Ethics are a system of moral values dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation. They can be highly personal, derived from your understanding of the world, but even personal ethics tend to correspond with public ethics. Every society has to have a set of unwritten rules that govern behavior. Otherwise, you don’t have a society. You have a collection of competing strangers. Those public ethics, the moral framework of society, must rest upon authority to give them vigor.
For most of human history, public morality was rooted in the stories and legends of the people, which described their gods and the role of the gods. At other times, the moral authority was the ruler, who took on a supernatural role in society. In Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church filled the role of moral authority, along with the evolving social structure. The feudal system established roles and duties for people within the system. Those duties to your station were part of the moral order.
This connection between ethics and authority is what has always haunted atheism, which denies the most common source of moral authority. In fact, atheism is mostly a negative identity, so the atheist invests heavily in attacking the moral authority of Christianity. Oddly, they suffer the same defect in logic as evolution deniers. When they do try to conjure a godless moral code, they inevitably slam into the old problem of Hume’s law. That is, they try to derive an ought from an is.
The struggle atheists have conjuring a moral code without the authority of religion on which to base it gets to a more fundamental problem of western liberalism. A central thesis of liberalism is universalism, the notion that there is one set of rules that are the best for all people everywhere in all times. That means the moral code that comes along with the universal political order must also be universal and timeless. Such a code, of course, cannot answer the question, on whose authority?
This is the heart of the clash between liberal democracy and Islam. When the Mohammedan is told that homosexuals should be allowed to parade in the streets, he asks “upon what authority are you saying this?” The liberal cannot answer, as he acknowledges no authority other than a mystical will of the people. The Mohammedan in contrast has his religion, his imam and the traditions handed down to him. In order to accept liberalism, he must abandon his god and his ancestors.
This is the problem vexing the West. In a liberal democracy, no one can ever know who is in charge, as that runs counter to the basics of democracy. In theory, decisions are made by fifty percent plus one vote. When the vote is secret, no one can truly know who rules over them. The fact that powerful interests manipulate the system in order to get the results that favor them at the expense of society adds to the mystery. People keep voting, expecting a certain result, only to get the opposite.
Of course, the inevitable war on religion that is a natural part of democracy means the other source of authority is slowly eroded. The recent case of the Congresswomen holding orgies in her office is a good example. Otherwise sensible people like Congressman Matt Gaetz are baffled as to why this women resigned, because there is no longer a moral order in America to rationalize such things. In a Christian nation or even a Muslim one, Representative Gaetz would not so confused.
It is only through the shared belief in an authoritative common morality where custom becomes a habit of mind. You cannot have ethics without authority, so when custom and religion are abandoned, as required of democracy, you inevitably abandon any sense of a shared moral order. Eventually, the people, even their leaders, have no reason to support the basics of society. A world of atomized individuals can only be controlled with force and the cost exceeds the benefit
Of course, humans cannot live without a moral order. We have evolved over a very long time to be a part of a community. That means being part of a shared moral order. The void left by democracy’s obliteration of social and religious authority is filled by all sorts of fads and spasms masquerading as morality. It is how we quickly move from celebrating homosexuals as perfectly normal to demanding gay men put on sundresses and begin taking hormone therapy. Morality without authority is chaos.
In this regard, the crisis in the West is due to a lack of moral authority. Democratic systems rest on the assumption that everyone is in charge, which is another way of saying no one is in charge. Since there is always someone in charge, those holding power work to conceal this reality. Instead of powerful men standing before the public as leaders, they hire servants to run for office. Once in office, those servants do as their told, regardless of what they said to the public to secure their office.
The charade of democracy inevitably spills into the culture as a war on any institution that could provide a basis for moral authority. It is not an accident that as democracy spread in the West, religion collapsed. Then it was local civic institutions and then finally the family. The waves of vulgar depravity that have swept the popular culture meet no resistance, because there is no authority for resisting it. There is no answer to why this stuff should not be tolerated, so it spreads like a cancer.
In fairness, the cultural devastation that comes with democracy is more of a dynamic than a causal relationship. The West was already in decline when liberal democracy took root and it was that decline that allowed it to spread. The dynamic between politics and culture is both a symptom and cause of the decline. The fanaticism and insanity of the current age is really just the final spasms of a society that has been in decline for generations. Democracy is the suicide pill for a people out of reasons to live.
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Let’s lighten things up a bit. Personal theory is Rep. Gaetz was getting a little “bi-partisanship” on the side.
That tweet was bizarre. There may be a nuanced argument for maintaining a strong separation of private and public in this case. Twitter is not the place for nuanced arguments.
I’m not familiar with Gaetz’s sense of humor, but he could just be asking why one would think she is different from most Congress critters.
There is a great old John D. MacDonald line…”Never hump the help. They get uppity”
Short version
https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-2F_iHS6BLtGJb2ad/TheFateofEmpiresbySirJohnGlubb_djvu.txt
Long version yet abridged
https://www.amazon.com/Social-Cultural-Dynamics-Pitirim-Sorokin/dp/0875580297/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=sorokin+pitirim&qid=1572355611&sprefix=soroki&sr=8-3
Good YouTube version of Glubb’s “Fate of Empires”:
https://youtu.be/SBLPDfu8XGQ
Another prescient badthink book, a sort of bare-knucked American 1984. It’s a lot different from what [people] would lead you to believe:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/GBPSGBknZbyS/?list=watch-later&randomize=false
I don’t remember exactly what age my son was, but it was in the single digits, when he asked,”Who is the boss” and kept on with a bunch of “Yeah, but.”. Basically, he wanted to know who was, “Il capo di tutti capi”? I kept saying that there isn’t one. Being essentially non-religious, I didn’t resort to God.
