Friday, November 14, 2014

You Can Learn A Lot From a Political Sociopath

About the authoritarian liberal bullshit machine (which is as close to perpetulant emotion as we'll ever get): Green writes that "when language becomes dislocated from truth, some power or set of powers other than truth is at work."

And among other things, it is always a narcissistic power -- or must partake of pathological narcissism -- since it sets the self over and above the truth it is designed to serve. It renders one superior to truth, something that is actually impossible in principle, since there can be nothing higher than truth. Therefore it is an absurdity.

It turns out that Milton was on the case four centuries ago, observing that when language "becomes irregular and depraved," it is followed by the "ruin and degradation" of the people, who become "listless, supine, and ripe for servitude." Low-information, servile, dependent -- when the left talks about its "ground game," these are the medullards it needs to rouse from the couch in order to support their masters on election day. Then they can go back go sleep.

But we can of course go back even further, since Christianity revolves around this question of Word and embodied truth. Words ultimately matter because the Word is en-mattered.

Two forms of corruption may enter language, one in the space between words and reality, another in the space between speaker and listener.

Note that modernism put the kibosh on the first, while postmodernism eradicates the second. In other words, Kant says we cannot know the world, only our own ideas about it, while Derrida and the rest of the postmodern rabble say we can't even do that -- rather, only issue words about words about words, in the absurcular conspiring fraud known as tenure.

Green references our good friend Josef Pieper, who says that "sophisticated language, disconnected from the roots of truth.... invariably turns into an instrument of power."

I've mentioned before that working with severely mentally ill patients can offer insight into the workings of the relatively sane, because they have the same mechanisms we do, only hypertrophied and distorted, e.g., splitting and projection. No doubt Pieper gained insight into the everyday pathologies of language by observing the Nazis up close.

If one is not guided by truth, then to what is one oriented? This question implies a telos to thought, but here again modernity has cut us off from this path. To insist that such a path exists is to exile oneself from the powerworld of the left.

Recall the two spaces, between person and world, and person and person. If there isn't truth between person and person, then what? Whoever "is guided by something other than the truth," writes Pieper, "no longer considers the other as partner, as equal. In fact, he no longer respects the other as a human person."

Which brings us right back to Jonathan Gruber and ObamaCare: he acknowledges that the Obama administration lies to us because we are stupid. But it's really the other way around: they first contemptuously deprive us of our personhood ("bitter clingers," and all the rest), then exert power over us, being that the lie is in the service of the greater end of power. "Such speech," adds Pieper, is "in contradiction to the nature of language," since it "intends not to communicate but to manipulate."

Remember, in our nation, ultimate power resides in the citizenry. Therefore, every time the state lies to us, it is for the purpose of transferring some of that power to itself.

Or in other words, the Obama administration cannot speak the truth, for it would empower the citizenry over and against the state. Gruber is absolutely correct that ObamaCare could never have passed under such circumstances of transparency and allegiance to truth (and reality).

And of course, the left destroys the human person at its very conception -- both literally and figuratively. The rest, you might say, is commentary. Which is to say, words about words, no longer grounded in the reality of the logos-infused person.

Politics also takes place in a space -- the space between citizens and state. Yes, there is power in this space, but the powers are enumerated, limited, and, most importantly, derived from the consent of the governed.

What if this space is filled with lies instead of truth? Then there is a total inversion, as the state then functions to exert its power to enforce a false and deviant version of reality. Instead of illumination and liberation, language is deployed for the purposes of "manipulation and domination."

The bottom line, since I'm short on time:

[T]he abuse of political power is fundamentally connected with the sophistic abuse of the word, indeed, finds in it the fertile soil in which to hide and grow... so that the latent potential of the totalitarian poison can be ascertained, as it were, by observing the symptom of the public abuse of language. --Josef Pieper

The credo of the left: come for the lies, stay for the power.

21 comments:

Van Harvey said...

"About the liberal bullshit machine: Green writes that "when language becomes dislocated from truth, some power or set of powers other than truth is at work."

O, that's pretty good. Progress is halted and Regress ensues. I finished catching up on the week last night, syncoonistic good stuff.

Van Harvey said...

"It turns out that Milton was on the case four centuries ago, observing that when language "becomes irregular and depraved," it is followed by the "ruin and degradation" of the people, who become "listless, supine, and ripe for servitude.""

As was Thucydides about 1,400 years before that. I can't get to links at the moment, but he describes the fall into language without meaning, giving pets rights, father's killing sons and vice versa, and other Kreskin like predictions of modern day California. Ugh.

Gagdad Bob said...

More contempt and depersonalization.

Van Harvey said...

"But we can of course go back even further, since Christianity revolves around this question of Word and embodied truth. Words ultimately matter because the Word is en-mattered."

Ooh, that tasted good. OK, I'll stop pasting now and read on through. Sorry, a weeks withdrawals kicking in.

Gagdad Bob said...

So, we "paid Dr. Gruber $400,000 for his expertise in tutoring the government to serve more effective false propaganda to us."

Truth sets you free, but lies really cost you.

EbonyRaptor said...

Hence the need to progress - to not look back, to not learn from history.

