Monday, August 24, 2009

I Know Why the Caged Birdbrain Sings Off-Key

As we've discussed in the past, what we used to call the Real is now considered by most garden-variety intellectuals as abstract, whereas what used to be considered totally contingent and therefore unreal -- i.e., matter -- is now considered to be the ultimate reality. It's similar, I suppose, to how the illiberal left is misleadingly called "liberal," whereas freedom-loving classical liberals are now called conservative.

And no, that wasn't just a gratuitous pimpslap. Rather, I think the reasons for the switch are similar, for the essence of conservatism is belief in a transcendent and permanent order to which we owe our primary fidelity, whereas the essence of leftism is rejection of the transcendent and allegiance to matter, i.e., to a single level material ontology.

That being the case, the leftist is absolutely committed to maya, hence his inability to think coherently or to reason on the plane of virtue. Obviously there are plenty of intelligent leftists. But for the vertically challenged, it is a matter of garbage in, garbage out: first comes maya; then comes angelou.

As Schuon explains, the transcendent order is "perfectly accessible to pure intellection." Far from being abstract, it is the most concrete thing imaginable, because it is not subject to change, and is "always there."

In contrast, matter is always changing. You might even say that it is "change as such." But the essence of intelligence is "the capacity to discern 'substances' through 'accidents.'" Thus, to insist that the accidents are more real than the substance "can only be described as a kind of philosophical codifying of unintelligence."

As you can see, this warps intelligence itself, for in reducing it to a reflection of matter, you have undermined its very reason for being. By supposing that intelligence is contingent, you have sundered it from truth, from substance, from the eternal.

Obviously, the reason intelligence can know the substance is that it shares in the substance. Ultimately the intellect is made of the same truth it is able to discern in accidents. To know truth is to exit contingency and to touch eternal being.

Truth, like freedom, is always there, waiting to for us to "enter it," so to speak. Schuon cites the example of a bird that has escaped from its cage: "we say it is free; we might just as truly say that freedom has burst forth from a particular point of the cosmic carapace or that it has taken possession of the bird, or again that it has manifested itself through this creature or form." What he means by this is that freedom is anterior; it is "that which is, which always has been, which will always be." In contrast, liberation is "something that occurs."

For example, we liberated Iraqis so that they might know freedom. Closer to home, America's founders liberated us (tried, anyway) so that we might live in freedom. Here again you see the problem. For the left, freedom is not a priori; rather, it is conferred by the state. But the state cannot confer freedom and other valuable prizes to one person or group unless it appropriates them from another. It cannot "give" healthcare unless it "takes" labor, capital, research, innovation, and Slack.

It reminds me of that sign you sometimes see in small businesses: quality, speed, low price. Pick any two. That pretty much summarizes what will happen with socialized medicine. Only in freedom can the three achieve their natural equilibrium and Death Panels (by any name) be avoided.

You will have noticed that nothing incenses the left more than when one of their victims has escaped from their cage and a point of liberty has been realized in the cosmos. They especially despise blacks and females who are actually free, for they are a painful reminder that real freedom is still possible. This is the real reason they so despise a Clarence Thomas or Sarah Palin. How dare they not be dependent upon brave and kindhearted liberals who struggled for tenure to give them their freedom!

Existentialism -- by which Schuon means all philosophies that deny essence -- is a "monstrous contortion" that presents "the commonest stupidity as intelligence," "disguising it as philosophy while at the same time holding intelligence up to ridicule, that of all intelligent men of all times." Only an intellectual class that has forgotten how to think could ever embrace a philosophy as barren as materialism: "All down through the ages to philosophize was to think; it was left to the twentieth century not to think and to make a philosophy of it."

Now naturally we cannot know absolute truth, or else we would be God. In other words, possession of absolute truth would be identical to the thing in itself, which is impossible in any realm. Rather, we are always dealing with the question of adequation. So long as we are relative beings, there is no absolutely adequate formulation, and to imagine there could be is "the most fruitless of occupations." In the end, religion provides a more than adequate framework for human understanding of the divine planes, but it cannot bridge the gap between God and man on its own.

Rather, that remaining gap can only be diminished by faith on the one hand, and grace on the other. This creates a kind of spark in the dark that undoes that disagreeable business that took place in the park.

Further problems result from man severing his ties with his transcendent source. When that happens, standards obviously go out the window as well -- not just intellectual standards, but aesthetic and moral standards as well (for truth can never be tossed overboard without drowning love and beauty in the process).

