Fadedpage.com is a great website run by volunteers who produce excellent free downloadable online books from authors out of copyright - your one-stop shop for Biggles or Enid Blyton, for instance.
Well, they have just made available The Great Divorce by CS Lewis - which I regard as the best book I've ever read about sin, repentance, and what makes people choose Hell.
If you haven't already read TGD: why not try it?
With my brother, and at his instigation, I watched through a film version of "Lilac Time"; which is an operetta loosely about the life of Schubert, that uses Schubert melodies for its arias and choruses. This 1934 movie was called Blossom Time, and had been adapted as a vehicle for Richard Tauber; despite that he could not act at all.
The movie itself is hopelessly dull; with a silly script, woodenly performed (Tauber himself being the most ligneous of all); but about halfway through, "Schubert" does a public concert of some of his songs (in the plot, he is standing-in for a more famous singer - which is why the audience is initially so hostile).
Here is the full movie on video: The relevant section runs from about 46-56 minutes.
These small scale works demonstrate better than the operas I have previously heard, what made Tauber so special - and so famous for his technique and musicianship. Look out for the smooth legato style; by which Tauber sings continuously, with a flow of tone continuing uninterrupted between the notes.
The musicality of phrasing, and the way he subtly points the meaning of lyrics, are both features of the German Art Song (Lieder) tradition - and show Tauber's high level of musical intelligence and training.
He also displays the extremely difficult art of messa di voce; by which he can sustain a note while increasing or diminishing the volume, while maintaining the intonation and vibrato.
A further exceptional aspect is when Tauber sings extremely quietly (pianissimo) - again while maintaining tone, pitch, and with clear diction.
I find that thoughts of the the last days of "Atlantis" - especially of Tolkien's Numenor - come to my mind more and more often: visions of a vast society crumbling and rotting - while its citizens are oscillate between vague obliviousness, and a smug-spiteful-cowardly-passive-aggression that seems (in my imagination) to be distinctive and causal of civilizational decadence and corruption.
Almost everywhere, there seems to be a lethal mixture of ignorance and bland idiocy, with pettiness and prideful inversion. People claim to be unaware of the important things that have happened and are happening, yet when they hear about such things almost instantly forget them; and unerringly focus on some minute irrelevance.
If even some brief understanding of the scale and depth of lethal threats is able to form itself mentally; like as not people will instantly and stubbornly take the wrong side, grasp the wrong end of the stick, advocate some action that is counter-productive and indeed suicidal.
What is most striking is that - from all the above - it seems certain that when collapse commences and continues; there will prevail a grossly false belief in the reasons; combined with an absolute failure to take responsibility for self-blinding, supporting evil assumptions and concepts, and for sustaining and amplifying the underlying causes of destruction.
This is Atlantis because a great civilization had become so greatly evil such that it has turned-against itself in self-hatred, and engineered its own destruction.
Yet all this is hidden, and the situation is robbed of grandeur, nobility and tragedy, by the depth and scale of dishonesty.
The culture of lies, untruths and deliberate misleading is so prevalent, habitual, and vehemently defended and coerced; that Atlantis is ignorant of its own nature, and of what it is doing to itself.
Even as Atlantis engages in systematic suicide, it is consumed by resentment.
Even as it inflicts suffering and terror on itself, it seeks to shirk responsibility and to blame others
Even as it despairs at the purposelessness and meaninglessness of its fundamental beliefs and aspirations - it scorns and persecutes all attempts to diagnose or cure the sickness.
Thereby the sins of Atlantis sins are compounded.
A great advantage of that intentionally destructive, spiteful, "Sorathic" evil which characterizes the current Western national leadership class; is its covert nature.
Because everybody is always trying to make sense of what are merely destructive impulse; and in doing so, people come up with multiple and incompatible theories concerning what positive goals They are trying to achieve.
And - ultimately - all these theories are wrong!
For instance; more Western people have (eventually) begun to notice that their rulers are puppets operated by multinational and foreign agents; and have noticed that these rulers are allowing and abetting the invasion of their nations by colossal numbers of foreigners.
