Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Ontological Correctness and the Cosmic Descent of the Left

I need to catch up on my work, so I'm reposting one from a couple of years ago, randomly plucked from the Knowa's Arkive (below the asterisks). However, as most of you know by now, the Arkive never works "randomly." Rather, if you approach it with a question or conundrum with a sincere desire for the answer, and then run your blind mouse down the cheesy Arkive and click where you will, there is a good chance that the answer will be given to you by Petey. Even more mysteriously, sometimes Petey will not reveal the answer, even though he obviously could if he wanted to.

So this morning I was thinking about the difference between authoritarian political correctness and the proper authority it mimics and mocks. For there are some thoughts and some speech that no decent person should tolerate or condone -- mainly speech that undermines the very possibility of truth or decency or beauty or liberty or thought itself. Ironically, most of what you learn in a liberal education will be this kind of pathological speech, only hiding behind lofty principles that it can never justify. At the same time, it attacks any attack on it as not only unjustified, but fundamentally illegitimate, through the preemptive strike of "political correctness." This pathological mechanism is such a permanent fixture of leftist thought, that you cannot even imagine the left without it. It is truly their sword and shield, with which they force thought down their crimped and narrow byways and interstellar low ways.

And remember, when I use the word "left," I never mean it in its narrow political sense (any more than I conflate conservative liberalism and "Republicanism"). Rather, leftist politics is the declension of a much vaster cosmic principle known to man from the moment of his psychogenesis. It is spoken of not just in Judeo-Christian revelation, but virtually all the revelations given to man. It is truly part of the religio perennis. Here, let's see if I can find some examples from the Big Book of Spiritual Wisdom, the Ascended Fellow Pages.

1,100 pages. Where to begin. Oh, and by the way -- bear in mind that no secular leftist could believe that any of the perennial wisdom in this book is justifiable on the basis of its self-evident truth, as discerned through intellection. For if you believe in revelation and intellection, you could never in good conscience be a member of the left, for reasons too obvious to delineate here.

Here's a good one by Thomas Traherne (p. 67). It reminds me of what a Harvard education must be like:

"The first light that shined in my Infancy in its primitive and innocent clarity was totally eclipsed.... If you ask me how it was eclipsed? Truly by the customs and manners of men, which like contrary winds blew it out: by an innumerable company of other objects, rude, vulgar, and worthless things, that like so many loads of earth and dung did overwhelm and bury it: by the impetuous torrent of wrong desires in all others whom I saw or knew that carried me away and alienated me from it: by a whole sea of other matters and concealments that covered and drowned it.... by the evil influence of a bad education that did not foster and cherish it.... I was little and reverenced their authority; I was weak and easily guided by their example: ambitious also, and desirous to approve myself unto them. And finding no one syllable in any man's mouth of those things, by degrees they vanished, my thoughts were blotted out; and at last all the celestial, great, and stable treasures to which I was born, as wholly forgotten, as if they had never been."

As I said, there are just too many examples. Shakespeare:

Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Or Chuang-tse: "While keeping my physical frame I lost sight of my real self. Gazing at muddy water, I lost sight of the clear abyss."

The Meister: "And even as the virtuous man will now and then deprive his outward self of all the powers of the soul while embarking on a high adventure, so bestial man will rob his inner self of all its soul-powers to expend them on his outer man."

Marsilio Ficino: "Lowest and unhappiest must be judged those who have closed their eyes to the rays of the highest good shining everywhere so that they cannot see in that very light, outside of which nothing good is seen... "

Speaking of the intelligibility of the Real vs. the contradictions and absurdities of the ponderable or abstract: "Mysteries of the kingdom of God are less inexpressible than the mysteries of the kingdom of man" (Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin).

Anyway, there are hundreds of different example I could have cited. I think I'll stop now.

*****

Because I Said So.

Do parents still say that? I used to hear that line a lot when I was a kid. It's what my father would generally say when the chasm between his ability to articulate and my ability to comprehend was too great.

