Everything New is Old Again

Yesterday an idea occurred to me that may provide an explanatory key to the surreal -- or subreal, rather -- times we're living in. I was about to say "living through," but this presupposes we'll actually get through them, and who knows? We may have reached the final naked, insurmountable contradiction of...

Marxists like to highlight the contradictions inherent to capitalism, but if I am correct, the trouble with Marxism is that it's not nearly radical enough. For what if I told you that... 

Before getting to my thoughts on the subject, this is from the CPUSA's *very own* website:

When we really dig down to the bottom of things, the contradictions of capitalism are holding us back. We live in the richest, most productive, most interconnected society that has ever existed on Earth, *and yet* some of us are overworked, others are underemployed, and millions live in poverty.

This glaring social contradiction, the class divide, comes about because capitalism is *designed* to allow a few individuals profit from the work of the vast majority. The *purpose* of capitalism is to make profits for the few individuals *lucky* enough to own a big piece of the pie. It’s very efficient at making rich people richer.

Let's analyze this passage, but first a word from our sponsor: yes,

THE COMMUNIST PARTY'S GOT SWAG! (https://www.cpusa.org/article/the-communist-partys-got-swag/)

For quite some time now, we have been receiving requests from comrades all over the country who are interested in purchasing CPUSA merchandise. You have been heard – we are excited to announce the launch of our first ever official web store! Three unique t-shirts are available for purchase. Bulk orders are eligible for special pricing. 

No piece the pie for you! 

Marxists and their progressive children continue to be convinced that they've "dug down to the bottom of things." Problem is, if you're a materialist you don't have to dig very far before you reach the bottom. And yet, leftists keeps digging long after they've hit bottom. 

Why? You'd think the left would put away their shovels once they've established that Bruce is Caitlyn, George Floyd is a hero, paleface Liz is an Indian, Michelle Obama is oppressed by something other than her low IQ, race riots are peaceful, a man's spouse is his husband, and Joe Biden is competent. 

Come to think of it, for a materialist the bottom is the top, and vice versa: one makes extremes meet by simply eliminating one of them. I get it: a simpleminded explanation appeals to the simpleminded. But why eradicate the fun side, AKA the soul? 

Regarding the Inchoate Idea that Occurred to Me Yesterday, let's reframe what our comrade says above about getting to the bottom of the trouble:

When we really dig down to the bottom of things, the contradictions of HUMAN NATURE are holding us back. We live in the FREEST society that has ever existed on Earth, *and yet* it results in INEQUALITY.

Now, anyone but the village progressive will quickly realize that what the left calls a "contradiction" is actually a logical entailment: that the more people are free to reveal their preferences, their abilities, their intelligence, etc., the more inequality will result. This is an insight worthy of Captain Obvious.

But let's "really dig down to the bottom." First of all, as it pertains to human beings, what is the bottom? Once we've ruled out all the red herrings such as "class," "privilege," "patriarchy," "profit motive," et al, we're left with human nature. D'oh!

Now, first of all, materialists deny that such a thing exists, which is in turn the principle upon which the left is founded; in short, leftist polices can only succeed if there is no such thing as human nature (or, they can succeed, but only on a species with a different nature).

We're seeing this principle play out in real time with the Great Mystery of how unemployment can be up *despite* the fact that people are being paid not to work. How can this be? Some might suggest that perhaps it has to do with human nature -- that people understand incentives and know what's in their best interests. But the left knows better. 

Here again, preference can only be revealed in the context of freedom. If people are free to get paid for not working, guess what will happen?

The same thing occurs when men and women are free to choose their vocational paths: men are far more likely to choose careers involving abstractions or objects, while women are more apt to pursue careers involving interpersonal relations. Freedom reveals human nature. Equality would require forcing women into fields for which they have no intrinsic interest, i.e, are against their nature.

We're still in Captain Obvious territory and still haven't gotten to the main point, which is this: yes, these are crazy times we're living in. But what if the regime of Wokeness isn't some sort of mysterious aberration? What if it's just raw human nature, what man is if he is allowed to be, i.e., if there are no constraints on its expression?

Come to think of it, many Aphorisms go precisely to this subject. I might add that, when we really dig down to the bottom of things, we see that there is 1) human nature, and 2) a cure for human nature, about which we'll have more to say later. Suffice it to say, human nature is a genuine diagnosis, so don't get confused by this or that symptom, for example, envy, or hatred of reality, or sexual conflict.

And certainly don't be surprised at mob behavior, scapegoating, projection, and appeasement of imaginary gods via human sacrifice. It's what humans do and have always done.  Nor do humans have the power to cure human nature. That would require an intervention from on high, from something transcending humanness.

We'll conclude with a dozen aphorisms, each of which touches on a different aspect of the deep down problem of human nature:

--To be a conservative is to understand that man is a problem without a human solution.

--Human nature always takes the progressive by surprise.

--Liberals can be divided into those who believe that wickedness is curable and those who deny that it exists.

--Man is not educated through knowledge of things but through knowledge of man.

--Man matures when he stops believing that politics solves his problems.

--Those who remove man’s chains free only an animal. 

--Authentic humanism is built upon the discernment of human insufficiency.

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

--The conservative is a simple pathologist. He defines sickness and health. But God is the only therapist.

--What is called the modern mentality is the process of exonerating the deadly sins.

--Freedom is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.

--An irreligious society cannot endure the truth of the human condition. It prefers a lie, no matter how imbecilic it may be. --Dávila x 12

Everything New is Old Again

Yesterday an idea occurred to me that may provide an explanatory key to the surreal -- or subreal, rather -- times we're living in. I was about to say "living through," but this presupposes we'll actually get through them, and who knows? We may have reached the final naked, insurmountable contradiction of...

Marxists like to highlight the contradictions inherent to capitalism, but if I am correct, the trouble with Marxism is that it's not nearly radical enough. For what if I told you that... 

Before getting to my thoughts on the subject, this is from the CPUSA's *very own* website:

When we really dig down to the bottom of things, the contradictions of capitalism are holding us back. We live in the richest, most productive, most interconnected society that has ever existed on Earth, *and yet* some of us are overworked, others are underemployed, and millions live in poverty.

This glaring social contradiction, the class divide, comes about because capitalism is *designed* to allow a few individuals profit from the work of the vast majority. The *purpose* of capitalism is to make profits for the few individuals *lucky* enough to own a big piece of the pie. It’s very efficient at making rich people richer.

Let's analyze this passage, but first a word from our sponsor: yes,

THE COMMUNIST PARTY'S GOT SWAG! (https://www.cpusa.org/article/the-communist-partys-got-swag/)

For quite some time now, we have been receiving requests from comrades all over the country who are interested in purchasing CPUSA merchandise. You have been heard – we are excited to announce the launch of our first ever official web store! Three unique t-shirts are available for purchase. Bulk orders are eligible for special pricing. 

No piece the pie for you! 

Marxists and their progressive children continue to be convinced that they've "dug down to the bottom of things." Problem is, if you're a materialist you don't have to dig very far before you reach the bottom. And yet, leftists keeps digging long after they've hit bottom. 

Why? You'd think the left would put away their shovels once they've established that Bruce is Caitlyn, George Floyd is a hero, paleface Liz is an Indian, Michelle Obama is oppressed by something other than her low IQ, race riots are peaceful, a man's spouse is his husband, and Joe Biden is competent. 

Come to think of it, for a materialist the bottom is the top, and vice versa: one makes extremes meet by simply eliminating one of them. I get it: a simpleminded explanation appeals to the simpleminded. But why eradicate the fun side, AKA the soul? 

Regarding the Inchoate Idea that Occurred to Me Yesterday, let's reframe what our comrade says above about getting to the bottom of the trouble:

When we really dig down to the bottom of things, the contradictions of HUMAN NATURE are holding us back. We live in the FREEST society that has ever existed on Earth, *and yet* it results in INEQUALITY.

