Vertical Closure and Craniorectal Occlusion

How do progressive pundits, journalists, and People of Tenure avoid contact with reality? By maintaining and enforcing a closed ideological system that is projected onto the world instead of being receptive to it. 

For example, Ridgley points to their intellectually worthless "cargo cult journals" 

which are publications that mimic authentic academic journals. The articles are cited back and forth, and... have become little more than ritual gift exchange.

In other words, the left hand washes the other left hand, and "whatever happens confirms the theory" -- no different from "the magic of primitive societies" which provides "ex post facto rationalizations" to explain the world. 

But we already know all this. We know that the devil's strategy is to close the mind in on itself in tighter and tighter circles until it disappears up its backside, a la the Oozlum bird. Is there anything new to report on this front? 

Well, recall that man qua man is an open system, both horizontally and vertically. By definition the left is vertically closed, but they are also horizontally closed -- which is to say, enclosed in their ideology.

For Voegelin, closed existence is 

the mode of existence in which there are internal impediments to a free flow of truth into consciousness and to the pull of the transcendental.

Interesting that he speaks of the pull of the transcendental, for it is the complement of a... not so much a push from our side, but rather, something more akin to an erotic attraction, or what we call man's innate epistemophila. 

The word "push" connotes something more akin to what progressives do, which is to say, push their ideology into places where it doesn't belong -- e.g., into our faces and down our throats. This latter maneuver is in fact a deformation of consciousness, defined as 

the destruction of the order of the soul, which should be "formed" by the love of the transcendental perfection inherent in the fundamental tension of existence [the tension between the immanent and transcendent poles of consciousness].

What we characterized above as disappearing up one's own backside, Voegelin more politely (but less colorfully) calls doxic thinking, which "tends to focus on a doxa [i.e., opinion] and to confuse the model with the reality it represents."

So in this regard -- pardon our French -- opinions really are like assholes, except not everyone dwells therein. 

We're all familiar with the deeper meaning of Exodus, because this is where we live, precisely. Life takes the form of a journey toward, and in dialectical tension with, the transcendental telos, AKA Celestial Central. Like Moses, we never reach our deustinatuon in this life, but if we're lucky, nor are we enclosed in craniorectal darkness and tenure.

Here again, this is much like a solar eclipse whereby the moon covers the sun, except it's the moonbat occluding the Light: it is "the perverse closure of consciousness against reality" or "the attempt to evade it."

Now, as the Aphorist reminds us,

Along these lines, he makes another important point, that 

An adequate theology would be unintelligible to us.

Why is that? Obviously, because the finite can never be adequate to the infinite, or the relative to the Absolute. It can, however, be an adequation to the Absolute and Infinite, and -- long story short -- this is certainly where the Incarnation comes in to play. But Christ is not a "theology," i.e., an abstract mental system, rather, a person and a relationship.   

Christ is also the fulfillment of the Exodus referenced above. Certainly we could never complete the journey from our side, and believing otherwise is just Genesis 3 All Over Again, which is, among other things, a fall into craniorectality.

Note that upon this latter event, God asks Adam, Where are you? If Adam were honest, he'd respond, I'm right in here with the Oozlum bird. 

This post has plunged into unforeseen areas. Back to Ridgley. He calls it a "stunting of the intellect" whereby 

There is an ominous narrowing of horizons, until only a slit of absolute believing represents the totality of their intellectual pursuit.... Anything recognizable as inquiry, challenge, or analysis comes to an immediate halt.

Which is another way of answering God's eternal query, Where are you? For "In a cargo cult, believers construct an alternate world and wanted it treated as real." It's real, alright -- as real as a man with his head up his ass.