Return to Virtue: The Source Of Virtue

(Insight)

(Part 2, see Part 1)

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

Psalm 19:7-11

Virtue has been defined for ages and put into practice equally as long. It is therefore both a place of reason and doing. In context to the western world, Aristotle is most famous for his explanation and application of virtue. Accordingly, in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he explains virtue as intellectual and moral; intellectual progress resulting mostly from teaching while the moral is fulfilled from habitual practices (Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2, p. 26). From the standpoint of virtue ethics in philosophy, Aristotelianism is its practical foundation. Ethics and morality are different branches of a similar tree as R.C. Sproul explains:

The English word “ethic” or “ethics” comes from the Greek word ethos. The word “morals” or “morality” comes from the word mores. The difference is that the ethos of a society or culture deals with its foundational philosophy, its concept of values, and its system of understanding how the world fits together. There is a philosophical value system that is the ethos of every culture in the world. On the other hand, mores has to do with the customs, habits, and normal forms of behavior that are found within a given culture.

In the first instance, ethics is called a normative science; it’s the study of norms or standards by which things are measured or evaluated. Morality, on the other hand, is what we would call a descriptive science. A descriptive science is a method to describe the way things operate or behave. Ethics are concerned with the imperative and morality is concerned with the indicative. What do we mean by that? It means that ethics is concerned with “ought-ness,” and morality is concerned with “is-ness.”

Ethics, or ethos, is normative and imperative. It deals with what someone ought to do. Morality describes what someone is actually doing. That’s a significant difference, particularly as we understand it in light of our Christian faith, and also in light of the fact that the two concepts are confused, merged, and blended in our contemporary understanding.

Not to discount all things Aristotle, Christianity has long argued not only for the differences between morality and ethics, but the ultimate source or ethic is God. Sourcing where our measure of what is right or wrong ought to determine our actions. Following from that understanding, the highest virtue arises from God and is progressed forward by God, in us and through us, all for the Glory of God and His Kingdom rather than our own. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done is the imperative. Humanity, however, rebels against God seeking to make their own way forward. Now postmodernism, a reflection of present realities, promotes the Self as god and king. In response to that falsity, society must be rebuilt by Christianity once again until the return of Christ who is the ultimate ethic.

Dominion

In part one, Virtue By Decree, I explained the decree being:

[A] set of obligations weighted upon and against all institutions that hold power and authority over a people. And it represents a set of values expected from those institutions.

Virtue by Decree is a moral legal framework that applies to an entire society, an infrastructure of revolving checks and balances by an eternal clockwork of good over evil; right versus wrong; consistent rather than inconsistent. Roots or foundations though apply. Where does one gain this method of authority that binds all to its one accord however imperfect its creatures? Evolution? Hardly. Reason? Whose? It is enforced by God, the most perfect and most high authority. Yet, left to our own devices, we can quickly destroy that which we have been given. As the Book of Genesis explains,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

Imago Dei, the likeness and reflective substance of God, are the elements of men and women bound eternal to God regardless of their will. “His will be done” (Matthew 6:10), applies to the entire nature of man. There are no boundaries between God and man, only man and God. We can never reach heaven by our own will. A two-way street metaphor is entirely obliterated. Human sovereignty can only be inclined to the creators imputed design. God’s Sovereignty triumphs our own in every which way. Divine Providence holds absolute dominion.

Real-value virtue is therefore rooted in God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is the foundational source of all things virtuous through His Triunity and Christ Incarnation. Christ is the completed (perfect) Image of Man, not the distortions we have become, images broken long ago:

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shallrule over you.”

17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3: 1-24).

Responding to the jarring event of human damnation God predestined the answer for humanity’s fallen state. Through the workings of Christ eternal, Jesus would one day become flesh. A man, yet divine without blemish. God and Man. The Incarnation of Christ is when “the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4–5). “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). Christ is the final sacrifice, the last scapegoat, and the sacred feast for a holy altar. His incarnation completes the image bearer. Distorted images of believers can now slowly retune with the Incarnation of Christ through sanctification. In us and through us, Christ demonstrated for us by fulfilling the law and prophecies; He has revived the soul, made the wise simple, rejoiced the heart, enlightened the eyes, endured us on forever, and rules with truth and righteousness. Interpretation of the Scriptures are a sacred duty of all believers through the reliance of the Christian Church for Scripture is our guide.

True Virtue

True virtue is Christ incarnated. There can be no separation between He and the Common Good. Eudaemonia, in the ethics of Aristotle and many virtue ethics, is concerned with happiness or human flourishing by means of prosperity and blessings. While that exists in the Christian life, the goal is not happiness, but one of obedience toward the source of joy. In the final paragraphs of, The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer, he writes:

“But all our works are the works of God himself, the works for which he has prepared us beforehand… From this it follows that we can never be conscious of our good works. Our sanctification is veiled from our eyes until the last day, when all secrets are disclosed. If we want to see some results here and assess our own spiritual state, and have not the patience to wait, we have our reward. The moment we begin to feel satisfied that we are making some progress along the road of sanctification, it is all the more necessary to repent and confess that all our righteousness are as filthy rags. Yet the Christian life not one of gloom, but of ever increasing joy in the Lord. God alone knows our good works, all we know is his good work.” (p. 296-97)

Christian Virtue and the source of our JOY is in contrast with Eudaimonia.

The Christian walk requires sacrifice, surrender, service, admonishment, judgement, guidance, and above everything else to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ all for the Glory of God. Virtue and virtuousness are not the goal, though they are expected of believers, the purpose of the faith is to live out the truth of Christ for Christ. Virtue in Christian application is beyond just the habitual and the teachable, virtues are of eternal concern, a matter of works that demonstrates salvation and after salvation comes a life of discipleship and sanctification.

Uncovering Christ as the source for all institutions and peoples may at first appear disingenuous considering that not everyone is a Christian or a Primitive Conservative for that matter. However, as much as I would like to make everyone converts, I know that is not in my control nor even possible. My purpose here is only to clarify the root of a Christian and a Primitive Conservative by which virtue is justified and vice judged.

Principles Over Politics

Ideas and the meaning of those ideas are important to practicing virtue, encouraging virtue, and decreeing virtue. For example, loyalty and patriotism share similar strands yet one is deeper than the other. Loyalty to friends and family hold a different form of bond versus that of a loyalty to country that we call patriotism. Equally vital to the institutions at hand even considered virtuous, but the cost of discipleship for which Christ commands can quickly turn these ideas upside down as it reads in Luke 14:25-33:

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

This is part of Bonhoeffer’s “Costly Grace” metaphor versus that of “Cheap grace” (The Cost of Discipleship, p.45) as one requires surrender, suffering, repentance, and a life dedicated to a singular purpose; the other is quick, painless, and easily dispensable when it fails to converge with competing narratives and visions and desires of ones life. But that exchange of choosing a costly or cheap grace has outward effects on family, friends, and even country. Where do such loyalties stand when they are juxtaposed between a rock and a hard place? Neither scripture nor the saints before us guarantee easy answers or always “the correct” responses, yet that should not dismay the principles of morality and ethics to be used in our laws, economies, education, and daily living standards. Furthermore, history has taught us that not every good idea ought to be enforced i.e. leniency is important; the law cannot save us from eternity anymore than can it save is from harm, ignorance, hurt, hate, or pain. Grasping the essential qualities of a conservative mind therefore are important for the political and social arena.

