How can we break out of our present peril, as a civilisation?
Let’s pause and hear Francis Schaeffer on the subject:
A key aspect of the challenge, is that Democracies, from the days of Plato, are known to be prone to decay into misrule and marches of folly driven by manipulated mobs.
Hence, the concept, demagogue:
demagogue or demagog
n
1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a political agitator who appeals with crude oratory to the prejudice and passions of the mob
2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) (esp in the ancient world) any popular political leader or orator
[C17: from Greek d?mag?gos people’s leader, from d?mos people + agein to lead]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
Of course, often the demagogue is part of a stable of bought and paid for actors, backed by some Mr Moneybags behind the scenes.
Sometimes, there are far more sinister networks with mostly hidden, escalating, ruinous agendas. Just to list:
- mobs or even militias on the streets,
- crudely populist agitators,
- more cultured literary voices and/or literal actors and celebrities with popular followings,
- pundits, academics and other high prestige experts,
- think-tanks, public relations strategists and agencies,
- marketers, agit-prop strategists,
- media houses,
- parties
- and more.
If we have not drawn these frightening lessons from the history of C20, with both the Communists/Bolsheviks and their kissing-cousins the Nazis/Fascists, we have yet again failed to learn lessons of sound history that were paid for in literal rivers of blood.
Maybe, we need to read Canetti’s Crowds and Power.
Perhaps some thoughts on the heirs of both, today’s Alinskyite cultural marxists, would be advisable.
Now, too, where there is a howling, menacing mob on the streets or in your workplace or online pushing a powerful and destructive attack-agenda, you can bet your bottom dollar that somewhere, there is a paymaster backed by serious money. Which, can even be the lead bureaucrats of the increasingly powerful state apparatus, the so-called deep state and their allies in the intelligentsia who are bought with grant money.
(This, BTW is my read of the ongoing mid-game play-out in North America [no, the end-game of the current, battle- of- attrition- by- mob- and- lawfare- driven- personal- ruin cultural civil war is not yet], i/l/o my observations on trends with the increasingly obviously utterly unstable UK. Three PM’s in four or so years is not a good sign.)
Ac 27 has in it a raft of sobering lessons we have yet to seriously attend to, draw lessons from and absorb in the Churches, much less the wider culture. And so does a lot more of what now seem to be hidden, derided corners of willfully silenced and forgotten history of our common civilisation. One, once rightfully called Christendom . . . with all its sins, struggles and blessings; but which, having willfully and angrily cut itself off from its vital roots through the oppression thesis, now begins to decay disgustingly as it withers.
It is now very hard to find a decent survey history of our civilisation, something that used to be commonly taught in colleges and schools; a bad sign. [I shrug, then suggest here as an obviously flawed outline.]
So, yes, of all people the notorious Vox Day [NOT generally endorsed but he has drawn up a useful survival guide for the mobbed], in his description of mobbing, job-busting, deplatforming and scapegoating-driven marginalisation:
The eight stages of the SJW attack sequence are as follows:
1] Locate or Create a Violation of the Narrative. [–> used to be: the party-line, cf. Orwell, 1984 and Animal Farm]
2] Point and Shriek. [–> slander to smear and mark the target]
3] Isolate and Swarm. [–> mob-riot and bullying or lynching]
4] Reject and Transform. [–> the scapegoat carries away the sins of the multitude, which must now ever more conform to the agenda of “new” “virtues” demanded by the radicals and their mobs . . . generally ending in reigns of terror if unchecked]
5] Press for Surrender. [–> demand to dominate by nihilistic power disguised as claims for justice]
6] Appeal to Amenable Authority. [–> more interested in “reputational damage” than justice]
7] Show Trial. [–> a highlight of both Stalin and Hitler’s Nazis, the media-amplified kangaroo court, also going back to Robespierre and the guillotine. With Rommel, just the threat with further threat to ruin family caused him to commit suicide. This was followed by the show state funeral.]
8] Victory Parade.[–> with the decapitated head on a pike or the like, don’t forget, attainting of the bloodline by ruining the family]
Here, I suggest, that we need voices that can draw together a body of insights toward effective, sound strategic solutions. However, where there are the powerful who profit from continued chaos and/or from manipulated agendas, any moves towards such sound synthesis or a way out of the chaos-maze will be viciously targetted by the ruthless reprobates.
And the attack-mob baying for metaphorical or literal blood (think about Rome’s policy of bread and circuses and its modern extensions) is one of the habitually resorted to tools of such; whenever there are times where such mobs can gain traction.
Yes, another compass-needle pointing to the peril of our times.