Having noticed what is going-on; people try to understand it in terms of what benefits (whether short-, medium, or long-term) are expected to accrue to a variety of persons and groups as a consequence of massive influxes of "aliens".
This results in many and competing theories - each theory claiming that somebody different is behind the invasion; and each of these rival malicious actors is striving to get something from a range of benefits such as wealth, power, status, sex etc.
Public opinion then fractures into rival theorists, with rival plans of how to combat the putative groups and prevent them getting... whatever it is that They intend to gain from the mass invasion of the West.
However; if it is true that what is being aimed-at by those who are ultimately responsible for the invasion of the West at is simply the destruction of the West (its civilization, institutions, people etc.); and that the primary motivation is not gain but instead the spiteful gratification of those responsible -- then all these theories are irrelevant; even when a theory may be partially correct for some people, at some level.
Meanwhile; the work of destruction proceeds unimpeded, invisible, undetected.
I discuss the essay in question over at The Notion Club Papers blog.
Our actual and current Western Globalist Totalitarian Establishment is already, and every week increasingly, a self-destroying weapon of global destruction.
The self-gratifying, spitefully evil-destructive zeal of the Western ruling class has consolidated, taken-off, and left the consent of the masses far behind.
This spirit of spite is single-mindedly getting-on-with its destructive activities - with less and less regard for winning hearts and minds, or even for providing excuses.
Its implied motto is: Just Destroy It.
(That is: Sorathic evil is now unmasked and in ascendancy.)
The USA is not the ultimate source of this evil of destructiveness, because the US rulership are (like all other Western nations) merely a puppet regime.
Also the US has many (sometimes even more zealous - eg. the UK) allies among the leadership class of Anglo-sphere and European Union nations.
But the USA is the main centre and focus of the destructive impulse; due to its recent decades of global hegemony.
US foreign policy is now simply to foment disorder and destruction wherever possible.
National leaders and governments are being toppled, imprisoned, and killed by purposive US interventions all around the globe. Movements to promote internal hatred, resentment and terrorism are created, supported, funded. Nation after nation has been - is being - plunged into chaos and (more or less) civil war (more every month, or even weekly).
This is why the US Empire and military is now (by any functional or rational analysis) so grossly over-extended.
Picking unwinnable fights everywhere and with everybody is not an accident or miscalculation, nor due to unwarranted arrogance (except among some of the useful idiots among destruction-managers, who merely implement policy) - over-extension is a deliberate means to the end of the USA being utterly overwhelmed, destroyed, everywhere, all-at-once.
(And consequently, it is also intended, in its death throes to bring-down the rest of the world with its arsenal of mass-destructive weapons, poisons, diseases etc.)
The essence of the US globally is now, and increasingly, and purposively to operate as a pure agent of destruction: destruction of human life, economies; material, houses, the land itself.
Deliberate destruction indeed of all that is Good - destruction of the human spirit.
And also - destruction of itself from multiple global conflicts.
Because meanwhile, "back at home", this once-formidable agent of global destruction is itself being destroyed. The culture is being destroyed by colossal immigration, which also (aided by deliberate inflation) is destroying the economy - which has already been destroyed by multiple forms of wrecking.
The US national spirit is being destroyed by leftist ideologies - including deliberate encouragement and funding of race war, sex war, generational war. Religion has been destroyed as a force for good.
The micro-policies that pretend to promote quality, equity, diversity, sustainability etc - are each and all calculated agents of destruction of functionality, effectiveness, efficiency.
The means of national social control (policing, essential organization, emergency services, communications, transport, supplies, maintenance and repair etc) are all thereby already substantially dismantled.
Chaos - violence, neglect, disease, famine (all the Apocalyptic Horsemen) are being-prepared, and wil be able to operate without effective opposition.
What this Big Picture shows is the extraordinary image of the US as a self-destroying weapon of global destruction.