A Way Forward

Christian, how can we exclaim Christ Alone, but allow ourselves to be swayed in a life of debauchery? Or, how can we claim Christ as King yet spread disinformation for a political identity? True virtue is not an identity. It is a way of life. A philosophy and a religion. Virtue is the oxygen to whose lungs are gasping for air. The struggle for life is not life itself; the struggle is for the life maker Himself. Seek pardon from false riches, fraught authority, and expedient freedoms the world promises. Turn away from it all. Rather, run toward the light of Solus Christus the finished and forever foundation.

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.

From my previous series, Principles Over Politics, in part one called Exordium, I cite Professor J. Budziszewski:

From time to time Christians may find themselves in tactical alliance with conservatives, just as with liberals, over particular policies, precepts, and laws. But they cannot be in strategic alliance, because their reasons for these stands are different; they are living in a different vision. 

And

Christians can no more be others on the right than others on the left. Citizenship is an obligation of the faith, therefore the Christian will not abstain from the politics of the nation-state. But his primary mode of politics must always be witness. It is a good and necessary thing to change the welfare laws, but better yet to go out and feed the poor. It is a good and necessary thing to ban abortion, but better yet to sustain young women and their babies by taking them into the fellowship of faith. This is the way the kingdom of God is built.

I knew then the time was quick at hand when Christians will have to confront the reality that their way of life in America was coming to an end. That time has arrived. As I proposed also in Part 1 of this series on Virtue, “Christendom and Conservative Thinkers must now begin to prepare for a better and brighter future should that future come. To begin a process of structuring what mankind has learned over the centuries, successes and failures, so as to reform or rebuild the crumbling globe before us.” My message remains the same to Conservatives as well. Anyone who is willing to at least consider the reality and truth of God should prepare for a post-liberal world.

Like Budziszewski, I cannot ignore the calling of Christ, but I will be arguing for a universal Christological Virtue Principle (CVP). It will take time, but it is necessary in preparing a better future for generations seeking a way forward beyond the false dichotomies of our modern political landscape. A landscape quickly decaying beneath our feet.

Next Time: Virtue Explained

Mob Rule, Mob Rules: Part 3, Section 1

(Part 1, Part 2)

Trumphantism: Donald J. Trump & The Post-Trump World

By: E. Kyle Richey

Earth to America: Crashing til Landed

Marred by 2020 the world braces for impact in 2021. Humanity has witnessed a paradigm shift, yet the dust still settles as outcomes and consequences remain to be decided. Donald J. Trump, United States 45th President has lost an election which determined the cascading trajectory of the United States of America. Now is the time to understand what we are leaving behind as American’s and the world enter the fragmented universe of 2021. 

The irony of collapse is eventually a replacement appears. No power, however impressive, lasts forever per the testimonies of time by empires that long lay in ruin. Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome lay in ruin while continuing to influence the present; they may be in ruin yet their voices speak an eternality of what is to come, “an end and new beginnings,” they whisper.  

Transitions from beginning to end are never definite in degree, but shared similarities showcase potential possibilities for historians and political thinkers alike to study and consider. 

In 1992 a profound and controversial book was published, The End of History and the Last Man (1992) by Political and Social theorist Francis Fukuyama. Immediately in his introduction Fukuyama premised that liberal democracies are the pinnacle of a free and open society, an end of history, while acknowledging stable nations such as the United States or France would continue to have issues due to an “incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty and equality (p. xi).”¹ Within the end of history and fasts-forward to 2018 with the publication of Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, both works acknowledge a demand for universal recognition (an idea from the philosopher Hegel) or dignity according Fukuyama, a place where all are seen heard, and known. Yet the ideal turns toward the ideological as demands of recognition include no forms of discrimination or disrespect felt by oppressed groups giving rise to a new totalitarianism, a “soft totalitarianism”² whose overarching hand comes largely from corporations whose cooperation with governments make them complicit actors of the state. This is Modernity’s present conflict and a test concerning history’s end due to its irreality and polarizing affect of identity politics: 

Being a citizen of a liberal democracy does not mean, moreover, that people will actually be treated with equal respect either by their government or by other citizens. They are judged on the basis of their skin, their gender, their national origin, their looks, their ethnicity, or their sexual orientation. Each person and each group experiences disrespect in different ways, and each seeks its own dignity. Identity politics thus engenders its own dynamic, by which societies divide themselves into smaller and smaller groups by virtue of their particular “lived experience” of victimization (p. 164).³

Specific to the United States of America, a serious conflict is taking place concerning its future in the world as it continues to dim in the night sky. Our nebulae is fading while false promises of return continue from Trump to Biden. The election of 2020 further marks a crisis of culture and legitimacy. Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA, and additional Marxist movements in the areas of culture and political life are merely one revolt competing against another. Attempts in the final weeks of the Trump Presidency to override the Capitol was an extension of a radical right of QAnon conspirators and Alt-right fascism determined to prevent what they believe was an election stolen and an America quickly fading in front of their eyes. As Anne Applebaum from The Atlantic observed, extremists are emboldening one another.⁴ Events in America today are reminiscent of Germany as Marxist’s caused anarchy in the streets and out of frustration far-right extremist groups -began to take the streets ending in bloodshed and a revolution that brought about Adolf Hitler into power.

Would it be hard to believe that both sides of the the quarrel in America today carry legitimacy and illegitimacy? A conundrum for sure but a postmodern reality as conflicting interpretations⁵ swirl us into further disaster. Internally outcomes mean a warring between a weak versus strong state, however, a much larger powers hover over the once great nation. China, Corporatism, and Globalism each carry a new weight on the shoulders of Uncle Sam.

Socialist Technocrats riding of the back of Capitalism are aiming for a Great Reset in the midst of C-19.⁶ Spiraling out of control, disillusioned by their grander, they believe they can land a plane already in flames with President Biden and Vice-President Harris at the throttle. In order to comprehend the erosion and decay; to predict the outcomes that are likely to arise in 2021; and to understand the pinnacle of modernity—late modernity, a perpetual state⁷ of totalitarian incantations⁸—we must first review President Trump and the American ethos of 2016 that built up to this point. Mob Rule, Mob Rules did not develop overnight but it is rooted in the unsettled nature of mankind whose fears, wants, needs, and desires collide in a world of duality with the Self at the center of an unraveling universe that is the End of History & the Last Man.   

America’s Second Postmodern President

Donald J. Trump was an enigma and an archetype representative of the reverberating tensions in the modern world. America’s 45th President was not in the mundane category as he set a new standard for future leadership in the political landscape—an all gloves off approach. His own outrageous behavior polarized the most moderate into unmarked territories while enflaming political baselines. To call the man evil ignores the good he committed himself to doing while President, yet to call the man good evaporates his offensive oddities that perturbed Conservatives and non-Conservatives, Christians and non-Christians alike. The now former President was our first purely postmodern President; a genius capable of fragmenting and uniting in ways not thought possible in modern America.⁹ He successfully made the ecological landscape appear upside-down and right-side up, greatly due to the fact that American society at present is itself fragmented and united, engaged and disengaged, troubled and relived.