Now, let us turn to a source that I find refreshing by sharpest contrast; Pascal, in some of his opening remarks for Pensees. For, we need an idea of where to find a way forward:
1. The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind.—In the one, the
principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary use; so that for want of habit it is difficult
to turn one’s mind in that direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one sees the
principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate mind who reasons wrongly from
principles so plain that it is almost impossible they should escape notice.But in the intuitive mind the principles are found in common use and are before the
eyes of everybody. One has only to look, and no effort is necessary; it is only a question of
good eyesight, but it must be good, for the principles are so subtle and so numerous that it
is almost impossible but that some escape notice. Now the omission of one principle leads
to error; thus one must have very clear sight to see all the principles and, in the next place,
an accurate mind not to draw false deductions from known principles.All mathematicians would then be intuitive if they had clear sight, for they do not
reason incorrectly from principles known to them; and intuitive minds would be mathem-
atical if they could turn their eyes to the principles of mathematics to which they are unused.The reason, therefore, that some intuitive minds are not mathematical is that they cannot
at all turn their attention to the principles of mathematics. But the reason that mathematicians
are not intuitive is that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the
exact and plain principles of mathematics, and not reasoning till they have well inspected
and arranged their principles, they are lost in matters of intuition where the principles do
not allow of such arrangement. They are scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen; there
is the greatest difficulty in making them felt by those who do not of themselves perceive
them. These principles are so fine and so numerous that a very delicate and very clear sense
is needed to perceive them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are perceived, without
for the most part being able to demonstrate them in order as in mathematics, because the
principles are not known to us in the same way, and because it would be an endless matter
to undertake it. We must see the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of
reasoning, at least to a certain degree.And thus it is rare that mathematicians are intuitive
and that men of intuition are mathematicians, because mathematicians wish to treat matters
of intuition mathematically and make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin with definitions
and then with axioms, which is not the way to proceed in this kind of reasoning. Not that
the mind does not do so, but it does it tacitly, naturally, and without technical rules; for the
expression of it is beyond all men, and only a few can feel it.Intuitive minds, on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a single glance, are
so astonished when they are presented with propositions of which they understand nothing,
and the way to which is through definitions and axioms so sterile, and which they are not
accustomed to see thus in detail, that they are repelled and disheartened.But dull minds are never either intuitive or mathematical.
There are minds that are both broadly intuitive and aware, seeing synoptically and synthetically on picking up deep, reliable and powerful patterns/principles from clues AND are then able to be exactingly precise in forming and drawing out plausible postulates and logical-structural, qualitative/existential and quantitative consequences.
Such are apt to be found among physicists, big-picture philosophers who tackle big issues, philosophical theologians, big-picture economists of the first rank [including among the Austrian heretics], certain types of similarly big picture but profoundly insightful cultural/policy critics or great artists and historians.
(Let me note for record: Marx was a spoiled case, whose correct insights need to be carefully harvested from the many errors of his materialism, and soundly, wisely put together with many others. Starting, with the lessons of the reformation and the breakthrough American Experiment. We must not allow an over-emphasis on the sins of Christendom to blind us to the hard-bought advances and blessings, as well as the proved mechanisms for prudent incremental reformation rather than ill-advised radical experiments that due to lack of checks, balances, soundness and restraint, predictably end in tyranny and chaos. One of the things we must recover is our confident, well-founded faith in God, in the gospel, in gospel ethics [thus, in linked natural law] and in the scriptures attested by the resurrection of the Christ witnessed by the five hundred.)
It is no accident that Pascal was a Mathematician-Physicist, philosopher with theological bent and one of the pioneers of highest French style. Minds like that are multiply rare: simultaneously rare on multiple dimensions.
But, in an age of widespread communication at low cost, we can learn from such synoptic thinkers, starting with realising that a few thousand words are powerfully distilling many thousands of pages (or even thousands of books) of reading and even more hours of pondering and deep discussion among the truly informed . . . as opposed to mere purveyors and guardians of current academic shibboleths. (Here, compare Ac 17 and 27 with 1 Cor 1 – 2.)
In short, let us learn enough broadly about our civilisation and big, fundamental issues that we can begin to work our way out of the problematique we are manifestly in, willfully and foolishly dancing on the edge of a crumbling cliff.
It matters not, whether the words used to bring out the synthesis are original or are clipped, the issue is, let us find valuable, instructive, wise and promising synthesis.
Let me give one clue, tracing to Francis Schaeffer:
He and others have also given a handy way to see the way ideas dominate a culture, and how we may go about reformation. So, more food for thought:
As a third, here is a summary on the challenge of change:
Ours, is a perilous time.
A kairos, fraught with consequences.
Let us make good use of it, before it is too late. END
Breaking out of our present peril (and, whose report should we believe?)
I believe the reports that say crime has been dropping for decades, infant mortality has decreased, life expectancy has increased, quality of life for the elderly has increased, access to medical care and medicine has increased, the quality of medical care and medicine has increased, unwanted pregnancies and abortions are decreasing, persecution and oppression of minorities has decreased, access to knowledge and information has increased, opportunities for women, minorities and homosexuals has increased, discrimination under the false colour of religious freedom has decreased, and cars are more reliable. I think the future looks pretty damn good.
