History never repeats but it does often rhyme. This is largely because human nature doesn't change, while the circumstances do; therefore, man qua man can't help saying and doing the same old things, only garbed in new clothing. As Eve was the first progressive, college educated white women (of both genders) may be the last.
Let's take "impeachment," for example. What is it, really? And with what does it rhyme? It seems that it's been with us since before the beginning, only in different guises, from regicide to patricide to deicide. In a superficial sense, today's trial is but a farce. Even so, different motives abound, making it a farce multiplier.
Even among a tribe not known for self-awareness, there are surely some Dems who pretend to support the farce for wholly cynical, tactical, or strategic reasons, e.g., to throw red meat (or fresh organic vegetables, rather) to the base, or to distract from the Biden administration's deeply unpopular policies, or to provide a Totem of Hate to temporarily unify their disparate mob of losers, misfits, and crazies
By the way, you may have noticed from the sidebar that we're on a Garrigou binge, and likely will be for the remainder of the year. However, before gorging ourselves on that feast, I'd like to finish our dialogue with Transcendence and History before it sinks beneath the subjective horizon.
Speaking of the unbloody sacrifice of impeachment, I wonder if today's ritual killing somehow rhymes with communion? Is this but another satanic mass and President Trump the unwitting host in a parallel looniverse?
First, some resonant passages from T & H to set the stage:
the popular concept of the historical past as having receded irretrievably into a distance of time is a misconception based on a failure to appreciate human participation in timeless realities, and to appreciate that all who grasp and enact those realities are brought together in immediate and true contemporaneity (Hughes).
For example, to participate in the Mass is to stand cheek-to-jowl with all co-participants past and future, above (with the saints in heaven) and below. Indeed, it is to em-body the one participant in the one eternal sacrifice that transcends time. It explicitly does not repeat the sacrifice, rather, eternally rhymes with it in an unbloody manner.
(Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin: some bow-tied clown of a chaplain has taken a mask from the ancient gallery and pleaded with his strange god to take control of this impeachment trial. Don't worry, the gods of the left have been summoned and are indeed in control of the proceedings. Carry on.)
Elsewhere in the book Hughes quotes Voegelin to the effect that our modern progressive revolt would be unintelligible if it weren't understood as a deformation of the very Christianity against which it is in revolt.
Let's pull a golden oldie from the shelf, In the Shadow of Moloch, by Martin Bergmann. In a chapter called The Psychology of Sacrifice, he notes that
The rite of sacrifice must meet a deep and universal human need, otherwise we would be at a loss to explain its presence in all known cultures.
I wonder what this need could be? I'm a psychologist. Perhaps it's that familiar
feeling of dread that many men and women, burdened with a sense of guilt, experience when they are particularly successful or when good fortune beyond their expectations befalls them.
Let's say, for example, a group successfully rigs and steals an election. Naturally, this will provoke guilt. The guilt is repressed, but then what? I know! Let's project it into someone else and sacrifice the victim. All in favor say Aye.
The ayes have it. In other words, human sacrifice is always unanimity minus one.
This is truly one of the universal motifs of human history. Every primitive culture practiced human sacrifice, and the left is nothing if not primitive.
One of the explicit purposes of the impeachment is to drive a stake through the heart of the Orange Man so that he can never again haunt the fragile psyches of the left. This too rhymes with the past:
Many students of the subject believe that sacrifices originated in fear of the dead. The Greeks burned their dead so as to banish them to Hades, while certain primitive people dismembered corpses to prevent their returning to life.
Or returning to the White House. In any event, so long as President Trump has secret service protection, dismemberment is probably off the menu. So, impeachment it is.
"Primitive cultures" fear that "One who does not sacrifice will be persecuted, punished." In Mesoamerica, for example, "The continuation of the world, the rising of the sun, depended on sacrifices.... not even the continuation of time could be taken for granted." The gods want blood, and they want it now.
It would be logical at this point to segue to Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled, but unpacking it would take all day. Just read the book, which will be like reading today's news, only forever. The bottom line, as Bergmann says, is that the Crucifixion "was the central sacrifice in the history of the world and made all subsequent sacrifices superfluous."
51 comments:
Let's take "impeachment," for example. What is it, really? And with what does it rhyme? It seems that it's been with us since before the beginning, only in different guises, from regicide to patricide to deicide.
