I’m traveling for work and haven’t had a chance to read your former few posts yet but so glad you are exploring (or returning to) Shafarevich. I can’t remember what I said to you about his piece on socialism, but I think it was in the hope you might do a deep dive into this excellent yet under appreciated work.
It certainly, and thoroughly, shows that socialism is the ultimate death cult in the most profoundly insidious way.
Julian Strube demonstrates in his recent doctoral dissertation, due to be published by De Gruyter (May 2016). Not only occult socialists, but modern occultism appears to have first emerged in early, pre-Marxist socialist circles. The pre-Marxist part is important here, for not only does occultism have socialist roots: Early socialism was itself aligned with thoroughly religious, even outright theocratic projects, often drawing on a form of heterodox, yet traditionalist, Catholicism. We have to face the socialist – and Catholic – roots of occultism.
Awesome. Thanks for the link, Stegiel. I'll definitely be checking out Strube's work. Shafarevich points out that Dostoevsky saw socialism as a development of Catholicism (which had degenerated Christ's teachings). Looking forward to seeing this guy's take on it.
"That’s Marcuse in a nutshell—a lot of fancy words and highfalutin verbosity, but underneath it he’s just a boring socialist." This is the cancer that has infected the social sciences from my perspective. This kind of behavior is endlessly rewarded, and the effort that it takes to unpack and demonstrate this type of sleight of hand is considerable, but I'm glad there are folks that have dedicated the time to get it done because I don't have the patience for it.
On another note, I don't see how materialism ensures this outcome. I think it is pretty straightforward that even under rigid materialism things like purpose and meaning are emergent phenomena that exist in their own right. After all, socialists take action don't they? Why? Why not just stay in bed and never get up? If they were consistent, that is what they would do. Perhaps psychopathology blunts the self-awareness of these individuals such that they cannot appreciate or identify their subjective sense of purpose or meaning. Whether the manifestation of divine influence or emergent phenomenon from materialist forces spirituality is an integral part of the human condition. The amount of LHB dominance that it must take to get lost in a model that is capable of denying such an a priori truth must be considerable.
I tend to agree that materialism doesn't *ensure* such an outcome. IMO it creates a trend that just makes such outcomes come more easily. Sharafevich suggests that the "man as machine" model has something in common with the death instinct, which I think is on point, because both seem to me to be expressions of the LHB outlook.
There need to be other ingredients, like, as you said, psychopathology. As these factors work together, they actively promote that considerable LHB dominance that we see in the form of CRT, Queer theory, and the technocratic totalitarianism of the managerial class.
Michael McConkey seems to be something of a materialist using his position in Biological Realism. There is nuance here in that such a materialism doesn't deny the ability of material to be the foundation of emergent meaning, and it also doesn't deny the possibility that such material could have intelligence all the way down to the level of subatomic particles in the style of what John Carter writes about sometimes. I bring up McConkey because he recently made the argument that a deracinated individualism is the inevitable outcome of a political philosophy (libertarianism) that holds as its highest, sacrosanct axioms negative rights and obligations. I think like you stipulate in the case of materialism and socialism such an outcome isn't *ensured*. If this is the case, there is something that needs to be uncovered here. Deracinated individualism is just as toxic as socialism. Perhaps this is something we all agree on. If we can delineate exactly where materialism and libertarianism go wrong (as generally understood) we might be able to optimize these doctrines rhetorically so that they are consistent with the human singularity. I feel like such an optimization would only require minor tweaking, but maybe I'm just conflating my own personal conception of materialism and libertarianism with the norm.
All reasonable positions. I think there are perhaps two "junctures" where these things go wrong, both hard to define and delineate in practice: 1) crossing a moral line, 2) crossing a pathological line. If we could solve #1, then #2 wouldn't become a problem. And if we could solve #2, then #1 wouldn't lead to disaster.
But as a complex system, there are so many factors that could be involved. Basic health is one. How many of the negative societal symptoms we see would disappear, or at least be greatly mitigated, if people didn't suffer heavy metal poisoning, or omega-3 deficiency?