Now, anyone but the village progressive will quickly realize that what the left calls a "contradiction" is actually a logical entailment: that the more people are free to reveal their preferences, their abilities, their intelligence, etc., the more inequality will result. This is an insight worthy of Captain Obvious.

But let's "really dig down to the bottom." First of all, as it pertains to human beings, what is the bottom? Once we've ruled out all the red herrings such as "class," "privilege," "patriarchy," "profit motive," et al, we're left with human nature. D'oh!

Now, first of all, materialists deny that such a thing exists, which is in turn the principle upon which the left is founded; in short, leftist polices can only succeed if there is no such thing as human nature (or, they can succeed, but only on a species with a different nature).

We're seeing this principle play out in real time with the Great Mystery of how unemployment can be up *despite* the fact that people are being paid not to work. How can this be? Some might suggest that perhaps it has to do with human nature -- that people understand incentives and know what's in their best interests. But the left knows better. 

Here again, preference can only be revealed in the context of freedom. If people are free to get paid for not working, guess what will happen?

The same thing occurs when men and women are free to choose their vocational paths: men are far more likely to choose careers involving abstractions or objects, while women are more apt to pursue careers involving interpersonal relations. Freedom reveals human nature. Equality would require forcing women into fields for which they have no intrinsic interest, i.e, are against their nature.

We're still in Captain Obvious territory and still haven't gotten to the main point, which is this: yes, these are crazy times we're living in. But what if the regime of Wokeness isn't some sort of mysterious aberration? What if it's just raw human nature, what man is if he is allowed to be, i.e., if there are no constraints on its expression?

Come to think of it, many Aphorisms go precisely to this subject. I might add that, when we really dig down to the bottom of things, we see that there is 1) human nature, and 2) a cure for human nature, about which we'll have more to say later. Suffice it to say, human nature is a genuine diagnosis, so don't get confused by this or that symptom, for example, envy, or hatred of reality, or sexual conflict.

And certainly don't be surprised at mob behavior, scapegoating, projection, and appeasement of imaginary gods via human sacrifice. It's what humans do and have always done.  Nor do humans have the power to cure human nature. That would require an intervention from on high, from something transcending humanness.

We'll conclude with a dozen aphorisms, each of which touches on a different aspect of the deep down problem of human nature:

--To be a conservative is to understand that man is a problem without a human solution.

--Human nature always takes the progressive by surprise.

--Liberals can be divided into those who believe that wickedness is curable and those who deny that it exists.

--Man is not educated through knowledge of things but through knowledge of man.

--Man matures when he stops believing that politics solves his problems.

--Those who remove man’s chains free only an animal. 

--Authentic humanism is built upon the discernment of human insufficiency.

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

--The conservative is a simple pathologist. He defines sickness and health. But God is the only therapist.

--What is called the modern mentality is the process of exonerating the deadly sins.

--Freedom is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.

--An irreligious society cannot endure the truth of the human condition. It prefers a lie, no matter how imbecilic it may be. --Dávila x 12

Escaping into Reality

Do you sometimes want to just leave politics behind and escape into reality? 

I know I do, but let me first get some aphorisms off my chest: 

God gave man the miraculous power to name things. True, but Satan gives progressives the magical power to rename them. 

"Hate speech," "spreading disinformation," and "community standards" are to language as the Fugitive Slave Act was to freedom.

The materialist can never make ends meet. 

You can't fix your own life by meddling in other people's lives. Progressive: hold my cruelty-free nonalcoholic soybrew!

In four months, Biden has proved himself unfit to conduct peace.

The credo of the left: in weakness, victimhood; in strength, revenge. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the authority of the progressive State, the right of George Soros to fund BLM and AntiFa shall not be infringed.

Man is a political animal. The progressive tribalist is an animal with politics.

Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding the oppressive dialectic between indoctrination and stupidity.

Africans live in a world of pure black privilege. Unless they can escape to a place with white privilege.

A decadent paradigm becomes more complex in order to account for its lack of explanatory power. Anti-racism is the search for epicycles within epicycles to account for black failure. 

Social and economic problems are answers to the left's solutions.

The left says Israel's response to the Palestinians is disproportionate. True, but do they really want Israel to commit genocide? 

Reality. See sidebar for details. I'm reading it at a leisurely pace because I am a Man of Leisure, and Leisure isn't just anything, let alone nothing, but perhaps -- now that I think about it -- the key to Reality, but only literally. 

Business is to Isness as is Toil to Leisure, the latter being the telos of the former (which is one way to make ends meet, alluding to the cryptic aphorism above). Not for nothing is Leisure the very Basis of Culture.

I'm referring of course to Josef Pieper's koon klassic, Leisure, which I haven't flipped through in years, but I'll bet has something to say about this post. From the Amazon page (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586172565?ie=UTF8&tag=onecos-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=1586172565):

Leisure is an attitude of the mind and a condition of the soul that fosters a capacity to perceive the reality of the world. Pieper.... points out that religion can be born only in leisure -- a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. 

Pieper maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture -- and ourselves (emphases mine).

That little passage has a bit of everything: mind, soul, culture, perception, God, world, reality, contemplation, silence, insight, and non-doing, and/or their destruction. In short: Slack and the unending conspiracy against it.   

"But I'm a novice at this reality isness. Where do I begin?"

Are you a troll? Because I don't troll on Shabbos. 

I don't know. What would Jesus do?

Wrong question. Rather, who would Jesus be.

Now interestingly, Pieper begins with a slightly tweaked quote from the Bible: Have leisure and know that I am God. 

And who is God but I AM? Which is precisely who Jesus would be, irrespective of whether he is doing or non-doing. 

In fact, I would say that the goal (for us) is to bring non-doing into doing, so that we're always doing a bit of nothing even in the midst of doing it. Like Yin and Yang, the Siamese twins of ontology: they can't be separated without killing them.

And speaking of ontology, this is the subtitle of the very next section of Reality. Metaphysics is the science of reality; it is

conceived as wisdom, science pre-eminent. Now science is the knowledge of things by their causes. Metaphysics, therefore, is the knowledge of all things by their supreme causes.

All sentient humans can agree that being is. Everything that isn't God has a cause, and being is no exception. Being is intelligible reality; it is the cause of our knowing it. Fr. Reginald speaks of the contemplative life, AKA the life of leisure:

the deepest joy arises from the activity of man's highest power, namely, his mind, when that power is occupied in contemplating its highest object, which is God, the Supreme Truth, the Supreme Intelligible.

If knowing truth is nice, being it is even better. Now, Jesus makes the startling metaphysical claim that I am the truth, the way, and the life. In other words, "I am the living truth and the way to it."

You know how with the left everything comes down to Who and Whom? With us it all comes down to I AM and We Are.

Escaping into Reality

Do you sometimes want to just leave politics behind and escape into reality? 

I know I do, but let me first get some aphorisms off my chest: 

God gave man the miraculous power to name things. True, but Satan gives progressives the magical power to rename them. 

"Hate speech," "spreading disinformation," and "community standards" are to language as the Fugitive Slave Act was to freedom.

The materialist can never make ends meet. 

You can't fix your own life by meddling in other people's lives. Progressive: hold my cruelty-free nonalcoholic soybrew!

In four months, Biden has proved himself unfit to conduct peace.

The credo of the left: in weakness, victimhood; in strength, revenge. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the authority of the progressive State, the right of George Soros to fund BLM and AntiFa shall not be infringed.

Man is a political animal. The progressive tribalist is an animal with politics.

Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding the oppressive dialectic between indoctrination and stupidity.