Impeachment is clearly provided for in the Constitution, which I thought you held to be divinely inspired. So if it's deicide, it's approved by the victim.
Equating the impeachment of a president with killing god is quite an extreme form of idolatry. The whole point of a democracy is that we are allowed to remove our leaders without resort to regicide. If it "rhymes", it's because we aren't really yet adapted to a secular democracy and are still under the sway of theocracy and the divine right of kings.
Concur: the left hasn't adapted to secular democracy and is still under the sway of theocracy and the divine right of kings.
the left hasn't adapted to secular democracy and is still under the sway of theocracy and the divine right of kings
Talk about projection. It's fascinating how religious conservatives must perceive centrist Christian Dems as atheist marxists in order to make their logic work.
In the Christianity of the leftist Christian, one of the two elements sooner or later eliminates the other.
But even the leftist Christian makes it heaven, whether God knows that they're actually just a centrist or not.
Trump’s major achievement was proving that fascism is a feature of the extreme right. Even stocking the courts with conservatives was a fiasco for MAGAs, none of whom ruled in Trumps election favor. Everything else Biden just nixes and we’ll all be back to where we started in no time. Buy your Jim Bakker Buckets today.
Trump’s major achievement was proving that fascism is a projection of the left.
"I know you are but what am I" logic.
Unfortunately in the adult world, this doesn't jibe with anything factual.
Only with the principle of non-contradiction without which logic is impossible.
This is truly one of the universal motifs of human history. Every primitive culture practiced human sacrifice, and the left is nothing if not primitive.
It occurs to me just now, we are living in the timeline of Revenge of the Nerds. Except in reality, the leftists are the jocks, and the deplorables are the nerds...
Victory declared: "Human Sacrifice & Other Forms of Impeachment", wins the intent today as the rest of the internet grudgingly turns in, retires, hoping to fight again another day.
Have to wade through some clutter anymore to leave a comment here. That someone could not see that a head of state, be it a democratically elected one, one selected by the mediacracy, or an absolute monarch, is a proxy for the divine order of the cosmos, or the Deity, and, as such, is a sacrificial victim at all times, only with a temporarily suspended sentence, is evidence of not having read the homework, trollish meconnaisance.
Glad to see your good word for Gil Bailie. It was in Rene Girard's work i first encountered the phrase "unanimity minus one". Highly relevant for the current blogpost.
And Nicolas, you have a wonderful economy of language.
The deluded are prolix.
Hi Mark, over time you will come to understand Nicolas writes marvelous pithy aphorisms which nevertheless fall short. Extra points for trying however.
This post competently distills the petulant displeasure the blog author feels over the impeachment into a bitter potion.
Like every post Godwin write this is a fun read; also one of the most outrageous send-ups the good Doctor has ever written. The impeachment as a pagan human sacrifice offered to the Leftist Gods as atonement for their success at stealing the election? Marvelous Zaftig satire!
But wait, it was not intended to be satire? Then what the...?
Oh. OHHH. It's like that then, is it?
Over time the Dr. shall mend worry not. This has all been such a shock to the poor dear.
…to participate in the Mass is to stand cheek-to-jowl with all co-participants past and future, above (with the saints in heaven) and below. Indeed, it is to em-body the one participant in the one eternal sacrifice that transcends time. It explicitly does not repeat the sacrifice, rather, eternally rhymes with it in an unbloody manner.
Now that’s what I’m talking about. Remember the days when anybody could just go to mass without having to wade past all the political ideological clutter? Most newbies felt welcome. Happy to have anybody, we'd say. Remember Matthew 6:24, or Romans 13:1, or 1Timothy 2:1-6… ? Notice how Bob never quotes scripture?
The impeachment will obviously fail given the current state of congress, but hopes to further discredit a president who clearly incited an riot, pocketed donations from followers for his own “legal defense fund”, and then won’t even pay his own legal bills (Giuliani, sucker.) for fighting a ridiculously uphill “election fraud” battle with “evidence” that’s continuously thrown out by his own appointees. There’s plenty of evidence out there folks. Just ask Rudy.
Let's say, for example, a group successfully rigs and steals an election. Naturally, this will provoke guilt. The guilt is repressed, but then what? I know! Let's project it into someone else and sacrifice the victim.
