God and morality

[Alexis Jacobi]

The other more pressing matter than that of the disproportionate punishment that doesn't even work is the matter of being charged with crimes you did not even commit and being given a disproportionate punishment that doesn't even work.

So if I understand: you committed a crime that was (or was it not?) worthy of some punishment, yes? But other crimes were attributed to you because of malice, am I right?

And you see that — the malice, the added punishment for what you did not do — as being unjust, isn’t that right?

I get the part about 'the punishment not working’. But what could ‘work’?

Still the issue is: On what basis can you complain? I mean, certainly you can complain all you want but that’s emotive. On what basis can you morally complain? I think you have none — by your own definitions.

What if you had been executed?

[Immanuel Can]

I've never thought of the church as the ground of morality. Surely, if it has any genuine authority, it would be merely a derivation of Divine authority, and thus not open to use and abuse by men, but rather chained inevitably to the moral orientation of its ultimate Authority. If God doesn't believe it, and the church does, then it has to be the church that would be wrong. The church itself only claims derived moral judgment, even in any case where that judgment might be correct -- not inherent authority.

You did not capitalize ‘church’ so I am uncertain if you mean the Roman Catholic Church or ‘church’ in a very general sense.

I don't capitalize the RC's either. The real "church" is not a political institution: it's comprised of all persons who are committed to the same way of salvation, whether they happen to attend RC places or not.

..for Europe, the Church has been and still is that Authority.

Where? I don't think even the Italians take the papacy with any great seriousness today. Certainly elsewhere, the RC organization has very little impact.

I think you are not quite right about how the Church sees itself in regard to either derived or bestowed authority. It very clearly defines its authority as both genuine and, distinct from “derived” then in fact “bestowed”. But let’s not get bogged down in useless disputation.

I'm not being disputatious about that. I think it is a distinction that matters, though.

There isn't a human entity that can claim moral authority. All human appeals to morality are derived, not inherent. Even the Islamists, as dogmatic as anybody can be, do not claim to have intrinsic authority, but rather authority derived from Allah. And I think that fact is actually very helpful; for it means we can look past the frippery of human institutions, and ask a very important question: what is the grounds for X or Y moral view? It's at something that has inherent authority, something prior to mere contingent human persons and institutions, that such authority resides. And the thing for us to do is to unpack where each moral view is locating that authority, and then to judge the legitimacy of that.

Christian authority

This is the problem with the question you framed. It assumes that human beings possess intrinsic moral authority. Clearly, they don't.

There is no such thing as "Christian" authority. There is Divine authority, and Christian obedience, or alternately, personal disobedience to it. But nothing beyond that.

All moral authority is derived. We possess it only secondarily, only in response to something prior to ourselves. If God knows what you do is right, then it's right; if God has constituted morality such that what you do is wrong, then it's wrong. Kierkegaard certainly understood that.

[Immanuel Can]

The other more pressing matter than that of the disproportionate punishment that doesn't even work is the matter of being charged with crimes you did not even commit and being given a disproportionate punishment that doesn't even work.

And you see that — the malice, the added punishment for what you did not do — as being unjust, isn’t that right?

But if how Prom was treated was "unjust," then with reference to what standard was it "unjust"?

His own? Why should anybody be obligated to agree with that, since Prom denies that there can be any objectivity to "justness"? And if moral authority is vested in persons, why should the judge's or society's view of the "justice" visited upon Prom be called "unjust"? Surely the judge and jury are persons in every sense that Prom is: so why should his feeling of being treated "unjustly" be understood to prevail above the sense of "justice" had by the judge and jury?

They did what they thought was right. Prom thought it was wrong. How is such a conflict of opinions to be arbitrated, unless a meta-standard, something above both, can be invoked to set the record straight?

You see, when we speak of "justice," we inevitably appeal to a standard above both the individual (Prom) and his society (the Judge and jury). And when we call something "unjust," we're saying, "The sentence passed by the judge and jury upon Prom did not match up to *something* that is more true and right and "just" than either Prom or the judge and jury.

In other words, you can't call anything "unjust" without assuming a standard higher than that of the humans involved. Prom has inadvertently slipped into being a moral absolutist. He feels his sense of being treated "unjustly" is more than merely a subjective feeling; he believes it's a reality, an objective truth about how he was treated, relative to the perfect standard of "justice."

Was it? Only if "justice" is bigger than both Prom and the judge.

[promethean75]

God these objectivist criticisms are so tiring. They're as sturdy as a wet paper bag but still these guys try em every time a nihilist comes around. Let's simplify and say 'unjust' only means 'you didn't do what you said you'd do', and a complaint, in my mouf, is a prelude to a warning.

