Ronald Beiner and his book "Dangerous Minds"

[Alizia]

The "transcendental link" can be experienced only by a mystical elite. I am not a fan of secret knowledge.

I see your point, of course. That is why I would not and do not and likely could not argue against those for whom 'the bell of religion, and Christian religion, does not toll' (I don't know what the 'tolling bell' is supposed to have meant for Hemingway but I use it anyway). On one hand, among a certain sector of the mostly European 'elite' (an educated class) the tenets and presuppositions of Christian religion (and all religions I assume) has been undermined. There is a strong scene in a Bergman film (Winter Light) where the man, praying, says to God: "And what about those who want to believe but cannot?"

Myself, I think I pretty well understand the modernist, atheist's position. What is left? Well, scientific materialism. A gradual take over by a Marxist materialist political view and political economy. The ideas that gave birth even to modern Liberalism seem to me (correct me if I am wrong) to have originated in a generally believing culture. It is true that I mention these eventualities because I do not see them as good and positive. But someone else might. Or, they might see a way to the preservation of sound ethics and the preservation of, or the creation of, decent society.

Every person needs a good to trust to, and mystical experience is too undemocratic to serve.

I think I would disagree about the 'secret knowledge' critique. My understanding is that one exposes oneself to descriptions, or stories, or theological tracts (among them the Medieval ones referred to in a recent post), and one discovers a correspondence in them to something one understands innerly. The practice of the religion often seems to bolster or to strengthen what one 'understands' at this inner level. Well, I would go on in this line and you would not be moved nor any less unconvinced!

I could not -- I do not think ever -- believe in a democratic vote by a mass population to somehow decide what is true or false about reality when it comes to the larger questions. But, I would not trust a democratic vote to arrive at a consensus about a heart operation, either. Nor to fix a motor. You see what I mean. I do understand and I also respect that you and people like you do not want to live under a religious authority. Some go even farther into a more extreme anarchism in respect to any definitions, or defined structure of limitations, about every aspect of human behavior and resist all authority. I can also understand why they have this view.

Personally, I trust authority -- when it has proven itself. I also 'believe in' authority. Obviously, that places me in both a more conservative camp and one that has been known for its 'reaction'. I cannot control what others think though, and I have to accept that wherever we are now going as a culture and as a civilization is one that is, in many respects, chosen by the will of people. (This is both true and untrue, of course. We are directed by management elites far more than we seem to recognize).

The alternative to personal responsibility is 1) trusting priests or 2) trusting a mystical elite. How can either of those be authentic choices?

But there is also the factor of 'trusting one's own intelligent choice'. I regularly read 'priestly material' (I mean material written by theologians) and often agree with it because I intelligently perceive that they are dealing on themes of truth. And just as I might trust a physics elite to give me real information about that discipline, so too I might listen to and be influenced by the apologetics of a theologically-informed person.

However, I do also see the problem -- especially within Catholicism -- of 'believe, don't question'.

I can't understand sin as a turning away from value, because I can't see how any man or beast could be alive and not value. I'd like to read some more of your ideas about value, as I suspect that I am missing something.

Let me use an example. The theologians of Catholicism (and also of numerous branches of Christianity) succeed in defining 'sexual sin'. The 'value' that they establish is in 'purity of the family'. And this is established in a family that also practices the various social and religious teachings recommended by this theological position. Sexual sin both within the marriage, and then of course outside of it, amounts to a sin against a set of values -- about the family, about purity between married people, and about other aspects of sexual life. Therefore, to define a sexual ethics is, ultimately, an issue of values. In order to conform to the 'rules' shall I say, one must agree to the soundness of the predicates as values.

You could apply this in many different areas.

What do you think about Nietzsche's saying that Christianity is Platonism for the masses? For myself, that is not in itself derogatory about Christianity or the Christian narrative. Do some Christians and other religionists pay over much attention to theory and myth when it's more authentic to be benevolent, or even to observe religious rituals?

It is true. But I would correct that to say that Catholicism is Platonism for the masses. Modern Christianity, especially in some of its protestant evangelical forms, is less dependent on Platonism.

