It managed to evolve to that - initially there was a heavy leaning on a notion of the spiritual and the material was the source of all evil. Now, and since the Enlightenment, it's absolutely been all materialistic.
Arguably the most sacred of cows in the Progressive orthodoxy is the Enlightenment. Back when they actually taught some history in school, the Enlightenment was the 'He is Risen' of Reason. Even among the most educated and principled of patriots loyal to the liberal democratic order, the Enlightenment remains untouchable in its rightful place in the great Progress of man.
In fact, of the "second founding" types, the destruction of the Constitution in order to save the Constitution points directly to the enlightenment as their Genesis story of the moral destiny that supersedes the obvious paradoxes of the god of Reason. To this day we see this with the constant iterations of "destruction is actually creation!" A death cult? Hmmm.
The paradox, it seems to me, is something of a fetish for the students of the Enlightenment. It is a feature that the enlightenment meant that God must be destroyed in the hearts of man if we are ever to be free of our dreadful human nature. Yet like a toddler who has figured how to ascend the counter to access the cookie jar, she never considers how that jar was filled with cookies. The duality of human nature is flogged, but largely ignored when inconvenient to the primacy of the relative moral universe of a man divorced from his nature.
The utopia (or "nowhere") is one of the more appropriate of the unifying delusions of self-deism. Which is, of course, also the seminal moment of that great decoupling of Man and Truth. Utopia is the promise of Eden and Heaven for the fallen man. With all the chapters between removed for easy reading. Fast forwarding to transhumanism is hardly a great leap.
Modernity is one big vacuum that nature abhors. In rushes the competing systems of how to aggregate power. Hierarchy exists alright, but only insofar as it repurposes that longing for death into a social order that benefits the right people at the right time they happen to occupy the tower. Sorry, I ramble. Always a great read here, thanks!
You’ve really given a good description of the basic concepts of socialism through all of these different authors. Having watched two of the ministers at the top of the Liberal government Blair and Mendecino yesterday at the commission re using the Emergencies Act to quash the legal Convoy Freedom Protest of Canadians they do seem to view themselves as high above all the rest of us and even the law, they appear to be so smug and narcissistic, entitled, arrogant, and very glib. I cannot imagine their lives compared to the average Canadian and now I understand why they live in such a bubble they are so far out of touch with the average Canadian and what affects us! Most people just want to work, live their lives, raise their families and to be left alone. It would be nice to not have to constantly stress about money but I wouldn’t exchange my freedom for it in a million years..
Socialism sounds so far removed from any concept of a utopia to me from your various descriptions of different models of it I honestly don’t get the appeal. Religion is a basic need for a lot of people, they need their faith especially in times of trouble to help them get through I guess hence the socialist mindset to remove it. The main theme seems to be the removal of private property and work and trade in other words how we support ourselves to live independently and the removal of family to take away our deep bonds and our support systems… we will own nothing and be happy?! How is it that this concept has been so appealing to so many since time immemorial it seems?
I believe the socialist phenomenon is born out of an honest attempt at some sort of Utopia (and/or a reaction against the lordship of God) but just misses the mark massively in any practical outworking (i.e. the happiness of the majority of people) and only, as we well know, serves the elite.
What a marvelous work is the Gulag Archipelago - everyone needs to have read it at least once - it should be a standard book for the last year of high school.
Nov 23, 2022·edited Nov 23, 2022Liked by Winston Smith
In today's world of short attention spans and soundbites, as twitter and facebook has dumbed down most to not be able to handle much more, I suggest to sum this all up so today's common person can process it. I agree with most of it, but very few in today's world can read it.
So, here is my take on short summary. The article says, "Religion, he says, is the source of social evils and that it is not devils that are the true evil against humanity, but the true devils are the noble and the rich."
It is all religion! If you understand "religion" is an attempt to define truth. Politics also ostensibly tries to define truth with human laws, but many see now with covid vaccine (ostensibly defining "true" health for individuals and the "greater good") that the true nature of government is to take more control and enslave the masses in communist dictatorship, Stalin style. The hidden communists in all governments are using the same playbook as in the past, but I digress. Must keep things short and simple for today's world.
Religion/politics/covid (ie attempts to define truth) is bad......WHEN INDIVIDUALS ARE GIVEN NO CHOICE ABOUT THEIR OWN DEFINITIONS OF SUCH, LEST THEY SUFFER GOVERNMENT VIOLENCE OF VARIOUS SORTS TO DISAGREE. Simple solution then is to get rid of all governments. But, as they say, the devil is in the details, and it seems humans are unable to get along in bigger groups in any other way. Group governance requires self-governance, and everybody is at different stages of self-governance, and we have been systematically dumbed down for decades with chemtrails, pesticide ladden mind destroying foods, gmo crap food, mind destroying entertainment, fearporn and so-called "normal" porn, etc.... again I digress. Sorry. Seems I am unable to do otherwise. Let me try again with a short summary.
