It’s Indigenous Peoples' Day, the day we forget there are no indigenous peoples outside Africa. The rest of us are an invasive species, irrespective of our status in the Progressive Token Pole. On that score the anthropological science is settled, chief.
To scandalize the leftist, just speak the truth.
Done.
Here's another truthbomb: reality is what is. (!)
But isness as such includes the nebulous world of potency, which in turn relates to what we were saying yesterday about the telos of human development (a telos which either obviously exists or is obviously impossible).
Put it this way: a human being cannot grow up to be a lion or planet or computer. Such developments are not in the teleological cards, because they are neither in the human form nor its proper end. Thus, they are examples of what cannot be, full stop. In short, impossible, and necessarily so.
On the other hand, the human form harbors an almost infinite potential, and this potential is not nothing. It is the great shadow world of the Might Be. Between the Might Be and the Is is where all the action is: for example, moral action, epistemological action, artistic action -- or the Good, True, and Beautiful, respectively. And more. But also less, since truth implies error as beauty implies Joy Behar.
All other animals -- not to mention inanimate things -- are enclosed in their form, and if we’re going to be serious about trying to understand our cosmic situation, we need to explain how we -- Homo sapiens -- managed to slip the furry bonds of biological form into this quasi-infinite vertical space.
How is it that you and I are sitting here enjoying our basic freedoms while finishing our coffee, with no prior restraint? Don’t run away from this conundrum. It affects us all.
Two things to bear in mind: first, while we transcend our biological form, obviously we do not do so completely: you could say that the soul is incarnated or that the body is excarnated, but it's both and neither, since it’s a unique pickle to be in.
Second, while the human form is quasi-infinite, it is not literally infinite, but rather, bound by certain limits. There are rules, not just general ones but particular ones, since the most important aspect of the human form is its unique expression in each one of us.
In the abstract, the human being can be a lot of things, but each of us is an individual, meaning certain potentials and certain limits. A species of unique instances is a logical contradiction, but here we are. The inability of material science to account for the immaterial human form is settled.
It reminds me of the cliche that in United States you can grow up to be anything you want to be. The truth is actually better than that, because -- at least back in my day, prior to the tyranny of progressive conformity (or rebellion, which redounds to the same anti-telos) -- you can grow up to be who you are.
I, for example, could have been any number of things that might have interfered with being who I actually am. Paradoxically, infinite choice can derail finite freedom, preventing us from reaching our proper telos.
The crack above about the tyranny of progressive conformity reminds me of a few hearty laughorisms:
Freedom is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.
Nevertheless,
Freedom is not an end, but a means. Whoever sees it as an end in itself does not know what to do with it when he gets it.
Which is why
Freedom is not indispensable because man knows what he wants and who he is, but in order for him to know who he is and what he wants.
8 comments:
All other animals -- not to mention inanimate things -- are enclosed in their form,...
This is true, but certain people make to the attempt to escape their enclosed form, i.e. men pretending they're women, and vice versa, or the whole furry thing. Maybe some will now attempt to be crows, considering researchers recently proclaimed that they possess consciousness, though they may find that problematic if they attempt their first flight from a high perch.
https://original.newsbreak.com/@fareeha-arshad-1587440/2742193154517-researchers-record-for-the-first-time-that-crows-have-conscious-thoughts?_f=app_share&s=a3&share_destination_id=MTkwMjg1NzA0LTE2NjUyMzY4NzAzMjI=&pd=0CsQ0G92&hl=en_US&send_time=1665236870&actBtn=floatShareButton&trans_data=%7B%22platform%22%3A1%2C%22cv%22%3A%2222.39.3%22%2C%22languages%22%3A%22en%22%7D
Quite true: always and everywhere leftism is a rebellion against human nature and the nature of reality more generally: a flight from the real into the impossible. Which is why "leftism" is not a "political stance" but the political entailment of a prior ontological stance, AKA Genesis 3 All Over Again.
The truth is actually better than that, because ... you can grow up to be who you are.
Following on the above comments, it's almost as if people are educated in such a way that they hate what they are, and so spend their lives trying desperately to be something else. Girls are told their whole lives that they can be anything... but if they want to be "wife" and "mother," that is contemptible. But also if they act too masculine, they are probably really a boy and should excise all their female parts. Those won't be needed anyway, since the former girl won't be doing any of that icky breeding and child rearing. Instead "he" (or whatever) will be out there creating content for TikTok and changing the world!
"there are no indigenous peoples outside Africa"
Not them either. Those were genetic engineering experiment by the Carthaginians and so synthetic.
Would that be Carthage, Tennessee or Carthage, Missouri?
Freedom is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.
Indeed. But why all the angst over trannies, body mods, hippies, rappers, the working poor, and halfrican presidents? Not their policies mind you, but the way they look?
Can we still do whatever we want to if we all look within a certain religious tolerance? Asking for a friend who looks really Neanderthal. And it only becomes more obvious when he wears his Sunday suit.
The majority of new customs are old behaviors that Western civilization had shamefacedly confined to its lower-class neighborhoods.
As always, I fully agree with everything you said.
But here’s the thing. I took my Neanderthal friend to church on the condition that he’d clean up a bit, which he did. But the response to him wasn’t very nice. Even with him wearing a $1400 suit, that whole “big head, big nose, big brow ridge, unibrow, short stout muscle guy with the huge hands dragging on the ground” thing came through.
I overheard some ladies whispering stuff like “OMG, why’d he bring an Arab in here?”
So I took him over to what I thought might be a good peer group, a buncha doughy middle-aged hunter types wearing MAGA caps. Strong individuals ya know. But sadly, after my friend naively dissed anybody who didn’t hunt with a spear (especially bow hunters), huge hairy beasts instead of girly deer, the hunters shunned him. That evening I got a stern text from one of the elders telling me to not bring any more Muslims to church.
Post a Comment