Thursday, September 26, 2019

If Truth is a Myth, All Myths are True

Just an old post, revised, extended, and fortified with new insights and old aphorisms. The reason being that I'm getting over a mild cold which is nevertheless strong enough to disable the Gagdad melon, at least for concocting an all new post.

***

Historically, white supremacy has venerated the idea of objectivity, and wielded a dichotomy of "subjectivity vs. objectivity" as a means of silencing oppressed peoples. The idea that there is a single truth -- "the Truth" -- is a construct of the Euro-West... This construction is a myth and white supremacy, imperialism, colonization, capitalism, and the United States of America are all of its progeny (A Bunch of Illiterate Leftist (but I repeat myself) Students).

I realize that people believe these things, but still. Do they really believe them? Are these things even possible, let alone the case?

Let's start with the existence of truth. If there is no truth, can there be such a thing as honesty? Obviously not. One can be earnest, sincere, passionate, etc., but honesty has to do with commitment to, and conformity with, truth. So the dim bulbs who penned this screed are not, by their own lights, honest. They are just... screeching or howling, like any other animal that registers distress.

Which explains a lot about the left, doesn't it?

Of course, they love nothing more than running roughshod over those old mythbound taboos. Never mind that Between animal and man there is no other barrier than a palisade of taboos (Dávila). Might as well try to take away an animal's instincts because they're just reactionary holdovers from the past.

Interesting too that the authors assert that belief in the existence of truth and objectivity is a "myth." In the shallow and profane sense, a myth is "untrue." But what can a myth be in the absence of truth? If truth is a myth, then all myths are true.

It never fails: Whoever does not believe in myths believes in fables (Dávila). Such as: truth is a construct of white supremacist oppression, and it's true that the world will end in twelve years if you don't give us absolute power over your lives!

On a deeper level, of course, myths convey transrational truths that are timeless and universal, applying to all people at all times. They are a kind of implicit corollary of human nature. However, the left has that covered as well, as it rejects the concept of human nature. For a leftist, the following aphorism is a compliment:

The modern man is the man who forgets what man knows about man (Dávila).

Have these profoundly antihuman students never had a course in basic logic? The question answers itself, but there is a Logic without which no coherent statements of any kind can be made. This logic -- AKA Logos -- is not explicit, but rather, implicit in all speech. It is why we have speech at all, and one of the most generous (and generative) ways we are in the image of the Creator.

In short, only God and man possess speech. Animals and liberal college students can "communicate," but only in a predictable and repetitious way, on a very narrow frequency. (You might say that instead of possessing speech they are possessed by it, hence the repetitive and circular memeworld they inhabit, more like cries in the wild than truly human speech.)

What is especially perverse about the claims of these liberal fascists is that they render man utterly worthless. Which fascists tend to do. The rest follows logically (from the insane initial premise).

To put it conversely, "The worth of man lies in his consciousness of the Absolute" (Schuon). Now, this is the same Absolute that is implicit in all speech, even if denied. Which is why the speech of the liberal fascists is so utterly incoherent: it explicitly denies the Absolute while making all sorts of claims that are meaningless in its absence.

The bottom line is that you can't just jettison the Absolute and pretend nothing has happened. Truly, it is like the Titanic hitting the iceberg while everyone ignores the water flooding into the hull. A ship cannot float, let alone get anywhere, under such circumstances. Just so, without the boundary between true and false, language capsizes and plunges into darkness.

Which raises another important point: that language is literally a conveyer of Light. Any lover of language appreciates this, as it is one of the more experience-near emanations of spirit. Great poems are not just gay sentences.

And speaking of "myth," In the beginning was the Word; without this Word nothing was made; and in this Word is Light and Life.

Those are metaphysical claims expressed in a mythopoetic manner. Not only are they true, they are precisely true, even the basis of Truth. They explain how and why the world is intelligible to intelligence, why we can share this intelligibility with each other, and ultimately how man and world are mutually illuminating, since they are derived from the same Absolute Light. (Recall that metaphysics isn't an inexact science, but rather, the science of the inexact, i.e., of subjects and qualities which are no less real than objects and quantities.)