Africans live in a world of pure black privilege. Unless they can escape to a place with white privilege.

A decadent paradigm becomes more complex in order to account for its lack of explanatory power. Anti-racism is the search for epicycles within epicycles to account for black failure. 

Social and economic problems are answers to the left's solutions.

The left says Israel's response to the Palestinians is disproportionate. True, but do they really want Israel to commit genocide? 

Reality. See sidebar for details. I'm reading it at a leisurely pace because I am a Man of Leisure, and Leisure isn't just anything, let alone nothing, but perhaps -- now that I think about it -- the key to Reality, but only literally. 

Business is to Isness as is Toil to Leisure, the latter being the telos of the former (which is one way to make ends meet, alluding to the cryptic aphorism above). Not for nothing is Leisure the very Basis of Culture.

I'm referring of course to Josef Pieper's koon klassic, Leisure, which I haven't flipped through in years, but I'll bet has something to say about this post. From the Amazon page (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586172565?ie=UTF8&tag=onecos-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=1586172565):

Leisure is an attitude of the mind and a condition of the soul that fosters a capacity to perceive the reality of the world. Pieper.... points out that religion can be born only in leisure -- a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. 

Pieper maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture -- and ourselves (emphases mine).

That little passage has a bit of everything: mind, soul, culture, perception, God, world, reality, contemplation, silence, insight, and non-doing, and/or their destruction. In short: Slack and the unending conspiracy against it.   

"But I'm a novice at this reality isness. Where do I begin?"

Are you a troll? Because I don't troll on Shabbos. 

I don't know. What would Jesus do?

Wrong question. Rather, who would Jesus be.

Now interestingly, Pieper begins with a slightly tweaked quote from the Bible: Have leisure and know that I am God. 

And who is God but I AM? Which is precisely who Jesus would be, irrespective of whether he is doing or non-doing. 

In fact, I would say that the goal (for us) is to bring non-doing into doing, so that we're always doing a bit of nothing even in the midst of doing it. Like Yin and Yang, the Siamese twins of ontology: they can't be separated without killing them.

And speaking of ontology, this is the subtitle of the very next section of Reality. Metaphysics is the science of reality; it is

conceived as wisdom, science pre-eminent. Now science is the knowledge of things by their causes. Metaphysics, therefore, is the knowledge of all things by their supreme causes.

All sentient humans can agree that being is. Everything that isn't God has a cause, and being is no exception. Being is intelligible reality; it is the cause of our knowing it. Fr. Reginald speaks of the contemplative life, AKA the life of leisure:

the deepest joy arises from the activity of man's highest power, namely, his mind, when that power is occupied in contemplating its highest object, which is God, the Supreme Truth, the Supreme Intelligible.

If knowing truth is nice, being it is even better. Now, Jesus makes the startling metaphysical claim that I am the truth, the way, and the life. In other words, "I am the living truth and the way to it."

You know how with the left everything comes down to Who and Whom? With us it all comes down to I AM and We Are.

Fooling Around with Ultimate Reality

Here are some timeless bon mots from Thomas, which may or may not provoke additional commentary on my part, depending on your luck. I've selected them on the basis of being 1) the foundation, or beginning of proper thinking, and 2) the end of thinking. How can they be both? Let's find out!

Our intellect in understanding is extended to infinity.

In other words, there is nothing man cannot understand, supposing it is in accordance with reason; things not in accordance with reason are called absurd, and even God can't understand the absurd, e.g., a "square circle" or "a woman in a man's body."  

On the one hand, the intellect is (potentially) in conformity to everything that exists; or, you might say that it is "pre-conformed" to existence. Everything out there is just waiting and hoping to be known by us!

At the same time, nothing in existence conforms to the infinitude of the intellect, which is the last thing we would expect of a wholly material and contingent being. For which reason Thomas says

This ordering of the intellect to infinity would be vain and senseless if there were no infinite object of knowledge.   

This infinite object of knowledge is also the object of infinite knowledge, which folks in the celestial lOʘp typically call God.

Here things get a little tricky, for the object of infinite knowledge is also the object of absolute knowledge, or knowledge of the Absolute. This implies that all knowledge reduces to knowledge of the One (who is surely simple but not simplistic). What? Schuon has asked me to hold his beverage:

The idea that the Supreme Principle is both Absolute Reality and, for that very reason, Infinite Possibility... contains everything, notably the necessity for a universal Manifestation.

Or the manifestation of a universe, if you like. It didn't have to be this universe, but it has to be something, for it is written: Creators gonna create, and the Creator who doesn't create is a contradiction in terms.

Principles. As we've said in the past, there is nothing quite like a principle for tidying up around the Intellect and its Cosmos, and what else is there? About them, Thomas writes that "The principles of reason are those which are conformed to nature," i.e., to the nature of things. In a word, to reality.

How do we know a Principle when we find one, especially if we've never seen one before? For the simple reason that "it is not even possible to think it can be false" (Thomas).  They are self-evident, meaning that they cannot be understood without being believed (in other words, if you understand them, your mind spontaneously assents to them).

Name one!

Okay, the principle of non-contradiction, which is equally the principle of identity. This may not sound like much, but it is the root of anything we can say of being and reality: a thing either is or is not, and these are truth (if it is) and falsehood (if it is not). 

Bottom line: being is, things are, and we can know them. This reduces to intelligence and intelligibility, which further reduces to Absolute Intellect and Infinite Intelligibility. If there's something better than that, God keeps it for himselves.

Come to think of it, there is something better, or at least higher, or maybe that's not the best way to express it. It's the idea that there is a Beyond-Being.

In the traditional view, God is Absolute Being or Pure Act. But there's another way of looking at it: that Being itself is a function of Beyond-Being. The natural born mystic will have no difficulty swallowing this, where as the more conventional type may prefer to stop chewing with Being. 

As I've mentioned before, I prefer to think of it as a -- or the -- eternal complementarity between Being and Beyond-Being. 

Moreover, I would situate the Trinity on the Being side, but this doesn't in any way diminish it; rather, it is to say that the Trinity is the first fruit of Beyond Being, with which it is in an eternally creative and renewing trialogue on the horizon of Absolute and Infinite. It's why things are never boring.

Since things tend to be fractally organized in this cosmos, is it possible to find some kind of trinitarian analogue within Beyond-Being? Yes, in the sense that anything that Is must first be Possible. Such mysteries are above our praygrade, and it is somewhat vain to think about things which thought can never adequately formulate, for the simple reason that the Formless surpasses any Form we might give it.

The best we can do -- or the furthest we can go -- is to say with Schuon that there is a primordial trinity (leaving aside the specifically Christian formulation) that comes down to the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Perfect. Everything that is participates in these.

Absoluteness of the Real, infinitude of the Possible, perfection of the Good; these are the "initial dimensions" of the Divine Order.

Just for kicks, what if we were to attempt to translight this into Christian terms?

Let's say the Absolute is the Father. "The Absolute is infinite; therefore it radiates, and in radiating, it projects itself; the content of this projection being the Good." This latter sounds to me like Logos or Son, and the radiation between reminds me of the Spirit. 

All in a manner of speaking.

Fooling Around with Ultimate Reality

Here are some timeless bon mots from Thomas, which may or may not provoke additional commentary on my part, depending on your luck. I've selected them on the basis of being 1) the foundation, or beginning of proper thinking, and 2) the end of thinking. How can they be both? Let's find out!

Our intellect in understanding is extended to infinity.

In other words, there is nothing man cannot understand, supposing it is in accordance with reason; things not in accordance with reason are called absurd, and even God can't understand the absurd, e.g., a "square circle" or "a woman in a man's body."  

On the one hand, the intellect is (potentially) in conformity to everything that exists; or, you might say that it is "pre-conformed" to existence. Everything out there is just waiting and hoping to be known by us!

