Christianity

[Harry Baird]

Not so much, huh?

[Harry Baird]

OK then, AJ, let's talk first principles.

Working definition

First principles are those principles that cannot be derived from prior principles, and which instead form the basis from which to derive subsequent, dependent principles.

How to arrive at them

My working suggestions:

Firstly, by taking our beliefs and recursively asking, "What principle is that based on?" until we hit a bedrock principle (or set of principles) which depend(s) on no prior principle(s).

Secondly, by stripping away all our beliefs and asking what, at root, we know for sure about the world, and then moulding the implications of that basic knowledge (prior to which stands nothing) into principles, prior to which, too, stands nothing.

In practice, a combination of the two seems best.

How to justify them

My working suggestions:

Firstly, as being semantically self-evident: that is, the words of which they are comprised imply their truth. This is analogous to the concept in logic of a "necessary truth", except that the necessity of such logical truths is based on form, rather than, as I'm suggesting of this type of first principle, content.

Secondly, as being the most worthy out of the alternatives.

Example

You propose we identify the first principle(s) in this:

"All religions (that I am aware of) and all spiritual paths always recognize that in order to perceive what I have called the higher elements (subtle metaphysical perception and realization) recognize that the addiction to sensuousness, the indulgence in mutable sensation, must be sacrificed so that the higher element can be received and cultivated."

Using my first working suggestion for our arrival approach:

Q: On which principle(s) is this based?

A: That the lesser good should be sacrificed to the greater good.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: That we should strive to maximise the good.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: None. This is bedrock.

We have now the potential first principle behind our example.

Using my first working suggestion for justification:

This is semantically self-evident: given what "good" means, it is by definition the case that we ought to maximise it.

Richard Weaver and first principles

Nowhere in Ideas Have Consequences does RW do anything like this. Nowhere does he even explain how he would arrive at first principles if he were to do so. Nowhere does he explicitly identify any first principle.

You correctly point out that "there is a whole series of assertions and predicates that inform his presentation", but nowhere does he explain how he derives these from the first principles that he doesn't even bother to identify in the first place.

The problem here is that his thesis is that the decline of the West is due to our having lost sight of objective metaphysical truth (based in first principles), but it is very difficult to take this thesis seriously when he doesn't even identify (any of!) these first principles, let alone justify his contention that they are objective.

You say that you "do not think that the first principles that, say, Weaver works with can be reduced to a list", but I see no basis to think this. I have elsewhere extracted from his book a list of all of his metaphysical claims, so, it is clearly possible to list his principles in general. Why, then, would it not be possible to list the subset of his principles that are "first"?

What is AJ if not Christian?

Subtitle: What is it to which AJ proposes we recur?

Good questions. It seems worth first explaining why I don't think you're a Christian: it's because essential to the definition of a Christian is that the individual in question believes and affirms that the historical person Jesus Christ, sent by (or being an aspect of) God, is his/her sole saviour, through Christ's having been put to death by crucifixion and then resurrecting from the dead.

You believe none of this. You don't even believe in an "absolute external" (exact quote) God.

What you do is to take this beating heart of Christianity and abstract it into a generic Principle of Incarnation.

Now, for a start, it is not possible to "recur" to this Principle because - in its abstractness - it is not a part of our Christian, Western heritage, which instead is based in the specific belief in the literal Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Having ripped out the Christian heart and turned it into a symbol - not without meaningful referent, admittedly - you then propose value in that which had accreted around (and as) the Christian body: borrowings from Platonism; Catholic doctrine and ritual; theological arguments and thoughts; etc, etc. It's not, though, clear to me what this means without the heart that you have gouged out of it, and thus nor is it clear to me how we could "recur" to it - that is, without that heart.

It seems to me that you are really proposing a novel and idiosyncratic metaphysic - albeit with plenty of borrowings from the past - rather than anything to which (as a whole) we might genuinely recur.

So, to finally answer the question, here's a working[*] description of what you are: a mystically-inclined, traditionalist conservative inspired by a non-literalist, abstract, (re)interpretation of Christianity and the body of thought and practice accreted around it throughout Western history.

[*] Feel free to work on it.

So what would you suggest is the thing that must be recurred to?

The question assumes that I think that there even is such a thing, or at least that I think that there is only one such thing. It also implies that looking backwards for past goods is better than looking forward for future goods.

I don't think that these - assumption and implication - are useful in getting at what I think about how (as a collective) to proceed.

You desire that I make a 'convincing case' and present it to you in easily masticated portions. But my assertion is that you need to become a better chewer!