As I engaged on the EKR Report, it is important to reiterate here:

It is my belief that America’s 45th President Donald J. Trump was a complete postmodern President; a manifestation of late modernity’s yearnings for a hero and a villain. Trump just so happened to represent the radical right, the alt-right, but it is questionable if President Trump was indeed a man of the right or a man who took advantage of their woes. Previously I have mentioned that I believed Trump to be the first postmodern president, but I stand corrected as Barack Obama was the first (another topic to be sure). However, in reaction to thematics of Obama, Donald Trump entered center stage to fill a void in the political right, a strong arm who could MAGA his way though Washington. QAnon and the Alt-right are blatant examples of the modern malaise that is postmodernism. 

Continuing that thought-line I presented Donald J. Trump as a Postmodern Nebuchadnezzar:

Manifestation being the keyword President Trump embodies the essential postmodern stigma. He is the result of an ecological convergence within late modernity—a billionaire titan hungry for an abundance of power and wealth in order to make a legacy and the presidency was the perfect construct at a point of political strife…

President Trumps election and win in 2016 was understandably a response to the status quo, a push against the vanguard found in the Democratic and Republican parties that elected George W. Bush and Barrack Obama, respectfully, and a reactionary response from the public to the potential presidency of Hillary Rodham Clinton. People have grown weary of globalism, capitalism, socialism, war, and even peace. Citizens are worn.

And the election of Joe Biden is a reaction to Trump and Trumphantism, however, is also a response to the ills that minorities and progressives argue are repressing them. They too are enraged by hate speech, discrimination, low wages, and an expensive bloated healthcare system.

Combined a catalyst has been formed of good versus evil; light versus darkness. The postmodern stage has been set and the audience is watching:

In his book, Simulacra and Simulation, the postmodern thinker Baudrillard argues that within the United States a switch took place between the image relationship of art forms and reality; the image now has ontological priority over the real. Signs and Symbols have become the reality rather than the actual world itself thus resulting in life itself becoming “film-like” as he puts it:

It is not the least of America’s charms that even outside the movie theaters the whole county is cinematic. The desert you pass through is like the set of a Western, the city a screen of signs and formulas.”

Continuing:

A simulacrum is a representation of something or someone. Donald Trump, I am arguing, is a simulacrum due to the sociopolitical economic environment of the United States. He is a superficial force Americans had to contend with as either good or evil; right or wrong. Trump was not one but both. A master of media, Trump knew exactly how to market himself as savior and king as much as antichrist and tyrant. Christian professor and author of the book, Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth In A Distracted Age, Alan Noble describes our media saturated society—what I see as a postmodern product of late modernity the emerged from secularism, technology, and science— Nobles writes that the:

[C]onstant engagement with media also invites us to unreflectively adopt ethical and political positions, creating a hodgepodge worldview. From a film on the treatment of animals in amusement parks we develop a fleeting concern for animal rights. A documentary on modern farming practices makes us see shopping local and organic a moral issue.

Are the events we are witnessing real? Who is telling the truth? What will become of the human estate? Former President Trump offered America one way forward and it was a way that now nearly half of America sought to maintain rather than surrender. So much so that a cabal raided the Capital. While another half, a half fearful of Trump and “his” America, elected Joseph Robinette Biden Jr to repose from a sudden decay in their vision of democracy.

Disturbingly there is a serious disconnect between needs and wants for the average American citizen versus the conflicting natures found in Washington. Following that logic, the innumerable hands influencing decisions in the American political system has designed a wide range of conflicts in terms of visions and, as I have termed it, a collision of ideas that relate to the competing visions of the nation and the world for that matter.¹⁰ 

If the controversial terminology Deep State¹¹ means anything it is that there are far too many actors involved in the decision making of the U.S. Government beyond its traditional capacity of the three branches of government and their inability of functional overwatch. Additionally, Deep State as I define is a clear cooperation, not conspiratorial, between the State (i.e. the Federal, State, and local governments including its many agencies) and private entities (i.e. Corporate entities such as Media conglomerates, Banks, and Private Military Companies); a layering of networks that has become the security state entwined with a global economy called neoliberalism. Modernity procured a “Too Big To Fail” attitude because our interconnected global economy is dependent upon its own continual success. Security and prosperity are its goals. Civilization is not post-modernity, its in the thicket of modernity. Postmodernism— philosophically and ideologically—acts a reflective state that mirrors modernity’s crisis. This is the present Market State¹² out of which Trump triumphed, at least, momentarily.

Never A One Man Show

Trump became President in the midst of a rise of authoritarian figures, nationalism, and Brexit.¹³ But he also stood as a bulwark against socialism, critical race theories, and leftist radicalism. Yet he adopted agendas that aligned with alt-right motives.¹⁴ A man who was bitter and vial towards those he disliked and quick to dispose all those who showed a lack of Trump style loyalty. Paradoxically, Trump was willing to stand against our greatest enemies in the world including China and rail against the greatest evils such as abortion; the paradox would also have bizarre relations with our greatest enemies—Russia and North Korea—that themselves left many perplexed.

Mob Rule and Mob rules goes both ways. Once a society or group accepts a particular culture to the extent of an unwavering obedience that is when the mere obedient citizen morphs into the crazed devotee.¹⁵ In such a state of mind the individual joins a collective consciousness that bestows an ideological framework with its authoritative structures, a tyrannical voice speaks over the disillusioned. Granted that both authority and legitimacy are each necessary means to gaining such societal clout. Without that respect the people protest, rebel, and eventually turn into revolutionaries. Todays status quo can be tomorrows tyranny as the vanguard can be heroes and mob alike. No modern government is unaware of the populist pull.

With the populist shift in the recent decade as seen in the election of President Trump a void continues to grow in the desire of American political stability. As previously written in part 2 of this series:

Donald Trump was not Russia’s (forever) President Vladimir Putin nor North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, however, the current President fit well within mob tactics. Portrayed as a hero who was set on “draining the swamp” it was clear that the Washington outsider brought in his own muck. 

Biden is the pendulum swing further to the left. Hardly a stabilizing force considering the policies the President and the democratic party have adopted.

Life’s A Riot

            Movements and the groups who fight for their beliefs can quickly be perceived as either just or unjust depending on which side a person stands. The avant-garde of the new or the progressive versus the conservative institutions or the reactionary, these are only a set of varying “stances” a person can be part of. However, where do hate groups, real hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Nation of Islam, or Neo-Volkisch stand in the spectrum of differences between progressives and conservatives? They may share similar accepted norms and mores of general society, but their responses are dehumanizing, threatening, and often violent. Truthfully, they have no justification in relation to either the avant-garde or the establishment considering that these movements of hate are beyond even the fridge of accepted beliefs and are considered fraudulent in their cause. Yet liberalized governments tend to protect even the most hateful. Such a decision hardly premises legitimacy but it begs the question, How do liberal democracies successfully funnel extremist groups within their countries? That question relates to the United State most recent socioeconomic and political trajectories of riots and movements via Black Lives Matter and the Alt-Right. And it is a central topic as the 46th President Biden intend to tackle “white supremacy” after President 45 attempted to address the radical socialist left. It is therefore essential to understand Black Lives Matters, ANTIFA, and the Alt-Right; to see them as archetypical trajectories of what lays ahead in the radicalism that has overtaken the American Dream that is no more.

