unfashionable'. To get funding, I would need again to do 'neuroscience', as I had for my doctorate - when I had not failed at getting grants.

But I had some work I wanted to 'finish' on the adrenal; and did not want my research to be controlled by the grant-awarding authorities - so I made this resolution.  I would do the addrenal research as best I could without external funding - using whatever resources I could muster.

Clearly, by never getting any research funding, I paid a price in terms of career progression. But it was the correct decision for me - since it enabled the subject matter of my scholarship, and therefore my 'life', to be 'free' for a further couple of decades; while nearly all my colleagues and contemporaries became, what seemed to me, self-deluded technicians and project managers.


Another retiral (to use the Scottish term) was from laboratory work specifically, and empirical science more generally. This was not a strict rule, nor was it done on moral grounds; it was simply based upon the recognition that because I was merely adequate at laboratory work (and not very interested by it), I could and should focus instead upon theory - which was both my aptitude, and the mode of work in which I was most spontaneously motivated.

I did not stick to this completely - because in the middle 2000s I got so interested in 'scientometrics' (the numerical measurement of scientific work) that I did, and published, some statistical analyses. Much of the heavy statistical work was done by a computer scientist colleague, but I did some of my own - such as looking at trends in Nobel prizes and other awards.

But my concentration on theory was regarded as making me 'research inactive' in the eyes of the UK academic bureaucrats (despite a prolific publication record) because only empirical publication (of 'new' data) was regarded as 'real' (and because grant income was what defined 'real' research). Also, the scientometrics (which had had a pretty high impact) 'did not count', because it was outwith the official boundaries of the psychology category.

So, this retirement also took its toll on my career.


After I was sacked from editing Medical Hypotheses - on the specific technical grounds of my refusal to introduce Peer Review (albeit with a real background in issues of political correctness); I vowed not to participate in peer review in any fashion from that point.

This meant that I did not publish any peer reviewed articles, and I stopped peer reviewing for journals, grant applications and the like.

Building on this, I soon realised that all forms of voting were immoral - including in the many and various meetings of institutional life; so in recent years I vowed not to attend formal meetings or to be otherwise involved in voting; or, indeed, in surveys.

This resolution was quite difficult to stick-to, and had potential to cause serious trouble, but in the event it did not prove catastrophic - although it certainly would have done, sooner or later.


Looking back across these retirements - it is easy enough to see that they were all related to personal autonomy; and the fact that I did not acknowledge the authority of others to control my scholarship and research.

There was a price to pay, in terms of diminished resources and status (and income) but it was a worthwhile price for so long as I could retain my traditional academic autonomy.

But nowadays that autonomy has become institutionally impossible, and has in practice disappeared - at least among younger generations (there are probably a very small and diminishing number of old, employed, still-autonomous academics - living on borrowed time...).


Science, and all other forms of research and academic scholarship are - in their strategic elements - now wholly externally controlled by linked managerial and bureaucratic structures - so the 'job' of an academic or scholar is now merely concerned with the detailed implementation of already-prescribed agendas.

Partial retirements no longer suffice to maintain autonomy: the future belongs to the amateur outside of the system and independent of all funding, salary, status, honours, terms and conditions.

To the amateur; or to nobody.

What finally cured me of any notion of progress in philosophy as a thought-tradition was reading a history of philosophy from a philosopher that I respect; and who has argued well in favour of the potential for philosophy to be the kind of subject that does exhibit progress.

The book is: Alasdair MacIntyre. God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.

To me, in contrast, the book showed nothing but the zig-zags of academic fashion.

On the other hand, my own personal and self-validated philosophy has indeed progressed - from incoherent harmfulness to something much better.

So, solid experience confirms that philosophy is objective and progress is possible for an individuals during his lifespan. But not at the group level and across generations.

This explains why real philosophy has often returned to the primary sources (e.g. reading texts by Plato and Aristotle - or at least translations) - because the subject of philosophy is one that is encompassed by the life of a Man, and is learned and developed during the life of one Man.

And therefore the subject of philosophy is an encounter between individual Men (often across the generations).

This explains why there is no agreed objective definition of philosophy - there is not even an agreed canon of valuable philosophers; because there is no valid extra-personal arbitrator - you or I must decide 'what is philosophy' for our-selves, and for our own actual purposes in the context of our own lives. And this definition may, probably will, change through a life - according to actual needs that 'philosophy' may address.