So the State was unjust because it said it wouldn't blank on innocent men, and then it turned around and blanked on me. Twice. Nah, you can't do that, rap. You'll notice how important platonic universals and moral intuitions of the good handed down by god from the starry kantian heavens above are here. Precisely not at all. Whatever the good and justice is... i know it sure as shit ain't what I've witnessed from the State... and that's all i need to know, rap.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Were you, or were you not, guilty of an act for which punishment is just?
_____

Further, I thought nihilism even according to its supreme authority was and is defined as a disease. But you tell me that it is your wellness. Am I making sense?

[Immanuel Can]

Let's simplify and say 'unjust' only means 'you didn't do what you said you'd do'...So the State was unjust because it said it wouldn't blank on innocent men, and then it turned around and blanked on me. Twice. Nah, you can't do that, rap.

Apparently, they CAN do it. After all, you say they actually DID do it.

The question is, why SHOULDN'T they do it, then. Where is it written that you shall not lock up innocent people? Where is it written that people can't lie about what they'll do? Where is it written the State owes you anything?

[promethean75]

Mike 'no slack' Novack, back up the thread there... i don't think there is disagreement. Yes, if a 'right feeling' is the end, then A and C are the means... and this is true such that the statement "for right feelings you ought to do A and C" is a factual statement.

[phyllo]

I've never thought of the church as the ground of morality. Surely, if it has any genuine authority, it would be merely a derivation of Divine authority, and thus not open to use and abuse by men, but rather chained inevitably to the moral orientation of its ultimate Authority. If God doesn't believe it, and the church does, then it has to be the church that would be wrong. The church itself only claims derived moral judgment, even in any case where that judgment might be correct -- not inherent authority.

You did not capitalize ‘church’ so I am uncertain if you mean the Roman Catholic Church or ‘church’ in a very general sense.

The Church defines itself as having been assigned a mission of carrying forward those ‘essences’ that are described as “Christian”. As you know I accept that this is so and I accept that, for Europe, the Church has been and still is that Authority.

I know that as a committed Protestant you will have none of this and I have no interest in arguing against your position.

But the fact remains: Europe has no existing moral authority. Yes, it has one that claims that authority (the Church) but effectively it is largely powerless. There is no ecclesiastical authority within Protestantism either.

I think you are not quite right about how the Church sees itself in regard to either derived or bestowed authority. It very clearly defines its authority as both genuine and, distinct from “derived” then in fact “bestowed”. But let’s not get bogged down in useless disputation.

Since there is effectively no Authority, or no structure by which Christian authority could be wielded, how do you describe such a situation?

Is the RC Church your authority?

Do you obey everything it says to do and believe?

If it says "Open the doors wide open to immigration", would you go along with it?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I don't capitalize the RC's either. The real "church" is not a political institution: it's comprised of all persons who are committed to the same way of salvation, whether they happen to attend RC places or not.

Where? I don't think even the Italians take the papacy with any great seriousness today. Certainly elsewhere, the RC organization has very little impact.

This conversation on this forum has an Epic quality given that it has been on-going for so long. A bit of a recapitulation is I think in order and, in my case, this is personal. I will get to that in a sec. But simultaneously I think it must be stated that on a cultural level, on a civilizational level, and here I speak of what flies about on forums like this, on other message boards, on YouTube channels and other platforms, are conversations that revolve around the issue of degeneration and response and reaction to that. For this reason we will have to mention and acknowledge the movement known first as AltRight, then Dissident Right, as well as Catholic Traditionalism, and as well all Christian and religious-based reaction to what is perceived and understood as ‘a world careening into disastrous territory”. I can think of a dozen YouTube channels the topic and focus of which are just this, either directly or indirectly.

My own recapitulation is self-conscious insofar as over a decade ago now, for various reasons, I was impelled into a ‘radical examination’ of my own cultural trajectory by way of 2 principal influences: Robert Bork (Slouching Toward Gomorrah) and Richard Weaver (Ideas Have Consequences). The personal aspect of this is why I think that ad hominem — always holding in one’s mind that we are dealing always with men and their relationships to Ideas, which means their choices, propensities, strengths and failures as men — is really the best conversation to have. And what I mean, referring to my own case, is that by under Bork’s and Weaver’s thesis I realized the degree to which I am myself a consequence of Occidental degeneration. I embodied it, I expressed it, not so much consciously but realky as manifest habit, attitude.

