Bruce G. Charlton's Blog, page 26

Let me be clear - Traditional Christianity is now always and all-the-time dishonest

By my evaluation, traditional Christians are being consistently dishonest about what their faith actually entails. 

They talk and write that real Christianity is about humble obedience to the obvious and necessary truth of that external authority which is The Church. 

Meanwhile, all the time, top to bottom they are making personal subjective choices. 

They have chosen their church, chosen to regard it as the real church, the true church, the necessary necessary church. 

They have chosen the evidences by which they argue for all these - they have chosen how to interpret these evidences. 

They have chosen which among the leaders and administrators and practitioners of their church they will regard as true and worthy of obedience - and conversely they have chosen which voices are heretical, wicked, foolish etc. 

They have chosen what is vital and significant among sins and virtues, and one a daily basis they choose how to live their Christian lives among the almost limitless possibilities. 

These are just facts about religion, about Christianity, here and now, as it actually is. They have been and are exercising personal choices all the time. 

And speaking and writing about the need for humble obedience to the obvious truth of their Church - as if that was possible - makes any difference to the facts. 

It is therefore dishonest, in-denial, and grossly misleading. 

To have an honest and relevant discussion, it is first vital to acknowledge the realities -- and the reality is that not a single person in The West actually practices the humble, obedient, Church-led religions so insisted-upon by Traditionalist Christians. 

They do not, and neither does anybody else - and it is impossible. 

Such plain facts of Christian living ought to be the agreed and basic starting point; if what is desired is coherent and helpful discussion.

Motivational speakers, or writers - Edward Dutton on Jonathan Bowden

I recently read my old colleague Ed Dutton's biography of a "radical Right" political figure called Jonathan Bowden (1962-2012); which has just been published. 

I had never heard of Bowden until after he had died, and was not interested by what I discovered. His ideas were seemingly derived from the same kind of (fundamentally deficient) "based", "reactionary", nationalistic, Nietzschian, this-worldly and hedonically-calibrated non-religious sources as are always knocking about on the internet - ideas capable of generating a little bit of light, but no sustained heat.

So it seems that JB was not an original or coherent philosopher - it was not what he said that made him distinctive, but how he said it. 

What was of general interest about Bowden, as Dutton presents him, is that he was an orator of genius, a live public speaker who was capable of inspiring and motivating people in a remarkable way - so that those present retained the influence for a long time afterwards.

It seems that the inspirational effect was sufficiently objective that Bowden has developed a posthumous following, based upon videos of his speeches.  

Ed describes him as a "shaman" - to emphasize the strong magical spell that JB cast on his listeners. 

The other striking aspect of Bowden was that he was a long-term and wide-ranging self-aggrandizing liar about almost everything to do with himself. 

This was very extreme; and while his friends and colleagues realized that Bowden was prone to exaggerate and fabricate; apparently none of them realized the sheer scope and depth of his dishonesty. 

As well as all kinds of stuff about a constellation of false academic qualifications and intellectual attainments; perhaps the strangest lie was a highly elaborate construction about being a wealthy and successful businessman, with a wife and four (or five) children. 

Bowden provided people with all kinds of everyday details and specifics about the family's history and current doings - when the reality was that Bowden was never married, never had a job - and subsisted on a very small income from his father and benefits, probably never had a girlfriend, and lived alone in a rotting caravan. 

This strange story makes me think about the role of motivational speaking, and by extension writing - the considerable extent to which we seek, and rely upon this...

And how there are some people who are exceptionally gifted in this direction; and in ways that seem to depend extraordinarily little upon their actual attainments, or the content of what they are saying. 

On the one hand, it is striking how highly valued is this ability - how grateful people are, for being stirred-up and given confidence and direction. 

And on the other hand, how little substance is needed for this to happen - or even how that substance may be vague, impossible, or incoherent.   

It seems a fact about humans that we desire to be inspired by others - no matter or unworthy or flimsy are those chosen - none of which seems to make a difference to the intense loyalty and affection that are directed at those capable of doing such inspiring. 

