Nothing new to report today. Tomorrow may be different, in that I just received Gil Bailie's latest in the mail, The Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self, which will presumably require a lengthy review (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621389278/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1).
Meanwhile, let's continue our discussion of those few-in-number but great-in-reach Principles that not only explain what's going on down here, but spiral up to God and back downnegan. Here's one: the intellect is
essentially relative to intelligible being, as sight is to color. In this way, the intellect is not enclosed within itself but, rather, is opened to the entire domain of intelligible reality (Garrigou-Lagrange).
The transgender ideology is an attack on the idea that the world is intelligible. Instead, [it] is an affirmation of the opposite idea, namely that the world has no objective existence. Instead, things are what we SAY they are. If we say that a girl is a boy, then she’s a boy. And if we say that an unborn baby is not human, then it’s not human; and if we say that same-sex marriage is perfectly natural, then it’s perfectly natural.
In short, "reality" is a projection of the inside out instead of a reception of the outside in, and therefore no reality at all. It places the Principle of Delusion at the foundation of its metaphysic, for if extra-mental reality -- intelligible being -- exists, it is the end of the left.
Truly truly, this is an existential and even ontological struggle for the left, from which only one side can emerge victorious: progressivism (in all its nasty guises) or reality.
But who defends reality and its immutable laws? Know them by their enemies:
the ultimate aim of present-day progressivism is the ruination of Christianity, Catholicism in particular.... Underlying Christianity are two fundamental beliefs expressed in the first article of the Nicene Creed: (a) the belief that God exists, and (b) the belief that God created an intelligible world that can be understood, at least in part, by the human mind (https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2023/06/23/teenaged-girls-in-progressive-america/?mc_cid=6e0a85fcdd&mc_eid=c604663a22).
In the exact degree to which these principles are not respected, "the intellect suffers and dies, as we see in positivism and Kantianism (Garrigou-Lagrange).
Indeed, this denial -- if consistently followed to its inevitable conclusions -- is an absolute fustercluck for intellect, for if it is the case that the intellect is not conformed to reality, then
we would be left to suppress all language, every essence (or substance), and indeed, every distinction between things....
[S]uch a denial would lead us to destroy every form of truth, indeed even every form of opinion, all the degrees of probability, and all those of error. No longer would there be any difference between a great error and a small one. Consequently, we would also in this way be led to suppress every form of desire and action. Thus, we would not only be faced with the death of the intellect but, moreover, with the death of action in all its domains.
Now, there are two kinds of people: those who absolutely understand and agree with this passage, and those who are absolute idiots.
Notice too how this mirrors a famous crack by St. Thomas to the effect that a small error at the beginning of one's metaphysic results in ginormous errors at the end -- or, in Petey's pithy phraseology, garbage in, tenure out.
Knowledge comes down to the question of Is or Is Not. But if the very first act of knowledge is to sever its link to what Is -- AKA reality -- then the mind is forever enclosed in its own knowledge of other knowledge, never of reality.
Unfortunately, it doesn't end there, because while questions of Is and Is Not are off the menu, this leaves the field open for the more critical question of Who and Whom, i.e., power. Progressives may have no idea what is what, but they have no doubt whatsoever as to who's in charge. Their vindictive credo is There's no reality, and we create it. Or else. Very much like God, only divested of truth, beauty, virtue, justice, and mercy.
43 comments:
In the Catholic Thing article, the author writes:
We haven’t yet reached the point at which progressives say, “2 plus 2 equals something other than 4.”
Obviously, he has not heard the news that math has been declared racist, therefore 2 plus 2 equals whatever the kid feels like it should equal today.
Delusions in, delusions out.
I think what would work better than all these “well known principles about the left”, would be itemizing these perceived principles one at a time, each followed up by several popular examples.
Going full binary in a world full of variables (which everybody comes to experience and admit to eventually) starts coming across like projection or some other willful ignorance being caused by an unconscious psychological angst.
For example, everybody knows that “transgender” is weird. But if even that most chauvinistically patriarchal of successful civilizations, the ancient Romans, couldn’t get rid of their kind, then there might be more going on than meets the eye. Not down there, but upstairs. Personally, I’d challenge Bob to explain from an expert’s point of view exactly what that something is.
And then maybe focusing energies on helping them, as Jesus instructed?
Different blog.
The first step in helping people with mental illness is to admit they exist.
Multiculturalism means no shared reality. Or rather, no reality.
Thus far the book by Bailie is not only extremely profound but touches on everything said in the previous two posts.
I have the book also, but only skimmed a bit of it. Been too busy. But it looks fantastic at a glance. He's underrated.
"The new religion offers them refuge. They have to learn a bunch of esoteric insider language and concepts, which reinforces their belief in their own intelligence, but this is not math, so the right answer is a matter of perspective. Everyone gets their own truth and the sense they had to possess special qualities in order to gain it. Social justice is an ideal religion for alienated bourgeoise females."
Reading that, Z-Man says this about social justice: "The fight for social justice does not expressly promise salvation or relief from suffering, but the implication is that at some point in the future we attain social justice."
It's a great point, because at the end of the day all social justice has to offer - all it is - is an equal share in misery.
I look forward to reading this book. Gil Bailie was my introduction to Rene Girard and mimetic theory, about 7 years ago. I agree with what Ted wrote about Bailie being underrated, though I'm not sure by who. The Cornerstone Forum is Mr. Bailie's organization. The link I have copied here is a place from which to order the book about which you have here written, a place not amazon. https://cornerstoneforum.org/gil-bailies-the-apocalypse-of-the-sovereign-self-now-available/
I'm not sure when I bumped into Violence Unveiled, but it must have been back in the late '90s or early '00s, when I was reading anything I could find on the dynamics of human sacrifice. It was my introduction to Christian anthropology, although I didn't know it at the time.
