quite simply a war on common sense. It is a war by elites on the common people and on the shared understanding of basic realities of life that has made it possible for us to rule ourselves under the Constitution (Curry).
Why does it even exist? And why do we allow it to exist?
In my view it can only exist because it rides piggyback on our deeper structure, which is to say, our existence as a social animal. First of all, this rubric doesn't quite capture the essence, since bees, ants, and wolves are all social animals, and yet there is an obvious x-factor that distinguishes us from all other animals (and ultimately I would say that these lower creatures are prolongations of us, not vice versa, just as we are vertical prolongations of the Creator).
In reality we are irreducibly intersubjective animals, which is our main distinguishing feature; it is a necessary condition of personhood, i.e., a condition without which humanness would be impossible, irrespective of the size of our brains or degree of intelligence. In turn, this is rooted in a trinitarian metaphysic whereby each person is a member of the others. You could say that the Persons are analogous to particles, while their substance is the wave, with neither being antecedent.
These ideas are lucidly and concisely expressed in Norris Clarke's little gem of a book, Person and Being, so I'm not just making this up. Or at least someone else agrees with me.
Clarke notes that while Christian thinkers of the past "developed a relational notion of the person for use in theology," they failed to exploit it "adequately, if at all, in their philosophical analyses of the person." He cites Ratzinger, who "calls for a new, explicitly relational conception of the very nature of the person as such, wherein relationality [becomes] an equally primordial aspect of the person as substantiality."
That's the key: ultimate reality is substance-and-relation. Beyond here lies nothing. Here again, note how, to this day, physicists will say that quantum reality is paradoxically particle and wave, and that if you claim to understand how this could be, it proves that you haven't understood it.
Well, it is only paradoxical if one persists in looking at it through the Newtonian lens of logical atomism. If instead one peers at it through the macroscope of metacosmic personhood -- of substance-and-relation -- it not only makes sense, but is necessary to be this way in order for us to participate in it via the experience of knowing it. Obviously, we can only know anything about anything because the universe speaks and human beings are uniquely able to hear it. That is so queer, and yet, hardly anyone notices.
In the relational metaphysic implicit in trinitarian theology "lies concealed a revolution in man's view of the world: the undivided sway of thinking in terms of substance is ended; relation is discovered as an equally valid primordial mode of reality" (Ratzinger, in Clarke).
That little paragraph is worth putting in the comment box, unless we find a better one as we proceed. Clarke goes on to say that God's own act -- and God is pure act -- is "intrinsically ordered toward self-communication." We might say that the microperson (us) reflects the macroPerson (God), such that in both there is an "indissoluble complementarity of substantiality, the in-itself dimension of being, and relationality, the towards-others aspect."
That really says it all. Although one can always say more, since we're dealing here with the Infinite. For example, "the intrinsic self-diffusiveness of the Good turns into personal love, self-communicative love." Reality is generous, generative, and genesis, all at the same time(less).
This post has gotten totally out of hand, as we've veered from what we hoped would be the practical and concrete (common sense) to the farthest edge of the pneumosphere, where most earthlings can hardly breathe. Oh well. Might as well go with it, and come back to our original point in a subsequent post.
For what the doctrine of the Trinity means is that the very inner nature of the Supreme Being itself -- even before its overflow into creation -- is an ecstatic process (beyond time and change) of self-communicating love....Thus the very inner life of God himself, the supreme fullness of what it means to be, is by its very nature, self-communicative Love, which then subsequently flows over freely in the finite self-communication that is creation. No wonder then, that self-communication is written into the very heart of all beings, as finite but positive images of their Source (Clarke).
No wonder! Or better, no stopping it. Will wonder never cease? I hope not. It means you're doing -- or being -- it wrong.
Now, the only caveat I would add has to do with Clarke's little qualifier "beyond time and change," because I suspect that analogues of these exist in God, only as perfections, not in any way privations.
Indeed, to say that "it is necessary for God to Create" does not impose any kind of privation on God, but rather, is the perfection of a necessity of the divine nature: God is who He is, for which reason he never stops (nor starts) doing what He does. Creation has no beginning nor any end, and heaven is our loving participation in this. In my opinion.
9 comments:
Why does it even exist? And why do we allow it to exist?
Political correctness taps into some of the ideas we necessarily must teach little children, on pain of ending up with a generation of complete barbarians instead of well-behaved citizens. Yet somehow, it manages to invert that lofty ideal, such that we are teaching people to become barbarians under the pretense that anyone who isn't "nice" must be bullied into submission, and can't be trusted to behave in polite society. The twist happens when we call evil good and good evil, because noticing what is vile is rarely nice.
Further, to the point of intersubjectivity, that which allows for a civil classroom or a comfortable home life doesn't always translate into getting along well with the wider world.
Good Morning all, Happy Columbus Day.
This is a darn good post. As you noted,
"This post has gotten totally out of hand, as we've veered from what we hoped would be the practical and concrete (common sense) to the farthest edge of the pneumosphere, where most earthlings can hardly breathe."
For this reader, the farthest edge of the pnuemosphere is the area of interest. As you have noted, there is a limit to how far one can go, and I think you may have actually reached it.
Your final paragraph indicated "loving participation in creation is heaven." That may be the furthest reduction possible in regarding the human condition.
Now it has to be back to specifics and particulars, and so therefore you may resume with common sense and your exploration of PC.
And thank you Julie for your comment which sheds further light on the underpinnings of PC and the distortions which are inherent to PC-think.
Trump has made up his mind about the Turk on Kurd fracas. He wants to leave them to duke it out, and whoever wants to join one side or the other may do so, but America will sit this one out.