In this majestic Light, how petty and impoverished are these proudly lightless students! Imagine rejecting the one thing that elevates you above the beasts! And then they get mad if you call them beasts.

It is especially ironic that these self-designated Students of Color would embrace an ideology that considers it "fascist" to make an absolute truth claim such as, oh, All men are created equal. Not to mention the fact that if there is no truth, then there can by definition be no freedom (unless the latter is conflated with being lost in permanent darkness and confusion).

Here are some more absolute truth claims. If they make me a fascist, then what can one say but God bless fascism?:

"The intelligence of the animal is partial, that of man is total; and this totality is explained only by a transcendent reality to which the intelligence is proportioned" (Schuon).

If the intelligence of animals is explicitly partial and of man implicitly total, then the stupidity of these students is complete and irremediable. They literally situate themselves beneath the beasts, since animals at least don't believe idiotic lies about themselves.

"Objectivity, whereby human is distinguished from animal intelligence, would lack sufficient reason without the capacity to conceive the absolute or infinite, or without the sense of perfection" (ibid.).

Animals can at least rely upon unwavering instinct instead of being plunged into the darkness of an absolute subjectivity that answers to no object.

"Truth is the reason for man's existence; it constitutes our grandeur and reveals to us our littleness" (ibid.).

Note the corollary: that deconstruction pretends to reveal our littleness while exalting man's pride -- for it is a proud man who claims to have "rights" in the absence of an antecedent truth and corresponding responsibility.

"Totality of intelligence implies freedom of will. This freedom would be meaningless without an end prefigured in the Absolute; without knowledge of God and of our final ends, it would be neither possible nor useful" (ibid.).

In such a world, freedom becomes a nuisance -- like these cognitively shipwrecked students who agitate for things that cannot be, and insist that other people are somehow obligated to respect their stupid claims.

"[W]ith intelligence, the curve springing from God closes on itself like a ring that in reality has never been parted from the Infinite" (ibid.). That eternal circle bisects every now, as every now bisects the circle.

Recall Lincoln's gag, when someone asked him how long a man's legs should be: long enough to reach the ground. Similarly, how intelligent should a man be? Intelligent enough to reach the ground of truth, i.e., to intuit the principles without which truth is impossible and man sinks beneath himself.

23 comments:

Gagdad Bob said...

Example: Impeach the president! Whatever that means.

julie said...

Day by day, the clown mask peels off a little more to reveal the monstrosity underneath.

Interesting too that the authors assert that belief in the existence of truth and objectivity is a "myth." In the shallow and profane sense, a myth is "untrue." But what can a myth be in the absence of truth? If truth is a myth, then all myths are true.

As John Bunyan put it much more wordily,

I find that holy writ in many places
Hath semblance with this method, where the cases
Do call for one thing, to set forth another;
Use it I may, then, and yet nothing smother
Truth's golden beams: nay, by this method may
Make it cast forth its rays as light as day.
And now before I do put up my pen,
I'll shew the profit of my book, and then
Commit both thee and it unto that Hand
That pulls the strong down, and makes weak ones stand.


Hope you feel better soon!

River Cocytus said...

Speaking of the modern mind and the detachment from metaphysical grounding, here was a good poem (made of 100% recycled hot air; we are if nothing carbon neutral)

"The Novel"

All that glitters is not gold
But if it were, what would we say
When we found what was not old
"A new god, a new era, a new day"?
The imprecations roar, and why not
Do we grasp as the crow has got
A new bauble - "make way, make way
For the future bright and star-shot"?


The novel - and the era so named
For a litany of splendid things
Which pass before, brazen, inflamed
With passion on passion's wings
The eyes do not know what they're seeing
But it has never been seen, freeing
The mind to wish what it brings
And never understand its being.

Gagdad Bob said...

Concurrence from the nonlocal communion of Raccoons:

Chesterton: "Liberty is traditional and conservative; it remembers its legends and its heroes. But tyranny is always young and seemingly innocent, and asks us to forget the past."

Hayek: “Tradition is not something constant but the product of a process of selection guided not by reason but by success. It changes but can rarely be deliberately changed. Cultural selection is not a rational process; it is not guided by but it creates reason.”

Anonymous said...

Hello Dr. Godwin.