For instance, I have had some use for Plato and Aquinas; but none at all for Hume or Kant - because I have been sure (from secondary sources) that Hume and Kant's work is fundamentally metaphysically wrong, that they work from false - therefore evil - assumptions.

To the extent that studying them thoroughly is harmful - and that harm can be confirmed in those who have studied them and promote them - and why would I want to harm myself?

For me, philosophy has been therapeutic in the way that Wittgenstein claimed it should be - but failed to achieve in his own work. The therapy has come from showing that some of my assumptions were indeed assumptions, and were not 'evidence', were not conclusions. I only arrived at this situation in late 2012, I think - so for most of the time I read and thought-about philosophy (about 40 years) I was wrong, it was wrong, and it did more harm than good.

But in the end, a few specific bits of philosophy (including from people not recognised by academia as 'philosophers') has been greatly valuable - life-saving - living as I do in a culture for which the mainstream philosophy is so massively harmful, so powerfully inculcated, and so deeply embedded.

This post originated in a comment at Bonald's Throne and Altar blog. 

I'm about 100 pages into this re-read, and it so far confirms my original impression that this is the best of the biographies of, and books about, Glenn Gould that I've seen (although several of them are very good).

For me, there is no doubt that Gould is something more than one of the great pianists: Bazzana states that after Gould's first professional recital aged fifteen, his father got a letter from a stranger reporting that her young adult son had been present; and said that although the son had never previously believed in 'a hereafter and a life eternal' - having heard Gould play, the son reported: "Now I know".

Bazzana puts it well:  

For all the uncritical idolatry in Gould's reception, those who profess to hear 'something' in his playing are not crazy; often, in fact, they are hearing precisely what Gould intended to communicate. He considered his performances to be not just readings of pieces of music but documents of his world view... He thought that artists had a 'moral mission' and that art had enormous potential for the betterment of human life; as a performer he aimed not only to play well but to do good. The unity of theory and practice does come across in his recordings...

I picked all this up for myself from listening to Gould playing Bach, on a tinny record player, in the solitude of a freezing cold and sordid flat in 1978; at a time when I had not heard a single good word about Gould (the British Establishment critics loathed him); but instead a mass of falsehoods and misrepresentations that implied he couldn't really play (he cheated by having his piano adapted to lighten the action, the recordings of fugues were faked-together from separately played voices etc.).

It is easy to be distracted by the supreme pianistic technique, and the powerful musical intelligence; but what sets Gould apart from any other musician of the recorded era is the spiritual quality; and this is a consequence of Gould's deeply contemplative and Romantic personality, and the ecstatic concentration of his playing which lift it from performance to co-creation.

In fact, I would nowadays characterise what is going-on in terms of Final Participation and Primary Thinking. What we have - in material terms - is at the level of (mere) communication: a recording of a performance, and that recording created in a studio by piecing together of several or many performances - I then listen on imperfect devices, with all my incapacities and preconceptions... and at the end of the day it seems impossible to be sure that what I experience has anything to do with Bach or with Gould.

Thus considered, it seems a trivial or delusional activity; and something which 'we shouldn't take too seriously'; and yet, that has not been my experience over a span of more than forty years.

The way I would prefer to characterise it is in terms Not of communication by of direct knowing. When I am really experiencing the music (in that state termed ecstasy); at that time Bach, Gould, other people, and myself are all - as actual living Beings, here-and-now, experiencing the same 'thinking' - in real time. If it is real knowing, then it is an experience to which we all contribute, actively.

It is an act of creating; going on within the primary ongoing context of divine creation. And presumably all such experiences shape the thinking.

I do Not regard the real music as an unchanging Platonic ideal outside of space and time - that we might take from a library and replay; instead I think that this music exists in the consciousnesses of actual Beings, in their living thinking; and the shared experiences of this thinking.

What makes specifically Gould's Bach (sometimes) real, and my experience of it as real, is that the music was written, performed and listened-to in this state of ecstasy. Only if and when 'we' are all experiencing this ecstatic state (which is Primary Thinking) does direct knowing 'happen'.

The 'communications', the musical score, the piano, recording media, the sound reproduction... all these are acting something like pointers to the real thing - or perhaps something more. As methods for inducing states of intuitive sympathetic resonance between the minds involved (Bach's, Gould's mine etc.).

