Bobby Got Book

I like big books and I cannot lie. 

The current one, coming in at 1,019 pages, is called Four Ages of Understanding: The First Postmodern Survey of Philosophy from Ancient Times to the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, by John Deely. A big book deserves a big-ass title.

It came to my attention in the usual way, i.e., some combination of angelic causation and complete randomness, nor can I yet say whether or not it is raccoommended. In fact, I don't even know exactly what it's about.

I mean, while the subject of the book is obviously What It's All About, I don't yet know the author's slant on W.I.A.A. I see it has something to do with the centrality of language -- of a logocentric universe composed of speech -- and that is what intrigued me, because hey, that's what I think.

My point this morning is that this doorstep isn't just my problem, it's yours, since I'll apparently be immersed in it for awhile. At the moment I'm only up to page 17, so I don't yet have much to say except that I like his colloquial style. 

In fact, if you're going to write a book this long, you had better be a congenial companion, otherwise your would-be reader will never make it through. Rather, it will have to be one of those books you've pretended to have read, like Being and Nothingness or The Phenomenology of Spirit.  

Although the book looks forbidding, the first sentence belies its serious length and weight: "I came from my Parkview house to the Hispanic gathering in Jackson Park just in time for the food (having been able to see when the time was right)."

So he announces right away that he's a Regular Guy. 

"Where have you been?" a lady unknown to me asked from across the table at which I took a seat.

"Writing a book," I replied, taking my first bite.

"Oh?" queried the stranger. "What about?"

"The history of philosophy" I said, taking another bite....

"Hasn't that already been written" she said, less a question than a hint I was wasting my time...

"Not so" I countered. "Besides, I have an angle." 

An angle? That's your excuse? It had better be some angle!

Ironically, the book is dedicated to me. Or will be if I make it to the end: to those few who will read every word. 

Hmm. Perhaps this has a double meaning, you know? No one can literally read every word of this logorrheic cosmos, but I can try. Obviously Deely did. 

SPOILER ALERT! 

I'm going to jump ahead to the last page:

For postmodern times and the immediate future of philosophy, the clear and central task is to come to terms with "a universe perfused with signs," if not composed exclusively of them.

Again, that is precisely how I look at the cosmos, and have ever since I heard a late night ramble by Terence McKenna on the subject back in the mid-1980s. He was high on psilocybin, while my excuse is that I had probably been up for at least 24 hours, which was my custom back then (I worked the graveyard shift and thought real men didn't require sleep). 

In any event, I remember the exact words pronounced in that slightly nasally and quizzicaloid voice of his:

I don't believe that the world is made of quarks or electromagnetic waves, or stars, or planets, or any of those things. I believe the world is made of language.

He also made it clear that "it is no great accomplishment to hear a voice in the head. The accomplishment is to make sure that it is telling you the truth." Hence the title of his book, True Hallucinations.

Likewise, any idiot can write a 1,000 page book, although reading one probably takes a special kind of idiot. Let's see what the critics are saying, i.e., amazon reviewers:

This book should be on the shelf of every person who takes ideas seriously.

Well, that's true of countless books. The question is whether or not it should be taken off the shelf, let alone read.

I'll keep you posted. Literally, of course. 

Meanwhile, my takeaway from chapter one is that: every animal lives in its own "objective world" which consists of the objects necessary for its survival (including objects to avoid); that these objective worlds are, ironically, a kind of dreamland; that "to wake from this dream is to discover the Other in its otherness"; and that philosophy must try to avoid becoming just another one of those somnolent hallucinations. 

So, just like back in the 1980s, I'll do my best to avoid sleep and try to discern which hallucinations are speaking the truth.

Bobby Got Book

I like big books and I cannot lie. 

The current one, coming in at 1,019 pages, is called Four Ages of Understanding: The First Postmodern Survey of Philosophy from Ancient Times to the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, by John Deely. A big book deserves a big-ass title.

It came to my attention in the usual way, i.e., some combination of angelic causation and complete randomness, nor can I yet say whether or not it is raccoommended. In fact, I don't even know exactly what it's about.

I mean, while the subject of the book is obviously What It's All About, I don't yet know the author's slant on W.I.A.A. I see it has something to do with the centrality of language -- of a logocentric universe composed of speech -- and that is what intrigued me, because hey, that's what I think.

My point this morning is that this doorstep isn't just my problem, it's yours, since I'll apparently be immersed in it for awhile. At the moment I'm only up to page 17, so I don't yet have much to say except that I like his colloquial style. 

In fact, if you're going to write a book this long, you had better be a congenial companion, otherwise your would-be reader will never make it through. Rather, it will have to be one of those books you've pretended to have read, like Being and Nothingness or The Phenomenology of Spirit.  

Although the book looks forbidding, the first sentence belies its serious length and weight: "I came from my Parkview house to the Hispanic gathering in Jackson Park just in time for the food (having been able to see when the time was right)."

So he announces right away that he's a Regular Guy. 

"Where have you been?" a lady unknown to me asked from across the table at which I took a seat.

"Writing a book," I replied, taking my first bite.

"Oh?" queried the stranger. "What about?"

"The history of philosophy" I said, taking another bite....

"Hasn't that already been written" she said, less a question than a hint I was wasting my time...

"Not so" I countered. "Besides, I have an angle." 

An angle? That's your excuse? It had better be some angle!

Ironically, the book is dedicated to me. Or will be if I make it to the end: to those few who will read every word. 

Hmm. Perhaps this has a double meaning, you know? No one can literally read every word of this logorrheic cosmos, but I can try. Obviously Deely did. 

SPOILER ALERT! 

I'm going to jump ahead to the last page:

For postmodern times and the immediate future of philosophy, the clear and central task is to come to terms with "a universe perfused with signs," if not composed exclusively of them.

Again, that is precisely how I look at the cosmos, and have ever since I heard a late night ramble by Terence McKenna on the subject back in the mid-1980s. He was high on psilocybin, while my excuse is that I had probably been up for at least 24 hours, which was my custom back then (I worked the graveyard shift and thought real men didn't require sleep). 

In any event, I remember the exact words pronounced in that slightly nasally and quizzicaloid voice of his:

I don't believe that the world is made of quarks or electromagnetic waves, or stars, or planets, or any of those things. I believe the world is made of language.

He also made it clear that "it is no great accomplishment to hear a voice in the head. The accomplishment is to make sure that it is telling you the truth." Hence the title of his book, True Hallucinations.

Likewise, any idiot can write a 1,000 page book, although reading one probably takes a special kind of idiot. Let's see what the critics are saying, i.e., amazon reviewers:

This book should be on the shelf of every person who takes ideas seriously.

Well, that's true of countless books. The question is whether or not it should be taken off the shelf, let alone read.

