The monomaniac used to be a type of person who had but one thing he regarded as important, who related every other matter to that one thing, who subordinated every matter to that one thing.
Such an attitude is intrinsically sinful and such a person is necessarily evil - as was always understood by traditional morality that included such virtues as Prudence; which were intended to balance priorities.
But since the middle 1960s and the advent of the New Left (later political correctness, SJWs, Woke-ness etc) - monomania has become the dominant and official public morality of The West; rotating - often with extreme rapidity - from one monomania (class, or race) to another (feminism, or trans-lib). Indeed, the New Left implicitly defines itself as the party of monomanias (aka. the 'rainbow' party).
Well, Western civilization sowed the wind and is reaping the whirlwind. The world is now gripped by a monomania - and without any balance, moderation, or overall persepctive. There is no line which will not be crossed in pursuit of this monomania - no taboo which cannot be broken, no principle of basic humanity that will not be violated, no essential of life that will not be discarded - when any-thing comes into conflict with our global monomania.
As part of this same process; Traditional and Orthodox religion has committed sudden mass suicide - and publicly, eagerly, subordinated itself to the monomaniacal authorities.
What remains is the discernment of the heart; which we all and each possess. We each have that which is divine within us (being children of God) and we each have the possibility of direct knowledge from the Holy Ghost.
None are ever left without divine guidance to navigate through the complexities of life and to achieve the correct (prudent, balanced, principled - as it were) decision in any situation - if (but only if) we discern, acknowledge and follow that guidance.
Such as discernment of the heart will tell each of us that the mass monomania is intrinsically evil - both in principle and in detail; and will inform us what ought-to-be.
Of course, it is unlikely that we will personally be able to do exactly what will be the best course of action; but by knowing-it, we can (and should) repent our failure to do-it.
And the discernment of the heart cannot persuade any other people that we are personally correct; but that isn't going to happen anyway; since monomaniacs do not acknowledge any reasonsing or evidence except what fuels their mania.
The point is that we are not all-of-us dragged down into the mire of damnation willingly-inhabited by the monomaniacs - even when there are millions, or billions, of them.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query monomania. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query monomania. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday 1 April 2020
Saturday 25 April 2020
On missing the core (spiritual) point about the birdemic
I have myself often missed the point of the current crisis; in the sense that I overemphasised that the epidemic is a fake - an excuse for totalitarian coup.
Whereas the key point is that even if this were a real plague (e.g. if it 100 times more common and deadly than influenza); a spiritually healthy society would not have responded as ours has.
And spiritually healthy society would have continued with whatever spiritual activities it regarded as primarily important, despite everything. It would have put the spiritual above the material; where it belongs; and without-which life falls to pieces.
Such a society would have recognised that sacrificing all of life to any monomania is necessarily evil - and a health monomania is a particularly insidious and corrosive evil (because so superficially plausible).
As it is - we have all the disadvantages of a real plague or natural disaster, but with spiritual consequences worse than the real plagues of the past.
The lesson of these times seems to be that 'society' is itself a insane, stupid and evil: all three. We are living the fact that all goodness and strength is outwith The System - in each individual, in families, and in nature. Probably, these are vital lessons that we absolutely need to learn.
And the price - which is destroying The System and bringing-down civilization - is ultimately worth paying, given that nothing else has worked; taken in the context of life eternal.
Whereas the key point is that even if this were a real plague (e.g. if it 100 times more common and deadly than influenza); a spiritually healthy society would not have responded as ours has.
And spiritually healthy society would have continued with whatever spiritual activities it regarded as primarily important, despite everything. It would have put the spiritual above the material; where it belongs; and without-which life falls to pieces.
Such a society would have recognised that sacrificing all of life to any monomania is necessarily evil - and a health monomania is a particularly insidious and corrosive evil (because so superficially plausible).
As it is - we have all the disadvantages of a real plague or natural disaster, but with spiritual consequences worse than the real plagues of the past.
The lesson of these times seems to be that 'society' is itself a insane, stupid and evil: all three. We are living the fact that all goodness and strength is outwith The System - in each individual, in families, and in nature. Probably, these are vital lessons that we absolutely need to learn.
And the price - which is destroying The System and bringing-down civilization - is ultimately worth paying, given that nothing else has worked; taken in the context of life eternal.
Tuesday 14 April 2020
Eyes without faces - on the current rampant demonic dehumanisation.
From Francis Berger:
Lockdowns, social-distancing, work-from-home, church closures, face masks, and all the rest of it can all be rationally explained away at the temporal level; and this is exactly what most people appear to be doing as they passively accept whatever restrictions are imposed upon them. But can the same be said for the spiritual level?
I view the birdemic response as an intrinsic part of our current spiritual war. Seen from this perspective, the demonically-inspired dehumanizing elements within most of the measures we have all been ordered to take become glaringly obvious. A trace of humiliation stains all of it.
Humans are social creatures, yet we are being ordered to social distance; to limit all non-essential travel and meetings with others; to avoid gathering in groups of more than two or three. Even when we are in public, we are being mandated to keep a two meter distance between ourselves and others.
And when we are out in public, what do we see? Masked people. Eyes without faces.
All the while, less visible forms of pernicious dehumanization are quietly taking place in the background as people are deprived of their jobs, businesses, and livelihoods.
As Francis says, the dehumanising intent behind this pattern is, one would have supposed, "glaringly obvious". Any monomania is always and intrinsically evil - but perhaps a monomania of self-preservation from a particular illness is one of the worst - because more easily "explained away" and rationalised.
But it is not glaringly obvious. The evil intent is missed.
Indeed, most people cannot conceive that the largest, most powerful, most influential people and organisations can have evil intent - except perhaps some of the large corporations. When it comes to Western Governments, mainstream mass media, charities and NGOs, Global Establishments such as the United Nations and its World Health Organisation - people will not recognise evil intent; and no amount of evidence will ever change their minds; because they assume (metaphysically) that these organsations are necessarily well-motivated.
My understanding of this is two-fold. First is that extremely few people have an understanding that is rooted outside-of their finite mortal lives in this planetary world. In other words, very few are genuinely taking an eternal, immortal and Heavenly perspective.
In a single word, it is the lack of hope for Heaven that cripples us. We would need to perceive our lives in this world, imaginatively and with conviction, from the perspective of Heaven - in order correctly to evaluate it.
Therefore modern people cannot judge worldly things, but can only choose-between them - and therefore naturally (for reasons of self-preservation and status) they choose to take sides with power.
(And people are exceptionally astute at judging where worldly power really lies; even when worldly power disguises itself by claiming to be weak and persecuted 'minorities' - people see through such claims and take that side.)
Secondly is that modern evil is different from the evil of the past, and the evil we are taught to recognise and resist. Modern evil is Ahrimanic - that is, it is based in impersonal abstract systems, in bureaucracy, in laws and rules and obedience; in exactly that reductionistic, pseudo-scientific, materialistic, non-spiritual and anti-human perspective which Francis Berger sees as epitomised by the face mask.
It is the combination of a narrowly this-worldly perspective and blindness to the prevalent form of evil; which enables so many Antichrist phenomena to take-root and thrive in these days. And that is what we see: evil motivation successfully presenting itself as benign, totalitarian takeover masked as caring therapy; a calculatedly-impersonal reduction of individuals to statistics of disease vectors and victims.
All cheered-on by a populace whose hold on their own humanity is tenuous; and who increasingly regard-themselves as merely units in a Global System, benignly ruled by therapeutic dictators who work for "the good of all the world" - for which many, many specific person's well-being, health and life must therefore - and justly! - be sacrificed.
Lockdowns, social-distancing, work-from-home, church closures, face masks, and all the rest of it can all be rationally explained away at the temporal level; and this is exactly what most people appear to be doing as they passively accept whatever restrictions are imposed upon them. But can the same be said for the spiritual level?
I view the birdemic response as an intrinsic part of our current spiritual war. Seen from this perspective, the demonically-inspired dehumanizing elements within most of the measures we have all been ordered to take become glaringly obvious. A trace of humiliation stains all of it.
Humans are social creatures, yet we are being ordered to social distance; to limit all non-essential travel and meetings with others; to avoid gathering in groups of more than two or three. Even when we are in public, we are being mandated to keep a two meter distance between ourselves and others.
And when we are out in public, what do we see? Masked people. Eyes without faces.
All the while, less visible forms of pernicious dehumanization are quietly taking place in the background as people are deprived of their jobs, businesses, and livelihoods.
