Re: [asa] Dawkins, religion, and children

At 12:55 PM 4/30/2007, David Opderbeck wrote:
>In short, they created a theocracy that would be mediated not from
>the top down -- which is never a real theocracy, but manarchy --
>through thousands and now millions of godlings, or "divine centers."
>
>Ah, but the extreme individualism of some libertarians is often just
>the other side of the same coin. The founders didn't create a
>"manarchy," they created the space for individuals, associations of
>individuals, and families to exercise appropriate sovereignty, with
>certain necessary powers and restraints granted to the sphere of
>government, in order to promote a community of virtue.

@ "... for freedom only becomes operative, or "evolutionary," when
it is bound by transcendent limitations -- which, by the way, is
equally true for the individual. The ironically named progressive
left is an inverse image of this evolutionary complementarity. This
is because.."

Monday, December 04, 2006
Complements Will Get You Everywhere

Some philosopher or physicist -- possibly Neils Bohr -- said words to
the effect that the opposite of a true statement is a false one, but
that the opposite of a profound truth is often another profound
truth. I find that I am constantly teetering along the precipice of
this profound truism. ...

...People in the West don't realize the extent to which they have
internalized a wholly rationalistic, Aristotelian framework to
understand the world, but rationalism can only get you so far. In its
either/or default setting, it can reduce the intellect to a computer
and reality to a machine.

But especially in more profound matters, it's almost always more of a
"both/and" situation. For example, one of the issues I constantly
struggle with is the tension between tradition and modernity, which
has countless ramifications, depending on how you resolve it. It is
easy to come down on one side or the other, but I think victory of
either side would result in a catastrophe for mankind.

Obviously, I have the highest regard for Frithjof Schuon, who is
without a doubt the most articulate spokesman for the traditionalist
school. But my spiritual life only began to take wing under the
auspices of people like Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin, who
are both unabashed "evolutionists." Schuon detested both of them
because he felt that the great revelations were essentially timeless
and set in stone, and that they addressed primordial "man as such,"
not "evolving man." His view may sound severe or simplistic, and
while it may be the former, it is not the latter. As spiritually
elevated as he was, he could not help seeing the absolute horror of
the modern world. And it is a horror. The more I grow, the more
vividly I see this. I do not believe it is going too far to call it a
spiritual atrocity.

But what to do about it? The paradox, or "complementarity" at the
heart of the modern conservative movement is the tension between
tradition, which preserves, and the free market, which relentlessly
destroys in order to build. While individual c*nservatives may or may
not contain this tension within themselves, the c*nservative
coalition definitely does, with the "religious right" on one end and
libertarians and free marketeers on the other. People wonder how
these seeming opposites can coexist in the same tent, but the key may
lie in their dynamic complementarity, for freedom only becomes
operative, or "evolutionary," when it is bound by transcendent
limitations -- which, by the way, is equally true for the individual.

The ironically named progressive left is an inverse image of this
evolutionary complementarity. This is because it rejects both the
creative destruction of capitalism and the restraints of tradition.
Therefore, it is static where it should be dynamic, and dynamic where
it should be static.

It is as if they want to stop the world and "freeze frame" one
version of capitalism, which is why, for example, they oppose free
trade. While free trade is always beneficial in the long run, it is
obviously going to displace some people and some occupations. It is
as if the progressive is an "economic traditionalist," transferring
the resistance to change to the immament realm of economics instead
of the spiritual realm of transcendent essences.

I know this is true, because it is what I used to believe when I was
a l*beral. For example,...

But while the progressive is thoroughly backward looking with regard
to economics, he is the opposite with regard to the spiritual realm.
For him, mankind was basically worthless until the scientific
revolution, mired as he was in myth, magic, and superstition. Rather,
the only reliable way to understand the world is through the
scientific method, which has the effect of throwing overboard
centuries of truly priceless accumulated spiritual wisdom. It
literally severs man from his deepest metaphysical roots and ruptures
his vertical continuity. In reality, it destroys the very possibility
of man in the archetypal sense -- i.e., actualizing his "spiritual blueprint."

