Faith in Truth, Hope for a Miracle

If truth is not a property of being, then we are all leftists, except some of us pretend not to be. 

Put another way, there is either one philosophy or no possibility of philosophy. And if the latter, power rushes in to fill the epistemological void. 

Indeed, any properly indoctrinated leftist can tell you that politics is just a mask of power relations, and that's the end of it: Who and Whom, period, full stop, end of story. And beginning of nightmare.

It's true that power can distort and displace reality. It is the work of a moment for human beings to deny truth, but rather difficult to ignore the gun at your head or the taxman at your door (but I repeat myself).

Western civilization -- AKA civilization -- seems to be dying before our eyes. I say "seems" because I do not rule out the possibility of a miraculous intervention, or at least stay of execution.

Intelligent optimism is never faith in progress, but hope for a miracle.

In history it is sensible to hope for miracles and absurd to trust in plans (Dávila).

Although I am by nature an optimystic sort, I always feel a bit pessimessedup after reading Z Man:

Great Britain is barely a country at this point and it will soon be closer to South Africa than its glorious past. Like America, Britain is on its way to becoming a majority-minority society. At that point it ceases to be a nation or even a country, but simply an administrative zone. 

The Queen’s funeral will be a time for the old British to mourn the loss of their country and its traditions. There will be those who try to lever this emotion into a rearguard action to fight against the gathering darkness. Of course, the new British will be out reminding everyone that the new Britain will be vulgar and coarse. An ungrateful nation of foreigners will get to be ungrateful one more time....  

There is no going back and starting over, so the logical thing to do is close the books on it and begin thinking about what sort of future can be fashioned from the present. Maybe use thoughts of the glorious past to maintain a healthy anger at the bastards responsible for wrecking your country and turning it over to ungrateful foreigners (https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=28210).

Aside from being a civilizational canary in the ghoulmind, what is was Great Britain? 

Civilizations are the summer buzzing of insects between two winters.

What's left for us but to laugh at our barbarian overlords?

Defeats are never definitive when they are accepted with good humor.

But as I said, I am an optimist by nature, or at least I wake up every morning in an irrationally good mood. Until I check in with Z Man. But that's okay. From time to time we all need to be slapped unsilly. And behind this slap is Death itself, which we pretend to avoid by obsessing over his many disguises. 

Are there reasons for hope? Of course, just not in this world, let alone with this bunch. We'll return to this point, but I want to get back to that passing remark above about "one philosophy." That sounds more than a bit authoritarian, Bob. Now you know why Brandon calls your kind fascist!

Not at all. I'm just claiming equal rights for philosophy. No one says there are many valid forms of physics, or math, or chemistry. Your mechanic doesn't have two theories on how cars work.  

Yes, I realize there are leftists who believe otherwise -- that everything we claim to be true is just about Power and Oppression, but let's be serious. These clowns are not yet totally in power. 

And besides, it will actually prove to be difficult to maintain power in the absence of truth, a recent example being the California man using a gas powered generator to charge his planet-saving electric vehicle. This is far from the only reductio ad absurdum that occurs when you follow a leftist idea all the way to its logical end, for

The theses of the left are rationalizations that are carefully suspended before reaching the argument that dissolves them.

Of course, progressives aren't bothered by the crime wave they've unleashed, since it's mostly their urban pets killing and brutalizing each other. Things will change when we start having some high-profile murders instead of the thousands of low-brofile ones. I'm not calling for that. Rather, it's the next absurdum around the bend.

It is not when it fails to meet its promises, but does what it promises to do, that the true failure of the left is obvious.

Let's try to refocus before the sands run out on this post: one cosmos, one mankind, one philosophy. You could say this is trivial, but the operative word is one, by which we do not mean the number -- a quantity -- rather, the quality, and this quality is the basis of the possibility of any and all truth.

I'll just give a preview of the coming attractor with this passage from Living the Truth, by Josef Pieper:

With the expression, "All that exists is true," Western philosophy for almost two millennia intended to make a statement not only about reality as such but no less about the nature of man.

Faith in Truth, Hope for a Miracle

If truth is not a property of being, then we are all leftists, except some of us pretend not to be. 

Put another way, there is either one philosophy or no possibility of philosophy. And if the latter, power rushes in to fill the epistemological void. 

Indeed, any properly indoctrinated leftist can tell you that politics is just a mask of power relations, and that's the end of it: Who and Whom, period, full stop, end of story. And beginning of nightmare.

It's true that power can distort and displace reality. It is the work of a moment for human beings to deny truth, but rather difficult to ignore the gun at your head or the taxman at your door (but I repeat myself).

Western civilization -- AKA civilization -- seems to be dying before our eyes. I say "seems" because I do not rule out the possibility of a miraculous intervention, or at least stay of execution.

Intelligent optimism is never faith in progress, but hope for a miracle.

In history it is sensible to hope for miracles and absurd to trust in plans (Dávila).

Although I am by nature an optimystic sort, I always feel a bit pessimessedup after reading Z Man:

Great Britain is barely a country at this point and it will soon be closer to South Africa than its glorious past. Like America, Britain is on its way to becoming a majority-minority society. At that point it ceases to be a nation or even a country, but simply an administrative zone. 

The Queen’s funeral will be a time for the old British to mourn the loss of their country and its traditions. There will be those who try to lever this emotion into a rearguard action to fight against the gathering darkness. Of course, the new British will be out reminding everyone that the new Britain will be vulgar and coarse. An ungrateful nation of foreigners will get to be ungrateful one more time....  

There is no going back and starting over, so the logical thing to do is close the books on it and begin thinking about what sort of future can be fashioned from the present. Maybe use thoughts of the glorious past to maintain a healthy anger at the bastards responsible for wrecking your country and turning it over to ungrateful foreigners (https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=28210).

Aside from being a civilizational canary in the ghoulmind, what is was Great Britain? 

Civilizations are the summer buzzing of insects between two winters.

What's left for us but to laugh at our barbarian overlords?

Defeats are never definitive when they are accepted with good humor.

But as I said, I am an optimist by nature, or at least I wake up every morning in an irrationally good mood. Until I check in with Z Man. But that's okay. From time to time we all need to be slapped unsilly. And behind this slap is Death itself, which we pretend to avoid by obsessing over his many disguises. 

Are there reasons for hope? Of course, just not in this world, let alone with this bunch. We'll return to this point, but I want to get back to that passing remark above about "one philosophy." That sounds more than a bit authoritarian, Bob. Now you know why Brandon calls your kind fascist!

Not at all. I'm just claiming equal rights for philosophy. No one says there are many valid forms of physics, or math, or chemistry. Your mechanic doesn't have two theories on how cars work.  

Yes, I realize there are leftists who believe otherwise -- that everything we claim to be true is just about Power and Oppression, but let's be serious. These clowns are not yet totally in power. 

And besides, it will actually prove to be difficult to maintain power in the absence of truth, a recent example being the California man using a gas powered generator to charge his planet-saving electric vehicle. This is far from the only reductio ad absurdum that occurs when you follow a leftist idea all the way to its logical end, for

The theses of the left are rationalizations that are carefully suspended before reaching the argument that dissolves them.