As Francis says, the dehumanising intent behind this pattern is, one would have supposed, "glaringly obvious". Any monomania is always and intrinsically evil - but perhaps a monomania of self-preservation from a particular illness is one of the worst - because more easily "explained away" and rationalised.
But it is not glaringly obvious. The evil intent is missed.
Indeed, most people cannot conceive that the largest, most powerful, most influential people and organisations can have evil intent - except perhaps some of the large corporations. When it comes to Western Governments, mainstream mass media, charities and NGOs, Global Establishments such as the United Nations and its World Health Organisation - people will not recognise evil intent; and no amount of evidence will ever change their minds; because they assume (metaphysically) that these organsations are necessarily well-motivated.
My understanding of this is two-fold. First is that extremely few people have an understanding that is rooted outside-of their finite mortal lives in this planetary world. In other words, very few are genuinely taking an eternal, immortal and Heavenly perspective.
In a single word, it is the lack of hope for Heaven that cripples us. We would need to perceive our lives in this world, imaginatively and with conviction, from the perspective of Heaven - in order correctly to evaluate it.
Therefore modern people cannot judge worldly things, but can only choose-between them - and therefore naturally (for reasons of self-preservation and status) they choose to take sides with power.
(And people are exceptionally astute at judging where worldly power really lies; even when worldly power disguises itself by claiming to be weak and persecuted 'minorities' - people see through such claims and take that side.)
Secondly is that modern evil is different from the evil of the past, and the evil we are taught to recognise and resist. Modern evil is Ahrimanic - that is, it is based in impersonal abstract systems, in bureaucracy, in laws and rules and obedience; in exactly that reductionistic, pseudo-scientific, materialistic, non-spiritual and anti-human perspective which Francis Berger sees as epitomised by the face mask.
It is the combination of a narrowly this-worldly perspective and blindness to the prevalent form of evil; which enables so many Antichrist phenomena to take-root and thrive in these days. And that is what we see: evil motivation successfully presenting itself as benign, totalitarian takeover masked as caring therapy; a calculatedly-impersonal reduction of individuals to statistics of disease vectors and victims.
All cheered-on by a populace whose hold on their own humanity is tenuous; and who increasingly regard-themselves as merely units in a Global System, benignly ruled by therapeutic dictators who work for "the good of all the world" - for which many, many specific person's well-being, health and life must therefore - and justly! - be sacrificed.
Thursday 14 January 2021
Will King Arthur save us?
Sewingshields 'castle' beside Hadrian's Wall, Northumberland - our local site for Arthur's sleeping army
I have been reading and thinking about Arthur, as I often do! And it led me to wonder about the old prophecies that he and some knights are magically asleep under some hill (such as South Cadbury in Somerset), or in a cave' (such as Alderley Edge in Cheshire) and waiting the call to arise and save England.
To my mind, England is now in greater danger than since the Norman conquest, because in 2020 we have already experienced a near-total destruction of our culture. It has Already Happened... The only open question is whether this is permanent.
But almost immediately I realised that the measure of England's plight is that - even if we assume that Arthur is ready and waiting the call - the call will not come, because the people have consented (often embraced) their own annihilation.
This situation has, of course, been building for several generations. England created the industrial revolution, invented socialism, and for more than a century has been abandoning Christianity.
The net result has been a pervasive nihilism, self-hatred, adoption of a system of inverted-Christian values, the embrace of ethnic replacement - and now 'finally' (perhaps) a clamouring zeal for the Global Establishment program of generalised social-economic destruction and psychological crushing.
The signs are that They will not be content until most people are reduced to an extreme state of groveling terror and despair.
The mass of the English - and in particular the ruling and professional classes - have given-up, and now seem unconsciously to seek their own deaths - and will defend this death-seeking stance with extreme, angry, hysterical and almost frenzied tenacity.
The birdemic has enabled people dishonestly to disguise their pursuit of national and personal suicide as a concern for life and health - by the simple expedient of an insane (literally psychotic); monomania concerning the birdemic, combined with a reckless (and lying) indifference to the major (and increasing) causes of suffering, sickness and death.
So, if Arthur and his knights were to awaken and try to save us from incipient destruction and death; they would be met by the united defiance of the entire Establishment, backed a large swathe of the masses, who would certainly regard liberation as an attack.
Arthur was, after all, a divinely-anointed King, and vicegerent of God on earth. Naturally those who serve the powers of darkness would oppose him!
So, fantasies of National rescue - even of divine rescue - are false; so long as the people do not want to be rescued; and have, indeed, chosen to be damned.
Sunday 3 July 2011
Inability to make tough decisions - the monomania of kindness
*
As C.S Lewis often remarked - the one virtue that modern society has above all previous societies is kindness: our most hated vice is cruelty.
Since any virtue pursued in isolation or excess leads to sin, then naturally it is the West's primary and only virtue which is about to destroy the West.
*
Kindness has painted us into a corner from which the only way out is extreme unkindness.
The West could be saved, could save itself - but only by making some extremely tough decisions, by being cruel in the short term in order to promote Good in the long term.
Therefore The West will not save itself, will not even allow itself to be saved.
*
Yet modern kindness is a fake.
Modern kindness is not personal kindness to specific people; the people who feel kind are not paying the price nor are they taking responsibility.
In the past, kindness meant using your own resources to look after some particular person or group.
Now kindness is about 'rights' which means using other people's resources to look after defined categories of persons.
*
And beyond this kindness as a right means coerced confiscation - serfdom.
Needs trumps everything for the monomaniacally kind.
If any needy people present themselves, then the state will take from the serfs and give to the needy; with no limit because the alternative is cruelty.
*
The serfs are forced to support the needy and the state will take the credit for kindness.
The only alternatives to serfdom are either to join the state or become one more of the needy.
Very obviously this will destroy society.
*
Yet of course, the state could stop this at any time - but only by cruelty.
The bottom line is that things are at the point, long past the point, when the tough decision is to stand and watch people die in very large numbers (and in some scenarios to kill people in very large numbers - directly or indirectly - if they will not otherwise desist) in a situation when these deaths could actually be prevented (temporarily, in the short term) by further confiscations from the serfs.
That is what I mean by very tough decisions.
*
And we are in this situation purely because we would not make tough (but much less tough) decisions in the past, on the way to this.
Tough decisions are not at all about the end justifying the means (that is evil): tough decisions are about making the right decisions in the face of temptations from short-termism.
Tough decisions are about being wise rather than expedient; Good rather than popular.
But tough decisions could not and will not happen because we are ruled by democracy and bureaucracy; and both (being non-personal) are intrinsically incapable of making tough decisions, because intrinsically incapable of truth, wisdom or Goodness.
*
As C.S Lewis often remarked - the one virtue that modern society has above all previous societies is kindness: our most hated vice is cruelty.
Since any virtue pursued in isolation or excess leads to sin, then naturally it is the West's primary and only virtue which is about to destroy the West.
*
Kindness has painted us into a corner from which the only way out is extreme unkindness.
The West could be saved, could save itself - but only by making some extremely tough decisions, by being cruel in the short term in order to promote Good in the long term.
Therefore The West will not save itself, will not even allow itself to be saved.
*
Yet modern kindness is a fake.
Modern kindness is not personal kindness to specific people; the people who feel kind are not paying the price nor are they taking responsibility.
In the past, kindness meant using your own resources to look after some particular person or group.
Now kindness is about 'rights' which means using other people's resources to look after defined categories of persons.
*
And beyond this kindness as a right means coerced confiscation - serfdom.
Needs trumps everything for the monomaniacally kind.
If any needy people present themselves, then the state will take from the serfs and give to the needy; with no limit because the alternative is cruelty.
*
The serfs are forced to support the needy and the state will take the credit for kindness.
The only alternatives to serfdom are either to join the state or become one more of the needy.
Very obviously this will destroy society.
*
Yet of course, the state could stop this at any time - but only by cruelty.
The bottom line is that things are at the point, long past the point, when the tough decision is to stand and watch people die in very large numbers (and in some scenarios to kill people in very large numbers - directly or indirectly - if they will not otherwise desist) in a situation when these deaths could actually be prevented (temporarily, in the short term) by further confiscations from the serfs.
That is what I mean by very tough decisions.
*
And we are in this situation purely because we would not make tough (but much less tough) decisions in the past, on the way to this.
