I suspect the children of Israel did not spend much time elaborating a doctrine of the golden calf; they naively danced around it, until Moses, their first intellectual, put a stop to the plain fun and insisted on civilizing them, by submerging their individualities within a communal purpose ... Confronted thus with a picture gallery as the new center of self-worship, civilized men must become again anti-art, in the hope of shifting attention toward modalities of worship wholly other than that of self.
Art is not by nature pornographic/anything-goes entertainment. It can and should exist within a living culture guided by a center and limited by bounds.
Rieff goes on to state that restoration of a past faith will inevitably bring on the re-living of the nightmare of the first half of the twentieth century and that the great poets all wished for what those of us know is a radically un-Christian idea of a return to initial, or original innocence, which is a concept that is fundamentally at odds with our espoused Calvinism.
I’m reminded of this commentary on St. Bonaventure by George Boas (whom I’m not otherwise acquainted with):
This hierarchy of Being appears throughout the work of Saint Bonaventura,
though he did not derive it immediately from Plotinus. It had become a
medieval commonplace which few were willing to question. And yet he could
not accept the whole theory of emanation, since he was bound by his
religious faith to believe in actual creation out of nothing. The God of
Plotinus was The One from whom everything flowed like light; the God of
Saint Bonaventura was the personal God of Genesis. His metaphysical problem
was to accommodate one to the other. This accommodation appears most
clearly in the fifth chapter of the “Itinerarium.”
The second hierarchy which was fused with the logical hierarchy was that of
value. There is no purely logical reason why the general should be any
better than the particular, though there are good traditional grounds for
thinking so. Plato, Aristotle, the Neo-Platonists, and even the Stoics had
a tendency to confuse goodness with the ideal or the general. In ancient
Pagan thought, there was a standard belief that no particular was ever a
perfect exemplification of its class—no triangle made of matter being a
perfect geometrical triangle, no human being a perfectly rational animal,
no work of art a perfect realization of the artist’s idea. Arguing in this
way, one could see that no species would ever perfectly exemplify its
genus, no genus its higher order, and so on. Hence the process “downward”
from Being was degeneration. When one stops to think that the Christian
religion insisted upon man’s nature as having been vitiated by sin—sin
which, though committed by our primordial parents, was nevertheless
inherited by us—one can also see why, to a Christian, the fusion of the
logical and the value-hierarchy was natural enough. We still look in vain
for the perfect exemplification of animal and vegetable species, though we
are inclined to believe that the species is an ideal formed for
intellectual purposes, and not to be expected to exist in anything other
than scientific books and articles. But to a Christian thinker of the type
of Saint Bonaventura, the species and genera were the ideas of God in
accordance with which He had created the world. It is they which are
responsible for the orderliness of the universe; they are sometimes called
by the Stoic term, seminal reasons. In the nineteenth century, when men
were as impressed by the regularity of scientific laws as they had been in
the thirteenth, people like Lord Russell found a religious satisfaction in
contemplating them, the only difference being that Lord Russell did not use
the Stoic term; nor did he think of scientific laws as the ideas in the
mind of God. If permanence and invariability are marks of goodness, then
indeed the more general the law, or the more inclusive the idea, the
better. And since the most general and inclusive term is without question
the term “Being,” it would follow that “Being” was the best of all things.
In the sixth chapter of the “Itinerarium,” in which Saint Bonaventura
discusses “Good” as the name of God, the importance of this fusion appears
most clearly.
Also, it’s said that individualised man will choose that religion which is most therapeutic, but just so Christianity and nationalism are quite therapeutic. And similarly, they can be sold over pornography because as the Stoics knew that type of thing doesn’t bring true happiness.
Regardless, the point is that we must drive men out of the realm of psychology or fundamentally reorganize their psychology to further our communal end before those crazed Christo-Marxists beat us to the task.
Yea, once a civilisation is undermined a vacuum exists begging for a new order to fill it. Either the West will restore itself, or it will be replaced by a false or imitation or alien people.