Of course, progressives aren't bothered by the crime wave they've unleashed, since it's mostly their urban pets killing and brutalizing each other. Things will change when we start having some high-profile murders instead of the thousands of low-brofile ones. I'm not calling for that. Rather, it's the next absurdum around the bend.

It is not when it fails to meet its promises, but does what it promises to do, that the true failure of the left is obvious.

Let's try to refocus before the sands run out on this post: one cosmos, one mankind, one philosophy. You could say this is trivial, but the operative word is one, by which we do not mean the number -- a quantity -- rather, the quality, and this quality is the basis of the possibility of any and all truth.

I'll just give a preview of the coming attractor with this passage from Living the Truth, by Josef Pieper:

With the expression, "All that exists is true," Western philosophy for almost two millennia intended to make a statement not only about reality as such but no less about the nature of man.

They Call Me the Wonderer

Speaking of distinctions, there's a sharp one between "knowing" or "having" a philosophy vs. living in... in what will be the subject of this post. 

Don't hold me to it, but my guess is that it will turn out to be something like that quote you see above the comment box, where reality becomes luminous as it passes from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, on to the Ineffable. Best I can do at the moment. 

"He who endeavors to reflect on the totality of the world and existence," writes Pieper, 

sets foot on a path that in this life will never come to an end. He will always remain "on the way," the question will never receive an answer once and for all, the hope will never find fulfillment.

This doesn't mean life itself is hopeless, only that our hope is misplaced if it is attached to the wrong object. Limiting ourselves to three, Dávila:

Even being an atheist, one would also have to be an idiot to expect that something earthly will fulfill us. 

Nothing that satisfies our expectations fulfills our hopes. 

He who wishes to avoid grotesque collapses should look for nothing in space or in time that will fulfill him.

I would agree that philosophical man is Homo viator, because the object of his search is not only infinite but Infinitude per se. Indeed, how could a man not know this?  

Well, he could switch out the infinite object for an off-the-rack ideology, which man has been doing since crossing the divide between bios and anthropos. Russell Kirk once defined conservatism as the opposite of ideology, which, strictly speaking, is true:

Ideologies were invented so that men who do not think can give opinions.

A "right wing ideologue" is little better than a progressive one, and indeed, will evoke its inverted image. But as Hayek knew, communism and fascism are just two sides of the same deceitful and murderous coin, each being the opposite of conservative liberalism.

Notice too that progressive ideology evokes its opposite even if it is frankly delusional, as in how Brandon and his supporters imagine they are surrounded by dangerous MAGA semi-fascists. This is in the very nature of Democrats, as they were doing it even before they lost their slaves, as noted this morning by Steve Hayward (https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/09/democrats-and-the-f-bomb.php).

Let's get back to our subject, which is to say, our perpetual openness to the infinite object, or engagement with the whole of reality, both horizontal and vertical. The ontological necessity of this space sets us on the path of Homo viator, whether we hike it or not. 

In short, to paraphrase Schuon, we are condemned to transcendence, or, to paraphrase the Wanderer himself, I'm never in one place / I read from tome to tome / Yeah I'm the wanderer, yeah the wanderer.

But wandering isn't enough. Rather, it must be accompanied by wondering, which, they say, is both the cause and consequence of the philosophical life. This cause is up at the Other end, which is why

He who speaks of the farthest regions of the soul soon needs a theological vocabulary,

and

As long as we do not arrive at religious categories, our explanations are not founded upon rock.

Best I can do this morning. To be continued...  

They Call Me the Wonderer

Speaking of distinctions, there's a sharp one between "knowing" or "having" a philosophy vs. living in... in what will be the subject of this post. 

Don't hold me to it, but my guess is that it will turn out to be something like that quote you see above the comment box, where reality becomes luminous as it passes from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, on to the Ineffable. Best I can do at the moment. 

"He who endeavors to reflect on the totality of the world and existence," writes Pieper, 

sets foot on a path that in this life will never come to an end. He will always remain "on the way," the question will never receive an answer once and for all, the hope will never find fulfillment.

This doesn't mean life itself is hopeless, only that our hope is misplaced if it is attached to the wrong object. Limiting ourselves to three, Dávila:

Even being an atheist, one would also have to be an idiot to expect that something earthly will fulfill us. 

Nothing that satisfies our expectations fulfills our hopes. 

He who wishes to avoid grotesque collapses should look for nothing in space or in time that will fulfill him.

I would agree that philosophical man is Homo viator, because the object of his search is not only infinite but Infinitude per se. Indeed, how could a man not know this?  

Well, he could switch out the infinite object for an off-the-rack ideology, which man has been doing since crossing the divide between bios and anthropos. Russell Kirk once defined conservatism as the opposite of ideology, which, strictly speaking, is true:

Ideologies were invented so that men who do not think can give opinions.

A "right wing ideologue" is little better than a progressive one, and indeed, will evoke its inverted image. But as Hayek knew, communism and fascism are just two sides of the same deceitful and murderous coin, each being the opposite of conservative liberalism.

Notice too that progressive ideology evokes its opposite even if it is frankly delusional, as in how Brandon and his supporters imagine they are surrounded by dangerous MAGA semi-fascists. This is in the very nature of Democrats, as they were doing it even before they lost their slaves, as noted this morning by Steve Hayward (https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/09/democrats-and-the-f-bomb.php).

Let's get back to our subject, which is to say, our perpetual openness to the infinite object, or engagement with the whole of reality, both horizontal and vertical. The ontological necessity of this space sets us on the path of Homo viator, whether we hike it or not. 

In short, to paraphrase Schuon, we are condemned to transcendence, or, to paraphrase the Wanderer himself, I'm never in one place / I read from tome to tome / Yeah I'm the wanderer, yeah the wanderer.

But wandering isn't enough. Rather, it must be accompanied by wondering, which, they say, is both the cause and consequence of the philosophical life. This cause is up at the Other end, which is why

He who speaks of the farthest regions of the soul soon needs a theological vocabulary,

and

As long as we do not arrive at religious categories, our explanations are not founded upon rock.

Best I can do this morning. To be continued...  

The G.O.A.T. of Scapegoating

Philosophy takes place at the fluid boundary between what is known with certitude and what can never be known exhaustively, like standing on the earth and looking into the sky. 

Anyone can see the ground on which he stands, but no one has ever seen the end of the sky. And even if we do perceive the edge of the big bang, the sky is just a symbol of Infinitude, so don't be so literal!

This line in the ampersand between earth & sky is necessarily ambiguous -- i.e., imprecise -- but nevertheless clear. 

Think of a cloud, which has distinct edges from a distance but which become increasingly vague as one approaches. Doesn't mean clouds don't exist, nor that a man can't have his head in one. Don't be so literal! 

It's the same with words, which is how the left creates so much mischief with them. Just because no word is exactly what it signifies, it doesn't mean words have no relationship to reality, nor that they mean whatever the left wants them to mean. 

But this necessary ambiguity is like catnip to the anti-intellectual (mind-destroying) left; it is how they can define anything they want into existence, and undefine out what they don't like. As we know, abracadabra means I will create as I speak, and this is the very basis of the politico-media-academic black magic of the left.

I could get sidetracked into this two-volume biography of Hitler I'm reading, but it's rather early to invoke Godwin's Law. 

