Bruce Charlton's Notions

If we are honest; we know that our civilization is so deeply rotten, in so many ways, that it cannot be reformed. 

Not only is their no significant desire for Goodness (for virtue, truth and beauty - for honesty and coherence); but even if there were, effectiveness changes to reform our kind of society - to base it upon goodness rather than evils - would necessarily destroy it. 

This is important: genuine attempts to improve our society morally, and in terms of truth and beauty - will tend to destroy it*. 

And when our civilization goes-down, most of the people in the world (billions) will die, and probably over a timescale of months or a few years.   

In other words; the vast population of the world is enabled and sustained by intrinsically evil practices that are fundamental: by all kinds of tyranny, depersonalization, rule by torment and fear, bribery by hedonic corruption. Man is subordinated to abstract Systems which are inhuman and anti-human. 

The reality of the human situation is, indeed, so horrible that a majority will ignore or deny it. And indeed I am not suggesting that we should be aware of it in any kind of frequent of continuous fashion - that is not how Christians ought to be living! 

And of course we are not wholly evil, and there is much goodness in the world; yet the nature of things is that we do depend on evil to survive, and for many of our comforts and joys. 

It has always been thus, in an ultimate sense - which is why thoughtful and wise Men have always known that this mortal life is insufficient, it is not good enough. 

And God agrees! - else God would not have found it necessary to enable Jesus Christ to offer the only real and possible answer to the inadequacy of the human condition in this world. 

But what we have here-and-now is different from past situations in many ways. For the first time in history, religion has been reduced to insignificance or deleted altogether from the lives of vast numbers - and especially those with the greatest power, wealth and influence. 

The scale of things is larger than ever; the evils are more extreme - in that multiple value-inversions are world-wide, strategic, and imposed top-down; and because overall trends are strongly adverse.  

I think all this needs candid acknowledgment, and ought to form a framing-background to more mundane and everyday concerns. But having-made such an acknowledgement of reality, we each have a personal quest in life; and that should be our primary concern. 

Things are what they are, and that is not a reason for despair - because to despair is to lack faith in the goodness and power of God the Creator.

Ultimately, this mortal world is not an end-point, and never could be. We are visitors; and our job is to love and to learn while we are here. Our world exists for that purpose - not to be or become perfect. 

The fact that this world is intrinsically and inescapably bound-up with evil is just one of the facts of life. But our destination lies beyond this world; and any who desire it can look forward to inhabiting a world which does not depend on evil for its functioning. 

*Note: On the other hand; our civilization has-been and is purposively and strategically destroying itself; with the active connivance of the globalist totalitarian ruling class. Destruction is inevitable on both sides; and whether we stick with the present System, or change in in the direction of Good. 

Douglas Adams - of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame -  would have been 72 today, if he had not died in 2001. 

Is he overrated? Yes - in the sense that he is regarded by many people as one of the great comic writers. 

My evaluation is that Adams was only great in Hitchhikers Guide, all his other work being second-rate (or worse) - therefore he is essentially a one-hit-wonder, rather than "great". 

Furthermore; it is only the first and second BBC radio series of Hitchhiker's Guide broadcast 1978-80) that were truly, unsurpassably, great - and all other versions and variations of HHGG are significantly worse. 

Yet, Adams cannot take all the credit for the greatness of the radio HHGG. 

It is instead a masterly collaboration; in which actor Peter Jones (as The Book) is vital; and so are the BBC Radiophonic Workshop; and - in general - the producers and directors responsible for creating the "soundscape" which was marvelous and unlike anything else. 

Of course Adams's radio scripts are absolutely superb. I tuned into Episode Five of Series One, Sunday 5th April 1978, shortly after the programme had started. And, knowing nothing whatsoever about what I was listening to - I was immediately stunned by the sheer brilliance and originality, and captivated by the world Adams had created. 

So I do not under-rate Douglas Adams - far from it!

But The LP recording (which I bought in 1979) was somewhat less good than the radio version; the novelizations (beginning from 1979) were nothing like as good as the radio; the 1981 BBC TV show was worse than any of the above... and so forth. 