Although I am quite concerned about the incipient Fascist demagogue and his cronies in the White House. 🙁
The current still rises! … he notes, in response to being informed that the voltage is falling.
How very droll.
I don’t know why otherwise astute people insist on blinding themselves to the reality of time lags between causes and effects, especially in human affairs, but it’s so ubiquitous as to be epidemic.
Hazel
On the bright side, the current occupant of the puzzle factory is in his 70s and avoids vegetables and exercise, and loves fast food. The odds of him lasting to 2024 are slim.
Hazel & BB: First, I note that (pace Stalin’s propaganda from the ’30’s) Fascism is demonstrably an ideology of the statist, politically messianistic left; the commonplace attempts to project to “the right” (often without warrant) are misdirected and in some cases are manifestly turnspeech projections. Indeed so-called “antifa” is a fairly close analogue of the brownshirts and blackshirts. Second, just the statistic of 800+ million aborted globally over 40+ years with a million more per week indelibly indicts our era as stteped in guilt of innocent blood. Third, it is quite clear that the US in particular is already in low-grade, 4th generation civil war; with street theatre stunts, media amplified agit prop, a culture of slander, cultural marxism, and lawfare. It is a lynch-pin case and the time to turn back from utter chaos is now. KF
KF@6, you keep harping on the abortion numbers, completely ignoring that they are precipitously being reduced due to early sex education and access to birth control. Now, when you combine that with the other trends in the western civilization you so despise, we are looking pretty damn good. Walking around with an “End Is Nigh” sandwich board may express your views, but don’t be surprised when people laugh at you.
hazel:
I would be more concerned with the people who think that way. 😛
Brother Brian:
They are worth harping on and there isn’t any evidence he is ignoring anything.
Only if you walk around with blinders on.
Given the number of chicken-little climate alarmists his views are the majority.
To our optimists out there, I would agree that things dependent on technology are getting better all the time. And some social trends are going in the right direction.
But note two characteristics:
1) Technology is a double-edged sword, and the sharper edge is owned by the government (because they can afford more of it and it scales super-linearly as more of it is owned), and the largest businesses (because they are better at developing more of it). Governments can turn evil overnight, with large businesses always right behind them.
2) Societal trends such as lower crime, less persecution, less discrimination, and so on can change overnight if societal conditions change. With the internet, I dare say a group could be oppressed in 1% of the time it took the Nazis to begin oppressing the Jews.
In other words, none of the trends cited are the least bit resistant to sudden reversal, or in the case of technology, to being turned against the people.
We need to be focused on the foundational things that prevent good trends from sudden reversals. *More than ever in the West’s history, we lack vision: we have no higher purpose beyond just having a good time until we die. We lack a relatively common moral foundation: it’s fine to have diversity when it comes to problem solving, but moral diversity beyond a point guarantees only conflict. We lack unity, and will no longer pull in one direction when that is needed. We are losing the values that make for a strong society (honesty and trust, investment in social capital, duty and responsibility, self-sufficiency, etc.)
Those things aren’t superficial; you can’t explain them in a tweet. In fact, most people don’t even grasp that such things are foundational. They are no longer understood, valued or taught to a large segment of society.
Therefore, all the good trends mentioned exist on a foundation of sand–nothing solid underneath them to maintain them.
*Of course there are many people who do understand and value such things, but there are not enough of them.
EDTA,
I am not so sure technology is getting better in some respects. Likewise, I am concerned about monopolistic practices and censorship of dominant tech companies. For example though I started with Apple Macs I will never use an Apple product again. Similarly, given the rise of enabled mobs, I have cause to pull from someone who I do not like but who has dealt with this.
While some social, economic and health trends are going in a good direction, the simple fact that so many refuse to see how we are enabling the ongoing worst holocaust in history is already enough to utterly condemn this age as a dark time.
That points to serious worldviews and cultural agenda breakdowns, which is the focus of the OP and leads to finding the right sort of voices to lead the way forward.
You are right to target the pointlessness of radical secularism and linked consumerist culture. Those are built in from the roots of the worldview. Likewise, the undermining of moral government. And as those things are discounted, many do not see their implications even as we are busily eating out the moral fabric of our civilisation. Worse, some suggest that that concern indicates you are a Nazi or the like. (The first political view I acquired, literally at mother’s knee, was anti-Nazism.)
We are eating up cultural capital and the moral framework of our civilisation. We refuse to see where that predictably ends.
And if one dares to draw on treasures of history bought at bitter price, the dismissal almost writes itself: too LONG, didn’t read.
No time or energy to read and reflect on lessons paid for with blood and tears. Lessons so key that that is why for 2,000 years our civilisation turned away from democracy. Lessons that are vital to stabilising democratic governance and so also government in our day.
Telling,
KF
PS: One of those TL;DR lessons we neglect at peril, from Plato’s greatest work, The Republic:
EDTA
I agree. That has always been the case. With technology comes responsibilities and obligations. Antibiotics have significantly reduced the infant mortality rates, but they have also resulted in antibiotic resistant strains. Still, I think that we would all agree that they have been a net gain.