Still, I've mentioned before that my time as an intern at Camarillo State Mental Hospital dealing with extreme loonies helped prepare me for dealing with everyday loonies, because in the former we see the same pathological mechanisms at work, only in a hypertrophically vivid manner -- things like projection, denial, splitting, repression, fantasy, and transference, painted over the sky with bold, primary colors.  

Analogously, someone like Hitler is just an extreme version of everyday politics. Viewed through this lens, nothing he said was out of the ordinary per se, rather, just the usual lies and distortions on steroids. This is not to compare anyone to Hitler, rather, to recognize the continuity of the deep structure beneath the BS. 

Thus, when Brandon points to the imaginary threat of MAGA REPUBLICANS!, it has an obvious resemblance to Nazi blather about Jews, or Slavs, or life unworthy of life. But forget about the grave danger posed by MAGA or Jew, for the underlying constant is scapegoating, which in turn is related to the omnipresence of projection, aggression, and psychic purification.

That's as far as I want to go down that Jojo rabbit hole, but the book to read is Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled. You could say that concealed within the news of the day is the scapegoat of the day: identity the scapegoat and you've seen through their primitive magic. The content always changes (kulaks, blacks, Catholics, deplorables, Tea Party, the bourgeoisie, MAGA), but the mechanism endures. https://www.amazon.com/Violence-Unveiled-Humanity-at-Crossroads/dp/0824516451/ref=sr_1_2?crid=27ALYM5IW6XNC&keywords=Gil+Bailie&qid=1662574108&s=books&sprefix=gil+bailie%2Cstripbooks%2C124&sr=1-2 

About the two sides of the epistemological line in the clouds referenced above, Pieper writes that it is perfectly appropriate to pronounce on the one hand that Science has determined...

It is meaningless, on the other hand, to declare that "philosophy" has discovered or explained this or that.... No philosopher can in any way use the "results" of Plato's philosophy, except if he repeats, by and for himself, Plato's thinking. 

We have aphoristic confirmation of this breaking story:

Comprehending a philosopher is being momentarily swayed by him.

Confirmation too for the ground we're standing on:

Four or five invulnerable philosophical propositions allow us to make fun of the rest.

And for the abiding continuity beneath the Current Thing:

It is not so much that men change their ideas, as that the ideas change their disguises. In the discourse of the centuries, the same voices are in dialogue.

To be continued... 

The G.O.A.T. of Scapegoating

Philosophy takes place at the fluid boundary between what is known with certitude and what can never be known exhaustively, like standing on the earth and looking into the sky. 

Anyone can see the ground on which he stands, but no one has ever seen the end of the sky. And even if we do perceive the edge of the big bang, the sky is just a symbol of Infinitude, so don't be so literal!

This line in the ampersand between earth & sky is necessarily ambiguous -- i.e., imprecise -- but nevertheless clear. 

Think of a cloud, which has distinct edges from a distance but which become increasingly vague as one approaches. Doesn't mean clouds don't exist, nor that a man can't have his head in one. Don't be so literal! 

It's the same with words, which is how the left creates so much mischief with them. Just because no word is exactly what it signifies, it doesn't mean words have no relationship to reality, nor that they mean whatever the left wants them to mean. 

But this necessary ambiguity is like catnip to the anti-intellectual (mind-destroying) left; it is how they can define anything they want into existence, and undefine out what they don't like. As we know, abracadabra means I will create as I speak, and this is the very basis of the politico-media-academic black magic of the left.

I could get sidetracked into this two-volume biography of Hitler I'm reading, but it's rather early to invoke Godwin's Law. 

Still, I've mentioned before that my time as an intern at Camarillo State Mental Hospital dealing with extreme loonies helped prepare me for dealing with everyday loonies, because in the former we see the same pathological mechanisms at work, only in a hypertrophically vivid manner -- things like projection, denial, splitting, repression, fantasy, and transference, painted over the sky with bold, primary colors.  

Analogously, someone like Hitler is just an extreme version of everyday politics. Viewed through this lens, nothing he said was out of the ordinary per se, rather, just the usual lies and distortions on steroids. This is not to compare anyone to Hitler, rather, to recognize the continuity of the deep structure beneath the BS. 

Thus, when Brandon points to the imaginary threat of MAGA REPUBLICANS!, it has an obvious resemblance to Nazi blather about Jews, or Slavs, or life unworthy of life. But forget about the grave danger posed by MAGA or Jew, for the underlying constant is scapegoating, which in turn is related to the omnipresence of projection, aggression, and psychic purification.

That's as far as I want to go down that Jojo rabbit hole, but the book to read is Gil Bailie's Violence Unveiled. You could say that concealed within the news of the day is the scapegoat of the day: identity the scapegoat and you've seen through their primitive magic. The content always changes (kulaks, blacks, Catholics, deplorables, Tea Party, the bourgeoisie, MAGA), but the mechanism endures. https://www.amazon.com/Violence-Unveiled-Humanity-at-Crossroads/dp/0824516451/ref=sr_1_2?crid=27ALYM5IW6XNC&keywords=Gil+Bailie&qid=1662574108&s=books&sprefix=gil+bailie%2Cstripbooks%2C124&sr=1-2 

About the two sides of the epistemological line in the clouds referenced above, Pieper writes that it is perfectly appropriate to pronounce on the one hand that Science has determined...

It is meaningless, on the other hand, to declare that "philosophy" has discovered or explained this or that.... No philosopher can in any way use the "results" of Plato's philosophy, except if he repeats, by and for himself, Plato's thinking. 

We have aphoristic confirmation of this breaking story:

Comprehending a philosopher is being momentarily swayed by him.

Confirmation too for the ground we're standing on:

Four or five invulnerable philosophical propositions allow us to make fun of the rest.

And for the abiding continuity beneath the Current Thing:

It is not so much that men change their ideas, as that the ideas change their disguises. In the discourse of the centuries, the same voices are in dialogue.

To be continued... 

Shut Up and Listen

We can all agree that the stars are aren't visible by day, but this doesn't mean they aren't visible per se, nor do the conditions or accidents of our vision have any bearing on the nature of stars. A star is a star whether or not we see it. Besides, the sun is a star, and each star is a sun.

And yet, a star is never just a star; I'm thinking, for example, of how human beings are composed of stardust, i.e., of elements that are cooked up in stars and propagated as a result of their "death" and explosion. In short, a star isn't just a pinpoint of light, but an evolutionary process very much present in us. No one knows where to draw these lines; rather, they are utterly conventional.

For example, where is the line between the sun and its rays that are gathered and transformed by leaves herebelow? The borders we imagine and impose are simultaneously useful and arbitrary; or, I want to say continuous and discontinuous. Our analytic minds notice (and often invent) the discontinuity, but this can only be in the context of a prior continuity; the converse is literally impossible and unthinkable.

Which is why I think human beings have left and right cerebral hemispheres, whether literally or figuratively. Irrespective of the underlying neurology, we certainly have two distinct ways of approaching the world, and these two in turn ramify into others. And I suspect these two modes proceed all the way up and are very much anchored in the Nature of Things (which is ontologically prior to the things of nature).

For example, the clear, distinct, and quantitative approach of science quite naturally branches off into physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, astronomy, and more. The question is, how do we put them back together? Obviously it can't be accomplished from within one of the posterior subdivisions, but this doesn't mean people stop trying.