This is so much more about you than me. As much as I might be seen to be "complaining"[**], it's also possible to see that I'm offering you advice.

[**] My choice of words, not necessarily yours.

You are advocating publicly that there is much of value in our (especially Christian) heritage to which we ought to recur.

Your advocacy, though, doesn't get much beyond that (endlessly repeated in myriads of ways!) generalisation.

It would be so much more effective as advocacy if you were to go into detail as to what you find so valuable in our (especially Christian) heritage, so as to encourage readers to see this for themselves.

In an earlier post you offered that which in this post I've referred to as your general Principle of Incarnation, and I'd understood that you offered that as your explanation of that by which you find Christianity to be the most valuable metaphysic, in the sense that, though generic, this Principle is best represented and explored in Christian thought.

On that basis, I'd affirmed that I'd so to speak stop complaining and cancel the mechanic's booking.

Now, though, you assert that "What is 'most valuable in Christianity', in my own view, is not one thing or just one element, but an entire set of contributing elements."

It appears, then, that we need to make another booking at the mechanic's!

[Harry Baird]

AJ: But the other element here is when these ["the restraining power of Christian ethics and the guiding/restraining power of the appreciation of the metaphysical principles, even the understanding of them"] are deliberately undermined.

Can you speak to who or what is deliberately undermining these, and, most especially, why? How is it that they fail to recognise what you recognise? Are they wicked, or well-intended but mistaken? What are they trying to achieve?

This topic is a very interesting one and an important one. It extends well beyond the undermining of Christian categories. James Lindsay's doing impressive work in this area. In fact he is totally immersed in his project of dismantling and exposing the 'undermining' by focusing on infiltrating Marxists and Marxism.

That answers only the very first part of my set of questions, but at least we have identified the culprits.

But one can, and indeed I'd assert that one would have to, actually define an entire set of solid 'first principles' of a political and social sort (within a strict Conservatism and even a radical Conservatism), as well as a range of metaphysical predicates

Can, and would have to - but hell will freeze over before you actually do!

[Alexis Jacobi]

I do not think I will be able to engage with you on the larger part of whatever it is you are on about or attempting in your recent long post. It seems to me through that you have outlined the work you would undertake if indeed you were really interested -- and here I mean in relation to the philosopher Richard Weaver. I do not have the energy or the inclination to undertake this work for you. Except perhaps in a small way.

(Language is Sermonic: R. M. Weaver on the Nature of Rhetoric and The Ethics of Rhetoric would be of interest).

Yet your question seems to be: Upon what basis does Richard Weaver construct his philosophical system? And then: To what principles (predicates) do his ideas reduce to?

I think this could be approached, in a glossary way, by examining the opening paragraphs of Ideas Have Consequences:

CHAPTER ONE

THE UNSENTIMENTAL SENTIMENT

But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough
without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the things man
does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital
relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there,
that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines
all the rest. -- CARLYLE.

EVERY man participating in a culture has three levels of conscious reflection: his specific ideas about things, his general beliefs or convictions, and his metaphysical dream of the world. The first of these are the thoughts he employs in the ac-tivity of daily living; they direct his disposition of immediate matters and, so, constitute his worldliness. One canexist on this level alone for limited periods, though pure worldliness must eventually bring disharmony and conflict.

Above this lies his body of beliefs, some of which may be heritages simply, but others of which he will have acquired in the ordinary course of his reflection. Even the simplest souls define a few rudimentary conceptions about the world, which they repeatedly apply as choices present themselves.These, too, however, rest on something more general.

Surmounting all is an intuitive feeling about the immanent nature of reality, and this is the sanction to which both ideas and beliefs are ultimately referred for verification. Without the metaphysical dream it is impossible to think of men living together harmoniously over an extent of time. The dream carries with it an evaluation, which is the bond of spiritual community.

The opening quote, and the subsequent elaboration of it, has had a good deal of influence on my own thought. It seems to me that the reason these statements (those of Carlyle) have the strength they do is because they are true statements. They are also elemental. It also has seemed to me a necessary activity to try and see those *operative ideas* which function in people, and in ourselves, semi-consciously, unconsciously and without direct examination.

It is a wide-ranging idea. Surely we can recognize that we can do this through examination of our rationally-informed ideas, those received through the discourses we read. But there is another and larger aspect according to Weaver: our metaphysical dream of the world. I take this to mean our entire perceptual stance. In this sense our 'metaphysical dream' is the dream we are living in and through.

And how would we, and how would you, reduce the ideas communicated here to the first principles you seek? To me it seems quite 'reduced' as such. Could it be broken down further? It seems unnecessary but would you like me to break it down further, if that were possible?