And what age did you get him out on the driveway to do his first oil change on his Mom’s car? How old when you hung the heavy bag from a tree and taught him the ropes? Age when first taught to split wood? So, ok, using your premise, “no God” – so I assume you have other methods of passing on manly values that do not include getting butt out of bed on Sunday mornings and trucking the family off to church, mayhaps discussing the meaning of the Scriptural readings, afterwards. Not to troll “you” – as you are… Read more »
Umm that would be you as a Father you’re the boss…
Cause God says so!
Religion is just another form of control, plain and simple. To say that all atheists lack a moral code (or “proper” religious moral code) because it hasn’t been believed to come from god (any god, pick one) seems extremely simple minded. To question the form of control stemming from government while just blindly accepting the forms of control stemming from religions is very inconsistent, or possibly intellectually dishonest. Perhaps willfully inconsistent and dishonest.
Hmmm. So if 2nd Wave Feminism “freed” women from “serving” the “Patriarchy” … just so they could slave away in cubicles, commuting long distances to serve the corporate masters … what does being “freed” from religion do for one? Let’s say you and yours are part of a 2000+ year faith tradition. Read, hear and reflect on the issues affecting mankind going back 3,000 years and codified in a certain well-known Good Book. Having a purpose for one’s life, no confusion. A path, being part of something. Being “freed” of all these things leaves time and mental space for exactly… Read more »
Where do your rights come from? You see, my rights are different – and more important – than yours.
All hail Dear Leader….
I like that. It’s pretty funny. Why do they have to come from somewhere? I exist. Because i exist i cant just have rights with no strings attached (tithing to a church)? Can i call my rights natural rights, or does that term solely belong to religious conservatives and libertarians?
Pretty simple. As an American, my rights are codified as being inalienable, and from my Creator. Go ahead, move to ChiCom, or some other such place and see how right differ, based on whom issued them. Now that said, while IMO this confusion of where ‘rights’ emanate from is just another disingenuous, throw-away internet post from some nose-picker – rights have to “come from somewhere” – unless you exist as an animal, ruled by the Law of the Jungle. Or in Chicongo – same thing. If you’d rather they come from the King, Idi Amin — or more likely your… Read more »
You absolutely can say that but so can everyone else and that’s why we’re dealing with chaos right now. When there’s no truth all of the sudden you have 7 billion truths
Good point. Agree.
With its reach and ease of access, television became the cultural authority. Tradition and religion never had a chance against the blue light. There is no going back as long as it is omnipotent and controlled by those who would dismantle the West. I turned it off and homeschooled, but I don’t expect a majority of Americans will do that. They’re too hypnotized by sports and the moronic shows that pass for entertainment.
Disagree. One truth and 7 billion lies. Nothing new under the sun.
What’s one more “truth” added to the pile? Don’t get me wrong, the historical lack of morality by liberals is a clear issue that has been taken to new levels in the past 2 decades. I’ve mentioned it before, but putting all atheists in one basket of amorality is wrong. That’s not how atheism works but many just group them all under one stereotype. This may be a false choice, but which would you choose: today’s modern liberal or an atheist with very similar morality to your own without believing in a god.
The French Revolution and Stalin come to mind …
Touche. But those developments originated from govt. And by what we see today, modern liberals are starting that up again. But my point is: I dont see a large percentage (or any percentage) of atheists advocating or leading the liberal fight. It is just simply wrong to say all atheists have no morals. That’s my only point and it’s being missed.
What’s the point of continuing this charade – if the mass of people are neither strong enough or philosophical enough to generate their own moral worldview? You might win a temporary victory – but in the end , your institutions will be taken over again – and used for the ends of the elites (again) – and the cattle will be led to their slaughter (again). I’m never going to claim to be any expert on Christianity , but I’m pretty sure that if you cut your dick off and run around calling yourself a woman , it’s going to… Read more »
“They adopt whatever view has the most cultural authority.” It sounds nice, but i don’t think that’s how most atheists operate and it seems like that’s just another blanket assumption by religious people. I certainly don’t adhere to whatever the current majority cultural authority is. I would guess amoral liberals are extremely likely to just go along with the current cultural authority and there seems to be quite a few examples over the last 100 years of that. I can be persuaded you might be right, so do you have an example of when this mass of atheists has directly… Read more »
The occasional atheist is no problem. But the mass of people are neither strong nor philosophical enough to generate their own moral worldview. They adopt whatever view has the most cultural authority. When that view is an atheistic one that denies any moral authority transcending the individual, then the mass of men become demoralized and chaos results.
See Cleary and Campbell as I suggest below. Religion is something you volunteer for. The idea that it’s a cynical control mechanism for savage rubes is a shibboleth of unrooted Bugmen & libertarians.
The “control mechanism” of Christianity inspired Notre Dame, the Sistine Chapel and the founding of America. Greco-Roman and Norse paganism inspired the Golden Age, the Germanic transformation of that same Christian faith and journeys of exploration, trade and conquest from China to Newfoundland.
The atheistic culture of bugmen has given us Communism, brutalist aesthetics, hippies, feminism, trannies, cape shit and e-girlz. Next up – bugburgers.