I'll keep you posted. Literally, of course. 

Meanwhile, my takeaway from chapter one is that: every animal lives in its own "objective world" which consists of the objects necessary for its survival (including objects to avoid); that these objective worlds are, ironically, a kind of dreamland; that "to wake from this dream is to discover the Other in its otherness"; and that philosophy must try to avoid becoming just another one of those somnolent hallucinations. 

So, just like back in the 1980s, I'll do my best to avoid sleep and try to discern which hallucinations are speaking the truth.

Perennial Misosophies & Philodoxies

After completing yesterday's post I ran into a couple of aphorisms that go to its subject -- or one of its subjects, the idea that the height of Greek thought reaches into the penumbra of the Christian revelation: 

Paganism is the other Old Testament of the Church.

Only he is a consummate Catholic who builds the cathedral of his soul over pagan crypts.

There is of course yet another revelation -- the oldest testament of all -- this being the Cosmos itself, AKA creation. It is also the newest, since its creation is ongoing. It is now it is now it is now.

Now, in order to pick up where a previous posted has ended, I can't just reread it, but rather, have to relive it. Or better, I need to find the place from which it emanated. A state of being, as it were. Which is a little like trying to grope one's way to the place where music originates. 

Hang on while I try to dial it back in. Stupid analogue tuner...

Okay, got it:  cosmos = cosmos + x. A reader points out that this initial formulation is different from the title of the post, which was written immediately thereafter: reality = cosmos + x. 

The reason for the discrepancy is that the observation was more empirical and spontaneous than conceptual and considered; in other words, it was a newborn thoughtlet -- a particularity -- that hadn't yet matured into a universal concept. Imagine an explorer in a new land: at first all he can do is take note of the novel flora and fauna before giving them abstract names.

Now that I have the time to think about what I meant, I would say that we always have a representation of reality, even while knowing -- or at least we should know -- that this representation is never sufficient. However one conceptualizes "reality," it always falls short of reality. 

This much is obvious.

Now, a couple of readers took issue with me in the comment section, which goes to the reasons why I never recommend this blog to anyone, and, if asked, usually deny its very existence. Who said I have a blog?! 

More generally, have you noticed how folks enjoy misunderstanding things? The left, for example, gets a big kick out of the idea that everyone who disagrees with them is a racist. You can explain to them that you are no such thing, but they don't want to know it, because it robs them of the unpleasantly pleasant enjoyment of imagining you are.

Similarly, a commenter yesterday accused us of having some animus toward Indians, when the real question is whether we prefer Western civilization over the Stone Age. It takes some real imagination to think that Bob blames someone for being born in the Paleolithic -- much less that he takes credit for having being born in the modern world! 

Back to the subject -- which yesterday seemed fresh, but now I'm worried might be a bit stale; or that I've gotten the point, and that spelling it all out will be an exercise in pedantry. More generally, we like exploring much more than cataloguing. 

I'm just going to highlight the passage that provoked this state of being, from Jacque Maritain:

Philosophic speculation, precisely because it is the supreme achievement of reason, is unknown to all the so-called primitive races. Indeed, even of the civilizations of antiquity the greater part either have possessed no philosophy or have failed to discover its true nature and distinctive character.

I am the last person to idealize the ancient Greeks, because first of all we're taking about a handful of people, and let's not even get into their sexual proclivities lest someone accuse us of ignorant, uncharitable, and disrespectful homophobia. 

At the same time, just because I'm not a fan of animal sacrifice it doesn't it make me anti-Semitic. Never forget that the past is a foreign country! Nor should you forget the corollary, that some foreign countries are the past -- in other words, that cultural space is often developmental time. For example, if I want to visit the '60s I can drive over to Santa Monica.

Maritain continues:

In any case, philosophy only began to exist at a very late period about the eighth and especially the sixth century B.C., and then found the right path to truth by a success which must be regarded as extraordinary when we consider the multitude of wrong roads taken by so many philosophers and philosophic schools. 

Yes, there is a -- gasp! -- correct philosophy of which we may have more secure knowledge than any of the special sciences. Just because most cultures, civilizations, and people have never discovered it is not a valid criticism of the perennial philosophy. It's hardly truth's fault if you refuse to believe it or pretend it cannot exist.   

[H]uman wisdom has everywhere proved bankrupt, and... even before philosophy took shape as an independent discipline, most of the great philosophic errors had been already formulated. 

Yup. There is no "new" atheism -- or materialism, or relativism, or skepticism, or pantheism, or idolatry, et al, for every form of sophistry appeared at the very outset of man's thinking career. All are provably wrong, but this hardly diminishes their appeal. 

I suppose the novel post-Christian philosophical developments are specifically Christian inversions such as Marxism, progressivism, and victimology. In any event, such   

fundamental errors are not unsubstantial and insignificant dangers; they may succeed, to the bane of those diseased cultures which they condemn to sterility.

Truth is not, as those who are apt to believe who have had the good fortune to be born in a culture formed by it, given to man ready-made, like a natural endowment. It is difficult to attain, and hard to keep, and only by a fortunate exception is it possessed uncontaminated by error and in the totality of its various complementary aspects (ibid.).

Which leads to my main point, which is: what are the chances that this natural truth should be so compatible with the supernatural truth -- that revelation should pick up just where human wisdom leaves off, serving as its capstone and perfection?  

Again, the most perfect philosophy will be imperfect under the best of circumstances, and can only be made perfect with recourse to something transcending it, i.e., "wisdom deified by grace."

"How highly therefore we ought to prize the sacred heritage of Greek thought!" For "In Greece, alone in the ancient world, the wisdom of man found the right path," such that 

the small Hellenic race appears among the great empires of the East like a man amidst gigantic children, and may be truly termed the organ of the reason and word of man as the Jewish people was the organ of the revelation and word of God (ibid.).

I'm not Greek and I'm not Jewish; nevertheless, I have homelands in Athens and Jerusalem as well as Rome. Regarding the latter, we'll leave off with an aphorism that I think I understand:

The basic problem of every former colony -- the problem of intellectual servitude, of an impoverished tradition, of second-rate spirituality, of inauthentic civilization, of forced and embarrassing imitation -- I have resolved with supreme simplicity: Catholicism is my native land (NGD).

Perennial Misosophies & Philodoxies

After completing yesterday's post I ran into a couple of aphorisms that go to its subject -- or one of its subjects, the idea that the height of Greek thought reaches into the penumbra of the Christian revelation: 

Paganism is the other Old Testament of the Church.

Only he is a consummate Catholic who builds the cathedral of his soul over pagan crypts.

There is of course yet another revelation -- the oldest testament of all -- this being the Cosmos itself, AKA creation. It is also the newest, since its creation is ongoing. It is now it is now it is now.

