The First Principle of Normality

The first task of philosophy -- come to think of it -- must be to distinguish the real from the unreal. Reality, of course, is one. If you do not accept this principle, then you are dismissed. For to differ on a principle so fundamental is to differ on everything else. 

As the Aphorist says, Intelligence is the capacity for discerning principles. And Intelligent discussion should be reduced to clarifying divergences. Thus, the most intelligent -- or consequential anyway -- discussion involves the clarification of differing fundamental principles. 

For example, I believe political violence is always wrong (at least in a free society such as ours). The left believes it is good so long as it is being committed by the left. Big difference. 

On what deeper principle can the left's seemingly contradictory stance be founded? It can't be the principle that "might makes right," for if gangs of deplorable MAGA rioters and looters were to burn down our cities to exert political pressure, the left would immediately recognize it as fascism.

Nevertheless, there is a deeper principle involved in the left's seeming lack of principle, most ably articulated by comrade Lenin; for him, the question always comes down to: Who and Whom. When the left is the hammer, it is Good; conversely, when the left is the anvil, it is Evil. 

We see the same principle with regard to racism: it is always bad unless the left engages in it. Thus, affirmative action is just racial profiling under new management.  

But just try explaining this to an NPC leftist. It will not compute. Instead, one will be greeted with regurgitated epithets such as RACIST, FASCIST, and in recent days TERRORIST, INSURRECTIONIST, and TREASONIST.

Nevertheless, these NPCs make it a special point to visit our comment section on a daily basis and rewordgitate their memes. For it has never occurred to them that Engaging in dialogue with those who do not share our assumptions is nothing more than a stupid way to kill time, for both NPC and living human alike.

So, we don't engage in dialogue with people who have never even examined their own principles, any more than we would ask a dog why it is such a slave to instinct. We prefer the mode of meta-level insultainment, i.e., Four or five invulnerable philosophical propositions allow us to make fun of the rest.

Back to our main theme, which is the one reality and its many alternatives. Now, man is always arguing 1) from principle; 2) toward principle; or 3) from or toward any or no principle at all, this latter corresponding to the intellectual Calvinball of the left. 

A normal person...

STOP! That right there is controversial, isn't it? For one of the first principles of the left is that there can be no such thing as normality because there is no such thing as human nature. "Normality" presupposes a transcendent essence, but transcendence presupposes God, and the left can't consistently go there: In the Christianity of the leftist Christian, one of the two elements sooner or later eliminates the other (NGD).

This principle-of-no-principle leads directly to a host of "illogically logical entailments" such as men can be women or marriage can be anything. For the normal person these are absurdities, but for the absurd person they are normalities. How can one argue with a person who doesn't even bow to the principle of non-contradiction? One can't.  

For example, if a person who believes in the principle of free speech argues with a person who believes in the principle that free speech means suppression of thoughtcrime, the argument inevitably ends with the former expressing impermissible thoughtcrime. Banished from Twitter. No conversation for you!   

Nevertheless, we believe in human nature and in normality, including intellectual normality. Is there such a thing? Of course there is: for it is identical to asking whether truth exists. Supposing it does, then it is normal to conform to it.  

Cue NPCs: NO EVIDENCE ELECTION RIGGED. NO EVIDENCE ELECTION RIGGED. Which peacefully coexists with 2016 ELECTION RIGGED, 2004 ELECTION RIGGED, and 2000 ELECTION RIGGED. 1960? NOT RIGGED. NIXON BAD.

Now, to reject the principle of human nature is to reject any principle of objective morality. Give Lenin credit for intellectual honesty and for arguing from first principle:

We reject any morality based on extra-human and extra-class concepts.... there is no such thing as a morality that stands outside human society; that is a fraud. To us morality is subordinated to the interests of the proletariat's class struggle.... all morality lies in this united discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters.

Mass struggle against the exploiters. Or in our day, the left's victim culture whereby certain citizens are innocent and others guilty by virtue of immutable characteristics such as Whiteness or Maleness. 

For example, Biden's pick for head of the Civil Rights Division is innocent of racism despite believing the chemical melanin renders blacks superior, or that race should go into determining who pilots your plane.

About the principle of non-contradiction that permits and constrains normal thought. As it so happens, the latest Hillsdale Imprimus discusses this in the context of 1984, which has arrived 36 years late. Nevertheless, "better late than never" according to our technofascists.

As the first essential step of his education, Winston has to learn doublethink -- a way of thinking that defies the law of contradiction [which] is the basis of all reasoning, the means of making sense of the world.

Note well that last one, for it means that denying the law of non-contraction renders one forever incapable of making sense of the world. And there's a name for a world that isn't reducible to rational sense: hell.

Speaking of which, here's an example:

In our time, the law of non-contradiction would mean that a governor, say, could not simultaneously hold that the COVID pandemic renders church services too dangerous to allow, and also that massive protest marches are fine.

Well, unless there is a "higher" principle involved, Lenin's principle that whatever contributes to the left's success is good. Nothing more opposes the left's project than genuine religiosity, so Governor Newsom's logic actually checks out.

Just getting started. To be continued. 

Fun Size Nuggets of Anti-Wokeness

Damn:  this is one of the best essays I can remember reading in a long time, Psychopathy and the Origins of Totalitarianism, by James Lindsay:

<https://newdiscourses.com/2020/12/psychopathy-origins-totalitarianism/>

The only drawback is that it's way too long -- at 8,538 words, to be exact. I extracted a number of passages for use in today's offering, but they came out to over 1,500 words, which is probably longer than one of our typical posts. Is it possible to boil it down further, to bite-sized aphorisms?

There's nothing in the post that we haven't touched on over the past 15 years, and I suppose that if we were to lay those posts end to end they'd fill a book or two, so who are we to diagnose logorrhea in someone else? 

Despite the wordiness, one of the guiding principles of this blog is to reduce the verbiage -- in other words  to say as much as possible with as few words as necessary  This requires a relentless vertical integration and synthesis that harmonizes the realms below without distorting, much less denying, them. This is more challenging than any reductive, one-dimensional religion such as atheism, but also much more fun.

On the one hand, we want to know Everything there is to Know about Everything there Is. On the other hand, we want to say it as economically as possible, because knowledge is infinite while time is short and getting shorter all the time. In an analogy we've used before, our life is like the opening and closing of the aperture of a camera. 

The length of one's life is the shutter speed, but under the best of circumstances we have only so much light with which to work and use to develop our pneumagraph of the whole. That this is even possible is about the most unlikely thing we could imagine (a fact that must, of course, be incorporated into our picture!) 

Yes, people have developed some pretty awful photographs over the years, from Marxism to National Socialism to Islamism and all the rest, but it's a wonder they can do it at all. What is reality that man art mindful of it? It must include man's ability to know reality, which presumes reality's ability to speak to man.