Tough decisions are not at all about the end justifying the means (that is evil): tough decisions are about making the right decisions in the face of temptations from short-termism.
Tough decisions are about being wise rather than expedient; Good rather than popular.
But tough decisions could not and will not happen because we are ruled by democracy and bureaucracy; and both (being non-personal) are intrinsically incapable of making tough decisions, because intrinsically incapable of truth, wisdom or Goodness.
*
Monday 13 April 2020
Ahrimanic over-reach and salvation, in a world of the (mostly) self-damned
If it is agreed that we are now into our second month of an Ahrimanic coup, a totalitarian world Establishment that has taken-over most of the world nations (and all those of wealth and power) - which is to say: a takeover that entails the exclusion of all genuinely humane, spiritual and religious aspects from public/ official life - then we need to understand the grounds for Christian hope in this situation in which we find our-selves.
One of the most challenging aspects is to account for the fact that most people are unaware of what has happened - and by 'most' I means almost-everybody. One might have supposed that a world in lockdown and in self-created collapse over a trivial birdemic would have been (ahem) rather obvious even to the meanest intelligence... After all, everybody is involved.
Yet, apparently not so. Apparently, nearly everybody takes the incoherent and clearly wickedly-motivated nonsense of the politicians/officialdom/mass-media as the plain and simple reality.
Is it really possible that so many people could be so very wrong - that so many people are so lacking in basic reasoning capacity and spiritual insight as to fail to understand something so blazingly obvious as this?
Well - yes: it is possible, and the fact of it should not really surprise anyone. That is, after all, the way things have been going - and pretty rapidly - for many decades. We do, after all, live in an insane world - that insists on the false and denies the obvious on a daily basis, as a matter of policy, as a matter of law.
The surprise is not that the masses have accepted their Eloi status so meekly, but that this didn't happen many years ago. And this is what is so hard to accept.
It is hard to accept that almost everybody is evil, stupid or both. It is hard to live in a world where this is a plain fact (and a fact that is plainer every day).
More exactly, it is hard to do this in the necessary spirit of faith, hope and charity - which Christians simply must do. Therefor it is not sufficient to be disgusted by (nearly) everybody, to despise (nearly) everybody. This response may happen quite naturally on surveying the world around us, it may be inescapable, it is indeed not necessarily wicked for us to do so when such responses are justified... but it is not sufficient.
Yet we should not be unrealistic. To be dishonest is a sin - whether that dishonesty be overt lying or any form of thinking or asserting which fails to represent our genuine understanding of truth. So we must be honest - and when we perceive ourselves to be surrounded by evil and stupidity, we ought-to acknowledge the fact.
But neither should we be cast-down by this: we must not succumb to despair - which is also a sin (and one of the worst).
What then? I think one way forward is to firstly acknowledge that each person (of whatever age, intelligence or experience) is responsible for his or her own salvation. This is a divine right, and it is the best way things can be - all other alternatives are unacceptable.
And secondly (as a Christian) to reflect that when God is both our loving Father and the Creator; he will naturally ensure that the possibility of salvation is always open for all of his children.
We need to take this as a central fact of the world; and be confident that every-body who finally and ultimately chooses to reject God, the Good or the gifts of Jesus Christ; does so by his or her own existential choice (and not because of ignorance or lack of experience). God (through his work as creator) will ensure that each and all have sufficient knowledge and experience to make this choice.
Thus we can see the current situation as an over-reach by the Ahrimanic powers; who have succeeded in imposing a monomania on the world and in numbing all opposition - spiritual and temporal. But God will (and of this we can be 100% confident) ensure that this crushing of the human spirit will lead to situations in which the sharpness of choices concerning perceptions of reality is made absolutely clear to each and every person.
We are not talking about the level of short-termist politics, where evil may continue to triumph indefinitely: the world may be self-condemned to live under tyranny for a long time. But the sheer extent and thoroughness of the victory of evil will be used against it at the spiritual level.
By being compelled to live-out the consequences of reductionist, materialistic atheism - an actively anti-Christian world where there are no real churches and in which most of the higher forms of human activity (art, science, philosophy etc.) are either crushed or co-opted to The Agenda,
We will see that, at the eternal and spiritual level, the Ahrimanic demons have over-reached, and will induce (in those souls capable of discerning truth, beauty and goodness) the development of that insight which is necessary to repentance and the embrace of that real Christianity of the heart which is immune to the world.
One of the most challenging aspects is to account for the fact that most people are unaware of what has happened - and by 'most' I means almost-everybody. One might have supposed that a world in lockdown and in self-created collapse over a trivial birdemic would have been (ahem) rather obvious even to the meanest intelligence... After all, everybody is involved.
Yet, apparently not so. Apparently, nearly everybody takes the incoherent and clearly wickedly-motivated nonsense of the politicians/officialdom/mass-media as the plain and simple reality.
Is it really possible that so many people could be so very wrong - that so many people are so lacking in basic reasoning capacity and spiritual insight as to fail to understand something so blazingly obvious as this?
Well - yes: it is possible, and the fact of it should not really surprise anyone. That is, after all, the way things have been going - and pretty rapidly - for many decades. We do, after all, live in an insane world - that insists on the false and denies the obvious on a daily basis, as a matter of policy, as a matter of law.
The surprise is not that the masses have accepted their Eloi status so meekly, but that this didn't happen many years ago. And this is what is so hard to accept.
It is hard to accept that almost everybody is evil, stupid or both. It is hard to live in a world where this is a plain fact (and a fact that is plainer every day).
More exactly, it is hard to do this in the necessary spirit of faith, hope and charity - which Christians simply must do. Therefor it is not sufficient to be disgusted by (nearly) everybody, to despise (nearly) everybody. This response may happen quite naturally on surveying the world around us, it may be inescapable, it is indeed not necessarily wicked for us to do so when such responses are justified... but it is not sufficient.
Yet we should not be unrealistic. To be dishonest is a sin - whether that dishonesty be overt lying or any form of thinking or asserting which fails to represent our genuine understanding of truth. So we must be honest - and when we perceive ourselves to be surrounded by evil and stupidity, we ought-to acknowledge the fact.
But neither should we be cast-down by this: we must not succumb to despair - which is also a sin (and one of the worst).
What then? I think one way forward is to firstly acknowledge that each person (of whatever age, intelligence or experience) is responsible for his or her own salvation. This is a divine right, and it is the best way things can be - all other alternatives are unacceptable.
And secondly (as a Christian) to reflect that when God is both our loving Father and the Creator; he will naturally ensure that the possibility of salvation is always open for all of his children.
We need to take this as a central fact of the world; and be confident that every-body who finally and ultimately chooses to reject God, the Good or the gifts of Jesus Christ; does so by his or her own existential choice (and not because of ignorance or lack of experience). God (through his work as creator) will ensure that each and all have sufficient knowledge and experience to make this choice.
Thus we can see the current situation as an over-reach by the Ahrimanic powers; who have succeeded in imposing a monomania on the world and in numbing all opposition - spiritual and temporal. But God will (and of this we can be 100% confident) ensure that this crushing of the human spirit will lead to situations in which the sharpness of choices concerning perceptions of reality is made absolutely clear to each and every person.
We are not talking about the level of short-termist politics, where evil may continue to triumph indefinitely: the world may be self-condemned to live under tyranny for a long time. But the sheer extent and thoroughness of the victory of evil will be used against it at the spiritual level.
By being compelled to live-out the consequences of reductionist, materialistic atheism - an actively anti-Christian world where there are no real churches and in which most of the higher forms of human activity (art, science, philosophy etc.) are either crushed or co-opted to The Agenda,
We will see that, at the eternal and spiritual level, the Ahrimanic demons have over-reached, and will induce (in those souls capable of discerning truth, beauty and goodness) the development of that insight which is necessary to repentance and the embrace of that real Christianity of the heart which is immune to the world.
Wednesday 15 July 2020
Humility *and* creativity
Perhaps humility - the humbling of pride - is what we modern, Western Men most need to learn. In this context; much of what appens in our individual lives - including much of what seems most negative - takes-on urgent and decisive meaning.
Deep-rooted pride simply must be taken-down - yet this is not easy for God to accomplish: not easy at all! We have so many wrong responses, so many excuses... I certainly do.
It is a case of God being cruel to be kind; sacrificing the short-term and temporary for the long-term and everlasting.
We are so addicted to finding the answers, to getting life sorted-out - and we resist being grateful for the grace of what is given us; we forget that our primary task is to know and follow Jesus.