In truth, I think that some people 'choose the religious option' because it seems to solve many different problems. Community, a sense of 'something to believe in', a belief-system they can immerse themselves in. These are facts.

But I think there is a higher level of conversation -- a philosophical conversation -- about the Christian religion that one can discover and understand. I mean, if one wishes to and if one feels inclined.

I do not understand what you are asking in the second part of this paragraph: (Do some Christians and other religionists pay over much attention to theory and myth when it's more authentic to be benevolent, or even to observe religious rituals?).

[Alizia]

you haven't, because nowhere have I said that. That's just you pigeon-holing. Fair enough; life is easier if it is digitised, then pixilated if necessary, but it becomes very complicated when it's a blur.

Well, I would only draw to your attention that you use terms like nut-job, bat-shit bonkers, and fruit-cake! Reading what you write, I would say that you only have contempt for the religiously minded. Or would you state it differently?

I do not mind at all. If I am pigeon-holing you, please clarify. I don't mean to and little or nothing is to be gained by doing so.

To avoid 'blur' as you say, we have to clarify our different outlooks. Sounds good to me!

[uwot]

Well, I would only draw to your attention that you use terms like nut-job, bat-shit bonkers, and fruit-cake! Reading what you write, I would say that you only have contempt for the religiously minded. Or would you state it differently?

I think it would be useful if we could distinguish between scientific claims-astrology, homeopathy and whatnot; religious claims-that one or other text is divinely inspired and historically accurate, and theistic claims-that there exists one or more gods. I didn't use quite the terms you ascribe to me, but near enough and, yeah, they do represent how I feel about people who insist that others agree with scientific and historical claims for which there is no evidence. As for whether a god exists, I really don't know, but I don't believe it.

I do not mind at all. If I am pigeon-holing you, please clarify. I don't mean to and little or nothing is to be gained by doing so.

No indeed.

To avoid 'blur' as you say, we have to clarify our different outlooks. Sounds good to me!

Could take a while, but my basic outlook is that I will accept what I see as broadly representative of reality, until I have good reason not to. Anything I can't see is fair game-make up any story you like and if there is nothing that refutes it, I don't think it is anyone's business to challenge it.

[Alizia]

While I have you: what is the Hume essay or chapter you referred to?

[uwot]

"...the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one."
It's from 'An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Of Miracles, Part II, right at the end. https://www.bartleby.com/37/3/15.html

[Alizia]

I think it would be useful if we could distinguish between scientific claims-astrology, homeopathy and whatnot; religious claims-that one or other text is divinely inspired and historically accurate, and theistic claims-that there exists one or more gods. I didn't use quite the terms you ascribe to me, but near enough and, yeah, they do represent how I feel about people who insist that others agree with scientific and historical claims for which there is no evidence. As for whether a god exists, I really don't know, but I don't believe it.

My 'problem', if you will, is that I cannot see how Existence could exist if it were not the creation of intelligence itself. I would be one that subscribed to the infinite regress notion. But, in fact, I did not come to my ideas about divinity, nor my relationship to 'it', through a philosophical or intellectual investigation, as if I sat down to figure our what is and what is not.

I think sometimes that I have a basic orientation, or perhaps 'configuration', that inclines me to have belief (for example I do believe in Providence in the classic sense of the word: divine intervention in my affairs, if also the 'affairs of man'!) I would not attempt to explain it nor to prove it though.

But what I also want to say is that -- again in my own strange case -- that I made a choice to deliberately fit myself in to a rather conventional Christian view (or back into it is perhaps more accurately put). That sound like a false or questionable strategy but I am only being honest. I choose to believe then what I cannot understand intellectually and rationally. What kind of belief is that, then?

It is not hard at all for me to understand 'salvation', but then, of course, given the philosophical and existential revolutions of the last 200 years or so: from what am I to be 'saved'? In my view, to say 'My Father's house has many mansions' (or simply 'rooms'), I confess that I do take it to mean any conceivable or imaginable after-world. Just as Existence is impossible and incomprehensible, if there is a promise of continued life (new life really) and it extends beyond the specific incarnated life, I cannot see why not. Why not? Why should Life be restricted?