On to the essay. Of note, it is partly inspired by Pieper's (speaking of writers who say the maximum with the minimum) Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, of which we have often written. Really, the title says it all: logocide is always a prelude to homicide. 

Not only is language "special," it is a divine gift and therefore sacred. If one is aware of the sanctity of speech, one trembles at the thought of committing the type of intellectual sin discussed in yesterday's post. Which is why intellectual dishonesty is among the most spiritually depraved conditions to which a man may sink, for it not only enables everything else, but justifies it.

While Lindsay doesn't mention him, his ideas are  also exhaustively described by Voegelin, with concepts such as doxic thinking (confusion of the model with reality), eclipse (closure of consciousness against reality), open existence (consciousness oriented toward truth and transcendence), amathia (willfully ignorant flight from the transcendent), and second reality (the fictitious world that masks or eclipses the real one).

Lindsay's essay is all about second realties and how they get that way. And what we can do about the people inhabiting them. Of course, if there is only one person inhabiting a secondary reality, we direct him to his local psychiatrist or psychologist. But what if there are millions? And what if these millions form a political movement that exerts pressure on the restavus to take up residence in their pseudo-reality?

I know what you're thinking: if you don't like California, move to Texas. Believe me, it's tempting. 

Anyway, every normal person feels this pressure to conform. Its essence is totalitarian; or rather, while the totalitarian temptation is fundamental to leftism, it is nevertheless a symptom of something deeper. What could it be?

Lindsay's analysis comes as close as secular thinking will allow:

Pseudo-realities are, simply put, false constructions of reality. It is hopefully obvious that among the features of pseudo-realities is that they must present a plausible but deliberately wrong understanding of reality. 

Therefore, because the construction is false, it must be defended. But it can never be defended with logic consistently applied. As we know, there are two things the woke progressive can never do, on pain of waking up from xyr wokeness: 1) be consistent in xyr principles, and 2) stop projecting. 

pseudo-realities do not attempt to describe reality as it is but rather as it “should be,” as determined by the relatively small fraction of the population who cannot bear living in reality unless it is bent to enable their own psychopathologies, which will be projected upon their enemies, which means all normal people.

But the projection too is a symptom, although it later becomes a cause. For example, supposing a woke person projects racism into me, this might cause xym to key my car or turn me in to the authorities for wrongthink.

The basic and ineradicable issue for the woke person is that reality can never mirror their psychic distortion. But instead of changing thoughts, like the restavus do, the woke bloke doubles down and tries to cut reality down to the size of his dreamworld. 

It also must be noted that the mismatch between fantasy and reality will feel like an act of aggression to the offended snowflake. Which is why, for example, we are seeing the corporate crackdown on conservative thought by our technofascist underlords, who are determined to force everyone to sing from the same hymnal and hernal. 

We are literally witnessing them turn our public square into one big college campus; while college used to be an island of repression in a sea of freedom, they want the sea to be as repressive as any looniversity bin. 

Pseudo-realities are always social fictions, which, in light of the above, means political fictions. That is, they are maintained not because they are true, in the sense that they correspond to reality, either material or human, but because a sufficient quantity of people in the society they attack either believe them or refuse to challenge them. 

The credo of the postmodern progressive is Truth doesn't exist, and we are its prophets; or There are no metanarratives outside our twisted paralogic; and finally the outright threat of Be tolerant of our intolerance, or else!  

We'll end this already too long post on that note:

Because the pseudo-reality is not real and does not correspond in any faithful way to objective reality, it cannot be described in terms that are logical. In the realm of how it thinks about the world, a pseudo-reality will employ an alternative logic -- a paralogic, an illogical fake logic that operates beside logic.... a pseudo-real paralogic will always be internally (and often unrepentantly) inconsistent and self-contradictory (Lindsay).

Which we've been saying for years. 

Fun Size Nuggets of Anti-Wokeness

Damn:  this is one of the best essays I can remember reading in a long time, Psychopathy and the Origins of Totalitarianism, by James Lindsay:

<https://newdiscourses.com/2020/12/psychopathy-origins-totalitarianism/>

The only drawback is that it's way too long -- at 8,538 words, to be exact. I extracted a number of passages for use in today's offering, but they came out to over 1,500 words, which is probably longer than one of our typical posts. Is it possible to boil it down further, to bite-sized aphorisms?

There's nothing in the post that we haven't touched on over the past 15 years, and I suppose that if we were to lay those posts end to end they'd fill a book or two, so who are we to diagnose logorrhea in someone else? 

Despite the wordiness, one of the guiding principles of this blog is to reduce the verbiage -- in other words  to say as much as possible with as few words as necessary  This requires a relentless vertical integration and synthesis that harmonizes the realms below without distorting, much less denying, them. This is more challenging than any reductive, one-dimensional religion such as atheism, but also much more fun.

On the one hand, we want to know Everything there is to Know about Everything there Is. On the other hand, we want to say it as economically as possible, because knowledge is infinite while time is short and getting shorter all the time. In an analogy we've used before, our life is like the opening and closing of the aperture of a camera. 

The length of one's life is the shutter speed, but under the best of circumstances we have only so much light with which to work and use to develop our pneumagraph of the whole. That this is even possible is about the most unlikely thing we could imagine (a fact that must, of course, be incorporated into our picture!) 

Yes, people have developed some pretty awful photographs over the years, from Marxism to National Socialism to Islamism and all the rest, but it's a wonder they can do it at all. What is reality that man art mindful of it? It must include man's ability to know reality, which presumes reality's ability to speak to man.

On to the essay. Of note, it is partly inspired by Pieper's (speaking of writers who say the maximum with the minimum) Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, of which we have often written. Really, the title says it all: logocide is always a prelude to homicide. 

Not only is language "special," it is a divine gift and therefore sacred. If one is aware of the sanctity of speech, one trembles at the thought of committing the type of intellectual sin discussed in yesterday's post. Which is why intellectual dishonesty is among the most spiritually depraved conditions to which a man may sink, for it not only enables everything else, but justifies it.

While Lindsay doesn't mention him, his ideas are  also exhaustively described by Voegelin, with concepts such as doxic thinking (confusion of the model with reality), eclipse (closure of consciousness against reality), open existence (consciousness oriented toward truth and transcendence), amathia (willfully ignorant flight from the transcendent), and second reality (the fictitious world that masks or eclipses the real one).

Lindsay's essay is all about second realties and how they get that way. And what we can do about the people inhabiting them. Of course, if there is only one person inhabiting a secondary reality, we direct him to his local psychiatrist or psychologist. But what if there are millions? And what if these millions form a political movement that exerts pressure on the restavus to take up residence in their pseudo-reality?

I know what you're thinking: if you don't like California, move to Texas. Believe me, it's tempting. 

Anyway, every normal person feels this pressure to conform. Its essence is totalitarian; or rather, while the totalitarian temptation is fundamental to leftism, it is nevertheless a symptom of something deeper. What could it be?

