Sex and the Religious-Left

[Harbal]

In the meantime what is it you believe I am “selling”?

It's hard to identify, exactly, because your message seems to be too unpalatable to be served directly, all on one plate. You clearly feel there has to be a certain amount of conditioning before it is possible to swallow. Lets just call it an unsavoury ideology.

[Alexis Jacobi]

In the meantime what is it you believe I am “selling”?

It's hard to identify, exactly, because your message seems to be too unpalatable to be served directly, all on one plate. You clearly feel there has to be a certain amount of conditioning before it is possible to swallow. Lets just call it an unsavoury ideology.

It seems to me that you don’t have much of a definition there.

“Unsavory ideology” is too vague.

[Atla]

I’ve written numerous posts, here and in other threads, expressing my ideas. Did you read them?

Probably not. Do you read all my posts?

Harbal, you tell me (and the Forum) that you are here principally for purposes of entertainment. In my view that would be nearly the lowest level of relationship to *the world of ideas*. The answer is yes, I read everything written on a given thread by those attracted to express themselves here in relation to ideas, to culture, and as I often say *to what is going on in our present*.

I have purposes and these purposes I reveal so that those who care to read my posts understand what I am up to without ambiguity. My most basic interest, if I had to localize it, is in the origin of Occidental civilization. All of us are *outcomes* of the processes that were organized and put into historical motion in those early centuries. Nearly everything that we define as *having value* and being valuable* was defined through philosophical and religious processes by those men who cared to work in relation to values.

My focus always turns around the Greco-Christian world. It is entirely foundational to the Occident. As such it will not ever be subtracted from it though, it appears, many millions of people suffer from a lack of education and exposure to it (basically this means lack of exposure to a Liberal Arts education). My view is that, even if one is not, say, a *believer* (in the sense that our own Immanuel Can is a believer) there is a way to understand what these men were up to and what values and ideals motivated them. And to state it again it is out of all of these considerations, all of this work, all of this defining a structure in values, that The Occident arose.

You are so far outside of contemporary current events and the *conversation* going on that nearly none of this is immediately intelligible to you. Therefore one cannot in fact talk with you but all conversation with you is talking at you. In short (and as I say so often) you lack fundamental preparation. And -- this is crucial -- you have no interest nor intention in getting it. It is as you say: you are here for the entertainment factor. However, and this is true, you can reason and you can debate (as for example in your long debates with Immanuel Can). But in the end you repeat what you start with. Your end-point is your start-point. You have no means, literally none, to understand what has motivated the men who constructed our civilization. You have no way, literally none at all, to capture even a slight glimmer of what they meant, and what could be meant, by the notion of divinity. You are completely excluded from all of this -- and there you remain by your own choice.

Similarly, Flash and Gary are men who have arrived at their *position* -- their location as products of our culture but more specifically in Postmodern deviations -- through what I refer to as paths or causal avenues. I understand that if I make defining statements about this *locality* that it is condemned as ad hominem but I reject the fallaciousness of attaching proper and fair labels to those positions that we ourselves hold to. In the sense, as I say, that you-plural have committed your wills to a refusal to move any farther into the real of consequences when one investigates *the world of ideas* in relation to our culture and civilization.

I said that I face a *purpose* and that means an objective, a focus, something I am working toward. It all revolves around by own existential position in respect to those *higher ideals* I am always referring to. As I deal with you-plural -- errant, confused, opinionated, rebellious children in whom the Child's Willfulness is so strong, so determining -- the only thing I can really do is to try to understand how this *child* came to be. I.e. what are the causal chains that produced him -- indeed allowed him to have such power in the present. Once a child has become so indulged in that willfulness that is often so destructive to the child and so terrible for the parents, reigning in that will is often next to impossible. Once one has established himself on such a rebellious road there is little one can do except to let him go his own way.

It is my view that this is, and it is a reductive image and a generalization but these are useful for organizing understanding, the condition of many people today. Why and how did this happen? Well, that is the question that most interests me. But as I say that question is best one that I direct to myself. So my focus in *confronting* those boisterous, willful children who so often take issue with those moral formulations they are in open rebellion against, I use as a way to confront my own internal disorder. I always say: I am as much a product and an outcome of these *processes* I refer to as anyone else. I include myself in my general critique.