As Dutton analyses it; this is what Max Weber termed "charisma" in a leader - and charisma can, to some extent, be associated with a variety of adverse and undesirable experiences and personality traits. 

Nowadays, charisma is mostly artificial and manufactured by the machinery of advertising, public relations, propaganda and saturation mass media coverage; so that someone without any exceptional degree of genuine charisma can be passed off as a "shaman"...

(Just as the public can successfully be manipulated to react to very ordinary-looking actresses and actors, pop stars or other public figures; as if they were truly beautiful, handsome or sexy; or can be induced to regard mildly-competent, socially-conformist and ideologically-mainstream pundits or writers; as if they were towering intellects, path-breaking radicals, or creative powerhouses...) 

But there is also such a thing as real interpersonal charisma - that does not depend on anything except human presence and the human voice - and this "real thing" was apparently what Jonathan Bowden had in spades. 

Lady Day

It seems worth noting that this is Lady Day  - March 25th, officially the Feast of the Annunciation, commemorating the day that Jesus was conceived on his Mother by the Spirit of God. 

Lady Day was greatly celebrated in Merrie England, and was indeed - until 1752 and the imposition of the Gregorian Calendar, when it was moved to the 6th April - the first day of the New Year.

Coming four days after the Vernal Equinox, Lady Day has the same kind of astronomical basis as Christmas has in relation to the Winter Solstice - and thereby links with natural religion. 

England in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages was known for an especially high degree of devotion to Mary - probably something that came via the Celtic Church, with its many links to Constantinople; but was powerfully sustained over many generations. 

It was a day for various kinds of religious celebrations, and also a day on which fairies might be seen; suggesting a distinctively Celtic harmony and synergy of the pagan and Christian forms. 

Lady Day is timely because such matters are much on my mind; in particular the question of the underlying spiritual reality (rather than the theological superstructure) of Christian devotion to Mary - which strikes me as overall a Good Thing, however critical I am of most of the details.

Devotion to Mary seems like a corrective to the abstractions of orthodox monotheistic Trinitarianism, and a heart-warming of Christianity - as well as recognition of a fundamental and metaphysical reality. 

It also seems like a part of England's destiny and the destiny of the English; in some rather obscure way, that I think needs elucidation and therefore deserves a greater effort of understanding.   

We Are Not Alone, objectively - but subjectively, we are alienated

The alien Marvin (the Martian), asserts objective reality 

Modern alienation is a very real thing: which is to say the experience of being cut-off from God, reality, this world, other people... is inescapable as a subjective experience, and this has profound religious, social and political consequences. 

Yet alienation is an inwardly-caused phenomenon. Alienation is not a reality imposed by the external nature of things.

We were all spontaneously and involuntarily (and most unconsciously) immersed in "everything else" at the early phases of our existence - and that is the primary reality of divine creation. 

It could be called a complete web of "interconnectedness" - except that "connect" assumes that we begin as separate, and must overcome separateness by connecting. The reality is the opposite - we begin as only partially separated in our awareness from the oneness of divine creation. That is the baseline.  

We modern Men are now alienated because in the course of human development we have each cut ourselves off from that spontaneous immersion in "everything else": the barrier arises from within us. 

That barrier which cuts-off modern adults can be, and is at times, dissolved (or demolished); for instance by dreaming sleep, mental illness and brain disease, intoxication - or sometimes by meditation.

But all of these make us dysfunctional, and none of them succeed in restoring the natural spontaneity of an earlier phase of consciousness.

The earlier phase of spontaneous immersive consciousness is like the childhood phase of development - such that once an individual has developed beyond childhood, childhood can never wholly or healthily be re-established.

In other words; we should take the cut-offness of modern alienation as a fact-of-life and the basis for further developments - yet we also need to bear in mind that the ultimate reality is, as it always was, one in which we are naturally and inescapably immersed in reality - including the reality of the divine, of the universe, of other people. 

Therefore we do not need to "re-connect" because dis-connection is not the problem. 

Instead; the problem is in our own consciousness - which is "stuck" in a phase that denies the reality of its immersion in the whole of divine creation. 