As we are now seeing with Trump’s xenophobic and racist agenda.
From the day we first sharpened the end of a stick, technology has had the capability of being used against people. But, I think that over history, the benefits have outweighed the negatives. There is no reason to suspect this will change. Although, any new technology will come with growing pains, as we have most recently seen with the internet.
I would argue that many of the things I listed are resistant to sudden reversal, but not immune. A massive economic collapse would have an impact on anything to do with benefits associated with advanced health care, but little impact on homosexual and women’s rights. A theocratic shift in government could have an impact on things like homosexual and women’s rights but little impact on health care.
All in all, I am cautiously optimistic with the current trends. I am even comfortable with the trend towards questioning some of the practices that we have historically justified through our various religions. I realize that some are not happy with this trend but if a societal practice can’t stand up to scrutiny then it probably should be discarded. It was through this examination that we realized that it was unacceptable to discriminate against someone simply because of the gender they are or the gender they are sexually attracted to.
Brother Brian:
You have to be a total loser and liar to say that.
BB,
>A massive economic collapse would have an impact on anything to do with benefits associated with advanced health care, but little impact on homosexual and women’s rights.
I’m not sure that an economic collapse wouldn’t lead to bad social outcomes (both from your perspective and from mine). All these things intertwine in ways we cannot predict, especially now that cultural change has almost no brakes on it.
BB & ET, I am gavelling politics of personal attack and yet another attempted dragging down into the sewer of sexual perversities and impositions of same under false colour of claimed rights leading to lawfare. There are other venues for such discussion aplenty and UD is not a forum for partisan politics or linked personal invective. On the subject of accusations above, I simply say that if the US had sensible defamation law, loaded accusations such as we commonly see online and in the media would long since have been sued out of existence, with bankruptcies of those making such accusations. I note in this regard the case of a first level tossing out of a US$ 250 million lawsuit over a media lynch mob in January of this year, targetting minors on a school outing in protest of the ongoing holocaust of the unborn. Where, of course, the ill-founded accusation of racism was the pivot of the slander, turning on the “crime” of wearing a “MAGA” cap with all the agit prop accusations loaded unto that thought-crime by irresponsible political, media and online agitators. This is of course also a case of the trifecta fallacy. Doubtless, this case will go to cycles of appeals, likely ending up at the supreme court. That is, it will cost millions, so that the dragged out process becomes a further, financial lynching. And if a minor subjected to agit prop media ambush and media amplified defamation in the teeth of exonerating video evidence and opportunity to retract patently false accusations is facing something like this, that is a sign of how broken the system is. KF
PS: I point out again that a right is a binding moral claim to be protected in a certain regard. So, one may only justly claim a right if one is manifestly in the right. The twisting of rights language and law driven by legal nihilism rooted in undermining the law of our morally governed nature is yet another sign of our awful peril as a civilisation. The ghosts of 800+ millions destroyed in the womb under false colour of law and rights — with another million more each week — are reminding us that blood guilt is the most corrupting influence of all. We are heading over a cliff and democratic freedom is discrediting itself through the agendas of cultural marxism. Ironically, if it comes to a shooting war [it is already at the level of ruinous media amplified agit prop, lawfare and violent street mobs], the cultural marxists will lose but the biggest loss will be liberty. Our only hope is prompt restoration of sound natural law accepted as the foundation of civil law. As a key part of that, some judges will need to face impeachment for contempt of constitution, parliament [or the equivalent] and people.
F/N: A reminder on sound natural law:
This is over 2,000 years old and comes from the pen of one of the all time greats. Why have we forgotten this?
Other than, we have foolishly turned our backs on God, leading to utter debasement of hearts, minds, lives, governance, law, government, community and civilisation. With ruin patently ahead.
KF
PS: Let me add Blackstone from 250 years ago — and Blackstone was the standard textbook for law in the USA in and well beyond the founding era:
Let these stand as signposts showing the needless peril we are in as a civilisation.
KF
You are, of course, correct. Poverty and desperation have serious societal consequences. But I can’t see women’s and homosexual rights being overly affected. Sure, there may be some who take their frustration on women and homosexuals, but I doubt if financial collapse would result in removing some rights currently afforded women and homosexuals. A shift to a more theocratic government, on the other hand, could result in women and homosexuals losing some of the rights they currently have.
Brother Brian:
It could also result in women and homosexuals ruling the world.
BB, misdirected. KF
BB, the concept of rights needs cogent definition and to be tied to being manifestly in the right. Otherwise rights talk will be taken captive by the powerful but wrong and used to perversely impose evil put in the place of good. The abortion holocaust is case study number one, as in former days slavery and the kidnapping based slave trade were. KF
PS: I clip a 2700 year old warning to a perverted but complacent society on its way to ruin:
F/N: I remind, as already put on the table above but studiously ignored:
KF
KF
There wasn’t anything to ignore. Rights are whatever society decides they are. Throughout history they have been granted, removed and suspended. You may not like the right of women to choose, or the right of homosexuals to marry, or the lack of the right for a vendor to deny services due to the sexual orientation of the customer, or the right for transgender to use the bathroom of their choice, but in many jurisdictions society has granted these rights. And, frankly, I support all of these rights. But that doesn’t mean that these rights can’t be taken away. Society can be fickle that way.
