No More Conserving, Only Serving

[Romanov]

Oeaohoo, everything else aside…what brings you to this forum and actualized overall as a conservative? I’m not trying to be snarky with that question at all, I am actually curious. 
 

What about Actualized is attractive to you?

[Tyler Robinson]

25 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Like Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, John McCain, Larry Hogan, and perhaps Mitt Romney. 

All of these Republicans have been willing to make reasonable compromises and have been for serious bipartisanship.

They also don't constant criticize moderate Democrats as "the radical left," when those Democrats aren't.

Furthermore, they've always been much more principled and have always been for some amount of economic regulation. 

Staunch conservatives and right extremists, on the other hand, like Mitch McConnell and Newt Gingrich have always believed that compromise is a dirty word and had always made it clear to the public that their number goal has always been to stopping any Democratic president from making any significant achievements. Republicans have very little to no principles.

 

 

To be frank, the Republican party allows nearly anyone including someone like Trump who doesn't even have any political qualifications and has never served as a politician before. 

[Nilsi]

9 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

There are two simultaneous aspects to the phenomenon of cyclical manifestation: a linear descent and a cyclical ascent and descent.

Let us take the historical example of Christianity. Of course, the Christian religion was most potent when Christ was still alive. It has become increasingly impotent in the times following. This is the linear descent.

However, the culture of Christendom as an embodied phenomenon was quite weak when Christ was alive. It took a millennia of cultural development (the ascent) for Christendom to become a dominant material power.

It has also taken hundreds of years of cultural development (the descent) for Christianity to be deconstructed: the so-called “Renaissance”, the so-called “Enlightenment”, the secular ideologies of the twentieth century, all culminating in contemporary Clown World (in which, heresy is orthodoxy and orthodoxy is heresy, or as the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth say “Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair”).

There is a hierarchy, it’s just not a hierarchy of “evolution”. To use Mircea Eliade’s phrase, it is a hierarchical descent, from the Sacred to the profane.

Isn’t it strange that, amongst all of these cultures, we do not find a single claim to animal origins or “evolution”, but to noble and divine origins?

One of the first things I said when I came back to this forum is: evolution is just an alibi for people who have regressed to the level of apes. I love this phrase and it is completely true.

Nice quote, though I prefer his saying: “Progress is merely a modern idea, that is to say a false idea!” 

Isn't this just the good ol blind men and the elephant situation?

I'll grant you your alternative interpretation of history, but it's just not helping anyone to flip everything on its head and talk about time as if it were flowing backwards. 

I'm not that familiar with the philosophy you're describing, so please correct me if I'm missing something, but to me it looks like being different for the sake of being different.

[Nilsi]

Of course you can slice up time into cycles that repeat each other. But these cycles don't repeat each other exactly. There are slight variations which cascade into something completely new over long periods of time i.e. emergence through an evolutionary process . 

This is exactly how ontogenetic development works as well. You have microdevelopemental stages, which build on top of each other to create the acquisition of a new behavior or understanding.

How does a child learn to tie a shoe? In incremental microdevelopmental stages, which build on top of each other and after many iterations of repetition the child is able to tie their shoes. Then, they can learn to tie their shoes, while thinking about what they will do today after school etc. 

All that is to say, fractal-like time cycles evolve in increasingly complex ways.

[Nilsi]

I think I know what you're saying now.

So you're supposedly in some kind of enlightened state of consciousness and you're looking at an ape. Now instead of saying "I evolved from this thing," you say something like "this is my descent." Now when you look at some ideal, which discloses itself through say art or philosophy you say "This is my ascent; this is more close to my true nature."

But then what? Do you actually want to embody this ideal or do you want to remain an observer frozen in time? Because if you want to reach this ideal, you will have to undergo some kind of evolutionary process. You will not magically turn into the Übermensch by sitting on your ass and deconstructing evolution and progress. So what are you even doing with your life?

Edited December 19, 2022 by Nilsi

[Oeaohoo]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

But then what? Do you actually want to embody this ideal or do you want to remain an observer frozen in time?

Frozen in timelessness! 

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

But then what? Do you actually want to embody this ideal? Because if you want to reach this ideal, you will have to undergo some kind of evolutionary process. You will not magically turn into the Übermensch by sitting on your ass and deconstructing evolution and progress.

The Ubermensch is the immature and unrefined version of Zarathustra’s doctrine. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the gradual refinement of this idea: from the Ubermensch, through the Will to Power, culminating in the Great Midday and the revelation of the Eternal Recurrence.

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

So what are you even doing with your life?

Do you recall what the Goddess of Life says to Zarathustra towards the end of the Third Part of Zarathustra?

“Thereupon Life looked pensively behind her and about her and said softly: 'O Zarathustra, you are not true enough to me! 'You have long not loved me as much as you say you do; I know you are thinking that you want to leave me soon. 'There is an ancient heavy heavy booming-bell: at night its booming comes all the way up to your cave: and when you hear this bell at midnight strike the hour, between the strokes of one and twelve you think—you think then, O Zarathustra, well I know, of how you want to leave me soon!'