You're speaking to my heart when you allude to the central role holistic health and fitness has in remedying the social ills that plague civilization! It does get very cumbersome to attempt to define and delineate. I've had what I thought were simple and straightforward thoughts that took hours to put into words that end up taking several pages. The crossing a moral line point has such incredible depth by itself. I've come to adopt the position that the epistemological foundations of morality must vary between individuals so that we can converge on something that is conducive to peace and prosperity. We're all different, but in order to live together in harmony we need compatible moral values. What does it matter if we arrive at them in radically different ways? Thanks for the thought provoking engagement!
Having been born in gross physical bodily form, everyone in reaction to the perceived and conceived imposition of limited and threatening conditions and death itself become bound to the gross point of view of identification with the physical body in and of itself, as a separate entity. As a result of that reactive gesture of identification gesture of identification, we are thereby unconsciously bound to the natural program of the physical body, which is death itself. Consequently, in our dreadful sanity we are each and all reactively enacting a separate and separative life that is entirely about the disposition of death and the self-reinforcing reaction to the natural inevitability of death.
The naive presumption of subjective identification with the gross physical body, is, inherently, a dying thing, a "philosophy" of the dead.
In dark epoch, the common human world is characteristically (and altogether and even aggressively) invested in this gross disposition of identification with the seemingly separate gross physical body, and, therefore, the common human world is becoming overwhelmed with the "culture" of death.
This "culture" of death, which is, in actuality, an anti-culture, is not merely the result of some philosophical disposition re the idea of death. Most fundamentally , the "culture" of death arises from the now universal ego-act of identification with apparently separate existence, and, in particular, with gross physical existence as the separate physical human body. The inevitable result of this dark act (of identification) is that human consciousness becomes identified with the patterned program of death and fails to generate, or even allow for the possibility of any greater philosophy, let alone the possibility of a culture of Esoteric Spiritual practice, and (ultimately) the culture of Divine Life.
Unfortunately for all, it is that very culture of human Spiritual, and Divine Life which has been propagandized out of the realm of possibility by both the dogmas of scientism, and conventional institutional religiosity. Indeed, it is principally , the combination of grossly bound scientific materialist anti-culture with widespread institutional "religious" fanaticism that has produced the dark realities of these dark times.
Another good post. Your ideas are very in line with the picture Tim Ashworth gives of the thought of Paul the apostle, ironically the foundation stone which became Christianity as we know it. Which goes back to my other reply about my conception of religion. The way I see it is kind of a hierarchy:
-real religion ("culture of esoteric spiritual practice")
But what is conventional institutional religion has nothing to do with God or the Living Divine Reality, but is about Man or human beings in of themselves, and the search to preserve ones (apparent) separate identity as a response to the fact that death rules to here.
Both conventional institutional god-religion and secular materialism share two fundamental ideas:
1. The naive experiential presumption of an utterly independent, utterly personal, utterly separate and utterly subjective point of view.
2. The idea of an objective reality "out there", or the naive experiential presumption of an egoically observed, and thereby presumed utterly independent, utterly impersonal, utterly separate, and utterly non-subjective, or utterly objective world of conditionally perceived and conceived conditions..
These two fundamental ideas or naive experiential presumptions are, also, the principal constructs, or generally uninspected conventions of the human mind.
Iain McGilchrist has questioned both of these presumptions in his books The Master & His Emissary, and The Matter With Things. The left brained spirit-killing Emissary or the false pseudo-self now rules the world.
That having been said have you ever considered the possibility that the most popular (and influential) pseudo-philosopher in the US is Ayn Rand - tens of millions of her books have been sold. There was a peak in the sale of her books some years ago. Her "god" was of course the hard-edged heartless machine.
Agreed on all points, mostly. The way I see religion, however, is that it is founded on the opposite, right-brained insight, which through the course of time becomes less and less active in the religion's adherents, forming a right-brained "Babel". But the inner content at least remains implicit and accessible to those who look for it. "Anti-religion", in my definition, lacks even that. It is pure caricature without even the implicit possibility of escaping those two fundamental ideas.
As for Rand, I would just speculate that the reason for her popularity was two-fold. On the one hand, resonating with and amplifying people's natural egoism, but on the other, highlighting the real values of excellence and courage. Definition of a mixed bag, in my books.
Fascinating. Important. When you write, "There seem to be two basic reactions to sex: “One reaction is basically life-accepting. The other is a revulsion so primordial that it might accurately be thought of as antibiologic” (CL, p. 256). This latter response is exemplified in Huysmans’s character Des Esseintes, in whom “we feel pure revulsion against life itself”....