Now, in order to pick up where a previous posted has ended, I can't just reread it, but rather, have to relive it. Or better, I need to find the place from which it emanated. A state of being, as it were. Which is a little like trying to grope one's way to the place where music originates. 

Hang on while I try to dial it back in. Stupid analogue tuner...

Okay, got it:  cosmos = cosmos + x. A reader points out that this initial formulation is different from the title of the post, which was written immediately thereafter: reality = cosmos + x. 

The reason for the discrepancy is that the observation was more empirical and spontaneous than conceptual and considered; in other words, it was a newborn thoughtlet -- a particularity -- that hadn't yet matured into a universal concept. Imagine an explorer in a new land: at first all he can do is take note of the novel flora and fauna before giving them abstract names.

Now that I have the time to think about what I meant, I would say that we always have a representation of reality, even while knowing -- or at least we should know -- that this representation is never sufficient. However one conceptualizes "reality," it always falls short of reality. 

This much is obvious.

Now, a couple of readers took issue with me in the comment section, which goes to the reasons why I never recommend this blog to anyone, and, if asked, usually deny its very existence. Who said I have a blog?! 

More generally, have you noticed how folks enjoy misunderstanding things? The left, for example, gets a big kick out of the idea that everyone who disagrees with them is a racist. You can explain to them that you are no such thing, but they don't want to know it, because it robs them of the unpleasantly pleasant enjoyment of imagining you are.

Similarly, a commenter yesterday accused us of having some animus toward Indians, when the real question is whether we prefer Western civilization over the Stone Age. It takes some real imagination to think that Bob blames someone for being born in the Paleolithic -- much less that he takes credit for having being born in the modern world! 

Back to the subject -- which yesterday seemed fresh, but now I'm worried might be a bit stale; or that I've gotten the point, and that spelling it all out will be an exercise in pedantry. More generally, we like exploring much more than cataloguing. 

I'm just going to highlight the passage that provoked this state of being, from Jacque Maritain:

Philosophic speculation, precisely because it is the supreme achievement of reason, is unknown to all the so-called primitive races. Indeed, even of the civilizations of antiquity the greater part either have possessed no philosophy or have failed to discover its true nature and distinctive character.

I am the last person to idealize the ancient Greeks, because first of all we're taking about a handful of people, and let's not even get into their sexual proclivities lest someone accuse us of ignorant, uncharitable, and disrespectful homophobia. 

At the same time, just because I'm not a fan of animal sacrifice it doesn't it make me anti-Semitic. Never forget that the past is a foreign country! Nor should you forget the corollary, that some foreign countries are the past -- in other words, that cultural space is often developmental time. For example, if I want to visit the '60s I can drive over to Santa Monica.

Maritain continues:

In any case, philosophy only began to exist at a very late period about the eighth and especially the sixth century B.C., and then found the right path to truth by a success which must be regarded as extraordinary when we consider the multitude of wrong roads taken by so many philosophers and philosophic schools. 

Yes, there is a -- gasp! -- correct philosophy of which we may have more secure knowledge than any of the special sciences. Just because most cultures, civilizations, and people have never discovered it is not a valid criticism of the perennial philosophy. It's hardly truth's fault if you refuse to believe it or pretend it cannot exist.   

[H]uman wisdom has everywhere proved bankrupt, and... even before philosophy took shape as an independent discipline, most of the great philosophic errors had been already formulated. 

Yup. There is no "new" atheism -- or materialism, or relativism, or skepticism, or pantheism, or idolatry, et al, for every form of sophistry appeared at the very outset of man's thinking career. All are provably wrong, but this hardly diminishes their appeal. 

I suppose the novel post-Christian philosophical developments are specifically Christian inversions such as Marxism, progressivism, and victimology. In any event, such   

fundamental errors are not unsubstantial and insignificant dangers; they may succeed, to the bane of those diseased cultures which they condemn to sterility.

Truth is not, as those who are apt to believe who have had the good fortune to be born in a culture formed by it, given to man ready-made, like a natural endowment. It is difficult to attain, and hard to keep, and only by a fortunate exception is it possessed uncontaminated by error and in the totality of its various complementary aspects (ibid.).

Which leads to my main point, which is: what are the chances that this natural truth should be so compatible with the supernatural truth -- that revelation should pick up just where human wisdom leaves off, serving as its capstone and perfection?  

Again, the most perfect philosophy will be imperfect under the best of circumstances, and can only be made perfect with recourse to something transcending it, i.e., "wisdom deified by grace."

"How highly therefore we ought to prize the sacred heritage of Greek thought!" For "In Greece, alone in the ancient world, the wisdom of man found the right path," such that 

the small Hellenic race appears among the great empires of the East like a man amidst gigantic children, and may be truly termed the organ of the reason and word of man as the Jewish people was the organ of the revelation and word of God (ibid.).

I'm not Greek and I'm not Jewish; nevertheless, I have homelands in Athens and Jerusalem as well as Rome. Regarding the latter, we'll leave off with an aphorism that I think I understand:

The basic problem of every former colony -- the problem of intellectual servitude, of an impoverished tradition, of second-rate spirituality, of inauthentic civilization, of forced and embarrassing imitation -- I have resolved with supreme simplicity: Catholicism is my native land (NGD).

Reality = Cosmos + X

I've been thinking a lot about the need for revelation. 

Now, first of all, we either need it or we don't. In other words, either we can form an accurate and complete map of the cosmos with wholly natural means, or we can't.

Well, we can't. Sez who? Sez common sense. But if that's not enough, sez Gödel. 

Stanley Jaki, in his Brain, Mind and Computers, correctly notes that Gödel's theorems prove

that even in the elementary parts of arithmetic there are propositions which cannot be proved or disproved in that system (emphasis mine).

And then, before philosophers had time enough to digest the implications of that little depth charge,  

even wider implications of his work came to be recognized. To begin with, Gödel's analysis centered on the most basic of all formal systems, the system of integers. It was, therefore, plausible to argue that as a result no formal system is immune to the bearing of Gödel's conclusion (emphasis mine).

Now, the mind is not a logic machine. If it were, then we couldn't be having this metalogical discussion about logic. At any rate, there is

a basic, insurmountable difference between the abilities of the human mind and of formal systems of which machines are obvious embodiments.... For a machine to be a machine, it can have only a finite number of components and it can operate only on a finite number of initial assumptions. 

And "it is a basic shortcoming of all such systems" 

that they have to rely on a system extraneous to them for their proof of consistency. Gödel's theorem, therefore, cuts the ground under the efforts that view machines... as adequate models of the mind.

