Friday, November 08, 2013

Obama: Truth is What You Can Get Away With

Yesterday we spoke of Obama's troubled relationship with truth -- not that he's troubled, mind you. Rather, his casual acquaintance with truth -- and therefore reality -- results in troubles for us, Obama's "folks" (not to be confused with his volk, the true beneficiary of his collectivist lies).

For someone with a normal devotion to truth, it is difficult to comprehend the person who doesn't share this spontaneous allegiance to what transcends us -- just as it is impossible for good people to truly understand what motivates the evil.

Truth is disinterested, which is one major reason why, say, a pathologically narcissistic president may reject it, since the fragile self-image of the narcissist is of no concern to truth. Truth is for its own sake. It hurts, but only if one has an abiding interest in falsehood. Otherwise, it usually doesn't hurt at all. Rather, it feels quite pleasant. At least if you value freedom, which most Americans admittedly do not.

Without a doubt, truth is one of the names of God -- as is beauty, or love, or goodness, or creativity, or freedom. The existence of these celestial attractors creates a vertical space between us and them, which is essentially where we live and move and have our being -- or better, our becoming.

Hart agrees that "our experience of reality does in fact have a transcendental structure," and that the transcendent pole of our becoming provides "an absolute orientation for thought."

Just as there is a visual horizon at the edge of things, there is a "horizon of being... toward which the mind is always turned and against which every finite object is set off" within "the great middle distance of the phenomenal world" (ibid.).

This is what the Raccoon knows of as the expansive horizon of subjectivity, for there is no proper human subject in the absence of this horizon. But importantly, reality doesn't "end" at the horizon. Rather, this horizon expands infinitely, based upon the metabolism of experience.

For this reason, one person lives within a vast and unlimited metacosmic space, while another subsists between cramped and parochial horizons defined at one end by the matrix media and the other by state-run edudoctrination. Human appetite takes care of the rest -- that is, human desire untethered to any transcendent concerns, from the mind's proper objects. They call it "sophistication," but as Fred Reed writes, it is "the sophistication that comes of growing up in a whorehouse."

That kind of debased sophistication forecloses the real kind -- i.e., refinement, sublimation, transfiguration, etc. I mean, bathing "in civilization’s bilges" (Reed) doesn't actually result in cleanliness.

Hart describes our cosmic situation: "the gaze of the apperceptive 'I' within is turned toward a transcendental 'that' forever beyond; and mental experience, of the self or of the world outside the self, takes shape in the relation between these two 'supernatural' poles."

Exactly. Although it may appear as if the world merely makes an imprint on the mind, like a seal into wax, "we approach nature only across the interval of the supernatural," i.e., the dynamic space between us and O. We are always dependent "upon a dimension of reality found nowhere within the physical order." "The mind stretches out and toward and prospectively takes hold of an ultimate 'object,'" and "only in that way interprets and judges the world."

Back to our troublesome president and his infrahuman (or all too human, depending upon whether one sees the ass as only half-full of himself) relation with truth. When our pneumatic space shrinks, the world is horizontalized, resulting in the conflation of truth and desire (since desire is deprived of its transcendent object). Therefore, "truth" devolves to what I want to be true, e.g., the workability of socialized medicine.

Only something transcendentally disinterested within ourselves compels us "to accept an unwelcome truth, not because it pleases or attracts us, but because we are driven by a deeper devotion to truth as such" (Hart). Here again, proper human devotion belongs to transcendent truth as such, not to some fashionable idol of the tenured.

But Obama is a morally retarded child of Machiavelli, who seems to have invented the notion of "effectual truth," whereby "the truth of words is in the result they produce..."

Nor should the prince of darkness worry about "justice" (another star in the celestial horizon), but simply act, "and the words to justify your action will come to you afterward.” The prince must have faith that Queen Valerie will come up with something.

Thus, "In recent weeks the world has woken up to the fact that President Obama is one of the most committed disciples of effectual truth telling in recent history. Time and again, when confronted by political necessity, he and his administration have told falsehoods in order to achieve their objectives" (Continetti).

But has the world really woken up to the fact that effectual truth is the only truth the left knows? It pains me to say -- for in this instance the truth hurts -- no way.

32 comments:

Unknown said...

This post made me think of a lie-detector test... and how lying and deception cause actual physiological changes in you body, and how with practice one can learn to suppress those changes.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes -- since human beings are oriented toward truth, lying results in the body's own subjective distress. That's how deep it reaches. Makes one wonder if pathological lying results in a shortened lifespan.

Rick said...

Bob, do you find that it is very important to Hart that he make his sentences beautiful?

Gagdad Bob said...

I suppose so, but I often find that he shares some of the pomposity of the tenured. I also couldn't help noticing that he likes to throw in words no one has ever heard of, and that these words are often uglier than their common alternative. He's also lacking in humor, so his attacks on his adversaries can get tedious, unleavened by celestial humor and jehovial witticisms. And he sometimes rambles in a repetitive way, which comes from liking the sound of one's own voice too much, and insufficient respect for the reader's time.

I don't intend this to put anyone off the book, because it's still really good.

Rick said...

I feel almost exactly the same way. Though the book just arrived I haven't started it yet. I'm going by the youtube videos and your excerpts.
I think he is devoted to making them beautiful and precise to a fault -- such as wearing out the listener, if that's what it takes.
In the videos, he does crack some jokes. I can't remember if I enjoyed them. He also at times apologizes for his chattiness, I believe.
I can't believe how young he is.

Gagdad Bob said...

He's apparently 48.

Gagdad Bob said...

Johnny Carson used to say that old is anyone 15 years older than you.

Rick said...

