Sunday, December 13, 2009

Verbicide and Thought Control: If You Strike At the Word, Make Sure You Kill Him

How about a little Sunday Sermon at the Wee Church of Perpetual Slack, out on the edge of the vertical frontier?

The poor old cogitio -- I think therefore I am -- takes a lot of abuse, both from materialists and non-dualists, but Descartes was really just affirming a banality that is impossible to eradicate and live to see it: that the cleft between the exterior/objective and interior/subjective worlds is the most fundamental datum of our existence.

Monists at both extremes -- the materialists on the one hand, and the non-dualists on same one -- eliminate the duality, but at the expense of all qualities. For the materialist, the most sublime human virtues and qualities are secondary reflections of meaningless and impersonal electrical and chemical processes, while for the non-dualist they result from the deceptive play of maya.

But Bolton asks the question of whether the mind/matter or soul/world duality is "simply a falsehood, or is it a truth which is open to abuse?"

Good question, because most "heresies" -- including especially secular ones -- are not so much wrong as imbalanced or out of context. Often an error is merely an overemphasized but partial truth. For example we are surely material; but are we only material?

Likewise, mankind is indeed "one." But this hardly justifies socialism, since he is also -- and more fundamentally -- an individual. Similarly, it is surely a self-evident truth that human beings are "created equal." But contemporary liberals convert this to a lie in their tyrannical efforts to enforce their notions of material equality.

It is also common -- for it is one of Obama's primary rhetorical devices -- to convert an unwanted truth to a preferred lie by distorting it beyond recognition. Thus, people who support free enterprise are "greedy," or those who are skeptical of the pseudo-science of climate change are "anti-science."

Truly, there are many liberals who will never be forgiven for what they have done to the divine gift of language, for to abuse language is a kind of slow-motion genocide -- to say nothing of deicide; when you abuse words, you abuse the Word.

Nor can one harm language without damaging oneSelf. Often psychotherapy comes down to reconnecting words to emotional and psychic reality. It is fair to say that any psychopathology involves some significant disruption in the ability to mentalize experience through language. Sick people always have an unglishable secret life that is cordoned off from the reach of words.

Just remember: if you smite a king, you'd better make sure you kill him. And if you abuse language, you'd better make certain that you kill it dead, so that it is no longer possible to even think or say truth. Only if things no longer make sense can nonsensical things be forced upon you by the left.

This diabolical project is nearly complete in academia and the mass media, where the Lie reigns supreme. Dog around with these liars and you wake up fleeced. But the problem with any totalitarianism -- whether in its hard or soft forms -- is that any truth threatens the whole structure. It's like science, in which a single black swan disproves millions of observations that only white swans exist -- which is why in science, "consensus" is conformity and one man makes a majority.

There is something in the heart of the leftist that longs to be swaddled in certainty. Here again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, just a truth corrupted. For there is nothing more certain than the Absolute. Problems arise when human beings suppose that the Absolute abides on our side of creation. If it does, then man is God.

And historical experience reveals time and again that Man is a jealous god, for he doesn't like to be reminded that certain things are fundamentally outside his control, like, oh, let's say, the climate, or the economy, or the media.

It's so simple, really. For example, it only takes a single instance of something that defies the totalistic explanation of metaphysical Darwinism for it to be untrue. And there are any number of things that are not, and can never be, explained by Darwinism. Not only is ours an empirical argument, but a principial one. For example, a single instance of man knowing a transcendent truth falsifies the entire structure of materialism, whatever form it takes, both in fact and in principle.

Now, knowledge of any kind presupposes a relationship between knowing and being, or mind and essence. In other words, to say "knowledge" is to say "mind in communion with being." And not just communion, but union-in-difference, for only in difference can we "read out" what is implicit in the communion. (Not for nothing are knowledge and intercourse coonflated in Genesis; which is why the worst knowledge is still pretty damn Good.)

Here again, this is what I symbolize as O --> (k), which is not actually an abstraction, but as concrete a description as it is possible for human beings to have.

For this is actually a complementarity between whole and part, or a kind of spiraling vector flow of the former into the latter. Clearly, the one would be inconceivable in the absence of the other -- in other words, we couldn't know truth if we weren't at one with it, and yet, we also couldn't know it if we weren't separate from it.

Just as in the case of Love, it takes three to tango. Knower-Known-Knowledge is as irreducible as Lover-Love-Beloved. In each case, it is One for Three and Three for One.

You don't know me from the wind
You never will, you never did
I'm the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder
--Leonard Cohen, The Future

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

"To reject God because man has
corrupted the idea of God, and religion
because of the abuse of it, is the effect
of a sort of clear-sightedness which is
yet blind."

Henri de Lubac

Gagdad Bob said...

And I swear, I didn't see this post on the Genocidal Assassin Poet Al Gore before writing mine.

walt said...

"Often an error is merely an overemphasized but partial truth."

And that's a whole truth that can't be emphasized enough!

I don't think of my views as being "moderate," but one of them is that people almost always go too far, whatever they're up to. I refer specifically to your list of "frauds" -- or, at least, the one's I'm familiar with. It's as though they never had encountered the word enough.

"...we couldn't know truth if we weren't at one with it, and yet, we also couldn't know it if we weren't separate from it."

Why, entire books could be written on this subject. Oh ... no, wait! I believe they already have been....