The other principle order of concern, for me, is What do I serve? That is of course a more this-world question.

I do ask myself, at times, Could I surrender every external element of every story or narrative (of Christianity or any other metaphysical religion) and still have the faith that I do have? But then: what is that faith? Faith in what?

That is why I began this thread to discuss some 'dangerous thinkers' who (as I see it) are revisiting the basic questions, but who are located outside the older, established metaphysics. Why would they do this? Well, the answer is right in front of us: Our whole world tends away from the definition of a world-beyond, and the direction now is not away from the world but into the world. Therefore, the question of Being becomes important(er).

I am one of those people -- I share these notions with my husband and among our friends -- who seek a more 'militant' Christian praxis. I bring this up not to debate it so much, as a good idea or a bad idea, but because it is happening.

I do tend to think -- I am tending more and more to think -- that the Christian revelation is distinct and unique. It is qualitatively and substantially different than other 'revelations' that I have exposed myself to.

[Alizia]

An interesting paragraph from a book I am reading (Thinkers Against Modernity, Keith Preston):

"Nietzsche predicted that it would be well into the twenty-first century before Western thought fully confronted the crisis of nihilism. It would thus far appear that he was correct. Western thought since the Enlightenment has attempted to compensate for the loss of the old faith by replacing the discredited Christian worldview with new faiths and new pieties. As these have become increasingly difficult to justify within a framework of rationality and a belief in inevitable “progress,” Western intellectuals have increasingly retreated into the irrational. This is illustrated by the curious phenomena of the present efforts by Western intellectual elites to embrace postmodernism, with its accompanying moral and cultural relativism, while simultaneously embracing the egalitarian-universalist-humanist moralistic zealotry popularly labeled “political correctness” and espousing with great piousness such liberal crusades as “human rights,” “anti-racism”, “gay liberation,” feminism, environmentalism and the like. Such an outlook, which combines extreme moralism in the cultural and political realm, complete moral relativism in the philosophical or metaphysical realm, and at times even falls into subjectivism in the epistemological realm[ 40], is fundamentally irrational, of course. That such an outlook has become so deeply entrenched indicates that Western intellectuals are desperately working to avoid a full confrontation with the crisis of nihilism."

The most poignant question raised by Nietzsche’s philosophy involves the matter of what will emerge on the other side of Western civilization’s historical trajectory once modernity and post-modernity have finally expired. It would appear that there are two primary routes which the unfolding of Western history may take. One of these is the extinction of Western civilization itself resulting from the combined forces of a loss of international power, internal rot, and demographic overrun. The other would be some sort of cultural renewal and awakening. It is this latter option for which the vision of Nietzsche provides inspiration. What would a future post-postmodern Western civilization actually look like? What would be its guiding values, mores, social structures, and political institutions? Nietzsche himself was rather vague on what his ideal type of society might be. So Nietzsche’s own preferences or inclinations regarding such questions have to be inferred rather than directly discerned.

I would like to have your-plural opinions about this very strange and peculiar problem.

[Immanuel Can]

An interesting paragraph from a book I am reading (Thinkers Against Modernity, Keith Preston):

"Nietzsche predicted that it would be well into the twenty-first century before Western thought fully confronted the crisis of nihilism. It would thus far appear that he was correct. Western thought since the Enlightenment has attempted to compensate for the loss of the old faith by replacing the discredited Christian worldview with new faiths and new pieties. As these have become increasingly difficult to justify within a framework of rationality and a belief in inevitable “progress,” Western intellectuals have increasingly retreated into the irrational. This is illustrated by the curious phenomena of the present efforts by Western intellectual elites to embrace postmodernism, with its accompanying moral and cultural relativism, while simultaneously embracing the egalitarian-universalist-humanist moralistic zealotry popularly labeled “political correctness” and espousing with great piousness such liberal crusades as “human rights,” “anti-racism”, “gay liberation,” feminism, environmentalism and the like. Such an outlook, which combines extreme moralism in the cultural and political realm, complete moral relativism in the philosophical or metaphysical realm, and at times even falls into subjectivism in the epistemological realm[ 40], is fundamentally irrational, of course. That such an outlook has become so deeply entrenched indicates that Western intellectuals are desperately working to avoid a full confrontation with the crisis of nihilism."