It is a recurrent experience that the heady feeling of mastery, being-right, knowing-the-stuff and assuming a smoooth and delight-full future will be followed by a fall, a crash, set-backs, disasters, disease and the rest of it.
For our own good. This is precisely what we, each and individually, should learn-from. And if we do not learn... well then the lesson will be repeated until we do.
Yet humility cannot legitimately be pursued with monomania; because any virtue in isolation is a sin; and because passivity and mere waiting will lead to despair.
We moderns must be motivated if we are to resist the active evil of these times - and our motivations must be strong.
Thus for us here-and-now (although perhaps not for all everywhere nor in the past) creativity in our living is necessary. In the past and other places, creativity was generally felt to be a passive inspiration or even possession by deity - the human creator was merely regarded (regarded himself, too) as an instrument or conduit of the divine.
But not for us. We do indeed await grace from God, but we cannot wait inertly - we must meet God 'half-way'. Not an option, but a necessity. We must be active in pursuit as well as receptive to being-pursued.
This is what we need, this is what is required for modern consciousness - because we need to choose freely and actively that-which-we-need.
(Unlike the past when - it seems - what people need was often thrust-upon them. No good for us. We must seek and embrace what we need.)
So this is what must happen. The attitude towards life is creative, where creativity is in harmony with God's creation but not confined to it; where our own inner creativity is active. Where we add some-thing (albeit little, it makes a difference) to what is already there.
Active in whatever way we personally are constituted; and we can be sure that there is an inner creativity in every living person, a contribution each can and should make towards the Kingdom of Heaven.
Not - of course! - that kind of evil fake 'creativity' of the modern-arts or pseudo-science; but an active meeting-of some inner impulse and initiative with that which is divine in this world.
Nobody can be prescriptive about this. You may be the sole example of your kind of creativity. But we know it when we do it - even if nobody else can see it, even though nobody else admires it. Indeed, it is generally best to be unassertive about our own creating. Just be doing it, and leave its 'reception' to God.
(We need to be active in our creating, but not in our self-promotion!)
(And for many or most people, our creativity is not channeled into One Big Thing, one specific art, craft or expertise; but is spread across many things - many things at once, many things through time. But none the less, none the worse, for it. Like someone who does good in many small things over many years; compared with one who does One Big Thing, a single act of Great Goodness - perhaps composes a wonderful poem of melody, or who dies a martyr. The latter will attract more attention in this world; but we can be sure that the former will be regarded as equivalently valid in the eye of God - and the Right Thing whenever it expresses the true nature of an individual.)
Thus, on the one hand, pride is the deepest rooted of modern sins - for most people in the West. And much of our lives will be 'about' trying to teach us this fact. On the other hand - we cannot collapse into inert self-less acceptance, we cannot be merely passive and self-effacing; because that way we will conform to the prevalent evil.
The task, therefore, is to be both creative and humble; confident and active - but not For our-selves.
Indomitable in our creativity, inflexibly determined to do creativity - yet the products of that creativity need to be treated lightly and without possessiveness. Put them out-there, and leave it to God to decide whether they take any place or who (if anybody) they may reach in this mortal life and world...
It really is the doing that matters - while it is being-done. The products of creativity need to be recognised as themselves but straw.
Whatever is true and real about what we have-done is already eternal, and we need not concern ourselves about that.
Deep-rooted pride simply must be taken-down - yet this is not easy for God to accomplish: not easy at all! We have so many wrong responses, so many excuses... I certainly do.
It is a case of God being cruel to be kind; sacrificing the short-term and temporary for the long-term and everlasting.
We are so addicted to finding the answers, to getting life sorted-out - and we resist being grateful for the grace of what is given us; we forget that our primary task is to know and follow Jesus.
It is a recurrent experience that the heady feeling of mastery, being-right, knowing-the-stuff and assuming a smoooth and delight-full future will be followed by a fall, a crash, set-backs, disasters, disease and the rest of it.
For our own good. This is precisely what we, each and individually, should learn-from. And if we do not learn... well then the lesson will be repeated until we do.
Yet humility cannot legitimately be pursued with monomania; because any virtue in isolation is a sin; and because passivity and mere waiting will lead to despair.
We moderns must be motivated if we are to resist the active evil of these times - and our motivations must be strong.
Thus for us here-and-now (although perhaps not for all everywhere nor in the past) creativity in our living is necessary. In the past and other places, creativity was generally felt to be a passive inspiration or even possession by deity - the human creator was merely regarded (regarded himself, too) as an instrument or conduit of the divine.
But not for us. We do indeed await grace from God, but we cannot wait inertly - we must meet God 'half-way'. Not an option, but a necessity. We must be active in pursuit as well as receptive to being-pursued.
This is what we need, this is what is required for modern consciousness - because we need to choose freely and actively that-which-we-need.
(Unlike the past when - it seems - what people need was often thrust-upon them. No good for us. We must seek and embrace what we need.)
So this is what must happen. The attitude towards life is creative, where creativity is in harmony with God's creation but not confined to it; where our own inner creativity is active. Where we add some-thing (albeit little, it makes a difference) to what is already there.
Active in whatever way we personally are constituted; and we can be sure that there is an inner creativity in every living person, a contribution each can and should make towards the Kingdom of Heaven.
Not - of course! - that kind of evil fake 'creativity' of the modern-arts or pseudo-science; but an active meeting-of some inner impulse and initiative with that which is divine in this world.
Nobody can be prescriptive about this. You may be the sole example of your kind of creativity. But we know it when we do it - even if nobody else can see it, even though nobody else admires it. Indeed, it is generally best to be unassertive about our own creating. Just be doing it, and leave its 'reception' to God.
(We need to be active in our creating, but not in our self-promotion!)
(And for many or most people, our creativity is not channeled into One Big Thing, one specific art, craft or expertise; but is spread across many things - many things at once, many things through time. But none the less, none the worse, for it. Like someone who does good in many small things over many years; compared with one who does One Big Thing, a single act of Great Goodness - perhaps composes a wonderful poem of melody, or who dies a martyr. The latter will attract more attention in this world; but we can be sure that the former will be regarded as equivalently valid in the eye of God - and the Right Thing whenever it expresses the true nature of an individual.)
Thus, on the one hand, pride is the deepest rooted of modern sins - for most people in the West. And much of our lives will be 'about' trying to teach us this fact. On the other hand - we cannot collapse into inert self-less acceptance, we cannot be merely passive and self-effacing; because that way we will conform to the prevalent evil.
The task, therefore, is to be both creative and humble; confident and active - but not For our-selves.
Indomitable in our creativity, inflexibly determined to do creativity - yet the products of that creativity need to be treated lightly and without possessiveness. Put them out-there, and leave it to God to decide whether they take any place or who (if anybody) they may reach in this mortal life and world...
It really is the doing that matters - while it is being-done. The products of creativity need to be recognised as themselves but straw.
Whatever is true and real about what we have-done is already eternal, and we need not concern ourselves about that.
Friday 22 May 2020
Is this the most boring era in world history?
Well, no - this (here, now) is actually one of the most interesting times ever (if your purpose is to understand, if your motivation is to fight the evil); but you would never know that from what the great mass of people are saying and doing.
All day, everyday - conversation and public discourse is about the birdemic. Work is about the birdemic (planning, responding, reacting). Leisure is about the birdemic - you can't encounter another person without being reminded, without reminding each other by word or deed.
The monomania was boring at the beginning, but after several months it has become paralysing.
Because who cares about the labile opinions of ignorant liars, dupes and cowards on the subject of respiratory viruses? Not I.
It's not about the virus; it never was about the virus; and it is not going to be about the virus in the (totalitarian, materialistic, omni-surveillance and micro-control) future that is planned for us all.
If the birdemic is to be the sole subject of conversation, writing, living - and if all birdemic communication is to be restricted to the lies and tyrannies of the Establishment and the media - then I'd rather not join-in - thanks very much.
Birdemic interaction is a kind of test; each person saying in effect: "I'm an controlled zombie parrotting the program - are you like me? Are you one of us?"
Social distancing will soon be redundant, since if the only permitted subject matter is the official story about the birdemic, there will be no valid purpose for society, nor reward for engaging in human interaction.
On the other hand, if we use our divine power of free thinking; then this whole thing is incredibly interesting and stunningly important.
To be living and thinking during the most successful (because largest, and largely invisible) evil coup in the history of the world - what a privilege!