What we need to work-on is our own personal consciousness of reality: we need to become conscious of that we we are currently not conscious. 

Modern Man usually denies the reality of that of which he is not spontaneously conscious - such as the divine. (That is: we deny the reality of God because we Moderns are no longer spontaneously and continuously aware of God, as was once the case.) 

I am saying that we need, instead, to acknowledge the reality of our connectedness-to/ immersion-in the divine; and from that conviction strive to become conscious of the actuality of this link.

Acknowledge reality: then strive for awareness of that reality...

To put it differently; we Modern men have (under God's will) developed alienation, which is an increasing individual independence from the whole - and this development has happened because this is also a greater freedom and agency*. 

In other words; the "universal" awareness that was once spontaneous and inescapable, is now voluntary and chosen.

What is needed is not a return but a development. So, this voluntary and chosen acknowledgement of connectedness to other people/ the world/ God is a new thing - a deliberate step forward - not a surrender or relaxation backwards..

A doing, not an undoing.

Because new, the needful awareness is subjectively experienced differently from the old childhood or child-like consciousness - we need to be self-aware, aware of our own awareness. 

This is not under compulsion nor necessity; this is something that we are aware that we have-chosen (and that it could have been, could be, otherwise). 

From such a perspective, all looks different. We know what we know via our subjectivity - that is; our subjectivity is part of all possibilities of knowing. 

Subjectivity makes everything possible, and a change in the nature of our subjectivity affects everything. 

So a deliberate attention to developing consciousness makes a profound difference to everything - including our experience of Christianity.   

**

*Modern alienation is therefore meant-to-be just a phase; en route to a higher - more developed, indeed more divine - form of consciousness. 

There can be no political "Right" - so, what instead?

I have often noted that there can be no political Right that is genuinely distinct from the Left; unless it is rooted in religion. 

In other words, what people call the Right (including the "far Right" - whatever that may be) are from a Christian perspective and at root, just a type of Leftism - that is, they are all this-worldly and aiming at hedonic outcomes (i.e. human psychological gratification).

I believe this is true, and consequential; but whereas 15 years ago I saw religion in terms of a church, now I regard it as unavoidably personal: Romantic Christianity. 

So how then does religion work as an alternative to the pervasive Leftism? 

The answer is that the real alternative to Leftism is much, much more radical than anything ever dreamed of by any kind of The Right. 

The Right tries to keep what it likes from our Leftist Western civilization, and eradicate what it does not like; but Romantic Christianity recognizes that this process must cut very deeply indeed to eradicate the roots of evil - so deep, indeed, that our kind of civilization seems inconceivable. 

What would happen instead is also inconceivable in detail and at large - except that it would be more like a family than a state. 

However unsatisfactory this individualist/ romantic world view may seem to be, especially to those whose ideology continues to be socio-political and group-ist in nature - it does seem to be the only positive (Christian) possibility; given the nature of way that human consciousness has developed.  

Online, free, searchable, no-frills King James Bible and Book of Mormon

Friend of this blog and administrator of the Romantic Christianity aggregator New World Island, David Earle; has made available a plain text (no frills!) version of the Bible in the Authorized Version - and done the same for The Book of Mormon. 

For those with an exploratory mind-set; this has a facility for looking at "random" verses from these volumes, and their subdivisions.   

Enjoy!

The causes of gratuitous wars

It is fascinating (as well as alarming) to see the British political system, bureaucracy and mass media; combining forces to justify and escalate full war on behalf of a remote and disconnected not-ally - including explicit and repeated demands for re-armament, a war economy, and mass military conscription (something not seen here for some 70 years). 

The same is happening over most of Europe. 

And this has been building-up for nearly two decades; by lies upon lies gradually building-up the image of a necessary cartoon super-villain that "must" be fought - or else we shall all be doomed...

(Or rather, even more doomed than we already are by the nakedly evil plans of our national rulers.) 

There have been many gratuitous wars throughout history. One of the most famous is that described in Shakespeare's Henry V; which is depicted as having been due to an insulting gift of tennis balls! 

