Friday, October 03, 2014

Who Was that Unmasked Man?!

Since we're on the subject of time, here is a timely aphorism of Don Colacho: Time should be feared less because it kills than because it unmasks.

Think of how this dreadful truism applies to Dear Leader, Mr. Bequeath Ebola, who, of course, promised "change." Now, change is obviously the essence of time, but a progressive is someone who believes time has a kind of automatic direction, and yet, no telos, no fixed orientation.

Therefore, the kind of change that is championed by progressives is almost guaranteed to result in a grotesque unmasking of the unredeemed man, i.e., the beast that man becomes in the absence of conformity to what transcends him. After all, deterioration is change. One might say that change in the absence of God is just slow-motion death. Or maybe you don't read the news.

So, Obama has been unmasked over the past six years, as have his decroded "people." And I suppose the fact that some 40% still support him proves that they still see the old mask firmly in place. I actually know people who are like this.

The other day, one of them spoke to me of the stunning success of ObamaCare. Not only is he enclosed in the left's alternate reality, but his only knowledge of conservative ideas is filtered through its hateful ignorantsia, so he is programmed to reject reality a priori -- the same way you might react if someone said to you, "Yes, but Hitler wrote that..."

Progressives believe it is possible to determine truth via calendar, hence the belief that they must be on the right side of history. But history has no "side" unless it is in reference to what surpasses history, AKA God. Otherwise history is just history: it has an opaque front and cloudy back, but no periphery.

There is of course a positive unmasking, and this is what we call "metanoia," or conversion, or repentance.

Conversely, you could say that Adam was the first human to put on the mask, for which reason God -- no doubt ironically -- asks "Where are you?" Adam responds that he heard God's voice, became frightened, and "hid myself," i.e., put on the mask to fool God. Good luck with that.

To paraphrase Schuon -- and this is a real orthoparadox -- man is the only creature who is free to defy or contradict his own nature. In California, Governor Brown recently signed a law mandating that children who are confused about their sex are "free" (!) to choose either locker/bathroom. Yes, the left is beyond parody, beyond Orwell, beyond my powers of insultainment.

Even so, time eventually unmasks, no matter how much plastic surgery. Alternatively, we can stop the pretentious charade and just unmask ourselves before time does the job for us.

One of the reasons why the left must legislate so much insanity is to prevent the unmasking that would occur in the absence of force. For example, in the absence of state-mandated racial discrimination, time would unmask some uncomfortable truths about race and IQ.

Now interestingly, unmasking ourselves is an exercise in freedom, whereas time's unmasking is under the force of necessity -- the latter is against our omnipotent wishes.

But the self-unmasking -- i.e., reverse auto-pullwoolery -- takes place "outside time," or it is a kind of exit from profane time. Balthasar writes that the "timelessness which the beloved object [God] bestows on the person who chooses it" is at the same time an expansion of the freedom of the person who so chooses.

Wha?

Yeah, you could say this is the eternal "day of creation," or fiat lux. Balthasar speaks of "the ever-increasing mutual penetration of these two elements, which were 'created in the beginning' as 'heaven and earth.'"

A Raccoon believes -- well, this Raccoon, anyway -- that Christ appears as the creativity-freedom principle in history. He is simultaneously God unmasked and man unmasked -- "naked" but not ashamed, glorified but humble.

"Here the mystery of the time-transcending origin appears as the total Christ.... The world and its falling away were created for the sake of this origin and this goal," which "surpasses and at the same time justifies time" (ibid.).

Thus, this final unmasking is the "vertical resolution of the whole structure of time, and hence of history..." The irritating abyss of time -- which is a measure of our distance from God -- is bridged by the divine creativity-in-love which, from our side, invites us to free ourselves of the disguises we wear to try to elude the decrosion of time -- the very same time that ruins everybody's lives and eats all our steak.

24 comments:

julie said...

I suppose the fact that some 40% still support him proves that they still see the old mask firmly in place. I actually know people who are like this.

Yes, me too. Utterly baffling, every time they start talking about how awesome the Obamas are.

julie said...

But the self-unmasking -- i.e., reverse auto-pullwoolery -- takes place "outside time," or it is a kind of exit from profane time. Balthasar writes that the "timelessness which the beloved object [God] bestows on the person who chooses it" is at the same time an expansion of the freedom of the person who so chooses.

Nothing to add yet, but this requires some extra chewing...

Gagdad Bob said...

I don't like to speculate, but sometimes I am as if impelled to write something that seems just beyond the subjective horizon. A reach, as it were...

julie said...

Balthasar is good for that. Looks like a good book; I was just thinking recently about looking back over the ones of his I already have. It's been a few years, time enough for some of that free expansion to deepen understanding. Perhaps I should reread Benedict's Jesus as well...

Gagdad Bob said...

I would say that the most enjoyable posts to write are the ones in which I feel like I'm chasing after something just over the horizon.

Gagdad Bob said...

While hoping reach doesn't exceed grasp...

Joan of Argghh! said...

Good stuff about unmasking. Raccoons sport a mask, but we know it's not hiding the light emanating from the window to our soul. Coon-vision sees through others' masks, too. Real "X"ray vision!

Joan of Argghh! said...

Bad link on the "right side of time"? I get a "bad Raccoon!" boundary notice of sorts.

julie said...

It's been fixed - try refreshing the page. I think that's the Goldberg link you were referring to yesterday.

Christina M said...