Lindsay's analysis comes as close as secular thinking will allow:

Pseudo-realities are, simply put, false constructions of reality. It is hopefully obvious that among the features of pseudo-realities is that they must present a plausible but deliberately wrong understanding of reality. 

Therefore, because the construction is false, it must be defended. But it can never be defended with logic consistently applied. As we know, there are two things the woke progressive can never do, on pain of waking up from xyr wokeness: 1) be consistent in xyr principles, and 2) stop projecting. 

pseudo-realities do not attempt to describe reality as it is but rather as it “should be,” as determined by the relatively small fraction of the population who cannot bear living in reality unless it is bent to enable their own psychopathologies, which will be projected upon their enemies, which means all normal people.

But the projection too is a symptom, although it later becomes a cause. For example, supposing a woke person projects racism into me, this might cause xym to key my car or turn me in to the authorities for wrongthink.

The basic and ineradicable issue for the woke person is that reality can never mirror their psychic distortion. But instead of changing thoughts, like the restavus do, the woke bloke doubles down and tries to cut reality down to the size of his dreamworld. 

It also must be noted that the mismatch between fantasy and reality will feel like an act of aggression to the offended snowflake. Which is why, for example, we are seeing the corporate crackdown on conservative thought by our technofascist underlords, who are determined to force everyone to sing from the same hymnal and hernal. 

We are literally witnessing them turn our public square into one big college campus; while college used to be an island of repression in a sea of freedom, they want the sea to be as repressive as any looniversity bin. 

Pseudo-realities are always social fictions, which, in light of the above, means political fictions. That is, they are maintained not because they are true, in the sense that they correspond to reality, either material or human, but because a sufficient quantity of people in the society they attack either believe them or refuse to challenge them. 

The credo of the postmodern progressive is Truth doesn't exist, and we are its prophets; or There are no metanarratives outside our twisted paralogic; and finally the outright threat of Be tolerant of our intolerance, or else!  

We'll end this already too long post on that note:

Because the pseudo-reality is not real and does not correspond in any faithful way to objective reality, it cannot be described in terms that are logical. In the realm of how it thinks about the world, a pseudo-reality will employ an alternative logic -- a paralogic, an illogical fake logic that operates beside logic.... a pseudo-real paralogic will always be internally (and often unrepentantly) inconsistent and self-contradictory (Lindsay).

Which we've been saying for years. 

Sin Intellectually and the Rest Follows

I suppose most people, when -- or these days, if -- they think of sin, they imagine certain behaviors, from murder to theft to lying, et al. Jesus, of course, shifts the focus from external behavior to interior intent. 

Now, this cannot contradict the truism that the highway to hell is paved with good intentions, because intentions, in order to be good, must be in accordance with the virtue of prudence, and prudence always considers unintended consequences. 

Which, as you will have no doubt noticed, is precisely what makes the left so foolish and so bereft of wisdom (wisdom being synonyms with prudence). 

We won't say "evil," because the left's iniquity is a somewhat separate matter: it takes all kinds (or five kinds, rather) to make up the left, and there is a difference between ignorance, stupidity, indoctrination, mental illness, and demon possession, even if the demons exploit the first four. There is also excusable ignorance and the culpable kind, innocent stupidity mingled with the tenured kind. 

Having said that, it is certainly the case that when the left's good intentions are on the march, iniquity is in the saddle. For which reason the Aphorist reminds us -- as if we need reminding -- that

The devil can achieve nothing great without the careless collaboration of the virtues.

Being that this is -- obviously -- a  human problem before it is a political problem, one will find plenty of people with good but unexamined intentions among conservatives. 

However, given the deeper principles of conservatism, such purblind worldlings must be considered accidental to the movement; conversely, the essence of leftism involves a conflation of intentions and results. Examples are too numerous to mention:

"rent control"; "minimum wage"; "affordable healthcare"; "war on poverty"; "public education"; "diversity"; "anti-hate speech"; "anti-racism"; "pro-woman"; "sex education," etc.

In each case, the intention leads to its opposite: housing shortages, increased unemployment & small business failures, more expensive healthcare, institutionalized poverty, credentialed idiocy, intellectual conformity, legitimization of hatred, structural racism, institutionalized misogyny, and increased abortion & unwed motherhood, respectively.

Since intention is prior to act, it seems to me that the greatest and most consequential evil must be intellectual sin. For example, extermination of Jews was predicated on the belief that Jewish blood polluted and poisoned Aryan blood. 

Likewise, the 100 million deaths that followed in the wake of communism's good intentions resulted from the principles of class warfare and elimination of private property.

Unfortunately, the reports of Marxism's death in 1991 are greatly exaggerated. In reality, Marxism cannot die, at least until the end of the world as we know it.  

If there is ever an "apocalypse" -- i.e., final unveiling of history -- one of the things it will reveal is the deeper structure of Marxism, the latter being only an effect of something quintessentially human. This nasty thing takes many forms; it apparently accompanies the human journey from the beginning and will be with us until the end. Wheat & tares.

Gosh. What could it be? Let's stay out of politics per se, and try to look at it as a biologist might look at any other animal. We don't consider, say, an anthill and criticize the queen for lording it over the drones. We don't criticize dogs for their prejudices against cats, or cats for sadistic tendencies towards mice.

So let's take man as we find him. As it so happens, over the weekend I read an enjoyable book called Why We Bite the Invisible Hand: The Psychology of Anti-Capitalism (see sidebar). Nothing new, really -- nothing you won't find in a book by Sowell or Hayek or Friedman, nor does the author proceed far enough in his analysis, as he is a secular thinker and stalls out at the level of sociobiology. 

Even so, not only is this deeper than any ideological leftist dares go, but even going there provokes hysteria among the usual suspects: biology is racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-LGBTQ, etc. 

More to the point, it contradicts the principles of the left, so it must be attacked and discredited. If biology decrees that men can't be women or that IQ is inherited or that envy is genetic leftism, then biology's gotta go.

To be continued....

Sin Intellectually and the Rest Follows

I suppose most people, when -- or these days, if -- they think of sin, they imagine certain behaviors, from murder to theft to lying, et al. Jesus, of course, shifts the focus from external behavior to interior intent. 

Now, this cannot contradict the truism that the highway to hell is paved with good intentions, because intentions, in order to be good, must be in accordance with the virtue of prudence, and prudence always considers unintended consequences. 

Which, as you will have no doubt noticed, is precisely what makes the left so foolish and so bereft of wisdom (wisdom being synonyms with prudence). 

We won't say "evil," because the left's iniquity is a somewhat separate matter: it takes all kinds (or five kinds, rather) to make up the left, and there is a difference between ignorance, stupidity, indoctrination, mental illness, and demon possession, even if the demons exploit the first four. There is also excusable ignorance and the culpable kind, innocent stupidity mingled with the tenured kind. 