Your finely wrought post goes to great lengths to state the obvious. Nobody pays any attention to students, other than to note they seem to care about something.

These dunderheads will undergo a moulting process as soon as utility bills are due and Dad is no longer paying. They will emerge as capitalist moths and be attracted to the light, that is, to money.

In the meantime, what, do you feel threatened somehow? Go about your business, move about the countryside. Nothing to see here.

-Dung Artist 000

Anonymous said...

Dung Artist anon,

Why can’t you see? The Left is Satan. Satan is insidious, devious, cunning... yet wise. It knows how to entice our youth with utopian dream-promises of gulags and Venezuela and Islam. The Left says: “Be just like Bill and Hill and all of your wildest dreams will come true!”. And don’t get me started on all the Leftist Christians out there. Forgive them for they know not what they do. Nothing but sneaky techniques aimed at our most vulnerable citizens; our youth, our negroes, our gay metrosexuals and their lonely women. Quite sad.

As I write this I watch the Sooner Schooner driving around crazily inside a college stadium. So I ponder the meaning of this. Freedom gave us Oklahoma. What was once a roach infested home for American natives is now a football paradise! These Indians could’ve made a profitable home for themselves but nope. And why? Leftism.

The New York Giants is a mostly black football team. Yet they be anything but "Giants". In a more free society they could rename themselves the New York Niggers. In a more Leftist society they’d demand equal opportunity and pay for being football midgets.

But I digress. The goal is to remake Jesus and The Founders into our own image, His will be done.

Anonymous said...

Hello Panel. Pip pip, cheerio and all that. How is everyone today? Feeling tip-top? How's the cold coming along, Dr?

Anon 12:45, I take your comment to be satire. However, it was done in such a scattershot way I can't perceive what the devil you are getting at. Could you clarify your assertions in some manner? And make sure you include what your beef is. We must always have a position statement. Thank you.

I read the poetry submitted by Julie and by River C. in their comments (thank you both) and have run smack into my recurrent inability to grok poetry. I can almost tell what the assertions are, but they somehow remains hazy. Is it just me? Is the melon on the fritz? Should I have coffee?

While we await the good Doctor's next post I request everyone compose a short Halloween poem or tale and put in the comments section, trying to make it germane to the post, which treats with "truth," a broad topic.

And finally, a question, has anyone seen a ghost. Don't lie, you are under oath.

Thank you, Dung Artist 000.

P.S. The triple zeros are supposed to look like a stylized little turd lying there drying out.

Gagdad Bob said...

Fascinating essay on Leninthink. It reveals the metaphysical deep structure of leftist thought -- which actually has no consistent content, only a style. This explains a lot, i.e., why leftist thought is always inconsistent.

It is also illuminates "satanic thinking," in that it is a perfect inversion of Christian metaphysics. The anti-Christic walks among us. Or I it, being that I live under one party rule in California.

julie said...

Good essay.

Lenin regarded all interactions as zero-sum. To use the phrase he made famous, the fundamental question is always “Who Whom?”—who dominates whom, who does what to whom, ultimately who annihilates whom.

We see that mentality expressed here every now and then, as with one of the anons last week, claiming that even an old lady tending a garden was engaging in manipulation. It's bad enough to inhabit a world with people who think and act this way (and often gravitate towards positions of power); I can't imagine the horror of actually believing it.

Anonymous said...

Dung artist, the point was, that even if American liberal democracy has always been a ruse for whatever Powers That Be to own us, or even if conservative socialist statism has always been a ruse for whatever Powers That Be to own us (to make us little people feel like we have at least a little bit of control), shouldn’t we little people keep on trying anyways?

Anonymous said...

Bob, I think Jesus’ point was that Christians should never look like they’re obliviously carrying Mammons water. It looks bad.

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Gagdad Bob said...

I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so a fucking spammer could waltz around my comment section.

Anonymous said...

Hello all and sundry.

Dich, the Vietnamese commenter, is apparently a travel agent. This is her second comment here, and I am not sure why she has done this. Her email was included, and an attempt could be made to ask using the Google translator. I am too busy to deal with it. Anyone else care to try?

