Christian Civilization -- The Central Issue

[Alexis Jacobi]

It's the 21st century, what about the countless people who think that taking life seriously includes not having a relationship with a non-existent creator?

What about them?

[Atla]

It's the 21st century, what about the countless people who think that taking life seriously includes not having a relationship with a non-existent creator?

What about them?

Yes what about them? Will religion be forced on them?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Might have no relevance but for some reason I was reminded of the last part of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya:

SONYA. What can we do? We must live our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, you and I shall see that bright and beautiful life; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile -- and -- we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith.

[SONYA kneels down before her uncle and lays her head on his hands. She speaks in a weary voice]

We shall rest.

[TELEGIN plays softly on the guitar]

We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven all shining with diamonds. We shall see all evil and all our pain sink away in the great compassion that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and tender and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith.

[She wipes away her tears with a handkerchief]

My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying!

[Weeping] You have never known what happiness was, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest.

[She embraces him]

We shall rest!

[The WATCHMAN'S rattle is heard in the garden; TELEGIN plays softly; MME. VOYNITSKAYA writes something on the margin of her pamphlet; MARINA knits her stocking]

We shall rest!

The curtain slowly falls.

[Harbal]

Might have no relevance but for some reason I was reminded of the last part of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya:

SONYA. What can we do? We must live our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, you and I shall see that bright and beautiful life; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile -- and -- we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith.

[SONYA kneels down before her uncle and lays her head on his hands. She speaks in a weary voice]

We shall rest.

[Uncle Vanya gets an erection, and Sonya runs from the room]



The curtain slowly falls.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The Hedgehog

[Alexis Jacobi]

That’s good, Harbal. Given that she’s his sister, run she should …

[Harbal]

That’s good, Harbal. Given that she’s his sister, run she should …

I always had my doubts about that weirdo, Vanya.

[phyllo]

That’s good, Harbal. Given that she’s his sister, run she should …

She's his sister and he's her uncle..

[Alexis Jacobi]

Enjoy your remaining interlocutors.

Now I understand the depth and breadth of your meted punishment ….

[Harbal]

Enjoy your remaining interlocutors.

Now I understand the depth and breadth of your meted punishment ….

We shall rest, Uncle Alexis, we shall rest .

[phyllo]

He doesn't want you to rest. He loves these interactions.

[Harry Baird]

Imagine that you are caught in this quandary:

quandary.png (27.01 KiB) Viewed 84 times

Imagine that, seeking to break out of this vicious cycle, you inform yourself as well as you can on the issues, scouring secondhand bookshops for everything you can find on Catholicism, Christianity, and Western civilisation, and reading widely from all perspectives: defenders and detractors, progressives and conservatives, hyper-liberals and far rightists, religious zealots and fanatical secularists. Imagine that you engage at length in online discussion forums.

Imagine that the outcome is that, in your mind, both imperatives are only strengthened.

Around and around you go.

It has now been over a decade.

Imagine that you attempt another means of resolution, via this manoeuvre:

quandary-manoeuvre.png (25.7 KiB) Viewed 84 times

Your manoeuvre has a couple of problems though.

One is that an abstract principle has no force or effect unless it is instantiated, and you don't have any alternative instantiations to the Catholic ones. For example, you abstract out a universal principle of incarnation according to which if the divine incarnates on one inhabited planet, then it must incarnate on all inhabited planets, however, you lack a saviour to incarnate and thus to instantiate the principle: as a so-called modern, you deny Jesus Christ as personal saviour, and propose no alternative incarnating avatar(s).

The other problem is that these principles are no longer recognisably Catholic: being novel abstractions, they are not restorations but innovations.

Your manoeuvre, then, results in a dead end:

quandary-manoeuvre-dead-end.png (33.6 KiB) Viewed 84 times

Your quandary remains unresolved.

Were you, hypothetically, to start a thread about Christian civilisation, would it be fair to say that this (your) unresolved quandary was the central issue?

Would it also be fair to point to it as the elephant in the room?

If so, would it be fair to point out that were you, the victim of this quandary for over ten years, to exhort, "This is not about me; don't try to make this about me", your exhortation would be an oddly misplaced denial of that elephant in the room?

Also if so, would it, then, be fair to say that it is necessary to resolve this quandary before considering whether - and, if so, how and to what extent - to restore Catholicism?

Finally, how do you, dear reader, as hypothetical victim of this hypothetical quandary, resolve it?

(Note: my sentiments are similar to those of Iwannaplato, so please understand this post as observation, commentary, and diagnosis, not as an attempt to initiate and engage in dialogue, which has proven to be fruitless).

[Alexis Jacobi]

The Ultra Neurotic Gambit commences. The heavy hitter appears on the horizon.

Were you, hypothetically, to start a thread about Christian civilisation, would it be fair to say that this (your) unresolved quandary was the central issue?

First error: the assertion that my quandary is unresolved. This is based on the false-assertion that a month, a year or ten years struggling with a huge civilizational issue (a defining metaphysics now in decline in the Occident — but only in the Occident) indicates failure or even an impasse.

You thought you found a crack; and you thought to exploit that crack with various levers. The effort is at its core destructive and undermining: because you live with exactly that sort of space. And that space is shared space. That is the situation we (Occidentals) find ourselves in. And we cannot resolve the conflict.

The real issue here — in the Occident and among Harvey Bard, Iwannaplato and so many others here — is actually your own unresolved relationship to the central issue. You are the Moderns; you are those •extruded• onto and into the present and these issues of metaphysics are ones that you cannot resolve.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Also if so, would it, then, be fair to say that it is necessary to resolve this quandary before considering whether - and, if so, how and to what extent - to restore Catholicism?

Again, you do not have any clear sense about what has and what has not “been resolved” so it is at that point that your argument, which is not an argument but a sort of mire placed to see if it will result in a sort of eristic win, will succeed. You have nothing of substance to contribute except perhaps (if memory serves) a vague Manichean metaphysics bound up in psychic confusion (again if your former position is still one you hold to). But this you will never clarify.

Similarly, no one writing here will clarify their own position because, speaking broadly, you-plural have never worked it out. Factually, there is no position defined nor held to. The armaments of denial and negation arise, in my view, from within the self — your selves. Yet to have something or someone to fight against is too rich a temptation to pass by, right? And this seems to define the negating mood of such a band of truly powerful philosophers.

As it pertains to Dawson his assertion is that Christianity in its wide sense is •ours• and it is there in that nexus that all stages of Occidental civilization have taken place. And we are still in that process. Which as a perspective makes good sense from where I sit.

[Alexis Jacobi]

so please understand this post as observation, commentary, and diagnosis, not as an attempt to initiate and engage in dialogue, which has proven to be fruitless

It is not •the others• who are fruitless, it is not an •out there• that presents you fruitlessness, but more truthfully (this is my view as you know) your own impasse that you face privately and independently of anyone else in the universe.

You are untruthful in this present evasive declaration: you have been following this discussion with more attention than anyone else. Whatever is going on here is evidently vital to your own processes and situation.

The wheels in the hamster cage in your own mind turn fast enough to generate enough electricity to charge a cellphone!