Clearly you have studied, and in studying you must have also learned about the original popes of the catholic church running brothels and murdering anyone in their way. War and sex (for them not for you). Sounds perfect and suspiciously like today. I’m sure that more than offsets the beautiful artwork and architecture of the age. The Sistine chapel is absolutely beautiful to see, but i also couldn’t help be be disgusted by all the pure gold lettering high above the Vatican basilica. Surely their morals should imply they scrape that off and spend it on suffering people around the… Read more »
The entire Spanish Inquisition murdered three thousand souls, a day’s work in atheists regimes. It is a strange thing when we rightly loath an ancient wrong and ignore the modern atheist catastrophe sparked in 1917, currently in remission. If you wish to exploit religious catasrophe go no further than the century of European religious civil wars, which killed a third of many populations and created one million witches. Today’s point is authority, good or bad. With no authority, the authority is behind a curtain. It is better to have a bad ruler than that one because at least we know… Read more »
“Hypocrisy is everywhere if one chooses to see it.” So is beauty. The idea that “their morals should imply they scrape that off and spend it on suffering people around the world instead of telling parishioners that their sins aren’t forgiven unless they tithe” comes from the tortured straw man of “Judeo-Christianity” a made-up creed used to crucity goyim on a cross of impossible beliefs ala Alinksy’s maxim of making the enemy live up to his “own” rules. In this case, the rules were supplied by Alinsky’s tribe, a mash-up of Talmudry like “tikkun olam” and selective “critique” of traditional… Read more »
That’s a lot to think about. You make a good point on Alinsky’s maxim. I’m not going to argue a net positive effect on the world, that’s certainly true. Comforting people around the world is a modern modification (i had not thought of it that way before) but it isnt the only one and there seems to be quite a few modifications made. Someone else on these replies might have suggested it, but at some point modern Christianity can no longer function with all these new modifications. So when do people start to see Christianty is done and we need… Read more »
As usual, I try to bridge the gap between the two groups. Christianity to survive has to adapt to the challenge of modernity. I think ethno-centrism is an important part of that, a natural application of practical localism vs. the “fix the world” dilemma. This is one way in which Christianity can and should change – not entirely new, not entirely revivalist or trad, just a re-emphasis and change of perspective blending past and future. There’s obviously a tipping point where the end product is no longer “Christian,” but I don’t think that kind of change is required. What’s most… Read more »
Perhaps not control, but organization? Frankly, anyone who thinks that organized western religions are run by useful idiots doesn’t understand much. The Catholics and the Jews have been debating, altering, and advising for thousands of years. Both religions have fantastic advice for every day problems within the societies they serve (not rule, usually, influence only, mostly). LIFE IS SHORT; you don’t have time to figure out the answer for every one of your mundane problems; WISDOM IS NOT FOUND ON GOOGLE, ever. Organized religion have plenty of good insights for those who subscribe to the same beliefs. Lots of plusses… Read more »
It only bothers me when the organized religious make illogical assumptions and become guilty of the same things they accuse the liberals of doing. Most of the time, i agree with nearly everything else on this site and i look forward to reading the posts every morning.
Actually, religion requires that one exercise SELF-control.
Are you thoughts, or are you that which is aware of thoughts? Are you sensations (body), or are you that which is aware of sensations? Are you perceptions (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching), or are you that which is aware of perceptions? Are you the taste of tea, or are you that which is aware of the taste of tea?
Reflect on the nature of “that”, and you find a spiritual presence. It’s everyones experience, all 7 billion of us, but we overlook it because our mind’s fascination with the world of objects
I no longer think the argument that Democracy itself is responsible for much of the decline in the West is over the top. The Progressives worship democracy and correctly view democracy not as a system but as a “vector with an unmistakable direction” (Nick Land). Recently, some Remainer was asked if she would support Brexit if there was another referendum and it won by an even bigger margin. Her response was that no, she wouldn’t, because she “believes in democracy”.
I held onto a belief in Democracy, until recently, as well. The Brexit charade has killed it. I still like Democracy in principle, but in practice it’s failed. Perhaps it can work for a ethnically homogeneous city-state.
It did not work for them either.
It can make a weird sort of sense or at least some form of consistency when looked at it the way progressives do. The progressive remainer doesn’t understand the word democracy according to a dictionary definition but according to a vague emotional connotation she has towards it being a “good” word. So “democracy” can be used any way the prog wants even if it contradicts the true meaning of the word. The prog believes that all centrally controlled, top-down managed states, even transnational states to be good to the point of a religious fervor where the state takes the place… Read more »
Oh, we have a moral authority. It is the church of the campus and it reigns supreme. Why just the other day one of its high priestesses at the New York Times informed the world that when two Indian boys attack a black girl then white people are to blame. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nytimes-columnist-blames-whiteness-two-indian-boys-racially-abusing-black-girls-new Sure, it sounds absurd, but so did transgendered washrooms 10 years ago. In ten years this too will be moral gospel since our universities are now one-party states. The high priests, like the New York Times editorial board, will always spoon-feed the latest academic sermon to the masses, Oprah,… Read more »
The current progressive liberal orthodoxy states that no human being has any moral agency. All “people of color” are oppressed victims and have the innate quality of being only good and cannot commit an act of evil. So when “people of color” commits a crime against another “person of color”. the only way the prog can square the circle is to postulate that the evil miasma of “white privilege” overwhelmed the unsuspecting “person of color” and allowed the demon white racism to posses him and force him to commit an act of evil. “You don’t need a god or an… Read more »
I am persuaded by Da Booby. If what he says is true, that academics and media owners determine our morality, then shouldn’t we exercise direct control over who occupies those positions?
I can think of one guy who took this point seriously and said you can’t let your enemies control these institutions.
The counter argument against this position is that your enemies will follow your logic and impose their leaders on you. But aren’t we at this point now?
Some of you guys are ace historians. I am wondering if we are not seeing an historical repeat?
Aren’t there other examples of the intellectual class betraying their society – and then getting wiped out in retribution? Didn’t the Chinese periodically purge their intellectual class?
I do love how they try to put sinister spins on dissidence. When they do something they sing the praises and say it was driven by popular opinion. When you do something they don’t like – it’s populism… or white nationalism… and it is something to be Deeply Concerned About…
The counter argument against this position is that your enemies will follow your logic and impose their leaders on you. But aren’t we at this point now?