This is why, as Dennis Prager always says, the left is the party of compassion rather than standards. But to throw away standards is actually a profoundly uncompassionate act, for you have eliminated man's reason for being and condemned him to a meaningless scuffle for animal satisfactions. Compassion regards "the average as the norm" whereby mediocrity becomes the rule. How could mediocrity not be the norm in a culture devoid of higher truth?

But man always seeks transcendence, and if he cannot escape "from above" he will do so from "below." Thus, mediocrity soon descends into artistic decadence, intellectual vulgarity, and moral degeneracy. This is why Schuon says that these "narrow-minded protagonists of the concrete" usher in "the most unrealistic and most inhuman" forms of politics. They may look like mere change chumps, but they're really quite dangerous. Not to mention expensive.

(The Schuon quotes are found in Logic and Transcendence.)

****

Good intentions backfire if one is mired in untruth. Roger Kimball:

'But what about the malevolence? It all depends on what you mean by “malevolence.” When you calculate a quantum of evil, do you look only at intentions? Or do you also take into account the effects of certain actions, regardless of the intentions of those who brought them about? (Hint: we have here a road paved with good intentions: where do you suppose it leads?) I think the commentator Jim Cramer was onto something when he lamented that “We’ve elected elected a Leninist” whose “agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans.” Was Lenin malevolent? He didn’t think so. He thought he was laboring on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised. Many Western intellectuals believed him. True, his policies — like socialist policies wherever they’re imposed — led to vast immiseration, loss of freedom, and the growth of an unaccountable ruling nomenklatura. But he didn’t mean to precipitate misery: he meant to bring about paradise on earth.'

56 comments:

Van Harvey said...

"Obviously, the reason intelligence can know the substance is that it shares in the substance. Ultimately the intellect is made of the same truth it is able to discern in accidents. To know truth is to exit contingency and to touch eternal being."


(Warning: Possible Caffeine spasm) Yes, it shares in the substance, and yet the substance isn't itself it... or actually there (?), we share in a relation to the substance, which is when we get the spark in the dark - the 'Wow! That picture looks really lifelike!'... but we also have to be able to misconstrue and misconfigure that same substance... else how do we come to know, what is not so?

Not just made of the same, but participates in a figuration of the same... as a connect the dots picture draws a form of the original image... the more dots, the more the resemblance, the more RGB in the dots, the more colorful and accurate the representation... but when we connect the wrong dots, what began a man, becomes more beast, or connecting the dots correctly but mis-dialing the RGB (Red, Green, Blue for you non-geeks, the mixture that puts color on the web), the shape may be right but the color off, raising a hue and cry to the I....

For we certainly can know what is not so, but it is not true, and the more we continue mis-integrating the dots, the more wildly deranged the imagined icon becomes.

And that seems to be what happens when we forget to look up from the page to refer to the original... we get a picture in Dorian Grayscale.

Ugh.

julie said...

Hearkening back for a moment to this weekend, here's an excellent post on education and stupidity.

"And the more man learns, the more he realizes how truly ignorant he really is. It is humanly impossible to ever make our knowledge outpace our ignorance, and there is no shame in admitting that. Unwillingness to recognize and acknowledge your ignorance, however, is just stupid."

Van Harvey said...

Julie quoted "...And the more man learns, the more he realizes how truly ignorant he really is..."

It is always a head shake when I hear that... notice for them there is no positive aspect to knowledge, such as "The more you learn, the more you realize there is still to learn"... no, for them, learning has a negative function which you just must embrace, it makes you ignorant... which of course, is just what their form of misintegrating edumacation does do.

Double ugh.

Rick said...

“To know truth is to exit contingency and to touch eternal being.”

My version.

Van Harvey said...

ahem. I'm gonna have to start reading the link instead of sighkickly forseeing it. Turns out he intends to use that in a positive manner, a 'don't pretend you know all there is to know, or think your little knowledge makes you capable of judging what needs to be known'....

Still... the phrase... arghhh... a serious pet peeve of mine.

wv:unterfer
Oh... hush.

Cousin Dupree said...

Where's cravenpotty?

Petey said...

♪♫ I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Vladimir, Joseph and Mao ♫♪

julie said...

Sorry, Van. Next time, I'll try to choose a better example ;)

goddinpotty said...

Having a life, and have been too busy for the usual charming exchanges.

So you folks miss me. Who'd have thought?

Van Harvey said...

julie said "Sorry, Van. Next time, I'll try to choose a better example ;)"

Heh... actually, with poetic justice, it kind of illustrates his, and my earlier, point... when you connect the dots without reference to the original... don't be surprised when your picture is misintegrated into knowing what isn't so.

;-)

Sometimes the best teachers are sighkick.

Rick said...