Fuck you government! Kill me then, as I'm tired of all your bullshit! I'll be back with a few friends and we will have a little "chat" about how you killed me and even thought you had the right. It will be a short conversation.........
Sadly it's true that many don't have the attention span to read even something like this - a very truncated summary, not even a shortish essay that demands you think - so thanks for the attempt at summarizing the summary.
My hope is that there are still some among us (I know there are) who can stay with an essay or a news item for more than 30 seconds and actually stop, engage their prefrontal cortex, and think for at least another 30 seconds. Unfortunately we don't find many of these people among our political leaders.
Before we get too down on Thomas More, there's substantial evidence that:
1) he intended it to be a satire;
2) hardly anyone got the joke.
Someone once said, "All Utopias are dystopias". The proponents all assume that they're going to end up in the ruling classes, and nobody expects to end up doing the work.
There's a classic Soviet joke about who ends up shoveling the shit in Glorious Soviet Republic, the details of which I've completely forgotten.
You are correct, it could have been satire but many didn't take it as such and it started a whole tradition of socialist-like novels that were partly entertainment but also partly developing the socialist thought.
I'd like to believe that he was being satirical but he did more to advance the socialist movement than detract from it. Just like earlier playwrights who wrote comedy and satire on the same topic but it just filled lesser minds with crazy notions that such a state could really exist.
Good explanation… I can remember my mom who used to be a pretty knowledgeable history buff in her younger days telling me that there have been more people killed in the name of God and religion than in all other wars combined which really had an impact on me. Even now why different religions cannot coexist peacefully is a mystery to me.
It's all materialist philosophy
Attempting to build, through Science or by Force,
a Soul.
Doomed to fail.
Divine is innate.
It managed to evolve to that - initially there was a heavy leaning on a notion of the spiritual and the material was the source of all evil. Now, and since the Enlightenment, it's absolutely been all materialistic.
e lites
call themselves the enligtenment ones,
(more nobel than thou)
Then there are, of course, the slaves who are but their private property.
Quite the conundrum for a socialist.
seemingly the ownership of people is OK, it's just the people can't own property (or any real assets for that matter).
Arguably the most sacred of cows in the Progressive orthodoxy is the Enlightenment. Back when they actually taught some history in school, the Enlightenment was the 'He is Risen' of Reason. Even among the most educated and principled of patriots loyal to the liberal democratic order, the Enlightenment remains untouchable in its rightful place in the great Progress of man.
In fact, of the "second founding" types, the destruction of the Constitution in order to save the Constitution points directly to the enlightenment as their Genesis story of the moral destiny that supersedes the obvious paradoxes of the god of Reason. To this day we see this with the constant iterations of "destruction is actually creation!" A death cult? Hmmm.
The paradox, it seems to me, is something of a fetish for the students of the Enlightenment. It is a feature that the enlightenment meant that God must be destroyed in the hearts of man if we are ever to be free of our dreadful human nature. Yet like a toddler who has figured how to ascend the counter to access the cookie jar, she never considers how that jar was filled with cookies. The duality of human nature is flogged, but largely ignored when inconvenient to the primacy of the relative moral universe of a man divorced from his nature.
The utopia (or "nowhere") is one of the more appropriate of the unifying delusions of self-deism. Which is, of course, also the seminal moment of that great decoupling of Man and Truth. Utopia is the promise of Eden and Heaven for the fallen man. With all the chapters between removed for easy reading. Fast forwarding to transhumanism is hardly a great leap.
Modernity is one big vacuum that nature abhors. In rushes the competing systems of how to aggregate power. Hierarchy exists alright, but only insofar as it repurposes that longing for death into a social order that benefits the right people at the right time they happen to occupy the tower. Sorry, I ramble. Always a great read here, thanks!
So very well said!
Couldn't agree with you more.
