Thursday, September 01, 2022

Make Reality Great Again

So, reality is the original resistance: it is what objects to our subjectivity:

I might be able to ignore it, change it, misinterpret it for a while, maybe because of a certain simplifying "theory" or a preconceived ideology.... In the long run, however, such an object will assert itself, unless I simply turn away from it; it will make its presence felt, it will disturb me.... it will be in the way (Pieper).

Having said that, it is obviously much more difficult to ignore "objective objects" than "objective subjectivity." In other words, if you imagine that cars or bullets or hurricanes aren't real, then Darwin will take care of you pretty quickly. But especially in the modern world, you can spend your whole life in denial of human nature (which is what we mean by "objective subjectivity," more on which as we proceed).

Note that one way to get rid of those annoying objective objects is to posit a wholly subjective subjectivity, whereby "perception is reality."  

But if perception is reality, then of course there is no such thing as reality, precisely. You may be tempted to regard this as a "bug" when it is very much a feature for those who wish to believe it; it is why the left is so pervaded by losers, misfits, cranks, perverts, vegans, feminists, ideologues, psychopaths, and spiteful mutants in general. The left will always be with us, because it is a collective defense against vertical reality (objective subjectivity). 

It reminds me of how viruses evolve to be less deadly. It's the same with vertical parasites. Nazism, for example, lasted only twelve years. It was an acute version of what can only survive if it is a more chronic illness; nor can a civilization persist if the disease afflicts the majority. We are in the process of finding out why, and tonight Brandon will make his case against the millions of dangerous fanatics who reject the mass delusions of the left. In the inverted world of his handlers, those of us who are in touch with reality are the extremists, and they're not wrong.

Pieper notes that a comprehensive philosophy must deal with "everything that is given, within as well as without" -- in other words, the world of both objects and of the subject who apprehends them. We have various sciences to investigate the former, but the latter -- the subject -- obviously requires a different approach, since it is the one doing the science. 

It reminds me of the Israeli saying that We don't believe in miracles. Rather, we only depend on them. Likewise, science may not believe in the soul, but surely requires it. Call it what you want, but it is that immaterial power through which the mind abstracts essences. If it doesn't exist, then I'm not conveying meaning and you're not comprehending it. 

Nevertheless, this is the founding principle of the left. This is not to suggest that leftists are capable of drawing out the implications of their own beliefs, for if they were, they wouldn't be leftists. Rather, this is a pre-political orientation to reality that then determines politics as one of its entailments.

This may sound polemical, but it is actually a banal truth, nor do leftists ever stop telling us about it. To cite an obvious example, any idiot can claim that a man is a woman. However, doing so requires an underlying philosophy to justify the claim. 

This philosophy is only the latest version of a very old form of sophistry called nominalism, which denies essences. Once you deny essences, then anything can be anything, which is incredibly convenient for people who do not or cannot acknowledge reality.

You can see this in Matt Walsh's What is a Woman?, when he poses the question to that pompous and prickly professor who refuses to answer and accuses Walsh of the sin of "essentialism." Essentialism is the pre-postmodern superstition that posits an intelligible world of abstract categories such as trees, minerals, and women. Conversely, nominalism is the anti-philosophy that says each thing we encounter is radically individual, that there is no objective order in the world. It's not actually even thinkable, but people think it anyway.

At the extreme opposite end of nominalism is an assertion such as, oh, "we hold these truths to be self-evident" yada yada, because this assumes a rational (because created) universe with intelligible truths about the subjects inhabiting it. 

In other words, human nature is real, and is accompanied by certain intrinsic rights. It may sound liberating -- and it is -- but like any essence or form, it's actually a limit; therefore, if you don't believe it, then you are free to believe anything. The rest is history -- the history of the left, which is in turn parasitic on the timeless rejection of the subjective real.

15 comments:

Gagdad Bob said...