Q: On which principle(s) is this based?

A: That the lesser good should be sacrificed to the greater good.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: That we should strive to maximise the good.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: None. This is bedrock.

I believe that I understand what you are attempting, and it is sound as far as it goes. But I will introduce what I think is a further element and thus the essence of why the sacrifice of the lower in order to claim the higher -- as an ethical injunction -- rests ultimately on what is injurious and what is helpful and productive for the individual (soul).

So the final reduction is to issues and questions that surround, say, the soul's well-being (or advance, progression, etc.) This would conform with a standard Platonism, no?

Nowhere in Ideas Have Consequences does RW do anything like this. Nowhere does he even explain how he would arrive at first principles if he were to do so. Nowhere does he explicitly identify any first principle.

Am I correct that I sense a note of frustration? Are you asking me to comment or to explain why this is? The answer seems obvious: he has written an essay (a series of essays) that deal on the initial propositions outlined (in this case) at the beginning of the chapter. He is writing social commentary and social critique. He is not writing a primer on what are his own first principles or on what he bases them. (This seems pretty obvious to me).

You correctly point out that "there is a whole series of assertions and predicates that inform his presentation", but nowhere does he explain how he derives these from the first principles that he doesn't even bother to identify in the first place.

This is true -- as true as rain! Are you asking me to comment on and explain why this is? I think I could do it niftily simply by pointing out that Weaver, as a philosopher, imagines himself when he writes as speaking to people who are familiar with the canon he has been informed by. Those who are part of his intellectual milieu. So, there is a great deal that he would not have to explain (say with long footnotes) and which those familiar with the milieu would more or less immediately grasp.

Yet there are others -- would you be included here? -- who are unfamiliar with the ideas of that milieu and who, as you indeed seem to, need to go over the elemental material and become familiar with it. To gain some proficiency in it. I'd imagine that since the book was widely read, by an untrained popular audience, that a great deal that he proposes, and the basic ideas he takes as 'givens', would be entirely new to those people 'leading unexamined lives' to quote Plato.

In respect to what you say is my disbelief in those central tenets of Christianity, you said:

It's because essential to the definition of a Christian is that the individual in question believes and affirms that the historical person Jesus Christ, sent by (or being an aspect of) God, is his/her sole saviour, through Christ's having been put to death by crucifixion and then resurrecting from the dead.

Here, in fact, you are mistaken. You basic assertion is not correct. In fact the early Christians (say Origen) had a range of perspectives that are in some senses very similar to my own. That being that the physical manifestation (what I call The Story) is in truth a lower aspect of the (higher) and more important truth. I only need make one reference here. There was a wide array of interpretations as to what Jesus Christ actually was and what he meant.

Now obviously you have been introduced to just one -- and indeed it is a common one or a 'standard' one. But I can assert that if you read the original writings of those who in those early days meditated, mused and philosophized on the meaning of the Incarnation that you will find a very wide range of ideas, assertions and conclusions.

Still I think you are right about one important element: I do not 'believe in' a savior. At least not in the way it is generally presented. Were you to have read what I have written a bit more closely you would have realized that I place emphasis on *Incarnation* of metaphysical ideas into the *world* of man. What is 'salvific' therefore, in my view, are the 'possibilities' that are opened when these ideas (impulses) are received and, to put it in utilitarian terms, worked with. The notion of a 'savior' is too 'eastern' for my taste. It does not coincide with what I believe are 'Indo-European' core values. That is to say with a general 'metaphysical dream' that is based on independent achievement, on sovereignty of the individual soul, of response and relationship to 'higher principles' that are arrived at by free choice.

Having ripped out the Christian heart and turned it into a symbol - not without meaningful referent, admittedly - you then propose value in that which had accreted around (and as) the Christian body: borrowings from Platonism; Catholic doctrine and ritual; theological arguments and thoughts; etc, etc. It's not, though, clear to me what this means without the heart that you have gouged out of it, and thus nor is it clear to me how we could "recur" to it - that is, without that heart.

I sort of admire your rhetorical flourishes here Harry! It is a bit over-dramatized though don't you think?

Well, the Heart of Jesus and the Heart of Mary, interestingly enough, are in Catholicism of an older school primary symbols. I am just noting this here not defending the practices and meditations of believers who 'worship' those symbols.

Obviously, you have careened overboard -- rhetorical flourishes have their own power and carry us along, no? -- with the assertion that I have violently ripped something apart, so there is no point in further comment.

you then propose value in that which had accreted around (and as) the Christian body: borrowings from Platonism; Catholic doctrine and ritual; theological arguments and thoughts; etc, etc.

