[The Lizard of Oz]

This post was inspired by a number of recent comments and threads from both scorpion and Samseau, and I felt it merited its own more explicitly philosophical thread. While it is structured as a response to scorpion, the point that is made here has, in my opinion, a much wider application.

*************

scorpion,

There is an irony in your posts on this thread and elsewhere that I don't think you recognize. The deep convictions that drive you to espouse your kind of apocalyptic religiosity are no different, in essence, from the convictions that underlie the progressive ideology that you so passionately decry. Indeed, these two seemingly contradictory visions are really just two sides of the same coin, and the mythologies of decline that both sides are so irresistibly drawn to spring from the same grim and unfortunate source.

You are right about one thing: the progressive ideology in its current form has its roots in the loss of traditional religious faith among intelligent men at the turn of the last century, and the universal adoption by them of a metaphysics of nihilism, most clearly enunciated in the writings of Nietzsche. The conviction that has become universal among intelligent men since that time is that because there is no God, life and the entire universe are therefore necessarily "meaningless" and this realization of "meaninglessness" is somehow the one thing that is given once and for all, known all the way down the line. This taken-for-granted and universally shared idea, and the fear and panic that it engenders in men, is what really explains the structure both of progressive ideology, and of traditionalist ideologies that stand in seeming contradiction to it.

It is not true, however, to say that progressives have replaced religion with the "worship of man" -- far from it. The progressive obsession with "equality" and with the protection of "the weak" and various "victim groups" stems from the feeling that in a world known to be "meaningless" all the way down the line, the pain and suffering experienced by the weak is adding insult to injury -- and that makes it the one thing that cannot be tolerated. Therefore, there is a sacred status accorded to groups in proportion to how far they are removed and shielded from the knowledge of "meaninglessness": thus the obsession with more primitive and "other" cultures that have not yet attained this terrible knowledge; the sacralization of women, children and animals, that are seen as always molested and tortured; and the most logical conclusion of all, the worship of Gaia and the "environment", of things that are entirely inanimate. And therefore too, the special hatred reserved for the white man as the creature that has become aware of "meaninglessness" yet continues to forge ahead with its unseemly and obscene "greed" and hunger for "growth", always adding insult to injury with its relentless forward drive even when it has been "understood" that it can have no possible point -- that all we can do in a "meaningless" world is to protect the "weak" from "torture" and give them the "justice" that is to be our sole consolation.

While the kind of traditionalist religiosity that you advocate stands in superficial contradiction to some of the literal tenets of progressivist ideology, it is in fact animated by the same shared conviction of "meaninglessness" and is just a differently processed reaction to it. It attempts to simply deny the deeply felt certainty of "meaninglessness" by affecting a return to a state that preceded it; yet this is belied by the same emotional undertone of fear and panic and the same conviction of inexorable decline that is shared by nilihist ideologies of all stripes. It is telling that both progressive environmentalists and would-be traditionalists are so drawn to the metaphor of a "virus", of a "disease" that has taken hold of mankind and that is already in "terminal" stages and cannot be cured unless the most radical measures are taken -- and maybe even then. For progressive environmentalists, the "disease" is the human being itself and what it has done to the "planet"; for the apocalyptic traditionalists, it is the "culture" and what we have done to each other. Either way, the punishment is sure to come, and collapse is imminent -- and the fantasy, acknowledged or not, is that this dreaded but also wished for fire will somehow burn away the unbearable knowledge of "meaninglessness", and somehow -- some way -- wipe the slate clean.

This is what leads otherwise intelligent and thoughtful men to indulge in dark dreams and dystopian visions that are so completely divorced from any reasonable apprehension of reality. Even as scorpion writes a post on this forum which proclaims the certainty of the collapse of all western civilization in short order, and the impending triumph of Islam everywhere, an equally intelligent white man of the same age writes a post on Grist or the Daily Kos saying it might be already "too late" -- that even with the best efforts of the EPA and others, we have simply emitted too much carbon dioxide, and the coming calamities of "climate change" have already been set in motion, and will destroy civilization as we know it. Two superficially different stories -- but with the exact same conclusion.

This is something that should fascinate everyone: scorpion is no fool, and neither is the progressive who posts on Daily Kos. How is it that these otherwise intelligent men are drawn to nightmarish and apocalyptic visions of collapse and decline that are, literally, lunatic -- that rely on extrapolations, leaps of faith, and short-circuited thinking that an intelligent adolescent could see through? How is it that an otherwise smart guy like Samseau expresses the fantastical and demented belief that rural roads in the US will be impassable in 20 years? How can the thinking of otherwise intelligent men become so tight, overdetermined, and short-circuited that they always reach one and the same conclusion -- catastrophe! -- from any and all premises? The answer is that their minds are clouded and controlled by the same shared conviction; and they embody this conviction even as they attempt, in different ways, to escape it.

