Tangentially, one of the struggles we have in Current Year Western society is convincing people that monsters are real. Heck, convincing people that souls are real is a struggle. I'm not sure how to convince people that there is more to life than just flesh and stone, unless that idea gets inculcated early, it may indeed require "outside" intervention. But we're wired to want to know that world, that helps. And morality is pretty universal, even if theology and philosophy varies. And by that I mean 'right and wrong', not just sexual mores.
"Heck, convincing people that souls are real is a struggle."
100%.
Which is strange when we consider that it's the fundamental unit of existence, the source of all observation and the judge without which no decision would be possible. We would tumble down infinite stairwells of analysis. Of course, that doesn't mean we won't make good decisions and bad ones. Just that we couldn't make any at all, if we were merely meat-machines.
I left a comment on the Tonic Seven's Youtube channel, but I'm leaving another for you here. I think it is important that you acquaint yourself with NS Lyon's magnum opus, A Prophecy of Evil:
Lyon's detailed out the technical aspects of the managerial elite in his China essay, but in his investigations into Tolkien and Lewis, he outlined the spiritual dimensions at the bedrock. It is important work, and it will assist in given you a deeper understanding of Lyon's argument.
Indeed, you point out something important: the shape and form of evil is mercurial and forever shifting. The form we face today has its own unique shape that we are only just beginning to grasp. Paul Kingsnorth tuned me in my into the idea of the machine, coined a century ago, describing the way technology has vacuumed up peoples resources, attention, and worship. But was that not what the ancients feared in mammon? What does Cain and Abel teach us about evil? That it is resents the good for being favoured over itself - that in the extreme, it is willing to murder the good as revenge against God.
As Lyon's grappled with this idea of evil well before his deep dive into China, the West, and the managerial elite, it I think it is important that you acquaint yourself with this work as I sense a bit of a blind spot in your discussions.
I look forward to more of your investigations into monsters in the future!
Thanks for the advice, RR. I will surely take the time to read it, and revisit my problems accordingly. As I said at the start of the show, I am *not* familiar with his past work, and admitted that might be part of the problem. I'm actually happy to learn that I might be mistaken.
Often when I write about the managerial class I use the shorthand term “rulers,” but I think as you do that that class does not actually ‘rule.’ The class arose as the implementers and organizers of actual rulers; they are stewards, like Denethor. Ours is a world bereft of actual rulers, and the managerial elites have mutated and metastasized into a self-directed, self-referential over-mass of directors, controllers, cataloguers, quantifies, recorders, and punishers. They manage. They do not rule. There are no earthly rulers. As a reactionary I hope to see legitimate rule return, royal races prepared in the hidden places, crowns returned to heads, and kings on thrones.
I agree with this to some extent. I do think there is a self-perceived "ruling class" behind the more mundane and obvious management tiers, but even they are mere stewards the sorts of principalities and powers that actually rule, the human face of something that is definitionally inhuman, and which rules through clandestine means and methods that look like us to gestalt entities and "systems."
Also, I think was very good of you to have tried to understand evil by building a machine to reproduce its handiwork. Yes it came close to destroying you, but it did not succeed, yet allowed you close enough to see its contours. Now you’ll be able to explain its forms and functions to us, so that we can recognize and fight it too. It may have been a foolish endeavor, but definitely not stupid.
Kind of like the decisions I described above - this one may not have been explicable with logic, but it took you where you needed to go.
I wouldn't say I built it to understand it. I was just chasing money and prestige, like all the other rats. Those incentives probably played a major role in how horribly wrong it all went. But I won't fool myself into believing there was any noble intentions behind it, or behind any of the other mistakes I've made in my life. If I'm going to do better in the future, I gotta be honest with myself.
Aug 18, 2023·edited Aug 18, 2023Liked by Mark Bisone
Fascinating and provoking. I think one way to discern the form of our sculpture (and aren’t we all sculptors, chipping away at the excess, to reveal our true form?) is by reviewing important life decisions that we could hardly understand at the time, via ordinary logic. They don’t seem to make sense when made, but are clear, in retrospect, because they took us in the direction we needed to go.
This could be viewed an exercise in revisionist thinking. But I think we know in our hearts the difference between decisions we didn’t quite understand at the time and which turned out “ok” vs. those we didn’t quite understand and which made us who we truly (if uncomfortably) are.
Not to speak of those decisions that “seemed right at the time” but end disastrously, because they took us in the opposite direction of a self we were already beginning to discern.
" I think one way to discern the form of our sculpture (and aren’t we all sculptors, chipping away at the excess, to reveal our true form?) is by reviewing important life decisions that we could hardly understand at the time, via ordinary logic."
I think the Self-as-sculptor metaphor works in a certain context, but that it pertains to more the more direct and mundane transactional layer of existence. We chisel things like skills, personas, relationships, etc. And yes, much of that work can be analyzed by honest self-review and logic. But I also think there is an aspect to being that we can't build, change or even directly observe. And yes, I think many of our poor choices stem from how difficult it is to see that-which-cannot-change through the blizzard of all the things that can and do.