I would at least like to eliminate from my inquiries the surmise that the life-reviling reaction to sex is the natural response of the abused or traumatised child which overrides and governs/distorts his or her own sexual development. When you say 'primordial', I think early childhood or infant trauma. So...those most attracted to satanism and on a milder plane, basic socialism, are those whose early development has been injured by actual abuse or perhaps just the close proximity to an abused-abuser caretaker.
I think that's right. It seems that early childhood abuse is probably implicated in most (?) cases of antisexuality. I don't know for sure, however. I also suspect there is a biological component. I.e., some may have an emotional/instinctive substrate that is more prone to such reactions. It could come down to a fundamental lack (as in psychopathy), or a heightened sensitivity that gets "stuck" on the antisexual and has difficulty transcending it.
The question is, how does socialism/marxism/communism/collectivism resuscitate itself after each horrific failure, and why? Also, why do so many people fall for it, time and time again? It's as if willful ignorance is everywhere. And maybe that's the how, and those who strive for power and control have learned to simply manipulate that. I don't know, which is why I have Political Ponerology in the batters box, to be read.
There are probably many answers, but I think you are right and part of it is a subversion of our (normal people) natural longing for a better world, for spiritual fulfillment, for a more enlightened age. Some of the more sensible people on the left, especially back in the 60s and 70s, also felt the wasteland that comes with rampant utilitarianism, commodification and quantification, and mistakenly believed a form of socialism provides a way out (of course, it leads to the opposite). In essence, pathological personalities prey on some of our natural impulses, longings and observations, but twist them for their own purposes, Mephisto-style.
I’m traveling for work and haven’t had a chance to read your former few posts yet but so glad you are exploring (or returning to) Shafarevich. I can’t remember what I said to you about his piece on socialism, but I think it was in the hope you might do a deep dive into this excellent yet under appreciated work.
It certainly, and thoroughly, shows that socialism is the ultimate death cult in the most profoundly insidious way.
Great post. This link below is 2016. https://heterodoxology.com/2016/05/11/the-socialist-roots-of-occultism/
Julian Strube demonstrates in his recent doctoral dissertation, due to be published by De Gruyter (May 2016). Not only occult socialists, but modern occultism appears to have first emerged in early, pre-Marxist socialist circles. The pre-Marxist part is important here, for not only does occultism have socialist roots: Early socialism was itself aligned with thoroughly religious, even outright theocratic projects, often drawing on a form of heterodox, yet traditionalist, Catholicism. We have to face the socialist – and Catholic – roots of occultism.
Awesome. Thanks for the link, Stegiel. I'll definitely be checking out Strube's work. Shafarevich points out that Dostoevsky saw socialism as a development of Catholicism (which had degenerated Christ's teachings). Looking forward to seeing this guy's take on it.
Sobornost is the Christian Russian turning. https://providencemag.com/2019/08/fyodor-dostoevsky-russian-god-faith-christianity-brothers-karamazov-demons/
"That’s Marcuse in a nutshell—a lot of fancy words and highfalutin verbosity, but underneath it he’s just a boring socialist." This is the cancer that has infected the social sciences from my perspective. This kind of behavior is endlessly rewarded, and the effort that it takes to unpack and demonstrate this type of sleight of hand is considerable, but I'm glad there are folks that have dedicated the time to get it done because I don't have the patience for it.
On another note, I don't see how materialism ensures this outcome. I think it is pretty straightforward that even under rigid materialism things like purpose and meaning are emergent phenomena that exist in their own right. After all, socialists take action don't they? Why? Why not just stay in bed and never get up? If they were consistent, that is what they would do. Perhaps psychopathology blunts the self-awareness of these individuals such that they cannot appreciate or identify their subjective sense of purpose or meaning. Whether the manifestation of divine influence or emergent phenomenon from materialist forces spirituality is an integral part of the human condition. The amount of LHB dominance that it must take to get lost in a model that is capable of denying such an a priori truth must be considerable.
I tend to agree that materialism doesn't *ensure* such an outcome. IMO it creates a trend that just makes such outcomes come more easily. Sharafevich suggests that the "man as machine" model has something in common with the death instinct, which I think is on point, because both seem to me to be expressions of the LHB outlook.
