It probably wouldn't hurt to also admit that most metaphysical assumptions -- if they can be called that -- only serve to justify such shallow, this-worldly servility.
Acknowledge debt slavery and recognize that that underpins 99.8% of this-worldly thoughts and actions.
It probably wouldn't hurt to also admit that most metaphysical assumptions -- if they can be called that -- only serve to justify such shallow, this-worldly servility. Note to self more than anything -- I heard the first cuckoo call of the spring three days ago, April 14, which aligns with previous years, give or take a day.
Residual Unresolved Positivism is a Problem. Blatant Unchallenged Positivism is a Catastrophe.4/16/2024 Owen Barfield coined the term Residual Unresolved Positivism (R.U.P) as a way to describe what "occurs when positivism — 'the position that there is an unbridgeable gulf between mental experience . . . and the objective world, the outside world of nature’ — 'remains in fact in a man's mind even though he may have in philosophical theory rejected or resolved it’. Those who exhibit R.U.P. "do not really believe that man's consciousness ever was a part of nature's any more than it is now.’”
“I can philosophize myself free from philosophical materialism quite easily; and so, I dare say, can you. . . ,” Barfield remarks in History, Guilt, and Habit, but that does not mean we are free of its influence: after we have done the philosophizing and gone back to ordinary life, the materialism is still there in our very instruments of thoughts, and indeed of perception: it signifies that it is there in the meanings of the words we speak and think with, and notably so in the commonest words of all--words like “thing,” “life,” “man,” “fact,” “think”, “perceive," and so on. It is not merely a habit but an ingrained habit. It is even what we call “common sense.” Barfield’s main point is that positivism/materialism is deeply ingrained in modern man’s consciousness, so deeply that even the most spiritually motivated and inspired thinkers remain within its clutches, often without their conscious knowledge. Dr. Charlton, who has addressed the theme repeatedly, defines R.U.P in the following way: Owen Barfield invented the term Residual Unresolved Positivism (RUP) to refer to a Positivist attitude which persisted unconsciously, unknown, and against the will of the person who held to it. Positivism is the (usually implicit) belief system that all valid knowledge comes via the senses (and not, for example, from revelation or imagination) - it is sometimes called Scientism and is the metaphysics which is mainstream in modernity - although usually only articulated by scientists with a bent for philosophy. Residual Unresolved Positivism is definitely a problem, but there is an even bigger problem plaguing contemporary Western man, and that problem is Blatant Unchallenged Positivism or B.U.P. Unlike R.U.P., there is nothing residual, unconscious, or unknown in B.U.P. Blatant Unchallenged Positivism is positivism that is consciously embraced and promoted with the full support of an active will that regards all knowledge not coming via the senses as subordinate or, more frequently, utterly invalid. Blatant Unchallenged Positivism is the default setting for most leftists and all materialists. However, it also appears to be the preferred perspective of many who refer to themselves as Christian, which, needless to say, is a catastrophe. I will develop the theme further in the next post. Note added: It is probably more accurate to say that B.U.P. used to be the default setting for most conventional leftists and materialists, but I would argue that most contemporary leftists and materialists have abandoned science, empiricism, and common sense and are actually in the throes of Blatant Unchallenged Whatever B.U.W., leaving B.U.P. to so-called Christians enamored by "reality", empiricism, facts, science, and "common sense". I'm perpetually thankful for all the politicians "on our" side doing, well, whatever they do to protect us from the evil leftists and woke-sters. I'm particularly grateful when they come up with cutting-edge, original memes in their political communications, which we pay for through the exorbitant and unjustifiable taxes they extort from us. Case in point, the Hungarian ruling party's decision to steal the Dead Kennedys' image of dollar signs spray-painted on white shirts and black ties and apply it to the corrupt leftists that the dreaded "Western elites" have purchased "by the kilo." Talk about meme magic! Gosh darn it, those Christian-nationalist-democrat-whatevers have my vote. At the end of the day, I care about democracy -- I really do -- and if I have to be locked down again or annihilated in a nuclear holocaust, then I want to make sure that a Christian-nationalist-democrat-whatever-government locks me down or helps annhilate me nuclearly.