————

Next Time: Mob Rule, Mob Rules: Part 3, Section 2 Trumphantism: The Alt-Right, Black Lives Matters, ANTIFA, and the Fate of American Liberty

References

¹ Dreher, Rod. (2020). Live Not By Lies: A Manual For Christian Dissidents. New York, NY: Sentinel

² Fukuyama, Francis. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York, NY: The Free Press

³ —. (2018). Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

⁴ Applebaum, Anne. (2020 October 30). The Answer to Extremism Isn’t More Extremism. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/left-and-right-are-radicalizing-each-other/616914/

⁵ As a point of reference I am using Jean Baudrillard’s usage as he explained this loss of the real in how we interpret events around us. In his example, he used Watergate. This is directly quoted from Simulations (1983) Translated by Phil Beitchman, Paul Foss and Paul Patton, “All hypotheses are possible, although this one is superfluous: the work of the Right is done very well, and spontaneously, by the Left on its own. Besides, it would be naive to see an embittered good conscience at work here. For the Right itself also spontaneously does the work of the Left. All the hypotheses of manipulation are reversible in an endless whirligig. For manipulation is a floating causality where positivity and negativity engender and overlap with one another; where there is no longer any active or passive (p. 30).”

⁶ World Economic Forum. The Great Reset. https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/; and for further commentary on events see: Doane, Thomas. (2020 November 1). The Convergence of the Progressive Telos. Truth In Focus. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/11/01/the-convergence-of-the-progressive-telos/

⁷ Richey, Kyle. (2020 October 26). PostModernity: A Perpetual State of Modernity. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/10/26/postmodernity-a-perpetual-state-of-modernity/

⁸ —. (2020 November 2). Totalitarian Incantations: Late Modernity’s Radical Manifestations. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/11/02/totalitarian-incantations-late-modernitys-radical-manifestations/

⁹ —. (2020 August 20). Mob Rule, Mob Rules 2020: Part 2. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/08/20/mob-rule-mob-rules-2020-part-2/

¹⁰ —. (2020 November 2020). Too Divided To Stand: Election 2020 & The Future of America. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/11/06/too-divided-to-stand-election-2020-the-future-of-america/

¹¹ Several references: Lofgren, Mike. (21 February, 2014). Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State. Moyers On Democracy. https://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/; Kaizen, Michael. (Fall 2017). The Rise of the Security State: From the Great War to Snowden. Dissent Magazine. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/world-war-i-aftermath-security-state-nsa; Healy, Gene. (1 March, 2015). National Security State. (Book Review) National Security and Double Government By Michael J. Glennon. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/national-security-state; Epstein, Richard. (20 October, 2019) How Bad Constitutional Law Leads to Bad Economic Regulations. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/how-bad-constitutional-law-leads-bad-regulations/600280/

¹² A great reference point for understanding the Market State is from Constitutional scholar Philip Bobbitt’s, The Shield of Achilles, including on page 347 where a small set of graphs or “plates” he calls them demonstrate the evolution of the state including a small definition of each entity. The Market State according to Bobbitt “will maximize the opportunity of its citizens.”

13 Greven, Thomas. (2016 May). The Rise of Right-wing Populism in Europe and the United States: A Comparative Perspective. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation. http://dc.fes.de/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/RightwingPopulism.pdf

¹⁴ Wilson, Matthew. (2020 July 17). Donald Trump and the “Alt-Right”: How Much Connection Is There. ISPI. https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/donald-trump-and-alt-right-how-much-connection-there-26990

¹⁵ Richey, Kyle. (2020 August 20). Mob Rule, Mob Rules 2020: Part 2. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/08/20/mob-rule-mob-rules-2020-part-2/

Substack Chronicles

(Letter From The Editor)

By E. Kyle Richey

Thirteen days ago I started a Substack account. Free of charge readers can enjoy a daily report from me about culture, books, art, faith, emotions, and just about anything that does not directly fit within TIF. EKR Report, my Substack page, like Truth In Focus is a new project; a source for Christians and Conservatives like myself to share new, but more likely old ideas for a newer audience.

Christianity is a two-thousans year old faith in Jesus Christ of Nazareth that goes even further back into it’s Eastern Judaic roots making it one of the oldest monotheistic faith’s in the world.

Hardly anything true conservatives center their ideas around comes from ten, fifty, hundred, or two hundred years ago, rather they source from principles that are thousands of years old.

TIF is founded on that understanding and application. Yes, we cover current events but often we look to the past for answers; for eternal truths to ground ourselves no matter the frame of time.

My Substack carries the same principles, yet the posts are more personal. An insiders view of yours truly. I have been posting daily since November 6, yesterdays post was titled, Biopic Memories of Cadence Past: Great Balls of Fire. There is a reasoning to my madness with yesterdays post. When I entered my first master’s program, there was an understanding that postmodern thinking had distorted academia. While true it had since morphed into identity politics along with Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, Feminism, cultural Marxism, et cetera all the while containing a postmodern milieu. Well last night after a wonderful conversation with my dear friend Thomas Doane concerning postmodernist/poststructuralist “incredulity towards metanarratives” I wanted to poke a little fun at their arguments by making a metanarrative out of several stories from my day. I do hope you enjoy.

There are various reasons why authors and journalists start a Substack account. You can make a living from it if you are good enough and consistent with your work. After leaving The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald went straight for a place where he could have journalistic freedom, a wide audience, and an ability to make a living without much overhead. Substack was an obvious solution.

So far I find it to be a curiosity. There appears to be a good number of people on the network. Yet I find it difficult to traverse. Sure I follow Greenwald and Dreher but I could not tell you who these top twenty-five Substackers are except Andrew Sullivan being one.

As for small fries like myself perhaps it is a good place to just write freely yet it will take more to build an audience let alone make a living. However there is always a good chance that with enough time and effort, as TIF grows along with All Things Veritas and more freelancing that I can gain such a position. Is that why I do Substack? Not exactly. Rather I am more interested in trying to gain an audience in order to dialogue, however, making a livelihood is eventually the goal.

Dialogue seems to be something lacking even on TIF. Granted it has taken me time to learn how WordPress works. I have found WordPress to be less friendly to writers than I’d hoped but I am grateful nevertheless.

Substack is very friendly to writers but it will take a lot more work to build an audience.

Then you have freelance networks like Medium. Neither are like Medium. At Medium you can write an article for thousands if not millions to read and critique and truly gain an audience while while possibly making a profit from each article. I have not jumped onto Medium, yet. To be honest I have a been a bit hesitant. All of these sources feel a bit like an echo chamber. I do not like the idea of an echo chamber. It is vitally important that we have sources of information that can be open to everyone beyond ideological or philosophical or theological differences. That is why I’m spending so much time trying to build a network of Christians for example who are Catholic, Protestant like myself, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican. Surely we must come together on the same foundational beliefs, but we can vary over issues deemed non-essential. Same applies to conservative thinkers. Over the years I’ve discovered that we conservatives can be a bit more conservative than others while some can be a bit more liberal or even hold what may be seen as progressive views, but principally be philosophically conservative at heart.