I'll probably be better able to explain the nature of the Real to Future Leader. Still, I can already tell that I'm going to sometimes have to bring out the rhetorical hammer, not for my sake, but for his. Although slowly waking to our dream, he's still joyfully fused with paradise, without so much as a fig leaf to cover his naked narcissism -- but I can already clearly see what's up ahead: the willfully disobedient proto-Adam.

We often hear the cliché that truth emerges through the clash of opinions in the "marketplace of ideas." This is the ideal of democracy, of unregulated free speech, of political factions. To a certain intrinsically limited extent this approach is obviously valid, but no amount of argument can establish truths that are evident to the Self, and to treat these in the same way as lower truths is self-defeating, to say the least. It is soulicide.

There is lower truth and higher Truth, discovered truth and revealed Truth, inductive truth and antecedent Truth. In each case, the former is the type of truth that may be fought out and given contours in the marketplace of ideas, while the latter is only apprehended in another way. In that case, slugging it out the way you would a spending bill, a scientific debate, or a legal case would only muddy the water and debase and distance ourselves from the Truth we are seeking.

The sort of Truth generally discussed on this blog does not emerge through contra-versy, that is, "flowing against." Rather, it is only achieved through con-versing, or "flowing with." That is, it is a work of fusion and synthesis that could only be achieved by dwelling in a multitude of disparate and outwardly contradictory particulars and allowing their higher truth to emerge at their own rhythm and pace. This truth cannot be imposed from on high. Nevertheless, once it is revealed, it reveals itself to be from "on high." It is a higher truth that flows from the cosmic "center," not on the same plane as the lower truths it synthesizes.

When I talk about this truth, there is a knee-jerk instinct among trolls to treat it as any other truth available on a lower plane. This reflects the postmodern spirit of "everyone's entitled to their own opinion." Yes, that's true, as far as it goes.

When I was diagnosed with diabetes, I might have said to my doctor, "Well, that's your opinion. You're entitled to it, but I have my own ideas." I might have then tried to bait him into debating me. "What, just because you have some fancy letters after your name, you think you're better than me? What do you mean by 'disease?' Are you saying that people without diabetes are better than people with it? Why do you hate diabetics? Are diabetics evil? Is that what you think?"

The Gospels are full of instances illuminating this fundamental problem. Most famously, when Jesus is dragged before the religious and civil authorities -- the bearers of official truth -- he responds to the charges against him with silence. He doesn't even try to explain to Pilate. Why bother? "It is as you say. Whatever." In John, he elaborates a bit more: "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight," that is to say, argue with the moonbats.

Jesus' kingdom and Jesus' Truth are not on the same plane as any truth Pilate is capable of hearing, much less understanding: "For this cause I was born and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice."

Pilate famously responds, "What is truth?," ironically emphasizing the point that those who are not themselves of the truth cannot hear or see, and therefore bear, the truth.

There is a counterfeit version of this process known as polemicism. Polemicists come in both their religious and secular varieties. They too proclaim that "I have come into the world that I should bear witness to the truth." How to tell the difference?

The energy that animates the polemicist is from the serpent. It is always pure horizontality masquerading as verticality. It is full of antagonism, of the pitched battle of controversy rather than the fusion of conversation. Furthermore, being that it is of the serpent, it engages in a two-front battle, against both horizontal and vertical enemies (for horizontal truth must ultimately be derived from the vertical, or it is severed from any rational claim to truth).

The Antichrist is a skillful polemicist. Take, for example, Adolf Hitler. Was he not surrounded by horizontal enemies, but at the same time, waging war on the vertical by trying to replace it with a completely naturalistic substitute? The false prophet is a human beast, equal emphasis on both terms: human + beast. For humanness reduced to its horizontal dimension is mere bestiality. It is actually lower than the noble beasts of nature.

At the same time, if you study the matter closely, I believe you will see that the Antichrist, in whatever form it appears, is intemperate and intoxicated, or angry, excited, manic, and apparently stoned. This is the impression formed if one delves into the world of dailykos or huffingtonpost. Please, try it for yourself. Do you not smell the intoxication? How can you argue with a righteously indignant person stoned out of his mind with intoxicating lies?

