Monday, July 16, 2018

Fake Nous

The world of fake news encompasses an area far more vast and problematic than just the idiots of the MSM. For really, it goes to the essential dilemma facing man, i.e., the discernment between reality and appearances. The sufficient reason of the intellect (nous) is to know truth. If not, then it -- and man -- is a superfluous absurdity.

The Bible rightly traces the issue back to the very (vertical) beginning: the serpent delivers fake news to Eve, who in turn passes it on to Adam. God then asks Adam "what's new?," and Adam proceeds to lie to God. What else is new?

Now, God is the very source and possibility of truth. Lying to him is like... oh, exiling oneself from paradise. Lies not only fail to attract heaven, but actively repel it. The heavenly presence flees before journalism and tenure. Every bit of fakery retraces the fall.

But the problem goes much deeper than mere bad information, because we live in an age in which "truth" has been subjectivized and is therefore no longer true, precisely. In order to understand this, we need to go back about, oh, 500 years, when it was understood that what we call truth involves adequation of the subject to an object. There is really no other alternative, at least if you want to preserve the category of truth (instead of mere "truth").

For if truth isn't adequation to an objective reality, then it really is just opinion -- which immediately devolves to a situation in which the opinion with the most muscle wins, AKA power prevails over truth.

The left, of course, likes to pretend it "speaks truth to power," but in reality it always speaks opinion backed by power. What is the left but a medley of policies so attractive that we are compelled to assent to them under the threat of state violence?

Truth isn't like that. Rather, truth attracts before it compels. To the extent that it compels, it is like math: if we say two plus two must equal four, that's not a coercion, much less a threat, but a liberating realization.

Likewise, on another plane, if we say there are two and only two genders, that's not slavery but liberation. The whole of science -- or technology, rather -- is based on the idea that bowing to nature on one level leads to mastery of nature on another. You can prefer magic to science, but it will get you nowhere.

The bottom line is that, as Schuon says, "truth comes in a sense from the outside, presenting itself to the subject who may or may not accept it." We are "free" to reject truth, at least in the short term. But truth will always have its vengeance.

Indeed, what is "the fall" but truth avenged? Sure, the contingent can usurp the role of the Absolute, the finite the infinite, man God. For awhile. The cosmos is either a spiraling message from God to himself -- from Alpha to Omega -- or it is a closed and meaningless tautology that man fashions from his own delusions.

Ideology -- which is a substitute for truth -- always devolves to ideolatry. This is because man is always homo religiosus, which is why he instinctively reveres truth, even when it is a lie. Yes, many leftists (especially at the top) are cynical manipulators, but the really dangerous ones are those who are sincerely passionate in defense of their delusion, i.e., in their ideolatry.

Again, the "transition from objectivism to subjectivism reflects and renews in its own way the fall of Adam and the loss of Paradise" (Schuon). Where did paradise go? It was swallowed by the Lie. For the Light still shines in the darkness -- the Truth in the false, the reality in the appearances -- but men neither see nor comprehend it.

Therefore, the celestial world, the Kingdom of Heaven, "is shut off from above without our noticing the fact," but this is compensated for by the (or a) world -- as in the old gag about losing one's soul but gaining the world. Or, you could say, gaining the horizontal at the expense of the vertical, but it is only the latter that gives meaning to the former. In the absence of verticality, man and world are nothing, just a brief swarm of insects.

Yes, the world becomes like a giant roach motel: attractive and enticing, but not the least bit liberating. You check in at birth, but in so doing, you check into a prison. With postmodernity, we reach a stage in which "human measures are replaced by infra-human measures until the very idea of truth is abolished" (ibid.).

Mission accompliced, in that Satan could never achieve such a grand finale without his favorite accomplice -- i.e., without man's tireless cooperation.

But not to worry. The truth does not share the defeat of its defenders (Dávila). And I AM -- the ultimate truth, or Truth of truth -- has overcome the world.

10 comments:

julie said...

Therefore, the celestial world, the Kingdom of Heaven, "is shut off from above without our noticing the fact," but this is compensated for by the (or a) world -- as in the old gag about losing one's soul but gaining the world.

I'm reminded of the stories one periodically hears of how someone becomes so lost in either online gaming or social media that the rest of his life falls apart around him, sometimes to the point of death. Usually but not always his own.

Gagdad Bob said...

Along those lines, this book sounds intriguing, or at least the title is interesting: The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction.

Anonymous said...

Leftists have to be good for something, or why else would they exist?

Dougman said...

Leftovers are an example of what not to be.

Dougman said...

I consider them, left behind.

Gagdad Bob said...

In reading The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, I see that the left is very good for culling the human population by a hundred million here and there. Even more effective than pestilence!

Van Harvey said...

"Fake Nous"
Honestly, I've been waiting so long for that headline, I was almost to the point of getting Cuz to nudge Petey. :-)

Paul Griffin said...

Lying to him is like... oh, exiling oneself from paradise.

This triggered a wave of thoughts around attachment theory for me. Sorry if this is disorganized, it's mostly typed as it hit, I tried to keep it to just the most coherent stuff...

Every secure attachment is its own tiny Eden. Every break is to be exiled anew. Lying to Him is just like lying to anyone else, it is a break in the attachment. Even if the other person doesn't know that you're lying, YOU do, and that still causes a break in the connection to the other person. Being cast out of paradise was only "punishment" inasmuch as a broken nose would be punishment for punching yourself in the face. Sin is less like a single bad action that we take and more like a deformity or disfunction in our ability to attach correctly, both to each other, and especially to Him. The "bad actions" are more like symptoms of a root cause. Some of us take pride in the fact that we have different symptoms than other people. Since the ability to attach is learned from birth, if it is deformed, whether due to trauma, or just due to the fact that none of us had perfect parents (they suffered the same problem...), we must find some way to be born again, to start over, to become a new creation, raised from birth by a new Father, one without the deformity...

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, and the purpose of revelation, grace, sacraments and the Incarnation -- the diverse modes of (↓) -- is to undo the rupture and repair the broken link.

Van Harvey said...

Gagdad said "... or at least the title is interesting: The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction."

It was ok. I've read a couple of his books, all have some good moments, but just when you think he's going in deep, that '...no doubt you lean Left with me...' tone, distracts him away.

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