I tend to think of what you're calling sorathic as late-stage evil of any of the evil orientations; like a meltdown or a tantrum that comes when the corrupted person sees no way to be gratified/avoid pain in their corruption without bringing death or ruin on him/herself. Like Saruman at the end of LOTR.
But I think there's an evil orientation (that I've been calling sorathic) that's probably best illustrated by what a person might think/feel standing on the edge of train tracks or on the edge of a cliff - it has to do with destruction of what one finds valuable oneself for the entertainment derived from that destruction. The suite of likely sins would include greed, despair, shame, etc. Rather than the luciferic contempt, lust, pride etc.
21 October 2022 at 20:17
stephens said...
These times remind me of the first stanza of Yeats "The second coming." The final sentence being particularly apt. :-
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
@s - Actually, I don't find the passionate intensity of 'the worst' to be convincing - I think it's just public relations sham and media hype. There isn't much genuine passionate intensity in the world today, compared with a century ago when Yeats was writing; because beliefs are shallow and negative, hence cannot sustain courage and vigour.
On the contrary, it seems a very tired and despairing kind of world - at least in The West.
At any rate, the world of 2022 would not have been so docile (nor so fearful) in response to the global totalitarian coup of 2020.
21 October 2022 at 21:58
Lady Mermaid said...
As an American, I don't really have a stake in UK politics, but something seems sinister about the sudden resignation of Liz Truss. Don't get me wrong; she's a Davos minion and not to be trusted. However, something's suspicious about the system hitting the eject button on what should have been one of its best servants.
Interestingly, Truss had pushed to lift the fracking ban and increase UK domestic production. The left consistently opposes any form of cheap reliable energy. Labour is certain to win the next election and they're already using the energy crisis to double down on useless energy sources (wind and solar). Brexit is also being blamed for the collapse. There may be a push to rejoin the EU under a Labour government while expanding green "energy".
22 October 2022 at 01:25
Someone with name said...
Chaos is not the opposite of creation, but its origin, therefore is not inherently bad. The opposite of creation is a deviation from the nature of the world and its (conscious) corruption. It's like a disease in the body, distorting what it should be
22 October 2022 at 01:38
ben said...
We have a world of people who are increasingly inclined in their nature to jump onto the tracks for the gratification derived from violating their instinct against jumping.
@Snn - I think you may be saying that it is theoretically coherent for someone to be indifferent to chaos/ entropy - without actually endorsing the destruction of creation. I agree that this is coherent, but I doubt whether it is possible - as of 2022.
Also, it would entail such a degree of passivity as to be self-negating if real - so it could not, would not, be argued for from that position - therefore if it did exist we would not know about it, and presumably such a person would swiftly die since they would be indifferent to it.
In essence, while conceding the theoretical coherence, it seems like a blind alley to dwell upon. In practice it is self-negating.
@LM - "something seems sinister about the sudden resignation of Liz Truss". Well, if I am correct, then Sorathic ascendancy explains it.
It is certainly evil, although perhaps not 'sinister' - since that describes the more devious Ahrimanic approach to long-termist evil.
22 October 2022 at 06:55
The UK has descended into political chaos, and this is being blamed on incompetence; which is both true, and misleadingly false; because the already-vast yet still-increasing incompetence of people in charge of Western nations and institutions is merely a side-effect and consequence of the primary reality; which is the evil-intent of the Global Establishment, and the spiritually-blind passivity of the Western masses. Chaos in not just a side-effect of evil; it is the deepest motivation; since evil is ultimately opposition to God's creation. (Thus the true opposite of chaos is creation - not 'order'.) The purest 'Sorathic' evil is sheerly-spitefully-motivated destruction of every-thing created; of-God, functional. This merely-spiteful, short-termist, selfish evil is precisely what we are seeing waxing ascendant in the world in general - and the UK in particular. Other forms of evil are merely intermediate, mixtures of sin and virtue; such as the type of totalitarian, bureaucratic, survelliance-and-control evil we saw peaking in 2020. Such 'Ahrimanic' evil requires the admixture of at least some virtues such as prudence, co-operation, long-termism and intelligence. And it is this kind of long-term, conspiratorial, strategic, planned evil that is being subverted and destroyed by the break-up into smaller warring factions, conflicting individuals - each tending-towards simply seeking its own here-and-now, personal gratifications - and these gratifications becoming ever-more negative: fuelled by resentment, revenge, fear - and eventually despair. This process of the waxing of evil is natural and inevitable; since evil is negative, dynamic, and feeds upon itself. The more power evil gains, the more evil it becomes. The residual virtues that enabled the triumph of evil - perhaps courage, or self-control, or hard-work - are no longer 'needed' and more gratification can be gained for each powerful group or individual (here and now!), by pursuing more-and-more selfish and ever more short-termist goals. The chaos being observed in