This post is free to all. If you like it, please consider a paid subscription to help Imperium Press be less beholden to payment processors. The West is terminally ill, this much is clear to all. But what if the disease is truly ancient? Could you accept that? Would this be a
Excellent article. The average person on the "right", even the radical right (I despise both of these terms), will no doubt find, if they survey their worldview, that they share many ideas in common with those whom they ostensibly oppose. Of these, one of the most pernicious is propositional identity, but to that we can add moral generalism/universalism, and a host of others. So long as the right operates within the same intellectual framework as the left, who are its more consistent practitioners, it will always be impotent.
I have read similar historiography regarding the genesis of the universal friend and the universal enemy concepts, or the birth of the absolute “good” and “evil” of religion. But this is the first time I’ve encountered a premise whereby “personhood” and the self-conscious being are necessary logical byproducts of this dualistic worldview. This is very interesting to consider.
Eh... I already went down the Modern version of the moral relativism rabbit hole. Went back to Catholicism. The Old Age version sounds just as useless to my life. Maybe even more so as it is more esoteric and unachievable.
Besides, I believe in Genesis as history so I am not convinced your version of the Old Age is as accurate as you think.
Also, if you want to keep arguing that Christianity is proto-progressivism then you need to be squaring that circle as it relates to Catholicism and the various Orthodox faiths. The more you point to protestants and their ideas the more you prove that it's all just a heresy. Christendom was more than happy to be both Catholic and their particular cultures.
Last, as far as political solutions to Modernity go, I think the main issue is the movement away from feudal social structures. I don't think I need to sacrifice goats to an idol to get back landed gentry and the pater familias.
The West is not ill, but it can mislead itself into thinking that it is. And its ability for self-misleading is not a sickness but a charactoristic due to two features. The first is from the use of a language which is not sufficiently precise. This problem is not likely to be solved because in order to clarify the meanings we tend to use other unclear expressions. The second reason is a lack of faith. This applies particularly to religious doctrines but when the thinking is not on religion it applies to faith in oneself. We are confused due the limitations on how much we believe in ourselves. True leaders are able to overcome this charactoristic and they know what they want and can at least plan how they might get it, but not everybody will agree with this, and this is the second reason for our being mislead. If there was a way for our being absolutely right then we would be angels not humans. To be and not to be, this is the answer!
And yet nothing could be more grounded in reason than the attempt to reason our way back into a particular, historically-built idea of the past. Looking at the world today, how could one possibly think that reason is our problem? It is rather the technical mind leveraged by a type of irrationalism that is used by 'the Left' which has been most destructive.
Not go back to 1960 or 1660, but to pic and choose and then say: this is it, no further?
Another note:
Pre-axial, traditionalism was replaced throughout the world (eventually). Going back to it would allow somebody somewhere to come up with liberalism again, and it would spread (again).
This makes it necessary to not only introduce traditionalism again, but to enforce this world wide. Kind-of the same problem liberals face.
Excellent article. The average person on the "right", even the radical right (I despise both of these terms), will no doubt find, if they survey their worldview, that they share many ideas in common with those whom they ostensibly oppose. Of these, one of the most pernicious is propositional identity, but to that we can add moral generalism/universalism, and a host of others. So long as the right operates within the same intellectual framework as the left, who are its more consistent practitioners, it will always be impotent.
I have read similar historiography regarding the genesis of the universal friend and the universal enemy concepts, or the birth of the absolute “good” and “evil” of religion. But this is the first time I’ve encountered a premise whereby “personhood” and the self-conscious being are necessary logical byproducts of this dualistic worldview. This is very interesting to consider.
The last two paragraphs are of immeasurable beauty. They speak truth that seemed elusive to me. Thank you!
Eh... I already went down the Modern version of the moral relativism rabbit hole. Went back to Catholicism. The Old Age version sounds just as useless to my life. Maybe even more so as it is more esoteric and unachievable.
Besides, I believe in Genesis as history so I am not convinced your version of the Old Age is as accurate as you think.
Also, if you want to keep arguing that Christianity is proto-progressivism then you need to be squaring that circle as it relates to Catholicism and the various Orthodox faiths. The more you point to protestants and their ideas the more you prove that it's all just a heresy. Christendom was more than happy to be both Catholic and their particular cultures.
Last, as far as political solutions to Modernity go, I think the main issue is the movement away from feudal social structures. I don't think I need to sacrifice goats to an idol to get back landed gentry and the pater familias.
The West is not ill, but it can mislead itself into thinking that it is. And its ability for self-misleading is not a sickness but a charactoristic due to two features. The first is from the use of a language which is not sufficiently precise. This problem is not likely to be solved because in order to clarify the meanings we tend to use other unclear expressions. The second reason is a lack of faith. This applies particularly to religious doctrines but when the thinking is not on religion it applies to faith in oneself. We are confused due the limitations on how much we believe in ourselves. True leaders are able to overcome this charactoristic and they know what they want and can at least plan how they might get it, but not everybody will agree with this, and this is the second reason for our being mislead. If there was a way for our being absolutely right then we would be angels not humans. To be and not to be, this is the answer!
And yet nothing could be more grounded in reason than the attempt to reason our way back into a particular, historically-built idea of the past. Looking at the world today, how could one possibly think that reason is our problem? It is rather the technical mind leveraged by a type of irrationalism that is used by 'the Left' which has been most destructive.
Would it be possible to "freeze" liberalism?
Not go back to 1960 or 1660, but to pic and choose and then say: this is it, no further?
Another note:
Pre-axial, traditionalism was replaced throughout the world (eventually). Going back to it would allow somebody somewhere to come up with liberalism again, and it would spread (again).
This makes it necessary to not only introduce traditionalism again, but to enforce this world wide. Kind-of the same problem liberals face.