So far, so good. I think this is the right reading of Nietzsche, and of the consequences of the events he predicted.

When I was first introduced to his writing, particularly in things like "The Madman's Tale" at first, I heard it gleefully exposited as if it said the equivalent of, "God is dead -- yippee!" He was every undergrad Atheist's favourite writer. They thought he handed them an easy, straightforward win, for some reason.

That is clearly an incorrect reading. Nietzsche fully grasped that the loss of faith stood to be a cataclysmic and spiritually devastating event for the West. We can see this, as he wrote,

"All of us are [God's] murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?"

These are not notes of gleeful triumph, but ominous warnings of the consequences of "an act too great for us." (Nietzsche's phrase) While he thought there could be a potential upside, he was clear-seeing enough to realize there was the very real potential for a horrendous downside and no particular upside at all. There are, after all, no "safety rails" on history. There are no guarantees that good will come, and evil -- even ultimate disaster -- just cannot.

That also is part of the meaning of his "death of God" idea. With no benevolent Protector or Director behind the universe, it runs wherever it runs. There are no longer any guarantees...certainly not of progress and upward climbing. Cruelty, barbarism, and extinction are just as real as possibilities, with no reason why this has to turn out well for us all.

Nietzsche himself was rather vague on what his ideal type of society might be. So Nietzsche’s own preferences or inclinations regarding such questions have to be inferred rather than directly discerned.

This is a significant problem. Nietzsche told us what he thought was collapsing, by way of a social order; he never really spelled out what had to be instituted in its place. His "positive" philosophy is all generalities about "power" and about how having the nerve to get "beyond good and evil" was a sign of a fulfilled humanity. But it doesn't set out a social order, or offer any positive basis to replace the lost orientation points of meaning and morals that were extinguished by his claim "God is dead."

If God were dead, it was not made clear what was the alternative. And his Nihilism is a very potentially dangerous thing to interpret.

So he rightly ought to come in for some criticism on that point. For Nietzsche may not have actively advocated things like Nazism. Fair enough. But one must ask, "What is there, in his philosophy, that makes Nazism the 'wrong' option?" And the answer is, "Really, nothing." Genocidal supremacist regimes and tyrannical conquerors may not be something he asked for, but they're nothing against which he asked us not to have, or gave us reasons they were a morally incorrect idea.

Nothing in his Nihilism makes anything a really bad option. Each is just another option, morally equivalent to any other, and morally better (he would have to say) if turns out to advance the fortunes of the übermensch and of "the will to power" latent in all (male) human beings. No wonder, then, that he was so cheerfully co-opted by Hitler. Nietzsche himself left that door wide open.

[uwot]

But what I also want to say is that -- again in my own strange case -- that I made a choice to deliberately fit myself in to a rather conventional Christian view (or back into it is perhaps more accurately put). That sound like a false or questionable strategy but I am only being honest. I choose to believe then what I cannot understand intellectually and rationally. What kind of belief is that, then?

Pretty much the same as any other belief. As I said, philosophy is not really in the business of discovering scientific or historical facts.

It is not hard at all for me to understand 'salvation', but then, of course, given the philosophical and existential revolutions of the last 200 years or so: from what am I to be 'saved'? In my view, to say 'My Father's house has many mansions' (or simply 'rooms'), I confess that I do take it to mean any conceivable or imaginable after-world. Just as Existence is impossible and incomprehensible, if there is a promise of continued life (new life really) and it extends beyond the specific incarnated life, I cannot see why not. Why not? Why should Life be restricted?

