Wednesday, July 15, 2020

A Nation of (Vertical) Immigrants

Horizontal movement would mean little if it weren't bisected by the vertical tension we've been discussing in recent posts. America was settled by people who weren't just interested in physical space, but in a vertical space where they would be free to encounter God in ways not defined and enforced by the state.

As John Adams observed, the horizontal revolution of 1776 was preceded by a vertical revolution that had occurred a generation before. Even Jefferson pleaded for the assistance of “that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them” in this new world. He further proposed a design for the Great Seal of the U.S. depicting "the children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night."

As Novak writes in his On Two Wings, revolutionary era Americans "did not believe that time is cyclical, going nowhere, spinning in circles pointlessly. They believed that history had a beginning and was guided by providence for a purpose":

Time (in the view of the founders) was created for the unfolding of human liberty, for human emancipation.

Regarding the vertical movement -- AKA exodus -- how do we know which way is which, i.e., up from down? Is this in fact a relativistic universe, or has the left always been the vanguard of intrinsic metacosmic error?

History is a record of progress (or decline), measured by permanent standards, God's standards, as learned from and tested by long experience (Novak, emphasis mine).

So, it is possible that the left isn't in error. But only if there exist no permanent standards and transcendent truths by which to judge their ideological pronouncements. How convenient.

History, for the founders, is "open, purposive, contingent in liberty." It

is not a Greek or Roman idea. It is Hebraic.... Probably most of the humans who had ever lived before the arrival of Judaism on the world stage never even heard of "progress".... For Jews and Christians, by contrast, history is heading somewhere new...

All of this is of course bound up with the nature of time: what is it? We've already alluded to Judeo-Christian time, so we won't belabor the point. There is also pre-Hebraic time. We won't belabor that point either. Suffice it to say that pagan time is circular and backward looking, toward a mythic golden age. It is gnostalgic, ordered to a paradisal time before time, about which they are half correct. For in the words of the Aphorist,

The error lies not in dreaming that secret gardens exist, but in dreaming that they have gates.

This much we can know with certainty in this life: the gate is the direction and the direction is the gate. Before Abraham was I AM surely is, and I AM is Truth, Way, Door, Bread, Life, Light, Vine, Shepherd, Resurrection.

But Liberals describe a past that never existed and predict a future that is never realized. Which explains why The liberal mentality is an angelic visitor impervious to earthly experiences. (NGD).

In the words of Petey, the left invents the past it needs in order to justify the impossible future it desires. Moreover, the present crimes of the left are purified of their criminality by the angels of Good Intention.

Back to our permanent exodus. Recall what Novak says above about history being contingent in liberty. In other words, if history is contingent -- and it is -- this is because liberty is necessary. This is a somewhat paradoxical formulation, because we normally think of liberty as that which is free of constraint. It is the necessary condition of our own contingent choices.

Here we must draw a distinction between freedom as such, which is necessary, and what we do with our freedom, which is contingent. There is a distant analogy with God, who is radically free, and yet, "constrained," so to speak, by his own nature -- by love, truth, beauty, goodness, etc. Man too is free and constrained, such that the highest expression of freedom is in conformity with the will of God -- quintessentially so in Jesus, but also in Mary, in whom obedience and freedom converge in one big YES.

"Liberty is the axis of the universe, the ground of the possibility of love, human and divine" (Novak). It is the vertical axis, although it obviously plays out and is prolonged in the horizontal. It very much reminds me of another aphorism, that

The two poles are the individual and God; the two antagonists are God and man.

In other words, man qua man, the individual person, doesn't only exist in the tension between immanence and transcendence, he is this tension. Thus, for God, there are only individuals relating -- or not -- to him in this bidirectional space.

The antagonism comes into play with man (man as such as opposed to such-and-such a man), symbolized by the fall and expressed historically in more ways than can possibly be chronicled: in ideology, identity politics, racism (and racialism), superstition, scapegoating, projection, envy, hatred, et al.