You are of course unaware, and unconcerned, that culturally there is what we could realistically refer to as a *reform movement* that is taking place in our culture now. At a very low level I could refer to MAGA and those people who, I think genuinely, feel that their country has gone off its track. I don't need to illustrate who these people are. But I do need to be, and I choose to be, aware of what they are *calling for* and what are the ideational and ideological bases of their thought, however crude, however raw, however badly expressed or defined it is.

And then there is another level I consider to be much higher though it is harder to describe and indeed the description is fraught with dangers and difficulty. Allow me to abbreviate what I refer to by referring to the philosophical position of Richard Weaver. It is in essence a philosophical position in respect to corruption, decadence, nihilism and a group of *wrong tracks* that have been taken by leading men who then influence the multitudes. Weaver proposes, I think, a remediation of these errors. Anyone who reads his essays with seriousness will have little choice but to ask *Where do I stand in regard to this problem of decadence?*

I do not refer to you of course! Since, I gather, you don't read anything. You simply will not be bothered.

Unlike you I have *family responsibilities* and I do not believe I have any choice but to deal on these issues. That is why I always refer to *education* and what we will teach our children.

I use these often dead-ended from the very start pseudo-conversations entirely for my own purposes.

What I will say finally in regard to Wizard is that he is a thousand times more involved with the real essences of those things that have value than any one of you (Flash, Gary, etc.) In comparison you are wasted, tired, even vane men who do little else but blather and oppose the value-structures I refer to. (Gary is more moved by genuine concerns, for example, when he talks of his opposition to war and war-materiel production and also some other areas).

And that is why there is much more to be gained in taking some idea expressed *shotgun style* and doing the work on it that reveals and brings into relief the genuine philosophically-valuable idea that is there.

In this sense those of us with *critical positions* are obligated to purify and further rationalize the ideas we are working with.

Did real value ever actually exist in the Occidental civilization? Or was the majority simply forced to do the "right thing" via the prospects of heaven and hell?

[Harbal]

In the meantime what is it you believe I am “selling”?

It's hard to identify, exactly, because your message seems to be too unpalatable to be served directly, all on one plate. You clearly feel there has to be a certain amount of conditioning before it is possible to swallow. Lets just call it an unsavoury ideology.

It seems to me that you don’t have much of a definition there.

“Unsavory ideology” is too vague.

Well I know what I mean.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I’m going to help you tie it down. I will define clearly what you mean by •unsavory ideology•.

[Harbal]

I’m going to help you tie it down. I will define clearly what you mean by •unsavory ideology•.

Well you've had over an hour to think about it.

[Gary Childress]

I’ve written numerous posts, here and in other threads, expressing my ideas. Did you read them?

Probably not. Do you read all my posts?

Harbal, you tell me (and the Forum) that you are here principally for purposes of entertainment. In my view that would be nearly the lowest level of relationship to *the world of ideas*. The answer is yes, I read everything written on a given thread by those attracted to express themselves here in relation to ideas, to culture, and as I often say *to what is going on in our present*.

I have purposes and these purposes I reveal so that those who care to read my posts understand what I am up to without ambiguity. My most basic interest, if I had to localize it, is in the origin of Occidental civilization. All of us are *outcomes* of the processes that were organized and put into historical motion in those early centuries. Nearly everything that we define as *having value* and being valuable* was defined through philosophical and religious processes by those men who cared to work in relation to values.

My focus always turns around the Greco-Christian world. It is entirely foundational to the Occident. As such it will not ever be subtracted from it though, it appears, many millions of people suffer from a lack of education and exposure to it (basically this means lack of exposure to a Liberal Arts education). My view is that, even if one is not, say, a *believer* (in the sense that our own Immanuel Can is a believer) there is a way to understand what these men were up to and what values and ideals motivated them. And to state it again it is out of all of these considerations, all of this work, all of this defining a structure in values, that The Occident arose.

You are so far outside of contemporary current events and the *conversation* going on that nearly none of this is immediately intelligible to you. Therefore one cannot in fact talk with you but all conversation with you is talking at you. In short (and as I say so often) you lack fundamental preparation. And -- this is crucial -- you have no interest nor intention in getting it. It is as you say: you are here for the entertainment factor. However, and this is true, you can reason and you can debate (as for example in your long debates with Immanuel Can). But in the end you repeat what you start with. Your end-point is your start-point. You have no means, literally none, to understand what has motivated the men who constructed our civilization. You have no way, literally none at all, to capture even a slight glimmer of what they meant, and what could be meant, by the notion of divinity. You are completely excluded from all of this -- and there you remain by your own choice.