The US (and its allies) being simultaneously deployed in an escalating program of world-wide destruction; while the US (and its allies) are also being-collapsed from-within.
The worst of it is not so much that this catastrophe cannot be prevented (it probably cannot - because destruction is so much easier than creation, and humans are so easily corrupted); as that people are unaware of what is being done.
Indeed, much worse - people of The West nearly all deny that this purposively destructive evil exists, and is dominant.
Above all else in these times, and as a pre-requisite to everything else; we are called upon to be conscious. To be aware, capable of discernment.
Only if we perceive evil can we identify its nature; only if we identify its nature can we reject it and repent its existence in ourselves.
Only if we repent this evil can we take the side of Good in the escalating spiritual war of this world.
Christianity is about motivation; and motivation is about what we want, and why.
Motivation is an inner state; and what matters to Christian salvation is our motivation at the time of choice: at the time when we decide whether to follow Jesus to resurrected eternal life.
So long as he wants to follow Jesus, and so long as his reasons for following Jesus are good - then anybody can follow Jesus. It is essentially a matter of personal choice; and if that choice is for salvation, there will be no difficulty about doing what is necessary to make this choice possible.
Therefore Christianity Just Is a very personal and inward matter and directed to ends "not of this world". So; while inferences can and must be made for practical purposes about the motivation of other people; such inferences do Not map-onto spiritual realities.
Historic Christianity was often (usually) contaminated by the demand to make it the basis of social organization: the demand to make supposedly "Christian" institutions and laws as the framework for a "better world": as, indeed, the framework for personal salvation.
Yet, the Fourth Gospel especially, but also the Synoptic Gospels, seem to be pretty clear overall that following Jesus to resurrected eternal life was about a personal relationship and personal choice in relation to Jesus himself.
Therefore, being a Christian is Not primarily a matter of obeying a religious institution, nor of requiring adherence to the dictates of a particular supposedly-Christian social structure (neither of which existed during Jesus's life).
Indeed (as the IV Gospel informs us) Jesus's main arrangement for the guidance of his disciples post-mortally was the Holy Ghost; which Jesus said was directly available to each individual and sufficient to provide all necessary knowledge and direction for those who wanted to follow Him.
In other words; Christianity is not about making a better world. At best, a better world might be an unplanned consequence of personal commitments to follow Jesus.
Instead; Christianity ought primarily to be orientated towards life beyond death.
And Christianity's implications for this mortal life should follow (secondarily) from our motivation and expectation personally (as Sons of God) to participate in the creative life of the post-mortal resurrected heavenly world.
For those of you who enjoy the micro-minutiae of scholarship: I have hunted down the meaning of another of JRR Tolkien's references that his son Christopher did not manage to discern. Over at The Notion Club Papers blog...
I have often written about the (approximate) millennium - when so many people felt there was an approaching spiritual breakthrough, yet the spiritual changes that actually happened were the opposite of spiritual.
So that we now live in a shallowly hedonist, materialistic, short-termist, gullible world - more evil than ever in history, because of widespread and officially-media encouraged (increasingly even mandated) value inversion.
I have suggested that the millennial spiritual change was a change of consciousness (endogenous, primary and presumably divinely-destined); by which that which had been innate, instinctive, spontaneous and (often) traditional - lost their grip on our minds.
We found ourselves cut-off from our previous immersion in a kind of general consciousness; and therefore both gifted and forced to choose.
We must now choose; whereas in the past our values came naturally: partly inbuilt, partly absorbed from society (and most human societies shared most of these values).
We became able to choose our fundamental values: but more, we were (and are) compelled to choose them.
We might therefore have chosen to believe and live-by almost anything!
We might have chosen some purposive, meaningful and hopeful assumptions and values! We might have chosen to live in divine creation, with a god/s who loved us personally, and took an interest in each of our lives. We might have chosen to believe in Jesus Christ who enabled us to have a resurrected and everlasting life in Heaven; by following Him on the other side of death...
But instead, overall and overwhelmingly; we of The West (in particular) rejected these possibilities. Going from my own responses and efforts, and what I have seen in others; here is my best guess as to what happened.
