Friends, pessimism abounds nowadays, with, as per this poll, 39% of Americans asserting that we are in the "end times". Many of them are Christians, and thus their catastrophism conceals a more fundamental optimism. Christians believe in the "good news" that God, through His Son Jesus Christ, can overcome what appears to the "end of the world" and can secure redemption and eternal life for believers. Personally, I've always felt it was more than a little speculative and possibly even self-serving of Christians to believe that they were/are living in the "end times". I mean, every epoch seems frightfully important to those who live through it. In the end, though, not everyone can be right about the "end" being "nigh". Anyway, what interests me more than theological/eschatological conjecture is the surging catastrophism gripping secular leftists, a.k.a. "humanists", these days. A huge number of non-believers, especially young people, assert that humanity is nearing the end of its tether, partly, but not exclusively, because of climate change. I wonder: how serious are these doomsayers, and how much do they live their lives based on the supposed imminence of said doom? I mean, if the Earth really is about to self-destruct, do these woke loonies truly want to spend their last moments...donating to the Biden-Harris campaign, or reading the Washington Post? Seems like a rather pathetic way to bite the big one, does it not?
In other news, it's been quite amusing to watch lefty journalists clutch their pearls regarding the "free press", based on the fact that a few of them briefly got suspended from Twitter, when, back in October-November 2020, a massive campaign unfolded to censor legions of reporters, and a whole newspaper, for the unforgiveable crime of telling the truth about Hunter and Joe Biden. I guess it's all a matter of perspective, huh?
Dr.Waddy from Jack: My guess is that these chicken littles see their stirring pronunciamentos of our imminent self destruction as another attempt to take us on yet another hellish ride to perfection. Since 19th century meteorology could not have informed Marx and having been utterly discredited from1917 on in their monstrous misuse of history, politics, economics,psychology and very humanity itself they have lighted upon on climate change as their dogma now. Its imposition on the world. satisfies their conviction that totalitarianism is sine qua non for the permanent triumph of "justice". This is of course characteristically propelled by emotional , reason destroying, presumption.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree: if the world really was ending, these lefty blowhards would be cracking open their Bibles for the first time. What they mean to say is: "Listen to (and obey) US, or else the world truly will be lost!!!"
ReplyDeleteDR.Waddy from Jack: I might add to my comment that philosophy too was given great disservice and murderous misapplication by the left. More and more I understand what I believe to be your misgivings about the Enlightenment. Lamented be the memory of Rousseau,cursed be that of Marx and his hellish enthusiasts and much to be hoped for is that we be spared any possibility that the stunted offshoots of the ,initially to be celebrated,Enlightenment may yet work their evil on the civilized world.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: And your observation of the left's patronizing at least, catastrophic at "worst", penchant for tyranny; you hit it on the head!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: In its shrill bleats of outrage over "censorship", so intense is the MSM's contempt for the real America that it has no misgivings for displaying such crude hypocrisy
ReplyDeleteJack, as dangerous as the Age of Reason has proved to be, I fear there's no going back. Faith and tradition are so battered that it's hard to imagine they could be the bulwarks of a rejuvenated Western civilization. I could imagine some (hideously) repackaged version of tradition, a la fascism, might emerge and dominate for a spell, but the foundations of social order, once demolished, are awfully hard to rebuild, no?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: When early Rennaisance pathfinders sought to revive and build upon the accomplishments of Greece and Rome, they chose to emulate the glorious achievements and not the shame.Perhaps a revival of the early Enlightenment, couched in terms emphasizing, for example, the benefits the Founders did us by their allegiance to early Age of Reason gems like property rights, co equal and therefore somewhat balanced branches of government and the origin of fundamental rights in the mind and grace of God himself. Much that is exemplary from Periclean Athens and reasoned nostalgia for the early Roman Republic was saved to our heritage by the Rennaissance (I say with utmost respect for your knowledge of this).
ReplyDeleteYes, few among us would contemplate, even for a moment, turning back the clock to the pre-Enlightenment era... By no means is its legacy all bad. Is there a magic formula for just the right balance between reason and faith? I doubt it. It's also a question of the balance between tolerance and the enforcement of "standards", both of which are necessary, to a point, to sustain civilization. In life, and in history, there are no easy answers!
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