Anon 12:33, thank you or the clarification regarding your concerns about The Powers That Be controlling little people. We have done no prior investigation regarding a conspiracy allegation against midgets, dwarves, or any category of little persons by an unknown bloc or cabal. The only social investigation we have done so far has been focused on Freemasons. Perhaps you could divulge what evidence you have obtained thus far?

Our Institute is an equal opportunity employer, we do not care about physical stature.

We have tentatively established that all current conditions, terms, events, happenstance, statistics, and policies could be adequately explained and accounted for in the complete absence of any conspiracy whatsoever.

Our investigation into climate change, on the other hand, is raising red flags right and left. This one is definitely going forward. It is not a conspiracy, it is pure happenstance which is coming to light as credible evidence.

Now it is back to the feces lab for me. There many samples await analysis.

-Dung Artist 000

Anonymous said...

Dung-A, it all started with forcing dwarf actors to wear little robot costumes like they did in the movie Silent Running (or maybe they were amputees I dunno), then having them play silly little childlike roles as seen in Time Bandits. Ever seen a dwarf movie mogul?

Then it spread.

Now little robots are increasingly taking over everybody's jobs and silly little childlike voters are being brainwashed to not notice, rendering all but the certified Powers That Be virtually powerless.

Witness the desperation of new our Vietnamese travel agent friend here... trying to find business in places where AI companies like Expedia haven't gone, yet. I don't want anything like a Butlerian Jihad. Frank Herbert makes those things sound pretty nasty.

Anonymous said...

"our new"

Sorry about that little mixup.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 3:14, thank you for correcting your typo. I had quite missed the error, skimmed right over it.

Your point about our new Vietnamese friend is well taken. People want money, are hungry for it, and spend a lot of their time conniving to get it. I don't think this is a new thing. This is our capitalist society doing what it does. Getting ripped off and scammed goes with the territory, and the wise consumer takes caution in all transactions.

We all do what we have to do for money. For the lucky, what they love to do, and being paid for it, dove tail to produce a splendid harmony. For the not so lucky, life gets compartmentalized into what they want to do, versus what they must do for money. It is not optimum. But then, nothing has ever been optimum.

The Yogin does "karma yoga," a term for work done for the sake of the Divine with no thought of the renumeration. For the Yogin, the needs of daily maintenance are placed in the hands of God. Few are brave enough to do this without qualms.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully when we’re all crammed into a yoga studio all skinny and with nothing else to do, there wont be the Amazon knock on the door delivering a robot yoga instructor.

I think people "who want to limit our freedoms" may actually want "not-starvation". Change has always been scary. But poverty with no other recourse seems a lot worse.

Such is the way of humanities billions heading into uncharted waters.

River Cocytus said...

Who/whom is important to understand and know. Remember that even if a demon told you the truth, you are under no obligation (or rather, you ought not) to believe or trust them. This isn't because they've told you a falsehood, but because they themselves are false. It matters who rules over whom - if you accept the demon's truth you go a little towards letting it rule over you. And even if the demon should help you for a long time, the nature of what it is and its motivations mean it will eventually destroy you.

Part of the reason why so many groups, when they were exposed to the notion of self-governance, wanted to be ruled 'by their own' is not because Europeans didn't rule them well (for the most part they did) but because they supposed (perhaps wrongly based on the results) that one of 'their own' would share their interests more than a European.

In any case, because people have character and virtue and differing abilities and interests, it does matter who rules over whom, because whether rules or laws are even followed or justice and mercy are balanced is all going to be in the character of the ruler.

Most of the weirdness in modern politics can be understood by referencing the concept 'it happened thus because those who ruled over, or who thought they did, the others, said so.'

So for example we might ask 'why did transgenderism suddenly become in vogue?' - we could evolve a massive text on the development of postmodern ideas and their influence in this and that area of American society.

But this would be like explaining why the water came out of the faucet in the sink by detailing fluid pressure dynamics in the plumbing system while neglecting to notice that someone turned the faucet on.

Thus, transgenderism is explained primarily by the fact that those who fancy themselves rulers over our society, at least in the intellectual and cultural spheres, decided that it would be a cause du jour. And the proof that they (to some greater or lesser extent) do rule is that it did become the cause du jour, as they had wished.