I searched your old posts yesterday for things you wrote on Homo Necans and stumbled instead on the description you quoted of Kallistos Ware stepping for the first time into Russian Orthodox church and stepping out of time, which is exactly how I feel when I step into a Catholic Church. And then today you are talking about things that fit so well with a book by a rabbi that I read this summer and am still digesting called "The Beast That Crouches At the Door."

I told my husband this morning, "I don't understand how people can not see how alien Obama is, and I don't mean from another country, I mean from another world."

Masks of any kind freak me out. I can't bear clowns, or Mardi Gras, or painted faces, or puppets, or human-like robots, or people who lie.

John said...

"I suppose the fact that some 40% still support him proves that they still see the old mask firmly in place. I actually know people who are like this."
Diddo.
Had the same experience with Rhinos during the Bush years, trying to applaud health reforms and no child left behind, and his Wilsonion War on Terror. I've seen brain studies on this. People have a strong tendency to get completely stuck in the mental grooves they ride in.

mushroom said...

..."naked" but not ashamed, glorified but humble.

He who humbles himself will be exalted, and he who exalts himself will be humbled.

Leslie said...

"I suppose the fact that some 40% still support him proves that they still see the old mask firmly in place. I actually know people who are like this."
These people are actually terrified of the Truth.

swiftone said...

.... as if impelled to write something that seems just beyond the subjective horizon...

And subjectively it's as if I'm impelled to attempt to follow.

Time/freedom. Opposites on a continuum, where we live.
Truth/??? The other side of that continuum evokes image of roaches scurrying out of the light. LG's expression of fear of truth is on the money.

Such a bewonderment. Those seven "I am" statements from St. John flash into view.

Cousin Dupree said...

Good to know. Next time I'm sick I'll call a comedian.

Gagdad Bob said...

Hey, so long as Obama keeps his promise and I can keep my doctor, keep my healthcare policy, and save money to boot, I'm all in.

Gagdad Bob said...

Meanwhile, back in the real world: "There is, though, a set of congressional candidates ducking the issue of Obamacare — the Democrats. A Brookings Institution analysis found that only 36 percent of them are expressing support for Obamacare."

Gagdad Bob said...

In reading this book on the history of war, it occurs to me that liberalism is much more like an ethnicity or kinship structure, hence its imperviousness to reason and the kneejerk defense of the indefensible. The person I mentioned in the post who thinks ObamaCare is great, thinks it because that's what all his relatives think, and you don't trust anyone outside the circle of kin. In any event, it would explain how leftist ideology is superimposed over deeper and more atavistic tendencies, hence its strength; and why "multiculturalism" is just a word for monoculturalism, or diversity for uniformity.

Gagdad Bob said...

What is leftism but the violent compulsion to be part of a family one would prefer to individuate from? It not only undermines real families, but all structures of power in competition with the state. That is the most frightening thing about ObamaCare: placing a self-serving state between us and our health.

julie said...

That's a good point. How many people are leftist because they've literally never encountered (to their knowledge) anybody who holds a dissenting view? When the dominant culture all thinks this way, especially for people who are disinclined to go searching for truth instead of having it spoonfed to them by the nightly news, there is literally no reason to think a different way, and anybody who does must therefore be at the very least other, and deeply suspect.

Re. the comedian, agreed - if Obamacare actually did all the things that it promised, there would be little to no grounds for disagreement.

Gagdad Bob said...

I was certainly an ambient liberal: I thought I was "independent" when I was just a passive sponge and a mirror of the culture. It was all very tribal, too. I never really met any actual conservatives, but I wouldn't have taken them seriously anyway because of my Liberal Moral and Intellectual Superiority -- which has to a big part of its appeal: it allows any idiot to pretend his superiors are subordinate to him.

julie said...

Yes, same here. I was fortunate enough in college to have one conservative-minded professor in college - a meteorologist who also taught some history and owned some land with an oil well or two out west. AKA a unicorn. We didn't have too many students who kept their leftist views, though there was one obligatory Marxist LGBTer who constantly disagreed, and was so disagreeable nobody sane would want to be on his side.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I concur. Leftism is, essentially, a tribal cult. Their power derives from illusion, lies, smoke n' mirrors, and a crude creed that elevates pride over humility, lies over truth, uglinessover beauty and chains to the state over individual liberty.

In leftism, individual thinking is discouraged and ruthlessly attacked if it opposes their cult in any way whatsoever.
The foundation of their power of babble is based on lies; indeed, The Lie, which is why they cannot ever just say what they mean, hence their corruption of language.

Words mean whatever they need them to mean to shore up their power which always takes the form of Force.

Conservatives, classical liberals, etc., do not rely on force (indeed, the use of force is antithema to truth because force always comes with the chains of deception) because force is anti-liberty, anti-truth, anti-good, and anti-thinking.

Conservatives encourage individual thinking, and for those that don't they are not conservatives they are populists.



USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"In reading this book on the history of war, it occurs to me that liberalism is much more like an ethnicity or kinship structure, hence its imperviousness to reason and the kneejerk defense of the indefensible. The person I mentioned in the post who thinks ObamaCare is great, thinks it because that's what all his relatives think, and you don't trust anyone outside the circle of kin. In any event, it would explain how leftist ideology is superimposed over deeper and more atavistic tendencies, hence its strength; and why "multiculturalism" is just a word for monoculturalism, or diversity for uniformity."

Well said. I reckon what leftism really supports is dieversity, which is why they hysterically atrack conservative blacks, women, hispanics, etc., or any culture that is steeped in truth.

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