Among other things, the fall of man is a hypnotic fall into intoxication and conflict in a confusing zone of illusion, of maya. For the tree of good and evil is the tree of opposites, of mere knowledge, of the clashing of wills, of the strong over the weak. Leftists are always speaking power to Truth when they aren't speaking lies to the powerless to keep them that way.

The Tree of Life is the tree of synthesis, of wisdom, of higher unity, of deeper principles, of the coincidence of opposites. The tree of good and evil is a tree of perpetual doubt and sterility, while the Tree of Life is a tree of calm and quiet certainty that bears sound and nourishing fruit.

I'd stay away from the former tree. Why? Because I said so.

26 comments:

julie said...

One more example, which I stumbled across early this morning:

"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."

And on a completely different note, I'm delighted to see Recurring Dream on Petey's turntable this week; it's one of my (1500 or so) favorites. They have a new album out, a little more melancholy in tone but still quite excellent. And if you like Crowded House, any of Neil Finn's solo albums are also brilliant, imho.

Gagdad Bob said...

Probably the internalized Catholic influence accounts for the depth of his music. From an interview:

Q: You were raised a Catholic, and the shadowy figure of God appears in many of your songs. I like the line about not being able to see my faith until I let it go.

A: An untested faith is not a faith at all, it's kind of a suspension of disbelief. Whatever you end up with after you've rejected everything is probably what's close to your truth, or your value system. And so I suppose the song's about that.

And I'm not like a churchgoing man at all; I have a kind of a loose attachment to all of that stuff, still. I rejected it all at some point in my life, too. But it's ingrained still. You don't lose it.

julie said...

It's a common thread in a lot of his music, I've noticed. In fact, in some of his earlier albums there's a decided antipathy toward God, which seems to have come full circle as he's gotten older (like quite a lot of people I've come to know).

Sinner, from Try Whistling This is probably one of my all time favorite songs. I can't half listen to it, it just draws me in completely.

Van Harvey said...

"So this morning I was thinking about the difference between political correctness and the truth it mimics and mocks."

I haven't finished the post yet, and it's looking like I'm going to get pulled away, but I wanted to blurt this out (at the risk of your likely saying it and better, further on down the post) - Its the same as the difference between Modern Leftism and Classical Liberalism, Socialism & Capitalism, Tenure and Reason - Truth, comes from the bottom up - Political Correctness from the top down.

Truth does't rely upon what policies and procedures say to figure out how things are, it creates them, the policies and procedures of the Right (when it IS right), are attempts to read what reality can tell them, but the leftist version seeks to write into reality what it should instead be reading.

The Right doesn't mistake its reporting tools for data entry screens. However, like most bureaucrats, the left thinks that its fancy reporting tools and graphics can be used to input data into Reality and so create truth.

Probably why most people mistrust the flashy dressers - if your clothes make the man, you aren't one.

Anonymous said...

So about being Right and feeling Left behind:

Lately, there's been a lot of disconcerting feedback from the people around me to the effect
that they are just not willing to follow me to wherever it is I seem to be going.

I suppose it started about a decade ago when I left the Liberal church, but then there was still plenty of company, especially after 9/11. Now, though, more of them seem to be peeling away.

It's not, I don't think, the fact that I'm insufferable, because that's nothing new. It's more like the things that matter to me, most of which get talked about a lot here, seem either to bounce off of them or piss them off if/when I get too earnest about things.

Fortunately, my wife doesn't think I'm crazy, and my kids are probably less rejecting than most are of their parents. I also feel comfortable with the few around me who cling to guns, religion, and racial profiling. But those fellow culture warriors travel in different circles.

Anyway, I feel myself becoming farther removed from some very close friends, and it seems mostly to be my ideas, what appears to me to be true, my sense of confidence about that, and what I tend to see that they apparently don't. It's almost like I'm a recovering alcoholic, which is fortunately not the case.