Truth In Focus is such a site. While it remains an entity by which I can share my ideas I never wanted it to remain just about me. So I am thankful for the writers and audience who have already joined in this journey. There’s much to be done and much more to be said.

Substack tact’s on another role by which to make a connection with readers who share similar values as myself. We do not need to be ashamed of our Christian faith nor afraid to include a non-ideologically driven idea into a society drowning in ideologies. Family, Faith, Tradition these are not poor relics of the past; they are treasures beyond modern enrichment necessary to the continuation of human existence.

I hope to be announcing here soon more editor’s and future goals for TIF. Thank you for being patient. I promise there’s more thorough content coming your way. Nothing comes easy without working hard, an eternal value, and that includes great content.

Looking forward to growing with you. In the meantime keep commenting, join our Facebook Truth In Focus, and listen to our podcast on All Things Veritas which you can see and hear on YouTube. And take a look at my Substack. All of this talk of making America Great Again when really what we need to be doing is making an effort to improve our lives and help others. That my friend’s is how we make everything better again.

God Bless,

EKR

TIF Podcast: November 3rd Is Here

Click Link: November Issue 2020

Totalitarian Incantations: Late Modernity’s Radical Manifestations

(November Issue 2020)

By E. Kyle Richey

Once pegged as special, a citizen, even if accepting sterilization, dropped out of history. He ceased, in effect, to be part of mankind. And yet persons here and there declined to migrate; that, even to those involved, constituted a perplexing irrationality. Logically, every regular should have emigrated already. Perhaps, deformed as it was, Earth remained familiar, to be clung to. Or possibly the nonemigrant imagined that the tent of dust would deplete itself finally. In any case thousands of individuals remained, most of them constellated in urban areas where they could physically see one another, take heart at their mutual presence. Those appeared to be the relatively sane ones. And, in dubious addition to them, occasional peculiar entities remained in the virtually abandoned suburbs. — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

History is rift with zealous idealist demented by their cause, their purpose, their reason for existence however unrealistic or distorted or false. Now once again they have successfully seized power, but this time on a global scale at a point when society has become interdependent to a fault. Science and technology, religion and philosophy, higher education and the workforce are all being highjacked to obscure even the transience of life into barriers of opposition and final judgement. Today it is the far-left: Radical feminists, LGBTQ activists, Queer theorists, Postmodernist, and Critical Race Theorists who adumbrate context, meaning, and purpose for their Identity driven nomenclature under a quasi-socialism; a merging of corporate and state, the real deep state, in the name of their religion, social justice, in order to recreate what humanity thinks, says, and does. 

It comes at an exasperating cost on humanity and it all comes from a well of desire to break free—the psyche. Late Modernity has spawned a permanent spirt of emancipation of postmodernism that deconstructs and liberates to the point that it is now inconceivable for the radicalized to not equate between the demands of liberation with that of an ensuing conflict between “good and evil” “us versus them” “they or them” attitude. They no longer recognize that their causes now enslave everyone including themselves. Blinded by identity Politics, a bubble within the brew of totalitarian reality, humanity is now caught within a perpetual state that modernity birthed and late modernity is only beginning to see its awakening after generations experienced it rather vicariously. 

Benito Mussolini argued that Fascism was foremost a spiritual exercise of the will of man to rise up and overcome: 

“Fascism sees in the world not only those superficial, material aspects in which man appears as an individual, standing by himself, self-centered, subject to natural law which instinctively urges him toward a life of selfish momentary pleasure; it see not only the individual but that nation and the country; individuals and generations bound together by a moral law, with common traditions and a mission which suppressing the instinct for life closed in a brief circle of pleasure, builds up a higher line, founded on duty, a life free from the limitations of time and space, in which the individual, by self-sacrifice, the renunciation of self-interest, by death itself, can achieve that purely spiritual existence in which his value as a man consists.” (Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, 1932)

Third-way politics, most notably Fascism, was perturbed by a leftist communalism from communist and capitalistic individualism. For Mussolini the concept of the State could override both by making it—the State—the sole proprietor of Adoration and Judgement; King and God; Lord and Master. Heaven and Earth were now the sanctuary of the mighty State to preserve the corrupted foundation of the Homo-Sapien. 

Leftist politics also looks to the State through means of socialism and communism in order to free the masses, as Karl Marx remarked “to develop in greater spiritual freedom, a people must break their bondage to their bodily needs – they must cease to be the slaves of the body. They must, above all, have time at their disposal for spiritual creative activity and spiritual enjoyment” (Wages of Labour). Redistribute wealth, turn the privately owned into public hands, erase race and class warfare through a great equalization, and provide material good and services from free healthcare to free housing.  

Radicals all march to their own heavenly drum of a utopia never too far off away.

Conflict creates the enigma necessary to achieve this spiritual hunger within the inner belly of male and female. Vanquish thy enemy, achieve victory. Myth has an essential role regardless of ideological sway. Rene Girard argued that the innerness of mankind, the myths that bind us, are a making of the violent for which the sacred is conjured. Roger Scruton in his book, The Soul of the World, explains that for Girard “scapegoating is society’s way of re-creating “difference” and so restoring itself. By uniting against the scapegoat, people are released from their rivalries and reconciled” (p.19). Radical ideologies mimic religions through similar ritualization, creeds, works, and demands on society. Myth and fact are dizzyingly intertwined to contextualize an oppressed and the oppressor. David W. Shenk, author of Global Gods, argues that sometimes ideologies become the new gods including Marxism and Capitalism:

[M]arxism provided a program for the unification of the entire global community within one universal philosophy and political system. Its competitor has been capitalism, which also claims to be the ideal good capable of saving the global community from poverty. These dual ideologies and systems tended toward absolutism which gave them an aura of godlikeness as powerful as the ancient and unchallengeable Marduk of Babylon or the god-king, Pharaoh, of Egypt (p.34). 

That duality of conflict is essential to understand. What I am arguing is that Modernity produced this perpetual state of conflict that has now morphed into a monster all together its own totalitarianism—a crony woke capitalism; neoliberalism; corporatism. The latest of spiritual awakenings intertwined to that of secularism and secularity; a projection of religion but the kind found within Fascism as described in an 1925 anonymous article published in a magazine for Italian fascist outside of Italy:

Reasoning does not communicate, emotion does. Reasoning convinces, it does not attract. Blood is stronger than syllogisms. Science claims to explain away miracles, but in the eyes of the crowd the miracle remains: it seduces and creates converts (Fascist Mysticism, Italian Fasci Abroad, Roger Griffin pp 54-55). 