You are demanding absolutes, absolute right or absolutely wrong. But the problem with this is that people often disagree on what is right and what is wrong.
Brother Brian:
LoL! Women can choose BEFORE having sex. Once they are pregnant it is no longer just their body.
There isn’t any such right. Look in the US Constitution. It isn’t there.
When a society collapses and the people demand order–and the government is more than happy to enforce that, _anything_ can happen. The potential for rapid social change is, by definition, instability.
EDTA
I don’t think that anyone is disputing that, but this potential for instability is no reason to avoid social change. The revolution resulted in huge social change and high levels of instability, but I think we all agree that it was worth while. Ending slavery, another rapid social change, resulted in years of instability. The equal rights fights in the sixties invoked rapid social change and instability.
All I am saying is that the risk of instability should never be used as the primary justification to avoid social change. Homosexual rights resulted in sexual attraction no longer being grounds for denied employment, denied opportunities or denied access to services. This was a relatively rapid social change and has resulted in instability for those who believe that their religious beliefs give them the right to deny services to homosexuals.
BB,
do you realise what you have said and implied in claiming “Rights are whatever society decides they are”?
For one, you have just admitted to the utter nihilism of cultural relativism, under which instantly the one who stands up and cries out against injustice — simply because he is a dissenter — is automatically in the wrong. Yes, a Marcus Garvey or a Martin Luther King or a Ghandi or a Mother Teresa or even a Jesus of Nazareth are automatically in the wrong, until they wrest power and can in turn impose their will on the society.
On which, suddenly, they are right. As, automatically Hitler was right (until he was defeated) or Stalin was right (until he was denounced, post mortem), and more.
The absurdity is patent, and was warned against by Plato in The Laws, Bk X 2360 years ago:
Evolutionary materialism is manifestly absurd.
Let us wake up and turn from it before it is too late.
KF
I draw to your attention
PS: This textbook’s analysis may help us do the necessary rethinking:
KF
Sounds pretty much like all of recorded human history.
For much of human history, and supported in the bible, slavery was not considered to be wrong. For much of recorded history, striking your wife (within reason), and even raping her, was not considered wrong. For much of history, persecution and prosecution of homosexuals was not considered wrong. For much of history, interracial and interfaith marriages were considered wrong. The right and wrong of all of these things changed over the years. And there is no reason to believe that the right and wrong of these may not change again.
Whether you like it or not, society determines what is right and wrong. You may be opposed to the consequences of this but all you have proposed as an alternative is some poorly defined objective right and wrong. Which sounds great. Until you realize that it still falls on society to come to consensus on what these objective rights and wrongs are.
F/N: I must observe that manifestly there can be no right to slaughter 800 – 1400+ millions of our living posterity in the womb, mounting up at another million per week, not even under the bewitching power of slogans such as a claimed ‘right to choose’ — notice, how the substance of that choice to kill is usually suppressed.
But, we already saw where that comes from, an absurdity.
As was just inadvertently exposed and has therefore been challenged.
As to marriage, no-one has a RIGHT to marry, as no-one has any duty to another person to enter into a lifelong covenant of life partnership, conjugal union and procreation towards the next generation.
Marriage is a freedom under the law of our nature to take up a solemn responsibility, one shaped by our biology as male and female partners in reproduction and as parental partners in child nurture.
Of course, those caught up in absurdities as we have seen will want to kidnap the language of rights and hold hostage the powers of law, claiming an “equality” that is manifestly not there despite its obvious ruinous consequences which are already playing out, such as disintegration of sense of biological identity and more.
Of course, those who imagine ‘rights,’ ‘truth,’ ‘the right,’ ‘justice,’ ‘knowledge,’ ‘sex’ (oops, ‘gender’ — 112 varieties at last count), ‘law,’ ‘morality,’ ‘marriage,’ ‘conscience’ and more — are to be pushed and pulled as those who have or seize power in a society please are busily trying to impose absurdities and wrongs under false colour of being right and law. But all that proves is that nihilism is absurd and absurdly dangerous.
It is high time to heed the voice of the in-built laws of our nature that we did not write nor do we have power to amend; we can only defy to our sad cost.
And, for those of us who have become caught up in absurdities, wrongs, perversities and evils, we are in an existential challenge. One where any direction we go, there will be great pain. Let us turn from the road of ruin before it is too late.
