"The greatest kindness one can render to any man," says Thomas, "consists in leading him from error to truth."
If that is so, then the most grievous injury one can inflict upon another consists in leading him from truth to error; or even from curiosity to error, curiosity being the precursor to, and incubator of, truth.
In a certain sense curiosity is similar to faith, the latter representing conformity to the Infinite (recognition of doctrine being conformity to the Absolute). Each is a womb, whereas ideology is a tomb.
This being the case, then the greatest wholesale sources of evil in our day are 1) the left, 2) its seminaries of indoctrination (the university and educational establishment), and 3) its vectors of crude propaganda (the MSM and entertainment industry). Mother-daughter-unholy spirit, you might say (with no offense to their proper instantiations!).
In any event, all three are barreling hellward and trying to drag us there with them.
Do I really believe this? Yes, but only literally.
This goes to the essential difference between human beings and animals. Which is guess what? The intellect. To deny the intellect and its needs is to reduce man to an animal.
I wish!
For in reality, it reduces man to a station beneath the animals, for no animal can live a lie and still live. If you prefer to consider hell metaphorically, this is how it works: the Lie places man in a kind of negative ontological space, i.e., non-being. This follows logically from the fact that being and truth are convertible; so too lies and non-being.
This goes back to why it is such a grave sin to lead a man from truth to error: it is literally a kind of existential murder, or theft of being.
The other day Secretary De Vos tweeted that "Our prayers are with all those in the path of Hurricane Harvey" and that the federal government "stands ready to assist impacted schools." Innocuous enough.
In response, Keith Olbermann temperately tweeted that "The hurricane is going to do less damage to schools than you are, Motherfucker."
Now, even liberals -- who have been in control of the educational establishment for generations -- acknowledge that public education is a disaster. True, it succeeds in indoctrinating and molding future obedient liberals, but that's all it does. So, whose fault is this, Mr. Enthusiastic Violator of the Incest Taboo? Who has been f-ing the children for decades?
Not surprisingly, everything said above also converges upon freedom. It explains why freedom is a central value for conservatives, but public and private enemy #1 for the left. For as Thomas says, "the root of all freedom lies in the reason." To the extent that we are alienated from reason, or we have provided it with false premises, then we are unfree.
The other day I tossed off a comment at Instapundit to the effect that "Political correctness shows that the most effective form of totalitarianism is self-imposed and self-monitoring."
Political correctness is, among other things, an attack upon the very foundation of freedom, which is conformity to truth. Put conversely, if everyone "voluntarily" believes the lie, then vertical development is denied and enslavement is complete.
What is truth? For the left, it is perception -- so long as you perceive correctly, for example, that boys can be girls or that women are identical to men or Trump is Hitler.
But for the restavus, "the truth or falsity of an opinion depends on whether a thing is or is not." In other words, we begin with the object, the thing; the left begins with the ideology -- the subject -- superimposed upon the thing. The rest is commentary.
Or was anyway. Now it's masked thugs beating up people who believe in the primacy of the thing.
[M]an's thought is not true on its own account but is called true in virtue of its conformity with things. --Thomas the Brain
11 comments:
The educational establishment has served the Left very well, and we will keep using schools for more of the same. We now control grades K-12, and all higher education, including graduate programs.
Political Correctness has succeeded beyond our expectations; it is push-button indoctrination; simply put in information and you have a self-directed Leftist ready to recruit others. Wunderbar. I'm not sure who thought the scheme up.
The MSM is the centerpiece of our strategy and has achieved a huge impact. It is a tool for influencing the public par excellence. The competition has nothing to oppose this Juggernaut, except the feeble Fox.
Everything is going quite well, quite well indeed.
Wouldn't you like to know what our Master Plan holds for the future? Hmmm?
Sincerely, Master X, Uber Leftist, Literati, NWO.
As Dennis Prager often says, yours is by far the most dynamic religion of the last 100 years. And in reality there are only two religions.
In any event, congratulations!
Not to burst your bubble, anon, but I've heard tell that youngsters these days are so fed up with all the patently false leftist crap they've been force fed throughout their lives that a large percentage of them have become staunchly conservative. Turns out a lot of people resent being told they are guilty for crimes they've never committed, simply by virtue of existing. Who knew?
The other day I tossed off a comment at Instapundit to the effect that "Political correctness shows that the most effective form of totalitarianism is self-imposed and self-monitoring."
True. I do wonder though, if the limits to this type of totalitarianism are beginning to show. As above, with Americans at least there is a limit to how many lies we are willing to utter in the name of keeping the peace. Once even the niceties of political correctness fail to mollify the perpetual victim class and prevent actual violence, the gods of the copybook headings...
It's hard to know what's really going on with the American psyche. As far as I am concerned, now that we've had a taste of Trumpism, Trump is not enough. In other words, Trump isn't nearly Trumpy enough. I can't imagine ever going back to bland Republicanism, which is just slow-motion Democratism. I'm sure millions feel the same way, but who knows how many?
Hello Julie:
Yes, youth are tricky. We are very concerned as to why the ranks of conservatives are replenished. This is under study.
Bob, regarding Trump:
The Left is about the money. Yes, we still want to control the means of production. We remember our dear Marx.
But, the new strategy is to take it from the top down. We gain control of management and capital, instead of inciting the workers to revolt.
Trump is an ideal President to foster our activities. Although ostensibly a conservative, Trump will support whomever is getting big success in business. He likes individuals, not causes. He does not care about philosophical viewpoints; he cares about results. Money, jobs, production. These are the new watchwords. And we're going to grab it all. We have a goodly portion of it already.
The energy industry is giving us trouble, I'll admit. These people are really, really conservative. A tough nut to crack. We think renewable is the Trojan Horse that will get us in. Undercut the product by out-competing it with a better product. The American way....
Bob - yes; it's hard to imagine ever voting for a "safe" candidate who can "reach across the aisle" after this one. As to numbers, agreed. I've seen some surveys recently that indicate a lot of high school and college age kids - particularly white males, if memory serves - are leaning right in higher numbers than have been seen in recent generations. I don't know about the masses, but pretty much all of my young male relatives who have recently graduated high school are decidedly of the right. In spite of growing up on the left coast. They are disgusted by leftism as are most of their friends.
Trump isn't nearly Trumpy enough
Ha, makes me think of the HBO Vice documentary that interviewed the leader of the Charlottesville white-supremacy clan, and he said Trump isn't white enough cause he let his daughter marry a Jew. I guess you can't make anyone happy anymore. Snort.
In any event, all three are barreling hellward and trying to drag us there with them.
On a tangent, Ace on the transmission of mind parasites.
Ace is like Vanderleun was: doing God's work without realizing it. Hope it doesn't take a heart attack for him to realize it!
Amen to that. I read his "Gainzzz" threads every now and then; while I applaud his efforts to be healthy, he seems to be taking a lot of unnecessary risks; almost died of dehydration a week or two ago, apparently. I hope he's taking better care now.
Speaking of leading people from truth to error, within the last couple of weeks we watched a show on Amazon called Comrade Detective. It's an interesting premise: if Romania had a buddy cop show in the 1980s, what would it have looked like? The show isn't real, but done well enough to make it believable as something that could have been made, had the communists thought of making a cop show. Good review from a Polish person who lived there and then here.
What brought it to mind was my kids watch Jurassic Park (the original). There's a line in there I probably barely noticed before that would have been perfectly in place in a communist cop show, uttered by the female scientist: "We can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back."
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