Similarly, Flash and Gary are men who have arrived at their *position* -- their location as products of our culture but more specifically in Postmodern deviations -- through what I refer to as paths or causal avenues. I understand that if I make defining statements about this *locality* that it is condemned as ad hominem but I reject the fallaciousness of attaching proper and fair labels to those positions that we ourselves hold to. In the sense, as I say, that you-plural have committed your wills to a refusal to move any farther into the real of consequences when one investigates *the world of ideas* in relation to our culture and civilization.

I said that I face a *purpose* and that means an objective, a focus, something I am working toward. It all revolves around by own existential position in respect to those *higher ideals* I am always referring to. As I deal with you-plural -- errant, confused, opinionated, rebellious children in whom the Child's Willfulness is so strong, so determining -- the only thing I can really do is to try to understand how this *child* came to be. I.e. what are the causal chains that produced him -- indeed allowed him to have such power in the present. Once a child has become so indulged in that willfulness that is often so destructive to the child and so terrible for the parents, reigning in that will is often next to impossible. Once one has established himself on such a rebellious road there is little one can do except to let him go his own way.

It is my view that this is, and it is a reductive image and a generalization but these are useful for organizing understanding, the condition of many people today. Why and how did this happen? Well, that is the question that most interests me. But as I say that question is best one that I direct to myself. So my focus in *confronting* those boisterous, willful children who so often take issue with those moral formulations they are in open rebellion against, I use as a way to confront my own internal disorder. I always say: I am as much a product and an outcome of these *processes* I refer to as anyone else. I include myself in my general critique.

You are of course unaware, and unconcerned, that culturally there is what we could realistically refer to as a *reform movement* that is taking place in our culture now. At a very low level I could refer to MAGA and those people who, I think genuinely, feel that their country has gone off its track. I don't need to illustrate who these people are. But I do need to be, and I choose to be, aware of what they are *calling for* and what are the ideational and ideological bases of their thought, however crude, however raw, however badly expressed or defined it is.

And then there is another level I consider to be much higher though it is harder to describe and indeed the description is fraught with dangers and difficulty. Allow me to abbreviate what I refer to by referring to the philosophical position of Richard Weaver. It is in essence a philosophical position in respect to corruption, decadence, nihilism and a group of *wrong tracks* that have been taken by leading men who then influence the multitudes. Weaver proposes, I think, a remediation of these errors. Anyone who reads his essays with seriousness will have little choice but to ask *Where do I stand in regard to this problem of decadence?*

I do not refer to you of course! Since, I gather, you don't read anything. You simply will not be bothered.

Unlike you I have *family responsibilities* and I do not believe I have any choice but to deal on these issues. That is why I always refer to *education* and what we will teach our children.

I use these often dead-ended from the very start pseudo-conversations entirely for my own purposes.

What I will say finally in regard to Wizard is that he is a thousand times more involved with the real essences of those things that have value than any one of you (Flash, Gary, etc.) In comparison you are wasted, tired, even vane men who do little else but blather and oppose the value-structures I refer to. (Gary is more moved by genuine concerns, for example, when he talks of his opposition to war and war-materiel production and also some other areas).

And that is why there is much more to be gained in taking some idea expressed *shotgun style* and doing the work on it that reveals and brings into relief the genuine philosophically-valuable idea that is there.

In this sense those of us with *critical positions* are obligated to purify and further rationalize the ideas we are working with.

Do you have a theory or idea of why Occidental civilization is facing the 'crisis' in values that you believe we are currently facing? If so, what is the reason for the 'decline' of occidental values? Why did they decline? Why didn't traditional values simply stay intact to the point where we all believe in them today? In other words, what happened to occidental civilization that got us into this 'crisis' of values? What are the root causes?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well you've had over an hour to think about it.

Takes more time. But I’ll get to it, Old Bean.

[Harbal]

Well you've had over an hour to think about it.

Takes more time. But I’ll get to it, Old Bean.

Large bodies of text frighten me, so may I ask that you break with tradition and keep it as short and to the point as possible?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Large bodies of text frighten me, so may I ask that you break with tradition and keep it as short and to the point as possible?