I'd put this differently. When the Hebrew religious ideas, or the core inclination to 'worship' was presented to the gentile world in those early days, those who received the impetus could do nothing but interpret the ideas according to their mental systems. And these were of course Greek philosophical and also perhaps Greek pagan-imaginative. The implications here are important.

If I receive an idea (the assertion about a god-man born into our world with a mission and a purpose) I have to explain the idea to myself. And I will only be able to do so by recurring to the idea-sets which I have available to me. Interpretation is often re-interpretation and re-working.

So beyond any doubt I say that the Christian impetus (what is the right word?) entered in and was received by people with, let's say, a different metaphysical dream of the world.

It seems to me that you are really proposing a novel and idiosyncratic metaphysic - albeit with plenty of borrowings from the past - rather than anything to which (as a whole) we might genuinely recur.

Sure, I could go along with that. But I would add that any person, and any modern person who has been trained up in and infused with all sorts of modern ideas really has no choice but to 'interpret'. Some interpretations are wildly whimsical, romantic, half-baked, confused and even contradictory.

But this turns back to what I think is a good core assertion: the need to examine and make conscious what is our unexamined metaphysical dream: "the things man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe".

HB: Can, and would have to - but hell will freeze over before you actually do! (I.e.: provide an outline of radical conservative ideas as a list)

As to admonitions as to what we should (universally? culturally?) recur to -- that is another and a wider topic. If I propose that 'radical conservatism' is needed and necessary, to counteract hyper-liberalism generally, that in itself indicates where that wider conversation could occur. I am aware that many many people, in different contexts and working with different ideas, are turning against the domineering Hyper-Liberal ideology. There is a wide range of propositions as to what is needed and necessary.

Are you frustrated because I have not published my 10-Point Program? Patience!

[Harry Baird]

I do not think I will be able to engage with you on the larger part of whatever it is you are on about or attempting in your recent long post.

Hmm. But most of what I was on about or attempting was simply to provide sufficiently clear answers your questions. Why did you ask them if you're not interested in engaging on them? And yet you did engage!

You had asked:

How do you *justify* then any of your most primary assertions?

I took "primary assertions" to be synonymous with "first principles", so I placed my answer (as to justification) in the broader context of how I even define "first principles" in the first - ha - place, and how I think we might arrive at them, especially given that you had also asked this set of questions:

If it is a correct idea, and if it is true, then it is possible that it deals on some First Principles of one sort or another that you could yourself explain, right? You respond intuitively, right? But what principles are involved then? Defining these would be a way to arrive at to those First Principles which make for a sound assertion.

In answering your questions, I simply took as an example case that idea you'd offered. You comment on it:

Q: On which principle(s) is this based?

A: That the lesser good should be sacrificed to the greater good.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: That we should strive to maximise the good.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: None. This is bedrock.

I believe that I understand what you are attempting, and it is sound as far as it goes. But I will introduce what I think is a further element and thus the essence of why the sacrifice of the lower in order to claim the higher -- as an ethical injunction -- rests ultimately on what is injurious and what is helpful and productive for the individual (soul).

So the final reduction is to issues and questions that surround, say, the soul's well-being (or advance, progression, etc.)

Admittedly, I did take a little liberty with "lesser good" which in your original writing was not so much a "good" - lesser or otherwise - as a hindrance. That liberty made the process easier and briefer. However, I think that the final reduction is the same or at least close enough - yes, though, the reductive path can traverse through the soul's well-being.

Here's the longer, more accurate version, to explain what I mean.

First, recapitulating your original quote:

"All religions (that I am aware of) and all spiritual paths always recognize that in order to perceive what I have called the higher elements (subtle metaphysical perception and realization) recognize that the addiction to sensuousness, the indulgence in mutable sensation, must be sacrificed so that the higher element can be received and cultivated."

Now we have:

Q: Which principle(s) does this represent?

A: That sensuousness, being addictive and indulgent, should be sacrificed in order for higher elements to be perceived, received, and cultivated.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: That higher elements - as opposed to lower elements like sensuousness - should be perceived, received, and cultivated so as to develop the soul.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: That - it being a great good - the soul should be developed.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: That we should strive to be and do good.

Q: And on which principle(s) is this based?

A: None. This is bedrock.

Yes? Or, at least: better?

[Regarding RW's writing around the notion of a "metaphysical dream of the world"]

And how would we, and how would you, reduce the ideas communicated here to the first principles you seek?

