Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Seeking Godlessness through Naso-labianism

We're still negotiating with the grim ferryman, Death. unKnown Friend relates Death to mechanism and materialism, which are "not at all the realm of answers, but rather the graveyard for real questions."

Thus, to embrace scientistic reductionism as a worldview (as opposed to a method) is to more or less live as zombie, in which case one is not so much alive as merely undead. And the painful thing about being undead is that one will be aware of an absence -- a present absence -- but not be able to name it.

I am reminded of the preface to Code of the Woosters, in which the author observes that "High seriousness about [Wodehouse] brings to mind poor Professor Scully," who attempted "to describe a smile scientifically." The professor "doggedly dissected 'the drawing back and slight lifting of the corners of the mouth, which partially uncover the teeth, the curving of the naso-labial furrows...' Such an approach is not actively harmful, but it suffers from naso-labianism -- leaving the mystery of Wodehouse's genius intact."

Things are no different today. Ask a victim of materialitis or reductionosis what a smile is, and they could in good faith respond that it involves "the contraction of muscles in the region of the mouth and cheeks, and this latter through electrical impulses transmitted through the nerves from the centre called the 'brain.'" The real cause of the smile -- joy, or humor, or satisfaction -- is defined out of existence.

This misguided approach is similar to trying to understand a telephone conversation by analyzing the electrical impulses that pass back and forth through the wires. The most complete analysis will of necessity be entirely inadequate.

The same applies a fortiori to the mind/brain relationship. Again, a smile is a local manifestation of joy, or humor, or bemusement, which are nonlocal (in the sense that they cannot be found in one unambiguous "place") and which "set in motion both the muscles of the mouth and the electrical impulses of the nerves." As mentioned somewhere in the bʘʘk, every reductionistic explanation harbors a cognitively pathological dualism that results in one side of the dualism sneaking into the other side without acknowledgment.

One might say that, like a psychotic patient, the materialist's explanation is always put forth with the utmost confidence by that which is specifically denied in the explanation. Making a question go away is not the same as having answered it. As UF points out, the question remains but is simply offloaded from conscious to unconscious planes, with no proper connecting flight. Only happens all the time.

If you ever want to know why self-styled rational people believe in such weird things -- global warming, zero-sum economics, tea partiers are extremists, blacks can't function without the state, etc. -- this is why. They descend into an incoherent form of unconscious thinking, because one can no more make the unconscious go away than one could make the sympathetic nervous system go away. All one can do is discipline and channel it, the same way one creates electricity from a wild river.

(This passage is somehow related to the above: "The belief that only conscious actions are 'real' is common among collectivists and economic creationists who can't understand unintended consequences, but this fallacy is akin to believing that drinking a glass of water on a hot day benefits only those who understand the chemical reactions of H2O in human body.")

While ordinary psychoanalysis does an adequate job of describing the lower vertical, in so doing, it generally reduces the upper to the lower vertical. However, one of the purposes of religion is to provide a framework with which to generatively explore the upper vertical. And in fact, it also does a fine job (at least in potential) of structuring and conferring meaning upon the lower vertical.

I'm thinking of all the extraordinary wisdom embodied in, say, the Talmud or in classical elucidations of the cardinal virtues and deadly sins. Awhile back we did a series on the esoteric meaning of the Ten Commandments. Same idea. Just as there is such a thing as a healthy body -- obviously -- there is also such a thing as a healthy soul and spirit. But if one denies the soul and spirit up front, then should one remain spiritually healthy, it will be by accident, not design.

So many decent but useful idiots of the left hypocritically retain religious habits and inclinations with no religious belief to support them. For example, they insist that marriage is sacred -- so sacred, in fact, that we should extend it to relationships in which it is not possible to live in the state of marriage, e.g., polygamous or homosexual.

It is analogous to saying, "eating salads is healthy. Therefore, I will place my cat on a strict diet of fresh vegetables." Good logic. Wrong species. Which pretty much sums up the left. It reminds me of a scene from the Larry Sanders show, when his bitter agent says "our job would be so easy if it weren't for fucking talent!" Leftism would be so great if if weren't for fucking humans! Humans are the problem. So let's give them more power over us!