Since you have zero idea what the point, any point, is you’ll just have to suffer. Prepare yourself!

[Atla]

This lamenting about the decline of Western values usually forgets to mention the detail that probably most people held and hold those 'values' at gunpoint. Because if they don't, God will punish them and they're going to Hell.

There's no real value in that, it's called violence. You force people to do X, otherwise they will be forced to suffer for eternity.

And now that God is dying and people start to no longer believe in Heaven and Hell, they realize that the gun was imaginary all along and they don't have to obey anything.

There were and are no real values in the West. Lamenting about a past that never was. Some individuals do have real values but they don't yet reach critical mass, the goal should be to reach critical mass in the future.

[Gary Childress]

This lamenting about the decline of Western values usually forgets to mention the detail that probably most people held and hold those 'values' at gunpoint. Because if they don't, God will punish them and they're going to Hell.

There's no real value in that, it's called violence. You force people to do X, otherwise they will be forced to suffer for eternity.

And now that God is dying and people start to no longer believe in Heaven and Hell, they realize that the gun was imaginary all along and they don't have to obey anything.

There were and are no real values in the West. Lamenting about a past that never was. Some individuals do have real values but they don't yet reach critical mass, the goal should be to reach critical mass in the future.

It seems to me that the "death of God" in the West, may not be as terminal a crisis as some make it out to be. I mean, just because there isn't a heaven or hell doesn't mean that there aren't other reasons to behave morally. "Keep the middle way" and "know thyself" were popular slogans of the pagans in Hellenistic Greece. They were popular because excessive passions and unrealistic expectations will ultimately undo a person.

The Hellenistic Greeks predated Christianity and in various ways Christianity picked up a lot from the Greeks. I've seen it speculated that Christ could have conceivably been influenced by the Cynic philosophers that predated him. I'm not sure there is reason to believe that without Christianity there can be no values, or that some values just make sense in and of themselves. Is it even clearly the case that without Christianity having arisen, there weren't other directions that early Greek thought might have led to that were interrupted or stifled by Christianity?

[Harbal]

Large bodies of text frighten me, so may I ask that you break with tradition and keep it as short and to the point as possible?

Since you have zero idea what the point, any point, is you’ll just have to suffer. Prepare yourself!

Oh dear, I can feel a magnum opus coming, and I am going to be the excuse for it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

This lamenting about the decline of Western values usually forgets to mention the detail that probably most people held and hold those 'values' at gunpoint. Because if they don't, God will punish them and they're going to Hell.

This seems a mistaken assertion. I have spent years now examining closely the activism of radical Right Dissidents, religious Conservatives (Christian & Pagan), and perhaps more closely the Catholic Traditional movement(s) and I could not say they are motivated by the threat of hellish punishment. Very clearly they are people who sense that the entire ground of modernity (the cultural machine of The Stereopticon as Richard Weaver would say) is unstable and — to use their terms — dangerous to the soul. They are concerned about their own spiritual well-bing, that of their family and children, and society more generally. I.e. their concerns are based around values, meaning and quality.

Since they are, like all of us, •victims• of the same debasing influences, they all struggle to define and to understand what the ground is that needs to be recovered, and how to go about doing this while life’s exigencies demand the greater portion of their attention. But to propose that their entire motivation is that of fear is wildly inaccurate.

There were and are no real values in the West. Lamenting about a past that never was. Some individuals do have real values but they don't yet reach critical mass, the goal should be to reach critical mass in the future.

This is absurd. On the face. However if the assertion is that of ‘critical mass’ then that is another issue. Reference to an ‘ideal past’ is a mistake. But noticing a decline in shared social or cultural values is not a hallucination. It is a genuine observation.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Oh dear, I can feel a magnum opus coming, and I am going to be the excuse for it.

Since you, by your own definition, are here for purposes of entertainment; since you by choice have very little preparation in those topics pertinent to the issues under discussion; since you generally assume the role of attacking or ridiculing or declaring as empty those •categories of value• that move people who are concerned, who do have preparation, who will take the time to advance their understanding and who can define values worthy of struggling for; you really must sit on the sidelines in your self-assumed irrelevancy.

Let others do that work that you don’t even recognize as being important. There are many who are similarly oriented who will come to your support since they are motivated by a similar spirit.

Does that sum it up accurately?