I suppose this applies to all communications and media; including conversations and social interactions as well as arts. They are ideally (although seldom in practice) means to that end of direct co-creative thinking.

There is, of course, no strict numerical and chronological division of life - but if we are talking about an approximately threescore and ten year lifespan (and anything beyond merely an extension of old age); then we could reasonably follow CG Jung and divide it into quarters; then we get four periods of about 18 years each.

This would mean that old age began at about 54 years old.

That seems about right to me.


This four-part division is - of course - somewhat circularly-defined; in the sense that it is partly based on observation and partly based on what ought to be. In other words, childhood and development not only do, but ought to continue to about 18-21 (childhood lasts longer for men than women) - and it would not be a good thing for it to end much earlier or much later than that.

Perhaps the least obvious is the idea that adulthood is divided at about 36 years old (between something like 'young adult' and 'middle age') - and this can only easily be seen among creative people such as artists, authors and research scientists, because mid-thirties is about the time when there is a transition between learning the craft or profession and beginning to contribute in an original way.

It is the division between master-ing and being a Master.

Even among 'precocious' creative people, who begin to make contributions in their twenties; the very best work usually comes between the middle thirties and middle fifties. For instance, Einstein made major scientific contributions in his middle twenties; but General Relativity was the achievement of his middle thirties. 


With respect to old age; the point is not merely that there is a decline in the quantity and quality of publicly recognised attainment in most people; but that there ought to be a change in emphasis away from extraversion to introversion; from this-worldly achievement towards next-worldly orientation.

A shift from duty to conscience. 


And this 'ought' applies to the individual, and has a cosmic and spiritual aspect.

In modern materialistic society, then the external perspective is the only one that is regarded as really-real; so old age is merely a time of declining productivity on the objective public side, and the struggle to delay (or at least deny) this decline on the subjective private side.

The notion that old age is - in some respects - like childhood, has considerable validity. Both are periods of mostly-dependency, in a materialist sense. Both are less worldly-active and more 'contemplative'.

Both childhood and old age should also be times when the self and the world are less sharply divided, and the world is more 'animistic', more a matter of beings than things... The night is more important,  dreams are more important, the spirit (and religion) is more important.

The not-here and not-now, the not-worldly/ un-worldly looms relatively larger. 


There is, however, a major difference in consciousness between childhood and old age.

The child is 'in' the world (albeit this dwindles through childhood), takes it for granted and has never been otherwise; but the old person has stood-outside the world, has worked upon the world - has grappled with the present moment - and then moved away from the world and the moment. The longer he lives, the more the old man's consciousness moves away-from the world.

In old age, memories of childhood take on a greater sharpness and spiritual power; in many respects childhood is re-experienced. But these are memories, so the experience is consciously known as such, when the child simply lived it.

The matter can be focused by a single word: death.

As soon as a child is fully conscious, he becomes aware of his own death as a pervasive possibility. All children spontaneously have theories of death and may develop rituals about death. Then death recedes from adult consciousness as the world grows.

Through old age, death returns to awareness: 'the dead' loom ever larger.


Old is age is 'about' death - the last phase of life is structured-by death; and therefore the quality of old age depends on how death is understood.

For the modern materialist humanist, this means 'coming to terms with' imminent extinction - trying to accept, or even desire, extinction.

For the Romantic Christian, however, 'coming to terms' with death means something very different; because death is not the end; but instead the necessary gateway to a positive transformation.

The task of old age may be learning about the nature of this transition, its possibilities, and how to 'manage' this transition.

In general, we stay alive for as long as there is something we need to (or ought to) accomplish - spiritually.

(So many modern people live so long mainly because they have chronically failed to accomplish even the basic minimum necessary during their mortal lives. They are kept alive in hope that - eventually - they will do what is required.) 

What is this spiritual thing - that we ought to accomplish - varies between individuals; so one task of old age may be to discern what it is that we should be doing. Probably, since mortal life is 'about learning', this could translate to: 'What we still need to learn'.


Since an old person has always experienced a lot; this purpose is likely to be something that they already 'know-about' in the sense they are aware of the facts; but a thing that they do not know.