Most people don't have the time or ability to be metaphysicians, which is one of the practical blessings of religion. If one eliminates religion, one only ushers in bad metaphysics and values, with nothing to oppose them. See 1960s for details. See OWS for examples. See Obama for implications.

This is the true meaning of the culture war. The United States used to be one culture with two political parties. The two parties basically represented different groups of interests with the same underlying culture.

But beginning in the 1960s, the Democrats started to represent a new culture, which is not American, for American culture is rooted in Judeo-Christian principles, among other things. All culture is rooted in the cult, which is the "interior glue" that holds a people together and makes them "brothers."

Which leads us to ask: what is the interior krazy glue that holds the nasolabians of the left together? What is the common axis of, say, global warming alarmists, abortion activists, greedy public employee unions, and people who champion state-mandated racial discrimination and the homosexual agenda? What is their shared cult? Who is the god to whom they all make their sacrifice?

I'll let you answer that question. Let's just call it Ø.

UF makes the point that our vertical freedom is a miracle, by which he means something that transcends any purely mechanistic explanation. You might say that everything that isn't either chaotic or mechanical is a miracle, i.e., a vertical intervention.

And because of our freedom, we can see that the higher illumines the lower, not vice versa. In other words, in the absence of freedom, we couldn't know truth, because truth would be reduced to a kind of mechanical operation that excludes the subject, precisely. So, to say "truth" is to say "freedom" is to say "spirit" is to say "miracle":

"The minimum is only the reduced maximum and it is through the maximum that one understands the minimum, and not vice versa. It is consciousness which renders the mechanical and unconscious comprehensible, the latter being only consciousness reduced to a minimum, not vice versa. It is man who is the key to the biological evolution of Nature and not the primitive organic cell" (MOTT).

Bottom line Upshot: it is the most complete and final form that "illumines and explains the previous stages." Which is why man explains evolution, not vice versa. But who or what explains Man? Or is that too obvious?

Out of time. To be continued...

PS -- I don't know that I'll get around to discussing it, but this biography of Hitler is really outstanding.

15 comments:

tater said...

What date in the archives starts the esoteric discussion of the Ten Commandments?

julie said...

It's several years back. Your best bet is a google search of the blog, but I can never remember how to do it.

Re. Naso-labianism, at first glance I saw a completely different term, which would have made this a post of a different gender...

Gagdad Bob said...

It is linear and mechanical thinking that makes liberals believe they can simply graft their fantasies onto reality without damaging reality.

Van Harvey said...

“Thus, to embrace scientistic reductionism as a worldview (as opposed to a method) is to more or less live as zombie, in which case one is not so much alive as merely undead. And the painful thing about being undead is that one will be aware of an absence -- a present absence -- but not be able to name it.”

Speaking of which... I spent an evening last night with a lapsed Catholic and a lapsed Jew, who are re-hatched scien-Technologists, making a bid to explain to them how and why it is more important to teach ‘useless knowledge’ in school than it is to teach useful skills.

You can guess how that went. What you might not guess, is how these two were first talking about how excited they were to have met with this fellow, Eric C. Leuthardt, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and talked with him about how his research on interfacing computers with brain functions was coming along - at an astounding pace, it turns out. It is fascinating research, and promises to open the world back up for paraplegics, stroke victims and more. Good stuff.

Not so good though, is the direction these two, who are fairly well connected in the world and impressive in their own right, envision taking such developments. I won’t bother you with the details, but you can guess from various strands such as
“Replacing government with hyper-democracy ala Facebook-like technology”, and best of all, “be able to connect everyone’s brains to the ‘net, and what with the ability to read thoughts micro-seconds before they’re even consciously known to the person thinking them, by connecting the entire population to technological democracy, we’ll soon be able to eliminate crime as well. Sounds too Sci-fi, I know, but look for it within 15 years.”

Now imagine my following that up with a talk ranging from Homer, to Moses, Jesus to Cicero and Locke to the Founding Fathers.