That was fast.
Petey found you missing.

Cousin Dupree said...

When an obsessive troll insists that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, he actually has a life, it's a little like Obama promising not to kill grandma. One cannot help but wonder, "where did that come from?"

Van Harvey said...

"... when you connect the dots without reference to the original... don't be surprised when your picture is misintegrated into knowing what isn't so..."

And of course a correction requires only that you look, admit what had always been there for you to see, and reconnect the dots.

Van Harvey said...

Good thing potty was busy ‘having a life’, or he might have missed that he was mentioned on what by people s/h/it wasn’t paying attention to while busy ‘having a life’ not wrapped around something he despises and doesn’t care for.
Dot…dot…dot….

Anonymous said...

"This is the real reason they so despise a Clarence Thomas or Sarah Palin. How dare they not be dependent upon brave and kindhearted liberals who struggled for tenure to give them their freedom!"

This is a joke, no? Did liberals not vote for Obama? Did liberals not have 2 leading candidates for presidency, one being female, the other black?

Sometimes my sarcasm-meter is off.

Anonymous said...

I mean, really, liberals frequently spoke favorably of Colin Powell as an example of a black conservative, so perhaps there is a real argument elsewhere.

Palin is just plain idiotic. Even conservative leaders avoid her.

Anonymous said...

And maybe the caged bird is not off-key Bob, maybe you're tone deaf.

Rick said...

Palin is just plain idiotic?
I'm starting to think I missed something...
What were those idiotic things again?
Help this poor guy, won't you?
I'm pretty slow and easily knocked over - so just make it one thing.

Cousin Dupree said...

Yes Bob, you must be tone deaf. Who doesn't love Calypso Maya?

Anonymous said...

While agreeing with Bob that materialism and existentialism are incorrect approaches, let us pause for a moment to reflect on the effects of these approaches that can be seen as positive.

Wallowing in materialism questionably speeds up the process of material prowess; in other words, the development of conveniences, goods and services may be spurred by materialism. If material is all you got to work with, you tend to focus, eh?

I intuit that materialism may be a detour manifested by God in order to generate some kind of desired material effect. After the effect is achieved, possibly the defective philosophy will be effaced and drop away, its utility no longer required.

Existentialism can be used to face the primal terror of non-being very squarely. I daresay existentialism could be a springboard into spirit. After sitting with the primal terror of non-being in a nonreactive way, I posit that Source will bolt into the calm space so created and viola the materialist will convert.

Spiritual seekers tend to get an end run around this primal terror because, of course, non-being is not an issue for the God lover.

Yet, deep down and lurking, the primal fear of non-being can pop up at any time. It is not amenable to spiritual philosphies and has to be faced and dealt with.

So, the existentialist, paradoxically, takes a wrong turn which puts him back on the trail very nicely ahead of the pack.

Something to think about.

Anonymous said...

Anon,

Could you PLEASE pick another moniker, such as mow-ron, so as not to confuse you with the rest of us anons?

w.v. deside

exactly!

Anonymous said...

I prefer to be undiferrentiated so I will be continueing to use the anonymous moniker.

I suggest other anons choose handles unless you would also prefer to be undifferntiated.

It is really the only way to fly. Name yourself and you pick up all kinds of baggage that comes with
the name including comments you made using that name, etc. etc.

Be anonymous and you start fresh in the Now every time. It is joyous.

laketrout said...

> Name yourself and you pick
> up all kinds of baggage that
> comes with the name including
> comments you made using that name

I know. Heaven forbid to be forever linked to comments made in our fake names. And I shudder to think of the baggage that Van and Julie must be carrying.

-shlac

Anonymous said...

Anonymous is fun. I like watching Van try to insult anonymous by name calling. It's like calling somebody behind a mask ugly.

Van Harvey said...

aninnymouse said " I like watching Van try to insult anonymous by name calling. It's like calling somebody behind a mask ugly"

If there's no costume party... and you're wearing a mask... good chance you are ugly. But trying to go one further than blogger black font nic anonymity - already anonymous - to lose yourself even further in what any other anonymous commenter's have said... indicates an ugliness bereft of any of the unfortunate nobility of a merely unattractive face.

But that's not why I mock you (insult would give you far too much respect)... is because it amuse me... your opinion on the matter, as with your opinions in general, are of no worth.

But thanks for playin'.

julie said...

There may be baggage, laketrout, but I've earned every bit of it, and I take responsibility for what I say and do, good or bad. And the bad shames me only inasmuch as I fail to learn and grow from it. Tough to do that, when you don't own your own words.

laketrout said...