Much more likely, the war was proximately due to the multi-generational yearning of England's usurping Norman Kings to rule in their native France - a country they have always (and still do) prefer to what they regard as the uncouth English. 

The tennis ball incident was just an excuse to "justify" something Henry wanted to do - like happened again in WWI and WWII, with their pseudo-altruistic (but not actually done) excuses of saving Belgium, and Poland. 

Plus that the Normans were addicted to war as a the supreme form of sport (and they were usually very good at it). 

That kind of motivation doesn't really persist in the West, now; yet the current leadership class of the UK and Europe are very keen to engage their nations in all-out gratuitous war. 

There are similarities between past European wars and this current one; but also there are enormous differences. 

One difference is that current national and regional leaders altogether lack the personal prowess, courage and decisiveness of an heroic character like Henry V. They are, indeed, both pathetic and despicable individuals - and collectively. 

The leadership class has for decades been marinated in a cultural soup of pacifism and suicidal altruism. 

Also the mass populations of the West nowadays are (to put it mildly!) not longer trained for war (no compulsory longbow practice! The military have low status, and do not appear in public in uniforms.) - and have been thoroughly demoralized by atheism, materialism and cultural destruction. 

The Western masses are by now docile, distracted, self-destructive - utterly repelled by the idea of war insofar as they even think about it (which is very little).   

Yet, as so often; the "justification" for such a war is gratuitous, profoundly unnecessary, without any possibility of average-overall national benefit; therefore the "need" for war must be built on long-term, systematic deception and untruthfulness - and lying misrepresentation of the actual purposes. 

What interests me is the different motivations that seem to be operating at different levels of The System. 

At the lower and middle levels (the managerial and intellectual classes); the push for war seems to be just another manifestation of their system of incentives - such people behave in ways that they believe will provide them with the greatest prosperity, security, and status among their kind.

When The System is set-up such that supporting war is advantageous to such persons, they will support war - in the usual way that they "support" any other System-priority such as sustainability, antiracism, "equality"; that is to say; they approve and develop and inhabit bureaucratic structures and processes; which are supposedly directed towards that end.   

At a higher level - say, that of national leadership of large institutions, organizations, corporations - there is need for individuals who will actively construct false narratives, suppress truths, engage in multiple immoral and illegal activities; so at this level the motivations need to be cruder, more personally corrupting, more consciously sinful. 

These middle-leadership-level people need (at some level of awareness) to give their allegiance, or at least their obedience, to the strategies of evil purpose. 

This is why we can observe their personal corruption; their strange emotions and reactions, their snake eyes or zombie eyes - all evidencing that they have-been through some kind of shock-and-awe, brain-washing, blackmailing, or spirit-breaking - that guarantees their allegiance. 

For such people; engineering gratuitous war is just "politics as usual". Plus, war has a direct personal appeal of providing for greater opportunities for power-grabbing, abuses with impunity, enacting revenges and torments, self-enrichment and self-gratification - and suchlike abuses, which are always made easier by war. 

Beyond this level of societal control and war-mongering, I am not aware of the identities of human personnel involved; and the spiritual powers (demons) become dominant. 

And because these are unembodied spirits, their motivations are different from those of humans. 

These spirits with direct affiliation to the side of evil are primarily engaged in a spiritual war. 

The realities of spiritual warfare are strategically focused on the damnation of Men in accordance with the motivation of their leader (i.e. Satan); but also are tactically motivated (more individually, in the shorter term) by a kind of vampirism of spiritual energy - an enjoyment in feeding-off the evils of the human condition, and from the destruction of souls.  

At this highest and more strategic level; the purpose of war is very different from that of national leaders. 

For instance; the strategists ideal is a war that is unwinnable, interminable, and constantly escalating into greater extremes of mutual destruction, resentment, lying - and despair. 

Such a war would be intended grow to include as many as possible of the national leadership class who engineered it; as well as the middle/ managerial/ intellectual class who justified it to the masses. 