KF
BB, your unresponsiveness to exposed and corrected absurdity is a bad sign. I suggest, you take time to pause and think again. Let me clip a core part of the textbook’s observations:
KF
KF, you are invoking the fallacy of consequences. If X is true the consequences are unthinkable. But what are the consequences if right and wrong is societally subjective and not objective? We could have things like slavery, institutional racism, child labour, the holocaust, abortion on demand, the persecution of homosexuals, same sex marriage, legalized spousal abuse, child sacrifice, etc. Etc. Well, guess what? We have had all of these.
You may not like the consequences of right and wrong being societally subjective, but pretending that this is not true is just believing the illusion you repeatedly talk about in Plato’s cave. I prefer to acknowledge reality and strive to develop a society that is best for all.
BB,
KF has made many good points here, and I don’t think you’ve been following them to their logical conclusion. You have argued that right and wrong are societally defined, because it is society that has to enforce them, and so on. This works when society is favoring something, and you are also favoring it. But regarding an issue where you think society still has a ways to go, wouldn’t you be championing the next goal? I get the impression you would. But then you aren’t following society anymore.
I’m not able to identify your core principles on morality in general. Can you clarify them?
Brother Brian:
That is the reason we are in peril.
BB,
>Until you realize that it still falls on society to come to consensus on what these objective rights and wrongs are.
You’re not quite seeing it from a theistic point of view yet. Reaching consensus is not what needs to happen if there is a God who defines right and wrong. What is needed is for us to realize what those definitions are. That’s not a strictly human activity where we have to negotiate with each other to reach some central point of consensus. Because of this point-of-view difference, your criticisms of our position are not actually hitting our nail on the head.
(Of course I realize there are problems with the theistic solution also, emanating from our human selfishness and finiteness, which prevent us from all homing in on that single definition. But that doesn’t mean that the transcendent standard doesn’t exist; merely that we have difficulty apprehending it. That’s why we don’t buy arguments of the form, “there can’t be one standard because we have so many down here.”)
EDTA
Of course there are things in society I disagree with. And I take steps to try to change things. Society has never been about 100% agreement. But I, like most, make compromises when we think it is in everyone’s best interest. Our moral agreements have always been a shifting landscape. Abortion is a great example. Pro choice has hovered around the 50% mark for decades. The legal aspects may shift back and forth as governments change, but I really don’t see the 50% number changing any time soon.
Another example is same sex marriage. When I was young the vast majority would have been against it. As times changed, more and more people have supported it (or more accurately, not opposed it). The latest polls on the subject are strongly skewed towards being in favour of it. As it becomes more and more accepted, and more and more people come to know same sex couples, those supporting it will only increase.
EDTA
I understand the theistic perspective, I just don’t see how it differs from the societally subjective perspective. You claim that God is the arbiter of right and wrong. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if he were good at communicating this to everyone. Which he isn’t.
For example, there is somewhere in the bible where it talks about when a slave owner should be punished and when he shouldn’t be punished after beating his slave. I don’t remember the exact words but they were very specific. So, according to this theistic text, it is not only acceptable to own another person, but it is also OK to beat them. Obviously society has since overruled God on this. Was society right or wrong to do so?
99% of them are only OK with it because they don’t think life starts at conception.
It makes me wonder where society will draw the line. Is this why you want to be a great ape?
BB,
>I understand the theistic perspective, I just don’t see how it differs from the societally subjective perspective.
I understand how it differs. I’m trying to (gradually) explain it.
My earlier question was whether you could explain where your moral views are grounded. You not completely a cultural relativist, because you seem to be saying your views on same-sex marriage would always have been “pro”, even when most in society were not in favor. But you can’t be an absolutist or an objectivist without having a source for such things.
>You claim that God is the arbiter of right and wrong. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if he were good at communicating this to everyone. Which he isn’t.
Or are we not very good at receiving it? I have pointed out that possibility, and that makes good sense if we are the inferior of the two parties here. In fact, if we are the inferior of the two parties, then we cannot be the final judges of whether he is a good communicator or not.
BB, a reduction to absurdity is not a mere appeal to consequences of established truth. What we are seeing just above is yet another way that relativism manifests its incoherence. Likewise, in arguing above, you are either appealing to or manipulatively exploiting our knowledge of duty to truth, right reason, prudence, sound conscience, justice (so, rights) etc. If you are merely manipulating, that is nihilistic. If you are appealing, you imply what you have tried to deny: moral government resting on objective principles. Likewise, the appeal to rights (thus, justice) — as was already pointed out — is an inherently moral claim. Such can only be justified based on being manifestly in the right. Subjectivism, emotivism and relativism collapse in absurdity as claimed bases for morality. This leaves on the table an actually sound account, that by our built-in nature we are inescapably under moral government, starting with our intellectual capabilities. This reflects a built-in law of our nature that we did not invent nor can we amend. In turn, such is one of the signs pointing to the nature of the root of reality, the inherently good and utterly wise. KF
PS: I see you are now trying the Bible verse out of context appeal. I suggest, you will find in Matt 19, a discussion on regulation of society i/l/o the hardness of hearts, contrasted with the proper creation order. In the context, in Malachi 2:16, you will see a direct declaration: I hate divorce. This extends to ever so many other cases, where a greater achievable good leads to regulating what is an evil (think here of rum shops and the like i/l/o consequences of futile idealistic laws such as prohibition). The deeper answer is that the heart-softening influence of gospel ethics, in good time, leads to soundly rooted, widely supported, enforceable reforms. Apply to abortion. Pro life early pregnancy restrictions were put in place when the facts of conception became better known in C19. (This was influenced not only by advances of science but also 150 years of revivals and reforms energised thereby with Wilberforce a key name. As that wellspring has been marginalised, it is no wonder that hearts have been increasingly hardened and warped. Thus, holocaust under false colour of law.)