All pardons to those who missed the sarcasm. I was trying to point out that some people aren't afraid to use their real names, so what's the burden of using an anonymous name that lets people figure who's talking?

julie said...

My apologies, LT; I didn't think you usually sided with the trolls, but my sarcasm detector doesn't always work properly :)

But pointed in the direction of the nonys, my comment stands.

Rick said...

"But the state cannot confer freedom and other valuable prizes to one person or group unless it appropriates them from another."

I know what you're saying, Bob. But this part bugs me a little. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure freedom is a posession exactly, since it is unchanging as you say. Freedom is limitless. It can't be taken or moved. Frankl proved this maybe. There's no shortage of it. Just a shortage of recognition of it maybe. If someone is a slave to envy, say, he can only be truely freed by not taking anything from me.

Rick said...

I may be way off. Just wondering if you're as happy with that paragraph as the rest of the post.

Gagdad Bob said...

To be precise, I should have said, "liberation," since it is a posteriori and contingent, whereas freedom is a priori and unconditioned.

Gagdad Bob said...

And of course, it's only "liberation," not liberation.

Rick said...

Now I can sleep tonight.
:-)

Rick said...

..and dream about tomorrows post.
No, wait. That's your dream.

Rick said...

I hope the anons can appreciate what just happened here.
Not to mention... what customer service!
Will Obamacare meet my needs this quickly, efficiently and affordably?

Van Harvey said...

Ricky noted "But the state cannot confer freedom and other valuable prizes to one person or group unless it appropriates them from another." and "I'm not sure freedom is a posession exactly, since it is unchanging as you say."

Reading quickly, I'd taken it to mean 'confer free goods and services', but to butt in with another point of view, the govt cannot confer freedom at all, it can only provide the legal framework to enable people to be free from the imposition of force from criminal, foreign or governmental sources.

Whether or not the people use that state of political freedom to become truly free... only they can decide... and they are free to choose to develop those habits and virtues freedom requires - including supporting and overseeing their govt - or not.

There is no free free.

Gagdad Bob said...

... 'there is joylessness in Mr. Obama. He is a scold, the ‘Yes we can!’ mantra is shallow, and at any rate, it is about the coming to power of a man, and a political class, invested in its own sense of smarts and wisdom, and its right to alter the social contract of the land.'

Van Harvey said...

Laketrout said "All pardons to those who missed the sarcasm."

No worries, I didn't take it wrong, I read all comments very carefully, and never jump to untoward conclusions.

ehm... no need to scroll up to my second comment. Or... back to last week for that economic one... nothing to see there.

Okay fine then... move along.

Alan said...

I was once arguing with some friends about Bush's strategy of trying to change the Middle East dynamic by bringing freedom to a people who haven't known it. By their reactions, you could conclude that they thought - "How dare we force freedom on a people!"

It struck me at that time that people with leftist views don't want to be free. They would rather be in chains of some type and have some one or group to rail against. They fear freedom because it will expose their inner lack of liberation and prefer chains to take their mind off their own internal chains.

How's that for some amateur psychologizing!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"It reminds me of that sign you sometimes see in small businesses: quality, speed, low price. Pick any two. That pretty much summarizes what will happen with socialized medicine. Only in freedom can the three achieve their natural equilibrium and Death Panels (by any name) be avoided."

Ho! Anyone who can't see this can't see the writing on the wall.
The path to death panels by any other name is easy to see.
At least for those who have any basic sense of history and know what's goin' on in the state of Oregon.
Washington is next I'm sorry to say.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Alan said:

"How's that for some amateur psychologizing!"

Well done, Alan! You hit the maya on the head! :^)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Van said:

"But trying to go one further than blogger black font nic anonymity - already anonymous - to lose yourself even further in what any other anonymous commenter's have said... indicates an ugliness bereft of any of the unfortunate nobility of a merely unattractive face."

Slam n' dunk, Chief Van! Nobility eludes the Left...anonymous or not.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Gagdad Bob said...
... 'there is joylessness in Mr. Obama. He is a scold, the ‘Yes we can!’ mantra is shallow, and at any rate, it is about the coming to power of a man, and a political class, invested in its own sense of smarts and wisdom, and its right to alter the social contract of the land.'


That is perhaps one of the best posts Allahpundit ever wrote.

Skully said...

President Reagan made freedom popular again.

Obama wants to make chains of feedom.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"You will have noticed that nothing incenses the left more than when one of their victims has escaped from their cage and a point of liberty has been realized in the cosmos. They especially despise blacks and females who are actually free, for they are a painful reminder that real freedom is still possible. This is the real reason they so despise a Clarence Thomas or Sarah Palin. How dare they not be dependent upon brave and kindhearted liberals who struggled for tenure to give them their freedom!"

