For Marx and his contemporary heirheads, God can be nothing more than a human projection. Therefore, our task is to withdraw the projection -- to break off negOtiations and summon our I-AMbassador from the divine embassy -- and thereby re-become that which we have dribbled away via projection. In short, the best way to kill a god is to become one.
Ironically, both religion and anti-religion posit a new kind of man, a novel cosmic development. For example, in Ephesians, Paul advises us to take off the old man and put on the new.
Indeed, remaining in the old man's shoes is identified with mental futility, while shedding the old coot is both cause and effect of vertical renewal.
Just so, the (hello,) NewMan of the left isn't just devoid of religious delusions, but "has taken God back into his being. The 'non-man,' who has illusions, becomes fully human by absorbing the 'superman'" (who is like totally gay, btw).
Hence the breathtaking arrogance of the left, which they truly cannot help. After all, when one is the center of the universe, it's a little difficult to hide one's light under a bushel.
An essay by the brolific Doctor Zero, The [lower case r] republican virtue of humility, touches on this theme. You might say that the new man of the left barters away his abstract freedom in exchange for something a little more concrete -- either power, cash, or other valuable prizes.
Doing so is "only natural," whereas placing ultimate value in something as nebulous as "negative liberty" is only supernatural. Thus, under our Constitution you cannot choose to be a slave, but you can get around this by choosing to have masters.
Back to Voegelin. He writes (quoting Bottomore) that "The struggle against religion is therefore a struggle against that world of which religion is the spiritual aroma."
This is why leftist culture is every bit as iconoclastic as the Taliban thugs (but I repeat myself) who blew up those magnificent Buddhist statutes. The left does the same thing, but since we live in a verbal culture, they naturally carry it out with linguistic TNT, but the end result is just as barbarous.
Again, fascism involves the violent rejection of transcendence; although I suppose we should qualify that, since Islamofascism -- or most any other kind of "religious fascism" -- involves a violent rejection of immanence.
In any event, for the liberal fascist, "once the world beyond truth has disappeared," it is necessary "to establish the truth of this world" (Bottomore, in Voegelin). Never mind that truth is always transcendent. That's none of your damn business. Just grab your hoodie and get with the pogrom, okay?
For once the center of power has shifted from God to man, from transcendent to immanent, "it seeks not to refute but to annihilate" (ibid.).
And this is where the real action -- or acting out, rather -- begins, for "Here speaks the will to murder of the gnostic magician.... critique is no longer rational debate. Sentence has been passed; the execution follows" (ibid.).
The new man of the left, because he has taken what is beyond back into himself, "experiences himself as existing outside of institutional bonds and obligations." No shit. That's just how we roll in Chicago. What, you got a problem with multiculturalism?
As in the French Revolution, things can get out of hand pretty quickly, as the will to murder lashes out in all directions Willy-Hilly, and the fickle finger of fatwa falls on whom it will: George Zimmerman. Koch Brothers. Bain Capital. Stay-at-home moms. The Catholic Church. Fox News. Talk Radio. Millionaires and billionaires. Clarence Thomas. There's no logic to it except for the underlying will to murder.
Which no one is permitted to name or acknowledge, hence the institutional amnesia of the media-academic complex, which restricts consciousness to the momentary in time and the immanent in space.
In other worlds (Voegelin's), "the being of the world and ego is restricted to the knowledge of the immediate or existent." It is not just "radically anti-philosophical" but "a work of magic."
On the grave of the murdered God the golem is celebrating a ghastly ritual.... The goal has been attained.... This is the closing act of the order of being when gnostic magicians lay hands on it. --Voegelin
19 comments:
Now, here is some awesome bullshit. Turns out Elizabeth Warren really is Indian because she wants to be. I guess that makes me God.
The Will to Indian? Still not as cool as the will to power.
The Will to Pow Wow.
I had a friend who would tease me and say 'how do you know I'm not God?'
Really though, it's just asking for people cut you down to size. I just smirked.
You might say "I could show you, but I'd have to kill you."
Apropos! I'm reminded of Princess Mononoke where killing the gods - or whatever they are - didn't get rid of them, but turned them into demons.