The bottom line is that any machine, because it embodies a formal system,

can never produce at least one truth, which the mind can without relying on other minds.... No matter how perfect the machine, it can never do everything that the human mind can.

So, our most porfect manmade system of thought will necessarily have to put its faith in at least one thought or principle or axiom or assumption or intuition or speculation or delusion or hallucination that the system cannot justify, and which comes from outside the system.

Therefore, if I am following my argument correctly, there is no escaping faith. 

Back to our opening blast:"either we need revelation or we don't."

Looks like we do. But which one? 

Well, in point of fact there are surprisingly few. Buddhism, for example, is not a revelation. Nor are the Upanishads or Bhagavad Gita. Besides, what's wrong with the one that stands at the ground of our civilization? I'm old enough to remember that Western civilization was the best of all civilizations, so I'll stick with the Greco-Judeo-Christian revelation, thank you.

Greco? Yes, that's one of the things I've been thinking about vis-a-vis revelation. You're free to take it or leave it -- Raccoon opinion diverges in the subject -- but ancient Greek philosophy may almost be thought of as a kind of complementary Old Testament to go along with the jewsual one. 

Certainly the early Christian thinkers approached it this way, if not literally, then in spirit. That is, they were eager to ground the new revelation in the old, and also to show how the former was entirely consistent with the best available "manmade" philosophy.

I put manmade in quotes, because we already showed that no manmade philosophy is self-justifying, and must draw on something above, behind, or beyond itself. 

As it so happens, I'm reading a book called From Plato to Christ: How Platonic Thought Shaped the Christian Faith that claims the works of Plato

can be most profitably read on two simultaneous levels: as works of genius in their own right and as inspired writings used by the God of the Bible to prepare the ancient world for the coming of Christ and the New Testament.

And why not? I say, the more testaments the merrier, so long as they not only don't contradict but deepen one another. Although you may not want to put him on the same level as the OT prophets, 

Plato was nevertheless inspired by something beyond the confines of our natural world.... Plato glimpsed deep mysteries about the nature of God and man, the earth and the heavens, history and eternity, virtue and vice, and love and death that point to the fullness of the Judeo-Christian worldview.

Moreover,

The very reason that Aristotle and Virgil could serve as forerunners and guides to the two greatest repositories of medieval Catholic learning (the Summa theologiae and the Commedia) was because Aquinas and Dante understood that their pagan mentors had access to wisdom that transcended their time and place.

I think you just need to widen out your world, so it becomes a place where it is a matter of course for vertical energies to flow in from above in all sorts of ways. This was Chesterton's Universe (another book I recently read), which is vastly larger than the one confined to scientistic naturalism. The cosmos is always more than the cosmos, such that... how put it.... 

Let's just say the cosmos = cosmos + x. And x is... further discussed in the next post, I'll bet. 

Reality = Cosmos + X

I've been thinking a lot about the need for revelation. 

Now, first of all, we either need it or we don't. In other words, either we can form an accurate and complete map of the cosmos with wholly natural means, or we can't.

Well, we can't. Sez who? Sez common sense. But if that's not enough, sez Gödel. 

Stanley Jaki, in his Brain, Mind and Computers, correctly notes that Gödel's theorems prove

that even in the elementary parts of arithmetic there are propositions which cannot be proved or disproved in that system (emphasis mine).

And then, before philosophers had time enough to digest the implications of that little depth charge,  

even wider implications of his work came to be recognized. To begin with, Gödel's analysis centered on the most basic of all formal systems, the system of integers. It was, therefore, plausible to argue that as a result no formal system is immune to the bearing of Gödel's conclusion (emphasis mine).

Now, the mind is not a logic machine. If it were, then we couldn't be having this metalogical discussion about logic. At any rate, there is

a basic, insurmountable difference between the abilities of the human mind and of formal systems of which machines are obvious embodiments.... For a machine to be a machine, it can have only a finite number of components and it can operate only on a finite number of initial assumptions. 

And "it is a basic shortcoming of all such systems" 

that they have to rely on a system extraneous to them for their proof of consistency. Gödel's theorem, therefore, cuts the ground under the efforts that view machines... as adequate models of the mind.

The bottom line is that any machine, because it embodies a formal system,

can never produce at least one truth, which the mind can without relying on other minds.... No matter how perfect the machine, it can never do everything that the human mind can.

So, our most porfect manmade system of thought will necessarily have to put its faith in at least one thought or principle or axiom or assumption or intuition or speculation or delusion or hallucination that the system cannot justify, and which comes from outside the system.

Therefore, if I am following my argument correctly, there is no escaping faith. 

Back to our opening blast:"either we need revelation or we don't."

Looks like we do. But which one? 

Well, in point of fact there are surprisingly few. Buddhism, for example, is not a revelation. Nor are the Upanishads or Bhagavad Gita. Besides, what's wrong with the one that stands at the ground of our civilization? I'm old enough to remember that Western civilization was the best of all civilizations, so I'll stick with the Greco-Judeo-Christian revelation, thank you.

Greco? Yes, that's one of the things I've been thinking about vis-a-vis revelation. You're free to take it or leave it -- Raccoon opinion diverges in the subject -- but ancient Greek philosophy may almost be thought of as a kind of complementary Old Testament to go along with the jewsual one. 

Certainly the early Christian thinkers approached it this way, if not literally, then in spirit. That is, they were eager to ground the new revelation in the old, and also to show how the former was entirely consistent with the best available "manmade" philosophy.

I put manmade in quotes, because we already showed that no manmade philosophy is self-justifying, and must draw on something above, behind, or beyond itself. 

As it so happens, I'm reading a book called From Plato to Christ: How Platonic Thought Shaped the Christian Faith that claims the works of Plato

can be most profitably read on two simultaneous levels: as works of genius in their own right and as inspired writings used by the God of the Bible to prepare the ancient world for the coming of Christ and the New Testament.

And why not? I say, the more testaments the merrier, so long as they not only don't contradict but deepen one another. Although you may not want to put him on the same level as the OT prophets, 

Plato was nevertheless inspired by something beyond the confines of our natural world.... Plato glimpsed deep mysteries about the nature of God and man, the earth and the heavens, history and eternity, virtue and vice, and love and death that point to the fullness of the Judeo-Christian worldview.

Moreover,

The very reason that Aristotle and Virgil could serve as forerunners and guides to the two greatest repositories of medieval Catholic learning (the Summa theologiae and the Commedia) was because Aquinas and Dante understood that their pagan mentors had access to wisdom that transcended their time and place.

I think you just need to widen out your world, so it becomes a place where it is a matter of course for vertical energies to flow in from above in all sorts of ways. This was Chesterton's Universe (another book I recently read), which is vastly larger than the one confined to scientistic naturalism. The cosmos is always more than the cosmos, such that... how put it.... 