Having said that, it is certainly the case that when the left's good intentions are on the march, iniquity is in the saddle. For which reason the Aphorist reminds us -- as if we need reminding -- that

The devil can achieve nothing great without the careless collaboration of the virtues.

Being that this is -- obviously -- a  human problem before it is a political problem, one will find plenty of people with good but unexamined intentions among conservatives. 

However, given the deeper principles of conservatism, such purblind worldlings must be considered accidental to the movement; conversely, the essence of leftism involves a conflation of intentions and results. Examples are too numerous to mention:

"rent control"; "minimum wage"; "affordable healthcare"; "war on poverty"; "public education"; "diversity"; "anti-hate speech"; "anti-racism"; "pro-woman"; "sex education," etc.

In each case, the intention leads to its opposite: housing shortages, increased unemployment & small business failures, more expensive healthcare, institutionalized poverty, credentialed idiocy, intellectual conformity, legitimization of hatred, structural racism, institutionalized misogyny, and increased abortion & unwed motherhood, respectively.

Since intention is prior to act, it seems to me that the greatest and most consequential evil must be intellectual sin. For example, extermination of Jews was predicated on the belief that Jewish blood polluted and poisoned Aryan blood. 

Likewise, the 100 million deaths that followed in the wake of communism's good intentions resulted from the principles of class warfare and elimination of private property.

Unfortunately, the reports of Marxism's death in 1991 are greatly exaggerated. In reality, Marxism cannot die, at least until the end of the world as we know it.  

If there is ever an "apocalypse" -- i.e., final unveiling of history -- one of the things it will reveal is the deeper structure of Marxism, the latter being only an effect of something quintessentially human. This nasty thing takes many forms; it apparently accompanies the human journey from the beginning and will be with us until the end. Wheat & tares.

Gosh. What could it be? Let's stay out of politics per se, and try to look at it as a biologist might look at any other animal. We don't consider, say, an anthill and criticize the queen for lording it over the drones. We don't criticize dogs for their prejudices against cats, or cats for sadistic tendencies towards mice.

So let's take man as we find him. As it so happens, over the weekend I read an enjoyable book called Why We Bite the Invisible Hand: The Psychology of Anti-Capitalism (see sidebar). Nothing new, really -- nothing you won't find in a book by Sowell or Hayek or Friedman, nor does the author proceed far enough in his analysis, as he is a secular thinker and stalls out at the level of sociobiology. 

Even so, not only is this deeper than any ideological leftist dares go, but even going there provokes hysteria among the usual suspects: biology is racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-LGBTQ, etc. 

More to the point, it contradicts the principles of the left, so it must be attacked and discredited. If biology decrees that men can't be women or that IQ is inherited or that envy is genetic leftism, then biology's gotta go.

To be continued....

Bob vs. a 15 Year Old

Another brief one, which seems to be the new norm. Lucky you!

I am a different person from the one who staggered into graduate school in 1981 and stumbled out in 1988. In one sense this is a banality, but I mean something different. 

That is, supposing one is the recipient of an extensive post-secondary education -- particularly in the humanities -- this should presumably help one actualize and perfect whatever nascent intellectual gifts, virtues, and potentials one possesses.  

I remember the Happy Acres Guy using the analogy of a sports camp: attending one isn't going to turn the non-athlete into an athlete; rather, it's purpose is to make the athlete better: it can perfect one's skills, not conjure them 

Same with college. There's a reason why it cranks out credentialed idiots by the thousands: because these idiots were never intellectual athletes to begin with. Or maybe you've never read Michelle Obama's master's thesis.

Now that any idiot can graduate college, one supposes that the purpose of graduate degree is to distinguish one from the common idiot with a BA. But one has only to have attended graduate school to know this isn't true. 

It reminds me of a recent column by Roger Kimball about the ludicrous Doctor Jill Biden. Her silly title "communicates less honor than affectation and social insecurity":

In the United States, anyway, it is generally understood, though seldom mentioned in polite society, that the less distinguished one’s academic institution, the more likely one will insist upon the honorific “Dr.” And that’s for Ph.D. degrees. The degree of Ed.D. -- officially a “doctor of education” -- is, let’s be candid, more a certificate than a degree. Yes, one is entitled to the title “Dr.” But it’s only a short step, or half step, up from those entertainers and purveyors of boutique soaps who style themselves “Dr.” or “Doc”: “Dr. Bronner,” for example, or “Doc Watson.” 

Now, Doc, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. We all know what an actual doctor is, which is why we respect them. An EdD or PhD would be arrested for attempting what real doctors can do, e.g., give you drugs, cut you open, or see you naked. 

But here again, this isn't my point. Let's put it this way: my son, who is 15 years old, watches Prager U videos as part of his homeschooling. As such, he knows more about political philosophy, or the Constitution, or the history of the Middle East, or the reality of sexual differences, or basic economics, or race, than I did in 1988, when I became a fully credentialed idiot.

Supposing we could beam my son back to 1988 and engage the old me in debate, he would easily trounce me. But would I have recognized my humiliation at the hands of a mere teen? 

No. Way. I would have presumed to correct him at every turn, no doubt adopting my best superior tone while gently mocking his naiveté -- or, more likely, arrogantly steamrolling it. Even imagining the exchange actually makes me a bit nauseous.

There but for the grace of God grew I.

Along these lines, I want to pick up where we left off in the previous post, because it touches on a fundamental principle of human psychology of which I was totally ignorant in 1988 -- after having been certified as a Doctor of the subject on the way to being a licensed Healer of Souls! The thought of which makes me a bit more nauseous.

A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person reminds us that the term fall is "a conceptual metaphor" signifying "an ontological change in humanity." This change redounds to "the loss of an original state" of -- in our words -- freely chosen conformity to the divine principle and person.

Now, this seems like a pretty important piece of information to leave out. Sure, you could say this is just a crazy Christian theory, but believe me, we learned plenty of other crazy theories from behaviorism at one end to Freudianism at the other and existential psychology in between. 

What else do these boys (in the CC M-M of the P) have to say about the subject? 

Every worldview and value system has an account of the origin and extent of human weakness and disorder.  

Quite true, except it is often implicit. But everyone can see that there's something wrong with the humans. For the Marxist it is private property. For the critical race theorist it is whiteness. For the feminist it is men. For Democrats it is Trump.

When I completed graduate school, I would have no doubt pointed to the ins, outs, and what-have-yous of childhood attachment. I suppose I still do, but in a much wider and deeper psycho-spiritual context. 

For example, I wouldn't have recognized homeschooling as such a critical prolongation of this process. But this is precisely why my 15 year old son could trounce his 32 year old father in a debate.

