But this highlights a more general principle, to the effect that our intellect must adhere to our faith, and vice versa.
Which reminds me of a particularly cluminous essay in a new collection thereof called Splendor of the True: A Frithjof Schuon Reader. For me, the Schuon scale of luminosity runs from bright to blinding, but in this piece nearly every sentence is highlylighted or wonderlined.
The essay is called Understanding and Believing (it originally appeared in his forcibly raccoomended Logic and Transcendence).
Schuon begins with the truism that it is possible for a man to believe without understanding. At the looooow end this is just bovine stupidity, but at the high end this is mature faith, which is quintessentially an intuitive perception of an unfathomable truth experienced subjectively as a generative mystery (i.e., as an active presence, not a mere absence).
But what people generally don't realize is that the opposite is equally true, "that one can understand without believing" (Schuon).
How can this be so? Didn't Blake say that "truth cannot be told so as to be understood and not believed"?
Yes, but the operative word there is truth. Evidently, one of the hallmarks of falsehood is that it can indeed be understood (so to speak) but not actually believed -- for it is written, who would believe that shit?
There appears to be something paradoxical here, because why would one need faith if one has understanding? Isn't faith just a kind of booby prize for those who lack understanding, a glorified fig leaf over our naked ignorance?
That's one way of looking at it.
Schuon goes on to say that a form of hypocrisy arises whenever there is a disjunction between certainty and behavior, and here is where we see the gulf between understanding and faith. This is because genuine belief -- or faith -- involves "identifying oneself with the truth one accepts" -- and then waiting for the truth to be realized or actualized within.
When I read this passage, the first thing that occurred to me is that secular materialists of all kinds -- proglodyte liberals, assorted purveyors of blind scientism, kosher darwienies, atheistic sales reptiles -- do not actually believe what they understand, or their behavior would be entirely different.
In short, materialists are devoid of real faith, for they do not put into practice what they screech, nor do they exhibit the courage of their concrocktions.
Consider: if I understand myself to be nothing more than a wild animal who has no possible contact with anything transcending matter -- e.g., truth, morality, beauty, wisdom, etc. -- then my behavior should comport with my understanding.
Such an animal will frankly meet the diagnostic criteria for a Sociopathic Personality Disorder, except they would not be ill. Rather, they would be "awakened" or "enlightened," like a reverse Buddha, or an inscapee to Plato's mancave.
Let's look at those criteria, and see if the shoe fits up their ass.
"A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years."
Well, sure. But why 15? Isn't that a little arbitrary? Why not birth? Rights are for suckers -- Christians, constitutional conservatives, "civil" libertarians, homos.
"Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest."
I know. Give Obama credit. There's a leftist whose faith is in conformity to his understanding.
"Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead."
One word: Obamacare. Okay, two more: Arab spring. Three? Fast and Furious. Four? I will close Gitmo. Five? That idiotic reset button gift.
"Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying."
Yeah, I see your point. Maybe the left isn't so hypocritical after all, because the media-academic complex certainly embraces such hopenlie antisocial behavior:
"The new Western media, products of the fully propagandized Western university, have broadly succumbed to the sympathy with totalitarian ethics and intentions that Revel warned was the West's imminent danger, and the communists' long-term strategy....
"Having morally weakened the West by exploiting the legitimate free press to their clever advantage, and at last having converted that press itself into a de facto ally, the enemies of freedom could begin their work on the inside of the Western establishment in earnest. It was now time to bring the ideological war home."
Meanwhile, "The Western media has been factionalized into the totalitarian propagandist majority and the searching, skeptical minority which forms the last remnant of the true calling of that free press which was once supposed to be a bulwark of liberty" (Jonescu).
But in the inverted world of the sociopath, we are the sick folks, for which reason those regular folkers sic the IRS on us.
Yes, the left directly attacks what freedom they haven't yet eroded. But at this point, what difference does it make? What's good for the state is good for you. You don't know that?
The next criterion: "consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to honor financial obligations."
Too easy. Let's move on.
"Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another."
At this point, what difference does it make?
"Irritability and aggressiveness."
ARE YOU DEAF? AT THIS POINT, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE, FUCKWIT? LET'S JUST HOPE YOU KEPT THOSE RECEIPTS FOR 'CHARITABLE GIVING' BACK IN 2006! AND NO, I DON'T CARE THAT YOUR CHURCH DOESN'T ISSUE RECEIPTS.
Okay, you got me. But at least this proves that I can keep an open mind. I hereby withdraw my charge of leftist hypocrisy.
16 comments:
Old and Busted: The Left is Hypocritical
The New Hotness: The Left is Aggressively Sociopathic
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In short, materialists are devoid of real faith, for they do not put into practice what they screech, nor do they exhibit the courage of their concrocktions.
As the subsequent proof indicates, they do practice what they profess. The ones who truly mystify me are those who profess belief in god, but live as the materialists and can't see the falsehood...
The youngest person at the Tea Party rally, a black gal who obviously grew up in poverty and is now an independent journalist, delivered some pretty incendiary rhetoric.