What socialism offers is a materialistic promise for a very material world. Conversely,  capitalism offers materialistic hope. Hope is ethereal in nature, it requires great dedication. Promises though are tangible, they are material through in through. In an age that disavows Scripture, the material becomes ethereal. Ironically, socialism is more materialistic than capitalism because of its promises provide means and resources through goods and services. Nothing other than hope can be offered by capitalism. One must earn their land and fortunes. Crony capitalism however has distorted this hope as corporations and banks and private institutions run amok with government institutions. Corporations now utilize the State to their benefit on a globalist scale like never before in human history. What was once considered communal or sacred are blurred by the privatized and the secularized. Nothing is as it once was. Not even nature is safe. Nor is Capitalism. All that was once capitalist is increasingly untrustworthy due to an array of factors outside of its original intended design. Boundaries are continually being broken by technology, multinationals, global elites, and the beast we know as the Leviathan. Out of fear and misfortune the promises of socialism have never appeared better to billions of people starving for a promise of recognition and social justice. 

After World War 1, the economist Ludwig von Mises sought to explain a deeply rooted problem within modernity, “the socialist idea dominates the modern spirit. The masses approve of it. It expresses the thoughts and feelings of all; it has set its seal upon our time” (Mises 1922, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, p. 15). Part of the modern spirit is the belief that the mighty individual deserves whatever it is they desire. This is Nietzsche “last man.” Modernity’s incantation of liberalism, capitalism, secularism, and socialism ultimately produced a society that sought the easy rather than the good life, the mundane instead of the truly spiritual and virtuous life; all the while demanding treasures once only belonging to kings, queens, and heroes. Nietzsche and C.S. Lewis share similar tones in their description over this last, much weaker human. “Men without chests” according to Lewis or “Hallowed chests” according to Nietzsche are descriptives of a culture lacking in virtue and honor, imagination and enterprise. It is the same side of the coin of greediness. Greed is not simply a capitalistic vice, but part of the DNA of mankind including the Marxist offshoot of Neo-marxism.

Admittedly much has occurred since Ludwig wrote those words, but wisdom has a way of redeeming itself through the actions of mankind. Take further Mises conception of Socialism: 

According to the Marxist conception, one’s social condition determines one’s way of thought. His membership of a social class decides what views a writer will express. He is not able to grow out of his class or to free his thoughts from the prescriptions of his class interests. Thus the possibility of a general science which is valid for all men, whatever their class, is contested… Thus Marxism protects itself against all unwelcome criticism… Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person. Few have been able to withstand such tactics (pp. 18-19).

This is equally true today of identity politics and postmodernism found in far-left minded groups and political organizations. Any form of opposition is pitted against being called sexist, racist, or diagnosed a Munchausen syndrome by proxy all of which seek to demean rather than provide substantive debate. Free speech has become hate speech by proxy of the groups feeling an inkling of disagreement. Words are being made meaningless; a girl is a boy as a boy is a girl and disagreeing means hate. Scales of privilege were formulated to weigh this new public morality. Higher education perfected these privilege scales of justice that now doctors must obey, students must profess, and corporations will enforce. Disobedience currently results in losing jobs and public humiliation. Yet if history is correct much worse will come. For now society will begin to be put under the restrictions of what I have titled as Progressive Pseudo Dominari of Terms, Ideas, and Practices: A Lexicon of Postmodern Irreality and Oppression. That long-winded title is partly to jest, yet sadly intentional concerning the dominari aspect. Ruling over mankind is a corporate culture mindset found in institutions of higher education, hospitals, governments, and businesses who have adopted these new set of rules. For now with little detail provided some of the terminology in which I am speaking of are cultural appropriation, microaggressions, gender pronouns, white fragility, inclusion, and diversity.

Out of this ill toward different viewpoints, the malaise of modernity created polarization. Unchecked polarization brewed the extremism now found in late modernity. Globalism under late modernity converged and diverged hundreds of belief systems creating a calamity of ideas. Unbeknownst or not, atheists and christians, liberals and conservatives, rich and poor are all finding themselves under a new umbrella concerning the ideas and practices of this age.

Take a look at the Cultural Marxist Movement of Black Lives Matter (now deleted) manifesto: 

The Black Lives Matter Global Network is as powerful as it is because of our membership, our partners, our supporters, our staff, and you. Our continued commitment to liberation for all Black people means we are continuing the work of our ancestors and fighting for our collective freedom because it is our duty. Every day, we recommit to healing ourselves and each other, and to co-creating alongside comrades, allies, and family a culture where each person feels seen, heard, and supported. We acknowledge, respect, and celebrate differences and commonalities. We work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people. We intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting. We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others. We see ourselves as part of the global Black family, and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black people who exist in different parts of the world. We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location. We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence. We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered. We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts. We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work. We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable. We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise). We cultivate an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with the capacity to lead and learn (Black Lives Matter, What We Believe)

BLM, Mussolini, Karl Marx—they are not all the same by any means but they do all have this innate drive to exterminate the “enemy” at large that systemically oppresses their ability to engage fully all that life has in-store for their résistance à la révolution.  

Late modernity symbolize’s the archetype of a tyrant. Disturbingly tyranny comes in many forms concerning the new coming age. Hence statism, corporatism, and globalism as actors to this effect. Each of these institutions push a similar agenda onto the masses. Employees, citizens, or subjects must use gender pronouns, check their microaggressions, and obey the golden rule of Inclusiveness, Diversity, and Equity! It is no wonder that Jordan Peterson, Stephen Hicks, and James Lindsey see links between Marxism and Postmodernism because the lines have all blurred. And soon we will all become nothing more than blank citizens awaiting an opportunity to be free, for the tent of dust to disappear once more.

The Convergence of the Progressive Telos

The Great Reset: A Peak Behind the Veil of the New Soft Authoritarianism

(November Issue 2020)

By Thomas Doane

The secular world has long held to a mythos, lasting well into the postmodern era with its disdain towards the existence of metanarratives, that humanity was progressing towards a bright and glorious future. If one were to ask the question to what direction was this progression heading, the answers over time evolved from the grand future of western civilization, being considered the highest ideal of modernity, to the idea of the fruits of progress being shared globally after the upheaval of the world wars. As the cold war ignited, the idea of progress shifted to that of a victory of liberalism over the forces of authoritarianism and after the fall of the Soviet Union, the path towards global progress could be resumed with total fanfare. 

The world was forever changed in the intervening years of the great calamities of the twentieth century that bookended the hope of modernism and the scrutiny of postmodernism into the era of late modernity. The forensic approach towards the failings of last modernity fractured the direction of progress into the factions that sought to restore the grand vision of modernity and those who, due to its failings, looked to overhaul, if not start anew progress towards a hopeful future. Does that mean that each proceeding worldview builds upon the rubble of those which it seeks to replace or are they a mere repackaging of an older concept to market something grander in vision?

A great unveiling has been rapidly coalescing from widely disparate parts, each overly concerning to the survival of the liberal values long held as sacrosanct. These disparate parts, once visible only through fleeting glimpses through the veil, have rapidly come into focus, first as the turbulence of the rise of nationalism blew at the thin veneer that had long been the marketed version of what was to come. Either as a manifestation of the adage of never letting a crisis go to waste, or part of a labyrinthine enterprise to move forward a globalist agenda, The Great Reset.  

What would have been dismissed merely a year ago as a sheer conspiracy theory, the Great Reset has been announced a proposal to “reset” the global economy, that mirrors the sweeping changes proposed by the Green New Deal  . The plan proposes broadly socialist policies and reforms, calling for an end of private ownership and the usual call for equity, inclusion, and social justice as a measure to move the world forward into a glorious vision of the future. Now that the veil has been fully drawn open, the era of plausible deniability has passed.