This is largely what the Zman’s post is about. Either you acknowledge openly that whoever is in power imposes their leaders on you, or you engage in elaborate theater to pretend it is not so.
It’s ironic isn’t it that people don’t want to attain power because then the other side will want too never making the correlation that the other side is way ahead in that attaining…
If the Booby can stress one thing it’s that the 60s really were a revolution, not just metaphorically. Few noticed because it happened largely on campus. Not everyone who took part in it was a white male-hating, Mother Earth chanting, Marxist-neo-Marxist scumbag, but they were the ones willing to take the most violent and extreme measures. They also hid behind real grievances that ordinary people had, which gave them popular protection. I mean, who want to be pro-war or anti-worker? Not everyone who took part in the Russian revolution was a Bolsheivik, nor everyone in the Iranian revolution a Khomeini… Read more »
I need to start drinking whatever Da Booby is because it produces some deep clarity of thought. To extend your allegory of the post-academic revolution as the Jacobins’ Reign of Terror, I look forward to the Robespierre analogue’s appointment with Mme. Guillotine.
Booby; I was there at the time and can confirm your assessment with the adjustment of adding the outsized role of NE originated Red Diaper Babies. They were able to use disaffected elite spawn as stalking horses. Had it been just them, I suspect that they’d have been dealt with. At the time, the non-U authorities were also coping with class/labor antagonisms, actual war on several fronts and burning cities. They considered Big U to be mostly like they were pre WWII, that is, rich-kid polishing-up playgrounds (hence relatively inconsequential). And so they were just glad that campus unrest went… Read more »
Your favourite whisky is all a man needs to gain some clarity. We all fell for the anti-Communist BS our betters uttered to some extent. The Booby still believes containing the USSR was a good thing… to some extent. Problem is, the West spent a lot of blood and treasure fighting abroad to supposedly stop the Commies while the Commies had already taken over in our countries. Those wars were really just wars for empire, and guess who runs our empire now? It ain’t us. For those of you of fighting age, or with sons of fighting age, the Booby… Read more »
Yeah Booby, so much about the cold war – like most wars really, has been scrubbed, stripped, and re-scripted such that is now merely an epic poem of the evil empire standing in the way of Global Progress. The dovetail of campus commie twats agitating for critical theory and the destruction of universal moral authority with the boogieman of USSR really played into their hand. Be afraid of the Commies over there while the commies over here take your schools and steal the minds of your children. We can spend six gorillion dollars and send thousands of our boys to… Read more »
The university now comes with its own inquisition: endless conformity tests (shit tests) where you must…must take part in…otherwise you will find yourself on the outs. The vibrants, especially the females, seem to have a natural calling in playing this role. The frizzy haired 95 IQ mulattos are the most animated but it is the Indian females(●) that are the most vicious. As always, the little hatted stage manager stays behind the curtain directing and inciting the drama. _____ If you missed yesterday’s TDS you’ve missed a good one. It was a dive into the latest battle about to we… Read more »
I live in Tulsa and have been dreading 2020 for just this reason for years. Our city government is now controlled by liberals, so it is going to be a year-long white guilt hootenanny. I dread 12 midnight, January 1, as I would dread a comet strike, which in contrast would be mercifully over in a few moments. Funny thing is, most blacks here are not that radical about the goings-on. It will be the SJW midtown whites rending garments, self-flagellating, and screeching for 366 days. Wouldn’t you know it’s a leap year.
The MSM is dead. The internet had it on the ropes, and Trump delivered the death blow. Look at how those idiots had the apologize for ISIS leader obituary. That would not have happened in the past — go read the glowing obit the NYT gave Josef Stalin. It’s disgusting.
No doubt, the educational system is still a huge problem, though.
Now if Trump can pivot the fake news skewer toward the lizards of ‘the internet’ we might just have a chance at maintaining some civility of information. The fetishIzing of technology as some kind of magic pill for a disease not yet invented or as not just a fast track but the only track toward utopia must be pulled down from the pedestal. Tech should be viewed with skepticism like big pharma, a necessary mess full of costly tradeoffs. Not the defied can do no wrong of tech. Mainstream media is worse than worthless but the age of the algo… Read more »
Max, you may think it is dead, and it certainly has taken a huge hit to its credibility, but can you name another institution that so (still) effectively controls our habits and thought patterns? We may not believe them like we used to, but the media (news, entertainment, etc) still controls what we talk about and how we think about things. You have to respect the left. As mentioned above, they took control of the academy, then the media (or was it the other way around?). They also did this at the same time everyone was pushed to go to… Read more »
“You don’t need a god or an official church to have a moral code.” You may not need an “official” religion, but you do need a religion. You also need a way to disseminate that religion to the masses and a way to enforce that religion’s moral code (as determined by the church elders). Our current religion is the Church of Equality (CE). Its intellectual origins are the Enlightenment. It’s “official” founding was on the college campuses of the 1960s (heavily organized and led by the complimentary religion, the Synagogue of Jewish Retribution Against White Christians – J-Hate). The CE… Read more »
In the old days, authority wore a crown and suit of armor and rode a high horse, so everyone knew who was in charge. The invention of guns put a stop to that; authority now hides somewhere deep in the bowels of Washington bureaucracy or Harvard University.
Which is why they want to disarm us. Those nasty guns make us too equal.
This comment has been percolating in my feeble brain for a while, and is probably the appropriate post for it. It’s not going to be well accepted but it needs to be stated. One of the things that people on the dissident right are going to have to confront is that Christianity is a failed religion. Christianity is dying, both in a doctrinal sense and in a literal sense. Fertility rates collapsed long ago in the nations that were historically Christian nations, and now family formation rates are collapsing. Much of the Western world previously defined by Christianity is simply… Read more »
What churches are left mostly seem to be glorified rock concerts, Dionysian if you will. You would think that might get the fertility thing going again, but, no. Too many women are frying their ovaries with birth control pills from 9th grade on, and, to my knowledge, no booze is being served, although I look for that to start happening any day to bring in customers.