Some more critical information from the book: the principle of fallenness accounts for a dis-ordering of four particular human capacities:

(a) reason remains wounded by ignorance and in need of the virtue of practical wisdom; (b) the will remains wounded by malice and in need of the virtue of justice; (c) the emotions related to the good that is difficult to reach or the evil that is difficult to avoid remain wounded by our weakness and in need of the virtue of fortitude; and (d) the emotions related to attraction to a good or repulsion of something that is evil remain wounded by disordered desire and in need of the virtue of temperance or moderation.  

So when we say that man is fallen, we can point to certain evident consequences, i.e., the relative absence of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance; man as we find him is more or less imprudent, unjust, weak-willed (or willful), and intemperate. And a real doctor of psychology would assist the patient in precisely these dimensions. 

Now, as alluded to in the second paragraph, a higher education in general should at least help to actualize a bit of our human potential in these same areas. I suppose it does, in that it renders its beneficiaries as temperate as a Paul Krugman, as prudent as a Cornell West, as just as a Karl Marx, and as brave your average college dean.  

Bob vs. a 15 Year Old

Another brief one, which seems to be the new norm. Lucky you!

I am a different person from the one who staggered into graduate school in 1981 and stumbled out in 1988. In one sense this is a banality, but I mean something different. 

That is, supposing one is the recipient of an extensive post-secondary education -- particularly in the humanities -- this should presumably help one actualize and perfect whatever nascent intellectual gifts, virtues, and potentials one possesses.  

I remember the Happy Acres Guy using the analogy of a sports camp: attending one isn't going to turn the non-athlete into an athlete; rather, it's purpose is to make the athlete better: it can perfect one's skills, not conjure them 

Same with college. There's a reason why it cranks out credentialed idiots by the thousands: because these idiots were never intellectual athletes to begin with. Or maybe you've never read Michelle Obama's master's thesis.

Now that any idiot can graduate college, one supposes that the purpose of graduate degree is to distinguish one from the common idiot with a BA. But one has only to have attended graduate school to know this isn't true. 

It reminds me of a recent column by Roger Kimball about the ludicrous Doctor Jill Biden. Her silly title "communicates less honor than affectation and social insecurity":

In the United States, anyway, it is generally understood, though seldom mentioned in polite society, that the less distinguished one’s academic institution, the more likely one will insist upon the honorific “Dr.” And that’s for Ph.D. degrees. The degree of Ed.D. -- officially a “doctor of education” -- is, let’s be candid, more a certificate than a degree. Yes, one is entitled to the title “Dr.” But it’s only a short step, or half step, up from those entertainers and purveyors of boutique soaps who style themselves “Dr.” or “Doc”: “Dr. Bronner,” for example, or “Doc Watson.” 

Now, Doc, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. We all know what an actual doctor is, which is why we respect them. An EdD or PhD would be arrested for attempting what real doctors can do, e.g., give you drugs, cut you open, or see you naked. 

But here again, this isn't my point. Let's put it this way: my son, who is 15 years old, watches Prager U videos as part of his homeschooling. As such, he knows more about political philosophy, or the Constitution, or the history of the Middle East, or the reality of sexual differences, or basic economics, or race, than I did in 1988, when I became a fully credentialed idiot.

Supposing we could beam my son back to 1988 and engage the old me in debate, he would easily trounce me. But would I have recognized my humiliation at the hands of a mere teen? 

No. Way. I would have presumed to correct him at every turn, no doubt adopting my best superior tone while gently mocking his naiveté -- or, more likely, arrogantly steamrolling it. Even imagining the exchange actually makes me a bit nauseous.

There but for the grace of God grew I.

Along these lines, I want to pick up where we left off in the previous post, because it touches on a fundamental principle of human psychology of which I was totally ignorant in 1988 -- after having been certified as a Doctor of the subject on the way to being a licensed Healer of Souls! The thought of which makes me a bit more nauseous.

A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person reminds us that the term fall is "a conceptual metaphor" signifying "an ontological change in humanity." This change redounds to "the loss of an original state" of -- in our words -- freely chosen conformity to the divine principle and person.

Now, this seems like a pretty important piece of information to leave out. Sure, you could say this is just a crazy Christian theory, but believe me, we learned plenty of other crazy theories from behaviorism at one end to Freudianism at the other and existential psychology in between. 

What else do these boys (in the CC M-M of the P) have to say about the subject? 

Every worldview and value system has an account of the origin and extent of human weakness and disorder.  

Quite true, except it is often implicit. But everyone can see that there's something wrong with the humans. For the Marxist it is private property. For the critical race theorist it is whiteness. For the feminist it is men. For Democrats it is Trump.

When I completed graduate school, I would have no doubt pointed to the ins, outs, and what-have-yous of childhood attachment. I suppose I still do, but in a much wider and deeper psycho-spiritual context. 

For example, I wouldn't have recognized homeschooling as such a critical prolongation of this process. But this is precisely why my 15 year old son could trounce his 32 year old father in a debate.

Some more critical information from the book: the principle of fallenness accounts for a dis-ordering of four particular human capacities:

(a) reason remains wounded by ignorance and in need of the virtue of practical wisdom; (b) the will remains wounded by malice and in need of the virtue of justice; (c) the emotions related to the good that is difficult to reach or the evil that is difficult to avoid remain wounded by our weakness and in need of the virtue of fortitude; and (d) the emotions related to attraction to a good or repulsion of something that is evil remain wounded by disordered desire and in need of the virtue of temperance or moderation.  

So when we say that man is fallen, we can point to certain evident consequences, i.e., the relative absence of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance; man as we find him is more or less imprudent, unjust, weak-willed (or willful), and intemperate. And a real doctor of psychology would assist the patient in precisely these dimensions. 

Now, as alluded to in the second paragraph, a higher education in general should at least help to actualize a bit of our human potential in these same areas. I suppose it does, in that it renders its beneficiaries as temperate as a Paul Krugman, as prudent as a Cornell West, as just as a Karl Marx, and as brave your average college dean.  

Memo to Fallen Man: Stop the Steal!

We left off with a discussion of the ascending and descending cosmic winds, which are always present in some form or fashion however much we may wish it were otherwise.   

Indeed, even "wishing" is situated on this axis, for it is ultimately conformed to love, truth, beauty, goodness, and unity -- or their downward alternatives -- which are obviously not reducible to matter and sensation. 

If nature weren't already supernatural we could never even know the dame, for we would -- literally -- be  immersed in the senses and outside the loop (the spiraling loop of ascent and descent).

With this in mind, let's continue with Schuon's essay on Man in the Cosmogonic Projection, which helps to unigmatize a number of enigmas. We'll figure out later if we can square it with cosmic orthodoxy:

just as the boomerang by its very form is destined to return to him who has thrown it, so man is predestined by his form to return to his divine Prototype; whether he wills it or not, man is "condemned" to transcendence.