So much to learn, to understand, to know! So much to do!
All day, everyday - conversation and public discourse is about the birdemic. Work is about the birdemic (planning, responding, reacting). Leisure is about the birdemic - you can't encounter another person without being reminded, without reminding each other by word or deed.
The monomania was boring at the beginning, but after several months it has become paralysing.
Because who cares about the labile opinions of ignorant liars, dupes and cowards on the subject of respiratory viruses? Not I.
It's not about the virus; it never was about the virus; and it is not going to be about the virus in the (totalitarian, materialistic, omni-surveillance and micro-control) future that is planned for us all.
If the birdemic is to be the sole subject of conversation, writing, living - and if all birdemic communication is to be restricted to the lies and tyrannies of the Establishment and the media - then I'd rather not join-in - thanks very much.
Birdemic interaction is a kind of test; each person saying in effect: "I'm an controlled zombie parrotting the program - are you like me? Are you one of us?"
Social distancing will soon be redundant, since if the only permitted subject matter is the official story about the birdemic, there will be no valid purpose for society, nor reward for engaging in human interaction.
On the other hand, if we use our divine power of free thinking; then this whole thing is incredibly interesting and stunningly important.
To be living and thinking during the most successful (because largest, and largely invisible) evil coup in the history of the world - what a privilege!
So much to learn, to understand, to know! So much to do!
Friday 9 January 2015
How to read James Joyce's Ulysses
*
I have done this about five times, and had plenty of time to reflect on the experience - so here are some suggestions...
Firstly, it is best to be young - in the teens or early twenties, or else in that state of psychological neoteny which sometimes afflicts academics, scientists and artists. Indeed, I doubt whether it is worth reading James Joyce if you are a mature adult - married, a father, that kind of thing.
*
Of course I am suggesting that it is worth at least some people reading some of Joyce; and that is because he does what he does very well - and he was a master of language (when he wasn't writing merely to advertise his technique, or to exemplify some tiresome theoretical framework).
But while Joyce's skill as a prose artist is of the front rank, and he took great pains with his writing; as a man he was immature, conceited, pretentious and shallow - so there is a limit to how much one can (or should) get from reading Joyce.
So Ulysses contains some really wonderful parts, and even more pointless, turgid and/ or wilfully obscure stuff (by my interpretation Joyce deliberately deployed obscurity to hide his self-obsessed monomania).
*
When Joyce is good, he is always writing about himself - in the form of his alter ego Stephen Dedalus. The other characters either serve the goal of elucidating, highlighting, aggrandizing Stephen - or else they are essentially padding (and that stricture includes Leopold Bloom, as well as his wife Molly, insofar as he is not interacting with Stephen).
At root, Ulysses is an episode in the life, in the artistic development, of Stephen Dedalus - who is implicitly the author of Ulysses; Ulysses is 'about' what made it possible to become the man who went-on to write Ulysses.
*
But, but, but - it is incredibly-difficult/ impossible for the naïve reader to know what the heck is going on in Ulysses.
Therefore, to read Ulysses, you need already to know Stephen - which means you need already to have read the earlier stages of his biography in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
But Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is also incredibly difficult to understand - therefore you need already to have read its plainly written draft version: Stephen Hero.
*
(Comparing Stephen Hero with Portrait shows the great increase in Joyce's skill as a writer - but also the degree to which he deliberately used obscurity in order to make his writing seem more impressive.)
*
So, here is the scheme for How to read Ulysses:
1. Read Stephen Hero. (And if you can't abide Stephen - which would be understandable, stop here.)
2. Read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
3. Read the parts of Ulysses concerned with Stephen; skipping-over the rest.
*
In fact, just read the first three chapters of Ulysses - which are the best things in the book - and if you don't like them then you may as well give-up at that point and save yourself a lot of pain.
4. If you have liked all of this, then read the rest - why not? But I warn you that much of the second half is both worthless and intensely-annoying - perhaps especially the 'Oxen of the Sun' and 'Circe' episodes.
**
Sincere Note: Do not, I implore you, attempt to read Finnegans Wake.
You will not succeed; but even if you did you will have wasted your time and energy.
Everything that was bad about Ulysses, and nothing that was good, is put into Finnegans Wake - and amplified to the nth degree.
*
I have done this about five times, and had plenty of time to reflect on the experience - so here are some suggestions...
Firstly, it is best to be young - in the teens or early twenties, or else in that state of psychological neoteny which sometimes afflicts academics, scientists and artists. Indeed, I doubt whether it is worth reading James Joyce if you are a mature adult - married, a father, that kind of thing.
*
Of course I am suggesting that it is worth at least some people reading some of Joyce; and that is because he does what he does very well - and he was a master of language (when he wasn't writing merely to advertise his technique, or to exemplify some tiresome theoretical framework).
But while Joyce's skill as a prose artist is of the front rank, and he took great pains with his writing; as a man he was immature, conceited, pretentious and shallow - so there is a limit to how much one can (or should) get from reading Joyce.
So Ulysses contains some really wonderful parts, and even more pointless, turgid and/ or wilfully obscure stuff (by my interpretation Joyce deliberately deployed obscurity to hide his self-obsessed monomania).
*
When Joyce is good, he is always writing about himself - in the form of his alter ego Stephen Dedalus. The other characters either serve the goal of elucidating, highlighting, aggrandizing Stephen - or else they are essentially padding (and that stricture includes Leopold Bloom, as well as his wife Molly, insofar as he is not interacting with Stephen).
At root, Ulysses is an episode in the life, in the artistic development, of Stephen Dedalus - who is implicitly the author of Ulysses; Ulysses is 'about' what made it possible to become the man who went-on to write Ulysses.
*
But, but, but - it is incredibly-difficult/ impossible for the naïve reader to know what the heck is going on in Ulysses.
Therefore, to read Ulysses, you need already to know Stephen - which means you need already to have read the earlier stages of his biography in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
But Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is also incredibly difficult to understand - therefore you need already to have read its plainly written draft version: Stephen Hero.
*
(Comparing Stephen Hero with Portrait shows the great increase in Joyce's skill as a writer - but also the degree to which he deliberately used obscurity in order to make his writing seem more impressive.)
*
So, here is the scheme for How to read Ulysses:
1. Read Stephen Hero. (And if you can't abide Stephen - which would be understandable, stop here.)
2. Read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
3. Read the parts of Ulysses concerned with Stephen; skipping-over the rest.
*
In fact, just read the first three chapters of Ulysses - which are the best things in the book - and if you don't like them then you may as well give-up at that point and save yourself a lot of pain.
4. If you have liked all of this, then read the rest - why not? But I warn you that much of the second half is both worthless and intensely-annoying - perhaps especially the 'Oxen of the Sun' and 'Circe' episodes.
**
Sincere Note: Do not, I implore you, attempt to read Finnegans Wake.
You will not succeed; but even if you did you will have wasted your time and energy.
Everything that was bad about Ulysses, and nothing that was good, is put into Finnegans Wake - and amplified to the nth degree.
*
Sunday 3 May 2020
Understanding the surveillance monomania as a natural expression of Ahrimanic evil
There is a dominant monomania of surveillance: that everything everybody does, all the time, should be monitored and recorded.
I suggest that this is probably the dominant and overwhelming underlying motivation in the world over the past decades and continuing. There is a constant pressure to increase the scope and precision of surveillance - and a constant casting-around for more or less plausible excuses to do this.
There is both external surveillance - monitoring of behaviour by objective observation (especially by electronic media and 'artificial intelligence' algorithms); and there are the systems of self-surveillance ('quality assurance' as it is sometimes called) whereby individuals fill-in auditable 'forms' and other records about themselves - and these are then externally stored and perhaps checked for internal consistency.
The story of most jobs over the past decades has been one of ever-increased surveillance. And what is interesting is that far more data is collected than used.
To some extent, this is explicable in that the data is there if needed - for example, to sack an individual. But there appears to be a far deeper, and morally inflected, motivation to ever-more and more-thorough surveillance.
This is because surveillance is a part of the primary modern ideology of materialism; indeed surveillance is the expression of that world view. Surveillance is both the natural expression of materialism, and itself propaganda-for and enforcement-of materialism.
The surveillance society is the materialist society - the society from which spiritual and divine matters are excluded by unexamined and habitual assumption (which is the most effective of all exclusions).