Instead of making positive and hope-full choices, (and en masse) we chose rather to believe that both the reality of the universe, and our personal lives, are causally-determined and/or random; and that our own life will be objectively arbitrary, a temporary blip, and therefore objectively futile in the larger scheme of things.
Consequently the mood of our times is one of fear, resentment at our situation; at best barely staving-off a suicide-seeking despair by continual distraction and projection.
What went so badly wrong?
Why did so many people choose so self-destructively, so miserably - to believe everything to be pointless?
Why have so many people doubled-down on this decision?
Looking back at the end of the twentieth century and the hopes and expectations of a better and more spiritual world to come; I think the main reasons were passivity and the refusal of responsibility.
The hope for a global spiritual transformation and awakening; were passive hopes that this would be done-to-us. Indeed, the idea of un-sought yet profound change was (and often still is) regarded as a hallmark of validity, authenticity.
So people hoped and expected that everyone would be made more spiritual; everybody's consciousness would be raised-up by some external force or change. People's attitude was one of waiting for this to happen-to-them.
The most we would need to do, for this to happen, would be to assent to its being-done: we would need to agree to being spiritually uplifted, but would not need to seek it out (and indeed, there was a feeling that to seek it out would be to open oneself to self-deception) .
The other big factor is a refusal of responsibility. This operates at many levels, and may masquerade as humility, or public spiritedness.
Thus people may decline to take full and personal responsibility for their spiritual and religious evaluations because they defer to "The Church" as contrasted with "mere little me". Meaning whatever church they already believe is true, must be right. Or when (as usual) the whole church is not united; then deference is due to whatever particular authority within that church is regarded as primary.
Or personal responsibility for belief is set aside in favour of some supposedly pragmatic benefit; such as a belief that some-thing ought to be believed because it is beneficial for raising children; or perhaps regarded as beneficial for society at large or in the long-term.
In other words; my sense is that some people shape their religious convictions around what they choose to sustain on the basis of what they believe to be a socially-helpful fiction; rather than taking ultimate responsibility, and then discovering that they have (apparently) thrown-out some valued social benefit.
But this kind of deference and pragmatism are, ultimately, to put the cart before the horse; since (for Christians) what is most authoritative and/or beneficial can only be decided on the basis of real truth.
And when we have pre-decided against taking personal responsibility for discerning and determining real truth, we are not able to evaluate if it is truly better to defer and decline, rather than to make a stand for our inner convictions.
In sum; I think that there really was a change of consciousness that progressively (and over some years) swept-through The West (and maybe the world?) at around the millennium.
This transformation pretty-much closed-off the remnants of that spontaneous, traditional and often-unconscious modes of religiosity which had been in-place throughout Man's known history; such that we can now only become spiritual by a conscious choice, by actively seeking, and on the basis of taking very personal spiritual responsibility.
That means aiming to make ultimate choices from our-selves and for ourselves.
And only after that has been accomplished, should we turn our personal attention to potential social benefits.
Some years ago; David Icke insightfully described a behaviour and policy patterning that was repeatedly deployed by the leadership class, which he called Problem-Reaction-Solution- "PRS".
The PRS idea was that the rulers would (repeatedly) create a problem, and this elicited a reaction from many "people" (i.e. in practice the mass media) and demands for something-to-be-done - and resulting action always turned-out to be a pre-decided pseudo-solution - a "solution" that was not really designed to prevent or cure the problem, but was something the leadership had wanted to do anyway.
The "solution" was, indeed, always a further incremental step on the road to tyranny, intended to increase societal totalitarian surveillance and control.
In other terminology: Problem Reaction Solution was, in a specific sense, a policy of Ahrimanic evil - which aims at the reduction of all thinking to materialism, and then control of this reduced thinking with the aim of pursuing the demonic agenda of evil.