The Hungarian ruling party has vowed to extend the punk theme in the near future by superimposing Ursula Van Der Leyen's face onto the the Sex Pistols' iconic "God Save the Queen" image. I'm sure it will be epic. Some form of society is, of course, necessary. It doesn’t hurt that society is also something we all have in common, something we all participate into some greater or lesser degree, and something we all have opinions about regardless of personal assumptions. All this and more helps explain why nearly all bloggers — yours truly included — focus on social themes and issues at least some of the time.
Having said that, society can also be a demonic snare, particularly for Christians. Societal concerns are important, but for Christians, they should not be primary — especially in light of what transpired four years ago and everything that has happened since. When Christians make society their overarching concern now, they slip away from Christianity and enter the realm of what might be called Societianity with its incessant and obsessive focus on “communities.” It bears keeping in mind that our current and often obsessive focus on all things social stems mostly from, Auguste Comte, the father of Positivism, and others of his ilk. Some say Comte even coined the term sociology, which is relevant when you consider how much time bloggers spend studying and commenting on society. I am not implying that people did not think about, study, or write about society before Auguste Comte; however, when they did, they did so from assumptions that included belief in religion, divinity, and the supernatural. The same is not true of Comte and most so-called sociologists of the past two or three centuries. Why is this important? For the simple reason that a great deal of secular — nay, explicitly anti-God, anti-Creation — sociological thinking, tenets, and assumptions permeate contemporary Christian social commentary on human social behavior, organization, relationships, power structures, and so forth. Such permeations are most explicit in so-called Christian approaches that regard human society as the most important and pressing thing in the world, with the establishment and maintenance of an exclusively Christian society as the highest calling to which a Christian can aspire in mortal life. Justifications for the “society uber alles” approach in contemporary Christianity are based primarily on ideas like demography is destiny. All quite sound and logical, but it is worth noting that Auguste Comte is credited with the demography is destiny phrase. Even if he didn’t utter it, you can rest assured that someone with assumptions similar to his did. So, if or when Christians feel motivated to discuss the effects of declining, sub-fertile populations and mass migration on once predominately Christian nations, they must do so from assumptions that rise above Comte’s materialism when he coined the term. Sadly, the assumptions Christians communicate when discussing demography or any other society-related issue rarely rise above such basic positivist assumptions. Placing the Nothing and Non-Existence of the Other Over One's Own Nothing and Non-Exsistence4/9/2024 Altruism firmly maintains positive connotations in the minds of most. The notion of putting the interests, well-being, and happiness of others above one’s self-interest, well-being, and happiness — no more than that, the notion of sacrificing one’s interests, well-being, and happiness to benefit others with no expectation of any reciprocity, benefit, or compensation for oneself — continues to be regarded as an extremely high moral/ethical value.
