Is there any chance of man returning to the the unified cosmos he once inhabited? Not this or that man, but mankind? And how may I be of assistance?
Well, for starters, unity is much easier if you don’t know about other civilizations, religions, and cultures. Then again, a nonlocal source not only says this has been the case since Babel, but the source wants it to be this way -- linguistically diverse and scattered over the face of the earth.
But forever? I don’t think so. Rather, for a reason, which must be the higher and deeper unity rendered possible by diversity.
Diversity for its own sake is not only stupid, it is progressive and therefore diabolical. Indeed, it’s in the name, which is related to “scatter.” But if the devil scatters then Christ is the “gatherer,” the very principle of re-unification (and pre-unification, i.e., Alpha and Omega) -- one might say from the scourge of identity politics to the gift of true identity in Christ. That's the promise, anyway.
Hmm. It seems the cosmos is a journey from unity to diversity back to unity at a higher level.
Leaving the cosmos out of it for the moment, this certainly describes the human journey, or at least its telos. It’s why there’s such a thing as “development” to begin with, for development is always in the direction of a deeper and more comprehensive integration.
These preliminary thoughts were provoked by Lonergan, who literally spent his whole life trying to understand. And at the same time, trying to understand understanding, which he thought would lead back to unity. In other words, beneath all the diversity is a kind of meta-understanding not situated in the objects but in the subject who understands them.
To learn thoroughly is a vast undertaking that calls for relentless perseverance…. in which one’s living is more or less constantly absorbed in the effort to understand.
For Lonergan it was a vocation. I enjoy the same lifestyle, only for me it's an avocation. Still, an all-consuming one. It’s not my only hobby, but it’s in the top three, along with music and baseball.
With all that, did Lonergan succeed? And if didn't, what makes me think I can?
Several things: first, there’s a shortcut, otherwise the way would be inaccessible to anyone who isn’t a genius such as Lonergan. Indeed, sometimes genius itself can have a kind of scattering effect, in that trying to know everything can obscure knowledge of the one thing needful.
I suppose it’s why my most frequently cited accomplices are Davila and Schuon, since they cut through layers of ice and fog with extreme simplicity. Pieper is the same way, and Polanyi also conveys the most with the least. Hayek too, if only his English were better. And Jesus was pretty concise, and even then his words are always ordered to the Word himself. "My yoke is easy" and all that.
Is it just because I am a lazy man? Yes, but then again, I spend a lot of time at this. I’ll bet I devote more time to my avocation than most people do to their vocation, which makes me both lazy and odd. Or maybe even somewhat normal, if Schuon is correct. For
To be normal is to be homogeneous, and to be homogeneous is to have a center. A normal man is one whose tendencies are, if not altogether uniform, at least concordant -- that is to say, sufficiently concordant to convey that decisive center which we may call the sense of the Absolute or the love of God.
Well, woo hoo, because oddly enough this makes me just odd enough, since I definitely have those persistent tendencies toward Celestial Central:
The tendency toward the Absolute, for which we are made, is difficult to realize in the heterogeneous [read: scattered] soul -- a soul lacking a center, precisely, and by that fact contrary to its reason for being. Such a soul is a priori a “house divided against itself,” thus destined to collapse, eschatologically speaking.
Well well, who's the oddball now? Take that, normies, worldlings, and achievers!
Somewhere in this chapter Schuon gets into the potential problems of genius alluded to above. Here:
a genius is all too often a man without a center, in whom this lack is replaced by a creative hypertrophy.
Here he’s mainly referring to those artistic types who eventually become caricatures of themselves. Absent orientation to the Center, their mere talent betrays itself. More generally,
what is blameworthy in the exteriorized and worldly genius is not necessarily his production, but the fact that he sets his center outside himself, in a work which in a certain manner deprives him of his real core or puts itself in place of it.
Understood. It seems facile and boorish for a lazy blogger to criticize a genius such as Lonergan, but he does spend an awful lot of time in the weeds and trees of jungles of every particular science, and even then apologizes for being such a dilettante.
Well, not this Raccoon. I'm sorry, but I will never apologize! Philosophy is both simpler and higher than science, and God is higher than both. And simplicity itself. Literally.