But I had not previously noticed that while PRS was usually tactically effective in enhancing top-down control of some specific domain of social living (e.g. increased control of the police, doctors, lawyers, or some type of corporation)... While PRS led reliably to the goal of extending and deepening bureaucratic systems... At the same time, and inevitably; this local increase of "order" is attained at the cost of increasing overall and long-term dis-order/ chaos.
Short-term and local increase in order is "bought" at the price of increased long-term and overall dis-order.
This happens because the "problem" entails some kind of increase in chaos, some kind of break-down in functioning.
And each time a problem is deliberately induced, every cycle of PRS - by deliberate design; the "solution" does Not solve the problem. (i.e. Because the "solution" was not intended to solve the problem, but instead to increase surveillance and control.)
Therefore, every time PRS is deployed there is an unsolved problem, which means an increase in the problem; which means there is a long-term and a cumulative increase in social dysfunction and disorder.
In sum; it can be seen that Problem Reaction Solution sequence can be deployed by the agents of Sorathic Evil to promote chaos and destruction under the guise of enhancing control.
That is: repeated use of the PBS tactic actually promotes a net-destructive strategy.
If we assume that the highest level of global leadership is Sorathic in motivation - that is, motivated to destroy, rather than to control - then it can be seen that PRS is a way of manipulating mid-system-level leaders, managers and bureaucrats.
(Thus manipulating the middle-managers of totalitarianism as well as simultaneously manipulating the gullible masses.)
The middle-management level of The System is therefore encouraged repeatedly to induce Problems: Problem after Problem! - to harm economies and trade (e.g. by sanctions); to provoke and promote wars; to organize and enforce mass migration into The West; to attack marriage and the family; to encourages hatred and resentment between races, sexes, classes... etc.
The Middle Managers believe that a PRS policy will enhance their control of society and the world - and they see the actual incremental expansion of surveillance and control bureaucracies (and their own wealth and high status) as evidence of the success of this strategy...
But meanwhile, the underlying reality is of civilizations, nations - and the world itself - collapsing into chaos.
In other words: Problem Reaction Solution is a real strategy, at the mid-level of power structures; and superficially it seems to be "working"; in the sense that bureaucracy expands and expands to cover all aspects of life, and there are more and better paid jobs for the managerial class in administering The System - and indeed bureaucratic "power" continued to grow.
But such bureaucratic power is only power within The System, and what The System recognizes.
And the System recognizes only The System - all outwith The System is invisible to it, and treated as not real.
The System does not, because it cannot, recognize chaos.
Therefore; when rulers deliberately engage in destruction, and the world consequently descends into chaos - the agents of Ahrimanic evil perceive only their own increase in System-control with an expanding System.
Paradoxically; the overall-effect is that agents of total control are manipulated into implementing the agenda of total destruction!
As the world collapses around them in consequence of their own purposive decisions and actions; the managerial-intellectual class (eg. of the UN, EU, WEF, Western national leadership, media Moghuls; financial and corporate executives and owners, academics, "scientists" and "artists") perceive only new chances for immediate personal enrichment, greater personal status, and opportunities to extend their bureaucratic empires.
Note: This was triggered by a post from Francis Berger, and the response it elicited.
If Christianity is a society - some version of the late-Roman, or Medieval European, of Calvin's Geneva/ Knox's Scotland, or Eastern Orthodox, or Brigham Young's Deseret... That is; if Christianity is a union of Church and State in spiritual harmony - then Christianity is long since gone, and finished.
Also; if Christianity is a structure of authority; with a church defining the nature of what Christianity is, what scripture means, what theological concepts are true and mandatory, what traditions are valid and necessary... with Christians being the people who obey what that church says - then Christianity is finished.
Also; even if Christianity is just a group of people of some significantly powerful size - all agreeing and acting-upon what Christianity is - then Christianity is already finished.
Indeed: if Christianity is some ideal future situation or state which we should be working-towards, and for which we need to wait before we can be a really-real Christian - then Christianity is finished.
Unless you or I can be a real and full Christian here-and-now, starting with ourselves as we are, in this situation; and not depending upon any other people or authority to instruct, validate, or cooperate-with us - then there is, and shall be, no Christianity.