I think that this thread is important enough to “sticky.” Henceforth you should see it near the top of the forum. I wanted to continue with a discussion of “mass-man” as conceived by Ortega y Gasset, his role in the dialectic of the anti-culture, and the part that Kinism and allied faiths may play in a principled, distributive creative act that would have the effect of averting some of its most destructive consequences.
At some point I think Guenon also has to enter the discussion. In he research for my book (I’m hoping to release it in late 2010), I have created a list of men that appear to me to be arrayed around a sort of magnetic center of so-called “reactionary” or “traditionalist” thought, the main lines of whose work ought to be traced through the warp of Kinism, and made an explicit heritage.
Beyond that, unfortunately, Kinism will be forced to become more ideological and programmatic if it is to reach a wider audience in time enough to have a significant effect on our lives. We have acknowledged that most of what we are doing is for the sake of our progeny, but were we to implement some of it during the lives of those present, it would shorten the period of development by a generation, in my opinion.
So, with that said, has anyone on this thread read Revolt of the Masses or The Crisis of the Modern World, by Jose Ortega y Gasset and Rene Guenon, respectively? I think both books dovetail very nicely with the direction of this thread. Guenon, particularly, writes of what Rieff would call the “interdicts” from the “traditionalist” perspective of the historical process from a qualitative unity to a quantitative multiplicity. While I disagree with him that history is cyclical (as a Calivinist I’m committed to the view of history as linear), the application of historical laws is interesting to me and could, I think, be integrated with covenant theology. I am highly impressed with the theoretical framework of using a process from quality to quantity to analyze the current state of culture. Although Guenon writes from the perspective of esotericism, his understanding of the original role of tradition and its deliberate destruction is highly useful, though I doubt he would make any claim whatsoever to originality. In The Revolt of the Masses, Ortega y Gasset shows us the death of the “elite” and its replacement by the “mass-man.”
I often think of the railing against the “elite” by popular media figure Alex Jones, and wonder if he understands just exactly what his naive populism portends, which is not to say that I think his work has no value. But Ortega y Gasset would, I think, remark that the current elite are simply more intelligent, powerful, and amoral mass-men, and not any sort of genuine elite, or aristocracy. The idea of a self-sacrificial elite playing a role in the guiding of culture away from the cult of the colossal seems to be lost amidst the fury over what these particular elites have done. Plutocracy is rightly excoriated, for it secures the rule of sheer quantity.
The hatred of mystery and the hatred of social hierarchy is something that is fomented by men like Jones, who see “democracy” as man’s highest state. But he fails to comprehend that “democracy” is yet another form of the collectivism he so despises. The Founders were elitists of the “rankest” sort, who despised democracy. Jefferson, the most democratic of all, was against democratic notions most of the country takes for granted, like public education, believing that school itself is only for the brightest and best. I’m getting too far afield here. I think that the thread should remain focused on theory, and I hope it will.
I often think of the railing against the “elite” by popular media figure Alex Jones, and wonder if he understands just exactly what his naive populism portends, which is not to say that I think his work has no value. But Ortega y Gasset would, I think, remark that the current elite are simply more intelligent, powerful, and amoral mass-men, and not any sort of genuine elite, or aristocracy. The idea of a self-sacrificial elite playing a role in the guiding of culture away from the cult of the colossal seems to be lost amidst the fury over what these particular elites have done. Plutocracy is rightly excoriated, for it secures the rule of sheer quantity.
Spot on. I’ve read Ortega, but have read none of Guenon. I will endeavor to get that done soon.
Ortega wondered aloud if the USA was simply a vast barbarian nation covered with layers of technology (Universal Theory of History, I think). Although he focused on the downward drift of the “non-select” or mass-man (whose definition is someone who recognizes nothing above himself or outside himself as excellent, whether or not he was actually educated or intelligent or well-trained), there is also the issue of the illusions generated by technology.
For Ortega, it wasn’t necessary to BE excellent at anything. It was only necessary to recognize the difference, and to confess one’s limitations.
“But during the 17thc. Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke had achieved the terrible task of making Machiavelli widely respectable, and the new secular and moral science is particularly welcomed by the Protestants” (66).