Sorry is the only superfluous word you could safely have done w/o. Ramble some more when mood strikes 🙂
You’ve really given a good description of the basic concepts of socialism through all of these different authors. Having watched two of the ministers at the top of the Liberal government Blair and Mendecino yesterday at the commission re using the Emergencies Act to quash the legal Convoy Freedom Protest of Canadians they do seem to view themselves as high above all the rest of us and even the law, they appear to be so smug and narcissistic, entitled, arrogant, and very glib. I cannot imagine their lives compared to the average Canadian and now I understand why they live in such a bubble they are so far out of touch with the average Canadian and what affects us! Most people just want to work, live their lives, raise their families and to be left alone. It would be nice to not have to constantly stress about money but I wouldn’t exchange my freedom for it in a million years..
Socialism sounds so far removed from any concept of a utopia to me from your various descriptions of different models of it I honestly don’t get the appeal. Religion is a basic need for a lot of people, they need their faith especially in times of trouble to help them get through I guess hence the socialist mindset to remove it. The main theme seems to be the removal of private property and work and trade in other words how we support ourselves to live independently and the removal of family to take away our deep bonds and our support systems… we will own nothing and be happy?! How is it that this concept has been so appealing to so many since time immemorial it seems?
I believe the socialist phenomenon is born out of an honest attempt at some sort of Utopia (and/or a reaction against the lordship of God) but just misses the mark massively in any practical outworking (i.e. the happiness of the majority of people) and only, as we well know, serves the elite.
Keep going! I’m reading Gulag Archipelago now so your writings are poignant for me. What a disaster that socialist experiment was!
What a marvelous work is the Gulag Archipelago - everyone needs to have read it at least once - it should be a standard book for the last year of high school.
In today's world of short attention spans and soundbites, as twitter and facebook has dumbed down most to not be able to handle much more, I suggest to sum this all up so today's common person can process it. I agree with most of it, but very few in today's world can read it.
So, here is my take on short summary. The article says, "Religion, he says, is the source of social evils and that it is not devils that are the true evil against humanity, but the true devils are the noble and the rich."
It is all religion! If you understand "religion" is an attempt to define truth. Politics also ostensibly tries to define truth with human laws, but many see now with covid vaccine (ostensibly defining "true" health for individuals and the "greater good") that the true nature of government is to take more control and enslave the masses in communist dictatorship, Stalin style. The hidden communists in all governments are using the same playbook as in the past, but I digress. Must keep things short and simple for today's world.
Religion/politics/covid (ie attempts to define truth) is bad......WHEN INDIVIDUALS ARE GIVEN NO CHOICE ABOUT THEIR OWN DEFINITIONS OF SUCH, LEST THEY SUFFER GOVERNMENT VIOLENCE OF VARIOUS SORTS TO DISAGREE. Simple solution then is to get rid of all governments. But, as they say, the devil is in the details, and it seems humans are unable to get along in bigger groups in any other way. Group governance requires self-governance, and everybody is at different stages of self-governance, and we have been systematically dumbed down for decades with chemtrails, pesticide ladden mind destroying foods, gmo crap food, mind destroying entertainment, fearporn and so-called "normal" porn, etc.... again I digress. Sorry. Seems I am unable to do otherwise. Let me try again with a short summary.
Fuck you government! Kill me then, as I'm tired of all your bullshit! I'll be back with a few friends and we will have a little "chat" about how you killed me and even thought you had the right. It will be a short conversation.........
Sadly it's true that many don't have the attention span to read even something like this - a very truncated summary, not even a shortish essay that demands you think - so thanks for the attempt at summarizing the summary.
My hope is that there are still some among us (I know there are) who can stay with an essay or a news item for more than 30 seconds and actually stop, engage their prefrontal cortex, and think for at least another 30 seconds. Unfortunately we don't find many of these people among our political leaders.
Before we get too down on Thomas More, there's substantial evidence that:
1) he intended it to be a satire;
2) hardly anyone got the joke.
Someone once said, "All Utopias are dystopias". The proponents all assume that they're going to end up in the ruling classes, and nobody expects to end up doing the work.
There's a classic Soviet joke about who ends up shoveling the shit in Glorious Soviet Republic, the details of which I've completely forgotten.
You are correct, it could have been satire but many didn't take it as such and it started a whole tradition of socialist-like novels that were partly entertainment but also partly developing the socialist thought.
I'd like to believe that he was being satirical but he did more to advance the socialist movement than detract from it. Just like earlier playwrights who wrote comedy and satire on the same topic but it just filled lesser minds with crazy notions that such a state could really exist.
Seems that we should add Shafarevich to those who have a problem telling satire from more serious types of writings...
Good explanation… I can remember my mom who used to be a pretty knowledgeable history buff in her younger days telling me that there have been more people killed in the name of God and religion than in all other wars combined which really had an impact on me. Even now why different religions cannot coexist peacefully is a mystery to me.