I still struggle with the centrality of sacrifice compared to a purely abstract metaphysic, but inquiring into who is to be sacrificed today is certainly the most illuminating heuristic for approaching the news.
Garrigou-Lagrange would love the meme at the top about simultaneously knowing and not knowing what a woman is. If you deny the principle of non-contradiction, truly truly, everything -- and nothing -- is possible.
"In order to remain faithful to traditional metaphysics, we absolutely must maintain that, prior to any free option, the human intellect can be certain of the truth of the principles of contradiction and of causality..."
That doesn't sound like much, but it's everything.
Freedom to deny the principle of non-contradiction is very much like a natural right to abortion or slavery. It is the denial of its own premise and the affirmation of its own contrary.
"To claim that that which begins is uncaused is not only an unintelligible claim but, moreover, is absurd and really impossible outside the mind."
Proof of the impossibility of godlessness.
It reminds me of something Krauthammer said -- that of all the stupid religions, atheism is without a doubt the stupidest.
The simple old mantras break down in light of the facts.
Russian economics post-Stalin is more like Mexico, while Chinese economics post-Mao is more like the USA (of old).
When big government redistributes money from big oil to common citizens in Venezuela, fiasco. Yet in Alaska, success. And in Norway even bigger success even without giving it directly to any common citizens.
Today the USA of new looks increasingly like the Rome of old, considering all the freedoms (and especially power) given our patricians to buy big legal.
I could go on all day but this isn’t that kind of blog. Here we insultain our trannies in the hope of improving the economic prospects for everybody else, as long as they're being metaphysically correct in all the right ways.
And so in closing, I envision a large long warehouse structure. Into one end shall sashay our trannies wearing their Sunday night party best. And out the other end, shall stroll out tall, proud, straight, Christian, family men wearing their investment banker best.
Look out China. We're playing to win this time.
Is it generally productive to gently but firmly counter anti-realism with the obvious contradiction? This is of course why I'm morbidly fixated on Kant, since if Kant is right, nobody can know it, including Kant.
Randy--
That is correct. As to whether it is productive to counter anti-realism with logic, that's another question, because intellectual sin is located more in the will than in the intellect per se.
I don't remember if I've ever posted on intellectual sin, but there are certain intrinsic cosmic heresies that are literally the suicide of the mind. Which is our main beef with leftism.
Think about the whole postmodern crowd that asserts that everything in politics is a mask for power.
Thanks for the warning!
The suicide of the mind wouldn't bother me if it didn't lead to homicide.
The logocide of tenured zombies.
Ideas have consequences -- the worse the idea, the worse the consequences.
Now, what is the Worst Idea Ever?
It's the same as Chesterton's one thought that ought to be stopped.
The tyranny of relativism and the prison of subjectivism.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a man in a sun dress and high heels stamping on the principle of non-contradiction -- forever.
The Trannie of Relativism.
If you follow left and right hemispheres all the way up, to my left are Schuon and Garrigou-Lagrange, to my right various personalists.
Absolute and Infinite, respectively, or in the words of the Aphorist,
The life of intelligence is a dialogue between the personalism of spirit and the impersonalism of reason.
My bottom and top lines.
The soul is the task of man.
To be in rebellion against the inevitable and to be resigned to what is remediable characterizes modern man.
To be a modern man is to be declared emphatically innocent and to refuse to be forgiven.
Trophies for all colors, genders, and religions! Except white, hetero, and Christian.
There always has to be a scapegoat, and now we're back to human sacrifice...
Full circle: God is either 1) impossible or 2) blindingly obvious. If (1) then (2), for the same reason women aren't men.
The more the left tries to make Trump the scapegoat, the more they resurrect him. Biden and the DOJ are a conflagration, while CNN and MSNBC gather kindling to burn Trump at the stake. Again.
Re. Petey's comment and delusions:
Along those lines, even confused people often come to their senses given enough time.
My daughter came to me with a rhetorical question yesterday, she was trying to work out the moral, religious and legal logistics of someone "married" to a person of the same sex getting a divorce and later marrying properly. Can't begin to say how much I hate that my not-quite-11-year-old can even conceive of such a circumstance, but here we are in clown world. Anyway, it dawned on me that it's been quite a while since the mainstream zeitgeist has talked about gays being "born that way." Almost as though, in the interest of all the other additions to the rainbow alphabet, we can no longer argue for mercy on the fact that one's orientation is an immutable facet of their character...
Again, once you deny the first principle of logic -- that what is, is -- then what isn't is -- for example, men = women or marriage = two men. It's liberating, but from reality, which is no liberation at all, rather, the opposite.
This book looks fun, Science After Babel.
Re Worst Idea Ever, reminds me of a contest for the worst argument in the world, which does seem to be a variant of Kantian thinking. Via the great Eve Keneinan, natch.
https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/the-gem-or-the-worst-argument-in-the-world/
I really doubt that Bruce Jenner now fancies himself a woman because of Kant. Hell, 99% of his fellow conservatives have never heard of Kant. I think he fancies himself a woman because he might've gotten the "freedom, liberty, and individualism" message wrong.
And so I propose that he be the first human we send into my (6/24/2023 10:12:00 AM comment) proposed “sexual orientation machine / car wash”.
Or maybe we should revisit all the ways in which we got Sharia Law got nipped in the bud?
I only posted that once. The second... could that have been a metaphysical miracle performed for us, for reasons similar to why God chose to use Donald Trump?
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