Within this framework, altruism — the persistent act of putting the welfare of others above oneself — becomes a moral obligation. Auguste Comte, who coined the term, certainly believed that. He rejected rights — divine or otherwise — as absurd and immoral and instead trumpeted duties and obligations based on functions, for all and toward all. In Comte’s thinking, human beings are morally obligated to put everyone above themselves. Again, this likely continues to strike most modern people as highly noble because they confuse altruism with loyalty or concern for the common good or because they delight in the personal gratification aspect of placing others above themselves — the intrinsic reward of the ego boost that privately or socially confirms their statuses as “good” and “caring” people. Yet Comte’s altruism has nothing to do with loyalty or the common good as motivators. On the contrary, Comte’s “true” altruism disregards all concerns based on social relationships for the simple reason that such relationships taint and diminish the purity of the altruistic urge for all and toward all. The nearly two centuries that have passed since Comte’s death have revealed true altruism as an absurd abstraction, at least at the societal level, which, for Comte, was the only level that existed or mattered. What parades around as altruism today at the societal level is mostly poisonous egoism or mass psychological manipulations aimed at making people believe that they are placing themselves above others without having to go through the inconvenience of actually doing so. The altruism that contaminates most Christian altruism — an oxymoron par excellence — is of the same quality and does no better. Put simply, all forms of social altruism today are grossly misguided, insincere, and fraudulent. However, true altruism does appear to exist, but it exists in the very thing Comte denied as real — the spirit. True altruism is the moral obligation of denying the Self for the benefit of the Other. It failed to materialize in Reality because the True Self or Primal Self rejects the moral obligation to deny itself for the sake of the Other outright on spiritual grounds. Our True or Primal Selves understand that any meaning or purpose we hope to gain from mortal life depends entirely on relationships between and among Beings, that is, on relationships between True Selves, in as much as such relationships are possible in mortal life. Such relationships depend entirely on the recognition, nurturing, and actuation of one’s Primal Self and other Selves, which is the very life force of Creation. The Primal Self feels no obligation toward and cannot form a relationship with an abstract Other because it is akin to trying to relate to a void, an utter vacuum. It also experiences no impetus to lose “itself” to such a void. False selves, on the other hand, find it easier to relate to the void of the Other, primarily because it increases the egoisms within false selves. Comte’s true altruism is perpetually doomed to failure because it is predicated on a true and noble non-spiritual self that does not exist. What exists instead is a plethora of false selves that are more than willing to utilize the altruistic impulse for aims that ultimately run contrary to Comte’s grand visions of a progressive, selfless society in which individuals feel authentically morally obligated to perform altruistic duties without any regard for relationships or reciprocity. The fraudulence of all altruism lies in the fact that the sacrificing selves are all false. None of them sacrifice anything even remotely close to Comte’s idea of true altruism. The only area where Comte’s true altruism appears to have achieved any modicum of success is at the level of the individual True Self and its relationships with other Beings. However, this is anything but a “positive” development (pun very much intended). Here’s my thinking — on the one hand, altruism is detrimental to the True Self because it tends to activate and amplify false selves, thereby driving the True Self further from consciousness. On the other hand, altruism’s insistence that we place the Other above the Self forces us away from reality into abstraction. The false selves that fan altruism may be false, but false is not the same as non-existent. Thus, most “effective” altruism boils to false selves insincerely placing other false selves above themselves. However, even our false selves abhor the abstract void that is the Other, but they tolerate it if it can provide egoistic benefits. The only way an individual can establish and maintain contact with the Other is if they internalize the Other within themselves. Comte’s true altruism does not boil down to the matter of selves placing the Other above themselves — it exists in the non-relationship of Others, of one’s internalized abstract Other contacting an externalized abstract Other. Put another way, Comte’s true altruism is the non-relationships of non-existent entities. The internal Other is not just another false self — it is the denial of all selves, especially the True Self. The same applies to external Other. The Other within a person insists upon the same sacrifices the false selves demand when it comes to altruism — pleasure, time, life quality, money, survival, reproduction — but unlike the false selves, the Other will forgo all temptations toward compensation or reciprocity. On top of that, the Other within a person knows the sacrifice cannot and will not offer any real benefit to any other "Others". The highest moral obligation today? A void sacrificing itself for a void. The principle of concern for the nothing and non-existence of the Other and placing that above one’s own Other, one’s own nothing and non-existence, all for the benefit of nothing and non-existence. Note: This post was stimulated by Dr. Charlton's recent series of posts on the potential for mass suicide. Some great news via email today!