[Sp5]

People get bored with peace and relative prosperity and imagine something worse.

I note that you, too, were predicting apocalyptic war about two weeks ago, Lizard.

The future will be surprisingly different from what any of us imagine. Some of that surprise might be that things might be pretty much the same. I am more worried about sudden big events like nuclear war than slow decline - maybe conditioning from my Cold War / Cuban missile crisis childhood.

[tylerdurden1993]

[Wutang]

Are a fan of John Gray's works? I'm asking cause even though you two do ultimately have different viewpoints - he's a very vocal critic of the idea of human progress and is a pretty nihlisitic guy in general he does write about a lot about the similarities between religious and secular progressive ideolgies and how subscribers to the latter don't realize a lot of the time how much they take from the former when it comes to mindsets. Also he wrote an entire book called Black Mass that deals especially with apocalyptic ideas in politics and how it was derived from Reformation Christianity.

[KorbenDallas]

This is why women do better in gender politics. They are herd animals who are all on the same team; for the most part.

We men are too busy fighting each other.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

(06-28-2014 04:00 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

This post was inspired by a number of recent comments and threads from both scorpion and Samseau, and I felt it merited its own more explicitly philosophical thread. While it is structured as a response to scorpion, the point that is made here has, in my opinion, a much wider application.

*************

scorpion,

There is an irony in your posts on this thread and elsewhere that I don't think you recognize. The deep convictions that drive you to espouse your kind of apocalyptic religiosity are no different, in essence, from the convictions that underlie the progressive ideology that you so passionately decry. Indeed, these two seemingly contradictory visions are really just two sides of the same coin, and the mythologies of decline that both sides are so irresistibly drawn to spring from the same grim and unfortunate source.

You are right about one thing: the progressive ideology in its current form has its roots in the loss of traditional religious faith among intelligent men at the turn of the last century, and the universal adoption by them of a metaphysics of nihilism, most clearly enunciated in the writings of Nietzsche. The conviction that has become universal among intelligent men since that time is that because there is no God, life and the entire universe are therefore necessarily "meaningless" and this realization of "meaninglessness" is somehow the one thing that is given once and for all, known all the way down the line. This taken-for-granted and universally shared idea, and the fear and panic that it engenders in men, is what really explains the structure both of progressive ideology, and of traditionalist ideologies that stand in seeming contradiction to it.

It is not true, however, to say that progressives have replaced religion with the "worship of man" -- far from it. The progressive obsession with "equality" and with the protection of "the weak" and various "victim groups" stems from the feeling that in a world known to be "meaningless" all the way down the line, the pain and suffering experienced by the weak is adding insult to injury -- and that makes it the one thing that cannot be tolerated. Therefore, there is a sacred status accorded to groups in proportion to how far they are removed and shielded from the knowledge of "meaninglessness": thus the obsession with more primitive and "other" cultures that have not yet attained this terrible knowledge; the sacralization of women, children and animals, that are seen as always molested and tortured; and the most logical conclusion of all, the worship of Gaia and the "environment", of things that are entirely inanimate. And therefore too, the special hatred reserved for the white man as the creature that has become aware of "meaninglessness" yet continues to forge ahead with its unseemly and obscene "greed" and hunger for "growth", always adding insult to injury with its relentless forward drive even when it has been "understood" that it can have no possible point -- that all we can do in a "meaningless" world is to protect the "weak" from "torture" and give them the "justice" that is to be our sole consolation.

While the kind of traditionalist religiosity that you advocate stands in superficial contradiction to some of the literal tenets of progressivist ideology, it is in fact animated by the same shared conviction of "meaninglessness" and is just a differently processed reaction to it. It attempts to simply deny the deeply felt certainty of "meaninglessness" by affecting a return to a state that preceded it; yet this is belied by the same emotional undertone of fear and panic and the same conviction of inexorable decline that is shared by nilihist ideologies of all stripes. It is telling that both progressive environmentalists and would-be traditionalists are so drawn to the metaphor of a "virus", of a "disease" that has taken hold of mankind and that is already in "terminal" stages and cannot be cured unless the most radical measures are taken -- and maybe even then. For progressive environmentalists, the "disease" is the human being itself and what it has done to the "planet"; for the apocalyptic traditionalists, it is the "culture" and what we have done to each other. Either way, the punishment is sure to come, and collapse is imminent -- and the fantasy, acknowledged or not, is that this dreaded but also wished for fire will somehow burn away the unbearable knowledge of "meaninglessness", and somehow -- some way -- wipe the slate clean.