Yes, the risk in “chipping away” is that one accidentally lops off an arm. Or, as Kierkegaard said, “life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards.”
Ok. One freeman to another...I want to quibble about your use of the word "unchangable." As above, so below, the grand dynamism of material existence is not mirrored by a static, unchangable soul, but a dynamic soul that merely changes on a much different scale of "time" - is my understanding.
That, and your use of the word "punishment." I might be good at punishing myself, or rather, setting myself up with my stupidity/wrong action to return to me in spades, but I think it is a conceit of the ego to think a God of unconditional love is in the business of petty punishment like some mere Dad.
That said, warrior, as with Grant, for what it is worth I have your back.
Maybe this is a problem with semantics. But to claim there is *no* unchanging element of being is I think maybe a consequence of observations made in the framework of "linear spacetime," where almost everything appears to be subject to change. Even you putting "time" in quotes suggests that we are discussing a different framework, in which time -- and therefore, in my opinion, *change* -- does not exist. For change requires time to be measured at all.
As for punishment, to say that we are punished isn't the same as saying those punishments are petty. A particular punishment may be judged petty, inoprdinate or even unjust, depending on a variety of factors. But other punishments can be instructive and wise. For example, sometimes a parent will punish us for our own good, so that we won't go down a path that harms ourselves or others. This is the form of punishment I'm referring to.
As for "punishment" I have been thinking about it, having been raised evangelical, I am merely skeptical about associating God and punishment, because there is a fine line between that and then people punishing others in the name of God. Most of those spent a great deal more time talking about the devil than Jesus.
Reminds me of something I wrote down: "The question remains how we distinguish our true natures, from the illusions overlaid due to trauma or illness causing us to adopt Survival Styles, or shutting down parts of our brains. According to Internal Family Systems, a type of therapy which works with our various “parts” or sub-personalities, the true Self is ultimately recognisable..." https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/personality-types-traits-tests-and
Good points, Gary. I do think that some transforming thoughts can be defensive in nature (or at least, from the perspective of shutting down certain avenues and paths, whether those lead to structures that are ultimately good or bad for future decision-making.)
"We come to think of a story as “only a metaphor” for a “true” phenomenon instead of what it is: two true stories that seem to align because they are iterations within the same fractal lineage."
Whoa! you said a mouthful there! *Goes off to ponder on this*
Rip and tear, until it is done, Mark.
Tangentially, one of the struggles we have in Current Year Western society is convincing people that monsters are real. Heck, convincing people that souls are real is a struggle. I'm not sure how to convince people that there is more to life than just flesh and stone, unless that idea gets inculcated early, it may indeed require "outside" intervention. But we're wired to want to know that world, that helps. And morality is pretty universal, even if theology and philosophy varies. And by that I mean 'right and wrong', not just sexual mores.
"Heck, convincing people that souls are real is a struggle."
100%.
Which is strange when we consider that it's the fundamental unit of existence, the source of all observation and the judge without which no decision would be possible. We would tumble down infinite stairwells of analysis. Of course, that doesn't mean we won't make good decisions and bad ones. Just that we couldn't make any at all, if we were merely meat-machines.
CC: Scott Adams
Hi Mark,
I left a comment on the Tonic Seven's Youtube channel, but I'm leaving another for you here. I think it is important that you acquaint yourself with NS Lyon's magnum opus, A Prophecy of Evil:
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/a-prophecy-of-evil-tolkien-lewis
Lyon's detailed out the technical aspects of the managerial elite in his China essay, but in his investigations into Tolkien and Lewis, he outlined the spiritual dimensions at the bedrock. It is important work, and it will assist in given you a deeper understanding of Lyon's argument.
Indeed, you point out something important: the shape and form of evil is mercurial and forever shifting. The form we face today has its own unique shape that we are only just beginning to grasp. Paul Kingsnorth tuned me in my into the idea of the machine, coined a century ago, describing the way technology has vacuumed up peoples resources, attention, and worship. But was that not what the ancients feared in mammon? What does Cain and Abel teach us about evil? That it is resents the good for being favoured over itself - that in the extreme, it is willing to murder the good as revenge against God.
As Lyon's grappled with this idea of evil well before his deep dive into China, the West, and the managerial elite, it I think it is important that you acquaint yourself with this work as I sense a bit of a blind spot in your discussions.
I look forward to more of your investigations into monsters in the future!
Thanks for the advice, RR. I will surely take the time to read it, and revisit my problems accordingly. As I said at the start of the show, I am *not* familiar with his past work, and admitted that might be part of the problem. I'm actually happy to learn that I might be mistaken.
Often when I write about the managerial class I use the shorthand term “rulers,” but I think as you do that that class does not actually ‘rule.’ The class arose as the implementers and organizers of actual rulers; they are stewards, like Denethor. Ours is a world bereft of actual rulers, and the managerial elites have mutated and metastasized into a self-directed, self-referential over-mass of directors, controllers, cataloguers, quantifies, recorders, and punishers. They manage. They do not rule. There are no earthly rulers. As a reactionary I hope to see legitimate rule return, royal races prepared in the hidden places, crowns returned to heads, and kings on thrones.