At the same time, nothing in existence conforms to the infinitude of the intellect, which is the last thing we would expect of a wholly material and contingent being. For which reason Thomas says

This ordering of the intellect to infinity would be vain and senseless if there were no infinite object of knowledge.   

This infinite object of knowledge is also the object of infinite knowledge, which folks in the celestial lOʘp typically call God.

Here things get a little tricky, for the object of infinite knowledge is also the object of absolute knowledge, or knowledge of the Absolute. This implies that all knowledge reduces to knowledge of the One (who is surely simple but not simplistic). What? Schuon has asked me to hold his beverage:

The idea that the Supreme Principle is both Absolute Reality and, for that very reason, Infinite Possibility... contains everything, notably the necessity for a universal Manifestation.

Or the manifestation of a universe, if you like. It didn't have to be this universe, but it has to be something, for it is written: Creators gonna create, and the Creator who doesn't create is a contradiction in terms.

Principles. As we've said in the past, there is nothing quite like a principle for tidying up around the Intellect and its Cosmos, and what else is there? About them, Thomas writes that "The principles of reason are those which are conformed to nature," i.e., to the nature of things. In a word, to reality.

How do we know a Principle when we find one, especially if we've never seen one before? For the simple reason that "it is not even possible to think it can be false" (Thomas).  They are self-evident, meaning that they cannot be understood without being believed (in other words, if you understand them, your mind spontaneously assents to them).

Name one!

Okay, the principle of non-contradiction, which is equally the principle of identity. This may not sound like much, but it is the root of anything we can say of being and reality: a thing either is or is not, and these are truth (if it is) and falsehood (if it is not). 

Bottom line: being is, things are, and we can know them. This reduces to intelligence and intelligibility, which further reduces to Absolute Intellect and Infinite Intelligibility. If there's something better than that, God keeps it for himselves.

Come to think of it, there is something better, or at least higher, or maybe that's not the best way to express it. It's the idea that there is a Beyond-Being.

In the traditional view, God is Absolute Being or Pure Act. But there's another way of looking at it: that Being itself is a function of Beyond-Being. The natural born mystic will have no difficulty swallowing this, where as the more conventional type may prefer to stop chewing with Being. 

As I've mentioned before, I prefer to think of it as a -- or the -- eternal complementarity between Being and Beyond-Being. 

Moreover, I would situate the Trinity on the Being side, but this doesn't in any way diminish it; rather, it is to say that the Trinity is the first fruit of Beyond Being, with which it is in an eternally creative and renewing trialogue on the horizon of Absolute and Infinite. It's why things are never boring.

Since things tend to be fractally organized in this cosmos, is it possible to find some kind of trinitarian analogue within Beyond-Being? Yes, in the sense that anything that Is must first be Possible. Such mysteries are above our praygrade, and it is somewhat vain to think about things which thought can never adequately formulate, for the simple reason that the Formless surpasses any Form we might give it.

The best we can do -- or the furthest we can go -- is to say with Schuon that there is a primordial trinity (leaving aside the specifically Christian formulation) that comes down to the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Perfect. Everything that is participates in these.

Absoluteness of the Real, infinitude of the Possible, perfection of the Good; these are the "initial dimensions" of the Divine Order.

Just for kicks, what if we were to attempt to translight this into Christian terms?

Let's say the Absolute is the Father. "The Absolute is infinite; therefore it radiates, and in radiating, it projects itself; the content of this projection being the Good." This latter sounds to me like Logos or Son, and the radiation between reminds me of the Spirit. 

All in a manner of speaking.

The Medium is the Message

In the previous post we discussed Thomas' conclusion that each of our senses is a kind of touch ordered to different objects; and that "among men, those who possess the more refined sense of touch have the best intelligence." In short, who touches the most wins.

Sort of. Because while there is knowledge in the senses, this knowledge can never be known by the senses. The eye, for example, sees color as a consequence of touching photons. But the eye has no idea of this. It cannot abstract from the colored shapes it apprehends. It doesn't know "what" it sees or even that it sees.

The eye cannot reflect upon what it sees, much less the meaning of sight. These latter reflections are wholly immaterial processes, whereas objects of the senses are material, e.g., surfaces, air vibrations, lightwaves, etc. 

Notice, however, that we still had to deploy a concept rooted in materiality -- reflection -- in order to make the point. The eye sees reflections of things, and our mind transposes this material process into a higher key in order to conceptualize its own functioning, which is again immaterial: senses reflect things, and thought reflects on what is sensed (and ultimately on itself).

Insofar as humans are concerned, we occupy an ambiguous space in the cosmic scheme, precisely halfway between.... 

Before jumping to conclusions, let's just say halfway between, full stop. Or better yet, just between, since we have no way of knowing whether we're 1% or 99% of the way there -- wherever " there" is. The Great Between is necessarily a relation, but of what?

Materialists pretend we're 100% there, but this actually reduces to 0% if you give it any thought whatsoever, being that abstract thinking transcends matter. To be a materialist is to say we know nothing and always will. Like anybody could know that! They're just jealous that I've been offline chatting with Petey all day.

Again, we occupy this ambiguous space between. Among other things, it is the space of freedom; and now that I'm thinking about it, what is space but a kind of "stage" upon which our freedom plays out? Here is how Thomas describes it:

To judge one's own judgment: this can only be done by reason, which reflects on its own act and knows the relation between that upon which it judges and by which it judges. Hence the root of all freedom lies in the reason  (emphases mine).

If you're paying attention and not spacing out, this means that freedom itself occupies the ambiguous space between our judgment and that which it judges. Oddly enough, this seems to mean that the purpose of freedom is its elimination (or collapse, so to speak) via judgment.

That probably wasn't clear, so let's analogize to knowledge. We all know that keeping an open mind is a good thing, but not for its own sake; rather, the purpose of an open mind is to close it upon arriving at truth. I remember Chesterton making this point:

Merely having an open mind is nothing [literally!]. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Now, it is written (in the sidebar): 

You see this cat Bob is a bad mother. Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about Bob. Then we can dig it!

What this means is that there are two distinct ways to be open or closed-minded, one good, one bad, or one Bob, one anti-Bob. As always, it depends upon the nature of the object (not on the nature of Bob!). 

For the truth or falsity of an opinion depends on whether a thing is or not. 

Right? Which means that any post-Kantian philosophy is just your opinion, man, and can never be anything but.

Aw, look at me, I'm ramblin' again. We'll continue this line of thought further on down the trail. 

The Medium is the Message

In the previous post we discussed Thomas' conclusion that each of our senses is a kind of touch ordered to different objects; and that "among men, those who possess the more refined sense of touch have the best intelligence." In short, who touches the most wins.

Sort of. Because while there is knowledge in the senses, this knowledge can never be known by the senses. The eye, for example, sees color as a consequence of touching photons. But the eye has no idea of this. It cannot abstract from the colored shapes it apprehends. It doesn't know "what" it sees or even that it sees.

The eye cannot reflect upon what it sees, much less the meaning of sight. These latter reflections are wholly immaterial processes, whereas objects of the senses are material, e.g., surfaces, air vibrations, lightwaves, etc. 

Notice, however, that we still had to deploy a concept rooted in materiality -- reflection -- in order to make the point. The eye sees reflections of things, and our mind transposes this material process into a higher key in order to conceptualize its own functioning, which is again immaterial: senses reflect things, and thought reflects on what is sensed (and ultimately on itself).

Insofar as humans are concerned, we occupy an ambiguous space in the cosmic scheme, precisely halfway between.... 

Before jumping to conclusions, let's just say halfway between, full stop. Or better yet, just between, since we have no way of knowing whether we're 1% or 99% of the way there -- wherever " there" is. The Great Between is necessarily a relation, but of what?