This is one of the dumbest few sentences I have ever read. It assumes that anybody rigging elections will always feel repressed guilt which must be projected onto a scapegoat. Meanwhile in reality, most real people into rigging elections will only fake guilt (if caught) but never feel it. No need for mental defenses when you don’t even have the feelings to defend against. And then Bob routinely calls the Dems demonic, idiotic, and psychopathic, which you’d think would effectively eliminate any of the “guilt” they should be feeling.
I hate most Dems as much as Mark does, but seriously, give me actual evidence of a stolen election and I’ll be right there loading your insurrection guns for you.
Believing that he roars, the youth brays.
So an impeachment is a sacrifice, but also a farce. That's deep.
Either put on these glasses or start eating that trashcan.
Nothing arouses more mutual disdain than a difference in amusements.
The left has always been nerds. Scientists, techies, academics, Lamars, Boogers, and Poindexters. But now we’ve got the BLMs from Lambda, Lambda, Lambda and we’ll be seeing how you Alpha Beta corporate boys do now.
If the left says Trump is a fascist, nobody panics, because it's all part of the plan. But point out that it's psycho to impeach a president who's not even president, and the trolls lose their minds.
The Joker, nothing you said is based in reality.
Trump is a failed fascist, a clown prince who cause a great many people to panic. Maybe all the other people mocking him confused this? I'd think that you would've noticed that all your own news sources told you this was so. But maybe you've forgotten already?
They impeach to send a message to any future fascist wannabes who may have better advisors than the My Pillow Guy and Kanye West. Maybe someone more cunning could actually gain control over the military to where they can successfully declare martial law. And then say whatever they want which authoritarian enablers would fully embrace since this is how fascists like Franco and Pinochet rolled. The proven triple strategy: Gain the support of corporations, religious leaders and the military.
True, the Dems are weak, their integrity having been chipped away with temptations like free Teslas and lucrative donor gifts which their rivals on the other side of the aisle have been getting for years. For the purpose of stock bonuses after sending jobs overseas and employing illegal labor.
You know things are getting bad when even France says America is just too progressive.
God created projection in order to let us know what leftists are thinking.
America is too progressive = Who will save our ass the next time we get rolled?
Not creepy at all --tracking down the few remaining normals in San Francisco.
Wow. I love how in the SF author's mind the horrifying part is that there are Trump supporters in San Francisco. Sniffing them out block by block is totally fine, though.
If you go to the NY Times link, there's a county by county map that shows exactly how and where Dems stole the election. In all the corrupt Dem cities where they closed down the voting overnight, there are precincts where Biden got over 95% of the vote!
It's pretty horrible when you look at the actual data, that the fate of the country has been determined by massive amounts of fraud in just a handful of counties across the country.
Pretty sure that's exactly the opposite of what the founders intended, but since they are a bunch of dead white slave holders... *shrug*
What data?
NPC speak.
In corrupt Dem precincts, Biden is more popular than Castro was in Cuba.
That's because dead people can only vote once in Cuba.
Julie, your (very brief) Newsmax article only mentions two sources by name.
Emmanuel Macron is a staunch LREM, the French equivalent of neoliberal Clintonism which allowed jobs and technology to flood to China and illegals into the USA, while hiding behind gay and gender rights. This “third way centrism”, are actually libertarian concepts. The intentions may be good, but that road is obviously paved with a great many problems, because as often described here, human sin + power.
I know less about Nathalie Heinich the sociologist, but do tend to agree with her unspoken belief that a beneficial sense of nationalism is under subtle but forceful attack by my above mentioned “Clintonism”, with corporate and plutocratic blessings and donations. In her examples, “cancel culture” is ruinous to French culture and ethnicity.
Meanwhile back in America, “cancel culture” describes the same sort of tribally-inspired exclusionary behaviors. Unfortunately, this happens as frequently on the right, as demonstrated when the media covering the Capitol riot had their equipment smashed. I’m fairly confident that had leftists like antifa, BLM or even FDR fans been obviously present, their culture would’ve been canceled in a most violent way.
The Founders intended (and later successfully demonstrated) that ideas from loyal opposition could be winnowed into best-fit national solutions to complex problems.
But then Edward Bernays hadn't been born yet.
Dupree: "We don't need no stinking data badges!"
Cliffs notes on Bernays:
"He described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct and outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in desirable ways."
Anybody wonder why congress has such historically low approval ratings?
We don't need to show you no steenking registration!