There are thinkers at one end who try to stuff it all down into physics, others who draw it all up into reason (or mind), and still others who insist it can't be done and that it is foolish to try: scientism, rationalism (or idealism), and postmodern sophistry, respectively. 

Indeed, when you break it all down, there aren't that many options for considering the Totality: our experience spontaneously bifurcates into subject and object, and philosophies tend to do the same. 

But in our opinion, subject and object are ultimate complementarities, such that any philosophy that tries to reduce one to the other is like the Daytime Man who insists that stars don't exist, when he's just refusing to acknowledge the conditions or engage in the method that renders them visible.

In science, the method is determined by the object; every ology involves its own specific approach, but none of these applies to whole of reality. In fact, all bad philosophies end up reducing the world to one's method of interpreting it

It occurs to me that this must be why so many people have said to me, I don't see any method at all, sir.

.

But there is a method, except it's a sort of anti-method that involves silence and vertical openness, or what I once symbolized (---) and (o), respectively. 

I would say that these are the only reasonable methods for conforming oneself to the Reality beyond reason. Nor am I alone in believing this.

But right now I need to make a Costco run before the lights go out in the rolling political apocalypse that is now California -- the horror -- so we'll continue this defense of my anti-methods tomorrow. 

Shut Up and Listen

We can all agree that the stars are aren't visible by day, but this doesn't mean they aren't visible per se, nor do the conditions or accidents of our vision have any bearing on the nature of stars. A star is a star whether or not we see it. Besides, the sun is a star, and each star is a sun.

And yet, a star is never just a star; I'm thinking, for example, of how human beings are composed of stardust, i.e., of elements that are cooked up in stars and propagated as a result of their "death" and explosion. In short, a star isn't just a pinpoint of light, but an evolutionary process very much present in us. No one knows where to draw these lines; rather, they are utterly conventional.

For example, where is the line between the sun and its rays that are gathered and transformed by leaves herebelow? The borders we imagine and impose are simultaneously useful and arbitrary; or, I want to say continuous and discontinuous. Our analytic minds notice (and often invent) the discontinuity, but this can only be in the context of a prior continuity; the converse is literally impossible and unthinkable.

Which is why I think human beings have left and right cerebral hemispheres, whether literally or figuratively. Irrespective of the underlying neurology, we certainly have two distinct ways of approaching the world, and these two in turn ramify into others. And I suspect these two modes proceed all the way up and are very much anchored in the Nature of Things (which is ontologically prior to the things of nature).

For example, the clear, distinct, and quantitative approach of science quite naturally branches off into physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, astronomy, and more. The question is, how do we put them back together? Obviously it can't be accomplished from within one of the posterior subdivisions, but this doesn't mean people stop trying.

There are thinkers at one end who try to stuff it all down into physics, others who draw it all up into reason (or mind), and still others who insist it can't be done and that it is foolish to try: scientism, rationalism (or idealism), and postmodern sophistry, respectively. 

Indeed, when you break it all down, there aren't that many options for considering the Totality: our experience spontaneously bifurcates into subject and object, and philosophies tend to do the same. 

But in our opinion, subject and object are ultimate complementarities, such that any philosophy that tries to reduce one to the other is like the Daytime Man who insists that stars don't exist, when he's just refusing to acknowledge the conditions or engage in the method that renders them visible.

In science, the method is determined by the object; every ology involves its own specific approach, but none of these applies to whole of reality. In fact, all bad philosophies end up reducing the world to one's method of interpreting it

It occurs to me that this must be why so many people have said to me, I don't see any method at all, sir.

.

But there is a method, except it's a sort of anti-method that involves silence and vertical openness, or what I once symbolized (---) and (o), respectively. 

I would say that these are the only reasonable methods for conforming oneself to the Reality beyond reason. Nor am I alone in believing this.

But right now I need to make a Costco run before the lights go out in the rolling political apocalypse that is now California -- the horror -- so we'll continue this defense of my anti-methods tomorrow. 

Liberal and Illiberal Arts

In the previous post we suggested that the practice of philosophy -- if successful -- transforms a merely useless man into a perfectly useless one. Pieper writes that 

Philosophy by its nature is a free endeavor, and for this reason it serves no one and nothing.

But this idea goes waaaay back to the beginning of philosophy. For example,

Analyzing Aristotle's text in his Metaphysics, we find to our amazement that "free" there means the same as "nonpractical!" 

Conversely, practical "is everything that serves a purpose." The operative word is serve, as in serf, service, servile, and slave. Philosophy is intellectual freedom truly lived,

insofar as it is not geared toward some purpose outside itself. Philosophy, rather, is an endeavor containing its own meaning and requires no justification from a purpose "served" (ibid.). 

Just yesterday I was telling my son that when I first began hearing rumblings about the left's sinister plans to eliminate free speech, I assumed it was just the usual paranoid ravings from the fringes of the periphery of the outskirts beyond the pale of the fever swamps of the conspiracy theorists of the pre-MAGA insurrectionists. 

Indeed, having once been a man of the left, I knew the principle of free speech was inviolate, and that no real liberal would ever question it. 

But ever since then, we see how the left has rapidly disavowed every last liberal principle, culminating most recently in Brandon's fascist attack on half the population (but in reality the other half as well, except they're too stupid or indoctrinated to see it).

Back when I was a Democrat, I didn't even know anyone who would have disagreed that academia should be a free space for rational beings to indulge our irrepressible search for the truth of reality. No one outside the Soviet sphere would have imagined otherwise. 

"Liberal arts" are "those that are oriented toward knowledge alone." Which is interesting, because today's illiberal arts -- or subhumanities -- are indeed useless (e.g, gender studies, queer theory, CRT, etc.), only in an inverted way, since they are detached from the freedom and truth that is their ground and telos. 

In other words, in order to be perfectly useless, we must be silent and passive in the face of reality, which is the real instructor:

only in silence is hearing possible. Moreover, the stronger the determination prevails to hear all there is, the more complete the silence must be.

Conversely, science doesn't shut up, nor should it, for every answer is simultaneously the next question. And no answer is true per se, only falsifiable. Moreover, the questions are never about reality as such, rather, only particular aspects or objects which determine the method of approach. Therefore,

entire realms of reality are expressly "of no interest" right from the start. Seen from this angle, the philosopher's question, strictly, is no question at all: What is it all about? 

Any questions?

Liberal and Illiberal Arts

In the previous post we suggested that the practice of philosophy -- if successful -- transforms a merely useless man into a perfectly useless one. Pieper writes that 

Philosophy by its nature is a free endeavor, and for this reason it serves no one and nothing.

But this idea goes waaaay back to the beginning of philosophy. For example,

Analyzing Aristotle's text in his Metaphysics, we find to our amazement that "free" there means the same as "nonpractical!" 

Conversely, practical "is everything that serves a purpose." The operative word is serve, as in serf, service, servile, and slave. Philosophy is intellectual freedom truly lived,

insofar as it is not geared toward some purpose outside itself. Philosophy, rather, is an endeavor containing its own meaning and requires no justification from a purpose "served" (ibid.). 

Just yesterday I was telling my son that when I first began hearing rumblings about the left's sinister plans to eliminate free speech, I assumed it was just the usual paranoid ravings from the fringes of the periphery of the outskirts beyond the pale of the fever swamps of the conspiracy theorists of the pre-MAGA insurrectionists. 