Lefties:
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
– Iowahawk
Most churches have been gutted and are now fronts. I’ve been in enough churches the last few years to recognize the lefty parading around in the priest / minister mask.
The problem with organized religion is, it’s organized. The people who I know who are practicing Christians meet in small groups. And practice. Well.
I’d rather be the last Christian standing, than Judas to my faith. Think Alamo, there, you have it. If a faith contracts into a more condensed group of the faithful, so be it. A heroic man of the cloth finally denied the apostate Biden the Eucharist – something cowardly Caridinal Dolan could never do in terms of his Emperior Caesar – Cuomo. Funny, the name MOREY seems to be the heroic name as of late – standing up to power. What is the root of the surname “Morey”? Of course my inquiring mind wanted to know: *****Recorded in various spellings… Read more »
The idea is not completely misplaced. So you get perhaps your one and only thumbs up from me.
It’s true that Christianity has suffered from stasis and dogmatism since the Middle Ages. The modern version is stuck in limbo between ritualism and therapeutic assimilation. Jung was onto something in discussing his pastor father’s hollowness of faith and lack of real transcendent experience — and that was 100 years ago.
We’ve needed inspiring tales of modern saints and heroic acts animated by faith but since the Enlightenment we’ve been cruising on fumes. The last burst of inspired myth-making and apologetics died with Chesterton, Tolkien and Lewis. I’m with you on needing to confront this head-on.
Christianity is not a failed religion, people are failed Christians. Christianity is still the world’s largest religion. Yeah, it’s in sorry shape right now, down but not out.
As an evangelical Christian… I actually… agree?? with what you’re saying? Deep down I might just agree with you. The religion is just too weak and effeminate, even when interpreting the Bible literally. It seems to be designed for a people who have common sense built into them. “Love your neighbour” is a great concept, when your neighbors are similar to you. When Muhammed moves in and wants to kill you, do you still love him? The main thing with Christianity is that it comes from voluntarily buying in. It’s a personal faith that comes from within. Which is the… Read more »
When “Survival of The Fittest” returns from its temporary suspension, Christianity – albeit a much more muscular version of it – will return as well.
When Muhammed moves in and wants to kill you, do you still love him?
Christians of the 11th (First Crusade, Kingdom of Jerusalem), through 17th (Battle of Vienna) and 19th (Barbary pirates) centuries didn’t seem to have any problem answering that question.
That’s what’s been lost. The moral courage to fight for what is clearly right. Liberalism has infected most of Christianity now to the point where they lack the conviction to continue existing.
I gave it a thumbs down – even though it is a fair comment. I just don’t like it even if it is possibly true. No offense meant. I may disagree: The church is in a quandary. The same people that are undermining the church are the same ones destroying the mass media, the universities and the courts – the homos/pedos, the narcissists and psychopaths, the wahmen, the vibrants, the socialists etc. For any recovery, those types will have to be purged and rejected. There are sparks of that afoot already in the church. At mine, one of the wahmen… Read more »
John;
Be of good cheer, you have found the way, the truth and the life.
One of my favorite aphorisms on the subject of the survival of The Christian Church Universal (not just the one HQ in Rome) despite 2000 years of opposition is, “The Church is the anvil that has worn out a thousand hammers”.
So what is your proposal to replace what you think has failed…
This was not addressed to me but the answer is nothing. Once a religion stops having a hold on enough people , it stops working as social glue. You’ll no more be able to reignite Christianity as social glue than the Romans were able to reignite the Religio Roma. Usually what happens is either a competitor comes along , Christianity the last time or more commonly religion becomes a folk matter. Each family/clan/household culture has its own ways. I suspect the West has already entered the later stage and folk religions not Islam will be the default as we enter… Read more »
I was going to guess a lot of people at least dabbling in the Old Norse religion as the world crumbles. It doesn’t offer hope or salvation – but we’ve lost hope. It is the religion of my forefathers and it offers battle, which is the only way we’ll survive.
Find the modern mystics of faith, the guys who’ve been to the other side, people inspired to greatness and miracles, and put them on the stage rather than slick-talkers, lawyering theologians and Oprah-fied shrinks in cassocks.
An inspired street prophet preaching muscular, assertive Christianity based on a vision he received in a trailer would be more animating and legitimate than the entire faculties of Notre Dame, Georgetown and Liberty College are today. Jesus was a carpenter without a degree but he had something to say and he moved men who heard him speak.
Exile;
The people you are looking for are all over if you look in the right places, just not in Big U or big media.
By the way, Jesus was not *just* a carpenter, though he was indeed a ‘tecton’ (greek for builder, type unspecified): He IS God_!
If you seek to find and get to know Him, you will find those people and much, much more.
Christianity, as originally practiced, appears to have been a bottom-up reaction to the Roman rule and Jewish Old Testament religion of the day. Christianity seems to have meshed very nicely with the rise of the modern West over the last few centuries (until about the early 1900s or so). But all of this may have been a bit accidental. Keep in mind that the Jewish roots of Christianity, themselves, arose out of an intense tribal battle with the other religious practices, back in the day. Judaism came out of monotheism defeating the polytheists, and also overcoming the myriad of other… Read more »
You are right, but Christianity has been a dying religion from day one. In fact it has died many times and been resurrected just as many. It’s true that things look bleak now, but they also looked bleak on Holy Saturday, then during the Arian heresy when nearly all the Church denied the divinity of Christ, then at the Fall of Rome, and many times since. All through its history prognosticators have proclaimed that the Church is finally worn out and done – and common sense agreed that they were right. But as Etienne Gilson remarked, the Church always buries… Read more »
One of the most important aspects of religion is that it propagates ancient wisdom, and consequently, it’s adherents tend to be more robust due to the advantages conferred by utilizing that wisdom in daily life. Once upon a time, Christianity promoted fecundity as ancient wisdom. Be fruitful and multiply and opposition to abortion are examples.