Materialists pretend we're 100% there, but this actually reduces to 0% if you give it any thought whatsoever, being that abstract thinking transcends matter. To be a materialist is to say we know nothing and always will. Like anybody could know that! They're just jealous that I've been offline chatting with Petey all day.

Again, we occupy this ambiguous space between. Among other things, it is the space of freedom; and now that I'm thinking about it, what is space but a kind of "stage" upon which our freedom plays out? Here is how Thomas describes it:

To judge one's own judgment: this can only be done by reason, which reflects on its own act and knows the relation between that upon which it judges and by which it judges. Hence the root of all freedom lies in the reason  (emphases mine).

If you're paying attention and not spacing out, this means that freedom itself occupies the ambiguous space between our judgment and that which it judges. Oddly enough, this seems to mean that the purpose of freedom is its elimination (or collapse, so to speak) via judgment.

That probably wasn't clear, so let's analogize to knowledge. We all know that keeping an open mind is a good thing, but not for its own sake; rather, the purpose of an open mind is to close it upon arriving at truth. I remember Chesterton making this point:

Merely having an open mind is nothing [literally!]. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Now, it is written (in the sidebar): 

You see this cat Bob is a bad mother. Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about Bob. Then we can dig it!

What this means is that there are two distinct ways to be open or closed-minded, one good, one bad, or one Bob, one anti-Bob. As always, it depends upon the nature of the object (not on the nature of Bob!). 

For the truth or falsity of an opinion depends on whether a thing is or not. 

Right? Which means that any post-Kantian philosophy is just your opinion, man, and can never be anything but.

Aw, look at me, I'm ramblin' again. We'll continue this line of thought further on down the trail. 

Vertical Pleasure and Pain

For Thomas, "The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth." 

Of course, this presumes the man in question has satisfied the purely biological needs he shares with the beasts. The question is, what happens afterwards? Do we just go back to sleep like animals and liberals, or is there something more, i.e., a trans-biological appetite?

The latter. It takes several forms which reduce to truth, love, and beauty. It's difficult to further reduce these, being that they converge on one another. For example, in exposing my young 'un to music, I train him to listen for the truth. The great majority of music is phony, counterfeit, hollow, an imitation of the real thing. It's a lie. 

Same with people, although in that case it's more a matter of sensing the light. Should you lose contact with this trans-biological sense, you're entering a world of pain. You'll have no idea whom to avoid, believe, or run from as fast as you can. 

Regarding the latter, it is also possible to "hear" the light, so to speak. Come to think of it, you will notice a kind of musicality in the voice. 

Likewise, its absence is striking. Just listen to, for example, mumbly Joe or mechanical Psaki or bullshit Barry. It's not so much that they lie; rather, the lie is waaay downstream from a prior ontological rupture. The vacuity is palpable. Same with journalists. Is there a more vacuous class of human beings? 

This all goes back to the sense of touch, except the sense is again trans-biological. Here's what Thomas has to say about it:

All the other senses are based on the sense of touch.... Among all beings which have sense perception, man has the most delicate sense of touch.... And among men, those who possess the more refined sense of touch have the best intelligence.

This sense of touch is a truth detector, but it is equally a BS detector, and the two naturally covary. For example, if you can believe Critical Race Theory, what can't you believe? The same can be said of multiculturalism, deconstruction, socialism, catastrophic global warming, transgenderism, et al. Is it any wonder that belief in one of these absurdities is correlated with belief in the others? 

This sort of crude credulity is analogous to neuropathy on the biological level, which results in the inability of the nervous system to properly transmit sensations to the brain. At the same time, the nervous system transmits noise to the brain, in the form of numbness, tingling, burning, etc. I suppose these are analogous to "sensory hallucinations," e.g., burning with no source of heat.

Which is why the mind of the trans-biologicial sense-deprived liberal is never filled with just "nothing." Rather, you will have noticed that it is filled with pain, but instead of neuropathic pain it is psycho- or pneumo-pathic pain. Pneumopathy. 

Like what? Oh, say, "microagression." This is precisely consistent with what Thomas says about man's exquisite sense of touch, only in a totally assbackward way. Obviously, the touchy snowflake has access to a world of psychic and spiritual pain that is inaccessible to us. We're no different from them, in that we can obviously sense "hurtful" words. It's just that we don't respond by rolling around on the ground like a soccer player. It's like we have callouses or something. Or at least skin.

Then there is the totally imaginary pain analogous to neuropathy, for example, the feminist's pain at being a woman, or the BLM person's pain at being a target of genocidal police. The pain is real, only the object is imaginary.

Thomas notes that "In us there is not only the pleasure which we share with the beasts, but also the pleasure we share with the angels."

This checks out. No animal, for example, has access to the truth of music or beauty of truth or love of virtue. 

The corollary, however, is that man must also share the pleasures of the demons, so to speak. Such as? Here again, it's a long list, but at the top must be envy, followed by resentment, insatiability, paranoia, hatred, turbulence (absence of peace), etc.  Just because there are vertical pleasures, it doesn't mean they're all "positive." 

For example, what is progressive victimhood but the perverse pleasure of participation in one's own subjugation? That may sound bad to you, but it presumably beats responsibility, initiative, and self-awareness every time. 

The left is built upon responding to such psychic needs, which comes down to the provision of condescending lies that simultaneously persecute and comfort. And shield the person from even more painful truths.

Vertical Pleasure and Pain

For Thomas, "The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth." 

Of course, this presumes the man in question has satisfied the purely biological needs he shares with the beasts. The question is, what happens afterwards? Do we just go back to sleep like animals and liberals, or is there something more, i.e., a trans-biological appetite?

The latter. It takes several forms which reduce to truth, love, and beauty. It's difficult to further reduce these, being that they converge on one another. For example, in exposing my young 'un to music, I train him to listen for the truth. The great majority of music is phony, counterfeit, hollow, an imitation of the real thing. It's a lie. 

Same with people, although in that case it's more a matter of sensing the light. Should you lose contact with this trans-biological sense, you're entering a world of pain. You'll have no idea whom to avoid, believe, or run from as fast as you can. 

Regarding the latter, it is also possible to "hear" the light, so to speak. Come to think of it, you will notice a kind of musicality in the voice. 

Likewise, its absence is striking. Just listen to, for example, mumbly Joe or mechanical Psaki or bullshit Barry. It's not so much that they lie; rather, the lie is waaay downstream from a prior ontological rupture. The vacuity is palpable. Same with journalists. Is there a more vacuous class of human beings? 

This all goes back to the sense of touch, except the sense is again trans-biological. Here's what Thomas has to say about it:

All the other senses are based on the sense of touch.... Among all beings which have sense perception, man has the most delicate sense of touch.... And among men, those who possess the more refined sense of touch have the best intelligence.

This sense of touch is a truth detector, but it is equally a BS detector, and the two naturally covary. For example, if you can believe Critical Race Theory, what can't you believe? The same can be said of multiculturalism, deconstruction, socialism, catastrophic global warming, transgenderism, et al. Is it any wonder that belief in one of these absurdities is correlated with belief in the others? 

This sort of crude credulity is analogous to neuropathy on the biological level, which results in the inability of the nervous system to properly transmit sensations to the brain. At the same time, the nervous system transmits noise to the brain, in the form of numbness, tingling, burning, etc. I suppose these are analogous to "sensory hallucinations," e.g., burning with no source of heat.

Which is why the mind of the trans-biologicial sense-deprived liberal is never filled with just "nothing." Rather, you will have noticed that it is filled with pain, but instead of neuropathic pain it is psycho- or pneumo-pathic pain. Pneumopathy. 