After the arc of the radio series one and two had finished in 1980,  Adams's work described a progressively downward trajectory in quality. The later books were almost embarrassingly thin on ideas - it felt like the authors was squeezing harder and harder, to extract ever-fewer drops of inspiration out of ever-staler old ideas.   

We ought to judge artists by their best work. As such, Adams best work was his earliest radio work, and he maintained that level for two years, that is six hours of radio. 

Having experienced his best work before reading the novelizations; my evaluation of Adams as a writer of books was that he was always less than first-rate. 

Therefore, insofar as Douglas Adams's books are regarded as first-rate - he is indeed overrated.  

William Arkle distinguished a way above and out-from the traditional dilemma of obedience versus disobedience to God; by considering the question from the larger perspective of God's creative intention with respect to Men (discussed in the post following this). 

In an letter to Jon Flint* (that I have slightly edited below), William Arkle discusses the Bible episode in Genesis 22; when Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his son Issac - and obeys this instruction; but God intervenes and stops this at the last moment. 

When Abraham "passed" his test over his son's killing, to my mind he only got 60% for obedience. 

If he had said to God "This is not like you, I won't do it", he would have got 100 for unobedience. 

Thus God could foresee problems with the Jewish people. 

Arkle explains that un-obedience to God arises-from the black and white of disobedience and obedience being in conflict. 

In other words; what God most wanted was not that Abraham would obey, or disobey, a specific instruction that he regarded as coming from God; but that Abraham would instead recognize that the real and proper question was at an altogether larger and more general scale.  

Neither dis-obedience nor obedience was required, but un-obedience. 

What arises from this conflict is unobedience, which is a condition beyond the relatively automatic stages of dis-obedience or obedience, and has become autonomous and calculated and chosen.

Both disobedience and obedience are sub-optimal. 

Arkle suggests that dis-obedience to God can become addictive, leading to a psychotic condition where the disobedient person becomes driven, and almost unable to choose - like a junky. 

I think Arkle partly means that disobedience is usually done for short-term and hedonic reasons, and that an hedonic (immediate-pleasure-seeking) attitude to life carries all the lethal consequences of heroin addiction: its hedonic effectiveness always diminishes; getting pleasure gets to be all-consuming; life, thought, motivation become focused around blindly serving the agent of pleasure. 

Disobedience to authority is therefore self-destructive, like the negativism of a young child who does the opposite of what he is old - something which would rapidly be lethal, unless loving parents were available to step-in. 

But on the other side; while obedience is necessary and good in children; for grown-ups too much obedience can also be harmful; as seen in Abraham obeying an order that (if he truly understood and knew God) he should have realized was incompatible with God's Goodness - hence could not truly have come-from God. 

Arkle comments that "oneness" teachings (so common in New Age spirituality) lead towards oneness becoming a form of "super-obedience", in which the individual is taught to regard himself as "a nothing" - incapable of discernment. 

In other words, with oneness, the individual disappears-into the divine so that "obedience" is utterly impersonal, unchosen, automatic - not so much obeying as annihilating all possibility of anything else, and becoming an unconscious cog in the divine-mechanism.

Thus obedience, taken to the ultimate, tends to an un-Christian (more Hindu or Buddhist) ideal of the goal of consciousness and free will (and being itself) being dissolved-into the immanence of the divine. 

To put it another way; obedience to God should not and cannot be the highest ideal without becoming unChristian or anti-Christian. 

Obedience is only valid within the larger and modifying context of knowing and loving God; and God's ultimate wish for us is that we should transcend obedience to become an un-obedient participant, and eventual collaborator, in God's creative work. 

*I have reviewed a selection from these letters.

As usually happens with writers who have made a significant and lasting contribution to my philosophy of life; I have pretty much ceased to re-read entire works by Arkle - but have instead "assimilated" some of his special qualities into my memories; where I can get access to them, and benefit from them, by thinking. 