Indeed, having once been a man of the left, I knew the principle of free speech was inviolate, and that no real liberal would ever question it. 

But ever since then, we see how the left has rapidly disavowed every last liberal principle, culminating most recently in Brandon's fascist attack on half the population (but in reality the other half as well, except they're too stupid or indoctrinated to see it).

Back when I was a Democrat, I didn't even know anyone who would have disagreed that academia should be a free space for rational beings to indulge our irrepressible search for the truth of reality. No one outside the Soviet sphere would have imagined otherwise. 

"Liberal arts" are "those that are oriented toward knowledge alone." Which is interesting, because today's illiberal arts -- or subhumanities -- are indeed useless (e.g, gender studies, queer theory, CRT, etc.), only in an inverted way, since they are detached from the freedom and truth that is their ground and telos. 

In other words, in order to be perfectly useless, we must be silent and passive in the face of reality, which is the real instructor:

only in silence is hearing possible. Moreover, the stronger the determination prevails to hear all there is, the more complete the silence must be.

Conversely, science doesn't shut up, nor should it, for every answer is simultaneously the next question. And no answer is true per se, only falsifiable. Moreover, the questions are never about reality as such, rather, only particular aspects or objects which determine the method of approach. Therefore,

entire realms of reality are expressly "of no interest" right from the start. Seen from this angle, the philosopher's question, strictly, is no question at all: What is it all about? 

Any questions?

Survival of the Littest

No, I don't apologize for the title, first, because the subject is Light, and second, because it's a perfectly acceptable word in standard poor English: https://www.urbandictionary.copoor m/define.php?term=littest

It popped into my head upon reading the following passage about how the metaphysically lit philosopher

will not fit naively into the functioning of the workaday routine; he as well will not be "fit" for this world; he as well will look at things differently from those who primarily are dominated by the pursuit of practical purposes. 

Welcome to my world, in which every day is nonlabor day -- which is not to say that no work is required. 

Rather, Pieper devoted a whole book to that subject (Leisure), which goes to the crucial distinction between the liberal and servile arts. Around here we not only focus on the former, but are always abiding in the nonlocal source of this leisure -- which is to say, freedom, slack, and play.

Play. That triggers memories of Letter I of Meditations on the Tarot, which I will quote in brief so as to not fall into a very large rabbit hole. In fact, I'll just extract a passage from a couple thousand posts ago: 

Why is the magician the would-be spiritual knowa's archetype? Because he is the symbol of what we must become if we are to have a fruitful journey through the rest of this symbolically resonant world. We must become this magician. And what does this magician represent?

Well, among other things, he embodies the principle of Slack, in that we must leave below the field of profane time, and become attuned to a more subtle music that has its own rhythms and harmelodies. Here is how UF formulates it:

Learn at first concentration without effort; transform work into play; make every yoke that you have accepted easy and every burden that you carry light!

The first of these prescriptions has to do with what we call the principle of Higher Non-doodling, which in turn is similar to the wu wei of Taoism. 

I suppose when I first started blogging 17 years ago, it was with some sort of purpose or goal in mind. That phase must have lasted for at least a week, before it was necessary to formally surrender:

every so often attempts have been made to bridge the incompatibility between philosophy and the world of production. The results have always been the same: the destruction of philosophy... (Pieper).

And of people. Without a doubt, the most useful philosophy of all time is Marxism, since it explicitly seeks to change the world before understanding it. Although it is intellectually dead, its spirit is nevertheless very much alive among the progressive zombies of the left. You saw Brandon Thursday night. The only thing missing was the Totenkopf -- the Death's Head -- of the SS.

I want to say that philosophy renders a useless man perfectly useless, but it's not the only way to become pointless. According to Pieper, "Transcending the world of production occurs not only through philosophy" but music, poetry, and "the fine arts as such," not to mention religious practice.

Useful philosophers exist because they are counterfeits of the real thing:

The Sophist looks exactly like a philosopher. He speaks exactly like a philosopher. In fact, it could be said that he resembles a true philosopher much more than the philosopher resembles himself.

Ho! I like that one. I think I'll stop now, before this play turns into labor, but not before tossing in a few aphorisms that touch on how to make ourselves a bit more useless:

The book does not educate one who reads it to become educated.

A genuine reader is someone who reads for pleasure the books that everyone else only studies.

One does not convince by preaching but rather by explaining without really caring whether or not the listener is convinced.

I do not speak of God in order to convert anyone but because it is the only subject worth speaking of.

Survival of the Littest

No, I don't apologize for the title, first, because the subject is Light, and second, because it's a perfectly acceptable word in standard poor English: https://www.urbandictionary.copoor m/define.php?term=littest

It popped into my head upon reading the following passage about how the metaphysically lit philosopher

will not fit naively into the functioning of the workaday routine; he as well will not be "fit" for this world; he as well will look at things differently from those who primarily are dominated by the pursuit of practical purposes. 

Welcome to my world, in which every day is nonlabor day -- which is not to say that no work is required. 

Rather, Pieper devoted a whole book to that subject (Leisure), which goes to the crucial distinction between the liberal and servile arts. Around here we not only focus on the former, but are always abiding in the nonlocal source of this leisure -- which is to say, freedom, slack, and play.

Play. That triggers memories of Letter I of Meditations on the Tarot, which I will quote in brief so as to not fall into a very large rabbit hole. In fact, I'll just extract a passage from a couple thousand posts ago: 

Why is the magician the would-be spiritual knowa's archetype? Because he is the symbol of what we must become if we are to have a fruitful journey through the rest of this symbolically resonant world. We must become this magician. And what does this magician represent?

Well, among other things, he embodies the principle of Slack, in that we must leave below the field of profane time, and become attuned to a more subtle music that has its own rhythms and harmelodies. Here is how UF formulates it:

Learn at first concentration without effort; transform work into play; make every yoke that you have accepted easy and every burden that you carry light!

The first of these prescriptions has to do with what we call the principle of Higher Non-doodling, which in turn is similar to the wu wei of Taoism. 

I suppose when I first started blogging 17 years ago, it was with some sort of purpose or goal in mind. That phase must have lasted for at least a week, before it was necessary to formally surrender:

every so often attempts have been made to bridge the incompatibility between philosophy and the world of production. The results have always been the same: the destruction of philosophy... (Pieper).

And of people. Without a doubt, the most useful philosophy of all time is Marxism, since it explicitly seeks to change the world before understanding it. Although it is intellectually dead, its spirit is nevertheless very much alive among the progressive zombies of the left. You saw Brandon Thursday night. The only thing missing was the Totenkopf -- the Death's Head -- of the SS.

I want to say that philosophy renders a useless man perfectly useless, but it's not the only way to become pointless. According to Pieper, "Transcending the world of production occurs not only through philosophy" but music, poetry, and "the fine arts as such," not to mention religious practice.

Useful philosophers exist because they are counterfeits of the real thing:

The Sophist looks exactly like a philosopher. He speaks exactly like a philosopher. In fact, it could be said that he resembles a true philosopher much more than the philosopher resembles himself.

Ho! I like that one. I think I'll stop now, before this play turns into labor, but not before tossing in a few aphorisms that touch on how to make ourselves a bit more useless:

The book does not educate one who reads it to become educated.

