Tag Archives: Human Condition

Uncertain Footing

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We go about our business without a care for the ground beneath us. However, can we be sure our foot will not slip? Losing what we think is firm footing can occur suddenly and without warning. Some causes are of this earth and some are not. All are common to the human condition.

One way we lose our footing is due to sinkholes. These occur because water erodes underground supports via either natural or manmade processes.

A Sinkhole in a Northeastern Chinese City Swallowed Five People [Required Hospitalization], CCTV, published on Aug 27, 2015

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) cites a shocking statistic. Between 35 to 40 percent of the US is susceptible to sinkholes. These occur in two rock types: evaporites (salt, gypsum, and anhydrite) and carbonates (limestone and dolomite). Many formations, but not all, occur at deep depths.

http://water.usgs.gov/edu/sinkholes.html

USGS Sinkhole Susceptibility Map

Commonly, water erosion in these areas results in underground caverns which can lead to ground subsidence. However, sometimes the cavern erodes so extensively that the ceiling collapses and a sinkhole results. Such things are common in Florida and Louisiana.

8/21/13 Slough in, Assumption Parish, Louisiana

As frightening as these may be, we find ourselves in a much worse situation: at any moment we can plunge into Hell.

Only God’s patient endurance gives any of us more time on this earth. He is in the right concerning this because He gives us existence. And He calls us wicked because we continually disobey Him.

A famous (some say infamous) American preacher, Jonathan Edwards, delivered one of many sermons to his congregation called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Maybe you studied it in high school or college.

The sermon’s premise is summed up by Edwards’s statement:

“There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”

Of Edwards’s ten considerations, these three bring home our predicament:

2.  The Wicked deserve to be cast into hell. Divine justice does not prevent God from destroying the Wicked at any moment.

6.  If it were not for God’s restraints, there are, in the souls of wicked men, hellish principles reigning which, presently, would kindle and flame out into hellfire.

10.  God has never promised to save us from Hell, except for those contained in Christ through the covenant of Grace.

Just as his congregants cried out, we must say:

“What shall I do to be saved?”

And as Paul and Silas answered the Jailer:

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household

Only then will we have sure footing.

“Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God,” sermon reenacted by Ralph Green, October 30, 2012, Cloverhill4’s channel

Ideology’s Characteristics by Bernhardt Writer

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A few weeks ago, we reviewed Kenneth Minogue’s book: Alien Powers – The Pure Theory of Ideology. He writes that Western civilization is in the throes of a conflict over a right understanding of the human condition. Minogue suggests that the ideological approach is ascendant in our society while the transcendent is declining. He claims that there is a generally applicable pure theory of ideology best realized to date in Marxist ideology and its offspring. Let us touch on some of the general points from his book.

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The common person on the street condemns the results of bad human actions. They attempt to rectify those results when possible through small corrective steps. These citizens view politics as the method to work together toward agreed-to ends within the context of the rule of law.

The ideologist takes bad actions as evidence of systemic structural oppression that can be remedied only through complete overhaul of the entire system (i.e., revolution). The ideologist sees incremental moral reform as the mystification (i.e., obscuration or concealment) by which an oppressive system strings its victims along. Politics is a question of power. Only the power of a unified oppressed group can wring concessions from the oppressors who have more power.

Ideologies disclose truths that the prevailing system has an interest in hiding. Ideologies claim all interactions within the system are power relationships. This truth is masked by societal constraints (i.e., moral and civil rules of conduct) and nefarious concealments perpetrated by the oppressive system. Denial of unmasked truths is proof of the system’s betrayal and oppression at work.

Societal constraints serve the oppressors’ interests. That these rules promote goodness and justice masks their real import which is the exercise of power over the oppressed. If the oppressed demand their right to overthrow these constraints they are rebuffed for not obeying a law, moral principle, or divine ordinance. But the real reason they are denied is because it conflicts with the oppressors interests in a zero-sum transaction.

Ideology reveals masked favoritism and domination throughout the corrupt system. The oppressed have rightful grievances (e.g., ones of class, gender, race, or ethnicity) against the system. Each oppressed person is imprisoned by the system’s conditioning which divides the oppressed from each other and from their real source of being in the species. Their struggle for liberation will result in true community.

Science, philosophy, law, and the state are instruments of special interests according to ideology. Although the intellectual elite might root out interests in favor of inclusiveness, those ideologically driven look to those deprived by the system for remedy. These persons, excluded by the system, unqualified to represent themselves, are appointed to lead humankind to liberation. This oppressed group is qualified because it is least tainted by the system’s corrupting influences. Of course, ideologists are ready and willing to indoctrinate the oppressed group in the ways of liberation and speak for them.

Ideology unveils for us the hidden truth otherwise mystified by the system’s apologists. Cleansed of the system’s mystifications we will see the truth of our essence and our consciences will rise to state of things as they actually exist. We will realize that the human species is defined by social (e.g., production) and material (e.g., eating) processes. We will arrive at this non-western reality through the struggle for liberation rather than through fruitless and pernicious contemplation.