This is what leads otherwise intelligent and thoughtful men to indulge in dark dreams and dystopian visions that are so completely divorced from any reasonable apprehension of reality. Even as scorpion writes a post on this forum which proclaims the certainty of the collapse of all western civilization in short order, and the impending triumph of Islam everywhere, an equally intelligent white man of the same age writes a post on Grist or the Daily Kos saying it might be already "too late" -- that even with the best efforts of the EPA and others, we have simply emitted too much carbon dioxide, and the coming calamities of "climate change" have already been set in motion, and will destroy civilization as we know it. Two superficially different stories -- but with the exact same conclusion.

This is something that should fascinate everyone: scorpion is no fool, and neither is the progressive who posts on Daily Kos. How is it that these otherwise intelligent men are drawn to nightmarish and apocalyptic visions of collapse and decline that are, literally, lunatic -- that rely on extrapolations, leaps of faith, and short-circuited thinking that an intelligent adolescent could see through? How is it that an otherwise smart guy like Samseau expresses the fantastical and demented belief that rural roads in the US will be impassable in 20 years? How can the thinking of otherwise intelligent men become so tight, overdetermined, and short-circuited that they always reach one and the same conclusion -- catastrophe! -- from any and all premises? The answer is that their minds are clouded and controlled by the same shared conviction; and they embody this conviction even as they attempt, in different ways, to escape it.

This is a great analogy. I was just thinking this since all the lefties on my Facebook feed keep posting climate change scare stories.

It's almost as if they need an Armageddon, but since they reject the bible and clergy, they need someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson to stand in as a priest of sorts.

[BortimusPrime]

I don't really see the progressive movement as being nihilistic. Sure, you can point to the zero population people or climate change doomsayers, but they're the liberal version of those Christian sects that keep predicting the rapture over and over again. Loonies.

The mainstream progressives are more utopian in nature. They think they can legislate and henpeck all the ills of society away in order to reach something like the Federation in Star Trek: No money, everyone provided for, no racism or sexism, everyone happily doing their job no matter how low status out of some philosophy of contributing to the greater good.

The problem isn't that they want everyone to die choking on their own carbon dioxide, it's that their end state of society requires people to act completely out of line with human nature (new socialist man), and they perceive the ills of society incorrectly by using their social construction theories to make the cause of every problem some nebuluous "culture of rape/violence/misogyny/hemorrhoids" that lacks any solution beyond setting up a strawman villain of an evil capitalist with a top hat and cigar plotting against them.

[TigerMandingo]

Shouldnt this be a PM?

[Wutang]

(06-28-2014 05:07 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  

(06-28-2014 04:00 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

This post was inspired by a number of recent comments and threads from both scorpion and Samseau, and I felt it merited its own more explicitly philosophical thread. While it is structured as a response to scorpion, the point that is made here has, in my opinion, a much wider application.

*************

scorpion,

There is an irony in your posts on this thread and elsewhere that I don't think you recognize. The deep convictions that drive you to espouse your kind of apocalyptic religiosity are no different, in essence, from the convictions that underlie the progressive ideology that you so passionately decry. Indeed, these two seemingly contradictory visions are really just two sides of the same coin, and the mythologies of decline that both sides are so irresistibly drawn to spring from the same grim and unfortunate source.

You are right about one thing: the progressive ideology in its current form has its roots in the loss of traditional religious faith among intelligent men at the turn of the last century, and the universal adoption by them of a metaphysics of nihilism, most clearly enunciated in the writings of Nietzsche. The conviction that has become universal among intelligent men since that time is that because there is no God, life and the entire universe are therefore necessarily "meaningless" and this realization of "meaninglessness" is somehow the one thing that is given once and for all, known all the way down the line. This taken-for-granted and universally shared idea, and the fear and panic that it engenders in men, is what really explains the structure both of progressive ideology, and of traditionalist ideologies that stand in seeming contradiction to it.

It is not true, however, to say that progressives have replaced religion with the "worship of man" -- far from it. The progressive obsession with "equality" and with the protection of "the weak" and various "victim groups" stems from the feeling that in a world known to be "meaningless" all the way down the line, the pain and suffering experienced by the weak is adding insult to injury -- and that makes it the one thing that cannot be tolerated. Therefore, there is a sacred status accorded to groups in proportion to how far they are removed and shielded from the knowledge of "meaninglessness": thus the obsession with more primitive and "other" cultures that have not yet attained this terrible knowledge; the sacralization of women, children and animals, that are seen as always molested and tortured; and the most logical conclusion of all, the worship of Gaia and the "environment", of things that are entirely inanimate. And therefore too, the special hatred reserved for the white man as the creature that has become aware of "meaninglessness" yet continues to forge ahead with its unseemly and obscene "greed" and hunger for "growth", always adding insult to injury with its relentless forward drive even when it has been "understood" that it can have no possible point -- that all we can do in a "meaningless" world is to protect the "weak" from "torture" and give them the "justice" that is to be our sole consolation.