I have always - since I first heard of Arkle back in 1977 - had an inkling of this potential benefit, as if I sensed it there but just out of sight, around a corner. I needed to spend some time marinating in Arkle's writings (and, to a lesser extent, his pictures) before I "caught" this quality for myself. 

Among Arkle's particular, indeed unique, qualities that I value; is a positive and quietly confident attitude to reality. This has been something that has often lifted me from an oppressive mood of one sort or another - from existential angst about "the human condition", or fear about what might happen, or despair over the direction of the world; or small scale things like confusion over what I ought to be doing or ruminations over "wasting my time". 

Arkle's approach to life - which, according to those who knew him well, he seems personally to have exemplified to a considerable degree, is one that cuts-free-from and rises above such negative broodings, disappointments, and the sense of being trapped by external circumstance. 

Indeed, there are few others who are able to do this for me, and nobody else so strongly - perhaps because Arkle goes beyond the double-negation of palliating life; and sets the whole thing into an eternal adventure of what might be termed deification (or theosis, sanctification, divinization... but with a particular meaning). 

In other words, the idea that the primary purpose of God's creation was to enable each of us who wants this, incrementally to develop towards the same nature and level of God* - so as ultimately to become not only a participant in divine creation (which we already are) but a friend of God, and a co-creator. 

There aren't many other thinkers or theologies who can inspire me in this very practical and immediate way - and so I continue to value and refer to William Arkle. 

*Arkle's point is that although God is prior to all other Beings, because the primary creator within-whose creation we dwell - this is analogous to the relation of parents with growing children. When a child has fully grown-up, the ideal loving relationship between child and parents should have changed from the authority/ obedience-based relationship of early childhood, to one of harmonious "collaboration" between mature individual persons. That possibility is what Arkle envisages as God's goal in creation - not so much as an end-point, but as a step towards qualitatively greater and ever-expanding creative possibilities.  

A sublime and heart-breaking trio for the rare combination of Soprano, Contralto and Bass-Baritone; from Mozart's opera to a rather cynical and heart-less libretto by Da Ponte: Cosi Fan Tutte - meaning "all women behave like that" (i.e. they are fickle and unfaithful)*. 

This is as good as it gets in opera. Things to notice (on a second listening) include the wonderful orchestral accompaniment on mostly strings with a "murmuring" violin figure throughout and plucked double basses; interjected by subtle woodwind chords. 

Mostly the two female voices harmonize and interweave, while the man's voice forms a kind of basso continuo (like the bass part in baroque music); except for a point near the end when the women hold long notes, and the man rhapsodizes underneath it. 

Austrian conductor Karl Bohm was one of the greatest Mozartians of the 20th century (The premier overall, I would say), and these singers were among the very best of their era in this repertoire. 

*Looking at Da Ponte's life, you can see why he would believe this about "all" women; and also perceive the self-justificatory reasons for the essentially subversive nature of his libretti. This is a flaw underling all the work he did with Mozart but especially Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutti (considerably less so in the Marriage of Figaro, albeit the plot is distinctly seedy!). Mozart's music can, and does, rise-above, transcend, this underlying hedonic nihilism; nonetheless the tawdry stories sometimes undercut the music. This is one reason why I generally prefer to listen to excerpts of Mozart's Da Ponte operas, rather than listening to the whole piece. By contrast, it is the earnest goodness of (most of) The Magic Flute libretto (by Schikaneder) that helps make it the greatest of all operas; and one that is profitably consumed-whole! 

If we consider God's Plan of Creation; the usual descriptions are extremely "top-down" - and have the form of a plan of God's, with each Individual Man's proper role being to choose-to-follow that plan.

This kind of description implies a negative view of Man's free agency, or at most an ultra-restricted understanding; because (at root) there is only one predetermined answer to the question of "what should I do?" to fulfill God's hopes; and therefore Man's freedom becomes little more than the ability to choose wrongly! 

Thus if we take a top-down view of God's creation; with Goodness and truth coming from above; Man is assumed to have an essentially negative potential. Men can fail to do what is needed, what they ought to do; but Men cannot succeed creatively. 

