Between truth and dream, I know what I want: a dreamy truth -- like truth as depicted in, say, myth.
I say this after having finally gotten around to watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Gagdad Jr. Myth is not truth, obviously. But equally obviously, there is truth in myth. Which isn't so strange when you think about it, for it turns out the same is true of history:
Truth is in history, but history is not truth (Dávila).
How can this be? I hate to give credit for anything to postmodernity, but it does at least appreciate the significance of narrative, even if it immediately throws away its deeper meaning. For it is as if they say: Truth is expressed in narrative, therefore, there is no truth. Rather, there are only competing narratives that mask the will to power.
To put it in mythological terms, there is only the Ring of Power, and anyone who tries to pretend otherwise is either naive or trying to con you. But the truth of what they say isn't new at all, and what they say that's new isn't true.
It is interesting -- spoiler alert in case there's one other person who hasn't seen the movie -- that when finally faced with the choice of forsaking the ring, Frodo can't do it. Best he can do is prevent someone else from having it, Gollum. Frodo essentially murders his rival, and the ring goes down with him.
Now that expresses a perennial Truth of human nature: if I can't have it, then no one else can, AKA, primordial envy.
As we've discussed in the past, envy is not the same as greed, which merely desires the object. Rather, envy is much more pernicious, as it is driven to destroy the very thing that arouses its desire. Think of Hitler, who ordered his general to reduce Paris to rubble rather than surrender it to the allies: Paris must not pass into the enemy's hands, except as a field of ruins.
Ironically, the Nazi general who refused the order has sometimes been called the Savior of Paris.
Say what you want about Hitler, at least he had a consistent ethos: with the allies closing in, he issued what is called the Nero Decree, which ordered the total destruction of anything of value before it fell into the hands of the enemy. Indeed, if Germany couldn't prevail in the struggle, then this only proved Germans themselves to be unworthy of life. Now that is pure envy.
Reminds me of Hillary in 2016: if I can't have the ring, then at least I can destroy Trump and democracy. The spite continues. If they're going to lose in November, might as well cause as much chaos and destruction as possible -- to our cities, to the border, and to the economy -- and then blame Republicans for it.
At this point I could veer into a post on Chesterton and Lewis to flesh out the notion of dreamy truth, but that's been done. At One Cosmos we prefer to employ strange words to seek out old civilizations, and to blog where no blogger has blogged before.
Let's start with some additional aphorisms before we light out for the territories. Or head off to Trader Joes, whichever comes first.
Just as there are truths that can only be painted, so there are others that are only expressed in legends.
The bridge between nature and man is not science, but myth.
Man often believes he is exchanging a fable for a truth when he is merely exchanging one fable for another fable.
What I want to say is that man cannot avoid myth, because he is a historical -- which is to say, temporal -- being. Not to champion the obvious again, but we simply cannot avoid stories and narratives to structure the deployment of truth in time. Now,
Nothing is explainable outside of history, but history is not enough to explain anything.
Read "narrative" for history, and you get the point. However, not all narratives are created equal, and many are created specifically to deceive, beginning with the narrator.
A myth is a narrative, but not all narratives are myths. Rather, there are rules, i.e., a hierarchy of truths, and if you confuse the top with the bottom, or vice versa, you are surely entering a world of pain. We'll just end with this aphoristic truism and pick up the thread tomorrow:
News stories are the substitute for truths.
Fairy tales for the tenured -- for educated white women, the low information crowd, the envious, the corporate gollums, the groomers and other deviants, etc.
15 comments:
As I sit alongside Lake Michigan, as I currently am, or any natural setting for that matter where the beauty of nature envelops you, so to speak, I think of the narrative revealed, which many may consider a simple myth, in the creation story. Specifically, I am thinking of Genesis 1:31, wherein we are informed "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." Thinking on that specific narrative, and how all people when exposed to natural wonders and beauty also think this is very good, I cannot help but think that the beauty all people seem to realize when they perceive natural wonders are experiencing the beginnings of the hierarchy of truth you have contemplated in this post. If only they would be willing to pursue this further vertically.
Z Man:
The reaction to the inflation report is a good example of how the people in charge believe their own narratives. The never ending debate on this side of the great divide is whether they believe their nonsense. When it comes to the economy, they can talk themselves into anything.
On the perception of beauty:
--All beauty is susceptible to a Christian interpretation.
--From an aesthetic experience one returns as from a sighting of numinous footprints.
--Aesthetics is the sensible and secular manifestation of grace.
The natural and the supernatural are not overlapping planes, but intertwined threads.