A comment at Instapundit illustrates just how extreme we are:

They sicced the IRS on us.
They let Hillary skate.
They spied on Trump, using bogus FISA court applications.
They tried to frame Trump as a Russian agent using the Hillary-created Steele dossier.
They created the Russia Hoax, and investigated Trump for two years.
They lied about and slandered Brett Kavenaugh as a rapist.
They covered up and protected the Biden Family Corruption Racket, and had 50 of their Deep State heads label Hunter's laptop "Russian disinformation" right before the 2020 election.
They impeached Trump for talking about Biden's corruption, where Biden admitted getting the Ukranian prosecutor of his son fired as Biden threatened withholding a billion dollars in US aid, while Hunter was on the Ukranian payroll.
They destroyed our small businesses with lockdowns, while letting Dem-contributing Big Corp stores stay open.
They made our children wear masks, even while playing outside.
They encouraged the 2020 BLM riots, and protected the criminals from prosecution.
They closed our schools to appease the teachers' unions.
They changed the election laws in the battleground states to effectuate the Steal.
They called us insurrectionists for protesting the Steal.
They imprisoned us for protesting the Steal.
They forced citizens to inject an experimental "vaccine" under threat of losing their jobs, and are continuing to hide the facts about the serious side effects of the jab.
They destroyed our border, allowing an invasion of millions of unknown, unchecked non-citizens into our country and communities.
They destroyed and demoralized our police forces, and implemented "no bail" laws which allowed the criminals to run free to murder and rape and rob.
They killed our energy sector to force us into electric cars so they can control how we travel.
They labeled us "domestic terrorists" for raising concerns about trannny insanity and CRT in our schools.
They raided Trump's home for... documents?
They use Big Tech to silence and censor us.

ted said...

Well, you can't argue that Biden hasn't accomplished anything.

Gagdad Bob said...

Touché. Certainly more accomplished than Lightbringer McHopenchange.

julie said...

In other words, human nature is real, and is accompanied by certain intrinsic rights. It may sound liberating -- and it is -- but like any essence or form, it's actually a limit; therefore, if you don't believe it, then you are free to believe anything.

Along those lines, somebody recently posted the Feminist Rules for Writers, which pretty clearly describe the plots of most movies and TV shows with a female lead character these days, culminating in the following:

"Ninth: She is now an independent woman who will never need a man. And she must continue her journey alone. Any other person in her life will hold her back. She will never love or be a wife or a mother. Those things would all hold her back.

Tenth: Realized self-actualization. She was always a goddess and just needed to believe how awesomely amazing she always was herself."

Gosh, what a compelling storyline.

Nicolás said...

Upon finding himself perfectly free, the individual discovers that he has not been unburdened of everything, but despoiled of everything.

Nicolás said...

Total liberation is the process that constructs the perfect prison.

julie said...

Along those lines, reading this at Ace's today about children's hospitals giving puberty blockers and essentially sterilizing drugs to minors, it's as though they wish to create actual, living human drones: people who, as adults (assuming they haven't lost the will to live), will utterly lack a sex drive or the means to reproduce. The only motivating factor in their lives will be career, food and entertainment.

Transhumanism, indeed. It's as though they've decided that since Marxism doesn't work for our species, they must change the species.

Gagdad Bob said...

The New Castrati creating newer ones.

Gagdad Bob said...

I'm reading a biography of Heinrich Himmler, and the extent of Nazi obsession with sexuality is insane. Seems to be a universal preoccupation of the left.

julie said...

Through investments in the techno-medical complex, where new highly medicalized sex identities are being conjured, Pritzkers and other elite donors are attempting to normalize the idea that human reproductive sex exists on a spectrum.

Reproductive sex isn't on a spectrum at all. For human beings, reproduction requires male and female, sperm and egg and a uterus where the baby can develop. Everything else, the so-called spectrum, is cosmetic and generally moves away from reproduction and toward sterility.

julie said...

And indeed, they never stop obsessing about sex, the more perverted the better.

Gagdad Bob said...

A fantasy analysis -- extracting the emotionally tinged words -- of Brandon's tirade yields the following:

assault threats threats burning burns threatens intimidated threat painful violence threat brutally attacking dagger at the throat danger threat threats attack assault fear division darkness anger chaos violence violence violence fatal dangers violence violence brutally attacked intimidation death threats threats mass violence rioting inflammatory dangerous violence violence chaos fierce mean nasty total war carnage darkness despair fear darkness darkness violence hate

Sounds like a Democrat run city.

julie said...

Hell is the inside of Brandon's brain.

julie said...

It’s as though he’s having a panic attack and projecting the source of his panic on everyone who didn’t vote for him.

Gagdad Bob said...

I think as his mind slowly disintegrates neuron by neuron, all that's left is a rotten core of hatred and depravity.

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