I don't think it would be a useful thing to do for those ideas. They seem to me to deal more in the context in which first principles occur rather than being themselves derived from first principles. That's not to say that it would be an impossible task though.

Regarding Richard Weaver (RW) not providing any first principles in Ideas Have Consequences, you suggest that he had no need to do so because his readers at the time generally would have shared an understanding of them. Would they, though? His thesis, after all, is that we have lost sight of first principles (and of universals in general).

You sort of allow as much when you write: "Yet there are others -- would you be included here? -- who are unfamiliar with the ideas of that milieu" and that "I'd imagine that since the book was widely read, by an untrained popular audience, that a great deal that he proposes, and the basic ideas he takes as 'givens', would be entirely new to those people". Quite. So, why not familiarise those readers, however summarily?

And yes, you are correct: his book is a social commentary and critique, not a metaphysical primer - but crucial to his social critique is the absence (he contends) in modern thought of first principles (and of universals in general). If he is trying to lead us back to them, then informing his readers as to what (he believes) they actually are seems like a sensible place to start, or at least a good - consequential, even! - idea, no?

In respect to what you say is my disbelief in those central tenets of Christianity, you said:

It's because essential to the definition of a Christian is that the individual in question believes and affirms that the historical person Jesus Christ, sent by (or being an aspect of) God, is his/her sole saviour, through Christ's having been put to death by crucifixion and then resurrecting from the dead.

Here, in fact, you are mistaken. You basic assertion is not correct. In fact the early Christians (say Origen) had a range of perspectives that are in some senses very similar to my own. That being that the physical manifestation (what I call The Story) is in truth a lower aspect of the (higher) and more important truth. I only need make one reference here. There was a wide array of interpretations as to what Jesus Christ actually was and what he meant.

Now obviously you have been introduced to just one -- and indeed it is a common one or a 'standard' one. But I can assert that if you read the original writings of those who in those early days meditated, mused and philosophized on the meaning of the Incarnation that you will find a very wide range of ideas, assertions and conclusions.

Fine, fine, and to an extent there still is a wide array of interpretations - they're just not accepted as orthodox. In any case, as you admit, you openly reject the central figure in Christianity - Christ - not just as a saviour, but also as any kind of authority or even icon, so it nevertheless seems difficult (impossible even) to successfully argue that you are in fact a Christian. Do you agree?

Were you to have read what I have written a bit more closely you would have realized that I place emphasis on *Incarnation* of metaphysical ideas into the *world* of man.

I'd realised that you thought that *something* Incarnated into this world, and that this was an important idea to you, and I'd thought that you'd implied that this something was in some sense Divine or that in some sense it at least *originated* in the Divine - but as for that something being metaphysical *ideas* (alone?): sure, that hadn't been entirely clear to me until now.

What is 'salvific' therefore, in my view, are the 'possibilities' that are opened when these ideas (impulses) are received and, to put it in utilitarian terms, worked with. The notion of a 'savior' is too 'eastern' for my taste. It does not coincide with what I believe are 'Indo-European' core values. That is to say with a general 'metaphysical dream' that is based on independent achievement, on sovereignty of the individual soul, of response and relationship to 'higher principles' that are arrived at by free choice.

OK. Clearly put. Understood.

Having ripped out the Christian heart and turned it into a symbol - not without meaningful referent, admittedly - you then propose value in that which had accreted around (and as) the Christian body: borrowings from Platonism; Catholic doctrine and ritual; theological arguments and thoughts; etc, etc. It's not, though, clear to me what this means without the heart that you have gouged out of it, and thus nor is it clear to me how we could "recur" to it - that is, without that heart.

I sort of admire your rhetorical flourishes here Harry! It is a bit over-dramatized though don't you think?

Yes. I had a little fun with the excessive drama of it all though. Some light entertainment for you.

you then propose value in that which had accreted around (and as) the Christian body: borrowings from Platonism; Catholic doctrine and ritual; theological arguments and thoughts; etc, etc.

I'd put this differently. When the Hebrew religious ideas, or the core inclination to 'worship' was presented to the gentile world in those early days, those who received the impetus could do nothing but interpret the ideas according to their mental systems. And these were of course Greek philosophical and also perhaps Greek pagan-imaginative. The implications here are important.

If I receive an idea (the assertion about a god-man born into our world with a mission and a purpose) I have to explain the idea to myself. And I will only be able to do so by recurring to the idea-sets which I have available to me. Interpretation is often re-interpretation and re-working.

So beyond any doubt I say that the Christian impetus (what is the right word?) entered in and was received by people with, let's say, a different metaphysical dream of the world.