Well yeah, existence is a bit of a mystery, but it clearly isn't impossible. The thing about christianity is that it promises bodily resurrection. This leads to a number of issues that theologians have taken seriously. The main problem is that we continually ingest and excrete the material we are made of. When we die, our bodies decay, or are burnt, and the atoms that once were us go back into the food chain, to become part of someone else. So who has first dibs on those atoms? They even considered what this would mean in the more direct appropriation of another human beings material that results from cannibalism. It's one of those things where you just have to throw your hands in the air and believe that god is a right royal smarty-pants who will sort it out somehow. Maybe it is a "new life really" and god will plonk your soul into a brand new body.
Personally, I think bodily resurrection is a non-starter, but here is the concluding paragraph of a book I wrote:

"It’s an intriguing thought though: if everything in the universe really is “nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space” then so are you. How weird is that? But if it’s true, then from the moment you were born, every atom of your being, every arrangement of atoms that gave rise to every experience and thought you have ever had, has been generating waves and patterns in Big Bang stuff, that will spread out across the universe for as long as it exists.
Imagine what that might mean."

It's just a scientific fact that your 'soul' if you want to call it that, is already in 'heaven'.

The other principle order of concern, for me, is What do I serve? That is of course a more this-world question.

Frankly I'd hedge your bets and just be nice to people. Any god that punishes good people, simply for not believing in him/her, is a bit of a twat.

I am one of those people -- I share these notions with my husband and among our friends -- who seek a more 'militant' Christian praxis.

That's called confirmation bias.

I bring this up not to debate it so much, as a good idea or a bad idea, but because it is happening.

Christ in a bucket! Now you tell me.

I do tend to think -- I am tending more and more to think -- that the Christian revelation is distinct and unique. It is qualitatively and substantially different than other 'revelations' that I have exposed myself to.

Well yeah, but do you think that adherents of other beliefs aren't similarly persuaded?

[Belinda]

Alizia wrote:

Every person needs a good to trust to, and mystical experience is too undemocratic to serve.

I think I would disagree about the 'secret knowledge' critique. My understanding is that one exposes oneself to descriptions, or stories, or theological tracts (among them the Medieval ones referred to in a recent post), and one discovers a correspondence in them to something one understands innerly. The practice of the religion often seems to bolster or to strengthen what one 'understands' at this inner level. Well, I would go on in this line and you would not be moved nor any less unconvinced!

I could not -- I do not think ever -- believe in a democratic vote by a mass population to somehow decide what is true or false about reality when it comes to the larger questions. But, I would not trust a democratic vote to arrive at a consensus about a heart operation, either. Nor to fix a motor. You see what I mean. I do understand and I also respect that you and people like you do not want to live under a religious authority. Some go even farther into a more extreme anarchism in respect to any definitions, or defined structure of limitations, about every aspect of human behavior and resist all authority. I can also understand why they have this view.

Personally, I trust authority -- when it has proven itself. I also 'believe in' authority. Obviously, that places me in both a more conservative camp and one that has been known for its 'reaction'. I cannot control what others think though, and I have to accept that wherever we are now going as a culture and as a civilization is one that is, in many respects, chosen by the will of people. (This is both true and untrue, of course. We are directed by management elites far more than we seem to recognize).

descriptions, or stories, or theological tracts (among them the Medieval ones referred to in a recent post), and one discovers a correspondence in them to something one understands innerly. The practice of the religion often seems to bolster or to strengthen what one 'understands' at this inner level.

If by "innerly" you mean subjectively, imaginatively, then I do agree. A story that the hearer has to work upon for it to reveal meaning is a good story, and contrasts favourably with for instance instructions, banality, and porn. Nevertheless I believe that we still have to be very careful that a good story that requires imaginative work for its meaning to be revealed comes from a good and true source. We are for the most part easy to tell lies to and there are some exceedingly clever liars. My criterion for separating the genuine from the lying is the life as lived and its evidence of disinterestedness. In this connection the life of Jesus is an iconic example of disinterestedness; his famous characterisation as Lamb is the pinnacle of disinterestedness.

Well, I would go on in this line and you would not be moved nor any less unconvinced!