And unless we acknowledge this independence, and therefore take total and personal responsibility for ourselves Being Christian Now - then sooner or later we will Not be a Christian.
(Whatever we decide to call ourselves.)
I have been occasionally reading about, and intermittently visiting, Hadrian's Wall for over fifty years - but I have never (until today) seen an even remotely plausible explanation for one of its most obvious features: the Vallum.
The Vallum is (or was) a wide, flat-bottomed ditch situated in straight lines at variable distances on the south side of the Wall - flanked by smallish mounds. There is another, v-shaped, classic defensive ditch on the north side of Hadrian's Wall: i.e. facing the potential enemy outside the Roman Empire.
So the Vallum is on the non-dangerous side of the wall, it is not the right shape for a defensive wall, and is all-but useless - nonetheless it is an enormous earthwork, about 70 miles long; which took a vast amount of labour, far more effort than would make sense if the Vallum was intended as merely some kind of boundary line.
So why on earth did the Romans build it - what did they hope to achieve?
Until just now, I have never seen an explanation of the Vallum which was even plausible - let alone potentially true.
But I have found one at last! - on the website of a chap called Geoff Carter, who seems to reside somewhere not far from me, and specializes in reverse-engineering archaeological phenomena.
I suggest that anyone interested should Read The Whole Thing in order not only to evaluate the evidence-cited; but to experience what strikes me as an exemplary way of reasoning about this kind of archaeological problem.
I found Carter's way of approaching the problem of the Vallum so impressive that - even before I had reached his conclusions - I felt confident that his answer would be coherent and plausible.
So what is Geoff Carter's explanation for the Vallum? It is that the Vallum, as we observe it, represents a partially-completed road: more exactly the foundation ditch for a road planned to extend along the whole length of Hadrian's Wall. The parallel mounds are simply spoil heaps from this extraction.
Carter says that the vastly ambitious plan for a road (which, if finished, like the Wall would have endured hundreds of years: the Romans built to last) was abandoned very soon after the Wall was finished, within about a decade.
After which brief timespan, the Vallum was often filled-in in places (presumably to allow easier crossing) and cut-across by later structures.
I find this a completely satisfying explanation for the Vallum - and am looking forward to returning again to the Wall this spring (when the ground is less sodden than at present) to re-explore some of the favourite places, with this new understanding in the back of my mind.
Expediency - Mainstream Left
The smallest picture frame is that of everyday expediency - in other words "what course of action is most is beneficial to me immediately and in the short-term?
And this level is dominated (across the entirety of The West, and much of the rest of the world) by Mainstream Leftism.
In other words, and overwhelmingly; the best path to achieve jobs, promotions, fame, money, status, power - in any and all social systems and organizations - is to embrace the Mainstream Leftist options - such as feminism, socialism, antiracism, climate stuff, birdemic-healthism, pseudo-environmentalism etc.
Functionality - Secular Right
The next-largest picture frame is functionality - which is directed at the medium- to long-term; and that is dominated by the Secular Right.
In essence, this frame broadly accepts The System as it is, and strives to improve efficiency and effectiveness within that system.
If the economy is the subject; then the Secular Right focuses in profitability, productivity, easier trade, infrastructure etc. If the police are the institution, then the focus would be reducing crime, improving methods and personnel, clarifying and enforcing law.
This-worldly Utopian - Ideological Left
The largest frame recognized by the God-excluding, Spirit-excluding and fundamentally atheistic System; is that of utopianism - which is the realm of the Ideological Left.
This embraces the intellectual realms of the United Nations, the WEF, highbrow journalism, academia, charities and other NGOs, think tanks, artists and authors, popular scientists, and the like. In other words, (nearly-) All the recognized and respected idealists, dreamers and Big Picture people.
This is the realm of high-level Leftist ideology; about attitudes and aims concerning the planet, climate, life in the universe and on earth, all the people in the world; and fundamental assumptions about justice, sexual identity, sexuality, relationships... Offering answers to questions like who are the good people, and what is the good life?