(Because God is omnipotent and created everything-from-nothing; Men can add nothing that could could not otherwise be provided by God.) 

Therefore, by traditional Christian theology; Men are not supposed to have the potential to participate positively in creation. 

Furthermore - because of the idea of Original Sin - Men will have at least a very strong tendency to do evil; which understanding points either towards each Man's withdrawal and contemplation; or else points towards an attitude of self-negation and obedience. 

Obedience to... well, whatever is generally supposed to constitute religious authority (e.g. church leadership, scripture, tradition etc). 

If God is regarded as analogous to an absolute monarch, with a complex and detailed "blueprint" for our betterment, we are at-best God's servants - and each Man's job is to choose to obey God's comprehensive instructions, follow the plan in all respects (even though we do not and cannot comprehend it) - and then (so the theory goes) things will work-out in accordance with divine intentions. 

Such views may have been normal in the past, and were very-probably correct for Mankind, as Mankind was constituted in the past - when individuals regarded themselves as only semi-differentiated from their social group: their clan, people, nation etc. 

Yet ultimately, and now that we primarily self-experience as individuals; I would say that this traditional understanding has become a profoundly anti-Christian understanding. 

(That is: What was right and inevitable then, has become wrong and avoidable now.)

Indeed; a religion based-on obedience and the self-image of a servant (in its effect) leaves-out the work of Jesus Christ; consequently it seems much closer to a purely-monotheistic (e.g. Jewish or Islamic) understanding of Man's role and destiny. 

(To me, that is almost-exactly what A Lot of "modern but trad." Christians seem to be yearning for: I mean, their religion is a version of ancient Judaism, or Islam, in deep essentials - with a superficial top-dressing of Christianized language, and a Jesus that does nothing essential.) 

A Christian understanding should instead (surely?) take into account that this is a universe where Jesus is also divine, and Men are each - like Jesus - sons or daughters of God; and therefore one in which Men can follow Jesus to divine status. 

My understanding of God's creation is much more participatory - a "joint-project" of God and Men - and has a necessary and positive creative role for all Men who are capable of conceptualizing it. Here's how I see things: 

Creation relies-upon Man's freedom for its success. Our creative contributions are vital elements to The Plan; although none are indispensable. 

The set-up is such that we are intended to participate and add-to creation; and every-thing we do in that line is a plus. 

(Despite that the plan continues even if we do nothing to help it.) 

This is because the Plan of Creation is not really a "plan" as such, it is not like a blueprint aiming at a fixed and specific outcome; but creation is instead something that God sets-up and sustains; and this creation is inhabited by Beings (such as Men) each with agency. 

Not by accident do Men have agency!

Ongoing creation is continually being re-shaped - taking into account the creative activates of Beings. 

God's creative intentions are quite simple in their general direction: God desires as many as possible Men (an other beings) to choose salvation - that is, to choose resurrection into Heaven after death. That means, ultimately, to choose and commit to live By Love - wholly and eternally.  

And also, as a consequence of this attitude, during this mortal life; God desires that as many Men (and other Beings) as possible, should join-with the work of creation, participate in creation, whenever possible - which is done by thinking and acting from our deepest, real, potentially-eternal "selves" in harmony with divine creation.

If it is to be genuinely creative, then all thinking and acting from our eternal selves will be in harmony with divine creation - if it is not in harmony with God's creation then real-self-thinking is something that is either without effect, happening only "inside" us; or it acts against divine creation - is evil. 

That possibility is, presumably, where the fear of creativity, and the mistaken attempt to avoid it, comes-from. But avoiding creativity is not a "safe option": there are no safe options. 

Here-and-now, with Man as He is; we must be creative and participatory with divine creation, if we are to avoid assimilation to the world-dominating Agenda of Evil.  

In this mortal life; such creative participation is something we can only do relatively-briefly, and in a modest fashion; but it is-happening whenever we are living from our True Selves (not our superficial personalities) in a state of conscious commitment to Love of God and Fellow Men. 

(i.e. The two Great Commandments.) 