Ideology is to revolution the way politics is to reform. Ideology does not debate whether theft, for instance, should be treated severely or mercifully but rather abolishes private property altogether making theft fictitious. Each resolution of this type typifies the true community. Any particular problem is solved only by solving all problems via revolution.

Ideology pledges a comprehensive and ultimate explanation of this material world (since it claims that the transcendent world to come does not exist). The explanation (i.e., ideological revelation) is not merely knowledge but leads to societal transformation which improves the earthly human condition. The difficulty of overcoming opposition and bringing about the transformation is evidence for the truth of the explanation.

The ideological model of human history is triadic: the primitive community in harmony gives way to a succession of societies characterized by domination. By overthrowing this progression man arrives at a higher form of his initial communal harmony.

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Minogue credits Karl Marx as the sole individual responsible, not only for clear insights into capitalism, but for the creation of pure ideology. He claims Marx developed the theory further and more deeply than all others. It is this pure theory that Minogue describes in his book. We will cover the end result of the ideological project in a later post.

Karl Marx

A Portrait of Karl Marx, John Jabez Edwin Mayall (1813–1901), Public Domain in the US

Pure Ideology – Kenneth Minogue’s Alien Powers — Review and Commentary by Bernhardt Writer

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Kenneth Minogue contends in his book: Alien Powers – The Pure Theory of Ideology that Western civilization is in the throes of a conflict over a right understanding of the human condition. In Western societies, individuals follow customs or conduct projects of which others may dislike or disapprove and the result may be conflict.

However, Western society is predominantly peaceful in spite of potential (or actual) conflict because individuals master internalized rules of law and morality. Poverty, inequality, and disappointment are inevitable consequences of open participation in a risk based society even when it is free from iniquitous societal distortions (e.g., American slavery).

Ideologists say these consequences result from hidden structural flaws that can only be remedied through the destruction of the prevailing system. One must attain the perfection of social harmony. If material possessions cause envy, then all possessions must be jointly owned. Rather than insisting on moral decency to curb envy, ideologists will abolish ownership altogether.

This same approach, rooted in externals, is applied to all inequality and disappointment. Transcendent principles (e.g., morality) are not applicable to unruly minds. Once harmony is achieved there will be no need for the transcendent; all humanity will become one in thinking and affections.

Minogue suggests the ideological approach is ascendant in our society while the transcendent is declining. But how is ideology commonly defined?

Ideology /ˌīdēˈäləjē,ˌidēˈäləjē/ noun: ideology; plural noun: ideologies

1. A system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

“The ideology of republicanism.”

Synonyms: beliefs, ideas, ideals, principles, ethics, morals; doctrine, creed, credo, faith, teaching, theory, philosophy; tenets, canon(s); conviction(s), persuasion; informal: -ism

1b. The ideas and manner of thinking characteristic of a group, social class, or individual.

“A critique of bourgeois ideology.”

“The party has to jettison outdated ideology and give up its stranglehold on power”

1c. Archaic: Visionary speculation, especially of an unrealistic or idealistic nature.

2. Archaic: The science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature.

Origin: late 18th century (sense 2): from French idéologie, from Greek idea ‘form, pattern’ + -logos (denoting discourse or compilation).

Not the most illuminating definitions. But this is one of Minogue’s points. We use the word too generally. Minogue’s contention is that there is a generally applicable pure theory of ideology best realized to date in Marxist ideology and its offspring.

The ideological end state (or terminus), typified by its Marxist form, harkens back to rule under the Egyptian Pharaohs or Chinese Emperors. Those rulers were worshipped as God (which they were not) and the populace, generally denied individuality, performed service to the ruler and his coterie (or vanguard). These dynasties persisted substantially unchanged for millennia. Ideology is anti-western in this sense: individualism is the problem and the vanguard in power is the solution.

If you think it through, all political persuasions and any grievance focus can be made into an ideology. That’s Minogue’s thesis. Once you decide there is only one universal way for all to proceed, you are on your way to becoming either a god or his (or her) slave.

Eric Arthur Blair (pen name: George Orwell, 1902 – 1950) parodied the outcome of what is described above in his novel Nineteen Eighty Four (1949). The following video is from a 1984 movie version of the book; it summarizes the main theme:

Orwell 1984 – O’Brien about Power

Over the past year or so, my other posts have dealt with politics in an effort to understand what America is experiencing. The articles are titled:

‘It’s Not Your Founding Fathers’ Republic Any More,’ Review and Commentary

The Revolt Against the Masses, A Review, Part 1

The Revolt Against the Masses, A Review, Part 2

The Three Languages of Politics, A Review

And

‘Inflammation.’

Also, over the next few weeks, I plan to post: “Portrait of an Ideologist,” “Ideology’s Characteristics,” and “The State and End State.”

Finally, I concur with Orwell’s assessment of his novel Nineteen Eighty Four: “The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one: Don’t let it happen. It depends on you.”