Not at all! I respect your experience and your truthfulness.

a democratic vote by a mass population to somehow decide what is true or false about reality when it comes to the larger questions. But, I would not trust a democratic vote to arrive at a consensus about a heart operation, either. Nor to fix a motor.

I had called it "democratic" that faith needs to be accessible to everybody not only a mystical elite. I did not intend it in a political sense. I intended it in the Irenaic sense. I trust the proven experts in the practical situations that you describe and also in the case of Biblical scholarship. I do not trust experts when they have reason not to be disinterested. In this connection the hierarchies of religious sects are suspect and have recently been found guilty of idolising the institution at the cost of justice and solace for powerless persons. The printing press helped people to read The Bible for themselves and this democratised the religion, a step in the right direction.

Personally, I trust authority -- when it has proven itself. I also 'believe in' authority.

True, as a matter of historical verity the Church(despite its faults) has carried the Message, not only as theory but also as practicing individuals. Europeans now are supposed to think as individual persons who are capable of resisting the deceits and weaknesses of politicians so as to vote as thinking and well meaning persons . Authority must therefore be governed by an open society composed of well informed individuals who have a sporting chance of seeing the devil in his various disguises. By habit and upbringing I too 'believe in' authority . It is an attitude that I ought to and must resist whenever appropriate.

[Alizia]

As I said, philosophy is not really in the business of discovering scientific or historical facts.

But a 'philosophical outlook' must include the widest range possible of disciplines. I take Christianity as a spiritual and philosophical praxis. I cannot see why any holistic or existential philosophy (of life, about living) would not expand itself, so to speak, to consider everything, and then to try to make the best decision possible. The Christian philosophers and historians I read do just that.

Frankly I'd hedge your bets and just be nice to people.

Sure! But that is a rather simplistic way to understand, for example, the Catholic/Christian 'themes of social teaching'. I would assume that non-Catholic Christianity, to one degree or another, shares these concerns. It is not enough to 'just be nice to people'. One would have to arrive at a definition of what really 'being nice' is. That is, what service to another really is.

I think you likely would also not be able to take into consideration the requirement to 'work out one's salvation'. This is done in a context of a general ethics. As I have come to understand Christian philosophy and spirituality I see it as quite demanding and difficult.

That's called confirmation bias.

I might not have made myself clear. My view is that our European societies -- that is presently my focus and concern -- require help. I present as a suggestion of evidence, the paragraphs about Nietzsche's 'prophetic' views of what was happening then in European culture, and what is now increasing in intensity. These are serious issues.

I use the term 'renovation' to describe what I mean when I say 'need help'. I understand this renovation to be similar to and related to what I myself understand of my own life-processes. So, if I then apply this understanding of myself and the things I have been through to the outer world and what it is going through, yes, I guess 'confirmation bias' could be a term to help understanding.

Nevertheless, my larger concern is to recognize and confront, if it is possible, the nihilism that was mentioned in a quote from a book just above. To look as deeply as I can at that problem. And so when I speak of 'militancy' I mean it in the original sense of the word: serving as a soldier. That means of course not merely sitting on a philosophical fence. But becoming engaged.

As I clearly have stated, I am interested in those thinkers, philosophers and those movements in our present who are (permit me to use this term!) mobilizing themselves toward action. I refer to 'dangerous thinkers' and 'dangerous ideas' consciously and as an act of will. I do not regard The Present as necessarily friendly to people, and I do see a modification of liberalism toward a strange, perhaps completely new, form of totalitarianism. It is not enough to consider 'niceness' or other human qualities, but to accurately conceive of what is going on in this present, and to make important choices about how one will live, what one values, and what one ultimately serves.

[Alizia]

My criterion for separating the genuine from the lying is the life as lived and its evidence of disinterestedness. In this connection the life of Jesus is an iconic example of disinterestedness; his famous characterisation as Lamb is the pinnacle of disinterestedness.

It might be that we are not talking to the same issue, but my view is that one has to carefully define one's interestedness, not one's disinterestedness. If I say that the contentious issues of our day have to do with value-questions, and let me suppose that you agree, then it is not a question of becoming non-interested or distant from the problems, but ever more involved and concerned about them.