There need to be other ingredients, like, as you said, psychopathology. As these factors work together, they actively promote that considerable LHB dominance that we see in the form of CRT, Queer theory, and the technocratic totalitarianism of the managerial class.
Michael McConkey seems to be something of a materialist using his position in Biological Realism. There is nuance here in that such a materialism doesn't deny the ability of material to be the foundation of emergent meaning, and it also doesn't deny the possibility that such material could have intelligence all the way down to the level of subatomic particles in the style of what John Carter writes about sometimes. I bring up McConkey because he recently made the argument that a deracinated individualism is the inevitable outcome of a political philosophy (libertarianism) that holds as its highest, sacrosanct axioms negative rights and obligations. I think like you stipulate in the case of materialism and socialism such an outcome isn't *ensured*. If this is the case, there is something that needs to be uncovered here. Deracinated individualism is just as toxic as socialism. Perhaps this is something we all agree on. If we can delineate exactly where materialism and libertarianism go wrong (as generally understood) we might be able to optimize these doctrines rhetorically so that they are consistent with the human singularity. I feel like such an optimization would only require minor tweaking, but maybe I'm just conflating my own personal conception of materialism and libertarianism with the norm.
All reasonable positions. I think there are perhaps two "junctures" where these things go wrong, both hard to define and delineate in practice: 1) crossing a moral line, 2) crossing a pathological line. If we could solve #1, then #2 wouldn't become a problem. And if we could solve #2, then #1 wouldn't lead to disaster.
But as a complex system, there are so many factors that could be involved. Basic health is one. How many of the negative societal symptoms we see would disappear, or at least be greatly mitigated, if people didn't suffer heavy metal poisoning, or omega-3 deficiency?
You're speaking to my heart when you allude to the central role holistic health and fitness has in remedying the social ills that plague civilization! It does get very cumbersome to attempt to define and delineate. I've had what I thought were simple and straightforward thoughts that took hours to put into words that end up taking several pages. The crossing a moral line point has such incredible depth by itself. I've come to adopt the position that the epistemological foundations of morality must vary between individuals so that we can converge on something that is conducive to peace and prosperity. We're all different, but in order to live together in harmony we need compatible moral values. What does it matter if we arrive at them in radically different ways? Thanks for the thought provoking engagement!
I like that: compatible moral values. Not necessarily identical.
Follow up comment:
Having been born in gross physical bodily form, everyone in reaction to the perceived and conceived imposition of limited and threatening conditions and death itself become bound to the gross point of view of identification with the physical body in and of itself, as a separate entity. As a result of that reactive gesture of identification gesture of identification, we are thereby unconsciously bound to the natural program of the physical body, which is death itself. Consequently, in our dreadful sanity we are each and all reactively enacting a separate and separative life that is entirely about the disposition of death and the self-reinforcing reaction to the natural inevitability of death.
The naive presumption of subjective identification with the gross physical body, is, inherently, a dying thing, a "philosophy" of the dead.
In dark epoch, the common human world is characteristically (and altogether and even aggressively) invested in this gross disposition of identification with the seemingly separate gross physical body, and, therefore, the common human world is becoming overwhelmed with the "culture" of death.
This "culture" of death, which is, in actuality, an anti-culture, is not merely the result of some philosophical disposition re the idea of death. Most fundamentally , the "culture" of death arises from the now universal ego-act of identification with apparently separate existence, and, in particular, with gross physical existence as the separate physical human body. The inevitable result of this dark act (of identification) is that human consciousness becomes identified with the patterned program of death and fails to generate, or even allow for the possibility of any greater philosophy, let alone the possibility of a culture of Esoteric Spiritual practice, and (ultimately) the culture of Divine Life.
Unfortunately for all, it is that very culture of human Spiritual, and Divine Life which has been propagandized out of the realm of possibility by both the dogmas of scientism, and conventional institutional religiosity. Indeed, it is principally , the combination of grossly bound scientific materialist anti-culture with widespread institutional "religious" fanaticism that has produced the dark realities of these dark times.