A world in which most people participate in surveillance most of the time (often from both sides, as surveyors and as surveyed - monitors and monitored) - is a world of materialism; since the material = that which can be surveyed.
It is a world in which only that which can be surveyed counts as real and important.
The characteristic modern evil is 'Ahrimanic' - that is materialist - and this evil is seldom detected by modern men, because they live in bureaucratic systems that are the instantiation of this type of evil. And, as time goes by, all bureaucracies become linked to make a single entity: The System.
And this System has grown to occupy almost the whole of public discourse, and all the various social institutions (politics, civil service, law, military, education, media etc). The System links functions, and it links nations.
Indeed, ever less of the world is outwith The System. Now, pretty much only the individual's inner thinking (but only if he is exercising his agency, and thinking from his real and divine self) is outwith the System; and (to an important extent) the family. Therefore, The System substantially defines reality - in precisely analogous fashion to The Matrix or other virtual reality fictions.
This materialist evil of The System is vast, everywhere, and unavoidable - therefore, for most people (who suppose evil to be exemplified by violent and murderous individuals) evil goes undetected, and is indeed denied.
Evil is denied, because when God and the spiritual realm are denied, and when reality is seen as a consequence of accidents rather than a purposive creation, and men are seen as a type of animal rather than en route to becoming (small g) gods etc... then materialism is not seen as evil.
Materialism is seen as the hard-nosed, realistic truth about things, not as evil. If there is no God, not divine meaning nor purpose, then life just-is material (and the rest is stupidity, illusion and delusion).
So for Modern man there is nothing wrong with a materialist world! There is nothing wrong with a world of omni-surveillance, there is nothing necessarily wrong, therefore, with a totalitarian society.
(This helps explain why the recent global totalitarian takeover has gone largely unnoticed; and when noticed is not regarded as intrinsically bad. In the UK (perhaps the most materialist nation in the world); it seems that a very large majority of the population, as well as nearly-all of the Establishment - favour the open-ended continuation of the current totalitarian lock-down-social-distancing strategy. Omni-surveillance and micro-control are not seen as an intrinsic evil, but as an expedient benefit.)
It is helpful to recognise that, from the perspective of Ahrimanic evil and the imperatives of materialism; all surveillance is functional - regardless of whether any 'use' is made of the data.
Here is an example from my experience. Sixteen years ago, a new form of surveillance was itroduced in UK universities which is often called the Diary Exercise. For several weeks per year, academic faculty keep a detailed journal of their hourly activities; and a new sub-bureaucracy was installed at each institution and centrally to administer the scheme. Probably, many tens of thousands of man-hours per year (and many millions of pounds) are expended on this scheme.
Apparently, no use has been made of this data (which is, anyway, objectively worthless) - at least I never heard of any such. So let's assume what is probably true: that sixteen years worth of data has simply been collected, stored but never made use of.
Has the Diary Exercise then been a mere waste of time and resources? No! Because it means that for several weeks a year, academics are compelled to reflect upon and present their work in detail, in such a form and fashion as will satisfy management - that is, year-on-year, academics are being trained in materialist thinking, and made to practise it in relation to their own lives.
By the Diary Exercise (plus, of course, many and increasing numbers of other similar schemes) academics have been trained to regard their work as primarily materialist; primarily that which can be monitored - and gradually that conceptualisation has come to be the academics self-conception of their proper work.
Materialism of living has become the habitual and unexamined way of thinking - it has become a basic assumption concerning the nature of academic work: that is, real work is what can be objectively and defensibly described to a managerial system, on an hourly basis.
My point is that materialism is an end, not a means; and as an end, any activity which promotes materialistic thinking is valid from the perspective of materialism.
It becomes clearer why Mainstream modern people are unable to resist materialism - why, indeed, they broadly embrace it. This includes the majority of Christians in the majority of Christian churches.
And it explains why only those Romantic Christians who regard the divine and spiritual as a vital part of every-day (every-hour) can and do regard materialism as evil; and regard the totalitarian imposition of materialism as evil.
For most people (including most Christians) totalitarianism is only evil if or when it engages in violence and murder (at least, that is all the evil they ever talk about).
But for Romantic Christians, the evil of totalitarianism is the evil of materialism - thus totalitarianism is intrinsically evil.
A world of omni-surveillance is evil, and micro-control of behaviour is evil - because these are means to the end of universal and mandatory materialism. They are training us into materialism of thinking and communicating; they are enforcing materialism on all discourse, and as the basis of all activities.
And this is the major and dominant form of evil in the modern world - yet an evil that is invisible and denied by most people, all of the time.
Note added: I certainly experienced surveillance, especially self-surveillance, as an active evil - although (before I was a Christian) I was not able to explain 'why' this was so. Instead I explained my resistance in terms of surveillance being educationally and in terms of academic research, both inefficient and ineffective. But my (albeit slight and indirect - because of my dissent and boycotts) experience of participation in quality assurance exercises felt like I was being crushed under suffocating weight; meaning was drained from my vocation; I felt that my inner motivation and purpose was being replaced by the demand for submission to arbitrary or malign external plans.
I suggest that this is probably the dominant and overwhelming underlying motivation in the world over the past decades and continuing. There is a constant pressure to increase the scope and precision of surveillance - and a constant casting-around for more or less plausible excuses to do this.
There is both external surveillance - monitoring of behaviour by objective observation (especially by electronic media and 'artificial intelligence' algorithms); and there are the systems of self-surveillance ('quality assurance' as it is sometimes called) whereby individuals fill-in auditable 'forms' and other records about themselves - and these are then externally stored and perhaps checked for internal consistency.
The story of most jobs over the past decades has been one of ever-increased surveillance. And what is interesting is that far more data is collected than used.
To some extent, this is explicable in that the data is there if needed - for example, to sack an individual. But there appears to be a far deeper, and morally inflected, motivation to ever-more and more-thorough surveillance.
This is because surveillance is a part of the primary modern ideology of materialism; indeed surveillance is the expression of that world view. Surveillance is both the natural expression of materialism, and itself propaganda-for and enforcement-of materialism.
The surveillance society is the materialist society - the society from which spiritual and divine matters are excluded by unexamined and habitual assumption (which is the most effective of all exclusions).
A world in which most people participate in surveillance most of the time (often from both sides, as surveyors and as surveyed - monitors and monitored) - is a world of materialism; since the material = that which can be surveyed.
It is a world in which only that which can be surveyed counts as real and important.
The characteristic modern evil is 'Ahrimanic' - that is materialist - and this evil is seldom detected by modern men, because they live in bureaucratic systems that are the instantiation of this type of evil. And, as time goes by, all bureaucracies become linked to make a single entity: The System.
And this System has grown to occupy almost the whole of public discourse, and all the various social institutions (politics, civil service, law, military, education, media etc). The System links functions, and it links nations.
Indeed, ever less of the world is outwith The System. Now, pretty much only the individual's inner thinking (but only if he is exercising his agency, and thinking from his real and divine self) is outwith the System; and (to an important extent) the family. Therefore, The System substantially defines reality - in precisely analogous fashion to The Matrix or other virtual reality fictions.
This materialist evil of The System is vast, everywhere, and unavoidable - therefore, for most people (who suppose evil to be exemplified by violent and murderous individuals) evil goes undetected, and is indeed denied.
Evil is denied, because when God and the spiritual realm are denied, and when reality is seen as a consequence of accidents rather than a purposive creation, and men are seen as a type of animal rather than en route to becoming (small g) gods etc... then materialism is not seen as evil.
Materialism is seen as the hard-nosed, realistic truth about things, not as evil. If there is no God, not divine meaning nor purpose, then life just-is material (and the rest is stupidity, illusion and delusion).
So for Modern man there is nothing wrong with a materialist world! There is nothing wrong with a world of omni-surveillance, there is nothing necessarily wrong, therefore, with a totalitarian society.
(This helps explain why the recent global totalitarian takeover has gone largely unnoticed; and when noticed is not regarded as intrinsically bad. In the UK (perhaps the most materialist nation in the world); it seems that a very large majority of the population, as well as nearly-all of the Establishment - favour the open-ended continuation of the current totalitarian lock-down-social-distancing strategy. Omni-surveillance and micro-control are not seen as an intrinsic evil, but as an expedient benefit.)
It is helpful to recognise that, from the perspective of Ahrimanic evil and the imperatives of materialism; all surveillance is functional - regardless of whether any 'use' is made of the data.