Indeed these bureaucrats of war (i.e. the national institutional leaders etc.) provide greater spiritual energies to vampirize exactly because they have given their souls to evil; than would the unwilling, unenthusiastic, driven-masses who would suffer the greatest sufferings and casualties.  

 

How great was the Red Baron - Manfred von Richthofen?

Manfred von Richthofen - the Red Baron - was the top scoring ace in World War I, with 80 confirmed kills; a number that seems likely to be essentially valid.  

The greatness of the Red Baron was always contested (or, at least, ambivalent) in the British air force - Royal Flying Corps/ Royal Air Force* - both at the time, and since; with people on both sides.

On the one side, Manfred vR was proven as a very good pilot and (perhaps even more important) an excellent marksman. 

On the other side; once he had become a German national hero, he fought with tremendous advantages that were not available to anybody else - especially not on the Allies side. 

The Red Baron was a combat theoretician and inspiring leader; who devised methods for achieving successful results in combat under the most favourable conditions, with the minimum losses on his side. 

He would fly at high altitude with a very large "circus" of other scout (i.e. fighter) pilots - larger than any groupings that the Allies were using, so that von Richthofen would nearly always have the vital air combat advantages of height and outnumbering. 

As leader of this circus; MvR had several (not just one) other pilots "covering his tail", so he could concentrate on downing his chosen victim, without the usual (for the Allies) need to be vigilant. 

Furthermore, the Baron benefitted from the usual German strategy of staying on the German side of the lines, and waiting for the Allies to come to him. 

Also he would usually avoid combat unless under favourable conditions (especially height advantage and numerical superiority). There was a relatively low threshold for breaking-off an engagement if it was not going well or when height superiority had been lost; rather than fighting it out from a position of mere parity. 

What this amounted to is that the Red Baron was certainly an excellent fighter pilot, but that his supremacy in numbers of kills was attained substantially because of his prolonged survival - and this was due to the unique advantages he fought under.

These advantages were necessarily obtained at the cost of limiting and reducing the combat effectiveness of the German air force in general, and Richthofen's circus in particular. 

By contrast, the RFC (under the aggressive leadership of High Trenchard) had a much higher-risk "offensive" strategy, of seeking out the enemy; and taking-on other formations even when disadvantaged by being over enemy lines, lesser height, and fewer numbers. 

The Allied air forces were used primarily in support of the Army (their primary role was reconnaissance and artillery ranging), and were often sacrificed to the needs on the ground. For example the RFC/ RAF played a decisive role in containing the massive German counter-attack of March 1918 by close infantry support, bombing and strafing throughout daylight hours - but at the cost of very heavy losses of men and machines; mainly to ground fire. 

In contrast; the German command seem to have regarded the Red Baron as providing most value to the war effort, as a national symbol of heroic individual prowess - his personal survival was therefore important, so he was undoubtedly protected.    

It is unsurprising that some RFC/RAF regarded von Richthofen's supreme numerical success as significantly "manufactured" and thereby artificial - despite his undoubted excellence as a fighting flyer. 

This must have seemed confirmed when the Red Baron's death was caused by breaking his own rules of engagement (perhaps due to combat fatigue?); when he followed his intended victim across to the British side of the lines, alone and without anyone to guard his tail, and down to a very low level where he became vulnerable to rifle and machine gun fire. 

Yet these were fighting conditions that most RFC/ RAF pilots were compelled to endure on a daily basis. 

In the event; it was some unclear combination of being attacked from behind by an Allied fighter, and/or ground fire, that led to the Red Baron's demise.  

The distinctive red Fokker Triplane came down on the Allied side of the lines, with Baron Manfred already dead (probably from a single bullet) - where his body was treated with respect by the RAF, and accorded a full military funeral.

That night, some British Pilots held a party in honour of the Red Baron, and toasted his health. Others refused to participate - including the great Irish ace Mick Mannock, who was made very angry by his squadron's celebration.   

In conclusion, I think both sides were correct. Manfred von Richthofen was a great leader, tactician, and ace; and also the magnitude of his achievement was significantly manufactured, and the result of unique privileges. 