'Yes; I answered hesitantly, 'but you also know that—' And I said something into her ear, right through her tangled yellow crazy locks of hair. ‘You know that, O Zarathustra? No one knows that.—‘“

Zarathustra here realises something more profound than the Superman who stays true to life and to the earth. There is some validity to his assault on the “preachers of death” and “other-worldliness”, in the sense that embracing the earth can be a means of transcending it, whilst denying it can keep you stuck upon it. The ultimate form of his teaching, however, is transcendence of life; it is just not a transcendence which defines itself in opposition to “life” and “the earth.”

[Oeaohoo]

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

So you're supposedly in some kind of enlightened state of consciousness and you're looking at an ape. Now instead of saying "I evolved from this thing," you say something like "this is my descent." Now when you look at some ideal, which discloses itself through say art or philosophy you say "This is my ascent; this is more close to my true nature."

I would very much like to wrap this up here as this forum gives me a headache!

Will you at least admit this basic fact? If you were born in another time, you would almost certainly view history differently.

The way that we conceive of history is inevitably shaped by where we find ourselves in history. To offer a very brief and inevitably simplified overview, this is how the view of history has changed over time:

Hinduism offers the most advanced system which has survived into the modern day: the fractal process that you are describing is laid out in terms of a complex system of Manvantaras and Yuga Cycles, which each have an ascent (kalpa) and a descent (pralaya). Given the many shared aspects of Indo-European culture, it is safe to assume that other traditional civilisations had similar models, which were lost through the very process that I am describing here.

This view was reappropriated and narrowed down by the great Empires of historical antiquity (Ancient Persia, Greece, Rome) so that only the present Yuga cycle remained, in the form of the myth of the “Four Ages of Man”: Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age.

This was then further reduced by the so-called Abrahamic religions into a linear view of history, as a personalised doctrine of fallenness and salvation: a fall from Divine Grace culminating in the eventual redemption of the world in the Revelatory Apocalypse.

The final stage of this process is the modern, progressive and evolutionary view, which is a systematic inversion of all of its predecessors. The radical revolutionaries and ideologues who formulated the ideology of “progress” were well aware that they were engaged in an inversion of traditional doctrine. This has been described in an academic setting as “inverted exegesis”: the turning of a doctrine on its head, so as to subvert and ultimately destroy it. 

Each view of history is a reflection of the material and spiritual dispositions of those who created it. The earliest view reveals a universalism which is the complete antithesis of modern uniformity: a view of history relatively untainted by personal biases. The second view reveals a decadence in comparison to the first, providing a framework for statecraft and Empire-building as well as a mythic-religious creed. The third view, that of the Abrahamic religions, justified a life of penitence and prostration before the theistic God.

We decadent moderns, on the other hand, are obsessed with change, the future, endless innovation, the flux of becoming, the wheel of samsara... To this end, we have invented a whole historiographical framework (“evolutionary progressivism”) to justify this obsession. The whole thing is a post-hoc rationalisation for an irrational attachment to progress and all of its synonyms. That is what I mean when I say that: evolution is just an alibi for people who have regressed to the level of apes.

[Oeaohoo]

13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

So please spare us your utopian nonsense about conservatives and their magic abilities to recognize things.

Your typical conservative has as much recognition as a mule.

You are playing a game here, holding all conservatives to the standards of the most mediocre brand of contemporary “conservatism” whilst selecting the best examples of liberalism.

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Nice strawman.

No one is suggesting that.

It is you who is straw-manning, I am just returning the favour. If you were really interested in steel-manning conservatism, you would contrast someone like René Guénon with Wilber, the cultural relativism of Vico and Spengler with postmodern relativism, something like the Dark Enlightenment to Daniel Schmachtenberger and “Game B”… All you are really interested in, however, is desperately clinging to your personal progressive biases whilst posing as some deep “Tier 2 systems thinker”.

This isn’t Fox News versus Daniel Schmachtenberger. That is the straw-man!

Edited December 19, 2022 by Oeaohoo

[Danioover9000]

   Guys, can you please stop straw manning each other? We're running out of hay stacks to feed the animal farm.

[Oeaohoo]

Just now, Danioover9000 said:

   Guys, can you please stop straw manning each other? We're running out of hay stacks to feed the animal farm.

I’ve always despised the term straw-manning anyway. It reduces everything to an abstract logical debate, divorced from practical realities. It also fails to distinguish between the irrational and the super-rational.

I imagine being in some Communist hell-realm and pointing out the ugliness that surrounds us. My devoted comrades would immediately respond: “But that’s just a straw-man! You have failed to understand the deep intelligence of Communism! You need to read Marx’s Capital 10-15 more times!”

Even if a belief system is logically coherent, its practical consequences might not be.

[Oeaohoo]

“Comrades, have you noticed that we are ruled by a malicious and tyrannical elite?”

“You don’t understand! They are simply better than us! As the vanguard of the future, the super-developed minority, they deserve to rule over us. That’s not a bug, that’s a feature!”

“That’s not a bug, it’s a small creature!”

[Nilsi]

You keep deconstructing everything we bring to the table and you are obviously extremely knowledgeable and well versed in the history of philosophy, but youre not offering anything constructive.