I see. Fair enough. You could be right, and it's at least an interesting perspective.

Are you frustrated because I have not published my 10-Point Program? Patience!

Here, one needs the patience of Job!

[Alexis Jacobi]

Promethean wrote: Hypothetical. A sinner who's been thinking about becoming a Christian is on his way to a church to become a member. He doesn't know much about religion but he knows and feels that he's done great wrongs in his life, and he needs some kind of consolation... so fuck it, he's gonna be born again. On the way to the church he's sideswiped by a utility truck and is turned into a casserole. What does 'god' do? Let him in, send him to hell, or give him another run at it? This guy had never 'accepted Jesus as his savior', never prayed, and was sure as shit guilty of at least seven deadly sins if not eight or nine.

But . . .

He had already begun the inner spiritual conversion by just recognizing his situation, and though he hadn't technically yet become a Christian, or made any purposeful effort to be and do what is Christian, he had already accepted Christianity by the time of the accident. Does 'god' do it strictly by the book or does he work with you?

From Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences:

The member of a culture, on the other hand, purposely avoids the relationship of immediacy; he wants the object somehow depicted and fictionalized, or, as Schopenhauer expressed it, he wants not the thing but the idea of the thing. He is embarrassed when this is taken out of its context of proper sentiments and presented bare, for he feels that this is a reintrusion of that world which his whole conscious effort has sought to banish. Forms and conventions are the ladder of ascent. And hence the speechlessness of the man of culture when he beholds the barbarian tearing aside some veil which is half adornment, half concealment. He understands what is being done, but he cannot convey the understanding because he cannot convey the idea of sacrilege. His cries of abeste profani (Away profane!) are not heard by those who in the exhilaration of breaking some restraint feel that they are extending the boundaries of power or of knowledge.

Every group regarding itself as emancipated is convinced that its predecessors were fearful of reality. It looks upon euphemisms and all the veils of decency with which things were previously draped as obstructions which it, with superior wisdom and praiseworthy courage, will now strip away. Imagination and indirection it identifies with obscurantism; the mediate is an enemy to freedom. One can see this in even a brief lapse of time; how the man of today looks with derision upon the prohibitions of the 1890's and supposes that the violation of them has been without penalty!

Barbarism and Philistinism cannot see that knowledge of material reality is a knowledge of death. The desire to get ever closer to the source of physical sensation -- this is the downward pull which puts an end to ideational life. No education is worthy of the name which fails to make the point that the world is best understood from a certain distance or that the most elementary understanding requires a degree of abstraction. To insist on less is to merge ourselves with the exterior reality or to capitulate to the endless induction of empiricism.

"Discuss!"

[Alexis Jacobi]

Regarding Richard Weaver (RW) not providing any first principles in Ideas Have Consequences, you suggest that he had no need to do so because his readers at the time generally would have shared an understanding of them. Would they, though? His thesis, after all, is that we have lost sight of first principles (and of universals in general).

What I would say is that those who read, read with greater or lesser degrees of immediate comprehension. For some the text would be dark and impenetrable; for other quite open and accessible.

If we have 'lost sight' of certain fundamental principles it is a question of degree. So the metaphor of an undermined structure or a structure on the verge of collapse is a good one.

You sort of allow as much when you write: "Yet there are others -- would you be included here? -- who are unfamiliar with the ideas of that milieu" and that "I'd imagine that since the book was widely read, by an untrained popular audience, that a great deal that he proposes, and the basic ideas he takes as 'givens', would be entirely new to those people". Quite. So, why not familiarise those readers, however summarily?

Many times I have expressed my own view and here I'll express it in a direct and polarized way: It is not the responsibility of those who, say, have knowledge, to dumb it down so that a reader or listener 'gets it'. It is, and it should be, the moral and ethical object of one who lacks knowledge to get it. So then, the one who lacked knowledge would have to have some inkling that something was lacking. And he would set to work to close the gap (as it were).

But it is a wrong attitude to 'demand' that ideas be simplified or that what is hard to grasp *should* be easy (such that an eight year old child can get it). I am now rereading the first chapter of IHC and I see that it is a rather demanding text. But it is my responsibility to rise to the occasion and work my way through it.

Weaver continually refers, directly or indirectly, to 'hierarchies' and to the destruction of hierarchies (going back to the French Revolution and to revolutionary activism generally of course). How and why these are no longer respected is a wide topic.

