Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Modernism: A Short Vignette

Our honeymoon was a little delayed, but was spent in New York City. This one event remains ever vivid. We walked a lot and took some side streets, one of which had a tiny Russian restaurant. The restaurant had just three tables, all empty. We sat and ordered, I have no idea what, and when the meal was delivered, the owner-chef-waiter sat down with us.

This man was completely filled and and fairly bounced with joy. He had come from Russia, still the USSR back then. The freedom of the Modernist west fairly leapt from every sentence as he described his past and what he had found in the USA. I was struck by his infectious and consuming happiness in the freedoms and Rights, which we enjoy daily - without thinking about them. I was so happy for that man, myself.

Later I thought about difference between those of us who have never experienced the loss of our Constitutional Human Rights, and the glorious relief of those immigrants who pledge allegiance as they receive their citizenship. It is those immigrants who provide a renewal of the spark of Modernist Human Rights in the blanketing darkness of Post-Modern relativism where there is no truth and therefore no logic or justice.

Further, their origins contain all the elements of Post-Modernism, which is eerily similar to Pre-Modern chaos. In much of the world today, Pre-Modernism reigns as civilization there consists of survival mode morals, or rather lack of moral principles altogether. Government lies and collusions of power abound. As do revolutions and terrorist rebel hordes.

Modernism is not a natural state: chaos is. That's why Modernism cannot ever produce an egalitarian utopia: Modernism promotes the rise of personal excellence. Newton, Einstein, Feynman - these had no equal, and were celebrated for that. And under Post-Modern chaotic faux egalitarianism any such deviation from the utopian norm (all human bell curve deviations collapsed to the mean) would be punished, not celebrated.

And we are finding that Post-Modernism is quite interested in punishing deviants from their arbitrary norms. In fact, purging to the point of genocide fits their model. I wonder what that Russian entrepreneur thinks of Post-Modernism...

2 comments:

Steven Satak said...

"And we are finding that Post-Modernism is quite interested in punishing deviants from their arbitrary norms. In fact, purging to the point of genocide fits their model. I wonder what that Russian entrepreneur thinks of Post-Modernism..."

That about sums up their motives. They want power, so they can feed their egos. That is why for '1984's Winston Smith, the image of a jackboot crashing down on a screaming face -forever - represented the State. It's ALL about the ego feed, so there IS no question of where they are trying to go in this world, only 'how do we stop them?' and 'how much time do we have?'

Purging to the point of genocide is a tool with two purposes - it rids the State of undesirable elements and it keeps the remaining people in a State of Fear. Alinsky knew this. Anyone on the Left and many on the Right know this.

Of course, in their haste to exclude God from the conversation - again, forever - we describe Post-Modernism in terms of pathology, as though insanity were the cause of what the Left does. But that supposes a cure by other men and throws us back into the arms of the Post-Modernists, for whom every decision is subjective.

What if we called it by its old name, the name it had back in the days when most men recognized that the human brain could be corrupted by choices we made? When they understood that dysfunction of the cerebral cortex, of the organ of reason, could arise from a misuse or abuse of that organs? That this dysfunction of the brain was a *result*, not a cause, of the corrupt behavior?

We called it evil in those days. In those days, men could commit evil while still being fallen men. It was understood to be a choice - a bad one - made by a man much like the rest of us. It could be addressed, but not by drugs or surgery or more education.

Nowadays evil is rampant, and everyone is afraid to call it by the old name. But they had better learn, because drugs, surgery and additional education have not done very well. We have been taking out our own eyes to look at them for so long, we have forgotten the price one inevitably pays for such folly.

Robert Coble said...

@ Steven Satak:

"We have been taking out our own eyes to look at them for so long, we have forgotten the price one inevitably pays for such folly."

That, sir, is one of the most thoughtful (and thought-provoking) summary statements of our condition that I have ever read. It is evocative and simultaneously heart-rending. There are none so blind as those who WILL not see. Thanks be to God for bringing sight to the blind!

Well done!