Let's just say the cosmos = cosmos + x. And x is... further discussed in the next post, I'll bet. 

When an Irresistible Truck Meets an Immovable Tower

I don't even remember how we ended up on the subject of Babel, but let's knock it down and wrap it up.

Noting the abrupt transition from the one to the other, Kass asks whether "the election of Abram and his openness to the call, have something to do with the story of Babel?" Specifically, "Is there a logical and moral connection, not necessarily an empirical one?" 

At the conclusion of Babel, the story of Abram begins with his genealogy, which is traced back to a fellow named Shem. The rest of the chapter describes various begettings and begottens, along with some impressive lifespans. 

For example, the text deadpans that Shem lived 500 years. Afterwards, I notice that the lifespans are shorter and shorter.

Now, not only is Shem one of the main characters in Joyce's Finnegans Wake, he is Joyce himself (Shem the Penman). 

I wondered why, but soon realized this was a rabbit hole from which we might never return. I managed to climb out, but it did end up delaying this post for 24 hours.

Shem is short for Shemus [she-muse] as Jem [Jim / James] is joky for Jacob [grandson of Shem, who plays a practical joke on Isaac to get his blessing?]. A few roughnecks [stiffneck Jews] are still getatable who pretend that aboriginally he was of respectable stemming [the genealogy of Genesis 11:10-32]... Trop Blogg [tower of Babel?] was among his most distant connections.... Ever read of that greatgrand landfather of our visionbuilders, Baaboo [Babel?]...

With regard Abraham's respectable stemming, Kass writes that 

The name of the head of the line, Shem, means "name," the same as the word used in the Babel story, "to make us a name." 

This culminates in God giving Abram his new name of Abraham, who "completes the rejection of Babel and heads off to found God's new way."

Kass ends the chapter with a coda on modern city life -- the new tower of Babel -- and it is again interesting to note that our vast urban centers are the greatest concentrations of secular progressivism. Which is why they want to end the electoral college, because it's our last line of defense -- a thin red line -- against their totalitarian dreams and wishes.

Kass asks a series of rhetorical questions;

"Can our new Babel succeed?" 

Yes, but its success is a failure.

"And can it escape -- has it escaped? -- the failings of success of its ancient prototype?" 

No, because myth is what happens every time. Every Democrat run city is deteriorating before our eyes.  

"What, for example, will it revere?" 

I don't know, scientism, celebrity, credentialism, mental illness, sexual aberration, state power. 

"Will its makers and its beneficiaries be hospitable to procreation and child rearing?" 

Well, in San Francisco there are more drug addicts than children, and in New York there are more black abortions than black babies. 

"Can it find genuine principles of justice?" 

No, only social justice.

"Will it be self-critical?" 

Kass owes me a new keyboard because I just spit out my coffee.

"Can it really overcome our estrangement, alienation, and despair?"

Make that two keyboards.

Way back when we started this series of posts on Babel, we consulted Prager's book on Genesis. He says  the story serves as a warning against our hubris and "against the often-immoral nature of cities." 

I suppose I haven't been in the city (meaning Los Angeles) since the pandemic started, and before that I tried my best to avoid it. I never understood how a normal person would choose to live in L.A., until I realized that the city is indeed a giant community of abnormals -- obviously not 100%, since many people have no choice but to live there. But it has to be a majority. 

Likewise, I haven't been to New York in almost 20 years. I can't even imagine the mentality of a place that would choose Bill de Blasio -- speaking of towers of babbling idiocy -- not just once, but twice. Again, thank God for the electoral college.

It is not surprising that so many of Israel's great prophets were shepherds, the most rural of folk. Moses, too, was a shepherd (Prager).

Shepherds. To which we might add carpenters, fishermen, truckers, etc. 

When an Irresistible Truck Meets an Immovable Tower

I don't even remember how we ended up on the subject of Babel, but let's knock it down and wrap it up.

Noting the abrupt transition from the one to the other, Kass asks whether "the election of Abram and his openness to the call, have something to do with the story of Babel?" Specifically, "Is there a logical and moral connection, not necessarily an empirical one?" 

At the conclusion of Babel, the story of Abram begins with his genealogy, which is traced back to a fellow named Shem. The rest of the chapter describes various begettings and begottens, along with some impressive lifespans. 

For example, the text deadpans that Shem lived 500 years. Afterwards, I notice that the lifespans are shorter and shorter.

Now, not only is Shem one of the main characters in Joyce's Finnegans Wake, he is Joyce himself (Shem the Penman). 

I wondered why, but soon realized this was a rabbit hole from which we might never return. I managed to climb out, but it did end up delaying this post for 24 hours.

Shem is short for Shemus [she-muse] as Jem [Jim / James] is joky for Jacob [grandson of Shem, who plays a practical joke on Isaac to get his blessing?]. A few roughnecks [stiffneck Jews] are still getatable who pretend that aboriginally he was of respectable stemming [the genealogy of Genesis 11:10-32]... Trop Blogg [tower of Babel?] was among his most distant connections.... Ever read of that greatgrand landfather of our visionbuilders, Baaboo [Babel?]...

With regard Abraham's respectable stemming, Kass writes that 

The name of the head of the line, Shem, means "name," the same as the word used in the Babel story, "to make us a name." 

This culminates in God giving Abram his new name of Abraham, who "completes the rejection of Babel and heads off to found God's new way."

Kass ends the chapter with a coda on modern city life -- the new tower of Babel -- and it is again interesting to note that our vast urban centers are the greatest concentrations of secular progressivism. Which is why they want to end the electoral college, because it's our last line of defense -- a thin red line -- against their totalitarian dreams and wishes.

Kass asks a series of rhetorical questions;

"Can our new Babel succeed?" 

Yes, but its success is a failure.

"And can it escape -- has it escaped? -- the failings of success of its ancient prototype?" 

No, because myth is what happens every time. Every Democrat run city is deteriorating before our eyes.  

"What, for example, will it revere?" 

I don't know, scientism, celebrity, credentialism, mental illness, sexual aberration, state power. 

"Will its makers and its beneficiaries be hospitable to procreation and child rearing?" 

Well, in San Francisco there are more drug addicts than children, and in New York there are more black abortions than black babies. 

"Can it find genuine principles of justice?" 

No, only social justice.

"Will it be self-critical?" 

Kass owes me a new keyboard because I just spit out my coffee.

"Can it really overcome our estrangement, alienation, and despair?"

Make that two keyboards.

Way back when we started this series of posts on Babel, we consulted Prager's book on Genesis. He says  the story serves as a warning against our hubris and "against the often-immoral nature of cities." 