"Evolutionary progressivism" works very well in the real world

• it is adept at explaining every phenomenon in the universe
• it offers an ethical imperative and thus meaning and social coherence in becoming responsible stewards of evolution;
• it offers a sophisticated and open-ended aesthetic exploration of the universe through emergence  

- so I dont see any reason to replace it with some obscure archaic topsy turvy involution worldview.

This is why I keep calling you a postmodernist or nihilist.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Nilsi

[Oeaohoo]

19 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

"Evolutionary progressivism" works very well in the real world

• it is adept at explaining every phenomenon in the universe
• it offers an ethical imperative and thus meaning and social coherence in becoming responsible stewards of evolution;
• it offers a sophisticated and open-ended aesthetic exploration of the universe through emergence  

- so I dont see any reason to replace it with some obscure archaic topsy turvy involution worldview.

…until it doesn’t… 

You’re right, though I don’t see this as contradicting anything that I said above. Evolutionary progressivism is a myth which suits a certain mentality and attitude towards life. It will last for as long as this mentality and attitude last.

Of course, however, from the traditional perspective it is evolutionary progressivism which is obscure and topsy-turvy!

19 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

You keep deconstructing everything we bring to the table and you’re not offering anything constructive.

This is why I keep calling you a postmodernist or nihilist.

I don’t agree with this. There is only an element of deconstruction in what I am saying because I think that this forum is extremely biased towards a certain worldview. It has nothing to do with being a postmodernist and certainly not a nihilist.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Oeaohoo

[Nilsi]

19 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

…until it doesn’t… 

You’re right, though I don’t see this as contradicting anything that I said above. Evolutionary progressivism is a myth which suits a certain mentality and attitude towards life. It will last for as long as this mentality and attitude last.

In my estimation it is a myth that suits mankind as a whole and is neccessary to cope and effectively deal with the world we currently inhabit. 

 

21 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

I don’t agree with this. There is only an element of deconstruction in what I am saying because I think that this forum is extremely biased towards a certain worldview. It has nothing to do with being a postmodernist and certainly not a nihilist.

I dont see anyone articulating this worldview here, besides some rough intimations of it.

[Oeaohoo]

16 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

In my estimation it is a myth that suits mankind as a whole and is neccessary to cope and effectively deal with the world we currently inhabit.

I agree. Though I think the world we currently inhabit is changing very radically and so this might not apply for much longer!

To be frank, I think that the true and generally unconscious purpose of evolutionary progressivism is to terminate our decadence as quickly as possible.

It represents a sort of “race to the finish line” and a political expression of Thanatos (Todestrieb or the “Death Drive”). In its own way, then, it is a beneficent phenomenon: destroying all of that which is no longer worth conserving.

17 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I dont see anyone articulating this worldview here, besides some rough intimations of it.

Maybe not in such a rigorously formulated manner, but still: variations on the same theme.

[Nilsi]

25 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

It represents a sort of “race to the finish line” and a political expression of Thanatos (Todestrieb or the “Death Drive”). In its own way, then, it is a beneficent phenomenon: destroying all of that which is no longer worth conserving.

I dont see it. It is literally Eros - consciousness blossoming into ever greater complexity and intimacy (which is the correlate of complexity in the interior domain).

[Oeaohoo]

59 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I dont see it. It is literally Eros - consciousness blossoming into ever greater complexity and intimacy (which is the correlate of complexity in the interior domain).

If that’s what you want to tell yourself, so be it! 

Whether it is Eros or Thanatos, it is nevertheless a regression to the subconscious mud of life. For what it’s worth, the two concepts became increasingly blurred in later Freudianism.

My favourite composer Scriabin - inspired by the Russian mystic Solovyov, as well as the more questionable philosophies of Theosophy, Schopenhauerian idealism and Nietzschean vitalism - captures the consumption of our decadent world in the Heraclitean fires of divine purgation perfectly in his ode to scintillating devastation, Towards the Flame!

 

[Nilsi]

6 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

If that’s what you want to tell yourself, so be it! 

Whether it is Eros or Thanatos, it is nevertheless a regression to the subconscious mud of life. For what it’s worth, the two concepts became increasingly blurred in later Freudianism.

My favourite composer Scriabin - inspired by the Russian mystic Solovyov, as well as the more questionable philosophies of Theosophy, Schopenhauerian idealism and Nietzschean vitalism - captures the consumption of our decadent world in the Heraclitean fires of divine purgation perfectly in his ode to scintillating devastation, Towards the Flame!

 

Im sorry, but this sounds like "mom its not a phase" for overly cerebral kids.

Its good music though.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Nilsi

[Oeaohoo]

Just now, Nilsi said:

Im sorry, but this sounds like "mom its not a phase" for overly cerebral kids.

Of course. One of the main weapons of progressivism is the “cult of normalcy”.

[Oeaohoo]

3 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Its good music though.

Some of his earlier music is less strange. If you are having a Nietzschean phase you ought to love his Fifth Sonata and his symphony, “The Poem of Ecstasy”.