A new kind of man is born out of this progressive spiritual
inversion. Yesterday we spoke of castes and of "spiritual DNA."
Progressives, starting with Karl Marx, waged an assault on labor,
eliminating its spiritual significance and reducing it to a mindless,
collective "proletariat." You might say that the left honors labor in
the same way they honor the military: both are losers.

Again, it is amazing how much things can change in a mere generation.
It's not as if I grew up that long ago -- the 1960's -- but I didn't
know anyone who obsessed over what he was going to do for a living
when he grew up, nor did anyone care what anyone's father did for a
living. There was much more of an idea that it didn't really matter
what you did for a living, and that all work was noble. Maybe I was
naive, but I never gave it a second thought that my friends' fathers
included a plumber, a retail clerk, a lawyer, a janitor, an
accountant, a bricklayer, a liquor store owner, and various other occupations.

Today it's as if there is shame attached to some of these
professions, undoubtedly due to the abiding progressive contempt for
those they presume to speak for. I personally cannot say that I'm any
happier as a psychologist than I was as a retail clerk those 12
years. In many ways, I preferred manual work because it freed up my
mind for higher things, while being a professional clogs up your
brain with annoying "intermediary" trivialities. I am generally lost
among the intellectual proletariat that takes this intermediate realm
seriously. Yesterday someone characterized my caste as "priest
artisan," but perhaps "laborer priest" is more like it -- a blue
backward collar worker.

Ever since it came into existence, the United States has been the key
to the material and spiritual progress of mankind. The founders were
well aware of this fact, having chosen the image of Moses leading the
Israelites out of Egypt as the state seal. Clearly, Moses was not
merely leading the Jews from physical slavery to economic freedom,
but from spiritual shackles to the higher possibility of vertical
liftoff in the desert.

But there's no such thing as a free launch. While there are obviously
wonderful individuals, mankind as a whole is a pretty hopeless, often
despicable, case. Here in the United States, thanks to our ..
founders, we discovered a way of life that could balance the
complementarities of the spiritual and material, of tradition and
progress, of science and faith, of liberty and constraint, of
self-interest and charity.

At the conclusion the Constitutional Convention in 1787, someone
asked Ben Franklin what sort of government had been decided upon. He
famously replied, "A republic, if you can keep it." But it's much
more than that. It is also a freaking paradise -- or the closest
thing you're ever going to get to paradise on this earth -- but only
if we can keep it. And we can only keep it by consciously cultivating
the complementarity between the spiritual and the material, between
tradition and capitalism, between liberty and transcendent
obligation, between vertical and
horizontal." http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/search?q=libertarians

~ Janice

>
>On 4/30/07, Janice Matchett
><<mailto:janmatch@earthlink.net>janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
>At 12:29 PM 4/30/2007, David Opderbeck wrote:
>
>>"... The kinds of things Dawkins suggests in this regard strike at
>>the heart of open democratic culture and should be despised by
>>anyone who really cares about justice and freedom.
>
>@ Again:
>
>".. if truth doesn't exist -- as believed by the nihilistic left --
>than we are back to power. Therefore, any atheist piggyfesto, no
>matter how well groomed, represents the exercise of raw power over
>its dominion of nothing. Behind the intelligence of such a person is
>simply the
>fist. .."
><http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1824729/posts?page=49#49>http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1824729/posts?page=49#49
>
>~ Janice ... "...In point of fact, the crazies of the l*ft are half
>correct, in that we are ultimately faced with the choice between
>democracy and theocracy. The American founders, in their infinite
>wisdom, chose theocracy, in the sense that the only legitimate
>purpose of democracy could be to preserve and protect the spiritual
>freedom of the theocentric individual. In short, they created a
>theocracy that would be mediated not from the top down -- which is
>never a real theocracy, but manarchy -- through thousands and now
>millions of godlings, or "divine centers." But a democracy mediated
>by mere animal-men will sooner or later lead to the Reign of the
>Beast. " Wednesday, March 28, 2007
>Beware the Fascist Atheocracy of the
>Left
><http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/03/beware-fascist-atheocracy-of-left.html>http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/03/beware-fascist-atheocracy-of-left.html
>
>
>

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Received on Mon Apr 30 13:56:15 2007