"There are no earthly rulers."
I agree with this to some extent. I do think there is a self-perceived "ruling class" behind the more mundane and obvious management tiers, but even they are mere stewards the sorts of principalities and powers that actually rule, the human face of something that is definitionally inhuman, and which rules through clandestine means and methods that look like us to gestalt entities and "systems."
Also, I think was very good of you to have tried to understand evil by building a machine to reproduce its handiwork. Yes it came close to destroying you, but it did not succeed, yet allowed you close enough to see its contours. Now you’ll be able to explain its forms and functions to us, so that we can recognize and fight it too. It may have been a foolish endeavor, but definitely not stupid.
Kind of like the decisions I described above - this one may not have been explicable with logic, but it took you where you needed to go.
I wouldn't say I built it to understand it. I was just chasing money and prestige, like all the other rats. Those incentives probably played a major role in how horribly wrong it all went. But I won't fool myself into believing there was any noble intentions behind it, or behind any of the other mistakes I've made in my life. If I'm going to do better in the future, I gotta be honest with myself.
Fascinating and provoking. I think one way to discern the form of our sculpture (and aren’t we all sculptors, chipping away at the excess, to reveal our true form?) is by reviewing important life decisions that we could hardly understand at the time, via ordinary logic. They don’t seem to make sense when made, but are clear, in retrospect, because they took us in the direction we needed to go.
This could be viewed an exercise in revisionist thinking. But I think we know in our hearts the difference between decisions we didn’t quite understand at the time and which turned out “ok” vs. those we didn’t quite understand and which made us who we truly (if uncomfortably) are.
Not to speak of those decisions that “seemed right at the time” but end disastrously, because they took us in the opposite direction of a self we were already beginning to discern.
" I think one way to discern the form of our sculpture (and aren’t we all sculptors, chipping away at the excess, to reveal our true form?) is by reviewing important life decisions that we could hardly understand at the time, via ordinary logic."
I think the Self-as-sculptor metaphor works in a certain context, but that it pertains to more the more direct and mundane transactional layer of existence. We chisel things like skills, personas, relationships, etc. And yes, much of that work can be analyzed by honest self-review and logic. But I also think there is an aspect to being that we can't build, change or even directly observe. And yes, I think many of our poor choices stem from how difficult it is to see that-which-cannot-change through the blizzard of all the things that can and do.
Yes, the risk in “chipping away” is that one accidentally lops off an arm. Or, as Kierkegaard said, “life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards.”
Ok. One freeman to another...I want to quibble about your use of the word "unchangable." As above, so below, the grand dynamism of material existence is not mirrored by a static, unchangable soul, but a dynamic soul that merely changes on a much different scale of "time" - is my understanding.
That, and your use of the word "punishment." I might be good at punishing myself, or rather, setting myself up with my stupidity/wrong action to return to me in spades, but I think it is a conceit of the ego to think a God of unconditional love is in the business of petty punishment like some mere Dad.
That said, warrior, as with Grant, for what it is worth I have your back.
Maybe this is a problem with semantics. But to claim there is *no* unchanging element of being is I think maybe a consequence of observations made in the framework of "linear spacetime," where almost everything appears to be subject to change. Even you putting "time" in quotes suggests that we are discussing a different framework, in which time -- and therefore, in my opinion, *change* -- does not exist. For change requires time to be measured at all.
As for punishment, to say that we are punished isn't the same as saying those punishments are petty. A particular punishment may be judged petty, inoprdinate or even unjust, depending on a variety of factors. But other punishments can be instructive and wise. For example, sometimes a parent will punish us for our own good, so that we won't go down a path that harms ourselves or others. This is the form of punishment I'm referring to.
But, yes, I have your back too, FWIW.
As for "punishment" I have been thinking about it, having been raised evangelical, I am merely skeptical about associating God and punishment, because there is a fine line between that and then people punishing others in the name of God. Most of those spent a great deal more time talking about the devil than Jesus.
Reminds me of something I wrote down: "The question remains how we distinguish our true natures, from the illusions overlaid due to trauma or illness causing us to adopt Survival Styles, or shutting down parts of our brains. According to Internal Family Systems, a type of therapy which works with our various “parts” or sub-personalities, the true Self is ultimately recognisable..." https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/personality-types-traits-tests-and
I also agree with you on the true insight is usually the simplest and most elegant explanation "https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/why-our-sense-of-the-beauty-in-the"
Good points, Gary. I do think that some transforming thoughts can be defensive in nature (or at least, from the perspective of shutting down certain avenues and paths, whether those lead to structures that are ultimately good or bad for future decision-making.)
"We come to think of a story as “only a metaphor” for a “true” phenomenon instead of what it is: two true stories that seem to align because they are iterations within the same fractal lineage."
Whoa! you said a mouthful there! *Goes off to ponder on this*
Thank you for your demon-fighting and demon-describing work, Mark!
I'm finally home from the big roadtrip and finding time to read/view the works of my favies!💖