Truly truly, one of the reasons we do not respond to trollbait is that Engaging in dialogue with those who do not share our assumptions is nothing more than a stupid way to kill time (NGD). To respond or even read them is to participate in the very stupidity one wishes to avoid.
The only exception to the rule would involve a genuine argument over principles, but this is what the leftist scrupulously avoids, because to clarify his principles is to reveal their absurdity.
Along these lines, a reader alerted me a helpful article called How Metaphysics Can Fix This American Mess, which is a somewhat unfortunate title, being that one of the most important metaphysical principles is the understanding that -- in the words of the Aphorist -- To be a conservative is to understand that man is a problem without a human solution. (https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2021/10/how-metaphysics-can-fix-this-american-mess-john-horvat.html?utm_source=The+Imaginative+Conservative+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5c9a2bb4e1-Weekly+Newsletter_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6c8d563f42-5c9a2bb4e1-132498265&mc_cid=5c9a2bb4e1&mc_eid=4e99f8940d)
In short, one's metaphysic must in some form or fashion acknowledge our primordial catastrophe and our inability to save ourselves, otherwise we fall into a destructive promethean pride no less baleful than its sickular cousin. Obviously, a big part of metaphysics is knowing what man is and where he fits into the total cosmic scheme.
Nor does anything in metaphysics -- i.e., on this side of heaven -- spare us the final leap of faith. To pretend man can live without faith leads to the implicit faith that man is a god, and we all know where that leads.
Moreover, metaphysics is abstract while life is concretely lived, such that one's metaphysical understanding must pass from vague to distinct to realized to lived to transmitted and back.
Consider the subject of this post: is it possible to adequately transmit what one hasn't realized and lived? You might counter that what Bob has realized is stupid or trivial, but you can't deny I've realized it and that I am thereby fully qualified to teach my brand of cosmic stupidity.
Now, while there is only one possible straight line between two points, an infinite number of lines can pass through a single point. At the moment I'm resting in the latter, meaning this post can take off in any number of directions and I have to pick one. Well, I don't literally have to, but if I don't limit myself, the post will never end.
So let's pick a line that's fresh in my mind, the last chapter of Garrigou-Lagrange's Thomistic Common Sense, called The Intellect's First Glance and Contemplation. It begins with the Padre noting the existence of a certain resemblance
between the child's first intellectual glance and the simple contemplation experienced by the old man who has discovered the true meaning and value of life after the trials and disillusions that time brings in order to prepare us for eternity.
What G-L means by that first intellectual glance is the spontaneous understanding that the object of the intellect is being. Not to say this is consciously and distinctly realized or explicated, only that we vaguely apprehend the intelligible being of sensible things; the rest is commentary, no matter how deeply we subsequently penetrate into being
For "without the intellect's first glance on intelligible reality, all human, scientific, and philosophical knowledge would be impossible." Or better, "profound scientific knowledge, accompanied with humility, leads us to return to our primitive view of the whole of things seen from on high..."
Conversely, "in place of the primitive simplicity of an already-elevated glance, one finds the supposedly-learned complexity of a knowledge that in fact slides downward into decay.... If our life is not elevated to the heights of our thought, then the latter does not delay in descending to the level of our life."
And yet, it can cost close to 100k a year for the privilege of immersing oneself in this decay.
We all know the cliche that religion is for the intelligent-but-humble and ordinary-but-lofty souls, whereas it is beyond the reach of typical midwits of the politico-academic-media complex. Similarly, "A little science thus takes away the virtual richness of the first glance," but "much science brings one back to it." Or "much psychology" in my case.
Once we are introduced as children to the intelligibility of being, we're off to the vertical races:
From this moment, the intellect seeks out something that surpasses the senses and imagination: the raisons d'être of things, their "why," their cause.... From this first contact with intelligible reality, our intellect grasps that the true is that which is and that a true judgment is is one that is conformed to reality.
Yes, common sense, but how uncommon -- and often illegal -- it has become in our day. As someone once said, political correctness is a war on noticing, especially commonsensical things such as boys = boys and girls = girls, or CRT = racist filth, or our president = demented crook. "Cancel culture" is just weaponized PC.
Which is understandable for reasons mentioned above: since these authoritarians cannot defend their principles without exposing their absurdity, they must harass, attack, cancel, and investigate those of us with common sense.
Back to our common sense metaphysical principles. If one follows that first glance at intelligible being all the way up, one arrives at something like a Universal and Necessary Object -- or just call it UNO for short.
If you're on the right track, the next thing you'll realize is that I am not that. Then again, I am not exactly not that either, depending upon how we look at it. For one thing, to realize it is to participate in it (or It in us, rather), and isn't that intriguing? This leads to a principle of Incarnation -- or a principle by which it is possible -- but we'll have to tackle that one in a subsequent post.
Penultimate bottomline for today:
A beautiful life is a youthful thought realized in mature age. More beautiful still is the life that, up to its last breath, is the realization of a divine inspiration.
Bottom line goes to Sr. D:
A fulfilled life is one that after long years delivers to the grave an adolescent whom life did not corrupt.
At risk of sounding boastful, I have the adolescent part down.
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