Not to kvetch too much or anything. I just wonder how common this is, is all.

James said...

Maineman,

It is all to common. You change other people stay the same. Heaven to me means never having to say goodbye. We say a lot of goodbyes in this world. Of course we say a lot of hello's too. It makes it all worth it. even if it is sad.

NoMo said...

Maineman - like The Main Man said...

wv: sybiv (feelin' a little that way myself today)

Van Harvey said...

(I'm baaack)

"Because I Said So."

Heh...when the chasm got too great between my kids demand for the perfect deterministic answer for why it was self-evidently true that a clean [insert household chore here] had to be done before [insert preferred fun and frolic here] - (knowing that all answers would crumble before their "WHY" hammer), and my patience to explain it again, my reply was "Because I'm a mean, horrible man, bent on ruining your life, and making your every waking moment miserable - now do it", both boys really hated that one - knowing it wasn't true, they had to admit the opposite.

Pissed 'em off, but the chore got done. I think I've only had to drag it out two or three times, max, for their younger sister.

Yes, there are differences between Girls and Boys.

walt said...

Per usual, your post brings up a plethora of ideas, and potential comments. But what intrigued me was what you opened with:

"...the Arkive never works "randomly." Rather, if you approach it with a question or conundrum with a sincere desire for the answer, and then run your blind mouse down the cheesy Arkive and click where you will, there is a good chance that the answer will be given to you by Petey."

I assume there's some intended humor there -- but another aspect of the passage rings quite true. You have +-800 posts, which is quite a "body of work," re-presenting your ideas over two and a half years. I wonder if this "body" doesn't become something like "your inner, outed," or Bob's Unconscious, The Written Form?

As such, for it to "reveal" answers to you is not so far-fetched. I have posted 300+ items at FFW, and sometimes I get the feeling that they very much re-present my unconscious. Perhaps other Raccoons who have written or posted a lot -- say, Ben or Van, Mizz E, Julie or Robin -- might have encountered this feeling? Sort of like having a Me Ching to indicate "answers" that might otherwise be overlooked.

I associate integrating oneself with one's so-called "Unconscious" with "important work" on the spiritual journey, and since you are a professional psychologist and an uber-Raccoon, I wonder whether you've noticed that the "access" your Arkive affords you has been of special value? It has seemed quite valuable to me, in a very personal sort of way.

walt said...

Another of your sentences, BTW, that contain a whole teaching:

:...the fall of man is a hypnotic fall into intoxication and conflict in a confusing zone of illusion..."

And we all periodically find ourselves "alone" -- alienated from those around us, but not yet quite "saved" by our faith -- and wonder how we arrived at such a spot. The quote from Thomas Traherne is a great summary of "Wha' happened?", of which I reproduce just a little:

"I was weak and easily guided by their example: ambitious also, and desirous to approve myself unto them. And finding no one syllable in any man's mouth of those things, by degrees they vanished, my thoughts were blotted out; and at last all the celestial, great, and stable treasures to which I was born, as wholly forgotten, as if they had never been."

NoMo said...

"At the same time, if you study the matter closely, I believe you will see that the Antichrist, in whatever form it appears, is intemperate and intoxicated, or angry, excited, manic, and apparently stoned."

Interesting...

Anonymous said...

Thanks, James and Nomo (and Matthew/Master) for the words of reassurance.

One source of aloneness and grief, I'm realizing, is that of watching those you love be mesmerized and seemingly to be able to do nothing about it. It's like I'm on the other side of soundproof glass.

We're none of us a match for the Antichrist, I suppose, but it's hard to give up entirely on the notion that if I just reach out in the right way, they will see what's happening.

Van Harvey said...

OMG! As off topic as it gets, but Cheney is letting the 'radio & tv correspondents dinner' have Both Barrels... reloading and going at it again.

Worth finding on YouTube when it gets there.

QP said...

Very interesting Nomo, thank you.

Weary of hearing what they have never yet heard, they're banished to their chosen world of lies and illusions.
***
Interesting about Cheney Van.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Wow! Julie is replacing NoMo? What's up with that?