EDTA, BB’s declaration above is a direct statement of cultural relativism, and is consistent with consequences of his known evolutionary materialism, as was already pointed out c 360 BC by Plato. KF
F/N: Let me note on a sounder foundation:
Food for thought,
KF
BB,
do you or do you not have a rational mind embedding a conscience that guides it?
Is it or is it not the case that such is a widely recognised phenomenon?
Those are already strong and clear witnesses, though of course they can be distorted and warped.
Let me refresh your memory on the perspicuity of core morality — a clarity that has to be obscured for evils to prevail under false colour of being good. Yes, Locke’s quote from Hooker in Ch 2 of his 2nd treatise on civil government . . . and if you do not know about this or are inclined to distort it, those are signs of what is really going on:
Natural, morally governed reason, if not frustrated, is already a compass-needle testifying to the in-built law of our nature. As the prosecutors at Nuremberg pointed out, did you really need to have a statute to know that murder is wrong? (And yes, the sobering history of the Fascist, Nazi and Communist regimes over the past 100 years is a reminder on all of this.)
But, compasses can be dulled, bent, broken or misled. Here is a classic remark on the subject:
In short, a culture can move to a point where it so gives itself over to its lusts, perversities, addictions to habituating evils and to associated worldview level falsehoods that typical members of such a community have dulled, warped, distorted or even — in extreme cases — silenced consciences, thus marginalising the governing voice of morally tinged truth and in-built natural law.
We actually have a term for the state of having a silenced conscience: becoming a sociopath. There is even a dark triad scale (SD3) (also, see the “dirty dozen” scale) that jointly measures narcissism, highly machiavellian tendencies and degree of sociopathy.
The mere fact that such has had to be popularly discussed and is even a routine part of organisational behaviour courses is diagnostic of where our angrily radically secularised civilisation is. The further fact of decades spent enabling the holocaust of our living posterity in the womb under false colour of law, with 800 – 1400 million victims and a further million more per week is a further indictment. Nor is it an accident that the 2019 annual march for life was targetted for an agit-prop, media amplified racist smear and that the first judge to hear the defamation of minors case has tried to dismiss it on a flimsy excuse. Indeed, this tidal wave of blood guilt in my view is the central corrosive evil of our time. Many other evils are recognisably metastases of it.
This pattern is why we are dancing heedlessly on the crumbling edge of a cliff, refusing to hear much less heed due warnings.
So, no, projecting blame to God for our willfully dulled, warped or silenced consciences fails. The fault is ours, not his. And indeed, we have been this way before. Pagan Rome (as Schaeffer points out in the vid that leads the OP) was in a very similar condition.
Let us wake up to our peril and turn back before it is too late and the cliff’s edge crumbles underfoot.
KF
PS: The dirty dozen questions:
KF
Again, you are arguing from the fallacy of consequences. Has it escaped your senses that all of the consequences of subjective morality that you repeatedly warn about is fully supported by all of human history? You can bury your head in the sand and pretend that it isn’t so, but that gets us nowhere.
KF
What context makes it right to own another human, and because you own that human makes it right for you to beat that human without consequences.
The context of the discussion was that right and wrong are not relative, they never change. But obviously, in the case of the bible and our interpretation of it, right and wrong have changed.
BB, you are trying to re-label reductio ad absurdum as a fallacious appeal to consequences, which fails. First, it has been satisfactorily shown that rationality itself is inescapably morally governed through duties to truth, right reason, prudence, justice etc. In that context what undermines moral government undermines rationality and is inevitably self-referentially incoherent and self falsifying. The relativism you advocated would reduce truth, right reason, the right, rights, knowledge, justice and far more to the imposition of power; it is the same problem of evolutionary materialism that Plato pointed out in The Laws c 360 BC. We have far more reason to be confident in rationality and in its moral government than in a relativism that seeks to subvert and undermine while inescapably appealing to what it would overthrow. You would be well advised to do likewise and walk away from the self referential absurdity of such relativism. KF
PS: Your attempts to argue against the Bible, appealing to the right in respect of slavery simply illustrates the point: you must appeal to what you would subvert, which points to its being undeniably true. Your further failure to engage with the issue of hardness of heart, reformation and regulation of social evils in the meanwhile also speaks. This is a key lesson that radical revolutionaries failed to learn over the past 250 years and it is part of what led to reigns of terror driven by escalating extremism. Contrast Wilberforce and Robespierre, asking yourself why one is remembered as a transformative philanthropist and the other is justly deemed a misanthrope.