“Democracy is the suicide pill for a people out of reasons to live.” Your best sentence ever.
I miss Valiant Comics
Zman is just borrowing the idea from John Adams: “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/49810-i-do-not-say-that-democracy-has-been-more-pernicious
“There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.”
–Audre Lorde
Has The Bulwark penned “The Conservative Case for Bisexual Adultery” yet?
Hmmmmmm. Do you really need religion to reject homosexuality? I mean, when you see degenerate behaviour and the consequences of it… you don’t really need God to point out what is intuitively obvious. Consider the gay bath houses and their rampant problems with HIV and other STD’s. We may be able to argue with atheists and SJW’s on whether or not God hates faggots… but it is crystal clear that Darwin and Murphy hate them, and will happily kill them if given the opportunity. How many messed up children do you have to see before you equate single motherhood with… Read more »
If the Bible and the CDC agree that homosexuality is bad. Dont do it.
Do you really need religion to reject homosexuality?
Empirical data suggests the answer is “yes.”
Perhaps it is only a statistical blip. but:
https://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2019/10/did-shaming-single-mothers-work.html
It would be very interesting to see that graph broken down by demographics. I know that to this day, border-jumpers are advised to have a baby as quickly as possible to secure their residency.
Clarey’s hypothesis is interesting, but hard-to-prove. It’s a pretty short-term (so far) downturn that is nowhere near returning to 1940s levels, and it also coincides with a huge economic downturn. Maybe it simply got too expensive for a lot of women to have out-of-wedlock kids. There are so many factors affecting peoples’ behavior in the real world that I distrust any simplistic explanation. The upturn in single motherhood pretty well follows spread of feminism, availability of birth control, availability of abortion, no fault divorce, availability of government welfare programs for single mothers, etc. as well as diminishing influence of religion.… Read more »
As a nominal Christian, my sense is that Christianity had strength and vigor when things were “just so, that’s why” and “don’t ask too many questions”, all backed up by the trappings of the thing and the deep roots into the popular culture. Somewhere along the way, Christianity rotted from the outside in, and also from the inside out. From the outside, the competing denominations began to go for popularity instead of truth, so trendy things like femininity from the pulpit and the embrace of homosexuality became the things, rather than a stern “daddy” role that every culture needs, and,… Read more »
The demise of Christianity? No expert here but the Church’s monopoly began to disappear before the Reformation when the papacy went bad thanks to the Borgias. It was known as The One True Church, but when you make that claim you’d better be bulletproof, and Luther created rivalries to TOTC above. All of John Chap 17 is a lengthy prayer where Jesus, as founder of this Church, asks God the Father for unity among his followers. We were divided, and then we were conquered–at least as an institution. You can be a Christian and a light without the dammed leaders… Read more »
“Democracy is the suicide pill for a people out of reasons to live.”
Or as King Crimson has it, “confusion, will be my epitaph.”
But we are still alive, and our children…so the question becomes, “what comes after?” I think that is the question a lot of people reading this blog are trying separately and jointly to answer. Not there yet but I live in hope.
What is the source of moral authority? A devoutly religious person has his answer. The rest of us must look elsewhere.
I observe that the different peoples have different racial personalities and priorities. Northern Europeans find private property inviolate. Gypsies, Arabs, and Africans, not so much.
Morality is an expression of a racial personality and we must separate. But it is not so simple as white=good and non-white=bad because there is a strand of Northern European Puritanism that demands that egalitarianism and homosexuality must be imposed. They must leave us alone.
“C.S. Lewis once pointed out that the moral law does not describe what humans do; it describes what we ought to do. As such, the moral law is not discernable, scientifically or otherwise, from actual human behavior.”
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/can-morality-be-grounded-in-science
If a moral law results in human misery, degredation or extinction, we can discern that it’s unfit for humanity. Lewis was wise, but not all-knowing, and he was speaking from within an implicit cultural framework much more common-sensical and grounded than today’s.
Like America’s founding documents, much is left unsaid because the speakers thought saying things like “don’t starve your own children to send money to Israel & Africa” didn’t need to be said.
Based on what I’ve observed over the last 45 years or so – I have never thought of our “democracy” as one where ‘everybody is in charge’, but rather one where the worst people somehow get to have their views legitimized – and the people who the biggest mouths get to shout down everybody else and force their views down our throats. It’s why I subscribe to the view of some of the founders of this country – and think that the government should have as minimalist powers as humanly possible. If the local Catholic church has a priest that… Read more »
I would ask if that may be an incorrect mindset? The institutions are neither your friend or your enemy. Sure, you can protect your son from the predator at the church. But what about the one that runs the local Boy Scouts club? Or the minor hockey coach? Or the teacher at school? The left is now trying to mainstream pedophilia the same way homosexuality is. Exactly as the non-pozzed churches said they would. In addition, it is not just your son’s rectum they are after – it is his mind nd soul. What happens when your kid is indoctrinated… Read more »
Are you kidding me? Institutions are not my enemy? Name one single institution that is not a problem in the current day – including the Boy Scouts. As child and young adult – I found it extremely hard to give my mind and body over to institutions that failed to live up to their stated standards on a regular basis. The easily discovered hypocrisy turned me away. When all of the allegations about the Catholic Church and it’s pervasive butthole invading ways came to light – the best way I can describe my reaction is unsurprised. As I child I… Read more »
Forgive me – poor choice of words. The institutions are neither your enemies or your friends. It’s the guys running them that are – and my point was that they are no longer confined to the institutions. They are infesting every aspect of life… even the family.