While the kind of traditionalist religiosity that you advocate stands in superficial contradiction to some of the literal tenets of progressivist ideology, it is in fact animated by the same shared conviction of "meaninglessness" and is just a differently processed reaction to it. It attempts to simply deny the deeply felt certainty of "meaninglessness" by affecting a return to a state that preceded it; yet this is belied by the same emotional undertone of fear and panic and the same conviction of inexorable decline that is shared by nilihist ideologies of all stripes. It is telling that both progressive environmentalists and would-be traditionalists are so drawn to the metaphor of a "virus", of a "disease" that has taken hold of mankind and that is already in "terminal" stages and cannot be cured unless the most radical measures are taken -- and maybe even then. For progressive environmentalists, the "disease" is the human being itself and what it has done to the "planet"; for the apocalyptic traditionalists, it is the "culture" and what we have done to each other. Either way, the punishment is sure to come, and collapse is imminent -- and the fantasy, acknowledged or not, is that this dreaded but also wished for fire will somehow burn away the unbearable knowledge of "meaninglessness", and somehow -- some way -- wipe the slate clean.

This is what leads otherwise intelligent and thoughtful men to indulge in dark dreams and dystopian visions that are so completely divorced from any reasonable apprehension of reality. Even as scorpion writes a post on this forum which proclaims the certainty of the collapse of all western civilization in short order, and the impending triumph of Islam everywhere, an equally intelligent white man of the same age writes a post on Grist or the Daily Kos saying it might be already "too late" -- that even with the best efforts of the EPA and others, we have simply emitted too much carbon dioxide, and the coming calamities of "climate change" have already been set in motion, and will destroy civilization as we know it. Two superficially different stories -- but with the exact same conclusion.

This is something that should fascinate everyone: scorpion is no fool, and neither is the progressive who posts on Daily Kos. How is it that these otherwise intelligent men are drawn to nightmarish and apocalyptic visions of collapse and decline that are, literally, lunatic -- that rely on extrapolations, leaps of faith, and short-circuited thinking that an intelligent adolescent could see through? How is it that an otherwise smart guy like Samseau expresses the fantastical and demented belief that rural roads in the US will be impassable in 20 years? How can the thinking of otherwise intelligent men become so tight, overdetermined, and short-circuited that they always reach one and the same conclusion -- catastrophe! -- from any and all premises? The answer is that their minds are clouded and controlled by the same shared conviction; and they embody this conviction even as they attempt, in different ways, to escape it.

This is a great analogy. I was just thinking this since all the lefties on my Facebook feed keep posting climate change scare stories.

It's almost as if they need an Armageddon, but since they reject the bible and clergy, they need someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson to stand in as a priest of sorts.

I saw someone (on Facebook too funny enough) talk about the "spirtualizing" of science and how many people of the "I Fucking Love Science" variety seems especially drawn to it - I think that's why these type of people tend to worship guys Carl Sagan and NDT with a religious fervor, these two men more then any other people in modern times (with Richard Dawkins coming in behind them) have done a very fine job of depicting science in a way that plucks at the strings of the part of the human heart where "spirtuality" resides. I see a lot of talk about how "we're all made of stars" and how "we're connected to one other" which is of course true in a literal and scientific sense in that we are all composed of atoms that have been around since the creation of the universe but the way they speak of it they are obviously trying to ascribe even more meaning to it then the simple scientific meaning. If you'd suggest to them that what they are saying is a metaphysical statement rather then a scientific one they'd be aghast and at least slightly offended at you suggesting that they are speaking in a vaguely religious way.

[AnonymousBosch]

(06-28-2014 05:12 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

I don't really see the progressive movement as being nihilistic.

Their entertainment sure is.

The majority of mainstream entertainment has no faith in humanity, religion, societal institutions, or individuals. Heroes are flawed, damaged and morally-ambiguous. The majority of television and movies are cynical and gloomy as hell, which is why I barely bother with it when I'm between relationships.

Harry Potter became all about the moral-ambiguity of its adult characters, once the author realised adults were reading as well.

The three most popular shows with the progressive Tumblrinas:

Game Of Thrones: everyone is flawed, corrupt and damaged. The threat of absolute destruction by the zombies and dragons is hanging over the entire tale.

The Walking Dead: everyone is flawed, corrupt or damaged. You can't trust anyone outside your own group. Hope is lost and death is inevitable. 'We are the walking dead'.

Supernatural: Flawed, damaged heroes. Even the angels are corruptible. Most side characters eventually die. God is absent.

Oh, I forgot 'Orange Is The New Black.' Is their one character who isn't fucked up? Progressives need characters as toxic as they are to celebrate, otherwise they might feel negatively-judged.