In order to abolish all mystery, it is enough to view the world with the eyes of a pig.
The meanings are the reality; their material vehicles are the appearance.
I see you didn't waste your time with the Amazon produced LotR series. Don't bother. I watched the first episode and was bored to tears. Tolkien rolls in his grave.
One good effect of the new Amazon abomination is that several people I know are now trying to read the Silmarillion. It was over my head when I was young, but now seems like a good time to give it a go.
Speaking of narratives, someone sniffs Joe Biden for a change.
Apologies for causing any instances of hyperemesis.
He who does not smell sulfur in the modern world has no sense of smell.
Heh - I lost my sense of smell briefly back in 2020 when I had Covid. It was weirdly terrifying, knowing that there could be a fire in the next room and I wouldn't smell a thing. I practically buried my nose in a jar of Vaporub, and... nothing.
Imagining half the population with a missing or malfunctioning sense of smell is rather apropos.
I temporarily lost my sense of smell back in the '90s, when I was reading people like Chomsky, Zinn, & Foucault. I wondered why everybody doesn't know this stuff?! They do now.
This day last week Thursday as I was cutting back with a hedge shears some overgrowth to the undergrowth of a whitethorn hedge that was encroaching on the pathway in my garden something glimmering on a cut nettle leaf now at my feet caught my attention which at first I dismissed as a raindrop as I was working between showers, but it's golden reflections demanded my attention and on closer inspection it was like nothing I'd seen before. It was like a gold trinket about half an inch long, roughly oblong in shape and a quarter of an inch in diameter at it's thickest, and the tiny bumps and ridges on it made it look like a very miniature dinosaur. What's more it appeared to be growing out of the nettle leaf by it's few millimetre long tail and when disturbed went into a very energetic spasm that would last up to a minute before coming to a standstill. I got a jar and put the creature and it's leaf in it while I decided what to do with it and when night was approaching decided to put it back in the undergrowth where it had been and noting the spot. The following morning as it was still there I thought I'd attempt to remove it from the leaf which seemed to confirm my view that it was growing from the leaf as when I removed it fibrouslike material came with it and was now attached to it's tail. At this stage being of the mind that Geneses 3 is an account of how evolution begun and the consequences of it I toyed with the idea was this the fruit that Eve thought was pleasing to the eye and good for wisdom that was the catalyst. It was later that same day Friday that I looked up online the development of butterflies as although it had occurred to me earlier that there was the possibility it might be a chrysalis, because it's appearance didn't conform to my idea of what it would look like I didn't entertain it. Now I found that it was indeed a chrysalis and what I'd taken to be fibrouslike material was in fact silk thread that had become unraveled when I removed it from the leaf. That evening I pinned my chrysalis by this silk wool using a thumbtack to a low lying branch of an elderberry bush and checking on it over the following days was convinced by Monday night that it was dead as it had lost all of it's lustre and had turned greyish black in colour and unresponsive when touched. When I went up the garden to check on it Tuesday morning I had no expectations so you can imagine my surprise when I found it shaking violently in the gentle breeze. On closer examination I found it was doing so because it was an empty shell and then I noticed clinging to the side of the same branch a few inches away a butterfly with it's wings folded, but not completely and I could see red, black and white colours on them. I didn't disturb it and when I returned later in the afternoon I was glad to find it had flown. It would be appropriate if it was a monarch butterfly which are plentiful in these parts as the day I found the chrysalis was Thursday 8th September the day the Queen of England died.
Interestingly, a lot of butterfly species have a chrysalis or cocoon that looks like shiny metal. Good examples here, although it may not be the species of butterfly you saw.
Interesting article by Abigail Shrier on Americans (dollars to donuts it's mostly leftist Americans) who don't want to raise "American" children. Interesting that the main reason seems to be how American culture is so destructive for kids. One more set of reasons to homeschool; out kids are learning Latin, not because we don't want them to be American but because we want them to better understand their own language and the development of languages. When we teach them history, especially American history, they know that it isn't the history of just some people who happened to live on the same continent as us, it's our history and their heritage.
Yes julie, the one I encountered wouldn't have been as shiny as them examples and slightly darker. A similar ringed design at the end where it's hanging by a thread, but with ridges and tiny circles adorning the other end and less symmetrical at that end also. Also the colour wasn't consistent as it faded sometimes with dark patches appearing on it. Anyway let's hope we cheeky monkeys didn't have butterflies in our stomachs as we hid from God as we heard Him approach after our meal and I'd like to hear the other side of the story as to Who kicked Who out of The Garden.
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