Keep your little one close, CD. The institutions have institutionalized villainy… and it is everywhere now. They got my daughter and nearly destroyed what was left of my family. Best of luck to you and your son.
When the “institution” defines itself and it’s mission with laws and deeds that destroy people – then the institution is my enemy. Yes – they are made up of individuals who at all levels are likely corrupt, but in the end when they band together and call themselves an “institution” – you’re not going to fix the problem by giving them a pass by saying that the organization is inert. Burn the institution. Burn the individuals. Burn them all. The institutions hide behind their evil ways by saying ” it was one bad seed”. The bad seeds hide behind the… Read more »
Demotic government represents the third phase in the cycle outlined by Spengler. An entitled wealthy spoiled people abandon the principles that got them to their height in greedy (like a greedy algorithm) pursuit of material dominance. This has never failed to occur, except in cases of premature civilizational death. The grand dream of philosophers the world over is how can we escape this cycle of death and rebirth at a civilization level? We do not know, however at a minimum what we here as individuals can do is try in our own way to live according to that which we… Read more »
Replace Democracy with Secularism and Z’s argument makes more sense. The fact is the more secular a people become becomes the weaker they become in terms of morality and you send get to the point where anything goes since there is no moral authority outside of the courts who now become our moral arbiters. This is what we have in the U.S. To be fair the U.S. isn’t totally secular like Britain or Sweden but we are ruled by a class rabid secularists who hate Christians. As one pundit put it – we are a nation of Hindus ruled by… Read more »
I prefer the term materialism to secularism, although perhaps secular materialism is the best way of describing their “god”. It isn’t just that they deny higher authority, they place their uber eats, pumpkin spice lattes, fag parades, and sodomy as being the highest good.
Denying one of the privileged classes a desired material thing is deemed a grave offense. Denying a religious person the right to live according to their principles and faith is “the cost of doing business”.
“Democracy is a suicide pill for people with no reason to live.”
Damn, that is brutal.
America does have a religion with a moral code. We, the Sheeple of the United States, are meant to worship Mammon. Pay our taxes; buy SUVs and the very latest I-phone 1x; be subliminally motivated by the pozzed advertising sponsoring our sportsball and episodes of The Bachelor; and above all, STFU about tedious topics like morality or demographic replacement. Our leaders, the ayatollahs of U.S. dollars, have everything under control. Nothing to see here. Just keep consuming. There’s nothing a credit card or a new, miracle pill from Big Pharma can’t solve. All is well.
When they do try to conjure a godless moral code, they inevitably slam into the old problem of Hume’s law. That is, they try to derive an ought from an is. Of course, an atheist would say there’s no “is” involved in a religious moral code, since there’s no “is” involved in god, and that it’s the religious who are trying to derive an “ought” from an “is not”; you only think your weird and ambiguous allegories derive from a skymonster. In fact, an atheist would say that since there’s no god, Christians must get their ethics from the same… Read more »
“A collection of competing strangers”
That would make a good title for the last chapter of A History of Western Civilization
Extreme affluence enables a society to function (albeit temporarily) as a collection of competing strangers. Bring back real hardship and existential threat and cooperation will once again become a moral and survival imperative.
And now you understand why I am against all forms of government run welfare – and Federal Reserve generated funny money.
Hardship brings humans closer back to honesty and reality. A human can live a productive life with extreme affluence , but only if they understand right down in their core how that affluence is generated.
And welfare checks in the mail will never do that.
You are so right, Calsdad. The Fed castrated the male breadwinner, driving down the present value of the dollar to three cents in 1913 numbers at the same time that materialism became a religion. With their workplace porn, feminism bolstered womens’ desire for things that money buys, convincing them that butting heads and suffering the lash of an incompetent supervisor 8 hours a day was one long orgasm. Sometimes I think both men and women are too exhausted from working to contemplate religion. At the same time, church parking lots have in some instances become a place to measure self-worth.… Read more »
When I first read the title I thought it said “Ethnics” . Maybe that would be a good one for another post.
One of the Alt’s weak points is relating everything back to evolution. You don’t have to be a Christian to think evolution a failed theory. We non-believers are used to reading blah blah blah during otherwise interesting articles, but in the back of our minds Is the thought this person has discernment problems, as they re not recognizing that the Theory is not scientific but religious (or do, but have their own agenda), beware.
We’re so accustomed to translating mythology as “falsehood” today that we’ve lost the original vital meaning of the word, encompassing values, tradition, and the mytho-poetic animating narrative of a race, ala the Iliad and Odyssey for the Greeks and the Sagas and Das Niebelung for the Nords. I recommend Colin Cleary & Joseph Campbell for some healthy re-framing. Mythology, religion and ethics are the legitimizing flesh that allows a population to view the musclar machinery of might-makes-right authority as something human and natural rather than mechanical and tyrannical. Like the android Ash in Alien, once we’ve seen the bare machinery… Read more »
Yes, to mythology. We could try to bring the old myths forward with new metaphors, symbols of our ideas & our peoples. But J. Campbell noted things were changing so fast, nothing has time to become mythologized anymore.