Much of old age is about sifting-through memories and past impressions, things we already know-about, to discern what is important: to discover what we have 'missed' first-time-around. Often our priorities have been wrong, through our adult lives; and old age can be about re-ordering these priorities.


But what is vital is context! What is vital is to know why we need to do this. And the reason is because in old age we are preparing for what comes after death.

So old age should be less about the present - present concern often leading to an active quest for pleasure, or at least distraction - and more about the past and the future.  

It is failure to acknowledge the context of the life beyond biological death, that makes modern society utterly incapable of dealing with ageing... For modern Man there is Nothing Good about ageing - it is pure decline; just as death, for a materialist, is 100% loss of self, rather than a transition.


In old age, we may find that the inevitable negative development, the incapacities, may (properly understood) serve to keep us focused upon our necessary task. For example, the problem of not being able to concentrate on reading in the same old way, a reduced ability to 'fill' our minds with new information, may encourage us to spend more time on thinking about the information we have already accumulated.

If we follow-up the negative constraints of our own particular, personal experience of ageing, understand and go with them rather than fighting them; the ratio of thinking/inputting may thereby increase in a valuable fashion... which is probably something that we should have done much earlier.

In a stylish and insightful essay; Francis Berger introduces and explores this English translation of a characteristic Hungarian expression.

Something that used to puzzle me as an atheist was why Christians seemed to reject the goal of maximum happiness in this mortal life while asserting that the goal ought-to-be maximum happiness in the after-life.

It seemed to me that if happiness was the goal, then proximate happiness - the sure and certain happiness of here-and-now, today and tomorrow, was preferable than the uncertain (and perhaps non-existent) happiness after death.

At any rate, I couldn't understand why if attaining happiness in Heaven and avoiding suffering in Hell was the legitimate goal of a Christian; then why was it that happiness in mortal life was regarded with such indifference?


There seemed to me to be a double standard at work with respect to happiness. Was happiness a good things, or not? If it was - then why was uncertain later happiness to be given a higher priority than sure and immediate happiness?

I assumed that what was going-on was some kind of concealed politically-motivated manipulation, designed to encourage sacrifice: for example, to make the working classes accept their miserable lot in life, or to encourage soldiers to risk death.


What I did not recognise was that this was a very modern and utopian argument. To Men of the past it was obvious - so obvious that it seldom was stated - that mortal life was intrinsically a tragic thing.

For the ancients; all that we value, absolutely everything - goodness, beauty, family, our-selves - would be lost in time; would be changed, corrupted, would die and be lost altogether.

Suffering and sadness was a simple fact; and was unavoidable. The Good News of Jesus was that this suffering and sdaness need not be inevitable and forever - there was something better... if we wanted it.


The modern attitude, that I used to have, was implicitly that mortal life was naturally (or, if not, then potentially, achievably) a kind of utopia; and that the suffering and miseries were actively caused by choices of Men.

In other words, with modern utopianism there was a denial of what had previously been regarded as the immovable fact of the sad, transitoriness, bitterness of mortal life.

So Christians, by their focus on the hypothetical after-life, are seen by 'moderns' as choosing Not to make real mortal life good (or better); whereas atheists are seen as focusing their best efforts on the place where they could achieve the most good: the material actuality of of daily existence.


So the Good News of Jesus, that we can have an eternal life in Heaven, is regarded by typical modern people (such as my former self) as a distraction from the proper business of living: which is the progressive, Leftist project of alleviating mortal life by means of changing the structure of society.

It is assumed that the proper implementation of a socialist-type society can (and should) abolish the ancient, fundamental tragedy of the transience of mortal life. 

Some speculations over at Albion Awakening. Excerpt:

I really can't see where Brexit gets its strength in a material sense; therefore I infer that it is operating mostly in a spiritual sense.

If I am right, and I may not be! - this is good news in many ways; in that it may not be possible for the Establishment to thwart Brexit, since they are up against superior forces. If I am correct; then angelic spiritual forces are doing, and will continue to do, the 'heavy lifting' to extract Britain from the EU.

But on the other side, although spiritual powers could create a situation or set-up; it is the multitude of individual people of Britain who make the choices; and unless they are actively in favour of a better (more spiritual, Christian) future for Britain, then the future will not be better - but will continue to get worse in much the same way as-if we had remained in the EU.

So, we British may be gifted with a better situation, however, it is up to us to make something Good of it.