Epics for a Postmodern Era

A major part of this blog's hypothesis is the claim that Christian cosmology has stood model for the conceptual framework of almost all modern ideologies.

As God was the center of the Universe, with Pope, King or Emperor as spiritual and secular substitutes in feudal times - during modernity in Nationalism - the Nation quite literally usurped God's place, as did the State in all incarnations of Statism. That includes liberal democracy, which is presently collapsing under the weight of Postmodernism collectivism.

In Europe, philosophers as well as anti philosophers went wholesale for the substitution model, particularly after the French Revolution, when it was institutionalized in the French version of the separation of Church and State (laïcité).

A philosopher of the Enlightenment proper who has been a major influence on the founding of America - John Locke (1632-1704) - seems to have been well aware of the danger. It was also understood by America's Founding Fathers, who crafted the Republic not on the banning of religion from the state, but the state banned from the area of religion. The statist effort to institute an American form of laïcité therefore goes to the heart of the Republic.

Many writers at the time of America's childhood years - for example Alexis de Tocqueville - have commented on the fundamental role of religion in America's philosophy of liberty.

The problem becomes more clear if we look at the teleological narratives of Counter Enlightenment thinkers, like Kant (1724-1804) and Hegel (1770-1831): a dialectic, constituted of "improvement through strife". Both had a tremendous influence on two of Europe's main political strands: what is termed today, Social Democracy (and all forms of Progressivism) and Christian Democracy (so much so that the British Tories felt the need to leave the Christian Democratic faction in the European Parliament). It is where the Progressives' notion of social engineering (or 'makeability') is rooted.

From "Countering Kant": Kant foresees in a teleological progress towards an end-game by means of strife, war and discord. This brings man as a species to a more ethically evolved order. The process will ultimately culminate in a world government, an international and cosmopolitan federation of states, awaiting the coming of the Day of Judgment. This is the Hidden Plan of Nature according to Kant."

From "Heckling Hegel": Hegel's philosophy is a secular fantasy based on Judeo-Christian cosmology: God's projection, a spirit called the Absolute, represents creation which is seeking reunification with God. Its development through struggle and conflict by means of which it gets to know itself, is the story of the history of the world. The story ends when the Absolute - reunited with God - achieves full self-consciousness.

Hegel's theme was the state. Freedom is not God-given as the Enlighteners held, but granted by the state. Under the principle 'as above, so below' the state acts as the instrument of God. It is the 'ethical whole', the 'actualization of freedom', and the self-consciousness of the Absolute. As a mere aspect of the state it is the individual's duty to submit to its needs, and worship it as a 'terrestrial divinity'."

Since Marx was a student of Hegel's you may be justified in assuming that this is the ground zero of Socialism. But we must go even beyond that. Both Kant and Hegel were great admirers of Rousseau (1712-1778), the inventor of a foul notion he called "Common Will".

From "Radical Rousseau's Ravages": The latter is a concept that in Rousseau's approach requires state intervention. This should not be confused with the 'common good'. It is a far more developed conception which, and unlike the former, can only be realized in the context of civil society under the state ["Radical Enlightenment", p. 720). For the creation of a society of common will, "freedom of all the people", they need only accept the dictates of the state. This was Rousseau's essence of "true civilization." The struggle between rich and poor would then rise to a moral experience of self-restraint. [Wildmonk]

Imagine the world as a dome. Is it an empty space? Is it God's gift to humanity and a theater in which to pursue man's eternal rights to life, liberty and happiness (or property)? Or is the dome filled with Rousseau's nebulous collective ether, made up of humanity's Common Will under the State from which temporal rights are derived? We know Obama told us he likes the latter, in passing also equivocating the redistribution of wealth (or "social justice") with "economic freedom" (Orwell is his master).

This is the difference between freedom and bondage; liberty or statism; the Anglo-Saxon model or the Rhineland system; God given, inherent, eternal, individual rights - or temporal, collective rights derived from the State. The choice is yours.

We live in epic times. Global warming hysteria is the perfect narrative for enslavement to a global tyranny: a common enemy within and without demanding all encompassing collective measures, the Common Will to which we must all submit for the sake of the common good. We are sleepwalking into the trap. Consider these two examples, produced within a day of "Hopenhagen":

AP: "Climate reality: Voluntary efforts not enough" [go ahead, sue me!]


(...) analysis by the United Nations and outside management systems experts show that those voluntary reductions will not keep temperatures from increasing by more than 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with now. That's the level that scientists, the United Nations, the European Union and the Obama administration have said the world cannot afford. Good intentions aren't enough.  (...) More negotiations are planned for next year. "It just underlines the heroic effort here that the science says needs to be done; it's not easy," said Alden Meyer, policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "If it were easy, it would have been done. This is a daunting effort." (...) >>>

I give you last night's entry on the Articles dossier of Climategate:

The ominous postmodern rhetoric of John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK is worthy of any pocket potentate:

"The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. There are no targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a legally binding treaty. It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen".

Expect the last remnants of Leftist liberalism to die along with their eco illusions. Aim justifying the means, don't be surprised if the fascistic tendencies from here onwards go full throttle.

Lord Monckton was manhandled in Hopenhagen. Briefly earlier he'd asked Czech President Vaclav Klaus "whether the draft Copenhagen Treaty’s proposal for what amounted to a communistic world government reminded him of the Communism under which he and his country had suffered for so long." "He thought for a moment – as statesmen always do before answering an unusual question – and said, “Maybe it is not brutal. But in all other respects, what it proposes is far too close to Communism for comfort."

Today, as I lay in the snow with a cut knee, a bruised back, a banged head, a ruined suit, and a written-off coat, I wondered whether the brutality of the New World Order was moving closer than President Klaus – or any of us – had realized. >>>

Wretchard on PJs peeks into the future and ventures a guess what the progressivist One World tyranny might look like (do read it all!). Cheer up: "Others have given us the Christmases past and present. But Christmases future are up to us. (...) We are the last best hope of man on earth. >>>