Ever see a hungry zombie up close? How about two?

Anonymous said...

The public didn't buy the book, so they must be punished. I see.

Materialists? What is this, 1890?

Could it be the book just wasn't all that?

Is there anything that states you can't take another shot at it, after learning from your mistakes?

But that would mean admitting you're not perfect. So that's out, eh?

Cousin Dupree said...

Excellent naso-labial reduction.

SLM said...

I would find your thoughts on the Hitler book interesting, even if you don't have the time to fully develop them.

Gagdad Bob said...

That would be a major undertaking. No matter what angle you take or how many facts at your disposal, you just come up against this wall of incomprehension. This book adds an incredible amount of cultural and historical texture and detail, and yet, you still can't wrap your mind around it. Nevertheless, I do hope to work it into my discussion of totalitarianism once I get back to it. I just haven't had time to write since school started last September. Getting the Boy ready in the morning has disrupted my whole routine....

julie said...

Now I'm intrigued. Darn you. I wonder what people would think if I added the Hitler book to my Christmas wish list?

Re. the routine, that's understandably challenging. Wish I had some useful bit of advice on how to effectively adjust, but nothing comes to mind at the moment. Kids do seem to complicate things more and more the older they get, but of course that's as it should be. I do hope a solution comes along, though. In the meantime, these posts are just as good the second time around. Plus it's interesting to see how accurate some things have turned out to be, if in a dreadful sort of way...

Anonymous said...

Ask a victim of materialitis or reductionosis what a smile is, and they could in good faith respond that it involves "the contraction of muscles in the region of the mouth and cheeks, and this latter through electrical impulses transmitted through the nerves from the centre called the 'brain.'" The real cause of the smile -- joy, or humor, or satisfaction -- is defined out of existence.

Why can't both kinds of causes be real? Aristotle managed to figure out that there were multiple kinds of causes acting simultaneously and that was a few thousand years ago, you ought to be able to handle it.

Gagdad Bob said...

What does Onassis have to do with it, genius?

mushroom said...

Leftism would be so great if if weren't for fucking humans!

That really does sum things up pretty well. If only we were better at behaving as Paul Krugman imagines we should.

Anonymous said...

Fake stupidity masking real stupidity, now that's genius.

ge said...

well after all the bio's you read try this:

Miguel Serrano: Hitler said, "Whoever thinks that National Socialism is only a political movement does not understand anything." National Socialism was always Hitlerism, and Hitlerism always had an esoteric foundation. At the end of the 1930's and during the war years it was not possible or convenient that this theme be widely known. However, after the war and its apparent loss, there was no other way for Hitlerism than the esoteric development. For me, Esoteric Hitlerism is being possessed by the Archetype of the collective unconscious, which the Greeks used to call Gods -- among them, Apollo, which really is Wotan for the Germans, and Vishnu or Shiva for the Hindus -- and its development in the individual and collective souls of the actual Hitlerist warriors. That means a new/old religion, with all of its rituals and myths which are necessary to discover, or rediscover. Its central Drama is the apparition on this earth of the Person Adolf Hitler, the last Avatar, who came to produce this enormous storm, or catastrophe, in order to awaken all those who are asleep, and to commence the New Age, which will come after the Deluge. That is the reason why we have started to count the years of this New Age beginning with the birth of Hitler.

C.G. Jung, in an interview before the war, compared Adolf Hitler to Mohammed. Do we consider Mohammed a politician? He was a prophet with enormous political repercussions in the world. I consider Adolf Hitler to be the greatest figure in the world, and the repercussions of his visions, thoughts and action would be impossible to calculate today. If we were to think in Indo-Aryan fashion, as Savitri Devi did, we must see in Hitler an incarnation of the divinity, an Avatar, as in the title of my book Adolf Hitler: The Last Avatar.

Gagdad Bob said...

It's hard enough to explain Hitler, impossible to explain that nasty piece of work. Whatever sickness motivated Serrano, it wasn't the same sickness that motivated Hitler.

Theme Song

Theme Song