It's not possible to neatly wrap up a post like this. We'll end with some remarks by Voegelin and let you sort it all out:

the very idea that there is a humanity, that there is a mankind, and that one can generalize about man, appears only when certain revelatory insights occur. These are spiritual outbursts.... Only when spiritual insights are attained does man become defined as that being who receives his order through existence from God.

There is therefore a tremendous importance attaching to these spiritual outbursts and insights. The recipients of such insights act as representatives of humanity, with the obligation to communicate their insights to all mankind.... every new insight into order is the beginning of a revolution of more or less considerable dimensions.

In this context, conservatives who specifically wish to conserve the revolutionary insights of the founders are the radicals, while progressive leftists are the backward looking reactionaries. Advocates of these Gnostic and totalitarian movements "feel themselves to be the representatives of mankind, and they feel everyone must be converted to the representative type of truth."

Or face cancellation and exile, which is the shadow of exodus.

As inversions of the archangel in the Bible, Marxist archangels prevent men from fleeing their paradises. --Dávila

25 comments:

Gagdad Bob said...

Good article on why anyone who disagrees with the left is ipso facto a racist. For the left there's no true or false, just innocent or guilty. I know for sure I'm guilty.

Anonymous said...

I’d settle for a ruthlessly meritocratic system like the white people have. Everybody should only be judging each other based solely on merit.

Oh wait, you mean that system is only for "the other guy”?

julie said...

The liberal mentality is an angelic visitor impervious to earthly experiences.

Ha - yes, just so. Just think of how many liberals, the true believers, anyway, consider themselves to be heroes saving the world from whatever evil they believe other people to be suffering. Saw a good example yesterday, from a guy who was enjoying a nice evening out only to witness the forming of an antifa/ BLM riot. Most of the rabble were young white women screaming about how black lives matter - to black people who disagree with their movement.

julie said...

In the words of Petey, the left invents the past it needs in order to justify the impossible future it desires.

No matter how "original" these useful idiots think they are and how "progressive" their ideas, there is literally nothing happening here that hasn't been done before, over and over again, for centuries. It's always the same playbook, and in truth everything "new" is old again. But they wouldn't know that, because the first thing they always do is try to erase history. If you don't know what happened and why, anything seems possible, especially that utopia you've always dreamed of.

Navigating reality without accurate history is like entering a deadly labyrinth without a map, and following the easiest path. That is, the one that leads to the bottomless pit.

Cousin Dupree said...

Regarding comment #2, we can never really have a merit system, if only because so many human gifts -- most notably IQ -- are largely genetic and unmerited.

Likewise music. For example, no one could become Thelonious Monk. You have to be born Monk and then become Monker.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Cuz.

All this racism claptrap is just another diversionary sideshow anyways. There's far more important issues to discuss these days. Plus there’s always gonna be a few nuts out there who we get to tar the entire other team with.

Being one of them, I’m now gonna now describe the racist Trumps administration. The USA is 17.6% Hispanic, with 0% cabinet members. The USA is 17.6% Hispanic, with 0% Hispanic cabinet members. Blacks represent 12.3% of the country, with only 4.5% black cabinet members. But Asians are twice as popular there as they are in the general population.

Asians are just plain smarter than the brownies, yet strangely, far less “Christian”.

Discuss.

Victor Frankl said...

There are only two races: the decent and the indecent.

Cousin Dupree said...

The left will only give up their obsession with race when it becomes self-defeating at the polls. It's not even an obsession; or rather, it's an obsession for the obedient sheep, but only a tactic for the elites that provide the sheep with their thinking points.

Anonymous said...

On a side note, besides besides repeating myself, I watched Fox News yesterday for more than a few minutes. As a Fox News original (the first couple years back in the 90's before it became all Monica, Monica, Monica...) I was appalled.

It seems that today it's all about "the left did this", "the left does that", "dirty rotten bastards, this left".

Yet out here in meatspace I don't see it very much. What I see is a mostly corporate dominated world which was I seems pretty economically conservative. It's like a War on Christmas without any visible casualties. Where's the beef?

Cousin Dupree said...

I personally couldn't care less if Harvard or Berkelely are 100% Asian American. I'm just glad I got them doing my math & computing for me, so I don't have to do it. I have far more interesting things to do.