I like it.
As if another example of the sociopathic nature of proglodytic leftism is necessary, there's a choice tidbit at Ace's:
"Then again, as you now know, the only difference between a Warmonger and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate is the latter's ability to say he feels conflicted n' stuff about killing."
This book on Poverty and Progress is quite good. It was recommended to me by trusty amazonian algorithmic ghosts.
I think kids are expected to be a little sociopathic and lacking in empathy and slightly tyrannical. We also expect them to grow out of it, which is why we don't let six-year-olds drive, even if they could reach the pedals. Fifteen makes sense.
Something seems to be dogging me from the shadows in talking about faith/truth versus understanding/lie. It's like there is a key in that, but it's been a very long hard day. I'm not getting it.
Bob, the book on Poverty and Progress does look interesting.
It brings to mind a comment I came across a couple of weeks ago while googling about the connection between lack of crawling and dyslexia. There was a woman who said she was some kind of missionary teacher in a poor area in Central America; her observation was that kids in third world countries don't crawl. Conditions are usually such that no sane person would allow their infant to crawl around in the dirt and/ or filth at ground level. Babies are carried until they can walk. She went on to observe that "they learn to read" anyway, but it made me wonder if she wasn't perhaps drawing a wrong conclusion or missing a bigger connection.
I've often wondered what it is about some cultures that they find themselves stuck in the same primitive conditions their ancestors have faced for, well, pretty much all of history. Why don't they innovate? Obviously, it has to do with culture, but that can't be the only reason that in some places, nobody comes up with a better way to do certain tasks, pretty much ever. It's only when someone comes in from outside and says, "Hey, try this!" that suddenly things change.
Going back to the question of crawling - and the hypothesis that as a stage of development it fosters certain important connections between left and right brain which make later skills such as reading easier to develop - it made me wonder if the conditions that prevent crawling also have a hand in preventing certain other developmental milestones which make for a mind prone to a certain type of innovation and creativity; the type of mind necessary for adapting to the conditions which foster cultural and economic growth...
Or perhaps creating the conditions is a more accurate statement...
Nice post, Bob!
You shoulda said you were havin' a BBQ. Lotsa meat in this one.
Sure explains lefty behavior in a way I never coonsidered.
I mean, I know lefties and such have faith in the lie(s) but that very faith does mean they ain't hypocritical, or hipocritical for that matter, but they truly do believe that shit.
Sure, it's a shitty faith but it's still faith. Besides, lefties need somethin' to wallow in when their smugness ain't enough.
Julie, good point about the crawling. I know our girls learned a lot more than I ever could imagine by crawling. It isn't just a form of travel, but a way for babies to touch the world, so to speak and learn from the ground up.
Of course, there's. much morea t play here :) such as culture but it seems to me that many simply don't grasp how importamt crawling is (in the physical or the metaphysical sense) or they think "what does it matter?"
Afterall, all cultures are supposed to be equal except the best ones, or so lefties tell us.
It occurs to me that the faith lefties have is a faux faiith becauseit has no evidence.
Whereas proper faith requires evidence of the unseen. No matter if it's horizontal or vertical. Without that evidence it's faith in folly or foolishness.
Explains why those on the left hate history (non rewritten history that doesn't conform to their faith that is) so much cuz it harshes their mellow man.
Leftist faith requires an animosity towards evidence in every form. In their cult, evidence is a Lie. Which is why it must be rewritten to conform with their faith rather than their faith conforming to the evidence or truth.
The book on poverty makes all sorts of interesting metahistorical connections between various disciplines to help explain the miracle of economic development, including a lot of psychological changes that had to occur.
For example, just sheer number of humans is critical due to the "genius effect." Geniuses are at the extreme right end of the bell curve, so you need millions of people in order to have just a handful. But for thousands of years, human population was held in check due to the Malthusian wall, i.e., food supply, so humans were trapped in a limit cycle.
Age also has a lot to do with it, because it's difficult for knowledge to develop if people die so young.
And religion was critical; in particular, he roots individualism and secure private property in Christianity (and the latter is even more important than the church/state distinction that logically followed).
Anyway, great book so far...
Is the primary driver of "Leftism" metaphysical or psychological? If it is the latter it is a management problem, putting in place social structures that seek to limit the damage that psychopaths can do, if it is the former, it is an education problem, showing people ways of comprehending the world that are better than Leftist alternatives.
Off topic, but strangely interesting: apparently Deepaking Chopra (lol- autocorrect automatically changes his name to a verb on my iPad) is on the board of Men's Wearhouse, and is very excited about the direction they'll be taking now that they've kicked its founder to the curb. Wonder if he'll be their new spokesman?
I'm with the first few commenters there, I suspect Men's Wearhouse just signed its own death warrant...
First of all isn't "men's" a little sexist? Plus, it sounds too much like "men's whorehouse," so the name's gotta go.
I wonder if they'll carry the Bejeweled Ruby Spectacles?
:D
Ben said "Leftist faith requires an animosity towards evidence in every form. In their cult, evidence is a Lie. "
Nailed it.
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