I also recently realized that I'm not necessarily opposed to taxes in theory, I'm simply not going to pay more of my money to liberals so that they can use the money to pay liberals and make more liberals. Were it possible for there to be a tax organ that didn't employ liberals or pay liberals, my position on taxation would be more neutral (closer to the idea of paying dues.)

Van Harvey said...

"In short, only God and man possess speech. Animals and liberal college students can "communicate," but only in a predictable and repetitious way, on a very narrow frequency. (You might say that instead of possessing speech they are possessed by it, hence the repetitive and circular memeworld they inhabit, more like cries in the wild than truly human speech.)"

There seems to be some sort of relationship, somewhat inversely, between the depth (or lack of it) to which you understand the words you use, and whether you possess them, or are possessed by them?

It seems like the more shallowly you understand the words you use, the more you are possessed by their appearances, which to you, seem like common sense.

OTOH, the more deeply you understand the words you're using, the more you possess them and are able to communicate uncommon sense through them.

Anonymous said...

RC,

The problem I have with angels and demons is that they never physically appear. Like with space aliens, it seemed that there were a whole lot more of them around before phones with cameras inside became popular. But then I am open to the idea that God made this universe a sort of 'free will performance art', and obviously visible demons would tip things towards one of His more utopian universes, which bore him. So who knows? Could we be part of a metaphysical bet between Himself and Satan? Unfortunately a major part of me still wants to physically witness a demon first.

Anyways... consider Hunter Biden, utterly unqualified to be Director of Burisma. Or to a lesser degree, Chelsea Clinton, by some estimates now worth $15M. In lesser families they'd have to play under more 'normal' capitalist rules. But as part of the lucky sperm club they get lots of unearned perks. We'll see what happens to the Bush girls. But if history repeats they'll benefit from Prescott the way HW and W did.

The system seems tipped towards the sociopathic side of genetics, nepotism and cronyism, instead of the more ethical protect/benefit our tribe. The impulse to pass on and protect ones own genes is strong. From leadership, these things trickle down to the common culture, who are mostly traditional brained sheeple, who then rationalize that doing the same in lieu of the American "best and brightest" meritocracy culture of old is now the official American Way.

I do agree with transgenderism being more than a bit bizarre. I'll probably ridicule them even after asking them personally, "WTF"? But should I torment them in an attempt to persuade them to not pass on their genes? Why stop that, yet allow a destructive cronyism to persist?

About taxes, I helped lead a local fight against my county trying to place new taxes and easements on my septic system by claiming "pollution!". To me this was an obvious finance/power grab. Why? Because sewage overflows from rainwater are common for the 93% of our population using the county sewage system. Only a tiny handful of the 7% OSS (on site septic) systems are neglected to similar sewage overflow conditions. Logic.

Yet I turned against my conservative brethren when I refused to allow my local composting business to lobby into law a mandate which would protect them from neighborhood pollution complaints. Why? Because 1000 homeowners, with their home equity value ‘business’ is more important then a single composting business with 40 employees, which had made a crony deal with my central city to mandate and obtain ALL of that city’s compost waste. The needs of the many outweigh the cronyism of the few. Logic.

I’m interested in learning more about employing liberals to pay liberals. Are you being virtue signal tribalistic, or do you have actual facts which we might consider?

River Cocytus said...

Do you not know what percent of the permanent bureaucracy votes democrat? Do you not know that taxes pay for the schools which have trained children into mindless liberalism? And do taxes not pay for those whose only contribution to society is their offspring (and their vote bank in the D column)?

As for angels and demons 'never appearing' that seems a rather dubious claim. Evidence?

Van Harvey said...

River Cocytus said "... It matters who rules over whom - if you accept the demon's truth you go a little towards letting it rule over you. ..."

I think that if you accept the notion of 'the demon's truth', or 'some truths', or 'other people's truths', or 'true for you but not true for me', you've abandoned the reality of Truth altogether - however stylishly you might go about doing so.

No demon, or bad person, or well intentioned person, 'has' a truth. Neither, BTW, does a saint, good person or honest person. No statement of a 'truth' should be taken without consideration of the context, and it's more important to consider the full context, which good & bad people typically shade, to favor their intentions.

The Truth, is found in the context, not in who told you some piece of it.

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