That last comment is what I mean by wishing it were otherwise: yes, you are a child of the living God, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Except of course there is, since, by virtue of our divine birthright, we are also condemned to freedom. Now, man is always in rebellion against his own freedom, or there would be no left or any other forms of theocracy. 

Why else did it take 100,000 years for man to create a nation anchored in his own transcendent rights and duties? And why else has the devil accompanied its development and never stopped trying to undermine it?  Hmm? 

The devil simultaneously loves and hates freedom: to be precise, he loves it -- insofar as this verb applies -- so long as it isn't conformed to its vertical telos.  Remove the latter and freedom reduces to blind will and the tyranny of relativism. Which is why "the worst of perversions is that of man," since the corruption of the best is indeed the worst. 

This applies quintessentially to a perverse left which only exists to corrupt the best (the best constitution, nation, educational system, or any other institution it touches). The following passage offers a hint as to why:

The "dark" and "descending" tendency not only moves away from the Sovereign Good, but also rises up against It; whence the equation between the devil and pride (ibid.). 

Boom and bingo: the revolutionary impulse -- which is always with and in us -- is characterized by a prideful misuse of freedom. Now, where have I heard this idea before? 

I know! On page 473 of A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person. In a chapter called Fallen, it reminds us that the term fall is "a conceptual metaphor" signifying "an ontological change in humanity." This change redounds to "the loss of an original state" of -- in our words -- freely chosen conformity to the divine principle and person.

An ontological change, eh? This doesn't just imply a change in knowledge, or relations, or feelings, or behavior; rather, a change in our very being. Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark. Right down to the marrow.

Is there anything we can do about it? Well, maybe, but first we must admit we have a problem, that we do not have the power to fix it, that it isn't someone else's fault, and that it isn't susceptible to a political solution that exteriorizes blame at the cost of freedom and responsibility. The best political system only facilities the possibility of choosing good over evil and reality over appearance. 

Nevertheless, as the Poet says, 

They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is will shadow
The man that pretends to be.

Is and Be, which go to the ontological change mentioned above: the man who Is is fallen man pretending not to be. The possibility of real being is predicated on the recognition of false being. Again, job one is to simply stop pretending. 

That's about it for today, except for a few aphorisms by our sphinx-like friend Nicolás:

In order to corrupt the individual it is enough to teach him to call his personal desires rights and the rights of others abuses.

In order to enslave the people the politician needs to convince them that all their problems are “social.”

Social salvation is near when each one admits that he can only save himself. Society is saved when its presumed saviors despair.

Unfortunately, since last November our presumed saviors have been jubilant.

Memo to Fallen Man: Stop the Steal!

We left off with a discussion of the ascending and descending cosmic winds, which are always present in some form or fashion however much we may wish it were otherwise.   

Indeed, even "wishing" is situated on this axis, for it is ultimately conformed to love, truth, beauty, goodness, and unity -- or their downward alternatives -- which are obviously not reducible to matter and sensation. 

If nature weren't already supernatural we could never even know the dame, for we would -- literally -- be  immersed in the senses and outside the loop (the spiraling loop of ascent and descent).

With this in mind, let's continue with Schuon's essay on Man in the Cosmogonic Projection, which helps to unigmatize a number of enigmas. We'll figure out later if we can square it with cosmic orthodoxy:

just as the boomerang by its very form is destined to return to him who has thrown it, so man is predestined by his form to return to his divine Prototype; whether he wills it or not, man is "condemned" to transcendence.

That last comment is what I mean by wishing it were otherwise: yes, you are a child of the living God, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Except of course there is, since, by virtue of our divine birthright, we are also condemned to freedom. Now, man is always in rebellion against his own freedom, or there would be no left or any other forms of theocracy. 

Why else did it take 100,000 years for man to create a nation anchored in his own transcendent rights and duties? And why else has the devil accompanied its development and never stopped trying to undermine it?  Hmm? 

The devil simultaneously loves and hates freedom: to be precise, he loves it -- insofar as this verb applies -- so long as it isn't conformed to its vertical telos.  Remove the latter and freedom reduces to blind will and the tyranny of relativism. Which is why "the worst of perversions is that of man," since the corruption of the best is indeed the worst. 

This applies quintessentially to a perverse left which only exists to corrupt the best (the best constitution, nation, educational system, or any other institution it touches). The following passage offers a hint as to why:

The "dark" and "descending" tendency not only moves away from the Sovereign Good, but also rises up against It; whence the equation between the devil and pride (ibid.). 

Boom and bingo: the revolutionary impulse -- which is always with and in us -- is characterized by a prideful misuse of freedom. Now, where have I heard this idea before? 

I know! On page 473 of A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person. In a chapter called Fallen, it reminds us that the term fall is "a conceptual metaphor" signifying "an ontological change in humanity." This change redounds to "the loss of an original state" of -- in our words -- freely chosen conformity to the divine principle and person.

An ontological change, eh? This doesn't just imply a change in knowledge, or relations, or feelings, or behavior; rather, a change in our very being. Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark. Right down to the marrow.

Is there anything we can do about it? Well, maybe, but first we must admit we have a problem, that we do not have the power to fix it, that it isn't someone else's fault, and that it isn't susceptible to a political solution that exteriorizes blame at the cost of freedom and responsibility. The best political system only facilities the possibility of choosing good over evil and reality over appearance. 

Nevertheless, as the Poet says, 

They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is will shadow
The man that pretends to be.

Is and Be, which go to the ontological change mentioned above: the man who Is is fallen man pretending not to be. The possibility of real being is predicated on the recognition of false being. Again, job one is to simply stop pretending. 

That's about it for today, except for a few aphorisms by our sphinx-like friend Nicolás:

In order to corrupt the individual it is enough to teach him to call his personal desires rights and the rights of others abuses.

In order to enslave the people the politician needs to convince them that all their problems are “social.”

Social salvation is near when each one admits that he can only save himself. Society is saved when its presumed saviors despair.

Unfortunately, since last November our presumed saviors have been jubilant.

Surrender Your Line to the Circle

Another short one. Unless I've lost track of time and it's longer than I think.

We're still pondering Schuon's Man in the Cosmogonic Projection. I am at that phase in life where the following speaks for itself:

the cosmogonic movement is not merely centrifugal, it becomes centripetal in the final analysis, which is to say that it is circular; the circle of Maya closes in the heart of the deified man.

Self-evident, no?

Wait, no? 

Are we looking at the same thing? I'm looking at the world, which is looking back at me. Or rather, is always speaking to me. It was here when I arrived, but if I'm (I AM) not here, then there is no circle, and we are sealed in permanent stupidity, futility, and illusion. 

But man completes the circle, not just via knowledge of being (AKA truth), but also the other transcendentals -- love, beauty, and unity.