Like what? Oh, say, "microagression." This is precisely consistent with what Thomas says about man's exquisite sense of touch, only in a totally assbackward way. Obviously, the touchy snowflake has access to a world of psychic and spiritual pain that is inaccessible to us. We're no different from them, in that we can obviously sense "hurtful" words. It's just that we don't respond by rolling around on the ground like a soccer player. It's like we have callouses or something. Or at least skin.

Then there is the totally imaginary pain analogous to neuropathy, for example, the feminist's pain at being a woman, or the BLM person's pain at being a target of genocidal police. The pain is real, only the object is imaginary.

Thomas notes that "In us there is not only the pleasure which we share with the beasts, but also the pleasure we share with the angels."

This checks out. No animal, for example, has access to the truth of music or beauty of truth or love of virtue. 

The corollary, however, is that man must also share the pleasures of the demons, so to speak. Such as? Here again, it's a long list, but at the top must be envy, followed by resentment, insatiability, paranoia, hatred, turbulence (absence of peace), etc.  Just because there are vertical pleasures, it doesn't mean they're all "positive." 

For example, what is progressive victimhood but the perverse pleasure of participation in one's own subjugation? That may sound bad to you, but it presumably beats responsibility, initiative, and self-awareness every time. 

The left is built upon responding to such psychic needs, which comes down to the provision of condescending lies that simultaneously persecute and comfort. And shield the person from even more painful truths.

Stuff I Learned Yesterday

Or discovered, rather. Or in many cases confirmed. You may not exactly remember that fire is the phenomenon of combustion manifested in light, flame, and heat, but no one forgets being burned.

As it pertains to the vertical, one can learn a great deal without ever discovering anything. Come to think of it, this applies to every reality transcending matter: even a lifetime of learning may or may not result in the discovery of truth.

For example, the most learned feminist will, by definition, never discover human nature. Except in an inverse manner, in that the feminist must have an implicit awareness of human nature in order to be in rebellion against it.

By the way, in order for this psychodrama of rebellion to be successful, you and I must be enlisted into it. Truth requires the adherence of no one in order to be true, but the fragile lies of the left require everyone to be on board. Dissent provokes an unconscious reminder to their own denied truth, which is precisely why it "triggers" them.  

"White fragility"? The very concept is proof of the fragility of the leftist hivemind.  

If something triggers you, it is because of an unresolved unconscious emotional issue. The triggering puts you at a crossroads: introspection or acting out. Woke culture is the institutionalization of the latter. What they call activism the clinical psychologist calls acting-out. 

Anyway, I've been reading Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange's Reality (see sidebar), and a good working definition of reality is what is and what is capable of being discovered; it is not imagined, or projected, or conceptualized (except to the extent that concepts function as points of reference that are fungible to reality). Or in the words of the Aphorist, 

Nearly every idea is an overdrawn check that circulates until it is presented for payment.

The First Bank of Thomism always has sufficient funds to cover checks drawn on it, even the biggest, e.g., God. 

True, God is infinite while the funds are finite. But here God is analogous to the concept of money itself, as opposed to any particular sum. In other words, money -- i.e., value -- is backed by God. No God, no value, period. Rather, you just make it up -- as in the way a feminist "values" womanhood. Where the mere prostitute sells her womanhood for cash, the gender studies professor sells it for cash and tenure. 

To extend the banking analogy, the proofs of God allow us to open the account. They are more than adequate to function as collateral. We know in an indirect way that they are true, since we derive so much value from them and write so many checks. These checks would all bounce if not for the God reserve. 

Not only do they not bounce, they fund an explosion of wealth and productivity, very much like the bank that lends money to fund more investment and construction. This is precisely how the God account functions. Ultimately it built western civilization, from art to science to liberal democracy. Nor -- as anyone can see -- can our civilization perdure without this backing (which is again the backing of reality).

Back to the stuff I discovered yesterday about reality. For example, this:

when the soul knows necessary and universal principles, it becomes, in some real fashion, all intelligible reality. This truth presupposes the immateriality of the intellective faculty.  

"A lot to unpack" there, as they say. The first sentence specifies not whether but when we know necessary and universal principles.  

Wait -- is that debate over? Well, either it is or it isn't; if it is over, it is because we have plenty of God in the bank. If it isn't, it is because there is Nothing in the bank, in which case two things: 1) the debate is not over, and 2) can never be over. But this reduces to: there is nothing to debate; or to a debate about nothing,  AKA postmodernity.

The second part of the first sentence claims that the intellect is in some sense "all of intelligible reality." This looks like a rather large claim, but here again, it is either true or not true, simple as. 

Here's a thought: on what can all intelligent men agree, by virtue of being intelligent? 

Well? I suppose it depends on what we mean by "intelligence." 

Yes, Petey? It means that in knowing any truth, the intellect must in principle be capable of knowing any and all truth. For what is truth? Correct: intelligible being. And what is intelligence? Correct: the potential to know intelligible being. And who can put a limit to the intellect? The intellect? Yes, but only arbitrarily. 

Man is the microcosm. As such, he has essentially unlimited funds in a local branch of the Macrocosmic Savings & Loan. 

I would go even further and say that the Macrocosm is backed by the infinite funds of the nonlocal Metacosm, somewhat like vine to branch to fruit. Our knowledge is the fruit, but fruit doesn't just grow on trees, unless we're talking about an upside-down tree with its roots aloft and branches herebelow.

Necessary and Universal.  What are those? Oh, little things like the principle of non-contradiction, or of identity: that things either are or are not. In short, all knowledge reduces to the question of being: does this exist? Is this the case? Then it is true. 

Note that all philosophies derived from Kant enclose us in our own subjectivity. Thus, even if they were true, we could never know it. Existence detached from being is like a tree with no roots. No fruit for you!

This is why the left is equal parts cynicism and credulity. Cynicism is too easy. Think of the sneer on Bill Maher's ugly face, forever. Credulity is much too difficult. Have you seen a Jen Psaki press conference? Imagine being as dumb as her, and then realize that the press must be even dumber. The credulity of the press is ordered to the incredible Biden administration, which is in turn ordered to....

Yes, the left is overdrawn again. And yes, they're printing money as fast as they can. But inflation isn't just a monetary problem. Rather, it must be the reflection of an intellectual and ultimately spiritual problem -- a loss of contact with reality and real value.  

Put it this way: the left is usually bankrupt in every way except monetarily. The return of stagflation means they've run out of other people's money again.   

Stuff I Learned Yesterday

Or discovered, rather. Or in many cases confirmed. You may not exactly remember that fire is the phenomenon of combustion manifested in light, flame, and heat, but no one forgets being burned.

As it pertains to the vertical, one can learn a great deal without ever discovering anything. Come to think of it, this applies to every reality transcending matter: even a lifetime of learning may or may not result in the discovery of truth.

For example, the most learned feminist will, by definition, never discover human nature. Except in an inverse manner, in that the feminist must have an implicit awareness of human nature in order to be in rebellion against it.

By the way, in order for this psychodrama of rebellion to be successful, you and I must be enlisted into it. Truth requires the adherence of no one in order to be true, but the fragile lies of the left require everyone to be on board. Dissent provokes an unconscious reminder to their own denied truth, which is precisely why it "triggers" them.  

"White fragility"? The very concept is proof of the fragility of the leftist hivemind.  

If something triggers you, it is because of an unresolved unconscious emotional issue. The triggering puts you at a crossroads: introspection or acting out. Woke culture is the institutionalization of the latter. What they call activism the clinical psychologist calls acting-out. 

Anyway, I've been reading Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange's Reality (see sidebar), and a good working definition of reality is what is and what is capable of being discovered; it is not imagined, or projected, or conceptualized (except to the extent that concepts function as points of reference that are fungible to reality). Or in the words of the Aphorist, 

Nearly every idea is an overdrawn check that circulates until it is presented for payment.