The Utopian level is unconcerned by the smaller-frame practicalities of expediency and efficiency alike - the Ideological Left is characterized by abstraction; by secular ultimates like social justice, equality, equity, inclusion, diversity, respect; and the long-view futures of everybody, everywhere.
The Religious Frame: Christianity
The largest frame is that of true religion - Christianity; which is primarily concerned with ultimate and eternal matters such as God, creation, transcendental values, the meaning and purpose of each mortal human life, what lies on the far side of mortal death - and so on.
*
The above scheme demonstrates how and why Leftism has triumphed; because the Left occupies both the most immediately-motivating short term; and the (apparent) highest ground of long-term utopian idealism - which is the largest frame that is recognized as valid and true by the entirety of global and Western national societal institutions and public discourse.
In a world where both immediate expediency and the soaring realms of ideology are Leftist and where the inbuilt assumptions exclude God, creation and the spirit; the Secular Right, with its focus on mundane matters of efficiency and effectiveness, is regarded as (at best) a merely dull necessity, to be accorded the bare minimum of (contextualized) attention and seriousness.
That is at best: more often, whenever the Secular Right perspective threatens to dominate; the worldly-Utopian frame is brought forward to demonstrate that the Secular Right's narrow focus on mundane matters represents an existential danger to all that is "highest and best" - and to the longest term future well-being of... everybody.
To be of the Secular Right is therefore both to cripple one's own career and social status, and also to define oneself as sullenly (or sadistically) indifferent to the long-term, the highest-and-best, and the Big Picture.
The only potential "answer" to the lock that the atheistic Left has established upon public life in The West - is to expand the picture fame to include the true and religious, which means Christian.
This is the only way to take the high ground of ultimate values; and to contextualize the Left within a larger and eternal frame: that of creation including salvation.
To do so would entail a metaphysical revolution - because metaphysics is the name for our most fundamental assumptions concerning the scope and nature of reality.
Unless we expand our concept of reality to include God, creation, The Spirit etc. - then we will continue to lose and lose to The Left; until collapse and annihilation supervenes.
However, I am not optimistic; I do not expect that the needful metaphysical revolution will actually happen.
Nonetheless it is the one and only event that could save us - because within the secular world as-is, and so long as the Biggest Picture is denied, the Left has painted us into a corner within which we are trapped by expediency on the one hand, and idealism on the other.
Over at the Notion Club Papers blog; I contrast two of Tolkien's most revelatory fictional and partial self-portraits - and the implications of the narrative progression from the one to the other.
Natural goodness, passive goodness, obedient goodness... these do not suffice here-and-now. They are a thing of the past.
Modern Human Beings of The West are structurally different from Men of the Past: our consciousness is set-up differently, our minds are differently made, we think differently.
Our alienation - the pervasive adolescent and adult starting-point of cut-off isolation from The World, from other people, from God; is not just a habit; nor is it simply the induced product of social training and propaganda - alienation is primarily something built-into modern Western consciousness.
Thus we cannot revert to ancient way, because we no longer have ancient minds. We have become something-like a different sub-species of Men; so we do not truly desire the old ways; and cannot create, dwell-in, nor sustain ancient modes of living.
Knowing this is helpful; because it clarifies that to live as God wishes us (i.e. in harmony with divine creation, living in accordance with our divine destiny) we/ here/ now require conscious-purpose, conscious-choice, an act of will, continued effort.
Christianity does not Just Happen-to people any more; and indeed is externally-discouraged (including by self-identified "Christian Churches").
Therefore; when it comes to being a Christian, and leading a Christian life: if you do not Know you are doing it, if you are not continually-choosing to do it, and if this choice does not come from inner-intuition and motivation - then you are Not doing it.
On my way out, to be consistent; I also demanded a ready-made Mumbai Curry, and a portion of Beijing Crispy Duck.
