A stupid person is a real thing. — Haitian proverb I write this not as a righteous man, but as a sinner. You can apply that confession throughout. I’m also a presumptuous and un-pretty man, a philosophical and theological novitiate — a dilettante were I less serious about what I don’t know as well as I ought. I punch above my weight and often lead with my face. And I’m a Didymus — one day ready to march into a burning fire, the next riddled with doubt almost to the point of despair. I need correction, constant correction; but I’m never sure who I can trust for it. Nonetheless, here I go, clueless about when I’m clueless, and diving right in . . . “we’ll die
Stan Goff, I admire your staying power. As others have said, this essay requires contemplation and thought, and in this it is an example of the very philosophical reflection which 'modern' society and 'politics-as-the-only-redemption' requires.
In addition to Illich,, whom you mention often here, I am an admirer of the work Christopher Lasch, the title of whose book "The True and only Heaven" is a long, fascinating, heavy, valuable ramble through the history of 'Progress and its Critics' (the book's sub-title). He was also a man of the left (the so-called 'New Left') who became a fierce defender of the family in the age of the 'Culture of Narcissism', perhaps his best-known and most prophetic book....a 'cultural conservative' and so a man fallen into disrepute among the adherents of the diverse modernity cults.
It is good to read you again after a long break (20? years), a break not wished for but arisen from force of circumstance and the sheer quantity of distractions in the very-online era.
Wild ride. Writing needs to be more clear in some parts but far too many things to take home. Far too many brilliant points to overlook.
And well now I also have far too many books to read.
I have always argued that all modern ideologies stem from naturalism. And this is a far more detailed effort in classification. I feel like I'm beginning to get a proper outline of it all.
The definition of vitalism and its relationship to both atheism and materialism is astoundingly insightful. It gets right to the bottom of the Frankfurt garbage bin. It perfectly explains the sexual revolution.
As well that pervasive punch that the religious and the secular are the same. I naively argued this against atheists by refusing their presumption that a negative belief has no positive consequences. You know when they or some idiot conservative says "separate church and state" to mean "i only want athiests in power". But this just ties it up in a knot and properly disposes of it.
It is impossible to have a politics without the sacred and mythic. Nothing quite erases the confusion like this.
Other great nuggets are that radical feminists were only excluded to the degree that their observation correctly saw problems. None of the theory is denied. Yet that very theory, actually applied honestly, and what it shows, is denied.
The importance of contemplations as an ends in philosophy i think harkens to an intuition i have been having. Without anachronistic living. We are not going to have any proper attachment to the divine. Speed will erase any chance of that.
There is so much in here I'm probably going to have to do some background reading and come back to read again.
I hesitated to like and comment on this post because I haven't finished reading it. It's going to take me a long time to work my way through it. I've made it maybe a quarter of the way through, enough to be intrigued.
Stan Goff, I admire your staying power. As others have said, this essay requires contemplation and thought, and in this it is an example of the very philosophical reflection which 'modern' society and 'politics-as-the-only-redemption' requires.
In addition to Illich,, whom you mention often here, I am an admirer of the work Christopher Lasch, the title of whose book "The True and only Heaven" is a long, fascinating, heavy, valuable ramble through the history of 'Progress and its Critics' (the book's sub-title). He was also a man of the left (the so-called 'New Left') who became a fierce defender of the family in the age of the 'Culture of Narcissism', perhaps his best-known and most prophetic book....a 'cultural conservative' and so a man fallen into disrepute among the adherents of the diverse modernity cults.
It is good to read you again after a long break (20? years), a break not wished for but arisen from force of circumstance and the sheer quantity of distractions in the very-online era.
Wild ride. Writing needs to be more clear in some parts but far too many things to take home. Far too many brilliant points to overlook.
And well now I also have far too many books to read.
I have always argued that all modern ideologies stem from naturalism. And this is a far more detailed effort in classification. I feel like I'm beginning to get a proper outline of it all.
The definition of vitalism and its relationship to both atheism and materialism is astoundingly insightful. It gets right to the bottom of the Frankfurt garbage bin. It perfectly explains the sexual revolution.
As well that pervasive punch that the religious and the secular are the same. I naively argued this against atheists by refusing their presumption that a negative belief has no positive consequences. You know when they or some idiot conservative says "separate church and state" to mean "i only want athiests in power". But this just ties it up in a knot and properly disposes of it.
It is impossible to have a politics without the sacred and mythic. Nothing quite erases the confusion like this.
Other great nuggets are that radical feminists were only excluded to the degree that their observation correctly saw problems. None of the theory is denied. Yet that very theory, actually applied honestly, and what it shows, is denied.
The importance of contemplations as an ends in philosophy i think harkens to an intuition i have been having. Without anachronistic living. We are not going to have any proper attachment to the divine. Speed will erase any chance of that.
There is so much in here I'm probably going to have to do some background reading and come back to read again.
Good stuff.
I hesitated to like and comment on this post because I haven't finished reading it. It's going to take me a long time to work my way through it. I've made it maybe a quarter of the way through, enough to be intrigued.