I guarantee TV will transition away from aspiration to degradation in the next 15 years.

Go watch the recent Batman films. It's like the younger generation is allergic to joy.

Another common thing I see is the snarky character who thinks they're smarter than everyone else and above it all who seems to be constantly silently-congratulating themselves for the witty remarks they make, almost like an audience is watching, despite the seriousness of the situation they find themselves in.

This is the self-insert character for progressives - they all seem to have wandered in from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and the dreadful science fiction they write is full of these clichéd bores. (See: Tyrion Lannister, Charlie Bradbury on Supernatural, Felicity Smoak on Arrow, Jim Halpert on The Office).

[BortimusPrime]

I think you're giving Hollywood too much credit for trying to pursue a political agenda rather than just jumping on the latest fad and beating it to death.

The only thing I've seen recently that really struck me as pushing an agenda was the Neil DeGrasse Tyson Cosmos. Despite pretty much all scientific accomplishments being made by men, about half the historical figures they talk about are women. Then they kept implying that modern climate change is going to have the same result as the Permian-Triassic extinction. You know, because not driving a Prius is like having half of Siberia spew volcanic gas for thousands of years...

[Renzy]

(06-28-2014 06:30 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

(06-28-2014 05:12 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

I don't really see the progressive movement as being nihilistic.

Their entertainment sure is.

The majority of mainstream entertainment has no faith in humanity, religion, societal institutions, or individuals. Heroes are flawed, damaged and morally-ambiguous. The majority of television and movies are cynical and gloomy as hell, which is why I barely bother with it when I'm between relationships.

...

I guarantee TV will transition away from aspiration to degradation in the next 15 years.

Go watch the recent Batman films. It's like the younger generation is allergic to joy.

Another common thing I see is the snarky character who thinks they're smarter than everyone else and above it all who seems to be constantly silently-congratulating themselves for the witty remarks they make, almost like an audience is watching, despite the seriousness of the situation they find themselves in.

Pretty much sums up why I could not stand that Juno movie everyone was wetting themselves over back in 2007. I found the title character's personality so grating I could barely make it through the film - snarky, mouthy, above-it-all attitude that trivialized teen pregnancy - God I hated that movie...

[Hotwheels]

[Veloce]

Here we go again.

Lizard, I used to really enjoy reading your posts but I don't know what's happened. This grandiose, philosophical tone detracts from the quality of your posts.

Much like in my Rob Rhinehart thread, you're pointing at two posters on these forums, as if you're an attorney addressing a jury, declaring, "Ladies and gentlemen, BEHOLD! I present to you Exhibit A, SCORPION, and Exhibit B, SAMSEAU. What GREAT lunacy would seize such wholesome young men into thinking their demented thoughts?!"

But in the end you're basically saying, "Hey you're a pretty smart guy but what you're saying is fucking bullshit." Which is fine. I think the forum would benefit from saying that instead of some pseudo-philosophical breakdown that is reliant on some sort of consistency in one's stance. No-one here is the next Socrates, we all have views that are inconsistent. Our world changes on a daily basis and we are inundated with new information by the hour.

That said, progressives are not true nihilists. Just because they've rejected the conventional wisdom of the past does not qualify them as nihilists. The fact that one of the key attributes of a progressive typically entails being some sort of social-justice warrior puts them firmly outside of the nihilsm camp. Their moral principals might be different and extremely skewed, but they are moral principals nonetheless and in their mind would qualify as some sort of "higher morality".

A true nihilist sits in a drug den all day smoking opium and counting the cracks in the wall.

[Veloce]

(06-28-2014 06:30 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

Go watch the recent Batman films. It's like the younger generation is allergic to joy.

Fuckin A. I remember all the hype around the newer Batman movies and got my hopes way up. I wound up falling asleep in the theater. There was so much emphasis on how DEEP and DARK the movies were.

Yeah? I grew up with Adam fuckin West. Batman to me was COOL and FUN, much like watching Roger Moore or Sean Connery playing 007. This feeling carries over to other cultural mediums like music.

I was telling one of the younger cooks in the kitchen what it was like to be a kid in the 80s and a teenager in the 90s. Movies and music were dorky, quirky, goofy, fun. The darkest and gloomiest things ever got was like Joy Division.

There's no more fun now. I've held a theory for a while now that 9/11 is responsible. I haven't ever dug into that theory to explore any evidence whatsoever, but it's just my feeling that after 9/11 American culture completely changed.

[aphelion]

I don't have an axe to grind in this conversation, but I've got to applaud the RVF community for having some very high levels of intellectual analysis and discourse.

[Cyr]

(06-29-2014 05:50 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(06-28-2014 06:30 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

Go watch the recent Batman films. It's like the younger generation is allergic to joy.