“Marxism is an advanced product of the West that appealed to French revolutionary ideas, British industry, and German philosophy. Many people in North America no longer appeal to any ideology beyond our own affluence…this position is wrapped up in Darwinian packaging… ” (74).
“Until very recently, the very absence of a contemplative tradition spared us the full weight of the nihilism which in Europe flowered with industrial society…it was possible to move deeply into a technological society, while retaining our optimism and innocence…(37).
Eliot (?) said it this way - Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
Excerpt: (p24) In Defense of North America
Now when from that primal has come forth what is present before us: when the victory over the land leaves most of us in metropoloi where widely spread consumption vies with confusion and squalor; when the emancipation of greed turns out from its victories on this contenent to feed imperially on the resources of the world; when those resources cushion an immense majority who think they are free in pluralism, but in fact live in a monistic vulgarity in which nobility and wisdom have been exchanged for a pale belief in progress, alternating with boredom and weariness of spirit; when the disciplined among us drive to an unlimited techonological future, in which technical reason has become so universal that is has closed down an openess and awe, questioning and listening; when Protestant subjectivity remains authentic only where it is least appropriate, in the moodiness of our art and sexuality, and where public religion has become an unimportant litany of objectified self-righteousness necessary for the more anal of our managers; one must remember now the hope, the tringency and nobility of that primal encounter. The land was almost indomitable.
(p40)
Nietzsche’s equivocation about the relation of the highest will to power and the will to technology has never been part of the English-speaking tradition….our liberal horizons fade in the winter of nihilism, and the dominating among us see themselves with no horizon except their creating of the world, while the pure will to technology (whether public or private) more and more gives sole content to that creating. In the official intellectual community this process has become known as the “end of ideology” (Fukyama?). The very substance of our existing which has made us leaders in technique stands as a barrier to any thinking about it…
(Nietzsche and the Ancients, from Technology and Justice)
(88) Socrates turned away from tragedy (and what was given in its truth about sexuality) in saying that what was final was not the abyss, but Good. The greatest achievement of the modern scientists and philosophers was the destruction of Greek rationalism with its ‘substances’, its ‘truth’ and its ‘good’. The greatest height for man was laid bare in Greek tragedy, in that it made plain that the basic fact of existence was our encounter with an abyss - our encounter with the finality of chaos. Classical rationalism is seen as a species of neurotic fear, a turning away from the elementary fact of the abyss by means of ashallow identification of happiness, virtue, and reason. Our study of it must be a kind of historical therapy (similar to the way Nietzsche proposes to free us of Christianity). That therapy is a means for the educated to bring themsevles to an even greater height than that proclaimed in tragedy. It will be a greater height because it will now take into inself both the primacy of the abyss, and the overcoming of chance made possible through scientific technology. This will enable the great and the noble to be ‘masters of the earth’. The combination of the primacy of the abyss with technology will produce the Ubermensch - those who will deserve to be masters of the earth. Humanity has been a bridge in evolution between the beasts and those who are higher than human beings. Nietzsche may have been the great political critic of Rousseau, but he accepts his account of human origins. Reason does not open us to the eternal; its greatness has been to transcend itself in its modern manifestations, so that we are both enable and deserve to be masters of the the earth…(94)in Nietzsche’s conception of justice, there are other human beings to whom nothing is due - other than extermination….Whatever may be given in Plato’s attack on democracy in his Republic, it is certainly not that for some human beings nothing is due…what gives meaning in the fact of historicism is that willed potentiality is higher than any actuality…(85) why should constitutional regimes be considered superior to their alternatives if human beings are basically ids?
Re: Fukayama, it is not so much the end of ideology that we face but the end of transcendence. Ideology is a set of prescriptive obeisances that can be embraced or not, but cannot be violated. Nevertheless, there is no character of them being transpersonal in the sense of religious values but more a desideratum of permissible thought or expression. Traditional modes of existence are being are subject to treatment as pathology, as normality is made mental illness, and madness normality. Ideology thrives while belief wanes and is replaced by naked power and a kind of socio-pathology of polity -beyond which the universe seems to have vanished behind a screen of incredulity and sheer boredom born of the innervation of overstimulation.