Every time this happens, creation is enriched (and permanently); and we also learn from such experiences what it is to live in Heaven - which experience can be a strong (perhaps decisive) encouragement to choose salvation: Because; only to those who follow Jesus Christ to resurrection can such loving, creative participation become full and everlasting. 

Hey Schubert!

What?

Coming down to the Bierkeller?

I haven't finished my symphony...

Come on! - a little Kronenberg will loosen your chords. 

Now you struck the right note. 

[Cut to Bierkeller]

Here Schubert - what about your Unfinished Symphony?

What about my unfinished Kronenberg, eh?

I have now seen the second, and concluding, part of the 2021 movie of Dune, which I reviewed a few days ago. 

While Dune Part Two is a mostly-enjoyable movie, and certainly worth watching (although, take ear-plugs if you are going to watch at the cinema - it is painfully loud in parts) - it is significantly-worse than the superb Part One, and does not end in a satisfying way (a very bad fault in any movie). 

If I gave Part One 9/10 (with only a handful of movies such as Return of the King, When Harry Met Sally, and Blade Runner having a perfect-ten score) - I would award Dune Part Two 7/10. 

I could list the problems (overlong with slackened tension and interest, too-many too-similar fights, too-much action, too consistently noisy); but the basic fact is that Part One was masterly - and gave-off a sense of continuous control and pacing; Part Two just-isn't. 

It's a shame, but it is very difficult to sustain high quality in any of the arts; and a two/ three year gap certainly cannot have helped. 

Plus, whoever decided on the nature of the ending; made a deliberate sacrifice of this movie to facilitate some (presumed) future sequel... 

Never a good idea in my book: and a deliberate slap-in-the-face of the audience. 

I have noticed that some traditionalist Christians project-onto "Romantic Christianity" their own notion that it aspires to be some kind of denomination, or church, or - at least - is a would-be organization seeking "recruits". 

Ah well... It does not seem to matter how often I or others make explicit what Romantic Christianity actually is about. 

Projection is, after all, rooted in self-understanding and self-motivation; and it is therefore impossible to overcome unless there is an honest act of empathy - and a wee-bit of sustained effort. 

To understand some-thing entails that we are motivated to... understand it! When our motivations are otherwise, then the inevitable outcome is that we will Not understand it; but will create some kind of bogeyman or straw-man suitable for us to reject, ridicule, or otherwise attack. 

And sufficient honest empathy to grasp what the other chap is actually saying, is - apparently - something that too-many traditional Christians find impossible - or at least undesirable.  

Literally incredible - but (apparently) authentic:

Indeed, I have only seen one better war archer: Baahubali...

So - Happy Deathday Aunt Grace! - the repository of the Tolkien family's history, and source for the etymology of the surname "Tolkien" as meaning "foolhardy" or "rash-bold".

Just a heads-up for those, like me, who loved the 2005-8 cartoon version of Avatar - rather surprisingly, the new live-action TV series series of the same story is excellent so far (despite being made by Netflix of 2024). 

I've watched two episodes and am thoroughly enjoying it. 

I also re-watched the first part of Dune, from 2021 (currently also on Netflix); which is confirmed as being (for me) a genuine 5-Star (i.e. top-rated) movie. 

I find it absolutely magnificent, completely gripping, and with a sense of mystery and depth that makes it feel like more than just entertainment. 

(Note: I have not read the book of Dune - it just doesn't grab me.) 

Part Two of Dune has been released this week in the cinemas; and I intend to go - despite its rather extreme length of more than two and a half hours (I watched Part One on TV in three segments, despite its being a bit shorter).

At present, it seems that there are no primarily Christian nations in the world.

(With the probable exception of the Fire Nation - but none in The West) 

Therefore - all nationalism is evil: as are all secular polities. 

In other words, the only good nationalism is one that is secondary to Christianity. Which means that the nationalism must function within Christian priorities and a Christian framework. In other words, to be good, nationalism must be part of a Christian theocracy.  

Yet, I believe that a Christian theocracy is not desirable in the West (as well as being in practice almost-certainly impossible). 