PPS: The inscription on Wilberforce’s statue in Westminster Abbey, erected 1840:
Crimes against you and humanity. Prisons are full of people who are owned by the State.
KF
No it has not. Rationality informs our moral values. It is not governed by them.
Now you are guilty of the assign motives fallacy. I use examples from the bible when discussing morality because it is a fairly accurate record of what the reigning moral values of the day were. And, by comparing to our current moral values, demonstrating that they have changed o we time. Unless, of course, you think it is morally right to beat your slave as long as he doesn’t die.
How can you have an honest discussion or debate about morality and ethics with someone who has no obligation to be honest?
Most of our regular interlocutors describe themselves as moral relativists or subjectivists. Moral subjectivists don’t believe in moral obligations because moral obligations require real moral standards. So how can they be trusted to be honest?
They rationalize that in a democracy they can reach a consensus but how can you reach a consensus when there is no standard to judge which arbitrary moral ideas are right or wrong, or distinguish between good, bad, better or best?
Human rights are moral obligations writ large. In other words, human rights must be universal and morally binding across cultures and throughout history. They cannot exist under a worldview which embraces moral relativism or subjectivism.
Your being played kf by an incorrigible self-righteous egotist who is motivated by intolerance for anyone who accepts traditional time tested moral values grounded in natural moral law.
Whatever happened to UD’s standards? It’s time to start telling certain individuals where to go– Somewhere else.
Jad
I have an obligation to myself, my family, my friends and our desire to live within a society, to be honest. That is something that was “beaten” into me by my parents and teachers as a kid, and continually reinforced throughout my life. Why you would need some supernatural being to tell you this is a mystery.
Of course we believe in moral obligations. Standards can be subjective and consensus based. In fact, an internationally respected organization (ISO) that makes its living developing consensus standards.
That was from an irrational person. So how would that person know?
Baloney. There isn’t any such obligation. If evolutionism is true then your only obligation is to survive, reproduce and perhaps help your family do the same- by any means possible.
Not when it comes to how to properly live your life.
PPPS to 46: Helene Guerber in her Story of Modern France, recalls Robespierre:
In his own words, in Report on the Principles of Political Morality, February 5th 1794:
Again replying to Danton’s plea for an end to the Terror:
The absurdities and nihilism obviously escaped him.
This sickening pattern, of course, has played out again and again and again since the 1790’s; costing well over 100 million their lives in the past 100 years.
Contrast, the US DoI, 1776:
While the American Revolution had many flaws, excesses and compromises with entrenched evils (and was itself viewed by the American leaders as a scourge brought on by the sins of both the Colonists and the Motherland), it did not collapse into a Terror. Of course, later, hard hearted intransigence and polarisation in reaction to needed reform led to a needless civil war that cost 600,000 their lives.
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is a sobering lesson, drawn by a soul anguished by the scourge of a strictly needless and bloody, brutally costly war brought on by our darker passions:
We have much that we yet need to learn.
[–> Delayed, power cut]
BB,
I am between two duties, so I will briefly snip and comment on what particularly caught my eye on a quick glance:
Even to object, you are forced to implicitly acknowledge the governing power of — not our mere “values” — but out plain DUTIES to the truth, to right reason, to prudence (implying warrant), to sound conscience, to justice etc. This is yet another illustration of the force of undeniable first principles, here the governing principles that rule the life of reason.
What becomes interesting is why do you find it so hard to acknowledge the self-evident, manifest even in the structure of your own objections.
The answer comes back, because it cuts across deep worldview and cultural agenda commitments, so you find yourself clinging to a crooked yardstick posed as standard of straight, upright and accurate, even as the message of the plumb line is plain, the crooked yardstick has failed.
Further to this, of course lies the issue that our rationality inescapably operates on both sides of the IS-OUGHT gap (which you have sharply objected to earlier) , which therefore must be bridged. That points to the only place, post Hume, where that is possible — on pain of ungrounded ought. The world root.
Where, the world root must not just be causally adequate to a physical world that can have computational entities, but it must ground responsibly rationally free morally governed minds. That points to its being necessary, necessarily inherently good and utterly wise.
Very familiar characteristics, which cut clean across the confident manner rhetoric of atheism as default and the like.
Where, again, cultural relativism as root of moral government and principles has been exposed as utterly absurd, reducing to the nihilism of power.
Listen to the ghost of Robespierre.
KF
JaD, the exposing of the self referential incoherence and reduction to the absurdities of nihilism are themselves important results. We can say this all we want, it is the actual from the horse’s mouth admission and the implications that have been a major contribution to progress. So, even though he did not intend the gift or the service, BB has done something for the good in the end. KF
F/N: ISO, is an international expression of the justice principle of fair weights and measures. Again, inescapably morally governed. KF