A genuine reader is someone who reads for pleasure the books that everyone else only studies.

One does not convince by preaching but rather by explaining without really caring whether or not the listener is convinced.

I do not speak of God in order to convert anyone but because it is the only subject worth speaking of.

On the Utter Uselessness of Bob and the Endless WTF?!

The subject is Light, in particular, the intellectual and spiritual kind without which we are not human. This is one of those things that is impossible to not know but the work of a moment to deny. 

To repeat what was said yesterday, if science is a laser beam precisely focused on this or that particular existent, and philosophy a floodlight illuminating the whole field of existence, then theology is an inquiry into the source of this Light. 

It says so right here in this book I'm reading called The Shape of Catholic Theology, by Aidan Nichols, where he distinguishes between a sterile and merely "objective" theology and a properly subjective theology illuminated by this primordial light source:

subjective faith opens the mind to God's own truth, enabling objective faith to become the medium of direct contact with God himself. The light which [this] brings to the mind derives from God's radiant being and enables us to share here and now in the knowledge which the saints enjoy in heaven and which, more fundamentally, God has of himself.

Correct. But I'm only up to page 20, so we'll have to return to this book later. Meanwhile, note that subjective theology by no means negates or nullifies objective theology, since the latter is the very form that renders the substance accessible to us; it is the immanence in which transcendence is clothed.

We can tell this is true because objective theology, even though its form is finite, is nevertheless infinite. In other words, you will have noticed that no one can engage in theology and say "we're done here," as if it is analogous to solving a mathematical problem. One can never assert this of revelation, for

To be a theological student in the full sense of those words cannot be a temporary state or a preamble to something else.... Rather, it is a solemn engagement to developing over a lifetime the gift of Christian wonder or curiosity (ibid.).

By implication, if philosophy is totally useless, then theology isn't even useless. 

Wait, what? Bob, show your work! No problem. In his so-called Defense of Philosophy, Pieper pulls a fast one by arguing that it is actually completely indefensible on any practical basis:

not only does it not serve any purpose, it even hampers the daily care for life's necessities. It is therefore nonsensical, and above all: counterproductive.

Indeed, I can offer firsthand testimony of this, since this blog serves no practical purpose whatsoever, and most certainly interferes with the pursuit of life's necessities. For example, back when I was gainfully employed I could only blog a few days a week, but now that I'm retired, we're back up to six or seven days a week in this pointless exercise, i.e., verticalisthenics and gymgnostics.

Does this mean I have attained perfect nonsense?

I'm flattered, but please. For if philosophy and objective theology are finite (which is to say, less than perfect) nonsense, then subjective theology is the impossible dream -- at least while we're above the sod -- of attaining perfect nonsense. 

This nonsense will make more sense as we proceed, I promise. We'll start with an aphorism:

The greater the importance of an intellectual activity, the more ridiculous is the claim of certifying the competence of those who exercise it. A diploma of dentistry is respectable, but one of philosophy is grotesque.

"To philosophize and to 'study philosophy,'" writes Pieper, "are two different things," to such an extent that "one can possibly even hinder the other." 

Now, to begin philosophizing requires a shock or a trigger "that reaches beyond the sphere of mere material needs," and which we symbolize (?!). Ontologically speaking, this latter is analogous to that feeling you get when you're leaning back in a chair and it's about to tip over, only on a permanent basis. Truly, it is the endless WTF?! 

It reminds me of the time I asked an anxious patient what he did upon arising in the morning: I sit on the edge of the bed and try to unwind, was his response. Likewise, we sit on the edge of the cosmos and try to unravel its mystery. But to pretend it has any practical purpose is to defeat the purpose, precisely.

Why be happy?

What is truth good for?

Why love beauty?

Why have a meaningful life?

Why be wise?

Why root for the Dodgers?

Asked no cosmically sane person, ever.  For none of these are "in order to," rather, they are for their own sake; they are the ends to which everything else is but a means. The most important things aren't good "for," rather, they are just good, period. Beginning and ending with God.

But why light a candle when you can light into and curse the dark MAGA extremists?

To be continued....

On the Utter Uselessness of Bob and the Endless WTF?!

The subject is Light, in particular, the intellectual and spiritual kind without which we are not human. This is one of those things that is impossible to not know but the work of a moment to deny. 

To repeat what was said yesterday, if science is a laser beam precisely focused on this or that particular existent, and philosophy a floodlight illuminating the whole field of existence, then theology is an inquiry into the source of this Light. 

It says so right here in this book I'm reading called The Shape of Catholic Theology, by Aidan Nichols, where he distinguishes between a sterile and merely "objective" theology and a properly subjective theology illuminated by this primordial light source:

subjective faith opens the mind to God's own truth, enabling objective faith to become the medium of direct contact with God himself. The light which [this] brings to the mind derives from God's radiant being and enables us to share here and now in the knowledge which the saints enjoy in heaven and which, more fundamentally, God has of himself.

Correct. But I'm only up to page 20, so we'll have to return to this book later. Meanwhile, note that subjective theology by no means negates or nullifies objective theology, since the latter is the very form that renders the substance accessible to us; it is the immanence in which transcendence is clothed.

We can tell this is true because objective theology, even though its form is finite, is nevertheless infinite. In other words, you will have noticed that no one can engage in theology and say "we're done here," as if it is analogous to solving a mathematical problem. One can never assert this of revelation, for

To be a theological student in the full sense of those words cannot be a temporary state or a preamble to something else.... Rather, it is a solemn engagement to developing over a lifetime the gift of Christian wonder or curiosity (ibid.).

By implication, if philosophy is totally useless, then theology isn't even useless. 

Wait, what? Bob, show your work! No problem. In his so-called Defense of Philosophy, Pieper pulls a fast one by arguing that it is actually completely indefensible on any practical basis:

not only does it not serve any purpose, it even hampers the daily care for life's necessities. It is therefore nonsensical, and above all: counterproductive.

Indeed, I can offer firsthand testimony of this, since this blog serves no practical purpose whatsoever, and most certainly interferes with the pursuit of life's necessities. For example, back when I was gainfully employed I could only blog a few days a week, but now that I'm retired, we're back up to six or seven days a week in this pointless exercise, i.e., verticalisthenics and gymgnostics.

Does this mean I have attained perfect nonsense?

I'm flattered, but please. For if philosophy and objective theology are finite (which is to say, less than perfect) nonsense, then subjective theology is the impossible dream -- at least while we're above the sod -- of attaining perfect nonsense. 

This nonsense will make more sense as we proceed, I promise. We'll start with an aphorism:

The greater the importance of an intellectual activity, the more ridiculous is the claim of certifying the competence of those who exercise it. A diploma of dentistry is respectable, but one of philosophy is grotesque.

"To philosophize and to 'study philosophy,'" writes Pieper, "are two different things," to such an extent that "one can possibly even hinder the other." 

Now, to begin philosophizing requires a shock or a trigger "that reaches beyond the sphere of mere material needs," and which we symbolize (?!). Ontologically speaking, this latter is analogous to that feeling you get when you're leaning back in a chair and it's about to tip over, only on a permanent basis. Truly, it is the endless WTF?! 