This undesirability/ impossibility of Western theocracy is for reasons I have discussed ad nauseam on this blog, to do with the changed nature of Western Consciousness - that is changed motivations, a changed mode of thinking, a changed relationship to divine reality etc.  

Western people don't want it, cannot be made to want it, will not choose it, and would not tolerate it if it were imposed. So that the result of trying to impose theocracy would not be a Christian society, but merely secular totalitarianism using Christianized language and excuses. 

In the Western World now, the nationalists are would-be totalitarian bureaucrats, exponents of Ahrimanic evil (whether they espouse "Christian values, or not). 

The nationalists oppose the globalists who are Sorathic agents of spitefully destructive evil. 

And that is the choice within the political arena. A choice between variants of the dominant globalist destroyers, or a backlash of nationalist totalitarians: there are no Good choices available.  

Disillusion is not wisdom; because dis-illusion (as the name implies) is a double-negative - not a positive - value; and Good comes only from a positive affiliation to God and divine creation. 

At present I perceive increasing numbers of disillusioned totalitarian bureaucrats among the national leadership class - people who have noticed that their worked-for totalitarian New World Order is being destroyed by strategic chaos imposed by the dominating multi-national globalists. 

So we are getting (and indeed have been getting, since around the millennium) some of the more intelligent and insightful adherents of totalitarian-Ahrimanic evil embracing a nationalist agenda to some extent. Putting themselves forward as a "common sense" alternative to literally-insane inversion of the Sorathic globalists. 

But nationalism is evil. Historically, nationalism arose after the decline of Christianity: nationalism was the ideological basis of the first truly secular states.  

What the globalists call the "far Right" - or populist Right, often tacitly supported by a majority of Western population - are actually "local totalitarians": those who want to have what they regard as a strong, productive, efficient nation - more like the Western societies of the middle 20th century. 

This agenda would entail some sensible and common sense controlled and reduced immigration, a degree of meritocracy (instead of "inclusion" or "equality"), a protected and planned economy, coherent laws, effective military and police etc. 

Sounds great, you say? Not so.  

From where we are now; such a society is not just impossible, but would anyway be evil - because inevitably totalitarian. 

It would not have Christian foundations, would not be organized in accordance with God's will and divine creation, nor would it be Christianly motivated. 

Therefore what we would actually get would be a version of "the Great Reset" - but on a national basis; and without the self-destroying elements such as "sustainability", antiracism, and the rest. 

At best and temporarily, such a society would assert justifications that are this-worldly, and utilitarian. But since such abstractions are both humanly-feeble and irredeemably subjective - very soon selfish, short-termist corruption among the leadership class would inevitably take-over. 

(Which is why They are keen on the idea!)

What I am saying is that "nationalism" is a delusion or a deception for The West, arising only as a consequence of in-fighting among the demon-serving ruling class. 

Serious Christians should be wary of falling into the trap of supporting nationalism - since it will inevitably be unmasked as local totalitarianism - hence intrinsically evil. 

I am continually surprised at how few people seem to have noticed that the globalist totalitarian System - which, just about four years ago looked to be just a few steps away from its goal of population omni-surveillance and total-control - is much weaker and less complete now than it was at the height of the birdemic - those months when They were so hyper-confident as to reveal the fine-print of Their Great-Reset plans. 

It's not that They have given up on the plans - obviously not! The plans continue as before. 

It's just that the System is perceptibly and incrementally self-destructing on so many fronts, that it seems just a matter of time before positive-feedback sets-in and rapid System collapse eventuates. And I mean - collapses without any outside intervention. 

Just as people in general seem to have learned little or nothing from the birdemic-peck, or from the suicidal insanity of antiracism; so those who dissent-from or oppose the System seem not to have noticed the qualitative difference between the world here-and-now, and that of 2020. 

Although it is still far-from dead, and many indeed have a considerable while to run (since nobody understands or can predict the robustness of this unprecedented world); I venture to say that The System is irrevocably ending; and totalitarian globalism should not be regarded as the major problem over the medium to long-term. 