And yes, you are correct: his book is a social commentary and critique, not a metaphysical primer - but crucial to his social critique is the absence (he contends) in modern thought of first principles (and of universals in general). If he is trying to lead us back to them, then informing his readers as to what (he believes) they actually are seems like a sensible place to start, or at least a good - consequential, even! - idea, no?

Though not a 'metaphysical primer' it is so infused with metaphysical notions that for one unfamiliar with metaphysics in the course of reading one would have to gain a foothold in them.

. . . but crucial to his social critique is the absence (he contends) in modern thought of first principles (and of universals in general)

My take is not so much their sheer absence but their decay. But again it is a question of degree. Promethean's ridiculing mockery of a central tenet not merely of Christian ethics but of the notion of recognition, confession and amendment, is a good example of an afflicted mind-set. (No particular offense is meant to you Promethean).

This sort of 'dulled intelligence' where things that could be seen with clarity are seen through an obscured lens is a phenomenon that can be examined to better understand decadence in our present.

It is not that intelligence is lacking but rather that a whole set of predicate-concepts have been etched away (or eaten by acids, my preferred metaphor).

[Alexis Jacobi]

Fine, fine, and to an extent there still is a wide array of interpretations - they're just not accepted as orthodox. In any case, as you admit, you openly reject the central figure in Christianity - Christ - not just as a saviour, but also as any kind of authority or even icon, so it nevertheless seems difficult (impossible even) to successfully argue that you are in fact a Christian. Do you agree?

Wait! I said that I feel that if Jesus of Nazareth were here with us right now that he would speak as Hamlet speaks. It is not a facetious idea. Just try to imagine how Jesus of Nazareth would talk if he were here talking with us. I recognize that this is an impossible topic to ponder but the reason is because we have a Jesus of Nazareth locked into an enactment and a theatre which acts like a cage.

If I propose that Jesus of Nazareth would have to speak as Hamlet I mean, really, as a fully human person. This is to say that the Jesus of Nazareth of the Gospels is less than really human.

What do you think Jesus of Nazareth would say to you? I mean precisely?

You seem to be asking that I refer to that figure, which I regard as a caricature. But what or who is the real Jesus of Nazareth?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I'd realised that you thought that *something* Incarnated into this world, and that this was an important idea to you, and I'd thought that you'd implied that this something was in some sense Divine or that in some sense it at least *originated* in the Divine -- but as for that something being metaphysical *ideas* (alone?): sure, that hadn't been entirely clear to me until now.

One way to clarify the allusion (incarnation as a concept) is perhaps to refer to the Vedic idea that the Vedas are incarnated or condensed into the world -- and received by men who are like seers or prophets.

From World History Encyclopedia:

Of all their many sacred texts, Hindus accord supernatural origin only to the Vedas. These four books exclusively are trusted to reveal the essential knowledge of life. Such knowledge, Hindus hold, has existed eternally in the form of vibrations sounding throughout the universe. These elusive vibrations remained undetected until certain Indian sages equipped with spiritual hearing finally heard and formulated them in the Sanskrit language, beginning about 3,200 years ago.

The Vedas, then, are thought to reproduce the exact sounds of the universe itself at the moment of creation and onwards and so take the form, largely, of hymns and chants. In reciting the Vedas, one is thought to be literally participating in the creative song of the universe which gave birth to all things observable and unobservable from the beginning of time. The Rig Veda sets the standard and tone which is developed by the Sama Veda and Yajur Veda while the last work, Atharva Veda, develops its own vision which is informed by the earlier works but takes its own original course.

This is expressed, of course, in those preferred terms of the Indians (their 'metaphysical dreamscape' as it were). But the idea is I think applicable universally. That is, if one were inclined to see things in these terms. And if 'metaphysical ideas' are taken as, say, pre-existing or eternally existing (and universal throughout the manifest cosmos) then it is coherent to ask how they enter our world.

[Dubious]

But what or who is the real Jesus of Nazareth?

Certainly not anything like the "Christ" in Christianity.

[Nick_A]

The past shows unvaryingly that when a people’s freedom disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious, it will not long be found at all.
—Richard Weaver, 1962

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ― Benjamin Franklin

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.

Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.

Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.

That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.

Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men. Simone Weil

So the bottom line is that we learn facts from the world but higher values are awakened from above. Freedom is impossible to sustain without the religious influence which secularism is striving to eliminate and doing a good job of it. Freedom was a noble experiment but must give way to some sort of secularism. Then people wll say "what have we done?" We've sacrificed freedom for the slavery excused as safety. Too late. Slaves are safe. They have no other choice.

[henry quirk]

Not so much, huh?

Not fond of my namesake, no.