*The Royal Flying Corps was part of the British Army. Combined with the smaller Royal Naval Air Service, it became the first independent air military, the Royal Air Force, on 1st April 1918 - smack in the middle of the first massive German attack of that year.

This post was stimulated by reading Aces Falling: War above the trenches, 1918; by Peter Hart (2008).

Shakespeare's identity revisited

Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford - a lovely place to visit on a sunny day

As happens recurrently, there is a resurgence of the argument that the bloke from Stratford upon Avon could not have written the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. 

This will never cease; because details of WS's life are so sparse, because authorship in those days involved a great deal of copying and adapting, irregularities of spelling and nomenclature; and also because some of the (lesser) Shakespeare-attributed works are probably by others or done in collaborations (as has emerged in mainstream scholarship, over the years - for instance the Passionate Pilgrim poems).  

Nonetheless, all the people that I have read who make this argument against Shakespeare, have been arguing from what I regard as false premises, as I have explained before. 

Firstly; Shakespeare is so much better than the second best writer in English Literature (whoever that might be, which has always been disputed) that there cannot be any argument of a kind which suggests that Shakespeare of Stratford was incapable of writing something - but somebody else was. 

If we genuinely recognize the quality of Shakespeare, then nobody was capable of writing it - in the sense that there has never been anybody else in the same league.

So no alternative identification as author is any more plausible than Shakespeare of Stratford.  

Secondly; the quality of the works attributed to Shakespeare mean that the author was a first-rank genius; and it is not valid to apply the probabilities that apply to normal people, to the work of a major genius.  

The example I used was Isaac Newton, another first-rank genius - but one whose life is well documented. 

It is striking that Newton's actual achievement is impossible on the basis of what is known of his life. 

The fact that Newton's achievement was not predictable on the basis of his biography, yet he did it anyway; is evidence that when dealing with major genius, normal predictions and probabilities are meaningless. 

There is - as I said initially - a mystery about Shakespeare as the author of the best attributed dramatic works. 

Yet I find the usual narrative of a Grammar School boy from Stratford; from a rebellious, recusant Catholic family on his mother's side, and the rest of it - to be rich, coherent and satisfying. 

After all the caveats regards particular works or parts of works; to me, Shakespeare of Stratford rings-true. 

Prosperity Gospel Lite

Everybody rightly makes fun of the pseudo-Christian preachers of a "prosperity gospel", when their message becomes too crude, short-termist and monetary - e.g. those US televangelists who state that if you contribute to their church, you will get a better paid jobs, or suchlike. 

But the prosperity gospel in a "Lite" version is actually very common among Christians; I mean the belief that those who lead their lives in accordance with Christian beliefs and practices will survive and thrive in socio-economic ways. 

For instance; proponents of PGL may state or imply that being Christian will help you to have a successful business, get the girl/s, be a "real" man, attract admiration from "real" men etc.

And the flip-side of Prosperity Gospel Lite are negative assumptions such as "get woke, go broke" and the assumption that leftist men are despised by the desirable girls. It is PGL to imply that conforming to the mainstream ideology usually leads to failure.     

The major theme of justification for the PGL is that Christianity is the Truth, and that living in accordance with reality is likely to be more successful than a deluded existence of obedience to a false and virtual world. 

At root, all this is false, because it is a roundabout way of asserting that Christianity is expedient. 

It has never been true, except insofar as State Christianity was sometimes, in some places, sufficiently powerful, true and uncorrupt; that a life of faithful church-obedience could be a reliable route to worldly success. 

But in our current overwhelmingly atheistic, materialistic, leftist world; the expedient path of worldly triumph leads away from Christianity - at least over the predictable short to medium-term.

Optimism about success in this world is one thing; being-Christian is another. 

Christians need to be clear about what their religion actually is about, primarily and essentially; and that is our positive desire and intent to attain salvation: resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

Implications about this mortal existence flow backwards from this post-mortal intent.

There is no general reason why "being a Christian" would necessarily lead towards a "successful" (high status, wealthy, comfortable, pleasurable, healthy, pain-free) mortal life; and indeed there are plenty of reasons why it would not.