seeds wrote: ↑Fri Sep 23, 2022 6:51 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:47 pm
As well, no one even seems interested in discussing and analyzing contemporary events in the light of the break-down in the possibility of metaphysical agreements.
Perhaps you haven't yet spoken with the right person about such issues. So, what "contemporary events" are you talking about? And how are they breaking-down the possibility of metaphysical agreements?
By "contemporary events" I refer to the entirety of the present social and political conditions which go on, with increasing intensity, all around us. There is not one person writing on this forum who agrees with any other person at a fundamental level. Each person, each perspective, seems atomized and instead of it being possible to forge alliances or build bridges, what goes on here is 'idea-war'. Now, all around us the heat and the intensity builds and 'toning it down' is no part of anyone's modus operandi. So my view is that when fundamental disagreements become manifest at this level it is *war* that is the next step. But I am not necessarily saying that I desire that war be avoided.
It is possible, likely even, that I do not have the breadth of experience that I'd like to have to be able to *see clearly* the lines of causation that have led to the present moment, yet it does seem to me that we could locate a primary cause in what I refer to as the breakdown in metaphysical agreements.
Nietzsche stated it in this way:
Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving?
What is that 'horizon'? What else could it be but the Scholastic model of
The World?
The chain starts from God and progresses downward to angels, demons (fallen/renegade angels), stars, moon, kings, princes, nobles, commoners, wild animals, domesticated animals, trees, other plants, precious stones, precious metals, and other minerals. Each link in the chain might be divided further into its component parts. The chain of being is composed of a great number of hierarchical links, from the most basic and foundational elements up through the very highest perfection, in other words, God.
God sits at the top of the chain, and beneath him sit the angels, both existing wholly in spirit form. Earthly flesh is fallible and ever-changing, mutable. Spirit, however, is unchanging and permanent. This sense of permanence is crucial to understanding this conception of reality. It is generally impossible to change the position of an object in the hierarchy. (One exception might be in the realm of alchemy, where alchemists attempted to transmute base elements, such as lead, into higher elements, either silver or, more often, gold the highest element.)
In the natural order, earth (rock) is at the bottom of the chain; this element possesses only the attribute of existence. Each link succeeding upward contains the positive attributes of the previous link and adds at least one other. Rocks possess only existence; the next link up is plants which possess life and existence. Animals add motion and appetite as well.
Man is both mortal flesh, as those below him, and also spirit, as those above. In this dichotomy, the struggle between flesh and spirit becomes a moral one. The way of the spirit is higher, more noble; it brings one closer to God. The desires of the flesh move one away from God. The Christian fall of Lucifer is thought of as especially terrible, as angels are wholly spirit, yet Lucifer defied God (who is the ultimate perfection).
So it seems to me that when we stand away from the disagreements that are ever-present and ever-dominant in this specific conversation, we must see
that we are in a fragmented condition having fallen away from a unifying vision or idea of the world.
I am going to suppose that what I am saying here makes sense to you and the reason I put it tentatively is because my impression is that many people who
are fragmented do not realize that they are so. So what is one outcome of the fragmentation I refer to? A type of mental unbalance. And what is the core cause? The loss of the ground under one's feet. That is,
metaphysical certainty.
If metaphysical certainty existed, that is if it were perceived and understood as *being real*, my assumption is that we would share common ground in the widest senses. Clearly we do not! So we can then (perhaps) be described as the microcosm within a larger macrocosm of
breakdown. But, though intellectual agreements (i.e. agreements at a true intellectual level) are impossible there still remains and there still goes strong
the emotionalized motor of the will. A reasoned, secure, grounded platform does not exist. I doubt very much if anyone writing on this forum would say, were they to truthfully analyze it, that they feel *secure* and *grounded* within their own selves. So it seems to me that people are in a state of *upset*. Or 'fighting mood'.
And I suppose that I am making myself clear: If what I am noticing is real (
the breakdown in agreements) it likely has a central cause, and that cause is that no metaphysical agreements are possible -- except in small circles which are like isolated islands. What else can one do in such circumstances but retreat into one's 'solitary self'? And this circles back to the idea of fragmentation and atomization.
These things are not going to be solved simply by noting that they exist and dominate. It is possible that (for example in this conversation on this forum) that we realize the depth of the division, yet nothing we can do could really resolve it -- that is at the macro level. So what is going to happen is also what is happening: far larger currents over which we have little or no control will sweep us along, like it or not.
My reference here -- a way to conceptualize the issue -- has been influenced by two essays by CG Jung:
Wotan and
After The Catastrophe. (Unfortunately there seems to be no version of After the Catastrophe available on-line).
The difficult thing about reference to Jung is that Jung himself was deeply involved in a form of racial/cultural renaissance that opposed itself, essentially, to Judeo-Christian domination of Europe. One would not gather this reading these essays.
What I try to point out -- or put a different way what I attempt to *get out on the table* so that it can be seen and understood -- is that the present social problems, the present conflicts, and the direction where things are going (we are, in fact, already in war but it is war of a different and a new variety), are continuations of or octaves of the struggles of the early 20th century.
So there you have a somewhat brief outline of what I see as *contemporary events*. In order to talk about these things, one has to claim for oneself absolute freedom of thought no matter the forces that rise, immediately, to oppose free thought. And arise immediately they do!
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:47 pm
Do we conceive of a non-metaphysical world? Is that the meaning of the deconstruction of the Christian Story?
Is all of Christianity a false-metaphysics?
Seeds replies: Absolutely not. Again, we must mine the "Christian Story" for its valuable nuggets and leave the useless "tailings" (mythological nonsense) behind.
How would you go about isolating the *relevant nuggets* and into what metaphysical system can they be fitted?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:47 pm
C'mon you shards & fragments, you sons & daughters of civilization's salvific Moloch! Surely
there must be more?
Seeds replies: If you can't imagine the incredible degree of "more" implied in the two illustrations above, then keep studying them until (hopefully) it dawns on you.
Again, I admit that I could be wrong, but I propose that there literally cannot be "more" to our ultimate and eternal destiny than what the illustrations suggest.
You will have to explain in prose or in other symbols. I could only
sort of get what you mean by the symbolic diagrams.