Fuckin A. I remember all the hype around the newer Batman movies and got my hopes way up. I wound up falling asleep in the theater. There was so much emphasis on how DEEP and DARK the movies were.

Yeah? I grew up with Adam fuckin West. Batman to me was COOL and FUN, much like watching Roger Moore or Sean Connery playing 007. This feeling carries over to other cultural mediums like music.

I was telling one of the younger cooks in the kitchen what it was like to be a kid in the 80s and a teenager in the 90s. Movies and music were dorky, quirky, goofy, fun. The darkest and gloomiest things ever got was like Joy Division.

There's no more fun now. I've held a theory for a while now that 9/11 is responsible. I haven't ever dug into that theory to explore any evidence whatsoever, but it's just my feeling that after 9/11 American culture completely changed.

The Dark Knight Rises was the best film I've ever seen, (not sure if you got to the end). The ending is definitely uplifting/ joyful and brings the series to a satisfying conclusion. I think that nowadays, people are encouraged to be more jaded and they need a deeper (but still very accessible) layer of meaning, so filmakers always try to slip in 'intelligent' motifs and metaphors. So before they could give viewers the enjoyable finale to the series, they had to make them engage in it with the overly dark first two films, and ensure that people felt as though there was an extra dimension to Batman's final success- he had to come through a lot of pain.
Also, people have rejected the good vs evil template and now they always try to make films dark to provide more rounded characters.

[scorpion]

First, let me say that I in no way take this as a sign of disrespect or as somehow being "called out" by Lizard. I always welcome interesting discussion of this type, for only through being tested and challenged can our ideas become fully clarified. So I appreciate Lizard taking the time to write up a detailed response to my earlier comments. Now, I will make a rebuttal of my own.

I begin by immediately challenging the premise that I am espousing a "mythology of decline". I dispute this based on the fact that evidence of our decline at the present juncture is both abundant and universally apparent. Therefore, speaking of a mythological decline in the West of 2014 is no different than speaking of "the mythological RVF" or "the mythological President Obama." A thing cannot be defined as a myth when it clearly exists.

Our decline is no myth, it is fact. A clear fact for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. Our decline is a fact that can be measured economically, politically, culturally, spiritually and even, strangely enough, technologically (that sure is a nice iPhone, but what happened to our once-proud space program?). To save time here I will not go into a point by point enunciation for all the evidence of decline, because I believe that the honest interlocutor and reader would admit the decline of the West as having been self-apparent for quite some time now.

Now, to your point about nihilism. I absolutely agree that progressivism is an outgrowth of nihilism, but I disagree with your contention that nihilism also fuels my own views. Nietzsche's characterization of Christians as nihilists is pure sophistry, little more than a nineteenth century troll-job. The argument that Christians are necessarily somehow nihilists because they emphasize the spiritual rather than the material world is like calling a man a loser because he only goes out once a week rather than five nights a week. Nietszche's understanding of Christianity was puerile. Christianity is literally the opposite of nihilism. Equating the two shows a lack of understanding (or an intellectual dishonesty) as glaring as when PUAHate was recently equated with the manosphere by a lazy and/or unscrupulous media.

I also disagree with the idea that progressives are not worshipping man, but instead simply protecting man from the assault of nihilistic meaninglessness that would otherwise overwhelm him. I object because in my mind this is a distinction without a difference. If the foremost goal of progressives is protecting man (and by "man" I more properly mean the victim classes you outlined) from meaninglessness, then clearly it is man himself sitting on the pedestal. That which is valued is protected. That which is valued highest of all is protected most of all. A wisdom far more profound than Nietszche pointed out this fact with beautiful simplicity two thousand years ago: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. - Matt. 6:21.

Progressives view the protection of man as their highest priority because man is their highest priority. They have followed Nietszche in killing God and have usurped the throne for themselves. They deny all charges of self-deification and worship, of course - hence the elevation of the oppressed to serve as mankind's false idol, rather than the proud and the strong. Ironically, although God is dead, Nietszche's uberman is nowhere in sight in the progressive utopia - the sick, the twisted, the degenerate and deformed - these are the idols the progressive man elevates in the absence of God. The guilt and shame they feel stemming from their deicide prevents them from elevating anything that even resembles a God of power and justice, for such an idol would only serve to remind them of that which they had previously cast away. And so the progressive protects and worships mankind, signified by the most broken members of the race, and in doing so basks in his own glory and righteousness. What need have I for a just and merciful God, the progressive asks? Am I not just and merciful enough myself?