To those who have been closely watching the leftist agenda over the last few decades, this may come as no surprise as the Great Reset follows the trajectory the progressives have long since been on. Before Covid-19, it looked as if the forces buttressing the rule of law in the west would be able to at least put up a fight in the halls of the legislatures and courts, the pandemic now seems to have been a carrier for something far more virulent than any pathogen. What we are seeing is the goal of the progressive left finally being exhibited for a tired and frightened world as an antidote for their malaise. We can only sit back and wait to see if the gaslighting and sloganeering of the left has been enough of a candy coating for the general populace to be able to swallow this large pill.

To those who have been at the front lines of the culture wars, this serves as no surprise as it has been the expressed position of the left for well over a century. We have seen the gradual infiltration of the halls of academia and the government and we have been warning of the consequences. Now that the veil has been lifted, we must now double our efforts to stem the tide of this grand leftist telos; slowly revealing the great marketing schemes used to promote this shift towards global socialism. The Great Reset will be the greatest threat faced in a millennia; the unholy marriage of socialism and globalism with the groomsmen of big tech and the bridesmaids of academia, once consummated, will be irreversible outside of divine intervention. Lenin must be smiling in his embalmed state; the rebranded Comintern has come to fruition.

References

“The Great Reset,” World Economic Forum, accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/

Daniel Allott, “Introducing the ‘Great Reset,’ World Leaders’ Radical Plan to Transform the Economy,” Text, TheHill, June 25, 2020, https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/504499-introducing-the-great-reset-world-leaders-radical-plan-to

“BILLS-116hres109ih.Pdf,” accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres109/BILLS-116hres109ih.pdf

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Releases Green New Deal Outline,” NPR.org, accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2019/02/07/691997301/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-releases-green-new-deal-outline

PostModernity: A Perpetual State of Modernity

(Philosophical)

What I am presenting here is my oversimplified Theory of Postmodernism and Modernity.

Postmodernism, a terminology that requires no introduction for my present discourse, is a philosophical movement that has rooted itself deeply into every spectrum of academic discipline from which it has transformed the actions and beliefs within institutions of power from governments to corporations around the globe. Postmodernity—is the argued period in which we live within a postmodern society versus that of Modernity (1500-?). I join Jacques Barzun’s timeframe found within his book, From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present (500 Years of Western Cultural Life). The Protestant Reformation changed the nature of power forever. Humanism and Protestantism shared a three-legged pedestal as Catholicism ruptured underneath the cataclysmic abrasion that has been festering decades prior to the Reformation. Modernity gains its preeminence from the idea that mankind with the use of science, reason, and technology can be improved at a nearly limitless potential. A product of thought that the Enlightenment took forth as their lamp for the future. While Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Zwingli believed that human nature was corrupt under the weight of sin that only Jesus Christ can redeem, it was their revolution that transferred the role of interpretation and potential over to the common. For good and for bad this set into motion our present state of late modernity—a perpetual state.

Perpetual State Theory

Simply put, I am arguing that postmodernism is a reflection of reality, not the actual source but a still water or a mirror that is reflecting the present state of the human mind. Modernity has not ceased to exist. Modernity has successfully entered into a warp state, a state of the hyper-real; hyper-individual; and hyper-sensitive. Postmodernism is the warp state of modernity. Modernity is a product of its own success which solidified four core essential elements of existence into the modern psyche: 1) Secularism; 2) Liberalism; 3) Socialism; and 4) Capitalism.

Out of this cycle, modernity was able to produce an unreal state of human existence outside the last five-thousand plus years of human civilization in only a short span of time. Capitalism slowly removed the old walls of government control and sustenance into a market state. Liberalism prides itself on the might of the individual. Socialism was and remains a reaction to both as it calls for community and regulation outside of a total free-market state. Lastly, secularism alone is not new, however, it gained popularity as cultures shifted from industry to post-industry and decadence. Science and technology play central roles in all four elements of modernity. Lastly, religion remains, almost as an antagonist, yet also a tool in the modern utilisation of puissance. Social justice, Critical Race Theories, Feminist movements, Gender studies are all examples of this layering of the Self as the quintessence of time and fortune.

Anti-liberty entities whether under the names of Fascism, Communism, Socialism, Maoism, or Totalitarianism; it changes nothing in that the present reality stands between two polars, a state of liberty or tyranny, liberalism or illiberalism. Social attitudes are now forced to conform under a perpetual state of flux. Late modernity has birthed neoliberalism, a merger between capitalism and liberalism, that can also include another ism—Corporatism.

Corporations are the High Churches of Modernity; the Cathedrals of yea or nay. Under a neoliberal market state the general public has great difficulty in explaining differences between private or public, real or fake, good or evil. Everything runs together into a stream of confusion at a speed that no single person can maintain without a collision, a collision of ideas and values and beliefs. This is now constantly happening as society is confronted with insurmountable conflicting differences; a wrecking of contradictions.

In a Secular Hyper-state, the only apparent resolution is a totalitarian reaction. Modernity cannot principally escape itself. There is nothing beyond Modernity except Pre-modernity. If liberalism and capitalism represent freedom then all other opposition is bound to represent oppression. Now that is not an absolute statement. There are “third-way” examples of communitarianism or another alternative of Theonomy that argue a way out of the cycle but truthfully they all fall prey to the dilemma of rights of the individual, liberty for all, and freedom without restraints (again not an absolute statement).

So what we are left with, I am arguing, is a discourse of conflicts: nature versus mankind; eat vegan or you are a horrible person; give up your religion; don’t tell me what to do; join the movement; hate speech… it all blends into an in-cohesive state, the perpetual state.

Get Woke or Get Broke: When Reason Fails to Stand

(Opinion)

(Note to my readers: Originally I intended this piece to be of the category, Special Report, meaning a stricter standard in how information is analyzed and cited. Essentially that standard requires greater in-depth study. While I personally believe what I wrote here today to be true and factual, it did not meet my standard of a Special Report. Therefore, I qualify this as an opinion piece.)

Classical Liberalism On Edge

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

— John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 3

Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do.

— Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. xix 

In the course of human history there have been principles worth abiding by when considering a deep, problematic societal concern that has and can continue to have great ramifications if it either remains unresolved or attempted to mitigate. Oftentimes issues of such magnitude fall within realms that provoke or placate the values and emotions of a populace. Justice, an essential value concerning human nature, is one of those realms. To better grasp such a realm, an acquisition of human institutions are required; those social institutions specifically include Faith, Tradition, Reason, and Imagination all of which can help an individual and society uncover values above and beyond themselves. Yet, what arises when these institutions dissolve, for whatever reason that may be, is a culture that moves away from interaction towards disengagement and then usurpation. Of all the institutions, reason is the most fragile and in a liberal democratic society, the failure to reason is the sign of a metaphysical collapse.

Classical liberal theory is a term to describe the belief in the rights of the individual, the freedom of markets, and private property. Within the context of the United States, the U.S. Constitution is a document representative of classical liberal thought though not entirely. Presently in the United States of America a climax has occurred on several ideological fronts. One such shift is the rise of woke culture from the far-left through its permeation into governments, corporations, universities, and other private-public institutions. No western post-industrial society is free from its wake.  