J/K Julie! Well said!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Van said:
"Probably why most people mistrust the flashy dressers - if your clothes make the man, you aren't one."

Oh man, Van! That is...well, I dunno...really wise or somethin'!

Of course I am biased, since I'm not exactly the epitomy of style...but still!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Maineman:
First of all, you ain't crazy.
Well, no more crazy than any raccoon.
I can relate to what you're sayin', man.

There is no one around here, 'ceptin' for my fellow Raccoons online, that I can relate to...and vice versa!

My wife doesn't think I'm crazy, but she can't relate to the deep blue see we talk about.

I have no doubt she could, but she has a lot of sh*t goin' on in her noggin' right now.

I'm just happy that she trusts me, even if she don't get everything I think I gno. :^)

Hey! I unnerstand the loneliness...I really do.
Aligning yourself with Truth will do that.

All I can say is, it ain't ever gonna be easy, but it's worth it!
And anytime you wanna e-mail me, I'll be honored to talk with you! :^)

Van Harvey said...

Maineman said "Anyway, I feel myself becoming farther removed from some very close friends, and it seems mostly to be my ideas, what appears to me to be true, my sense of confidence about that, and what I tend to see that they apparently don't..."

I've been waffling on whether or not to post this, but now its early the next day, so... what the heck. Maineman, I'm sure it's less common than it ought to be, but far more common than we might think.

And yes, I'm very aware that the ideas I hold, the Truth I see, does keep much and many at something like... a distance... not that I move out of my way to avoid people... but it does create a buffer between me and most of the world around me... not fear or phobia... more like a lack of interest... and, well yes... sometimes, revulsion, to what others are surging towards - do any of us not feel that at times?

I recently had a low tolerance moment with a poster, of an album cover, my younger boy, the musician, wanted to buy - a pus oozing zombie asking a polite-ish medical question. "Dad, it's not a big deal, it's just funny - what can possibly be bad about that?!"

Now I'm not worried that it would be anything more significant than just goofy to him, he's far too solid for that, but I wasn't going to allow it in the house... and he kept pressing for a 'Why'. "You realize that answer is going to take a couple hours to work through, right?" He gulped, but nodded, so we sat down in the mall, and I began going through it. I first gave have him a quick bare bones, stair step regression of points "If this is ok, then this can't be true, and if that isn't true, then this can't be so..." all the way down to 2+2=4, which as you can imagine, was met with the patented fifteen-and-a-half –year-old teenage 'you're sooo out of it." look; and then we spent the next couple hours putting flesh on those bones, each step of the way, back up to the Good, the Beautiful and the True - and that poster - it also helped that every few seconds we had a living contrasting proof of the points I was making shlepping by us in the mall.

"Well now I get why you don't listen to much radio or TV ...no wonder you TIVO BookTV".

Oh, he still wanted the poster... but he did understand why I wasn't going to have it in our house.

Van Harvey said...

What Ben Said!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Well said, James!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Van-
Thanks for sharin' that!

Our kids are both adults now.
Our youngest, who went to college and is studying to be a psychologist, well...I'm proud of her.
She even spent 4 years in the Army in the 82nd Airborne!

But somehow...she views started skewin' left...and she won't have anything to do with me now.
I love her anyway, and I hope n' pray she changes her mind someday.

Our oldest, she's divorced, and has our first grandchild...our granddaughter.

She became a Wiccan for awhile, untile she grew disillusioned with it.
She has some college, but she never got a degree. She works for Geek Squad.

But she still call just about everyday, and we are both proud of her too.
And she is skewing to the right.

Anyway...I just wanted to say I spent countless hours talkin' to our daughters about Truth...about principles and valuesw and virtues.

And like Bob has mentioned, O! So many times! Unless we experience those Truths for ourself in the form of revelations, they don't mean much.

Hell, I wouldn't hesitate to give my life for my daughters, just as I'm certain any Raccoon would do for their children...but try as I might...I can't make them understand Truth.