[Harry Baird]

A combined response:

Many times I have expressed my own view and here I'll express it in a direct and polarized way: It is not the responsibility of those who, say, have knowledge, to dumb it down so that a reader or listener 'gets it'. It is, and it should be, the moral and ethical object of one who lacks knowledge to get it. So then, the one who lacked knowledge would have to have some inkling that something was lacking. And he would set to work to close the gap (as it were).

The whole point of writing a non-fictional book though is to convey knowledge. In writing a book, especially one aimed at a lay readership, one assumes the responsibility of presenting knowledge in such a way that a reader gets it.

But it is a wrong attitude to 'demand' that ideas be simplified or that what is hard to grasp *should* be easy (such that an eight year old child can get it).

Oh well. I continue to see good sense in the maxim that if one can't summarise and explain a concept in terms that an eight-year-old can understand, then one probably doesn't understand it well enough oneself.

. . . but crucial to his social critique is the absence (he contends) in modern thought of first principles (and of universals in general)

My take is not so much their sheer absence but their decay. But again it is a question of degree.

I agree, of course. I was a little lax in my wording there.

Wait! I said that I feel that if Jesus of Nazareth were here with us right now that he would speak as Hamlet speaks. It is not a facetious idea. Just try to imagine how Jesus of Nazareth would talk if he were here talking with us. I recognize that this is an impossible topic to ponder but the reason is because we have a Jesus of Nazareth locked into an enactment and a theatre which acts like a cage.

If I propose that Jesus of Nazareth would have to speak as Hamlet I mean, really, as a fully human person. This is to say that the Jesus of Nazareth of the Gospels is less than really human.

Given that it's not a facetious idea, my sentiments are: although definitions - especially of extensive and internally contested systems of belief - are somewhat flexible, there is a point beyond which such a definition can be stretched at which it no longer refers to the same thing. A "Christianity" in which Jesus is not a saviour, not an authority, not an icon, not even heaven-sent, but rather is like a character in a Shakespearean play seems to me to be a case of a definition which has passed its breaking point and snapped.

Jesus-as-Hamlet is a curious idea though, and if I were better studied in the character, I might have a better understanding of what you're getting at. Maybe there is some sort of correspondence between Hamlet's existential angst ("to be or not to be") and Christ's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemene?

What do you think Jesus of Nazareth would say to you? I mean precisely?

I think he'd probably offer counsel. Something like:

"Develop your spiritual life, and your physical body, so as to build and maintain a connection with God. Pray, meditate, and fast, and stretch and strengthen yourself. Stop consuming alcohol and caffeine. Transmute your arrogance into humility. Develop better self-awareness and arrive at a place of repentance. I can help with all of this, but you need to exercise your own will and better discipline yourself."

Or maybe that's just the advice I'd offer myself from a third-person perspective.

But what or who is the real Jesus of Nazareth?

It's a good question. To an extent, the Gospels probably give us a good idea. There's not much else to go on.

One way to clarify the allusion (incarnation as a concept) is perhaps to refer to the Vedic idea that the Vedas are incarnated or condensed into the world -- and received by men who are like seers or prophets.

Very interesting.

[Harry Baird]

Not fond of my namesake, no.

Oh dear.

I wrote the play on a whim. It sort of wrote itself, and entertained me to write it. I decided to share it here in the hope that it entertained others too, but maybe all it's doing is irritating/alienating folk.

[Belinda]

But what or who is the real Jesus of Nazareth?

Certainly not anything like the "Christ" in Christianity.

The Jesus of history is detectable by scholars of several disciplines . The Jesus Seminar has covered this ground approximately as much as possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar.

Another approach to "the real Jesus of Nazareth" is to approach his life and work as told in The Gospels as if the life and work of Jesus is a paradigm case of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. This approach is possible without including any paranormal events , and rests of the principle that sometimes some scientist, sage, seer, poet, or prophet will hit on how these these transcendental virtues are correctly translated into everyday life and everyday world.

NB sometimes the translator of transcendental virtues is an ordinary obscure sort of person who . maybe during one event only , demonstrates one of the otherwise undefinable transcendental virtues. For examples the German who sheltered Jews, Rosa Parks who refused to surrender her seat on public transport, Grace Darling who risked her life to help row the small boat through the storm, the soldier pictured carrying a wounded comrade through the hell of a battlefield trench, a medic who kept going in their work after days without proper rest, scientist who remains faithful to proper research even when the ruling elite are dangerous crooks . From all these examples and thousands more we can derive the ultimate principles which are 1. The Golden Rule and 2. Universalisation.