I agree with the assertion that I am making an attack on meaninglessness through the promotion of traditional Western/Christian values. I disagree that this is somehow equatable with progressivism in any of its stripes. That would be like comparing the fire department to an arsonist. Progressives created a world that is meaningless - by killing God, usurping his throne and declaring a purely material world. The fact that progressives must expend so much effort managing the meaninglessness of the world they created is a testament to their error. In the same way that a man who cut off his own legs must now take more time and effort to move around, the progressives, by denying the entire spiritual existence of man, have hobbled themselves, and created an enormous burden for society. Meaninglessness is only a threat in the absence of God. If you cut off your legs, how can you expect to walk anywhere? If you kill God, how can you expect to live in a world that is not meaningless?

As far as apocalyptic visions and prophecies of dystopias go, I suppose I stand guilty as charged. However, don't confuse the fact that I talk about the eventuality of such things with me actually advocating for them. That's like accusing the weatherman of being in favor of raining out family picnics because he forecasted storms over the weekend. I talk about these things precisely because I don't want them to happen. I don't want to see Islam march over the corpse of Western civilization. I don't want to see Western Man continue to flounder aimlessly in a world with no meaning. I don't want to surrender over two-thousand years of history, culture and tradition simply because the West bought into a sham ideology of self-worship mixed with apathy.

I therefore say that to call me a nihilist, or to in any way equate my views with the nihilism of the progressive left, is to greatly misconstrue my position.

[tpiddy]

(06-29-2014 08:00 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

Our decline is no myth, it is fact. A clear fact for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. Our decline is a fact that can be measured economically, politically, culturally, spiritually and even, strangely enough, technologically (that sure is a nice iPhone, but what happened to our once-proud space program?). To save time here I will not go into a point by point enunciation for all the evidence of decline, because I believe that the honest interlocutor and reader would admit the decline of the West as having been self-apparent for quite some time now.

I think America's relative decline compared to the rest of the world is visible, and likely was unavoidable, but an absolute decline? It's not a zero sum game. Life expectancy in the US continues to increase. Violent crime in the US continues to decrease. Hard drug use continues to decrease.

Technology wise, the US is still the center of innovation. For example, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and yes SpaceX (which is innovating in space flight, just more on the price side) are all american companies with more innovation happening here than anywhere else.

The average person has never had more options for amount of activities, media and education that is completely accessible because of the internet.

Could things be better economically? Yes. At some point the kicking the deficit can down the road will come back to haunt us, but deficits will likely hurt parts of Europe and Japan first. Have free trade and the changing economy created structural unemployment in the US? Probably, but it's also helped bring probably billions of people out of abject poverty around the world and increased their life span, in addition to making many US people wealthy and reducing the cost of everything everyone buys in most of the world.

Even the relative decline of the US compared to China is probably overblown. China faces a demographic challenge as they run out of people to bring from the country to the city and their population ages. China won't be able to keep its growth going as their supply of labor decreases and the cost of labor increases without focusing on innovation, which is something they historically haven't done that well. It'll be cheaper to manufacture in other developing countries or even in the US because the transportation costs will start to matter.

I think we'd all agree that many things are getting worse in the West, especially the things that affect us as men such the trends around dating and marriage with women, but many things are still getting better. You could even make the case that it's never been easier to get laid.

[RawGod]

Yes the economic decline in the USA is real in absolute terms. See Stefan Molyneux's youtube presentation on the end of America for the raw statistics. This generation simply doesn't have the same opportunities as previous ones.
If you're expatting, going minimalist and being like water - that is smart adaptation, that's all. We are going into debt to eat hamburger while the baby boomers ate steak and mostly we don't realize it. Having an iPad doesn't mean we're winning.

[Sawyer]

To progressives material satisfaction means everything.

To apocalyptic conservatives material satisfaction means nothing (without cultural integrity and truth).

Both camps have material wealth, else they wouldn't have time to adopt such philosophies.

The progressive thinks the poor are poorly served because they have no money. The apocalyptic conservative believe the poor are poorly served because they've been deprived of appropriate values.

The progressive believes the rich owe the poor money. The apocalyptic conservative believe the rich owe the poor values.

I don't see the nihilism in apocalyptic conservatism. It appears to me to be the only way through the fog.

[GlobalMan]

delete-Wrong thread

[Fast Eddie]

(06-29-2014 08:00 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

First, let me say that I in no way take this as a sign of disrespect or as somehow being "called out" by Lizard. I always welcome interesting discussion of this type, for only through being tested and challenged can our ideas become fully clarified. So I appreciate Lizard taking the time to write up a detailed response to my earlier comments. Now, I will make a rebuttal of my own.

I begin by immediately challenging the premise that I am espousing a "mythology of decline". I dispute this based on the fact that evidence of our decline at the present juncture is both abundant and universally apparent. Therefore, speaking of a mythological decline in the West of 2014 is no different than speaking of "the mythological RVF" or "the mythological President Obama." A thing cannot be defined as a myth when it clearly exists.