I really like your idea that the death of mythology has a temporary benefit of increasing awareness…
Too much of our existing/surviving Christian mythos is based on holding indefensible exoteric positions that science can skewer with ease. Using fundamentalism to fight modern science is the theological equivalent of fighting in line formation with pikes against guerillas sniping you from the trees with rifles This does faith a disservice. The truth is deeper and more subtle than the literal myths passed down from antiquity. Buddhists have seen their faith undergo a number of “turnings” (four or five depending on who you ask) which kept the core beliefs but revised and revitalized the details and interpretations to address challenges… Read more »
I could write a modern myth from old metaphors. How about a story of a people’s hero, a story how the hero sacrifices himself to fight for a peoples and their ideas, as a corrective force of the Universe, against an elite caste of rulers who are a non-human hive, soulless worshipers of the god of materialism. That would be a fun tale to write. All I need is a real human hero to go first, to pick up the hero’s adventure today, as the anchor of my myth. If he succeeds but dies in the end even better according… Read more »
Implicit in the chaos Z described is the problem of different and competing moral systems. Just an example off the top of my head: judges. You have one old-school white judge whose central value is equality under the law. But somewhere else you’ve got a POC judge whose central value is hurt white people any way you can. How can that work? My working definition of “nation” is racial/tribal. But you could argue that a common moral system (such as religion) is also a necessary (but not sufficient, CivNats!) condition to nationhood. There are plenty of historical examples of racially… Read more »
This country was founded by two distinct groups: Religious fanatics in New England and Pennsylvania versus British citizens who wanted to live as they always. These two camps can be split again. Yankees, and today’s liberals, are the product of religious zealot Puritans and suicidally liberal Quakers. Southerners are Scotch-Irish white trash (my people so I have N word privileges) and slave owning Cavaliers who recreated a fuedal society. Today, the Puritans wish to abolish the evil white people for their sins against the Cavaliers obsolete farm equipment. POCs are their preferred weapon. The failure of America was baked into… Read more »
Scots-Irish — at least 1/8 my people, too, so I have upvote privileges.
Perfect Post, and perfectly ended.
I thought Congresswoman Hill was a perfect representative for this state, and for the country. I can’t think of anyone more reflective of “who we are,” as sitting naked with a strap-on, showing a little german cross tattoo next to your crotch, while inhaling a bowl like it’s scuba equipment. It’s called Friday night in Santa Clarita. The illegal Latina housekeeper shows up the next morning to clean the place up. It’s pure debt fueled hedonism. The last days of Pompeii.
JR;
Excellent, brutal summary. But you left off the ‘blaming others for the adverse consequences of your own stupid, selfish decisions’ part.
Consequences of N wave feminism in one episode.
That which works. persists. Ancient wisdom is the verbal distillation of what works and needs to be passed down between generations in a successful society. History teaches that religion has been a very effective means of propagating wisdom between generations. The demise of religion gives birth to social chaos and degeneracy, leading to collapse of trust and cooperation. History also teaches that such societies will balkanize and resort to hot conflict until ancient wisdom once again is valued and propagated.
Democracy can only work when it decides questions of very limited scope. When 99% of your morality and politics are already agreed upon and thus not up for debate.
For example, my co-workers and I vote on where to go to lunch. Works OK.
But if the scope were expanded to the point where we could vote to have co-workers we don’t like murdered, and then we get to repossess their house, wives, and daughters–well, people would call that madness.
But that’s essentially the IRL democracy we’ve got now.
The ridiculous thing is that cuckservatives would probably go along with it.
“Well, boys, the 51% voted fair and square to have us murdered. That settles that. Well played to them. Let the history books show that we went to the gallows like men!”
Excellent article. I want to know if the basic sense of morality can overcome the political ignorance of the democratic masses. The best example here is the how parents respond to pedophiles, child traffickers, and other assorted evils that directly impact their children. I mean, when will the perversion finally wake them up?
They may never wake up. There is a race between waking up and redefining deviancy. Church authority fades, secular authority—whatever that is—fills the void. I remember when it was fair game to “beat up fags”, not that I hold to that opinion—then or now. But now we (society) celebrate/support such lifestyle and promote it. In time will there be anyone left to “woke”? In other words, in a generation or two, will we read of parents bragging about how their young son has met a wonderful “older” man who is taking him under his wing and guiding him through a… Read more »
Compsci: Catamites cannot continue civilization, this will eventually decay and collapse. Unfortunately the ones who push this stuff seem determined on bringing all of us with them into this living hell that will be the new dark age, where math is racist and sodomy is a virtue.
Okay, but even the most uneducated person has a powerful feeling once they become a parent, and that I believe is an obvious biological trait that makes even the dumbest beast want to protect his/her offspring, and to give said offspring the best that they can so “the kid will have a better life than I did.” We all sense this and see it in others. Sometimes the miracle of birth can change a person, and I am only hoping that the deviancy will be rejected by the persuasion of biology. I mean, if you stand up in front of… Read more »
Thank you for fixing VPN posting block issue. In considering throwing down the old order or replacing it after collapse do consider history. 1. Normally it simply replaces the administrators. 2. Even after total revolutions the new order resets to the old one; see France, Russia, even China. Even in its own strange way North Korea (which was a slave plantation already when the Japanese, never mind the Communists took over). 3. The old Gods return as well. See above. 4. In America that means either a) The Republic aka Constitutional govt, or b) replace the administrative state with new… Read more »
It wasn’t just ‘moral authority’ that kept the West coherent, but the willingness of the authorities to enforce morals, often by execution. However, the upper class often escaped punishment and *that* is what lead to today’s broken morality. In the Ancient Regime, the lower classes never aped the manners of the upper classes, most of them didn’t even know how to do so. However, the emergence of the bourgeoisie created a class of people who *could* ape the manners of the ruling class and, since that ruling class was often immoral, the immorality of the ruling class became the ‘morality’… Read more »
” . . . the immorality of the ruling class became the ‘morality’ of the bourgeoisie.” HT, you mean like teenagers following Bill Clinton’s tomcat practices once the Lewinsky saga hit the news media? I think we will find similar trickle-down lawlessness if none of these Deep Staters see striped sunshine for their crimes against Donald Trump.