Friends of Nicholas Berdyaev and the Late Fr. Stephen Janos, We’re happy to announce that the newly-restored and expanded website, www.nicholasberdyaev.com, is finally up and running. Thank you for your patience as we have worked to reassemble Fr. Stephen Janos' original site since its expropriation by an international gambling consortium. Plus, we have taken the opportunity to expand the offerings to include more biographies, bibliographies, photo galleries, links to texts and significantly reformatted articles. Future website elements will include notices about new Berdyaev-related dissertations, articles, books and events, as well as feature stories about the work of leading scholars such as yourself. As with any endeavor of this scope, certainly there are errors of omission and commission. If, as you browse the site you discover erratum, please drop us a note. And if you’re so inclined, include a note or quote recommending the site that we may use in upcoming announcements and press. Best regards, Andrew Janos, Board Chair Sofia Androsenko (Софья Андросенко), Board Vice-Chair and Scholar-in-Residence Tom Willett, Board Secretary Many thanks to everyone who helped bring the site back online. Igor Chudov — a self-proclaimed agnostic who runs what I refer to as an anti-peck blog — has raised alarm bells concerning the Science’s supposed ability to “turn off” religious faith in individuals via a procedure known as Magnetic Transcranial Stimulation.
We can ask a question: can the invisible link between the faithful and God be severed by a third party armed with the tools provided by the latest scientific advances? Disturbingly, the answer may be yes. Scientists led by Dr. Colin Holbrook at UCLA undertook a multi-year endeavor to discover ways to stop “religious beliefs and right-wing prejudice.” They attempted to apply direct electromagnetic stimulation to the brain to alter human beliefs, specifically turning off belief in God. Dr. Holbrook has led extensive research on this topic for many years. He described how electromagnetic stimulation of the frontal cortex (frontal part of the brain) “experimentally decreased avowed belief in God." After using a purposely made device, scientists describe a significant reduction in expressed belief in positive religious ideas: Religious belief: We next tested the effects of TMS on the endorsement of religious beliefs following a reminder of death. In a marginal trend, overall avowed religious belief (including both positive and negative beliefs) was reduced in the TMS condition relative to the sham condition 2.95 vs 4.26. As predicted, this shift was driven by a significant reduction in expressed belief in positive religious ideas. Participants in the TMS condition reported an average of 32.8% less conviction in positive religious beliefs. If interested, you can read the whole thing here, but I’ll offer the following summary for those so inclined: the Science can zap religious faith right out of your brain, and you can bet your bottom dollar that will strive to do so en masse very soon. Thoughts: First, religious faith has plummeted just dandy on its own in the West without the need for TMS or any other sort of brain-radiating lobotomy. Second, what is the exact nature of the religious faith that TMS supposedly reduced in the trial participants? Third, this whole business of clandestinely reducing religious faith by bombing an unwitting population with anti-religious gamma waves denies the spiritual reality of what religious faith is and how it can be reduced or lost. Concerning the thoughts above -- first, reducing or abandoning religious faith is a free personal choice. Second, reducing or abandoning religious faith is a free personal choice. And lastly, reducing or abandoning religious faith is a free personal choice. Putting the concerns of worried agnostics like Chudov aside, no technology capable of actually reducing religious faith contra an individual’s free personal religious choice can or will ever be developed. That is not how reality operates. Real religious faith is impervious to all external influences. Only the faithful can reduce or abandon religious faith. Any religious faith that external forces can reduce is not true religious faith. Anyone who worries about getting their religious faith secretly zapped out of them by radiation or whatever is an irredeemable spiritual idiot. It really is as simple as that. Barring unexpected cold snaps between now and the Ice Saint Days, spring has arrived. The plum blossoms have come and gone, and the cherry and pear blossoms are waning. The storks have returned. The mornings trill with birdsong. The sun hangs longer in the sky — even without the insipid time change last week. Yes, it’s safe to say that spring has arrived.
Me? Not so much. Though I have mowed the lawn twice, I have not felt as inspired to get out there and get cracking the way I usually do when the weather turns and stays nice. I will spend the next two days planting most of the garden and starting the greenhouse, but I’m not overly enthusiastic about it. Spring is in the air, but I remain locked in the dreary rhythm of winter. I’m sure all that will change tomorrow after I feel the warm sun on my skin and inevitably break a sweat digging and hoeing. If not, I am bound to catch up to the season after I hear my first cuckoo call, which is bound to come any day now. Something will have to do the trick -- I have planned many substantial projects that require spring and summer tempos, not a dour winter cadence. |
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April 2024
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