What is increasing is chaos; and chaos is (obviously) dysfunctional - so that the negative aspects of System failure and collapse, will be exacerbated and accelerated by the deliberate, actively-destructive evil of chaos. 

More explicitly: the Big Problem already and from-now is not that the world shall be locked-down into a permanent Black Iron Prison; created from the Empire That Never Ended - but that the Horsemen of the Apocalypse will return in force.  

Looking at the Western leadership class, I see no sign that they are overall working towards implementing a Big Brother/ Brave New World dystopia; but instead I see the evidence of spiteful, destructive (i.e. Sorathic) evil that delights in human terror, despair, disease, starvation, violence, misery and death. 

Delights, indeed, in destroying animals, plants, the soil and the waters... Not in exploiting these for greed or to enhance power; but in destroying them for the sake of the pleasure that destruction brings. 

The top-level leadership consists of the adult equivalent of kids that like best to torment and torture other beings. They are unrelenting in their effort to start, escalate and spread wars. Prevent or break marriages and families and friendships. Destroy economies and trade. Smash farming and permanently wreck farmland.

Those who still continue to regard The System as the major evil to be fought, are - almost all of them - (know it or not) attacking The System by encouraging chaos. 

The are attacking one great evil, by encouraging another - and (even-) greater!

However these System-wreckers rationalize it to themselves (as working for "freedom" or in hope of personally gaining from a collapse over the short-term) - negatively-motivated attacks on The System cannot achieve any net-positive results. 

Protest voting, demonstrating, boycotting, sabotaging, rioting etc. will lead nowhere better (indeed, maybe, such will serve to scare and energize the ruling-totalitarians into more urgent yet futile attempts at oppression).  

Looking at the situation and trends with a degree of detachment that, in my case, can only be temporary-insensibility masquerading as objectivity (since I would presumably perish miserably, albeit maybe not rapidly, in any System-collapse) - what are the pros and cons? 

It could be (and often is) argued that the collapse of the global totalitarian System - if not necessarily good in-itself - "clears the decks", or creates a power vacuum, that offers opportunities to "build something better" afterwards. 

Indeed this fantasy of a fresh start (whether explicit or implicit) seems to be pretty common; but I regard it as a kind of "Pollyanna" unreality - optimism without reason. 

It seems clear to me that genuine, overall Good only comes from good motivations; and not from a combination or compromise between evils. And it is the absence of real and strong good motivations that prevails in The West, and that will ensure that we-here will not see good outcomes from the collapse of totalitarianism.  

"In theory" System collapse would "allow" residual Good to establish, grow and thrive; but that assumes such Good motivation both exists and is strong enough to overcome this-worldly temptations... A situation that I see no evidence for (although I remain on the look-out!).

In sum: the pros of System-collapse are weakly-theoretical, while the cons seem inevitable; which means that - as things stand, culturally in The West, we are in a lose-lose situation...

And therefore reliant for valid hope upon the personal not the social, and the spiritual not the material - like it, or like it not. 

I review the recent but not-really-new edition of Tolkien's selected Letters over at my Notion Club Papers blog. 

My conclusion is that the 2023 Letters is better than the 1981 Letters; yet disappointing, and a missed opportunity. 

I suddenly had this thought in the bath. (...Where else?) 

That there have always been "way-out"/ "crazy" theories and claims concerning the existence of "free energy" - unlimited energy for no thermodynamic "cost"; and also claims to have discovered or invented a "perpetual motion" machine. 

And yet, my best understanding of metaphysics is that the ultimate reality of Creation consists of Beings in relationships. 

So, free energy/ perpetual motion simply basic properties of all Beings - including you and me. 

I mean that all beings are "powered" by unlimited and cost-free energy - and are themselves perpetual motion "machines". 

When Beings are known as the primary "units" of ultimate reality (Beings are alive, conscious, self-sustaining, eternal); then of course they (we) have properties that include an infinitely-renewable "free" energy... How else could we and other Beings be eternal? 