Yes, I'm 48. What's my excuse again?

By the way, I'm sending him an OC membership app. Soon as I can find it under here..Ya think he'll have us?

Kurt said...

The 'horizon of being' is a beautiful phrase and really a foundational concept. I wonder if that's why I love living out West, where there is nothing but sky and distant horizons all around? Brings to mind the words of UF: "Salvation is life under the open sky, where everyday is a miracle in an infinite chain of miracles..."

ted said...

Jesus pretty much had it all figured out by 30. We are all late bloomers or latent slackers.

julie said...

Only something transcendentally disinterested within ourselves compels us "to accept an unwelcome truth, not because it pleases or attracts us, but because we are driven by a deeper devotion to truth as such"

"If thine eye offend thee..."

Gagdad Bob said...

Kurt -- That's an excellent point. Before I was married, I moved like 13 times in ten years, basically when my apartment became dirty beyond human habitation. But in looking back, I noticed a pattern: I almost always chose to live in an area adjacent to a horizon, whether the hills, the ocean, or a wooded area. I would not like to live in a city, encircled by a human horizon. Now I'm surrounded by public-owned space, so it's the same deal.

Gagdad Bob said...

Probably explains why the Raccoon National Cemetery sits in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Van Harvey said...

"But Obama is a morally retarded child of Machiavelli, who seems to have invented the notion of "effectual truth," whereby "the truth of words is in the result they produce..."

Nor should the prince of darkness worry about "justice" (another star in the celestial horizon), but simply act, "and the words to justify your action will come to you afterward.” The prince must have faith that Queen Valerie will come up with something."

Syncoonicity. I almost put up a post this morning, had to delay it till this evening, but central to it is that the reason the ObamaKnots use words is:

"To get you what you want. For the greater good. Not only is that, in their eyes, justification enough, it is all they are concerned about, and being the ones who define just what 'the greater good' is, ensures that it won't interfere with what they want.

And that my friends is what they mean, when they tell you that their words depend upon what the meaning of Is, is.

Not whether or not something is good, or beautiful or true - but because they want it, and whatever it is that you think their words mean, is only a means for them getting what they want.

That's not lying.

That's not even lying.

That's the pursuit of power for power's sake.
"

julie said...

I always liked North Dakota.

mushroom said...

"The mind stretches out and toward and prospectively takes hold of an ultimate 'object,'" and "only in that way interprets and judges the world."

As Paul says in Philippians 3:12, I'm just trying to grab hold of what grabbed hold of me.

The horizon of being reminds me how often inexperienced pilots crash their planes in the dark when the horizon is not visible and they can't believe the instruments. We walk by faith not by sight.

Gagdad Bob said...

Someone once wrote that human beings are as if inside a submarine, where we cannot actually touch the medium in which we move, but can only know and move via instruments -- our senses and categories being the instruments. But what is astonishing is how these instruments stretch so far beyond our immediate environment, to its very source. It would be analogous to the submarine's instruments telling us where water came from.

Gagdad Bob said...

In case you were wondering: How Obama Elevated Human Consciousness.

One quick way would be by resigning.

julie said...

Yikes - I think that link needs a "trigger" warning. Or better yet an "emetic" warning...

Gagdad Bob said...

I read the sample. What an awesome load of crap!

Shows what a Ph.D. is worth. Especially in the humanities, it just weaponizes stupidity.

ge said...

If any can stomach more psychoanalysis [albeit from far left POV] of our
Goof-off* in Chief

*jerk-off

Gagdad Bob said...

Obama and I share a number of personality traits. Which is why I am utterly unfit for public office.

I like that Obama has such contempt for politicians. If only he could apply that insight to himself...

julie said...

Heh - ge, I see that headline and immediately think of PeeWee Herman.

ge said...

Bob a belated
Fathers Day Cake!

Gagdad Bob said...

Highly Raccoomended: Christian Existentialism: A Berdyaev Synthesis. I tried reading this book, I don't know, 20 years ago, but didn't get that much out of it. Hartshorne praises him greatly as a kind of prophetic-style process theologian, so I dug it out and it's great. He can be a bit... all over the place, but his vision and mine are in many ways looking at the same object.

Gagdad Bob said...

Almost all of his books have finally been reprinted, but this anthology one takes extracts from each, and assembles them under various headings, so it's more organized than Berdyaev ever was. He only had one setting: full blast firehose.

JP said...

But Obama is a morally retarded child of Machiavelli, who seems to have invented the notion of "effectual truth," whereby "the truth of words is in the result they produce..."

Well, the truth of words *is* in the result they produce.

The problem is that the ultimate results are intertwined with the actual truth encoded in the words.

ge said...

Pardon OTness, Just discovered an intriguing-sounding author:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/04/marginalia-on-casanova-szentkuthy-review

http://www.amazon.com/Marginalia-Casanova-St-Orpheus-Breviary/dp/0983697248

http://www.waggish.org/2013/szentkuthys-marginalia-on-casanova/

Jules said...

The great Usa run by a con artist . So sad. Methinks some of the gullible young might start becoming dis-illusionned with the left when they realise they have a lower std of living than their parents.
And the republicans need to stop being nice and start kicking ass. Nice doesnt work with devious sociopaths.

Gagdad Bob said...

Liberal icon turns out to have been a depraved assoul. Who would have guessed?

julie said...

Huh.

“Why not fund a Gore Vidal School for Young Writers or a Foundation for Women? He was always championing feminism.”

Makes me wonder, why is it that so many gay men have even the slightest interest in feminism? And yet their communities are so intertwined it's close to incestuous.

Michael Marinacci said...

Julie:

Two words: Daddy Issues.

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