You people are truly delusional... You don't use logic to form your beliefs... You form your beliefs without any evidence and stick by them regardless. Not once in a court of law did Trump's minions claim fraud as there was no evidence of it. What they did claim was thrown out. So, no evidence can be presented that is even serious enough for Trump to even present in a court of law, but you people believe in fraud.
You would think it would be only the mindless masses the believe this drivel, but her we have well educated people that have been duped and how can well educated and what appear to be smart people have such abjectly stupid beliefs. Very sad.
Do you have the ability to look at anything objectively? No one side can always be 100% wrong and the other 100% right.
There are tons of things seriously wrong with the democrats and ditto for the republicans. It is find to think one is a lot worse than the other. It is moronic to see 100% evil on one side and not have the ability to look at individual issues based on the facts.
And if you have the ability to be honest with yourselves, let's say that the shoe was on the other foot and Biden had made such baseless claims. Would you really have the same stance? Of course not. You are disingenuous. Facts and reality don't matter. It is your side at all costs. You are are a pathetic sad bunch of people. If things did or do go your way in the future, you can kiss democracy goodbye.
Ok, you can go back to your hysterics now... I don't expect a serious response. Bob will post a nonsensical quip and poor gullible Julie will refer to some more drivel that she finds on the Internet without giving any of it any logical thought.
Oh, but the way, Julie, are you still chuckling about the press overdoing the riot on the capital (or the protest as your source of propaganda would say). You must really be rolling on the floor viewing the violence and people getting beat up and the senators and congressional members of both parties running fin fear or their lives Of course that really doesn't matter. All that matters is the propaganda that you mindlessly subscribe to.
The fool calls “prejudices” the conclusions that he does not understand.
There you go... Instead of defending you position with facts, you insult anyone who doesn't agree with you. A fool is someone who doesn't have the ability to objectively look at something based on facts. I'm not the fool here. It isn't the fact that you and your posse behave foolishly that bothers me. It is that people can be so swayed by nonsense and be willing to throw democracy out the door. The stupid people will buy into anything and do what they are told. There isn't much hope if people that have the ability to think don't exercise that ability.
The fool finds any noble place into which he enters deserted.
Come see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! Senators are being repressed!
Well, one area where you did get me was the old saying "you can't argue with a fool". It is fruitless to try to have an objective discussion with you based on facts. You can put your head back in your ass now (watch out for Julie).
You are never going to be happy... You have your preconceived notions and you will never examine any of them with rational thought. You will just moan and groan about all of the injustices that the evil left is placing on you (isn't there a term for someone who thinks everyone is out to get them?). If we ever did get the kind of government you want (i.e. dictatorship), you would be happier. As an another anon said, you need someone to direct your anger at. You go girl... Keep going after that evil left or whatever manifestation of evil you want to flail your attention at without actually looking at specific actions you don't like. At least you do have some rubes that believe what you say and who will give you positive feedback.
Modern stupidities are more irritating than ancient stupidities because their proselytes try to justify them in the name of reason.
"Please stop asking me to form an opinion around your hallucination that someone 'incited an insurrection.' That only happened in your imagination and was created by the Fake News Industry. I don't form policy opinions around the hallucinations of strangers."
In a century where the public media divulge infinite stupidities the cultured man is not defined by what he knows but by what he ignores.
Just remember what old Jack Burton does when the earth quakes and the poison arrows fall from the sky and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big old storm right in the eye and says "Give me your best shot. I can take it."
I do not belong to a world that perishes. I extend and transmit a truth that does not die.
Apologies to Julie: I included you in a crude remark in response to one of Bob's inflammatory replies above. That was wrong. I disagree with you, but you have never been rude.
I don't form policy opinions around the hallucinations of strangers.
Fascinating how projection works. I remember Dilbert, Scott Adams lucrative cartoon grift. Cubicle people assumed he related to their plight, mostly the folly of the Peter Principle and unethical office politics. Then I found out most of his ideas had been sent in by cubicle people themselves. They’d send Scott ideas and Scott would cartoon the better ones. And then cubicle people would laugh at their own ideas which they’d sent in. Easy money. Almost a grift, in fact.
Modern conservatism means never having to say you’re sorry for grifting, because as Nicolás says, it’s easier to just ignore what you don’t like. But don’t tell others, because that’d be cancel culture.
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