Doesn't it seem we are nearing a convergence? Maybe the final historical convergence. Individualism, statism, Islamism are all vying for supremacy and can not ultimately co-exist. As we get closer to the point of convergence, things happen faster and subtle coercion turns to bludgeoning and that seems to be where this is headed.

God save us.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, Obama seems bent on provoking the apocalypse now.

Gagdad Bob said...

"In a word, the education of old was a kind of propagation -- men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda.”

Anonymous said...

Hi Bob,

Although I don't comment often, I still tune in every day for a daily dose of your sanity.

I've often wondered if you haven't read Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, probably best know for Out of Revolution which was certainly floating around universities when you attended.

To add to this conversation, here's a passage from his book Speech and Reality:

"God cannot be proven and need not be proven. But the devil can be proven. I very well am able to see that the deniers of the one and only name eternal, make hell for all of us. The liar who reports a fact which he knows is not so, the hypocrite who pretends an emotion which he has not experienced, a commander who asks me to do what he is not willing to do himself, a scientist who plans us all except himself, they all abolish the commonwealth of speech in which I have my franchise of free speech and thought. They devaluate my treasure. These devils, then, make my pursuit of happiness impossible. For my happiness depends on the existence of a universe of speech and thought to which I can contribute and in which I may share. What good does it do me that I am free to swim if all the waters in which I might swim, dry up? This is what the four types of liars do: dry up the ocean in which I feel free to swim." (Pg. 186)

Best regards,
Irene NYC (from another time, long ago and far away)

Gagdad Bob said...

Funny synchronicity -- I'd been thinking of posting on that very idea -- that maybe you can't prove the existence of God, but you can certainly prove the existence of the diabolical, and thereby prove the existence of God. It's the left-hand path, I suppose (as it travels through the left).

mushroom said...

Maybe we are stupid because we haven't put a wall around D.C., but it's nice to see Gruber and Obama being Breitbarted.

In a sane society, we would know never to believe anything these fools say ever again.

Anonymous said...

Prove the reality of Life. Die trying. That would be something. Like a kiss, or just not staying put.

And the Head, and the Body, stumbles, and gets bit.

Lots of details. Ornery, and wandering off. That might be something to pay attention to. Or not.

julie said...

Slowly reading through Exodus lately, I've just recently reached the part where God expands on the laws summed up in the 10 commandments. Mainly they pertain to how people should interact with each other, and it occurred to me that any nation that could keep it that simple in essence would probably be pretty successful.

Anyway, I had occasion to think about the significance of sevens, and the idea of the sabbath years combined with the significance of pruning vines to prevent overgrowth and encourage new growth, and it occurred to me that if we even had something so simple as a year where instead of introducing new laws we pruned back the old ones, it would do us a world of good.

Of course, that would require that people be willing to give up power, so it would never be suggested anywhere important.

Joan of Argghh! said...

Convergence, you say? The Episcopal Church is way ahead of you.

Anonymous said...

@Joan: As the old saying goes, "Episcopalians are just Unitarians with a liturgy."

Anonymous said...

@Joan: As the old saying goes, "Episcopalians are just Unitarians with a liturgy."

Van Harvey said...

Julie said "...if we even had something so simple as a year where instead of introducing new laws we pruned back the old ones, it would do us a world of good."

Actually Jefferson proposed something along those lines,

"...Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years..."

, but as was often the case with him, a little too much enthusiasm, a little too little soundness. I wouldn't mind seeing something like the later half though.

Dare to dream.

EbonyRaptor said...

Joan, yeah, it's sad that the ministries of the Episcopal Church and many other so called Christian denominations have lost their way - The Way.

I read the article and then scanned it again but didn't see a mention of when CAIR has opened their mosques for Christian prayers. Sure the fine Islamic leaders reciprocated ... didn't they?

julie said...

Joan, once again Exodus 23 comes to mind:

"32 You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. 33 They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."

Notably, the Israelites ignored this warning again and again. Even Solomon, for all his wisdom, married a lot of foreign women and lived multiculturally; it all went downhill for quite a while, after that...

Van Harvey said...

" Which brings us right back to Jonathan Gruber and ObamaCare: he acknowledges that the Obama administration lies to us because we are stupid. But it's really the other way around: they first contemptuously deprive us of our personhood ("bitter clingers," and all the rest), then exert power over us, being that the lie is in the service of the greater end of power. "Such speech," adds Pieper, is "in contradiction to the nature of language," since it "intends not to communicate but to manipulate.""

And true as that is, it goes even deeper. For as I noted on fb:

"Democrat & Independent voters: You do realize that he was talking about you, right? Those of us on the Right spent painful amounts of time and effort pointing out exactly the points me makes, and more, while you dismissed us.

To borrow a phrase: 'You were the Stupids they'd been waiting for!'"

Buttt... true as That is, it goes even deeper still. For as I've been discovering, those on the left, politico and peon, are not only not surprised by Gruber's remarks, they knew it all along, to one extent or another. Which means that they were thankful for the lies when first told, because they gave them the cover they needed in order to pretend a righteous need for ObamaCare... which they even then knew to be a falsehood which would get them what they wanted done.

Which brings us back to this: "If one is not guided by truth, then to what is one oriented?"

The Fall goes deeper and deeper down into darkness.

Van Harvey said...

... and for most, I think there is no way out for them. That is horrifying sad.

Theme Song

Theme Song