And, because all Beings are "dynamic" (not static), and all Beings exist "in" Time, in the sense that Time is property of Beings - then some kind of "perpetual motion" must be a feature. 

Another way of thinking about this is the divine creation does not (cannot) depend on any external source of energy else it could not be eternal; because any externally-supplied energy implies entropy, which is the opposite of creation). 

And creation is dynamic, entails change - and eternal change is perpetual motion. 

Because (by my pluralist metaphysics) all real creation is divine in nature (whether that creation is of-God or of some other Being) - that is, all creating partakes is an action of free agency, hence represents the operation of divine qualities - then, it must be a property of Beings to behave like free energy "devices" and perpetual motion "machines". 

So these don't need to be invented or discovered: we all already know dozens of such entities - including our-selves. 

NOTE ADDED: Why am I saying this?

Well, the ridiculing of ideas of free energy and perpetual motion has become mainstream exactly because it is a soft-sell (i.e. an indirect and implicit promotion) of the primacy of entropy in reality; and thus the denial of creation. 

The fact we have come to regard these ideas as not just untrue but actually insane, is evidence that we have made false metaphysical choices at a very deep level. 

And it is these fundamental errors in understanding the basic nature of reality that trap so-many of us in nihilistic and despairing materialism.  

Stimulated by reading Red Tree, White Tree by Wendy Berg, at the same time as JRR Tolkien's Letters, I present some reflections on the distinctions between elves and Men - and the potential ultimate unification of the human sub-species - over at The Notion Club Papers blog. 

Salvation is post-mortal: that is to say, the decision to accept Jesus Christ's offer of resurrection to eternal Heavenly life is made after our death. 

(Of course we can decide positively to follow Jesus at any time during this mortal life, but then we can also change our mind at any time; and we change all the time and the world changes - so that can't be final.) 

I realize that I have arrived at this understanding of salvation over the past years, and have not wavered from my conviction; yet I'm not sure that I could retrace the steps of how I arrived at it. 

It may have been through reading the Fourth Gospel repeatedly through 2018; but it may also have been through a process of inferring how God "must" have arranged things such that the scheme of salvation had the best change of achieving its goals in the context of Men as they actually are, and this world as it actually has-been and is. 

At any rate, I find this conviction immensely consoling. No matter how distracting and evil our world becomes, how weak we are as Men, the time of decision will be after all this; will be based on a retrospective of our life and knowledge and choices. 

I also expect that it is in this post-mortal situation when other positive influences may also be brought to bear on our decision about salvation; specifically, it is when love of fellow Men may become effectual: our love for others, and the love others have had for us. 

This because the positive choice of salvation is a choice and commitment to live eternally and wholly by love. 

It makes the best sense to me that our fullest awareness of the fact of love would come after mortal life is ended, and in retrospect.

In particular, most effectively I suppose, we would then be able to share the experience of any persons (or indeed other non-person living Beings) who love us and whom we love who have already been resurrected. 

I cannot imagine any-thing more positively persuasive than such an experience.

Of course, salvation is always a choice, and may be rejected. 

Is such rejection of salvation permanent? - Well, I can't see that rejection would have to be eternal (and surely God would not want that?). 

Also, there need not be a 'symmetry' between on the one side the ability that we have (since the work of Jesus Christ) to commit eternally (irrevocably) to love; and, on the other side, the capacity to reject love. 

(Indeed, it may be that there is no eternal way that love can be rejected, no way that rejection can be made eternally, permanently, binding.) 

So - the theoretical possibility of salvation may always remain... but only so long as a Being is capable of love; and it may be that the capacity to love may have been absent from eternity, or be destroyed in the course of time. 

But while a constitutional incapacity to love may be inferred from behaviour; it cannot be known directly and with certainty - such is the nature of agency. 

At any rate, it seems clear that anyone who is capable of love and desires salvation can have it - whatever their nature and the circumstances of their past life. The work of Jesus Christ made possible exactly this everlasting state of living-by-love. The Big Question is whether or not a Being actually wants this: wants it enough to make the eternal commitment.