The First Bank of Thomism always has sufficient funds to cover checks drawn on it, even the biggest, e.g., God. 

True, God is infinite while the funds are finite. But here God is analogous to the concept of money itself, as opposed to any particular sum. In other words, money -- i.e., value -- is backed by God. No God, no value, period. Rather, you just make it up -- as in the way a feminist "values" womanhood. Where the mere prostitute sells her womanhood for cash, the gender studies professor sells it for cash and tenure. 

To extend the banking analogy, the proofs of God allow us to open the account. They are more than adequate to function as collateral. We know in an indirect way that they are true, since we derive so much value from them and write so many checks. These checks would all bounce if not for the God reserve. 

Not only do they not bounce, they fund an explosion of wealth and productivity, very much like the bank that lends money to fund more investment and construction. This is precisely how the God account functions. Ultimately it built western civilization, from art to science to liberal democracy. Nor -- as anyone can see -- can our civilization perdure without this backing (which is again the backing of reality).

Back to the stuff I discovered yesterday about reality. For example, this:

when the soul knows necessary and universal principles, it becomes, in some real fashion, all intelligible reality. This truth presupposes the immateriality of the intellective faculty.  

"A lot to unpack" there, as they say. The first sentence specifies not whether but when we know necessary and universal principles.  

Wait -- is that debate over? Well, either it is or it isn't; if it is over, it is because we have plenty of God in the bank. If it isn't, it is because there is Nothing in the bank, in which case two things: 1) the debate is not over, and 2) can never be over. But this reduces to: there is nothing to debate; or to a debate about nothing,  AKA postmodernity.

The second part of the first sentence claims that the intellect is in some sense "all of intelligible reality." This looks like a rather large claim, but here again, it is either true or not true, simple as. 

Here's a thought: on what can all intelligent men agree, by virtue of being intelligent? 

Well? I suppose it depends on what we mean by "intelligence." 

Yes, Petey? It means that in knowing any truth, the intellect must in principle be capable of knowing any and all truth. For what is truth? Correct: intelligible being. And what is intelligence? Correct: the potential to know intelligible being. And who can put a limit to the intellect? The intellect? Yes, but only arbitrarily. 

Man is the microcosm. As such, he has essentially unlimited funds in a local branch of the Macrocosmic Savings & Loan. 

I would go even further and say that the Macrocosm is backed by the infinite funds of the nonlocal Metacosm, somewhat like vine to branch to fruit. Our knowledge is the fruit, but fruit doesn't just grow on trees, unless we're talking about an upside-down tree with its roots aloft and branches herebelow.

Necessary and Universal.  What are those? Oh, little things like the principle of non-contradiction, or of identity: that things either are or are not. In short, all knowledge reduces to the question of being: does this exist? Is this the case? Then it is true. 

Note that all philosophies derived from Kant enclose us in our own subjectivity. Thus, even if they were true, we could never know it. Existence detached from being is like a tree with no roots. No fruit for you!

This is why the left is equal parts cynicism and credulity. Cynicism is too easy. Think of the sneer on Bill Maher's ugly face, forever. Credulity is much too difficult. Have you seen a Jen Psaki press conference? Imagine being as dumb as her, and then realize that the press must be even dumber. The credulity of the press is ordered to the incredible Biden administration, which is in turn ordered to....

Yes, the left is overdrawn again. And yes, they're printing money as fast as they can. But inflation isn't just a monetary problem. Rather, it must be the reflection of an intellectual and ultimately spiritual problem -- a loss of contact with reality and real value.  

Put it this way: the left is usually bankrupt in every way except monetarily. The return of stagflation means they've run out of other people's money again.   

Zing! Went the Strings of My Head

The most subversive book in our time would be a collection of old proverbs. --Davila

In that case, the last thing I want to do is subvert our decaying system and its degenerate elites, so here are some new proverbs:

Critical race theorist: someone who not only can't specify the null hypothesis of Critical Race Theory, but has no idea what you're talking about. 

The white man's burden: if we don't play the role of Satan, their whole universe collapses. 

In the analysis of social problems, all roads lead to IQ differences, but the roads have been barricaded. 

Man is free because he his rational. Unless he is only rational. 

Everything bears witness to God. At least under cross-examination. 

Safe spaces. Because the truth hurts.

The cosmic area rug is a tapestry woven of mystery and intelligibility. Which reduces to a mysterious Intelligence. 

We are created from nothing, and a vestige of this nothingness persists like a retrovirus. Ideologies are born when this nothingness mates with stupidity.  

Ideology encloses mystery in intelligibility, thereby eclipsing Intelligence.

Awareness of necessity is the first freedom. The Absolute is necessary being. This realization is eternity clothed in finitude.  

If God weren't perfect there would be no imperfection. 

In the vertical hierarchy, the last of a higher kind touches the first of a lower. The meeting point of natural selection and supernatural election. 

What is the "glue" that binds the hierarchy? There is a truth above and a grace below. The rest is on you. 

A border of the hierarchy appears as a horizon. The ship of thought disappears beneath it unless you shift dimensions from plane to sphere. Material brain and immaterial soul. 

Or, part and whole. The soul is ordered to the latter, which is why endless adventure is the proper end of our adventuring. 

The purpose of the Incarnation is our salvation. From what? From sin. Now, man is equal parts intellect, will, and sentiment. What is intellectual sin, and how does the Incarnation rectify it? What is the intellectual problem to which he is the solution? Ask Adam but watch the serpent. 

Gross abuse of a corpse is a felony in all 50 states. It must not be a federal crime, so that's how Biden's handlers get away with it.

Those buzz-killing Puritans landed here in 1620. Four centuries of prudery and meddling has reduced them to their essence: wokeness. The left is puritanism with the humor.  

Zing! Went the Strings of My Head

The most subversive book in our time would be a collection of old proverbs. --Davila

In that case, the last thing I want to do is subvert our decaying system and its degenerate elites, so here are some new proverbs:

Critical race theorist: someone who not only can't specify the null hypothesis of Critical Race Theory, but has no idea what you're talking about. 

The white man's burden: if we don't play the role of Satan, their whole universe collapses. 

In the analysis of social problems, all roads lead to IQ differences, but the roads have been barricaded. 

Man is free because he his rational. Unless he is only rational. 

Everything bears witness to God. At least under cross-examination. 

Safe spaces. Because the truth hurts.

The cosmic area rug is a tapestry woven of mystery and intelligibility. Which reduces to a mysterious Intelligence. 

We are created from nothing, and a vestige of this nothingness persists like a retrovirus. Ideologies are born when this nothingness mates with stupidity.  

Ideology encloses mystery in intelligibility, thereby eclipsing Intelligence.

Awareness of necessity is the first freedom. The Absolute is necessary being. This realization is eternity clothed in finitude.  

If God weren't perfect there would be no imperfection. 

In the vertical hierarchy, the last of a higher kind touches the first of a lower. The meeting point of natural selection and supernatural election. 

What is the "glue" that binds the hierarchy? There is a truth above and a grace below. The rest is on you. 

A border of the hierarchy appears as a horizon. The ship of thought disappears beneath it unless you shift dimensions from plane to sphere. Material brain and immaterial soul. 

Or, part and whole. The soul is ordered to the latter, which is why endless adventure is the proper end of our adventuring. 

The purpose of the Incarnation is our salvation. From what? From sin. Now, man is equal parts intellect, will, and sentiment. What is intellectual sin, and how does the Incarnation rectify it? What is the intellectual problem to which he is the solution? Ask Adam but watch the serpent. 

Gross abuse of a corpse is a felony in all 50 states. It must not be a federal crime, so that's how Biden's handlers get away with it.