It reminds me of the time I asked an anxious patient what he did upon arising in the morning: I sit on the edge of the bed and try to unwind, was his response. Likewise, we sit on the edge of the cosmos and try to unravel its mystery. But to pretend it has any practical purpose is to defeat the purpose, precisely.

Why be happy?

What is truth good for?

Why love beauty?

Why have a meaningful life?

Why be wise?

Why root for the Dodgers?

Asked no cosmically sane person, ever.  For none of these are "in order to," rather, they are for their own sake; they are the ends to which everything else is but a means. The most important things aren't good "for," rather, they are just good, period. Beginning and ending with God.

But why light a candle when you can light into and curse the dark MAGA extremists?

To be continued....

Laser Beams and Floodlights

Laser beams and floodlights; or science and philosophy, respectively. 

But what is the source of the light? That's a question for theology -- or better, the mystic (i.e., experiential theologian), since it's not an abstraction, rather, an experience or vision. Pieper:

on the one hand, we are confronted with an unfathomable reality, yet the unfathomable reality of a world perfectly "lucid" in and by itself; on the other hand, there is universal knowability, yet the knowability of a world illuminated by an "inaccessible light."

This goes to one of the most consequential orthoparadoxes -- or intrinsic complementarities -- of being, which is to say, a cosmos that is in equal parts knowable and yet unfathomable; and these two "infinities" are a consequence of the same infinite, eternal, and nonlocal Light. 

Correct: mother nature is a two-faced... blanket. Or better, a rug -- a valued rug indeed, since it is the source of all values: quantity on one side, qualities on the other. 

Again, both sides are necessarily infinite, but infinitude by definition is one, so the single rug must truly tie the cosmos together. Therefore, do not think for a moment that some nihilist could come along and pee on one side without it soaking through to the other side.  

Pieper makes reference to the "daytime view" but also a "nighttime view," the former revealing "all things as accessible to an ever deeper cognition," the latter disclosing -- nondisclosing? --  the impossibility of ever attaining complete comprehension:

And yet, the notion that both spring from the same root, that both are -- in a certain sense -- even identical; that, more specifically, all things in themselves are entirely knowable because they originate in the infinite lucidity of the divine Logos, and that they are, nevertheless, inexhaustible for us because they originate, once again, in the infinite lucidity of the divine Logos -- this, of course, lies beyond all empirical demonstration.

This is not to say beyond metaphysical demonstration -- for example, Lao-tzu claims that Seeing into darkness is clarity, and counsels us to return to the source of light. / This is called practicing eternity. 

But it cannot be overemphasized that the Chinaman is not the issue. Rather, the preferred nomenclature is Logos, about which we can be abundantly clear and yet not necessarily precise. For there are rules, but only because there is a Ruler, and we are not Him.

For example, scientific statements can be made with ever-increasing precision, to such an extent that they reveal more and more about less and less. 

Conversely, philosophical statements clearly refer to everything, but in an imprecise way -- for example, if something is true, then it can't be false. Thanks for the tip, Cap'n Tautologous. You're out of your depth!

Disagree. Do you really think I'd roll out naked, metaphysically speaking? Again, an orthoparadox is not a tautology; or rather, it may appear so if viewed horizontally. It only reveals itself as meaningful from the vertical perspective. 

For example, the Thomistic tradition declares that "All that exists (or is real) is true." You may respond that this is trivial. 

Fair enough. Let's affirm the opposite: that there is no truth in things. Where does this leave us? Correct: in a nul-de-slack of nihilism and tenure -- or sitting on a one-sided rug, as if such a thing were possible or even conceivable. For no one can abide in the bright side of utter darkness.

Now, according to Thomas, 

The very reality of a thing is also its inner light.

A light we will continue to disclose in the next post. 

Laser Beams and Floodlights

Laser beams and floodlights; or science and philosophy, respectively. 

But what is the source of the light? That's a question for theology -- or better, the mystic (i.e., experiential theologian), since it's not an abstraction, rather, an experience or vision. Pieper:

on the one hand, we are confronted with an unfathomable reality, yet the unfathomable reality of a world perfectly "lucid" in and by itself; on the other hand, there is universal knowability, yet the knowability of a world illuminated by an "inaccessible light."

This goes to one of the most consequential orthoparadoxes -- or intrinsic complementarities -- of being, which is to say, a cosmos that is in equal parts knowable and yet unfathomable; and these two "infinities" are a consequence of the same infinite, eternal, and nonlocal Light. 

Correct: mother nature is a two-faced... blanket. Or better, a rug -- a valued rug indeed, since it is the source of all values: quantity on one side, qualities on the other. 

Again, both sides are necessarily infinite, but infinitude by definition is one, so the single rug must truly tie the cosmos together. Therefore, do not think for a moment that some nihilist could come along and pee on one side without it soaking through to the other side.  

Pieper makes reference to the "daytime view" but also a "nighttime view," the former revealing "all things as accessible to an ever deeper cognition," the latter disclosing -- nondisclosing? --  the impossibility of ever attaining complete comprehension:

And yet, the notion that both spring from the same root, that both are -- in a certain sense -- even identical; that, more specifically, all things in themselves are entirely knowable because they originate in the infinite lucidity of the divine Logos, and that they are, nevertheless, inexhaustible for us because they originate, once again, in the infinite lucidity of the divine Logos -- this, of course, lies beyond all empirical demonstration.

This is not to say beyond metaphysical demonstration -- for example, Lao-tzu claims that Seeing into darkness is clarity, and counsels us to return to the source of light. / This is called practicing eternity. 

But it cannot be overemphasized that the Chinaman is not the issue. Rather, the preferred nomenclature is Logos, about which we can be abundantly clear and yet not necessarily precise. For there are rules, but only because there is a Ruler, and we are not Him.

For example, scientific statements can be made with ever-increasing precision, to such an extent that they reveal more and more about less and less. 

Conversely, philosophical statements clearly refer to everything, but in an imprecise way -- for example, if something is true, then it can't be false. Thanks for the tip, Cap'n Tautologous. You're out of your depth!

Disagree. Do you really think I'd roll out naked, metaphysically speaking? Again, an orthoparadox is not a tautology; or rather, it may appear so if viewed horizontally. It only reveals itself as meaningful from the vertical perspective. 

For example, the Thomistic tradition declares that "All that exists (or is real) is true." You may respond that this is trivial. 

Fair enough. Let's affirm the opposite: that there is no truth in things. Where does this leave us? Correct: in a nul-de-slack of nihilism and tenure -- or sitting on a one-sided rug, as if such a thing were possible or even conceivable. For no one can abide in the bright side of utter darkness.

Now, according to Thomas, 

The very reality of a thing is also its inner light.

A light we will continue to disclose in the next post. 

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.

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.

Before this Post Was, I AM

Yesterday's post alluded to principles and anti-principles without ever getting to the point, but this is because I only find out what a post is about after it's finished, at which point a title pops into my head and says "we're done here." Count no man happy until he is dead, and count no post finished until it is named, even if the name makes no sense and requires a new post.

Now, it would be unscientific to contemplate the very things that would be unphilosophical not to contemplate. Why? Because the two approaches operate by very different principles. To elevate any science to the ultimate principle immediately renders it an anti-principle. Why?