Wokeness Monster

Extensive analysis fills the web concerning critical theory, postmodernism, and cultural marxism. While additional analysis is necessary that is not the focus of this article. Therefore, a simple explanation will suffice concerning the meaning of Woke, Wokeness, or Woke Culture.

To be woke means a form of “awakening” to injustice particularly linked to racial injustices yet intersectional toward other oppressed minority/identity based groups e.g. trans/cisgender. Woke cultural markings have evolved into a dangerous ideology of critical, liberation, and social justice movements that developed ties to Marxism, Postmodernism, and other leftist identity based theories and organizations who oppose so-called Eurocentric or Westernized systems (e.g. Capitalism, Free Speech, Merit Base, Scientific Method, etc). To be presently woke means joining a collective that is centered on destroying entire westernized structures, not reforming them. And therein lies the problem.    

End of Discussion

Oversimplifying for the sake of a greater argument, it can be said that Christians and Conservatives, though fundamentally different, share a unique appreciation and understanding of the needs for the layout of faith, tradition, reason, and imagination. One based entirely on the faith in Jesus Christ and the other a philosophical movement in response to the French Revolution both seeking to challenge the hearts and minds of men in a sacred responsibility. Christians nor Conservatives are strangers to cultural critique including of liberal society (e.g. Capitalism or Free Speech) and upholding standards beyond the relative values of the day. As the conservative thinker Russell Kirk explained, “The pure democrat is the practical atheist; ignoring the divine nature of law and the divine establishment of spiritual hierarchy” (The Conservative Mind, p. 137). A synergy exists between the two over their respect for God and a moral law. However, neither fail to recognize liberalism’s overarching value to the world through their shared principles concerning human liberty, freedom, and rights. Both critique liberalism but never demanding the obliteration of classical liberal thought. In no fashion is that an attempt to whitewash history. Every side has its rabble that claim to uphold righteous values only to commit atrocities, however, as long as homo sapiens exist so shall their brutal behaviors. Historically Christianity, Liberalism, and Conservatism have peacefully coexisted despite their differences. 

Far from the spectrum of coexistence, woke ideals hold a Socialist-Marxist predisposition in uprooting systems by devaluing people who oppose them and belittling constructive debate that could possibly cultivate ideas across ideological lines. Almost a hundred years ago (98 to be exact) the economist and social theorist Ludwig von Mises published, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (1922), warning against socialism: 

According to the Marxist conception, one’s social condition determines one’s way of thought. His membership of a social class decides what views a writer will express. He is not able to grow out of his class or to free his thoughts from the prescriptions of his class interests. Thus the possibility of a general science which is valid for all men, whatever their class, is contested… Thus Marxism protects itself against all unwelcome criticism… Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person. Few have been able to withstand such tactics (pp. 18-19).

Those words ring equally true today. As I mentioned in Part 1 of my series Mob Rule, Mob Rules: 

Mob rule means a collective identity group must win. Mob rules serve the interests of that collective. Liberty and her institutions are being tested by this eruptive behavior, serving as a reminder that when pure rage is the predicate for judgement, tyranny is never far behind. What comes next will be decided by the public will for civility or lack thereof. Humanity itself may not only end up alone but alone with no way out. 

Without question the radical left are not alone in their threat against a liberal order but they are defining the times as R.R. Reno wrote in his book, Return of the Strong Gods (2019):

Today’s technocratic ethos defines political legitimacy in terms of the weak gods of policy expertise, therapeutic delicacy when speaking of sensitive topics, and the rhetoric of diversity and other motifs of inclusion (p. 141). 

Catholics like Reno represent a necessary deflection against the left vs right attitudes of our time. Believers in the good, the beautiful, and the true recognize that there can be shared critiques without shared beliefs in radical, revolutionary uprisings found within Communism or Fascism. Catholicism has long promoted “social justice” issues including its claim that the idea itself comes from the book of Matt: 25:31-46. That claim, true or untrue, points to a long line of thinkers from the Apostle Matthew to Thomas Aquinas and onward, a line of pre-modern thinkers rather than modern thinkers like Karl Marx whom heretical christian groups have adopted; a movement rooted in gnosticism rather than Christian teaching. 

If those on the fringe would only listen and grasp that there are means to redemption, a shared bond in both the craving for justice and the rights of the individual—the Rawls-Nozick dichotomy—can be reached without destroying the very foundations that granted them their rights and privileges in the first place. Unfortunately, extremists have broken through in a trojan horse disguised as inclusiveness, diversity, equity, and universals (e.g. healthcare, housing, etc) on the back of a neoliberal order that momentarily makes even Socialism look promising by the untrained eye. They are not interested in listening, they are here to destroy.

Dr. James Lindsay, a physicist and mathematician from New Discourses, is one of the leading thinkers on critical theories and social justice practices including on why woke culture is anti-debate wrote:

The deeper, more significant aspect of this problem is that by participating in something like conversation or debate about scholarly, ethical, or other disagreements, not only do the radical Critical Social Justice scholars have to tacitly endorse the existing system, they also have to be willing to agree to participate in a system in which they truly believe they cannot win. This isn’t the same as saying they know they’d lose the debate because they know their methods are weak. It’s saying that they believe their tools are extremely good but not welcome in the currently dominant system, which is a different belief based on different assumptions. Again, their game is not our game, and they don’t want to play our game at all; they want to disrupt and dismantle it.

Fundamentally the critical ideological framework cannot coexist with our present rights, freedoms, and liberties; our culture is an anthemia to their ideals.  

What Happens Now?

Pessimism can easily set in when surveying the political landscape. There are no guarantees of success if that success means a complete and total reversal. Instead the pressures of life require those who oppose all forms of radicalization to be truthful and loving at a moment when anger and rage can easily persevere but only at great unnecessary costs. Reason will not work. Only the actions of a people who can rely on truth beyond reason, a movement beyond mere modern beliefs, and uphold eternal principles regardless of threat can withstand the revolutionary spirit filling the air. “Be still, and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10, ESV), that is the required spirit. Believers (and unbelievers) in God must testify truth and goodness through the acknowledgement of present hurts which no doubt exist within the black community and the latin community and the LGBTQ community. Again, there is a shared bond, a means to redemption beyond the ruin of an already broken world. Demands for justice need to be heard but never at the abandonment of truth, reality, and morality or it only becomes another form of injustice. 

Christians can lead in this through their understanding that while they may be alone, they are never truly alone and our calling is above ourselves. Conservatives can resonate in that understanding. And those beholden too Liberalism, especially classical liberal thinking, know what it means to sacrifice and stand against tyranny when it rises; prize an ideal beyond their present estate. All three prize liberty though in different forms but rooted in the greatest of ideals: Human Freedom. 

We must not become radicalized in response. Let their injustice show by speaking up for justice and speaking out against injustice; truth over untruth; reality above irreality; goodness over hate. Death by virtue versus radicalized ideals that seek to breakdown and destroy. Fight but with real love, not the fake dignity espoused by those who insult, deride, and traduce people no matter their origin.