Ho! Ho! Ho!
Precisely, Bob! The Left froths at the mouth like a rabid dog (no offense to rabid dogs) when this happens.
True liberation is the enemy of Leftism, and they go beserk when they see it happening.

hoarhey said...

Anon. said,

"I prefer to be undiferrentiated so I will be continueing to use the anonymous moniker."

Heh. Like we can't tell it's you with the same old weak sister arguements, comments on how Bob should run his life and the latest on what you are "intuiting" time after time after time after time.............
Starting fresh everyday in the NOW my ass.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Further problems result from man severing his ties with his transcendent source. When that happens, standards obviously go out the window as well -- not just intellectual standards, but aesthetic and moral standards as well (for truth can never be tossed overboard without drowning love and beauty in the process).

Enter the death panels.
The Left can hem(and haw)lock the fact that everything Obama and his donk cronies has done opens the door wide open to death panels, while the infra-structure for them is bein' built.

Don't tell me this is hyperbolic or some conspiracy theory, 'cause it's there...plain as night for all to see who choose to see.

Obama has a very close relationship with death...and he's eager to dispense it.
But Leftists can take comfort in the fact that Obam,a will call it "compassionate choices."

Evil is as evil does.

Skully said...

Hoarhey:

Damn straight! That anony is just the same old shit. Stinkier by the day.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

This is why Schuon says that these "narrow-minded protagonists of the concrete" usher in "the most unrealistic and most inhuman" forms of politics. They may look like mere change chumps, but they're really quite dangerous. Not to mention expensive."

Aye! And if this don't convince folks on the political fence that we ought to be involved in politics; exposing the Truth and givin' our all to counter the inhuman death n' slavery with human life n' liberty, then get the eff outta our way you effin cowards!

Skully said...

True, his policies — like socialist policies wherever they’re imposed — led to vast immiseration, loss of freedom, and the growth of an unaccountable ruling nomenklatura. But he didn’t mean to precipitate misery: he meant to bring about paradise on earth."

Leftists are not only in denial of reality, they are denihilistic.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figger that means slavery n' death is the result of their intentions if they get their way.

No red blooded American patriot will accept that result. Vote these scoundrels outta office!

phil g said...

I'm always amazed at all of these 'smart' people like Jim Kramer who are just now coming out in shock, horror at what this admin has been up to. I'm not one of the 'smart' set and it was clear to me that electing the O was a very risky and impulsive move particularly for a position as important and influential as the POTUS. For goodness sakes:
- Absolutely no resume of executive level success
- Troublesome gaps in his life story
- Lots of clues about his association with hard leftists
- Personal issues with his upbringing such as father abandonment...hadn't we recently seen with Clinton the types of pathologies this creates
- Hints of narcissistic character
- Complete void of any stated concrete policy objectives

I'd still like to know what attributes these 'smart' people actually saw in the 0 that really qualified him for POTUS other then their need to please their ego and feelings.

FOOLS!!!!!!!!!

ge said...

to Phil G:
was George Bush [pronounced in Olbermannesque condescension] and Rummy & Cheney white/christian??
Is BO half-African/Muslim??
--what more rationale did us voters need??

Van Harvey said...

Alan said "By their reactions, you could conclude that they thought - "How dare we force freedom on a people!""

And that is exactly how they view it, both how they view our attempts to topple a tyrant, AND how they think 'true freedom' needs to be imposed Here, on ourselves. It is the same view that was expressed by their teachers and professors, implicitly and explicitly, and by their teacher, the father of modernity, Rousseau, who said it very clearly himself. Back behind his celebrated line

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

that appears under all the captions of his picture in history books along with fawning assertions of what a friend to liberty he was, will be found, in the same essay,

"In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses. "

Anyone who wants to find a worldly source for the fall from our Founding Fathers to the current crop of punks in Washington, need look little further than Rousseau. He set the goal (anti-civilization and in particular anti-family and anti-property), the method (the unapologetic use of force to mold an improved humanity in his own twisted image) and the means to do it (he is THE father of modern education).

Read Rousseau's 'works', and you will find the true foul font of Liberal Fascism.

sehoy said...

re HotAir's quote of the day:

Obama: a third world leader in a first world country.

sehoy said...

Rousseau, yes.

Thank him, too, for the adulation of the "noble savage" and the "savage noble."

sehoy said...

Really liked this:

"Rather, that remaining gap can only be diminished by faith on the one hand, and grace on the other. This creates a kind of spark in the dark that undoes that disagreeable business that took place in the park."

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