the UK are therefore the intra-office conflicts of the ruling class; in which the totalitarians strive to re-assert control, and rebuild their conspiracies - yet the attempt is thwarted again and again by the fact that everybody and everything has become worse. For instance; totalitarianism cannot happen without sufficient honesty and obedience within the ruling group. Yet, it is often expedient to be untruthful - and for the evil there is no positive reason to be honest. Thus the slippery downslope from manipulation (hype and spin), distortion, deniable dishonesty; to outright lies and value inversions covered by expansile propaganda and censorship. Lies and inversions are now built-into The System and the normal, dominant, primary mode of functioning. Therefore strategic plans are impossible to implement! - at every level: the plans themselves are incoherent, impossible lies, the methods for implementing them do not work, and every group and individual tasked with doing the work will be pursuing short-termist and selfish goals instead. What we are experiencing today is just the tip of an iceberg of latent chaos; the causes of which can neither be perceived by the ruling class nor the masses - both of whom are self-blinded by false metaphysical assumptions (atheist, materialist, leftist etc.) that they will neither acknowledge nor correct. Because everybody misunderstands (grossly) what is happening, it cannot be corrected.And because the traditional, unconscious, automatic, self-correcting social mechanisms have long since been destroyed. Evil cannot be corrected except by Good; Systemic totalitarian evil can be destroyed by short-termist/ selfish/ spiteful evil - but that only increases the amount of evil.The future is therefore just: more of the same - a descent into chaos; unless or until people begin to understand, and begin to correct, the evil affiliations in themselves...
"Accelerating incompetence and chaos are caused-by short-termist, selfish, spiteful evil"
8 Comments -
I tend to think of what you're calling sorathic as late-stage evil of any of the evil orientations; like a meltdown or a tantrum that comes when the corrupted person sees no way to be gratified/avoid pain in their corruption without bringing death or ruin on him/herself. Like Saruman at the end of LOTR.
But I think there's an evil orientation (that I've been calling sorathic) that's probably best illustrated by what a person might think/feel standing on the edge of train tracks or on the edge of a cliff - it has to do with destruction of what one finds valuable oneself for the entertainment derived from that destruction. The suite of likely sins would include greed, despair, shame, etc. Rather than the luciferic contempt, lust, pride etc.
21 October 2022 at 20:17
These times remind me of the first stanza of Yeats "The second coming." The final sentence being particularly apt. :-
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
21 October 2022 at 21:50
@s - Actually, I don't find the passionate intensity of 'the worst' to be convincing - I think it's just public relations sham and media hype. There isn't much genuine passionate intensity in the world today, compared with a century ago when Yeats was writing; because beliefs are shallow and negative, hence cannot sustain courage and vigour.
On the contrary, it seems a very tired and despairing kind of world - at least in The West.
At any rate, the world of 2022 would not have been so docile (nor so fearful) in response to the global totalitarian coup of 2020.
21 October 2022 at 21:58
As an American, I don't really have a stake in UK politics, but something seems sinister about the sudden resignation of Liz Truss. Don't get me wrong; she's a Davos minion and not to be trusted. However, something's suspicious about the system hitting the eject button on what should have been one of its best servants.
Interestingly, Truss had pushed to lift the fracking ban and increase UK domestic production. The left consistently opposes any form of cheap reliable energy. Labour is certain to win the next election and they're already using the energy crisis to double down on useless energy sources (wind and solar). Brexit is also being blamed for the collapse. There may be a push to rejoin the EU under a Labour government while expanding green "energy".
22 October 2022 at 01:25
Chaos is not the opposite of creation, but its origin, therefore is not inherently bad. The opposite of creation is a deviation from the nature of the world and its (conscious) corruption. It's like a disease in the body, distorting what it should be
22 October 2022 at 01:38
We have a world of people who are increasingly inclined in their nature to jump onto the tracks for the gratification derived from violating their instinct against jumping.
Which would be why we're in such a pickle.
22 October 2022 at 04:23
@Snn - I think you may be saying that it is theoretically coherent for someone to be indifferent to chaos/ entropy - without actually endorsing the destruction of creation. I agree that this is coherent, but I doubt whether it is possible - as of 2022.
Also, it would entail such a degree of passivity as to be self-negating if real - so it could not, would not, be argued for from that position - therefore if it did exist we would not know about it, and presumably such a person would swiftly die since they would be indifferent to it.
In essence, while conceding the theoretical coherence, it seems like a blind alley to dwell upon. In practice it is self-negating.
22 October 2022 at 06:52
@LM - "something seems sinister about the sudden resignation of Liz Truss". Well, if I am correct, then Sorathic ascendancy explains it.
It is certainly evil, although perhaps not 'sinister' - since that describes the more devious Ahrimanic approach to long-termist evil.
22 October 2022 at 06:55