It's the best version of Pocohontas / Dances with Wolves.
Most worth it for the scene where the noblewoman, holding this massive rifle, literally says, "Gentlemen, let me show you how to kill a god."
My understanding is that the origin of burial of the dead -- e.g., putting them in boxes and placing heavy stones on them -- has to do with making sure they don't come back to haunt us.
How!
Re. the will to pow wow, holy cow. I've heard of "Think Yourself Thin;" I had no idea it was now possible to "Think Yourself Indian."
I thought that one was a little inspired, so I passed it along to Taranto. Hopefully he'll steal it.
:)
I have my moments. Thanks!
It seems like thoughts do change reality, but just never in the way you intend.
Case in point: If you think you're an Indian hard enough, you don't get to become an Indian.
But you do give a lot of people a good laugh.
IMPACTFUL!
OH - you meant "the will to powwow." Oh sure, that was inspired, too... :)
Glad to see it made the cut.
"... hence the institutional amnesia of the media-academic complex ..."
You're being far too kind to the Fourth Estate, or should I say the Fifth Column. It's bad enough when the watchman falls asleep at his post, it's treasonous when he conspires with the enemy to open the gate.
OT, but for those who can't resist the intellectual equivalent of rubber necking as you pass by a fatal accident, you might get a kick out of this from Sam Harris:
The Illusion of the Self
An Interview with Bruce Hood
"...Similar ideas about the self can be found in Buddhism and the writings of Hume and Spinoza. The difference is that there is now good psychological and physiological evidence to support these ideas that I cover in the book in a way that I hope is accessible for the general reader.
Many readers might wonder where these narratives come from, and who interprets them, if not a self?
I do not think there are many cognitive scientists who would doubt that the experience of I is constructed from a multitude of unconscious mechanisms and processes. Me is similarly ..."
I just get a kick out of it when, as in the first sentence, they name the root of their error, as a positive point. It's kind of like someone going over their work in math and saying "Here is where we failed to carry the 2 to the next column, and that enabled us to...".
Smart people with stupid ideas, discussing how to put them together and form even stupider ones. Fascinating.
I find the same fundamental error in this book I'm reading on science & mimesis (in the sidebar). If everything is just imitation, doesn't this 1) invalidate the theory, and 2) lead to an infinite regress? I like some of Rene Girard's ideas, but it seems that a kind of reductionistic cult has formed around them.
Gagdad said " If everything is just imitation, doesn't this 1) invalidate the theory, and 2) lead to an infinite regress?"
Yep.
Personally, I get a kick out of watching our dog chase it's tail... but... there's something that keeps me from joining him.
I guess some people just misplaced their something.
Back in 2012, when you wrote this, Gagdad, I would have agreed with you that this is a problem of the Left. But it's now 2021, post-COVID / post-Insurrection. We now have learned that the Right (especially the so-called Christian Right) also engages in the magical thinking Voegelin describes when it suits their worldly agenda. The virus and the 600,000 American deaths it has produced, the devastation in Brazil, India and parts of Italy - these things can be ignored and so the Christian Right can mock face masks and social distancing and can refuse to get vaccinated, since they've ascribed all of the reports of the coronavirus to the Left. And therefore they ignore and despise them. Whether the reports are true or not. Because the ONLY thing left is to annihilate your enemy.
"Its subject is its enemy, which it seeks not to refute, but to annihilate," Marx quoted by
Voegelin, Eric. Science, Politics and Gnosticism: Two Essays (p. 46).
"One’s fellowman is no longer a partner in being; critique is no longer rational debate." - Voegelin, ibid.
Beyond that, the Right can assent to the Big Lie, the Unreality that Trump won the election, when even right wing Catholic Attorney General Barr admitted that he didn't, and when Trump provided no evidence of vote fraud in 63 court cases, and when Trump is evidently fomenting a coup and manipulating his followers.
"The bonds of reality have been broken." - Voegelin, ibid.
This is all demonically anti-christian, as you more or less point out. But this rebellion against what is real (and ultimately a rebellion against the realissimum, God, who is the most real) is endemic to both the Left and the Right, I'm sorry to say.
The problem is not politics. The problem is the virus. The Virus of the Mind.
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