Although I don't have full intel on everything, I would agree with this approach at this time, with an eye towards keeping up power in the region just in case the equation changes. We should have, and I think we do have, at least one carrier in the Persian gulf and perhaps another in the eastern Mediterranean, and these should probably stay put and watch over the situation.
Love from Tanya AB.
Sometimes, the paranoid conspiracy side of me thinks the New Left (who brought us “political correctness”) was a groupthink conspiracy hatched by the very same type of folks who concocted the now defunct Tea Party Movement. Both seemed, on their surface, like common sense movements meant to enhance common sense behaviors amongst the wee folks.
But I think they were diversions, diversions meant to hide the fact that fertile ground is being confiscated by the powerful few who need to feed their pathological power addictions, at the expense of the many.
At the end of the day, who won and who lost as a result of these movements?
No, I’m in no way am I espousing communism. I like functional capitalism. Give me a uniquely creative garage band singing common life angst, over a dancing corporate formula boy band singing nonsense, or a dancing communist formula boy band praising the state, any day.
Back when I was somebody, I noted that the winners were rarely ever the experts. I noted that the winners actually considered experts, to be fools. Why waste all your precious earthly time continuously learning geeknowledge when you could be investing it into networking and manipulation skills? The former makes you smart, but the latter makes you powerful.
In separate incidents, I met with multinational VPs whose lack of technical knowledge appalled me. Sure, they traveled in impressive entourages well stocked with attractive assistants and kissbutts wearing expensive suits. But mano-a-mano, they were charming dopes.
Give them a break, as in taxes or cheaper labor, and they’ll invest the savings in stock buybacks, unpatriotic outsourcing, or automation while reducing product quality. Why do the hard work of sweating out risky product investment when squeezing is so much easier? In an ideal capitalist society, other smarter, better, more nimble quality companies eat the bloated lazy corrupt companies alive. But this doesn’t happen much anymore, does it?
You get away with this ‘crapitalism’, with diversions. “Look over there! Transsexuals from Transylvania who want your tax money!
So ends my speech about political correctness, with a little tea party thrown in.
Anon 9:56 AM:
Your suspicion PC was a conspiracy is confirmed. PC was a deliberate and ingenious social engineering exploit which originated from San Jose California.
I know, because I helped develop the concept and helped oversee its dissemination to the target groups. PC succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. In fact, it has worked all too well and now must be reined in. I'm not involved with that aspect, I've moved on.
PC was developed at the behest of an umbrella group of different interests, all well monied. This coalition was formalized as the New World Order and is now a solid bloc. PC was a Freemasonry exercise done in order to foster massive tolerance of diversity and thereby pave the way for the dissolution of national borders and the rise of a single global government.
The project is ongoing, doing quite well, and has long range goals out to 500 years. It is a very long range project, the only one of its kind in the world.
Regards, C. Trittellevitz, NWO
Actually it's more like in Goodfellas, where a loose association of sociopaths enforces the only moral rule which is making more money for themselves. All other rules, such as "Never rat on your friends" and "Always keep your mouth shut" derive from that one.
The enemy wound up being competition, law enforcement, ignorance of the Mafia food chain, and basically anything and anybody that got in the way of that primary moral rule. "But sometimes, even if people didn't get out of line, they got whacked. I mean, hits just became a habit for some of the guys." It's the antithesis of Christian values.
When I take off my paranoid conspiracy hat, I note that all human movements start innocently enough and that PC may be one of them. Encouraging more social politeness seems a good way to limit the bullying of innocent out-groups so that all of society gets better aggregate value.
But social movements can get out of hand. Mobs (the ancient Roman kind) tend to work that way. One day it's nerdy beatnik poetry readings about world peace, the next it's a young Darleen from Miami being traumatized by drug-addled hippies.
Mobs can also be manipulated, because they're made up of people who want to be manipulated. Running together in a mindless herd can be invigorating. It's the tribal urge methinks. Manipulators are more than happy to fill that need since it's a good way to enrich and empower themselves. There are temperamental roots to all this, innate personality preferences, to these behaviors. You'd need a background in that sort of thing to understand what I'm talking about.
I do have a comprehensively elegant mental model for all this but it's hard to describe in just a few words. It's not based on any ideological rationalization or boredom but on objective observations of successful sociopaths.
Hi Anon:
To speak of a "successful sociopath" is a bit of an oxymoron if one defines success as loving others and loving God.
How do you define success? That determines how one judges a manipulative wrong-doer. To some they are an injustice and an outrage, to others they may seem to be victims of their own ugliness, forever barred from any hope of success in this world and mired in sex, money and power up to their eyeballs, a living hell.
It should be mentioned I might be somewhat of a sociopath. For what it's worth.
If it was a living hell then why are so many obsessed with it?
It shouldn't be that hard. Sociopathy is anti-christian. It is nihilistic except for ones own personal needs and pleasures. A sociopath is only spiritual when there's less in it for others than themselves, less fisher of men more con-artist.
If success is purely spiritual in nature for you, then feel free to replace "successful" with "satanic". But I think you might be spending a lot more time explaining your neologism to others than the other phrase.
"That really says it all. Although one can always say more, since we're dealing here with the Infinite. For example, "the intrinsic self-diffusiveness of the Good turns into personal love, self-communicative love." Reality is generous, generative, and genesis, all at the same time(less)."
Particle, Wave, Both/Neither.
Point, Circle, Both/Neither.
A circle passing through Flatland.
...argh "A Sphere passing through Flatland."
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