Anonymous said...

So who gets to decide who's decent or indecent? Rule of Law barely does its job.

What if this decency police winds up being all white people? Or worse, non-Christian Asians?

Should there be an obsession police? Would this be a good topic for Fox News?

I have many more questions.

Anonymous said...

I don't like Asians because the math they do is a gateway drug towards harder stuff, like eastern mysticism.

julie said...

Come and see the racism inherent in the system!

Anonymous said...

As I said last post: your racism is completely obvious. You should own it instead of denying it; nobody buys that crap any more (just ask Tucker Carlson when he comes back from his recent "vacation").

Can't imagine what your professional life must be like, having to keep all this stuff bottled up. Has the cancellation squad found this blog yet? Don't worry, I won't sic them on you, I believe in free speech even for douchebags.

Gagdad Bob said...

I denounce myself.

Confiteur said...

I confess to Almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned. In my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault. Therefore I ask Blessed Mary ever Virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sister, to pray for me to the Lord our God.

Anonymous said...

A citizen has informed us that Bob was the first to stop clapping at the conclusion of the sensitivity training seminar. This will not go unpunished.

Anonymous said...

I confess to Almighty Marx, and to you, my comrades and fellow travelers, that other people have greatly sinned. In their thoughts and in their words, in what they have done and in what they have failed to do, through their fault, their fault, their most grievous fault. Therefore I ask Blessed Lenin ever embalmed, all the tenured, all the media, and you, my comrades, to riot, loot, and tear down some statues.

julie said...

Yep, sounds about right.

Anonymous said...

In far more serious news:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/08/32-percent-of-us-households-missed-their-july-housing-payments.html

Is this a catastrophe in the making? If a third of all Americans are thrown out into the street, the level of disaster, disease and death would be biblical.

Should we be inviting them into our homes and churches? Should we just do what Jesus would’ve done and tell the rich to invite them into their homes? Do we do like a good conservative would do and arm ourselves to the teeth so we can protect our homes?

Gagdad Bob said...

In lieu of room & board I'm allowing Dupree to pay me in kind this month. If he comments less frequently, it's because he's working as my butler.

Gagdad Bob said...

Good rant:

Let’s be clear: the progs don’t give a damn about black lives. For the progs, I repeat, black lives do not matter, at all. The progs condemn black kids to horrid, squalid schools run by overpaid, ignorant, and politically woke “teachers” and administrators. Corrupt, violent, prog-run cities slaughter black people by the dozen, nay, the score on a weekly basis, and yet vow to defund the police which provide the only hope for safety of those very black people. Prog-supported Planned Parenthood, founded by a rabid Nazi-like racist scum, runs an anti-black genocide machine in the guise of providing (Fake) “reproductive health services.” Prog politicians and their Fake anti-poverty, pro-equality socio-economic policies and programs have devastated the black church, the black community, and the very structure of the black family; their “anti-racism” efforts have destroyed decades of effort to eliminate race as a factor in American life; the woke ones now seek to reintroduce segregation into American schools and life.

Anonymous said...

VanderLeun grew up in the hood. He outta know.

Cousin Dupree said...

Is that what he told you? I heard he was created in a lab at Penthouse Magazine in the '70s.

Anonymous said...

The problem with those kind of rants is that they sound too much like yet another angry old man yelling at angry old choirs. Progs are bad because everybody knows that Progs are bad hallelujah!

The problem is that absolutely nobody outside of the choir is going to be much inspired.
Far better, would be explaining clearly and credibly those things which are obvious to outsiders. Why does the ChiCom virus explode every time they try to reopen the economy despite the fact that Trumps cabinet is filled with corporate freedom lovers desperate to get things moving again? Who are these many nefarious funders of progressivism and how can they possibly be outfunding the great many very rich and very powerful corporate freedom lovers?

Outsiders enjoy a good angry old man rant as much as anybody. But if they all sound alike with very little in the way of actual “science” to back them up, they’ll just move on. There are just too many ranty old men out there.

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