I suppose I haven't been in the city (meaning Los Angeles) since the pandemic started, and before that I tried my best to avoid it. I never understood how a normal person would choose to live in L.A., until I realized that the city is indeed a giant community of abnormals -- obviously not 100%, since many people have no choice but to live there. But it has to be a majority. 

Likewise, I haven't been to New York in almost 20 years. I can't even imagine the mentality of a place that would choose Bill de Blasio -- speaking of towers of babbling idiocy -- not just once, but twice. Again, thank God for the electoral college.

It is not surprising that so many of Israel's great prophets were shepherds, the most rural of folk. Moses, too, was a shepherd (Prager).

Shepherds. To which we might add carpenters, fishermen, truckers, etc. 

Divergence Among the Sages is a Blessing

On the other hand, unanimity among the tenured is more than a curse, it's a downright NUISANCE. For there is no right to be wrong unless there is an obligation to be right. Thus, a progressive relativist is truly obligated to be wrong, which can't be right. 

Now, just as there is no one Good but God, nor is there anyone True (or Beautiful). Does this condemn man to subjectivism, relativism, falsehood -- not to mention evil and ugliness? 

NO, it just means that truth is a direction, or vector, or tension, so to speak. The moment we imagine we can possess it is the moment we exile ourselves from the garden of WHATEVER and literally sophicate in it.

In short, truth is always an encounter with the (O)THER. To imagine we could ever contain this ALTER EGO (minus the ego) is to imagine we are God: this is megalomania and diabolical narcissism, i.e., an episteaming pile of closure.

Which, it seems, is precisely what the tower builders were attempting to do. Thus, while the consequent scattering may seem like a punishment, it's actually -- like everything else that comes from above -- a gift:

Only in discovering the distance between ourselves and the Eternal... can human beings orient themselves toward that which is genuinely highest.

And guess wut? 

The dispersion of the nations is the political analogue to the creation of woman: instituting otherness and opposition, it is the necessary condition for national self-awareness and the possibility of a politics that will hear and hearken to the voice of what is eternal, true, and good (Kass).

This all sounds rather Voegelinish to me. Here are some definitions to help you orient yourselves in our new post-Babel space (taken from the excellent Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History, by Eugene Webb (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/029599438X?ie=UTF8&tag=onecos-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=029599438X):

THE BEYOND: That which is ultimate and is itself indefinable because it surpasses all categories of understanding. The proportionate goal of the fundamental tension of existence.

TENSION: A condition of tending toward a goal... the "tension of existence"... [is] the fundamental experience of longing for transcendental fulfillment, the Beyond. 

Conversely, CLOSED EXISTENCE is 

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

Which is 

the mode of existence in which consciousness is consistently and unreservedly oriented toward truth and toward the transcendental pole of the tension of existence. 

Yes, there is still One Cosmos, but it is of the utmost importance to understand that it encompasses both the immanent and transcendent worlds and the tension between them:

COSMOS: the whole of ordered reality, including animate and inanimate nature. (Not to be confused with the modern conception of "cosmos" as the astrophysical universe.) Encompasses all of reality, including the full range of the tension of existence toward the transcendental. Noetic and pneumatic differentiations of consciousness separate this cosmos into the immanent "world" and the transcendent "divine ground."

The D. of C.? This

especially refers to the development of a sense of the distinction between transcendent and immanent, between truth as such and particular truths...

By the way, what is the QUESTION? It is "Voegelin's term"

for the tension of existence in its aspect as a questioning unrest seeking not simply particular truth, but still more the transcendental pole of truth as such. 

There are various pathological deformations of healthy consciousness, and now that I'm thinking about it, the story of Babel certainly conveys one of them, or maybe even all of them. File under GNOSTICISM:

A type of thinking that claims absolute cognitive mastery of reality. 

This pathology can take idealistic (transcendental) or immanentizing forms, such as neo-Marxist progressivism.

But you? You are a RACCOON, which means that you live a vertically OPEN EXISTENCE

in which consciousness is consistently and unreservedly oriented toward truth and toward the transcendental pole of the tension of existence.

AKA the metaxy, which is

the experience of human existence as "between" lower and upper poles: man and the divine, imperfection and perfection, ignorance and knowledge, and so on. Equivalent to the symbol of "participation of being."

Which, as it so happens, is the only participation trophy worth having. No joke, because Being shades off into love, truth, beauty, and all those other transcendentals that can be endlessly known in an ever-deepening spiral, but never possessed.

The end. Until we meet again in the metaxy. 

Divergence Among the Sages is a Blessing

On the other hand, unanimity among the tenured is more than a curse, it's a downright NUISANCE. For there is no right to be wrong unless there is an obligation to be right. Thus, a progressive relativist is truly obligated to be wrong, which can't be right. 

Now, just as there is no one Good but God, nor is there anyone True (or Beautiful). Does this condemn man to subjectivism, relativism, falsehood -- not to mention evil and ugliness? 

NO, it just means that truth is a direction, or vector, or tension, so to speak. The moment we imagine we can possess it is the moment we exile ourselves from the garden of WHATEVER and literally sophicate in it.

In short, truth is always an encounter with the (O)THER. To imagine we could ever contain this ALTER EGO (minus the ego) is to imagine we are God: this is megalomania and diabolical narcissism, i.e., an episteaming pile of closure.

Which, it seems, is precisely what the tower builders were attempting to do. Thus, while the consequent scattering may seem like a punishment, it's actually -- like everything else that comes from above -- a gift:

Only in discovering the distance between ourselves and the Eternal... can human beings orient themselves toward that which is genuinely highest.

And guess wut? 

The dispersion of the nations is the political analogue to the creation of woman: instituting otherness and opposition, it is the necessary condition for national self-awareness and the possibility of a politics that will hear and hearken to the voice of what is eternal, true, and good (Kass).

This all sounds rather Voegelinish to me. Here are some definitions to help you orient yourselves in our new post-Babel space (taken from the excellent Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History, by Eugene Webb (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/029599438X?ie=UTF8&tag=onecos-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=029599438X):

THE BEYOND: That which is ultimate and is itself indefinable because it surpasses all categories of understanding. The proportionate goal of the fundamental tension of existence.

TENSION: A condition of tending toward a goal... the "tension of existence"... [is] the fundamental experience of longing for transcendental fulfillment, the Beyond. 

Conversely, CLOSED EXISTENCE is 

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

Which is 

the mode of existence in which consciousness is consistently and unreservedly oriented toward truth and toward the transcendental pole of the tension of existence. 

Yes, there is still One Cosmos, but it is of the utmost importance to understand that it encompasses both the immanent and transcendent worlds and the tension between them:

COSMOS: the whole of ordered reality, including animate and inanimate nature. (Not to be confused with the modern conception of "cosmos" as the astrophysical universe.) Encompasses all of reality, including the full range of the tension of existence toward the transcendental. Noetic and pneumatic differentiations of consciousness separate this cosmos into the immanent "world" and the transcendent "divine ground."