Besides, this is a civilizational emergency. We're in a progressive graveyard spiral and there's no guarantee we'll pull out of it. Just last night a pilot friend described to me how this works, in that everything the pilot does to deal with the situation only makes the situation worse, in a negative loop. Besides, who's actually piloting the plane? Does the media really not want to know who it is? Or like us, do they know?
Anyway, no one has the time to read thousands upon thousands of pages of of philosophy from a single obscure genius, let alone master all the sciences. Maybe a lazy man is just what we need, so long as he is lazy in the right ways about the right things.
11 comments:
The tendency toward the Absolute, for which we are made, is difficult to realize in the heterogeneous [read: scattered] soul -- a soul lacking a center, precisely, and by that fact contrary to its reason for being. Such a soul is a priori a “house divided against itself,” thus destined to collapse, eschatologically speaking.
Uh oh, suddenly this is inspiring hate thoughts:
Let's apply this dynamic to healthy male-female relationships, and consider what too-often happens when a woman lacks a such a center (i.e. forgoes marriage & children in order to "find" herself)...
There are an awful lot of angry fish out there wondering just why they can't have the perfect bicycle.
Maybe a lazy man is just what we need, so long as he is lazy in the right ways about the right things.
Yes indeed. And that little lazy man aphorism is why I often subjected to the question, "Is that all you do is read?" Nope. I flyfish, chop wood, watch the birds, and stuff like that, too, all of which allow me to exercise my laziness in a most positive way.
I very much liked diversity back in the days when my workplace lunchtime crew included an Andrew Dice Clay, a Garth Brooks, a Denzel Washington, a Fluffy Iglesias, and a Jeff Foxworthy. Types not the actual people, of course. But please note that these are all born Americans.
I grew to hate diversity when I recently went into my local upper-middle suburban Costco and realized that I was one of the few American English speakers.
I’d think that somewhere between the two is a dividing line which serves all Americans, and not just the “job creator” class.
Aphorisms:
--Man needs a busy life. No one is more unfortunate than the idler who was not born predestined to be one. An idle life without boredom, stupidities, or cruelty is as admirable as it is rare.
So, we are not only born but destined to Abide! And
--Stupidity is the unpardonable crime of a leisure class, since being intelligent is the justification for its existence.
So, slack is only a crime to the extent that it is stupid, like a Kennedy, Gates, Bezos, Clinton, Obama, Soros, Biden, et al.
And it's not a deficit in attention but a of surplus of "novelty seeking, exploration, and vigilance."
Funny, and the thinking presented in that link, buttresses why I fought the parochial school my twin sons went to when the faculty was attempting to tell me one of them was afflicted with ADHD. I lost against the school, and in court pro se, but won with my son, then age 12, by instructing him in the proper method of not taking a pill while seemingly compliantly taking a pill. He's 35, now, and a data analyst extraordinaire, constantly recruited, or should I say enticed, with offers of more money, more money, more money, which he usually turns down, because it's not about the money. He's a good man.
ADHD is like a boy, only more so.
Agreed. If my boy were in a "normal" classroom setting I think he'd do fine, but would probably also hate being in class. He listens best if I allow him to do other things while someone else is reading; it's like his hands and half his brain need to be busy in order to hear and absorb information. It doesn't look like he is actively listening, but if you stop and ask what's happening it's rare that he misses a thing. My daughter, conversely, does fine with sitting still, but she's also far more likely to have no idea what's going on. When she's lost in thought, she's really lost in thought.
There's another kid I know who does have ADHD. He's like a collie; the worst thing you can do to him is put him in a place where he has to be calm, quiet and still. The only place we interact with him is where he is supposed to be calm, quiet and still for about three hours. Modern life is not kind to kids like that.
Wayne Shorter, can I buy some pot from you?:
Now, how do you feel when you listen to the Shorter here? The likelihood is true that there is a mystical vision in the center of the view of the world of the Shorter will become clear with each time you follow the times.
You will be able to touch the view of the world of the Shorter. By this, the vision, which can be said to be a delusion drawn in the head of the Shorter, becomes a high sense of color. That's true, but if you think about it, the density of this creativity is first amazing. Protruding. How far does it make me numb? Shorter solo is white eyebrows, as if Shorter and Hancook talk in heights, you can listen to the timbre of spiritual and devotion to another dimension.
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