Because the object of philosophy is being as being -- everything -- while the object of science is this or that delimited aspect of being -- various something(s), e.g., matter, life, earth, celestial objects, etc. Philosophy is all of these and more, because it isn't the sum of them but the totality or whole of them. 

The intellect is conformed to the Transcendent Everything, which is always on the surface but never of the surface. 

In an insultaining asnide, Schuon notes that "most philosophies start from a sort of axiomatic blindness," which is to say, an anti-principle, which in turn explains why "modern man collects keys without ever knowing how to open a door." 

For any form of mere rationalism encloses itself in its own premises and thereby "seeks the culminating point of the cognitive process on its own level." 

This is like searching "for a word that is entirely what it designates," or a title that is equivalent to its post. Modernity is  -- was --  a forgetting or systematic undiscovery of principles, whereas postmodernity is their inversion.

Back to Pieper: "To philosophize means nothing else but to reflect on the whole of all reality." 

Like anyone could even know that!

We never said know: rather, we said reflect -- like a mirror, not a container. When I gaze into a mirror I see my reflection, but the mirror does not and cannot contain me (said I AM; indeed, the same I AM can see Abraham's reflection, because before Abraham was, I AM).

(It is possible that that last paragraph made a point beyond my ability to make it.)

Now, supposing truth exists, then it is necessary for us to know it. But ever since Genesis 3,

Man is an obligation that man often violates (Dávila).

Here we see that IS actually does entail its own OUGHT, at least vis-a-vis philosophy. In other words, we know that we cannot derive the "ought" of morality from the "is" of nature. And yet, due to the very principle of our capacity to know being, we are thereby obligated to know it truthfully. 

Man qua man is obligated to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but only because he is conformed to the truth, the whole, truth, and nothing but the truth. So, help me, God! 

No prayer is ever in vain, especially that one. For what is a question but a prayer for its answer? 

Put conversely, strike at God, kill the man -- or his mind, anyway. Which is precisely why we are living through this zombie apocalypse, which is nothing other than dead men thinking. Other bloggers have sought merely to understand the left, when the point is to destroy the left. Or rather, to point out how and why they have already self-destructed.

This post is rapidly becoming an exercise in why a post can't be named until it is written. But let's refocus and try one more time to begin it. 

I remember after the 2016 election, when the anti-democratic left called itself the resistance. This is actually a fine name, because the left always and everywhere resists reality -- what is -- precisely. 

Conversely, we may define reality as that which resists us, precisely: it is that which resists us even when we stop believing in it. You might think that the greatest resistance is in the material world, and you would have a point: gravity, time, and entropy are all formidable aspects of The Cosmic Resistance. 

However, in our opinion the most consequential forms of the resistance are in the vertical, for these are the principles from which everything else flows -- for example, the principles of identity (or non-contradiction), or of sufficient reason, or of causation. 

I want to say that God poses the ultimate resistance for man, and there are many aphorisms that prove my point once and for all. But before getting to them, I would say that the crucifixion is the unsurpassable example, in that it is the permanent reminder that God is in the way and has to go -- at which point we can get down to the important business of creating heaven on earth without all the resistance from this vertical nuisance.

God is the impediment of modern man.

Today the individual rebels against inalterable human nature in order to refrain from amending his own correctable nature.

If man is the sole end of man, an inane reciprocity is born from that principle, like the mutual reflection of two empty mirrors.

Hell is the place where man finds all his projects realized.

Like a Democrat run city. 

Before this Post Was, I AM

Yesterday's post alluded to principles and anti-principles without ever getting to the point, but this is because I only find out what a post is about after it's finished, at which point a title pops into my head and says "we're done here." Count no man happy until he is dead, and count no post finished until it is named, even if the name makes no sense and requires a new post.

Now, it would be unscientific to contemplate the very things that would be unphilosophical not to contemplate. Why? Because the two approaches operate by very different principles. To elevate any science to the ultimate principle immediately renders it an anti-principle. Why?

Because the object of philosophy is being as being -- everything -- while the object of science is this or that delimited aspect of being -- various something(s), e.g., matter, life, earth, celestial objects, etc. Philosophy is all of these and more, because it isn't the sum of them but the totality or whole of them. 

The intellect is conformed to the Transcendent Everything, which is always on the surface but never of the surface. 

In an insultaining asnide, Schuon notes that "most philosophies start from a sort of axiomatic blindness," which is to say, an anti-principle, which in turn explains why "modern man collects keys without ever knowing how to open a door." 

For any form of mere rationalism encloses itself in its own premises and thereby "seeks the culminating point of the cognitive process on its own level." 

This is like searching "for a word that is entirely what it designates," or a title that is equivalent to its post. Modernity is  -- was --  a forgetting or systematic undiscovery of principles, whereas postmodernity is their inversion.

Back to Pieper: "To philosophize means nothing else but to reflect on the whole of all reality." 

Like anyone could even know that!

We never said know: rather, we said reflect -- like a mirror, not a container. When I gaze into a mirror I see my reflection, but the mirror does not and cannot contain me (said I AM; indeed, the same I AM can see Abraham's reflection, because before Abraham was, I AM).

(It is possible that that last paragraph made a point beyond my ability to make it.)

Now, supposing truth exists, then it is necessary for us to know it. But ever since Genesis 3,

Man is an obligation that man often violates (Dávila).

Here we see that IS actually does entail its own OUGHT, at least vis-a-vis philosophy. In other words, we know that we cannot derive the "ought" of morality from the "is" of nature. And yet, due to the very principle of our capacity to know being, we are thereby obligated to know it truthfully. 

Man qua man is obligated to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but only because he is conformed to the truth, the whole, truth, and nothing but the truth. So, help me, God! 

No prayer is ever in vain, especially that one. For what is a question but a prayer for its answer? 

Put conversely, strike at God, kill the man -- or his mind, anyway. Which is precisely why we are living through this zombie apocalypse, which is nothing other than dead men thinking. Other bloggers have sought merely to understand the left, when the point is to destroy the left. Or rather, to point out how and why they have already self-destructed.

This post is rapidly becoming an exercise in why a post can't be named until it is written. But let's refocus and try one more time to begin it. 

I remember after the 2016 election, when the anti-democratic left called itself the resistance. This is actually a fine name, because the left always and everywhere resists reality -- what is -- precisely. 

Conversely, we may define reality as that which resists us, precisely: it is that which resists us even when we stop believing in it. You might think that the greatest resistance is in the material world, and you would have a point: gravity, time, and entropy are all formidable aspects of The Cosmic Resistance. 

However, in our opinion the most consequential forms of the resistance are in the vertical, for these are the principles from which everything else flows -- for example, the principles of identity (or non-contradiction), or of sufficient reason, or of causation. 

I want to say that God poses the ultimate resistance for man, and there are many aphorisms that prove my point once and for all. But before getting to them, I would say that the crucifixion is the unsurpassable example, in that it is the permanent reminder that God is in the way and has to go -- at which point we can get down to the important business of creating heaven on earth without all the resistance from this vertical nuisance.

God is the impediment of modern man.

Today the individual rebels against inalterable human nature in order to refrain from amending his own correctable nature.

If man is the sole end of man, an inane reciprocity is born from that principle, like the mutual reflection of two empty mirrors.

Hell is the place where man finds all his projects realized.

Like a Democrat run city.