Those buzz-killing Puritans landed here in 1620. Four centuries of prudery and meddling has reduced them to their essence: wokeness. The left is puritanism with the humor.  

Fresh New Sayings

Just some random thoughts that aspire to be aphorisms. If I had more time I could make them more concentrated and pointy.

Two things interest me: universality and certitude. Make that one thing.

There are limits to knowledge. Which is not to say there is no knowledge of the Limitless. 

If reality is what exists independently of the mind, then we are sealed in ignorance. Conversely, if reality can be known, it is because the immaterial knowing subject is no less real than what it knows.

Sight is to touch as reason is to faith. Do you hear me? 

Science is not equipped to answer the question of how science is possible. Limited to strictly scientific categories, neither science nor scientist are possible, and certainly not important. 

Cynicism its the tribute narcissism pays to credulity.  

Between intellect and reality is ether nothing or everything. 

The most certain truths completely escape language, for example, experience. Boredom is the incapacity to be shocked by its presence.

The intellect sheds light on reality, as reality transmits light to the intellect. Thankfully, God sheds darkness on the intellect, without which we could never know what can't be known. Faith allows us to see into this darkness, or at least bump into things.

Certitude and truth are two sides of the same reality. When certitude is joined with falsehood, it is polite to yell fire in the hole! 

Progressive wisdom begins with fear of the mob. 

Being becomes knowledge that knowledge may return to being. 

Believing the truth surpasses knowledge of its countless models. 

Doing good presupposes seeing things as there are. Seeing things as they aren't is Satan's portal.  

The left makes things so complicated. Why not just outlaw irony, perspective, and common sense?

As all reasonable people know, man is free because he is rational. If he isn't rational then he isn't free, and if he isn't free he isn't rational. Tell me again: how is it that man lacks free will?

Science is the discovery of necessity. It can't prove the existence of freedom because it presupposes it.

Sending every young adult to college will not raise IQ one iota, but that's not the point. Rather, it will contribute mightily to our collective stupidity.  

Anti-gun legislation is weaponized defenselessness.  

The most important things are not means to an end, but for their own sake. There's a name for useless people trying desperately to make themselves useful: Democrats. 

Fresh New Sayings

Just some random thoughts that aspire to be aphorisms. If I had more time I could make them more concentrated and pointy.

Two things interest me: universality and certitude. Make that one thing.

There are limits to knowledge. Which is not to say there is no knowledge of the Limitless. 

If reality is what exists independently of the mind, then we are sealed in ignorance. Conversely, if reality can be known, it is because the immaterial knowing subject is no less real than what it knows.

Sight is to touch as reason is to faith. Do you hear me? 

Science is not equipped to answer the question of how science is possible. Limited to strictly scientific categories, neither science nor scientist are possible, and certainly not important. 

Cynicism its the tribute narcissism pays to credulity.  

Between intellect and reality is ether nothing or everything. 

The most certain truths completely escape language, for example, experience. Boredom is the incapacity to be shocked by its presence.

The intellect sheds light on reality, as reality transmits light to the intellect. Thankfully, God sheds darkness on the intellect, without which we could never know what can't be known. Faith allows us to see into this darkness, or at least bump into things.

Certitude and truth are two sides of the same reality. When certitude is joined with falsehood, it is polite to yell fire in the hole! 

Progressive wisdom begins with fear of the mob. 

Being becomes knowledge that knowledge may return to being. 

Believing the truth surpasses knowledge of its countless models. 

Doing good presupposes seeing things as there are. Seeing things as they aren't is Satan's portal.  

The left makes things so complicated. Why not just outlaw irony, perspective, and common sense?

As all reasonable people know, man is free because he is rational. If he isn't rational then he isn't free, and if he isn't free he isn't rational. Tell me again: how is it that man lacks free will?

Science is the discovery of necessity. It can't prove the existence of freedom because it presupposes it.

Sending every young adult to college will not raise IQ one iota, but that's not the point. Rather, it will contribute mightily to our collective stupidity.  

Anti-gun legislation is weaponized defenselessness.  

The most important things are not means to an end, but for their own sake. There's a name for useless people trying desperately to make themselves useful: Democrats. 

Freeform Aphorizing

Theology for Dummies, AKA atheism.

Wokeness is the ruling class high on estrogen.  

Some people think they are able to manage their lives without the state -- like a host in no need of parasites. 

The desire to reimagine the police is a consequence of imagining them. In other words, delusions are cured by more of them.

For the left, it's an easy choice between St. George and Uncle Tim. Nothing triggers them like a black person who doesn't speak like a retarded child or behave like a raging psychopath.

If less than 6% of the population commits more than 50% of crime, we need to reimagine statistics. 

Disparate impact will not be eliminated until there is equality of outcome between the gifted and stupid.

Standards are barriers to equality. In order to equalize slam dunks we need to either lower the basket or eliminate it entirely. 

Equity is achievable, but only with more inequality between citizens and elites.

You know you're privileged when your insanity not only costs you nothing but assures a lucrative career in journalism, academia, or politics.  

Imaginary oppression is license to oppress. In Christianity, the holy one was an innocent victim. For the left, the victim is the innocent and holy one. 

Social justice is just the left's appeal to your heart on behalf of its fist.

We are guided by continuous feedback from reality. The left used to just ignore the messages, now they shoot the messenger.

Progressive attacks on free speech are an autoimmune disorder of the soul.

Wisdom puts limits on mere knowledge. Without it we are limited by the arbitrary limits of our own ideology.

Ideology is reality enclosed in thought. Reality is the transformation of uncontainable being to thought and knowledge.

The primordial revelation consists of: 1) the intelligible object, 2) the intelligent subject, and 3) the flow between them. Which presumes an even more primordial link between intelligences, or between Subject and subjects. 

Is comes from nature, ought from God, must from the state. State compulsion to do what we oughtn't, or to pretend nature is what it isn't, is justification for revolution. 

In the absence of freedom there is no meaning. Doctrines that deny free will aren't even meaningless. 

Freeform Aphorizing

Theology for Dummies, AKA atheism.

Wokeness is the ruling class high on estrogen.  

Some people think they are able to manage their lives without the state -- like a host in no need of parasites. 

The desire to reimagine the police is a consequence of imagining them. In other words, delusions are cured by more of them.

For the left, it's an easy choice between St. George and Uncle Tim. Nothing triggers them like a black person who doesn't speak like a retarded child or behave like a raging psychopath.

If less than 6% of the population commits more than 50% of crime, we need to reimagine statistics. 

Disparate impact will not be eliminated until there is equality of outcome between the gifted and stupid.

Standards are barriers to equality. In order to equalize slam dunks we need to either lower the basket or eliminate it entirely. 

Equity is achievable, but only with more inequality between citizens and elites.

You know you're privileged when your insanity not only costs you nothing but assures a lucrative career in journalism, academia, or politics.  

Imaginary oppression is license to oppress. In Christianity, the holy one was an innocent victim. For the left, the victim is the innocent and holy one. 

Social justice is just the left's appeal to your heart on behalf of its fist.

We are guided by continuous feedback from reality. The left used to just ignore the messages, now they shoot the messenger.

Progressive attacks on free speech are an autoimmune disorder of the soul.

Wisdom puts limits on mere knowledge. Without it we are limited by the arbitrary limits of our own ideology.

Ideology is reality enclosed in thought. Reality is the transformation of uncontainable being to thought and knowledge.

The primordial revelation consists of: 1) the intelligible object, 2) the intelligent subject, and 3) the flow between them. Which presumes an even more primordial link between intelligences, or between Subject and subjects. 

Is comes from nature, ought from God, must from the state. State compulsion to do what we oughtn't, or to pretend nature is what it isn't, is justification for revolution. 

In the absence of freedom there is no meaning. Doctrines that deny free will aren't even meaningless.