Regarding the latter, to even say "cosmos" is to say unity, a unity that is anterior to the (merely) material cosmos. No one ever has, or ever will, perceive "the cosmos," for perception is always of particulars. You can only perceive a piece of the pie, but why assume there's a pie? Where did that idea come from?

From the Circle. For it is the Circle, only frozen and bifurcated instead of seen for the cosmogonic movement it actually is. Which is again what I see. It's obviously there in the circular structure of the bOOk, but back then it was only dimly perceived -- or clearly intuited -- whereas now it's the context of everything. A first principle.

Why us? Because in a full employment cosmos, someone has to do it:

To the question of knowing why man has been placed in the world when his fundamental vocation is to leave [i.e., transcend] it, we would reply: it is precisely in order that there be someone who returns to God (ibid).

Surprisingly enough, this is completely orthodox, albeit with certain important caveats. If you want to look at it from the widest possible angle, you could say that the Fall represents a rupture in the Circle, while the Incarnation is its repair and completion ("it is accomplished").

Thus, sanctification, deification, and theosis are a participation in the circular movement. Christ is obviously the necessary condition, but this does not excuse us from a voluntary participation in him, which means we -- in our vertical freedom -- are the sufficient condition. The latter can only get so far in the absence of the former -- close but no avatar. 

Nowadays practically every book I read alludes to the Circle. When I see one, I put a symbol in the margin that looks like circle with an arrow. For example, just yesterday I read a little book by Peter Kreeft called The Philosophy of Jesus. In it he writes of how the divine goodness "spills out beyond itself like sunlight." That's the descending movement.

But then, "that-which-was-from-the-beginning," the "unmanifest Source of all manifestations became manifested," and "the distance between Heaven and earth" is bridged. Say what you like about it, but one must admit that "this is the most radical solution to the fundamental problem of metaphysics: how to know Being."

Yes, it's an audacious gamble, but I guess Einstein was wrong: God does like to play dice with the universe. 

Ironic: note how the Incarnation divides "time in two, cutting the Gordian knot of history," only to heal the divide at a higher level. One might say that continuity becomes discontinuous so that the discontinuous (i.e., broken, splintered, fragmented, conflicted, unintegrated) might become continuous, or at least participate in the continuity. 

For this reason, "when man crucifies truth, truth crucifies man." D'oh! God devises a way to transform man's narcissistic and self-glorifying rejection of, and attack on, the Circle to complete the Circle: "God's search for man is a success, and the name of that success is Jesus." 

"Jesus is Jacob's ladder..., and we see this ladder is upside down: it really rests on Heaven, not on earth like the Tower of Babel," much less the babble of tenure.  "He makes it possible to escape earth's gravity." You could say that levity becomes gravity in order for gravity to become levity.  Guffah-HA! 

Another book I read over the weekend, A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person, discusses the same Circle in different terms, noting that "Self-knowledge and knowledge of the world are supported by bottom-up and top-down influences." The former are obvious, while the latter include such things as "the spiritual inclination to know the truth," "intellectual intuitions about good and evil," and the "movements of grace." 

Elsewhere the authors write of the "personagenesis" whereby

In the spiritual realm, which is at the core of the personality, it is listening to the call and love of God. Once initiated, the process of becoming a person continues as a "vertical transcendence" in which the person gives "the self to another."

Participation the trinitarian Circle revolves around receptivity to the gift and an active self-gift in response. The "theological virtues originate from God" and "lead one to God." And their practice forms the basis of our vertical metabolism.

Surrender Your Line to the Circle

Another short one. Unless I've lost track of time and it's longer than I think.

We're still pondering Schuon's Man in the Cosmogonic Projection. I am at that phase in life where the following speaks for itself:

the cosmogonic movement is not merely centrifugal, it becomes centripetal in the final analysis, which is to say that it is circular; the circle of Maya closes in the heart of the deified man.

Self-evident, no?

Wait, no? 

Are we looking at the same thing? I'm looking at the world, which is looking back at me. Or rather, is always speaking to me. It was here when I arrived, but if I'm (I AM) not here, then there is no circle, and we are sealed in permanent stupidity, futility, and illusion. 

But man completes the circle, not just via knowledge of being (AKA truth), but also the other transcendentals -- love, beauty, and unity.

Regarding the latter, to even say "cosmos" is to say unity, a unity that is anterior to the (merely) material cosmos. No one ever has, or ever will, perceive "the cosmos," for perception is always of particulars. You can only perceive a piece of the pie, but why assume there's a pie? Where did that idea come from?

From the Circle. For it is the Circle, only frozen and bifurcated instead of seen for the cosmogonic movement it actually is. Which is again what I see. It's obviously there in the circular structure of the bOOk, but back then it was only dimly perceived -- or clearly intuited -- whereas now it's the context of everything. A first principle.

Why us? Because in a full employment cosmos, someone has to do it:

To the question of knowing why man has been placed in the world when his fundamental vocation is to leave [i.e., transcend] it, we would reply: it is precisely in order that there be someone who returns to God (ibid).

Surprisingly enough, this is completely orthodox, albeit with certain important caveats. If you want to look at it from the widest possible angle, you could say that the Fall represents a rupture in the Circle, while the Incarnation is its repair and completion ("it is accomplished").

Thus, sanctification, deification, and theosis are a participation in the circular movement. Christ is obviously the necessary condition, but this does not excuse us from a voluntary participation in him, which means we -- in our vertical freedom -- are the sufficient condition. The latter can only get so far in the absence of the former -- close but no avatar. 

Nowadays practically every book I read alludes to the Circle. When I see one, I put a symbol in the margin that looks like circle with an arrow. For example, just yesterday I read a little book by Peter Kreeft called The Philosophy of Jesus. In it he writes of how the divine goodness "spills out beyond itself like sunlight." That's the descending movement.

But then, "that-which-was-from-the-beginning," the "unmanifest Source of all manifestations became manifested," and "the distance between Heaven and earth" is bridged. Say what you like about it, but one must admit that "this is the most radical solution to the fundamental problem of metaphysics: how to know Being."

Yes, it's an audacious gamble, but I guess Einstein was wrong: God does like to play dice with the universe. 

Ironic: note how the Incarnation divides "time in two, cutting the Gordian knot of history," only to heal the divide at a higher level. One might say that continuity becomes discontinuous so that the discontinuous (i.e., broken, splintered, fragmented, conflicted, unintegrated) might become continuous, or at least participate in the continuity. 

For this reason, "when man crucifies truth, truth crucifies man." D'oh! God devises a way to transform man's narcissistic and self-glorifying rejection of, and attack on, the Circle to complete the Circle: "God's search for man is a success, and the name of that success is Jesus." 

"Jesus is Jacob's ladder..., and we see this ladder is upside down: it really rests on Heaven, not on earth like the Tower of Babel," much less the babble of tenure.  "He makes it possible to escape earth's gravity." You could say that levity becomes gravity in order for gravity to become levity.  Guffah-HA! 