Our decline is no myth, it is fact. A clear fact for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. Our decline is a fact that can be measured economically, politically, culturally, spiritually and even, strangely enough, technologically (that sure is a nice iPhone, but what happened to our once-proud space program?). To save time here I will not go into a point by point enunciation for all the evidence of decline, because I believe that the honest interlocutor and reader would admit the decline of the West as having been self-apparent for quite some time now.

Now, to your point about nihilism. I absolutely agree that progressivism is an outgrowth of nihilism, but I disagree with your contention that nihilism also fuels my own views. Nietzsche's characterization of Christians as nihilists is pure sophistry, little more than a nineteenth century troll-job. The argument that Christians are necessarily somehow nihilists because they emphasize the spiritual rather than the material world is like calling a man a loser because he only goes out once a week rather than five nights a week. Nietszche's understanding of Christianity was puerile. Christianity is literally the opposite of nihilism. Equating the two shows a lack of understanding (or an intellectual dishonesty) as glaring as when PUAHate was recently equated with the manosphere by a lazy and/or unscrupulous media.

I also disagree with the idea that progressives are not worshipping man, but instead simply protecting man from the assault of nihilistic meaninglessness that would otherwise overwhelm him. I object because in my mind this is a distinction without a difference. If the foremost goal of progressives is protecting man (and by "man" I more properly mean the victim classes you outlined) from meaninglessness, then clearly it is man himself sitting on the pedestal. That which is valued is protected. That which is valued highest of all is protected most of all. A wisdom far more profound than Nietszche pointed out this fact with beautiful simplicity two thousand years ago: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. - Matt. 6:21.

Progressives view the protection of man as their highest priority because man is their highest priority. They have followed Nietszche in killing God and have usurped the throne for themselves. They deny all charges of self-deification and worship, of course - hence the elevation of the oppressed to serve as mankind's false idol, rather than the proud and the strong. Ironically, although God is dead, Nietszche's uberman is nowhere in sight in the progressive utopia - the sick, the twisted, the degenerate and deformed - these are the idols the progressive man elevates in the absence of God. The guilt and shame they feel stemming from their deicide prevents them from elevating anything that even resembles a God of power and justice, for such an idol would only serve to remind them of that which they had previously cast away. And so the progressive protects and worships mankind, signified by the most broken members of the race, and in doing so basks in his own glory and righteousness. What need have I for a just and merciful God, the progressive asks? Am I not just and merciful enough myself?

I agree with the assertion that I am making an attack on meaninglessness through the promotion of traditional Western/Christian values. I disagree that this is somehow equatable with progressivism in any of its stripes. That would be like comparing the fire department to an arsonist. Progressives created a world that is meaningless - by killing God, usurping his throne and declaring a purely material world. The fact that progressives must expend so much effort managing the meaninglessness of the world they created is a testament to their error. In the same way that a man who cut off his own legs must now take more time and effort to move around, the progressives, by denying the entire spiritual existence of man, have hobbled themselves, and created an enormous burden for society. Meaninglessness is only a threat in the absence of God. If you cut off your legs, how can you expect to walk anywhere? If you kill God, how can you expect to live in a world that is not meaningless?

As far as apocalyptic visions and prophecies of dystopias go, I suppose I stand guilty as charged. However, don't confuse the fact that I talk about the eventuality of such things with me actually advocating for them. That's like accusing the weatherman of being in favor of raining out family picnics because he forecasted storms over the weekend. I talk about these things precisely because I don't want them to happen. I don't want to see Islam march over the corpse of Western civilization. I don't want to see Western Man continue to flounder aimlessly in a world with no meaning. I don't want to surrender over two-thousand years of history, culture and tradition simply because the West bought into a sham ideology of self-worship mixed with apathy.

I therefore say that to call me a nihilist, or to in any way equate my views with the nihilism of the progressive left, is to greatly misconstrue my position.

Damn...that was sick.

[Liberty Sea]

(06-28-2014 04:00 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

The progressive obsession with "equality" and with the protection of "the weak" and various "victim groups" stems from the feeling that in a world known to be "meaningless" all the way down the line, the pain and suffering experienced by the weak is adding insult to injury -- and that makes it the one thing that cannot be tolerated.

(06-29-2014 05:44 PM)Veloce Wrote:  

That said, progressives are not true nihilists. Just because they've rejected the conventional wisdom of the past does not qualify them as nihilists. The fact that one of the key attributes of a progressive typically entails being some sort of social-justice warrior puts them firmly outside of the nihilsm camp. Their moral principals might be different and extremely skewed, but they are moral principals nonetheless and in their mind would qualify as some sort of "higher morality".

A true nihilist sits in a drug den all day smoking opium and counting the cracks in the wall.