Here is an example from my experience. Sixteen years ago, a new form of surveillance was itroduced in UK universities which is often called the Diary Exercise. For several weeks per year, academic faculty keep a detailed journal of their hourly activities; and a new sub-bureaucracy was installed at each institution and centrally to administer the scheme. Probably, many tens of thousands of man-hours per year (and many millions of pounds) are expended on this scheme.
Apparently, no use has been made of this data (which is, anyway, objectively worthless) - at least I never heard of any such. So let's assume what is probably true: that sixteen years worth of data has simply been collected, stored but never made use of.
Has the Diary Exercise then been a mere waste of time and resources? No! Because it means that for several weeks a year, academics are compelled to reflect upon and present their work in detail, in such a form and fashion as will satisfy management - that is, year-on-year, academics are being trained in materialist thinking, and made to practise it in relation to their own lives.
By the Diary Exercise (plus, of course, many and increasing numbers of other similar schemes) academics have been trained to regard their work as primarily materialist; primarily that which can be monitored - and gradually that conceptualisation has come to be the academics self-conception of their proper work.
Materialism of living has become the habitual and unexamined way of thinking - it has become a basic assumption concerning the nature of academic work: that is, real work is what can be objectively and defensibly described to a managerial system, on an hourly basis.
My point is that materialism is an end, not a means; and as an end, any activity which promotes materialistic thinking is valid from the perspective of materialism.
It becomes clearer why Mainstream modern people are unable to resist materialism - why, indeed, they broadly embrace it. This includes the majority of Christians in the majority of Christian churches.
And it explains why only those Romantic Christians who regard the divine and spiritual as a vital part of every-day (every-hour) can and do regard materialism as evil; and regard the totalitarian imposition of materialism as evil.
For most people (including most Christians) totalitarianism is only evil if or when it engages in violence and murder (at least, that is all the evil they ever talk about).
But for Romantic Christians, the evil of totalitarianism is the evil of materialism - thus totalitarianism is intrinsically evil.
A world of omni-surveillance is evil, and micro-control of behaviour is evil - because these are means to the end of universal and mandatory materialism. They are training us into materialism of thinking and communicating; they are enforcing materialism on all discourse, and as the basis of all activities.
And this is the major and dominant form of evil in the modern world - yet an evil that is invisible and denied by most people, all of the time.
Note added: I certainly experienced surveillance, especially self-surveillance, as an active evil - although (before I was a Christian) I was not able to explain 'why' this was so. Instead I explained my resistance in terms of surveillance being educationally and in terms of academic research, both inefficient and ineffective. But my (albeit slight and indirect - because of my dissent and boycotts) experience of participation in quality assurance exercises felt like I was being crushed under suffocating weight; meaning was drained from my vocation; I felt that my inner motivation and purpose was being replaced by the demand for submission to arbitrary or malign external plans.
Thursday 7 May 2020
"It is as if the earth there is cursed" - Tolkien, Ireland and the Roman Church
George Sayer wrote the best biography of CS Lewis; and he was also a significant friend of JRR Tolkien. Sayer wrote a fascinating memoir later published in Tolkien: a celebration edited by Joseph Pearce (1999).
In one section Sayer recorded:
[Tolkien] had a very low opinion of his own merits and fairly easily got into a depressed state when thinking of his faults and deficiencies.
Life was a war between good and evil. He thought the sacraments freed one from enthrallment to Sauron.
Once he spoke to me of Ireland after he had spent part of a summer vacation working there as an examiner:
"It is as if the earth there is cursed. It exudes an evil that is held in check only by Christian practice and the power of prayer."
Even the soil, the earth, played a part in the cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil...
[Tolkien] found little or nothing wrong with the pre Vatican II Church, and therefore thought the reforms of the 1960s misguided and unnecessary...
The context is that Tolkien, by choice and with enjoyment, made many visits to Ireland both on holiday and as an external examiner for several universities; and said in a letter to his son Michael that he was always happy while there.
My inference is that Tolkien's love of Ireland was bound-up with its being a Roman Catholic nation - and one of the most deeply and devoutly Catholic in the world.
And, just as Tolkien would have been very distressed by the state of his church nowadays; likewise he would have probably have been strongly averse to the modern, secular Ireland; which was built-upon rejection of the church, and embrace of the European Union and its ideals.
This is as clear an example as may be wished of how things have changed and reversed over the past half century; how so many institutions and nations that were then net-good have since become net-evil.
And an example, too, of how this is related to the end of traditionalist, institutional Christianity - which once permeated the minds of Men. By Tolkien's analysis, the cursed nature of Ireland is no longer held in check and transformed by the church - so what remains after this subtraction is (overall) evil.
Something analogous, but different in detail, has happened everywhere. Once good nations become inexorably horrible, decadent, depraved; after the influence of their traditional Christian church is removed.
Yet, as with Vatican II, the churches removed-themselves from their various nations (or at least actively colluded in the process).
So, the experiment has been done; all over the world. And we can each of us see, all around, in exaggerated form (if we have the capacity think and make the choice to be honest) the terrible consequences of Christian apsostasy and unopposed materialism.
It turns-out we all live on 'cursed ground': when Christianity is deleted and materialism is triumphant.
This has become undeniable in the past weeks; with the truly despicable spectacle of most-of-the-world embracing totalitarian, materialist monomania; and the masses succumbing to fear, resentment, spite and despair.
Yet we can get no help from the churches, nor from any other institution. That era is finished.
So we must do now what we probably should have done long ago; which is to take direct and personal responsibility for our Christian faith; to make it a faith of the heart, fuelled by the fires within.
In one section Sayer recorded:
[Tolkien] had a very low opinion of his own merits and fairly easily got into a depressed state when thinking of his faults and deficiencies.
Life was a war between good and evil. He thought the sacraments freed one from enthrallment to Sauron.
Once he spoke to me of Ireland after he had spent part of a summer vacation working there as an examiner:
"It is as if the earth there is cursed. It exudes an evil that is held in check only by Christian practice and the power of prayer."
Even the soil, the earth, played a part in the cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil...
[Tolkien] found little or nothing wrong with the pre Vatican II Church, and therefore thought the reforms of the 1960s misguided and unnecessary...
The context is that Tolkien, by choice and with enjoyment, made many visits to Ireland both on holiday and as an external examiner for several universities; and said in a letter to his son Michael that he was always happy while there.
My inference is that Tolkien's love of Ireland was bound-up with its being a Roman Catholic nation - and one of the most deeply and devoutly Catholic in the world.
And, just as Tolkien would have been very distressed by the state of his church nowadays; likewise he would have probably have been strongly averse to the modern, secular Ireland; which was built-upon rejection of the church, and embrace of the European Union and its ideals.
This is as clear an example as may be wished of how things have changed and reversed over the past half century; how so many institutions and nations that were then net-good have since become net-evil.
And an example, too, of how this is related to the end of traditionalist, institutional Christianity - which once permeated the minds of Men. By Tolkien's analysis, the cursed nature of Ireland is no longer held in check and transformed by the church - so what remains after this subtraction is (overall) evil.
Something analogous, but different in detail, has happened everywhere. Once good nations become inexorably horrible, decadent, depraved; after the influence of their traditional Christian church is removed.
Yet, as with Vatican II, the churches removed-themselves from their various nations (or at least actively colluded in the process).
So, the experiment has been done; all over the world. And we can each of us see, all around, in exaggerated form (if we have the capacity think and make the choice to be honest) the terrible consequences of Christian apsostasy and unopposed materialism.
It turns-out we all live on 'cursed ground': when Christianity is deleted and materialism is triumphant.
This has become undeniable in the past weeks; with the truly despicable spectacle of most-of-the-world embracing totalitarian, materialist monomania; and the masses succumbing to fear, resentment, spite and despair.
Yet we can get no help from the churches, nor from any other institution. That era is finished.
So we must do now what we probably should have done long ago; which is to take direct and personal responsibility for our Christian faith; to make it a faith of the heart, fuelled by the fires within.
Monday 29 December 2014
The psychology of abstract suicide deriving from secular altruism - the 'hypocrisy' of Western elites is a necessary consequence of self-destructive policies pursued by cowardly and short-termist people
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While The West as a culture is clearly suicidal - and suicidal in a long-term, planned and strategic manner - it is interesting to analyse how this arises as an indirect consequence of altruism being the greatest Good, the highest-valued virtue in a secular Leftist society.