Thanks for the post!

Gagdad Bob said...

With regard to the inveterate Exaggerators, I remember an offhand comment Schuon made in a letter: "A little sense of proportion, please!"

That sums up volumes.

Jack said...

I had a very pomo/lefty friend say to me after a discussion about language (and in summation): "It just goes to show that we can never really communicate with one another" I responded "Haven't you refuted that statement by the fact that you just said it?" He looked startled for a second but came back with a stunning "No."

Tooshay!

Cousin Dupree said...

Po' mofoe.

Van Harvey said...

"...for to abuse language is a kind of slow-motion genocide -- to say nothing of deicide; when you abuse words, you abuse the Word.

Nor can one harm language without damaging oneSelf."

Truer words...

Rick said...

"For example, a single instance of man knowing a transcendent truth falsifies the entire structure of materialism"

If we're hard-wired for anything, it may be a BS detector. I remember you mentioned once or twice about, the best thing a father can do for his daughter is to let her see how much he loves his wife. Been thinking lately, maybe what I've really been helping my son do is calibrate his BS detector.

Top ten post today, Bob.
RR

Professor Higgins said...

I have always advocated that some people be taken out and hung for the cold-blooded murder of the english tongue.

Austin Powers said...

Yes. I get it. I have bad spelling.

RR

Anonymous said...

The culture war is spurious except in the area of science.

There is no difference in the national defence stragegy, economic policy, etc.

However, Obamas regime will make stem cell research possible.

All of the raccon griping about materialists is smoke in the wind because its all in your heads.

Always look for real-world evidence, and then work backwards from that. Don't start out in your heads, you'll spin in circles.

Sure its fun but geez what a waste of time. Things need to get done out there people.

Rick said...

I'd like to live in that world.
Too bad it doesn't exist.

RR

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, great theory. Wrong species.

Gagdad Bob said...

Listening to a great Graham Parker collection. Easily recommended for those who love Van Morrison...

Body Outline Guy said...

A crime happened right here:

"However, Obamas regime will make stem cell research possible."

Anybody find the weapon?
Hint: precision

RR

Gagdad Bob said...

For starters, sounds like human embryos won't have much say in the matter.

Rick said...

Yes. It's unpresidented!

RR

Gagdad Bob said...

And a vice taboot.

Rick said...

"For starters, sounds like human embryos won't have much say in the matter."

Interesting that, as Gil Bailie argues, Christ is the first innocent "victim with a voice" and we are only capable of hearing them since His. Those with ears, anyway..

RR

Petey said...

The blood of the innocent cries out to God. Put your ear to the ground and you can hear them...

Gagdad Bob said...

Meanwhile, the blood of the guilty cries out for Darwin: hey, the genes made me do it!

Susannah said...

Yep, *adult* stem cell research has been possible all along...and brilliantly successful as well... Much to Anon's and Obama's (inspiring spirit's) disappointment, I'm sure, we no longer *have* to sacrifice the innocent for the Parkinson's afflicted.

Sean said...

“But the problem with any totalitarianism -- whether in its hard or soft forms -- is that any truth threatens the whole structure.”


Despite the many character defects embodied by Martin Luther King the reason the statement below resonates now and for all time is that it fully embodies TRUTH. So much so that the totalitarian impulses of the affirmative action cabal fail miserably when put to the public vote.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Jack Kennedy and his Light filled gem “the rising tide lifts all boats”, in all its simplicity, brought a good deal of clarity to the economic realm.

Wonderful week of posts, Bob! Very happy to have you back in the saddle.
Sean

Anonymous said...

TW was boinking multiples and gets scorn heaped upon him.

But in reality, all men and women if given the green light would bang multiples.

It is human nature.

Why do we scorn our own nature? It does not seem wise.

Petey said...

Said the man with no spiritual nature.

Just trust us: we understand you, but not vice versa.

walt said...

Forget TW. I want to hear more about:

- the Person
- the (real) individual

I hope Mr. Bolton, or his trancelightener, will bang on those.

debass said...

Embryonic stem cell research has been going on for years without gov. funding. The argument has always been about gov. funding. Why does the left continue the lie about no stem cell research? There has been no beneficial uses found for embryonic stem cells. That is why they want gov. funding. No private investors for useless research. Adult stem cells have been found to be useful for about 100 different treatments. There is no need to use embryonic stem cells except to worship at the abortion alter of the left and the death and treason party. Thanks for letting me take my pet peeve for a walk.

Susannah said...

[Reposts for edification and walks away whistling]..."Now, knowledge of any kind presupposes a relationship between knowing and being, or mind and essence. In other words, to say 'knowledge' is to say 'mind in communion with being.' And not just communion, but union-in-difference, for only in difference can we 'read out"' what is implicit in the communion. (Not for nothing are knowledge and intercourse coonflated in Genesis; which is why the worst knowledge is still pretty damn Good.)" "...Just as in the case of Love, it takes three to tango. Knower-Known-Knowledge is as irreducible as Lover-Love-Beloved. In each case, it is One for Three and Three for One."

Gagdad Bob said...

Interesting confirmation that the irreligious devolve to magic.

Gagdad Bob said...

They left out global warming, socialized medicine, Keynesian economics, and Obama worship...

John said...

Thank you, debass -
Anon´s ´regime´ reveals his position: word-choice instructs.

Thank you, Bob.

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