I think that Strauss and Jaffa are the modern incarnations of Machiavelli, which is a vertfreiheit kind of power projection in the lineaments of patriotism. This is essentially nihilism as applied to international relations. I concur that a certain philosophical crudity has lead to a comfortable acceptance of techno-plutocracy.
The “monistic vulgarity” spoken of above shows itself in a descent into pure quantity, where the only differentiations possible are quantitative ones, and where the principles of action and existence become universal, while sheer multiplicity of form gives the impression of diversity in experience. An example of this in the industrial sector might be the reduction of suppliers of automotive parts to a handful of giant conglomerates where parts for 20 different makes of automobiles might proceed from precisely the same materials, produced via highly similar processes, which end in a dizzying array of various forms, all of which share an essential unity. Another example might be the varieties of shapes and forms of corn products that now dominate the industrial food supply, making its way into everything from dog food to pizza to chemical cleansers.
One is certainly free (as of yet) to reject the thrall of technology, but at the cost of a social isolation that increasingly pushes one to a frontier in which human relation is problematized by the dominance of exclusivistic “modes.” What we face is the replacement of life with a kind of autocratic insipidity that is rapidly becoming non-discretionary. One faces imminent anachronism. The individual has completely lost relevance in an universalization of the material means of a despotism of the trivial. By means of the infantilization of desire, a regime of uniformity has been introduced quite gradually that met with negligible resistance from the citizenry.
I’m often reminded of the “do-it-yourself” Yippies that listened to mass vinyl pressings of Ravi Shankar, thinking themselves somehow liberated from the machinery of Western industrial conformity, or the Esalen Institute churning out metropolitan “centers” where a uniform process of therapy would be used to produce “individuals.”
The essential flaw of nihilism is not that it does away with the idea of good (which it but pretends to do), but that it creates an identity between the good and the powerful, or effective. Can it rely on anything other than a Pragmatist/Peirce/James epistemology where the only distinction among ideas is in the outcome produced by them? No system of philosophy is without an idea of the good, or it is self-contradictory, since all philosophy, if it exists at all, presumes to be prescriptive, in that it forges an necessary connection between “truth” and “right.” If it does not, then nihilism is nothing but an ourobouros that swallows its own tail, a playful reductio ad absurdum that is powerless to move us.
It is precisely because nihilism IS prescriptive that it denies itself, since in the face of the abyss there can be no assertions that have a standard by which we might privilege them above other assertions, their direct contradiction. And yet, we are told that power is good for its own sake. But how can this absurd assertion be made in the face of meaninglessness? It must then be equally “true” (permissible) that power is NOT good, but rather the incarnation of evil itself. It would be more plausible for nihilism to assert that “power is,” but also equally plausible to assert that “power is not” for certainly there must be a power of non-being if it something about which ideas can be formed. So, to say that “being is” is not very informative, nor worthy of the elaborations that give us the admittedly fine literary “nothingness” expressed in The Genealogy of Morals, or Also Spake Zarathustra. I think that nihilism can be reduced to some such trivial formulation.
It is this fundamental crack in the foundation of Nietzschean philosophy that is the open secret of all ideology dependent on it.
OneCosmosBlogSpot is doing some good posts now, on the fake choice we have today between formal causes (fundamentalism) and efficient causes (evolutionary Scientism). The problem here seems to be nominalism, with its attendant nihilism and the geneology of morals (conclusions implied) as outlined so well above by John Marshall. There are still lots of Christians who talk about “purging” Christianity of remnant Platonism, which seems to amount to a furtherance of Nietzsche’s program by other means.
At this point, we are “attacking in all directions”, like the Marines breaking out during Korea, but it’s being painted as a retreat.
A rallying point within the Church would be helpful, but we seem unlikely to get it anytime soon enough.
Becoming more convinced that Richard Weaver was right about nominalism, however, being the Faustian deal that sent us down this tunnel.