While pretty-much all of the other (one-sided and partial) virtues of The Left have by now been discarded, altruism - favouring others above oneself - remains as the ultimate.
And, in a secular context, where reality lacks any objective basis, altruism becomes necessarily subjective and relativistic - which means that altruism has become, in practice, defined in terms of the effect on 'me'.
*
Since in secular modernity there is no objective concept of doing Good - Good has been reduced to pleasure, and pleasure cannot be measured or quantified in other people - so 'doing Good to others' has been redefined as 'doing harm to myself'.
In a modern, 'relativist' context, without God; instead of doing-good to others; secular Left altruism is redefined as doing-harm to myself.
*
Modern political altruism is therefore a mass, cumulative consequence of the ethic of 'doing harm to myself' but refracted through human short-termism and cowardice.
That is, a modern secular Leftist sets-out to harm himself - but is thwarted by his own cowardly short-termism, and he ends-up doing harm to other people similar to himself.
He tries to help 'the other' by hurting himself, ultimately by killing himself - but lacks the moral resources to implement his plan on himself - and therefore (guiltily, but effectively) expends great effort and ingenuity personally to avoid the consequences of his own advocated policies.
*
Because secular modernity has rejected religion, specifically Christianity, then it has no basis for educating, supporting or enforcing the full range of Christian virtues including courage and prudence - and modern culture is notably cowardly and impulsive (short-termist).
So the most moral modern secular people want to be good by being altruistic, and can only understand altruism to be what harms themselves - but they lack the courage, self-discipline and long-termism actually to implement this morality upon themselves personally.
Therefore, modern secular Leftist morality advocates an abstract form of self-harm - in which the advocate can (in a cowardly and short-termist fashion) work towards self-harm and suicide (which he regards as 'altruism') yet in practice to do his utmost to avoid these bad consequences falling upon himself, now.
*
The typical moralistic Leftist therefore advocates policies which harm other people like himself now - and finds excuses (or just feels guilty - 'liberal guilt') for the fact that his own position remains insulated from these bad consequences, in the short term.
The typical moralistic Leftist therefore has policies against his own interests - his sex, class, race, social situation - but in practice exempts himself as much as possible from these bad consequences, because he is a short-termist coward who lacks the real Christian basis to be anything else.
So we see strategic, abstract 'class warriors' who in practice accept knighthoods and peerages; strategic abstract egalitarians who are the ultra-rich; those who in principle argue in favour of high taxes, yet avoid paying them; white family men who occupy high status jobs but who argue that blacks, women and those of unconventional sexuality should ideally occupy such jobs; those who favour population replacement by mass immigration in the West elaborately cocooning themselves from the social destruction and suffering this brings; those who strategically and abstractly crusade against 'private' schools and health care (i.e. against the possibility of going outside state-controlled provision) yet avail themselves of its advantages; those who advocate a 'small carbon footprint' yet who travel everywhere by private jets and dwell in vast and wasteful mansions - and so on and on and on through all the other gross hypocrisies of the Left.
*
It is indeed absolutely normal and inevitable for the powerful Left elites to invent ever-more new pseudo-moral policies which are imposed by ever-more laws, taxes, subsidies, regulations and mass media propaganda at an international, national, local and institutional level - yet themselves, personally to evade the ethics they themselves have invented as much as they possibly can.
What seems like hypocrisy is simply moral weakness operating in a context of a self-destroying ethic; secular Leftist altruists believe-in suicide - that is, they believe in the self-destruction of people-like-themselves, but - precisely because they are secular, hence relativists/nihilists - they have no basis for all-round virtue, so they do their utmost to squirm-out-of the consequences of their own policies.
They have enough moral strength for only one virtue, thus any Good which may come from the pursuit of that single virtue is undone and more, by the failure to pursue other virtues and by the unrecognised, denied and unrestrained evils out-with the one-eyed pursuit of altruism.
*
'The personal is political' means, in practice, that politics is for 'other people', for the general good, for abstract altruism; but not for me.
For such reasons, pursuit of any single virtue always leads to great sin: monomania is always net-destructive of Good.
In secular modernity, the monomania is for altruism - altruism redefined in the only way that secular modernity can recognize.
*
While The West as a culture is clearly suicidal - and suicidal in a long-term, planned and strategic manner - it is interesting to analyse how this arises as an indirect consequence of altruism being the greatest Good, the highest-valued virtue in a secular Leftist society.
While pretty-much all of the other (one-sided and partial) virtues of The Left have by now been discarded, altruism - favouring others above oneself - remains as the ultimate.
And, in a secular context, where reality lacks any objective basis, altruism becomes necessarily subjective and relativistic - which means that altruism has become, in practice, defined in terms of the effect on 'me'.
*
Since in secular modernity there is no objective concept of doing Good - Good has been reduced to pleasure, and pleasure cannot be measured or quantified in other people - so 'doing Good to others' has been redefined as 'doing harm to myself'.
In a modern, 'relativist' context, without God; instead of doing-good to others; secular Left altruism is redefined as doing-harm to myself.
*
Modern political altruism is therefore a mass, cumulative consequence of the ethic of 'doing harm to myself' but refracted through human short-termism and cowardice.
That is, a modern secular Leftist sets-out to harm himself - but is thwarted by his own cowardly short-termism, and he ends-up doing harm to other people similar to himself.
He tries to help 'the other' by hurting himself, ultimately by killing himself - but lacks the moral resources to implement his plan on himself - and therefore (guiltily, but effectively) expends great effort and ingenuity personally to avoid the consequences of his own advocated policies.
*
Because secular modernity has rejected religion, specifically Christianity, then it has no basis for educating, supporting or enforcing the full range of Christian virtues including courage and prudence - and modern culture is notably cowardly and impulsive (short-termist).
So the most moral modern secular people want to be good by being altruistic, and can only understand altruism to be what harms themselves - but they lack the courage, self-discipline and long-termism actually to implement this morality upon themselves personally.
Therefore, modern secular Leftist morality advocates an abstract form of self-harm - in which the advocate can (in a cowardly and short-termist fashion) work towards self-harm and suicide (which he regards as 'altruism') yet in practice to do his utmost to avoid these bad consequences falling upon himself, now.
*
The typical moralistic Leftist therefore advocates policies which harm other people like himself now - and finds excuses (or just feels guilty - 'liberal guilt') for the fact that his own position remains insulated from these bad consequences, in the short term.
The typical moralistic Leftist therefore has policies against his own interests - his sex, class, race, social situation - but in practice exempts himself as much as possible from these bad consequences, because he is a short-termist coward who lacks the real Christian basis to be anything else.
So we see strategic, abstract 'class warriors' who in practice accept knighthoods and peerages; strategic abstract egalitarians who are the ultra-rich; those who in principle argue in favour of high taxes, yet avoid paying them; white family men who occupy high status jobs but who argue that blacks, women and those of unconventional sexuality should ideally occupy such jobs; those who favour population replacement by mass immigration in the West elaborately cocooning themselves from the social destruction and suffering this brings; those who strategically and abstractly crusade against 'private' schools and health care (i.e. against the possibility of going outside state-controlled provision) yet avail themselves of its advantages; those who advocate a 'small carbon footprint' yet who travel everywhere by private jets and dwell in vast and wasteful mansions - and so on and on and on through all the other gross hypocrisies of the Left.
*
It is indeed absolutely normal and inevitable for the powerful Left elites to invent ever-more new pseudo-moral policies which are imposed by ever-more laws, taxes, subsidies, regulations and mass media propaganda at an international, national, local and institutional level - yet themselves, personally to evade the ethics they themselves have invented as much as they possibly can.
What seems like hypocrisy is simply moral weakness operating in a context of a self-destroying ethic; secular Leftist altruists believe-in suicide - that is, they believe in the self-destruction of people-like-themselves, but - precisely because they are secular, hence relativists/nihilists - they have no basis for all-round virtue, so they do their utmost to squirm-out-of the consequences of their own policies.
They have enough moral strength for only one virtue, thus any Good which may come from the pursuit of that single virtue is undone and more, by the failure to pursue other virtues and by the unrecognised, denied and unrestrained evils out-with the one-eyed pursuit of altruism.
*
'The personal is political' means, in practice, that politics is for 'other people', for the general good, for abstract altruism; but not for me.
For such reasons, pursuit of any single virtue always leads to great sin: monomania is always net-destructive of Good.
In secular modernity, the monomania is for altruism - altruism redefined in the only way that secular modernity can recognize.
*
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