The D. of C.? This

especially refers to the development of a sense of the distinction between transcendent and immanent, between truth as such and particular truths...

By the way, what is the QUESTION? It is "Voegelin's term"

for the tension of existence in its aspect as a questioning unrest seeking not simply particular truth, but still more the transcendental pole of truth as such. 

There are various pathological deformations of healthy consciousness, and now that I'm thinking about it, the story of Babel certainly conveys one of them, or maybe even all of them. File under GNOSTICISM:

A type of thinking that claims absolute cognitive mastery of reality. 

This pathology can take idealistic (transcendental) or immanentizing forms, such as neo-Marxist progressivism.

But you? You are a RACCOON, which means that you live a vertically OPEN EXISTENCE

in which consciousness is consistently and unreservedly oriented toward truth and toward the transcendental pole of the tension of existence.

AKA the metaxy, which is

the experience of human existence as "between" lower and upper poles: man and the divine, imperfection and perfection, ignorance and knowledge, and so on. Equivalent to the symbol of "participation of being."

Which, as it so happens, is the only participation trophy worth having. No joke, because Being shades off into love, truth, beauty, and all those other transcendentals that can be endlessly known in an ever-deepening spiral, but never possessed.

The end. Until we meet again in the metaxy. 

Rip van Winkle in Reverse

Continuing our meditation on the tower of Babel, Kass writes that just as "awareness of the multiplicity of human ways" is a "precondition for the active search for the better or best way," so too is "opposition"

the key to the discovery of the distinction between error and truth, appearance and reality, convention and nature -- between that which appears to be and that which truly is.

Moreover, "Contesting a 'human truth' invites the quest for a truth beyond human making."

So at least we can all agree on the natural right to free speech. Whether left or right, there are certain principles that are settled for all time, and which all Americans will defend to the death! 

Rip van Winkle, said the voice in Bob's head.

I didn't pay much any attention in school, so I didn't remember know that the story was a satire on the vast and unintended politico-cultural changes that took place in America between the founding and the early 19th century. In short, if you had fallen asleep in 1788 and awakened in 1818, you would scarcely have recognized the place. 

Now, what if someone had fallen asleep in 1992 or so and awakened in 2022? 

I remember the first time I heard conspiratorial rumblings about the left's supposed plan to restrict and dismantle free speech, although I no longer remember the year. Must have been during the Obama administration, although it's possible it was in the latter days of Bush the Even Worse than His Father.

In any event, my first thought was literal incredulity: c'mon, man! Such fevered, paranoid characterizations of Democrats just play into their hands and make us look nuts. Say what you want about the left, but remember that the ACLU's defense of free speech is absolute, to the point of defending Nazis.

One of my wronger takes. That and defending Bush the Even Worse. And not being among the first wave to climb on board the Trump Train.  

In our new version of Rip van Winkle, the political movement would be in the opposite direction -- away from freedom and toward tyranny. In the original, "The very village was altered," and "idleness, except among the aged, was no longer tolerated." "Even the language was strange -- 'rights of citizens,'" elections, liberty, etc. 

beneath the surface Rip, like most Americans, knew that 'everything's changed.' In a few short decades American's had experienced a remarkable transformation in their society and culture, and, like Rip and his creator, many wondered what had happened and who they really were (Gordon Wood).

Likewise, in a few short decades we too have witnessed a transformation -- transmogrification is more like it -- in our society and culture. 

Someone who had fallen asleep a mere two decades ago wouldn't know what to make of cancel culture, homosexual marriage, tranny generals, mask mandates, open borders, the assault on election integrity, the utter corruption of journalism, state approved late night comedy, the diabolical union of Big Tech and Big Government... How did we end up on the wrong side of history?  

No one twenty years ago would have known what to make of the following email from Alex Berenson that just popped up in my in-box -- he sounds hysterical and paranoid, like some kind of leftist loon!

EXTREMELY URGENT: The Biden Administration says I'm a terrorist threat. 

That headline sounds like a joke. It’s not.

The White House has begun an extraordinary assault on free speech in America. It is no longer content merely to force social media companies to suppress dissenting views. It appears to be setting the stage to use federal police powers.

How else to read the “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” the Department of Homeland Security issued on Tuesday? Its first sentence:

SUMMARY OF THE TERRORISM THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES: The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories... 

The government now says “misleading narratives” are the most dangerous contributor to terrorism against the United States.

These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence. 

A federal agency says that to “undermine public trust in government institutions” is now considered terrorism. Speech doesn’t even have to encourage rebellion or violence generally, much less against anyone specific. It just has to “potentially inspire” violence.

Potentially.

Later, the bulletin explains exactly what speech the government now considers a terrorist danger:

Widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19.

There’s that word misleading again. Who’s defining “misleading”? Misleading to whom? Misleading how?

I have no doubt whatsoever that I fit as a terrorist threat under these guidelines.

So does Joe Rogan. And Tucker Carlson. After all, we’ve “undermine[d] public trust in government institutions” about Covid and the mRNA shots (I try not to call them vaccines anymore).

This bulletin marks an extraordinary escalation of the war on speech and the First Amendment.

Now, imagine falling asleep today and waking up in twenty or thirty years. If current trends continue, you'll either wake up behind bars or dead. 

My apologies. We'll have to get back to Babel in the next post. 

Rip van Winkle in Reverse

Continuing our meditation on the tower of Babel, Kass writes that just as "awareness of the multiplicity of human ways" is a "precondition for the active search for the better or best way," so too is "opposition"

the key to the discovery of the distinction between error and truth, appearance and reality, convention and nature -- between that which appears to be and that which truly is.

Moreover, "Contesting a 'human truth' invites the quest for a truth beyond human making."

So at least we can all agree on the natural right to free speech. Whether left or right, there are certain principles that are settled for all time, and which all Americans will defend to the death! 

Rip van Winkle, said the voice in Bob's head.

I didn't pay much any attention in school, so I didn't remember know that the story was a satire on the vast and unintended politico-cultural changes that took place in America between the founding and the early 19th century. In short, if you had fallen asleep in 1788 and awakened in 1818, you would scarcely have recognized the place. 

Now, what if someone had fallen asleep in 1992 or so and awakened in 2022? 

I remember the first time I heard conspiratorial rumblings about the left's supposed plan to restrict and dismantle free speech, although I no longer remember the year. Must have been during the Obama administration, although it's possible it was in the latter days of Bush the Even Worse than His Father.