Along the way, again about 12 years ago I think, I read The Destruction of the Christian Tradition by Rama P. Coomaraswamy and Christopher Dawson’s The Historic Reality of Christian Culture — A Way To Renewal of Human Life. As I also continued reading Dawson’s other books and also the main ‘Traditionalists’ such as Guénon and Evola, it was not hard to understand what was going on behind the scenes in the ‘world of ideas’ and, as I say, to grasp that culture-wide, and origination from specific sources, effectively Traditionalist ideas were, and are, seeping into the general cultural mind.

[Alexis Jacobi]

It is interesting to note (I am sure I said this before a few years back) that Guénon the Ur-Metaphysician, did point out that in Traditional Catholicism there were still to be found evidences and lines of ‘metaphysical traditionalism’. Even if the obsessive ritualism and the rite dogmatism were strongly present, the traces were still very much in evidence, and indeed these traces precede the establishment if early Catholicism since, as most know, Catholicism is really a synthesis of currents and trends peculiar to the First Century and a wide group of various peoples.

And as I examined Traditional Catholicism (all materials pre-Vatican ll) I found this very much to be so. And I also realized how deeply embedded, how pervasive, and how influential and determining are those Christian/Catholic doctrines and ideas.

[Alexis Jacobi]

To understand our immediate present my view is that we should focus on the idea-currents — I mean here ideas as they pertained to popular culture, just as now that popular culture is determinant — in that period prior to The Great War. Shattering events have tremendous consequences and I think it can be said that The Destruction of Europe began, or certainly accelerated, from the suicidal and blind destruction of WW I. You know, the Lost Generation and all that.

This is why I would speak of a cutting of a conceptual relationship with the metaphysical sources of our own culture. Once the severance begins, degeneration begins. And though the process may be fun and even lively, the personal and communal result is not ‘fun’ and not pretty. Because the breaking of bonds on those levels (metaphysical) necessarily results in the severing of bonds on all manner of different levels.

[Alexis Jacobi]

1) Is the RC Church your authority?

2) Do you obey everything it says to do and believe?

3) If it says "Open the doors wide open to immigration", would you go along with it?

You always focus on the wrong thing and for this reason cannot distinguish the trees from the forest, if you catch my drift.

The Question is: What Authority exists and how is such authority defined? Authority implies an imposition of order. It implies idea-sets which are internalized by men and through which they live an mold their world. What are these ideas and predicates?

1) The real question is: On what will I chose to base my existence here. What Authority will I define as being the one I will, quite literally, give my life to. Is there any? Or none?

2) The real question is: What are those rules, or outlines of rules, will I end up believing in and serving with the full force of a unified will. Where are these to be found? How described?

3) To get specific here, and if it shall be made plain, Catholic social teaching clearly and emphatically states that the “immigration” you describe and that we are living through, is thoroughly incommensurate with Catholic social teaching. As manifest it is “non-charitable” and even in an extreme.

But behind my specific response is, again, a larger question: On what basis and upon what principles will all social and economic questions be decided?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I'm glad I never had children. I'm glad there will be no more of my genetic heritage polluting the world. I don't think I'm good enough to propagate more of me. I guess the only thing that leaves is my propagation of things I believe. Am I polluting the world by sharing my ideas?

This is, from my perspective, and though I might be bending my perception to my own defined purposes, this is why I will always focus ad hominemly on the men who participate in this conversation.

They are (it seems to me) extensions and octaves of The Lost Generation. Their ‘nihilism’ is nearly of a narcissistic species. They have become negating mechanisms. They are suicides. Life has become no-good, non-good — unlivable. Life is just clocking time. There is nothing to live for and certainly no high ideal to serve. “Philosophy”, the study of it, seems to be moreover a narcissistic brooding on the result of winding up in a blind alley from which one can define no escape.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Am I polluting the world by sharing my ideas?

It is a very good question of course. But I think it should be turned around: How is it that “you” (again not exclusively and singularly you) but how have we wound up in such a fix that the full force of your will is turned against your own self?

I could express this in a dozen different ways. Your affirmation becomes your command. The prison you describe — did you construct it? Or has it been constructed for you and you merely place yourself in it and turn the key?

In this precise sense Ideas Have Consequences.

So the answer is as obvious as is the nose on your face: Absolutely yes! If your ideas conduce to death, to overt destruction; if they turn against the very movement if life, they will suffocate, oppress, distort and finally kill those who fall under their spell, in mirror proportion as you are choosing to be killed by them.

Duh!

[Alexis Jacobi]

God these objectivist criticisms are so tiring. They're as sturdy as a wet paper bag but still these guys try em every time a nihilist comes around.

True enough. Because we seek an antidote.