One reason that the "Clown World" nomenclature (to describe "Them") has grown and grown over the couple of decades (I first came upon this distinctively American usage of "clown" on Glenn Reynolds's Instapundit blog in the early 2000s) - is that it reinforces a comforting but utterly false idea that the root of The Problem is the Evil Clowns who rule "us".
From this error, the argument concludes that the bulk of ordinary people are essentially OK - well-motivated and with a basically solid grasp of Reality.
And the implicit (untrue) conclusion is that therefore some variant of "populism" (whereby the Masses expel or take-over-from the ruling-elite of Clowns) is the best cure and strategy for what ails The West*.
But, of course, this is a gross underestimation of the severity, pervasiveness, and depth of evil in The West.
Yes the Clowns are more evil than the masses; but this is merely a lesser of evils. The Western masses are overwhelmingly deeply evil in their basic assumptions concerning reality.
They (we) are materialist (that is anti-spiritual and un-spiritual, throughout all our mainstream public discourses, across all our societal functions) by habit and in practice. We are obsessed by the triviality and lies of the official and media worlds; and compulsively engage-with these futile "battles".
Most dismayingly; there is throughout The West a steadfast and stubborn refusal of individuals to take personal responsibility for their own ultimate convictions.
Whether or not someone regards himself as for- or against- the globalist totalitarian agenda; he almost-always claims that his perspective and motivations are externally-imposed-upon him as a matter of objective necessity, rather than his own and ultimate moral decision.
Thus he proudly and aggressively asserts his own and self-enforced value-enslavement!
The spectacle is a chaos of atomistic individuals, blown hither and yon by the swirling winds of corrupted and evil-serving public institutions - all expending their best spiritual resources in justifying their passive crazes, evasions and compulsions as principled conformity to eternal realities!
At one level Clown World is just a neat rhetorical term for Them; but at another level it is a species of pandering to the supposed but largely-absent virtues of those excluded from power.
So, yes! our leadership and managerial-intellectual class are literal (and evil) Clowns. But these ECs rule-over a mass of self-deluded, self-blinded, liars and moral-cowards (that's us).
From such an arrogantly-servile mass, no good can be expected; and even some (massively unlikely!) "triumph of the masses" would instantly reveal the short-termist, selfish hedonism of a spiritually-self-enslaved people.
*Amazingly! - I can see online a large-scale recapitulation of the 2016 delusional-nonsense, that apparently regards a possible re-election of Trump (Really? After the 2020 "election"?) as if it were a genuine basis for optimism. Almost as if DT had not already been a President for four years and already comprehensively failed to stop, let alone reverse, the suicidal social trends -- instead presiding-over the unprecedented catastrophe of lockdown/ social distancing/ the peck. These are "the facts" and it takes a seriously distorted attitude to expect something different and better second time round: such behaviour is Stockholm Syndrome, not legitimate optimism!
My thanks to New World Island for organizing this marriage-made-in-Heaven of subject matter and actor!
Over at The Notion Club Papers blog; I review this book in its 2014 annotated edition by Scull and Hammond.
The good things of life are not about pleasure, they are instead about Love.
That is the fundamental insight.
For those who do not already know it; this insight is something which we can (and are intended to) learn from experience and memory; but that-learning must freely be chosen - such knowledge cannot be forced-upon us.
And such "knowing" can only arise when supported by valid metaphysical assumptions; and insight can be undercut and thwarted by false assumptions: such that Love must be (ultimately) an emotion-merely, a product of material causes.
(Which is a common falsehood nowadays: i.e. a false, incoherent, metaphysical assumption. Another common falsehood is that the ultimate-true meaning and value of our life; comes from the intensity, preponderance, or current domination of pleasure/happiness versus suffering/pain.)
Perhaps only if we understand (if we know) Love to be primary; if we know that Love is the cause of creation - and also know our-selves to be living in that love-caused creation; can we then really understand that life is about Love: literally and ultimately.
(And that every-thing has an essentially spiritual being and meaning in that context of loving-creation - even pleasure!... Which is indeed a secondary, caused phenomenon.)