So, I have to define again, and state, what my 'interest' is. Because it is my interest that is my motivator. I am interested in those thinkers and those movements (to the degree they are 'movements') of people who are confronting what I refer to as 'hyper-liberalism: liberalism as it goes off the rails and shows itself as a totalitarianism-lite. You may not agree with that definition! But this is what I see happening. The 'issue' has been described as a 'crisis of our civilization'. Certainly if you consider the quotes I just submitted as accurately describing our present, you would then agree that there really is a problem. But it seems that we choose not to face it, doesn't it? Isn't 'avoidance of the issue' a significant part of the problem?

But just within the metaphor (the symbol) of the Lamb there is a greater complexity of meaning than 'disinterestedness' given that 'lamb' means sacrifice. I feel I can see with certainly that the content of that metaphor and that symbol is not one of 'disinterestedness'. The essence of the notion of this sacrifice is precisely the opposite of disinterestedness! It has to do with absolute interest. In what? Well, the human soul obviously. But from that starting point so much more is brought out as 'areas of interest'. And our civilization, not wholly but significantly, has been constructed out of these concerns and this interest.

[Alizia]

These are not notes of gleeful triumph, but ominous warnings of the consequences of "an act too great for us." (Nietzsche's phrase) While he thought there could be a potential upside, he was clear-seeing enough to realize there was the very real potential for a horrendous downside and no particular upside at all. There are, after all, no "safety rails" on history. There are no guarantees that good will come, and evil -- even ultimate disaster -- just cannot.

That also is part of the meaning of his "death of God" idea. With no benevolent Protector or Director behind the universe, it runs wherever it runs. There are no longer any guarantees...certainly not of progress and upward climbing. Cruelty, barbarism, and extinction are just as real as possibilities, with no reason why this has to turn out well for us all.

Well, even here in this small conversation on this thread, we have with us, and I also suggest we have in us, the very same view, or will, or ramification of ideas, that Nietzsche was referring to: a philosophical and existential outlook that can only see the material and biological world and, this is the other part, a social order presaged and predicated on that specific understanding of Reality. I say that that order is 'Marxian' insofar as Marx could only conceive of relationships between people in terms of material exchanges and thus a Marxian governing system follows naturally from the general view.

If this is so, it seems to me that necessarily and inevitably our culture and our government will become ever more 'totalitarian' along these specific lines. I suggest what I think is obvious: this is what is happening, and it is happening right in front of us. I refer to the paragraph above from the book I referenced.

I think that what this means is that it will be, if it is not now, specific concentrations of power within our societies, those with the resources and those with the interest, who will assume power over our lives. It will occur through the machinations of power (I use that word in the Heideggerian sense). We will be governed by hyper-secular managers who may also be opposed to 'true humanistic philosophy' as is inevitable in a strictly secular culture.

Though I might have many different criticisms of the Church or Christians and Christian culture, I am concerned that when the spiritual dimension of understanding Reality is no longer even conceived -- when people are no longer introduced to it, no longer conceive it as important, and importantly have severed a 'real' inner connection with divine intelligence (inner, spiritual life, prayer life), that we as people will find ourselves not in a full and rich world, but in one that looks and seems more dystopian. I was not the one to point this out! It was Nietzsche who saw all of this, and it was Nietzsche who assumed the ironic role of prophet.

OK, so there you have some 'Spenglerian gloom'! It is also Nietzschean prognosis and, if you wish, prophecy. I am speaking as impulsively as I can to try to get the 'real issues' out on the table.

[Immanuel Can]

Well, even here in this small conversation on this thread, we have with us, and I also suggest we have in us, the very same view, or will, or ramification of ideas, that Nietzsche was referring to: a philosophical and existential outlook that can only see the material and biological world and, this is the other part, a social order presaged and predicated on that specific understanding of Reality. I say that that order is 'Marxian' insofar as Marx could only conceive of relationships between people in terms of material exchanges and thus a Marxian governing system follows naturally from the general view.