In any event, my first thought was literal incredulity: c'mon, man! Such fevered, paranoid characterizations of Democrats just play into their hands and make us look nuts. Say what you want about the left, but remember that the ACLU's defense of free speech is absolute, to the point of defending Nazis.

One of my wronger takes. That and defending Bush the Even Worse. And not being among the first wave to climb on board the Trump Train.  

In our new version of Rip van Winkle, the political movement would be in the opposite direction -- away from freedom and toward tyranny. In the original, "The very village was altered," and "idleness, except among the aged, was no longer tolerated." "Even the language was strange -- 'rights of citizens,'" elections, liberty, etc. 

beneath the surface Rip, like most Americans, knew that 'everything's changed.' In a few short decades American's had experienced a remarkable transformation in their society and culture, and, like Rip and his creator, many wondered what had happened and who they really were (Gordon Wood).

Likewise, in a few short decades we too have witnessed a transformation -- transmogrification is more like it -- in our society and culture. 

Someone who had fallen asleep a mere two decades ago wouldn't know what to make of cancel culture, homosexual marriage, tranny generals, mask mandates, open borders, the assault on election integrity, the utter corruption of journalism, state approved late night comedy, the diabolical union of Big Tech and Big Government... How did we end up on the wrong side of history?  

No one twenty years ago would have known what to make of the following email from Alex Berenson that just popped up in my in-box -- he sounds hysterical and paranoid, like some kind of leftist loon!

EXTREMELY URGENT: The Biden Administration says I'm a terrorist threat. 

That headline sounds like a joke. It’s not.

The White House has begun an extraordinary assault on free speech in America. It is no longer content merely to force social media companies to suppress dissenting views. It appears to be setting the stage to use federal police powers.

How else to read the “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” the Department of Homeland Security issued on Tuesday? Its first sentence:

SUMMARY OF THE TERRORISM THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES: The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories... 

The government now says “misleading narratives” are the most dangerous contributor to terrorism against the United States.

These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence. 

A federal agency says that to “undermine public trust in government institutions” is now considered terrorism. Speech doesn’t even have to encourage rebellion or violence generally, much less against anyone specific. It just has to “potentially inspire” violence.

Potentially.

Later, the bulletin explains exactly what speech the government now considers a terrorist danger:

Widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19.

There’s that word misleading again. Who’s defining “misleading”? Misleading to whom? Misleading how?

I have no doubt whatsoever that I fit as a terrorist threat under these guidelines.

So does Joe Rogan. And Tucker Carlson. After all, we’ve “undermine[d] public trust in government institutions” about Covid and the mRNA shots (I try not to call them vaccines anymore).

This bulletin marks an extraordinary escalation of the war on speech and the First Amendment.

Now, imagine falling asleep today and waking up in twenty or thirty years. If current trends continue, you'll either wake up behind bars or dead. 

My apologies. We'll have to get back to Babel in the next post. 

The Babble of Tenure & The Last Idiot

Recall that the tower of Babel is the last episode of the universal story of mankind, before the spotlight turns to the call of Abram. It reminds me of the "intertestamental period" between the old and new testaments. Let's shut up and learn something:

The intertestamental period (Protestant) or deuterocanonical period (Catholic & Eastern Orthodox) is the period of time between the events of the protocanonical books and the New Testament. Traditionally, it is considered to cover roughly four hundred years, spanning the ministry of Malachi (c. 420 BC) to the appearance of John the Baptist in the early 1st century AD. It is roughly contiguous with the Second Temple period (516 BC-70 AD) and encompasses the age of Hellenistic Judaism.

It is known by some members of the Protestant community as the "400 Silent Years" because it was a span where no new prophets were raised and God revealed nothing new to the Jewish people (Prof. Wiki).

There's a similar period of silence between Babel and Abram, but who knows how long it was? In any event, I can't be the first to have noticed another parallel: that while the builders of the tower of Babel wanted to "make a name for themselves," it is God himself who wants to make a name for Abram.

This goes to the fact that you can't just make a name for yourself. Well, you can, but that's called narcissism. 

So apparently, the juxtaposition of these stories goes to the distinction between celebrity and significance, or narcissism and true calling; for as Dennis Prager says, the famous are rarely significant and the significant rarely famous. The famous come and go, but only... x is forever.

Now, what is x? 

X is what I am attempting to do now, and have been attempting for the past 16+ years of blogging. Am I trying to make a name for myself? God forbid! Am I trying to find out what God calls me? Yeah, that's more like it: for that is equivalent to finding our calling, our voc-ation. 

Is this really my calling? I guess so. Unless you have a better idea.

Let's regain our focus: language. Recall what God says of the situation:

Behold, it is one people, and they have one language... now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.

What is it, exactly, that is problematic about all of mankind speaking a single language? It sure sounds like God is an early adopter of diversity, so much so that he facilitates it by confusing their language ("so they will not understand each other”) and scattering them all over the place. 

Well, this makes perfect sense if we recall the true meaning and purpose of diversity (not the left's totalitarian version), which is always in the service of a higher unity and synthesis, AKA e pluribus unum and all that. 

Imagine if there really were only one language. We'd so take it for granted that we would be like fish who spend their lives in water while knowing nothing about it. Language 

becomes, when taken for granted, a hermetically sealed shadow world cut off from what is real.... 

[S]peech can no longer be used for inquiry, for genuine thought, for seeking after what is. When the units of intelligibility conveyed in speech have no independent being, when words have no power to reveal the things that truly are, then speech becomes only self-referential, and finally unintelligible. Even the name one makes for oneself means nothing (Kass).

Hmm. Speech becomes self-referential. Of whom and what does this remind us... 

Ah yes: those "radical Foucault-like agendas and New Left goals that are antithetical to real historical understanding." Postmodernists

suggest that the search for truth is itself the prime Western illusion. Truth, they believe, is invented, not discovered....

It denies that there is a reality in the past beyond that described by language, and this barrier of language forever prevents historians from telling any truth about the past (G. Wood).

Wouldn't it be great if God could come down again and scatter the builders of this grotesque ivory tower of babble far and wide?

Come to think of it...

As we said at the outset, myth didn't just happen once upon a time, but happens every time. If Big Incoctrination were in the midst of being broken up and scattered, how would we know it until it was over? It wasn't as if the tower-builders of Genesis 11 knew right away what was happening to them: "Hey! What's with all this linguistic confusion and tribal scattering?!" 

Again, there's that silent intermythic period between the Scattering and the Calling, between making a name for ourselves and God calling and naming us.

So now I shall put on my prophet cap and pronounce -- at risk of looking foolish in 100 years -- that college as we have come to know it over the past half century is indeed dead. The bubble has burst. And just as with market bubbles, when the last idiot gets in, it's time for the prudent man to get out.

That's it for today.