Another book I read over the weekend, A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person, discusses the same Circle in different terms, noting that "Self-knowledge and knowledge of the world are supported by bottom-up and top-down influences." The former are obvious, while the latter include such things as "the spiritual inclination to know the truth," "intellectual intuitions about good and evil," and the "movements of grace." 

Elsewhere the authors write of the "personagenesis" whereby

In the spiritual realm, which is at the core of the personality, it is listening to the call and love of God. Once initiated, the process of becoming a person continues as a "vertical transcendence" in which the person gives "the self to another."

Participation the trinitarian Circle revolves around receptivity to the gift and an active self-gift in response. The "theological virtues originate from God" and "lead one to God." And their practice forms the basis of our vertical metabolism.

A Flood of Meaning

Time only for a short one...

A commenter to the previous post alluded to the old question of how to reconcile an evil world (or evil in the world) with a good God. Schuon bats it away in a single sentence: 

Manifestation is not the Principle, and the effect is not the cause; that which is "other than God" could not possess the perfections of God, hence in the final analysis and within the general imperfection of the created, there results that privative and subversive phenomenon we call evil.  

Taken out of context and in isolation from his many other discussions of the subject, this may appear glib and simplistic. Nevertheless, it gets to the heart of nub of the gist of the essence of the problem in a purely demythologized way. In my view, Genesis 3 makes the same point, only clothed in mythopoetic garb. 

In a prescientific world, important transnatural and metaphysical truths and meanings are conveyed via narrative. As with great art, it is important not to get hung up on the what but to penetrate to the why of the story -- the theme and not just the plot, the former being the reason for the latter. 

Analogously, I've been using the pandemic as an excuse to introduce my son to great American films, for example, Casablanca. While I suppose it can be enjoyed as a "romance," that is obviously only the vehicle and not the destination -- the means and not the message. 

Many aphorisms come to mind, but I'll try to limit myself to five, arranged in ascending order:

Appearance is not the veil, but the vehicle, of reality.

The meanings are the reality; their material vehicles are the appearance.

The bridge between nature and man is not science, but myth.

The modern aberration consists in believing that the only thing that is real is what the vulgar soul can perceive.

Whoever does not believe in myths believes in fables. 

Speaking of fables and the vulgarians who swallow them, the commenter mentioned above adopts a literal and simplistic reading of the biblical flood in order to cleverly deduce from it that God must be evil. Gotcha!, exclaims the Village Atheist. We've been dunked upon.

In another aphorism, Dávila pointedly points out that The simplistic ideas in which the unbeliever ends up believing are his punishment. 

We all have our philosophical preoccupations, and moreover, we have time for only so many. I myself am not troubled by the fantastic stories of the Old Testament. If I'm truly curious about one, then the first thing I will do is consult the Rabbis and Church Fathers for guidance as to what it means. If I want to know about the flood, for example, it's not difficult to obtain any number of rich and provocative exegeses.  

Enough said about that. Back to the existence of evil. Indeed, there is so much evil in the world, one sometimes wonders why God doesn't just end it all with a giant flood or something. Better yet, maybe leave a single righteous man to start all over -- like a new Adam or whatever.

Even supposing God did allow us to be reborn and begin anew, something or someone inevitably tries to oppose and subvert the regenerating power of the baptismal waters. Schuon:

strictly speaking, evil or the devil cannot oppose the Divinity, who has no opposite; it opposes man who is the mirror of God and the movement towards the divine.

Mirror and movement. Now that is a pithy and pregnant formulation, for it goes to both our immanence and our transcendence; or to our atemporal essence and our temporal journey towards it, which in turn forms  the basis of "the meaning of life."  

This meaning stretches out before us (horizontally) because it first stretches out above us (vertically).  If not, then to hell with it. Bring on the flood. Or maybe it's always already here.

A Flood of Meaning

Time only for a short one...

A commenter to the previous post alluded to the old question of how to reconcile an evil world (or evil in the world) with a good God. Schuon bats it away in a single sentence: 

Manifestation is not the Principle, and the effect is not the cause; that which is "other than God" could not possess the perfections of God, hence in the final analysis and within the general imperfection of the created, there results that privative and subversive phenomenon we call evil.  

Taken out of context and in isolation from his many other discussions of the subject, this may appear glib and simplistic. Nevertheless, it gets to the heart of nub of the gist of the essence of the problem in a purely demythologized way. In my view, Genesis 3 makes the same point, only clothed in mythopoetic garb. 

In a prescientific world, important transnatural and metaphysical truths and meanings are conveyed via narrative. As with great art, it is important not to get hung up on the what but to penetrate to the why of the story -- the theme and not just the plot, the former being the reason for the latter. 

Analogously, I've been using the pandemic as an excuse to introduce my son to great American films, for example, Casablanca. While I suppose it can be enjoyed as a "romance," that is obviously only the vehicle and not the destination -- the means and not the message. 

Many aphorisms come to mind, but I'll try to limit myself to five, arranged in ascending order:

Appearance is not the veil, but the vehicle, of reality.

The meanings are the reality; their material vehicles are the appearance.

The bridge between nature and man is not science, but myth.

The modern aberration consists in believing that the only thing that is real is what the vulgar soul can perceive.

Whoever does not believe in myths believes in fables. 

Speaking of fables and the vulgarians who swallow them, the commenter mentioned above adopts a literal and simplistic reading of the biblical flood in order to cleverly deduce from it that God must be evil. Gotcha!, exclaims the Village Atheist. We've been dunked upon.

In another aphorism, Dávila pointedly points out that The simplistic ideas in which the unbeliever ends up believing are his punishment. 

We all have our philosophical preoccupations, and moreover, we have time for only so many. I myself am not troubled by the fantastic stories of the Old Testament. If I'm truly curious about one, then the first thing I will do is consult the Rabbis and Church Fathers for guidance as to what it means. If I want to know about the flood, for example, it's not difficult to obtain any number of rich and provocative exegeses.  

Enough said about that. Back to the existence of evil. Indeed, there is so much evil in the world, one sometimes wonders why God doesn't just end it all with a giant flood or something. Better yet, maybe leave a single righteous man to start all over -- like a new Adam or whatever.

Even supposing God did allow us to be reborn and begin anew, something or someone inevitably tries to oppose and subvert the regenerating power of the baptismal waters. Schuon:

strictly speaking, evil or the devil cannot oppose the Divinity, who has no opposite; it opposes man who is the mirror of God and the movement towards the divine.

Mirror and movement. Now that is a pithy and pregnant formulation, for it goes to both our immanence and our transcendence; or to our atemporal essence and our temporal journey towards it, which in turn forms  the basis of "the meaning of life."  

This meaning stretches out before us (horizontally) because it first stretches out above us (vertically).  If not, then to hell with it. Bring on the flood. Or maybe it's always already here.