Nietzsche and Marx shared this feature: that they took for granted that "religion" was essentially a social and material phenomenon. For Nietzsche, it was primarily a social phenomenon -- God was "dead" only in the sense that He had always been a social fiction, but one that was now no longer held. For Marx, belief in God was a product of material class-struggles, and was pernicious, since it kept the Proletariat from rising up and overthrowing the Bourgeoisie by anesthetizing them to their real situation. Both men were essentially Materialists in their metaphysics, but both also had a weird "spirituality" driving their views: the rise of the Superman and the triumph of the Proletariat are both twisted myths of progress, and both are unsubstantiated on any genuinely scientific basis. They're really alternate "spiritualities," not hard-nosed truisms -- "prophecies" of what could and "should" be, according to the imaginings of Marx and Nietzsche themselves.

If this is so, it seems to me that necessarily and inevitably our culture and our government will become ever more 'totalitarian' along these specific lines. I suggest what I think is obvious: this is what is happening, and it is happening right in front of us. I refer to the paragraph above from the book I referenced.

Oh, yes, of course. You're right.

As the progressivist myths fail to produce the promised movement toward utopia, reasons will be sought. And the easy assumption will be that a) insufficient government authority, and b) regressive elements in society, and c) a lack of ideological commitment by the general populace are to blame. This means that more power must be ceded to centralized government, the people must become more fervent in their ideology, and the regressive elements must be -- and can morally be -- "reeducated" by force of propaganda and threat; or failing that, they can be rounded up for the "reeducation camps," or if that fails, put into gulags, or shot into pits.

We already see this decline developing well in present Leftist ideology. What does Antifa say is our problem? Not enough government intervention, too many "Nazis" (meaning anybody who disagrees), and people need to be whipped up into fits of hatred against them so as to silence them. That's their whole recipe for social change.

The decline is completely predictable. It's been repeated in various countries in the last century already. If it continues, the next step is that the body-count starts to come in. But at least in this case, I think the Leftist movement might die of its own stupidity before that happens. We'll see.

I think that what this means is that it will be, if it is not now, specific concentrations of power within our societies, those with the resources and those with the interest, who will assume power over our lives. It will occur through the machinations of power (I use that word in the Heideggerian sense). We will be governed by hyper-secular managers who may also be opposed to 'true humanistic philosophy' as is inevitable in a strictly secular culture.

But of course. Yes.

Though I might have many different criticisms of the Church or Christians and Christian culture, I am concerned that when the spiritual dimension of understanding Reality is no longer even conceived -- when people are no longer introduced to it, no longer conceive it as important, and importantly have severed a 'real' inner connection with divine intelligence (inner, spiritual life, prayer life), that we as people will find ourselves not in a full and rich world, but in one that looks and seems more dystopian.

Right. Well, if we take for granted that the real things in life are Material (in the broad sense), then it just follows perfectly logically that problems will be solved by the greater manipulation of materials. And greater manipulation requires greater and more centralized power. Each time that strategy fails, it argues for an increase of exactly the same measures. So inevitably, we end up with a de facto dictatorship, and no moral inhibitions on the use of coercive power.

I was not the one to point this out! It was Nietzsche who saw all of this, and it was Nietzsche who assumed the ironic role of prophet.

If only people had listened to this part of his message...it might have made them think twice.

OK, so there you have some 'Spenglerian gloom'! It is also Nietzschean prognosis and, if you wish, prophecy. I am speaking as impulsively as I can to try to get the 'real issues' out on the table.

So did Nietzsche, actually, so that's appropriate to the subject.

He was very much given to extravagant rhetoric and hyperbole as ways of making his important points. It seems to have worked for him, but not perhaps quite so well as he might have liked -- it makes him both more fun to read and less likely to be taken literally, even on points wherein he was literally right.

[Alizia]

Keeping this thread topical.

Dangerous ideas, in dangerous minds. There is no way around not seeing this. The Schwarze Sonne (Black Sun) is an obviously dangerous reference. I find it disconcerting that he associates Christian symbols (the fellow is a Christian) with one that is so obviously contentious (though there are more benign alchemical meanings -- I have not looked into it).