Thursday, May 21, 2015

Brickwalling the World

No time today for a proper post, so I'll get right to the point, if there is one.

There is an "the indissoluble link," according to Corbin, "between modes of understanding and modes of being." If so, then an "outer" world will follow upon an inner world.

To cite an example we've used in the past, a baseball game will look quite different to someone who understands the game as opposed to someone who doesn't. It's the same game, but the baseballically advanced person will be able to access much more depth, richness, complexity, and drama.

Clearly, life is just like baseball, except that it might even have more depth, richness, complexity, and drama.

And yet, there are millions of people -- like the imbecilic star of yesterday's post -- who prefer to manage this complexity by superimposing some off-the-rack ideology over it. Then the world "makes sense," but -- in another analogy we have used before -- it is like "brickwalling" a CD in the mastering process, which looks like the image at the bottom:

The music in all of its dynamic range is depicted above, but by hacking off the subtle highs and lows, the engineer can make it LOUDER so as to GRAB THE ATTENTION of people with no taste in music, which is to say, most people.

Similarly, Tyson-style scientism is a LOUD but crude representation of the world, aimed at people with no taste for Truth.

Continuing with Corbin, "Any change in the mode of understanding is necessarily concomitant with a change in the mode of being," such that "in order to understand a philosophical system or worldview, you need to adopt the mode of being of those who lived in that world" (Cheetham).

Therefore, becoming an atheist has nothing to do with "learning" anything about atheism per se.

Rather, any "knowledge" of atheism follows upon being one. There is no logical argument that necessarily leads to atheism, whether inductive or deductive, if only because one's first principles must always come from a source outside the closed circle of horizontal reasoning.

Or in other words, reason cannot furnish its own materials to work on. You must always start with being, even if you pretend otherwise.

In order for a world to exist -- say, Upper Tonga -- there must be "human persons willing and able to live in that world" (Cheetham). Here I am and there it is.

On the positive side, if citizens were to stop paying for the academic worlds of "queer theory" or "gender studies," those artificial worlds would cease to exist.

More generally, in order for Leftworld to go on existing at all, it is obviously necessary to create more inhabitants of Leftworld. There is no Leftworld without Leftoids.

Which has become the primary purpose of the university, excluding disciplines that actually require evidence as opposed to "commitment" or vengeful thinking.

It reminds me of another item yoinked from Happy Acres:

This is what the immigration "debate" is really all about: the left's need to bring new bodies into its world. The purpose is not merely to bring them into the physical space of the United States, but rather, into the subjective space of Leftworld, otherwise they would be the first to build a brick wall to keep them out.

One could say the same of public education and the liberal media: their purpose is not to inform but to induct.

One of the most alarming things about the Clinton campaign is that it is aimed only at the inhabitants of Leftworld -- cranky feminists, public employee unions, auto-victimized blacks, homosexuals, Hollywood, the MSM, ultra-wealthy do-gooders, etc. At least Obama pretended to speak to the wider world, but Clinton is convinced that her coalition of the deranged is sufficient to brickwall the rest of us.

11 comments:

julie said...

Leftism really is like a virus. A barrier to natural reproduction, it cannot propagate on its own but must instead colonize the minds of those who are insufficiently guarded by reality.

Van Harvey said...

The Pod People need your people to be transformed into their people. Hence scholarships.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Rather, any "knowledge" of atheism follows upon being one. There is no logical argument that necessarily leads to atheism, whether inductive or deductive, if only because one's first principles must always come from a source outside the closed circle of horizontal reasoning."

Indeed. Leftists always pander to fellow leftists with the promise of more loot to pilfer, as well as a promise of the false security of slavery instead of the potential of liberty.

That's what parasites do. Leftist and RINO's both want more parasites to lord over.

mushroom said...

LOUD but crude

This is a good analogy. The god of leftism and scientism is Procrustes.


John Lien said...

Continuing with Corbin,"Any change in the mode of understanding is necessarily concomitant with a change in the mode of being," such that "in order to understand a philosophical system or worldview, you need to adopt the mode of being of those who lived in that world"

I like it. However, that presents a bit of a problem. I mean, how do you know which mode to choose? For many, it seems to be chosen for us. I suppose you can look around, stick your toe in the water, see if it resonates, and then dive in.

Gagdad Bob said...

If you're implying that there's something better than the voices in my head, I'd like to hear about it.

Anonymous said...

The voices in my head are always gettin' in a drunken brawl.

Skully said...

Er, that wasn't me...in case you were wonderin'.

Yes it was!

Shut up you idjit.

Skully said...

Is it strange to have the voice of Charlton Heston in my head? He's the one who usually breaks up the fights.

Tony said...

This post sheds more light on Blake: "As a man is, so he sees."

Ontology is logically prior to epistemology.

How could it, er, "be" otherwise?

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