Another good post. Your ideas are very in line with the picture Tim Ashworth gives of the thought of Paul the apostle, ironically the foundation stone which became Christianity as we know it. Which goes back to my other reply about my conception of religion. The way I see it is kind of a hierarchy:
-real religion ("culture of esoteric spiritual practice")
-decayed religion (possibility of such)
-anti-religion (no possibility of such)
But what is conventional institutional religion has nothing to do with God or the Living Divine Reality, but is about Man or human beings in of themselves, and the search to preserve ones (apparent) separate identity as a response to the fact that death rules to here.
Both conventional institutional god-religion and secular materialism share two fundamental ideas:
1. The naive experiential presumption of an utterly independent, utterly personal, utterly separate and utterly subjective point of view.
2. The idea of an objective reality "out there", or the naive experiential presumption of an egoically observed, and thereby presumed utterly independent, utterly impersonal, utterly separate, and utterly non-subjective, or utterly objective world of conditionally perceived and conceived conditions..
These two fundamental ideas or naive experiential presumptions are, also, the principal constructs, or generally uninspected conventions of the human mind.
Iain McGilchrist has questioned both of these presumptions in his books The Master & His Emissary, and The Matter With Things. The left brained spirit-killing Emissary or the false pseudo-self now rules the world.
That having been said have you ever considered the possibility that the most popular (and influential) pseudo-philosopher in the US is Ayn Rand - tens of millions of her books have been sold. There was a peak in the sale of her books some years ago. Her "god" was of course the hard-edged heartless machine.
Agreed on all points, mostly. The way I see religion, however, is that it is founded on the opposite, right-brained insight, which through the course of time becomes less and less active in the religion's adherents, forming a right-brained "Babel". But the inner content at least remains implicit and accessible to those who look for it. "Anti-religion", in my definition, lacks even that. It is pure caricature without even the implicit possibility of escaping those two fundamental ideas.
As for Rand, I would just speculate that the reason for her popularity was two-fold. On the one hand, resonating with and amplifying people's natural egoism, but on the other, highlighting the real values of excellence and courage. Definition of a mixed bag, in my books.
Fascinating. Important. When you write, "There seem to be two basic reactions to sex: “One reaction is basically life-accepting. The other is a revulsion so primordial that it might accurately be thought of as antibiologic” (CL, p. 256). This latter response is exemplified in Huysmans’s character Des Esseintes, in whom “we feel pure revulsion against life itself”....
I would at least like to eliminate from my inquiries the surmise that the life-reviling reaction to sex is the natural response of the abused or traumatised child which overrides and governs/distorts his or her own sexual development. When you say 'primordial', I think early childhood or infant trauma. So...those most attracted to satanism and on a milder plane, basic socialism, are those whose early development has been injured by actual abuse or perhaps just the close proximity to an abused-abuser caretaker.
I think that's right. It seems that early childhood abuse is probably implicated in most (?) cases of antisexuality. I don't know for sure, however. I also suspect there is a biological component. I.e., some may have an emotional/instinctive substrate that is more prone to such reactions. It could come down to a fundamental lack (as in psychopathy), or a heightened sensitivity that gets "stuck" on the antisexual and has difficulty transcending it.
Thanks for commenting, AS.
But will we ever answer, Why?
Again, thank you for the summaries (of books waiting to be read on my shelf).
I may get into my thoughts on why as we go. and if you specify a particular why question, that would help in the idea-generation process. ;)
The question is, how does socialism/marxism/communism/collectivism resuscitate itself after each horrific failure, and why? Also, why do so many people fall for it, time and time again? It's as if willful ignorance is everywhere. And maybe that's the how, and those who strive for power and control have learned to simply manipulate that. I don't know, which is why I have Political Ponerology in the batters box, to be read.
There are probably many answers, but I think you are right and part of it is a subversion of our (normal people) natural longing for a better world, for spiritual fulfillment, for a more enlightened age. Some of the more sensible people on the left, especially back in the 60s and 70s, also felt the wasteland that comes with rampant utilitarianism, commodification and quantification, and mistakenly believed a form of socialism provides a way out (of course, it leads to the opposite). In essence, pathological personalities prey on some of our natural impulses, longings and observations, but twist them for their own purposes, Mephisto-style.
Currently working on a piece for next week that will go into this dynamic in more detail. Time for Dabrowski!
Isn't that resuscitation the result of the ponerological process itself in action?
Yep, it waxes and wanes in cycles.