But that never stops me from plantin' seeds!
And really...that's the only way we can pass on any Truth we gno, is it not?

Prodigal son or daughter? Hey, I was one once (the son not the daughter).

If any of y'all have one or more, don't lose hope!
And don't beat yerself up for the things you could've said or done.

Just do yer best to live the Truth, or rather, to align yourself with the True, Good n' Beautiful!

In the end, that's all we can do.
Remember...you ain't alone.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Walt said:
"As such, for it to "reveal" answers to you is not so far-fetched. I have posted 300+ items at FFW, and sometimes I get the feeling that they very much re-present my unconscious. Perhaps other Raccoons who have written or posted a lot -- say, Ben or Van, Mizz E, Julie or Robin -- might have encountered this feeling? Sort of like having a Me Ching to indicate "answers" that might otherwise be overlooked."

Absolutely! And you gno what? I constantly questyon my mOtivation!

I check n' recheck my sOurces, and I hope n' pray I never! Ever! Lead anyone else astray!

That bein' said, it's so much more than a feelin'...it resonates...it''s in synch...in tune...it jives...and although I can't sing that sOng...I gno that sOng!

That's why I come here every chance I get, and that's why I read...nay, EAT UP all the Raccoon blogs!

I'm always in doubt about what truths I convey in my blog.
I reckon it's easier since my stories can be taken as entertainment or truth/Truth, but I'm no less concerned about being right and communicating clearly what I mean.

If I manage to say even a miniscule fraction of what Bob says, I will be content to keep my blog goin'.

Only as long as Raccoons say they get somethin' out of it.
That's how long I'll blog, if I'm able. :^)

I believe we Raccoons have the very best checks n' balances...other Raccoons! :^)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"To a certain intrinsically limited extent this approach is obviously valid, but no amount of argument can establish truths that are evident to the Self, and to treat these in the same way as lower truths is self-defeating, to say the least. It is soulicide.

There is lower truth and higher Truth, discovered truth and revealed Truth, inductive truth and antecedent Truth. In each case, the former is the type of truth that may be fought out and given contours in the marketplace of ideas, while the latter is only apprehended in another way. In that case, slugging it out the way you would a spending bill, a scientific debate, or a legal case would only muddy the water and debase and distance ourselves from the Truth we are seeking."

That, to me, is a prerequisite to bein' a Raccoon.
For if we don't "get" the self evident Truths, we sure as hell ain't gonna get One Cosmos Under God!

That ain't somethin' one can teach. You either comprehend/realize self evident Truths, or you don't. Period.

Of course, we can all plant seeds to this effect, but we never gno what kind of ground we are planting in, or who waters and fertilizes those seeds.

And as for grace...sure as heaven no one gnos whom that will effect.

It may be the person we least expect to actualize.

All we can do is put forth the effort...and the slack necessary.

Anonymous said...

Holy cow, I'm deadthreading here before Bob gets Thursday's post on line. But now as I think on it, all I really wanted say has been said.
Mainman, you just wrote my post for me, and Ben affirmed it. (thanks, guys)
I have some further thoughts on the matter but when I give voice to them, even in the privacy of my own head, I pull back, incredulous, and ask myself, "How can that be? Do I dare believe what the Voice seems to say to me?
Do I dare to doubt it? Not trying to get all mysterioso on everyone here, but I'm going to let it be for now.

JWM

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the offers to follow these things up in the future. I'm sure I'll take you up on that.

Van, maybe you'll want to post the full argument against the oozing image on your blog someday. Right now, I'm still working through your tome on Hume and pixels from a couple of weeks back.

Van Harvey said...

Walt said "...and sometimes I get the feeling that they very much re-present my unconscious..."

Walt, Ben, Bob & all... ever go back over your stuff and have the sense of "Wo! Wish I'd said th... oh... wait a min... oh yeah, I did... cool."

Maineman - ".. I'm still working through your tome on Hume and pixels from a couple of weeks back..."

Yeah... sorry for the 'tome'ness of them... I actually do cut and recut these things down... thanks for taking the time!

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