We are oarsmen aboard galleys, straining our muscles to keep our ships on a certain azimuth, enduring our labors in foaming and swelling seas, while being buffeted by the storms and waves of Fortune. We hope for placid days, for the sight of a friendly shore, but of these things we have no guarantee. Not for us are the comforting certainties and predictabilities of our forefathers, who had some assurances of their environment’s cultural and social stability, before the second half of the twentieth century cracked the foundations of Western societies’ moral edifices. This is the Age of Turbulence.
It is tempting to envy the certainty of the medieval mind, for in that certainty lay relief from mental turbulence. In that age, Christians, Moslems, and Jews alike believed that they had already found in their respective theologies the ultimate truths of things; they felt no grasping compulsion to probe the mysteries of the natural world, to worship machines and technology, or to question the inherited beliefs of their ancestors. The truth had already been revealed, and it remained only to exalt these truths in art, poetry, architecture, and literature. The medieval mind would have valued the sublime beauty of the spires of Chartres, the buttresses of Notre Dame, the Bayeux tapestry, the arcane mysteries of the Mass, illuminated manuscripts, and heroic poetry, more than he would the clanking pulleys and levers of the engineers, or the obsessive tinkerings of the scientist.
For the medieval man, art and faith were more important than reason. We cannot be sure he was wrong in his choice. Perhaps he was wiser than we, who instead place our faith in iPhones, the internet, and Tinder matches. We have exchanged one God for a multiplicity of false epicurean gods. Whereas our ancestors had the strength of theological certainty, the modern man, following the star of his own avarice and caprice, is tormented by self-doubt and hesitation. Obviously, this certainty came at a certain price. Yet, we moderns multiply machines on top of machines, every generation more complex than the previous, with little apparent augmenting of wisdom or maturity.
Louis IX: He was fortified by his certainty
To see how starkly the differences between us and our ancestors emerge, consider Jean de Joinville’s Life of Saint Louis, a famous monograph about France’s King Louis IX written in 1309. Louis was France’s most pious king, and was the only one of her monarchs to have been canonized. Joinville had known Louis personally, filled his account with stories of Louis’s piety and sincerity.
Joinville relates the following anecdotes. On one occasion, the king sent for him to hold a philosophical discussion. The dialogue went as follows.[1]
“Tell me, seneschal, which would you prefer: to be a leper or to have committed a mortal sin?” And I, who had never lied to him, replied that I would rather have committed thirty mortal sins than become a leper…The next day, he called me to him, making me sit at his feet and said to me: “Why did you say that to me yesterday?” I told him that I still say it. “You spoke without thinking, like a fool. You ought to know that there is no leprosy so foul as being in a state of mortal sin; for the soul in that condition is like the Devil; therefore no leprosy can be so vile…So I beg you…as earnestly as I can, for the love of God, and for love of me, to train your heart to prefer any evil that can happen to the body…rather than let mortal sin take possession of your soul.”
On the king’s certainty, Joinville says:
In the conversations he had with me, this saintly king did everything in his power to give me a firm belief in the principles of Christianity as given us by God. He used to say that we ought to have such an unshakeable belief in all the articles of faith that neither fear of death nor of any harm that might happen to our bodies should make us willing to go against them in word or deed.[2]
And in a crowning statement of the king’s doctrinal certitude, we are told:
“So I tell you,” said the king, “that no one, unless he is an expert theologian, should venture to argue with these people [i.e., theologians]. But a layman, whenever he hears the Christian religion abused, should not attempt to defend its tenets, except with the sword, and that he should thrust into the scoundrel’s belly, as far as it will enter.”
We may not agree with this last sentiment, but the certainty with which it is expressed is a refreshing antidote to today’s floundering morass of relativism. Our modern society, with its abundance of material comforts and unrelenting smugness, has exchanged masculine conviction and strength for a weak-kneed relativism, in which everything is so perfectly balanced out that we are left paralyzed with inaction. There is power in certainty; relativism paralyzes. By destroying our inherited patrimony and its attendant moral code, modern society exposes us naked to the stormy seas of Fortune. We could also say that our history and its cultural inheritance are like the trees growing on mountainsides, whose roots keep the soil firmly anchored in place; but when the trees are cut down, erosion, denudation, and landslides are the results.
Pascal: Imagination can produce certainty
What can the rational man do in this Age of Turbulence? What actions can be taken, until our vessel reaches calmer seas? One answer is the advice offered by the Italian humanist Paolo Giovio in his dialogue Notable Men and Women of Our Time:
Let us endure these hardships of fortune with a strong mind, and let us pick trusted defenses that come from virtue and good studies, which will guard us perfectly from the vicissitudes of fortune. I think, actually, we should live in the way of clever and honest slaves who, with a humble and cunning intelligence, dissemble as they need to, so that they await their liberty in due course, with a calculated and patient submission.[3]
This is certainly one way of handling an impossible situation. But another, more inward-looking, answer to this question was suggested to me yesterday from a passage in Blaise Pascal’s Pensees. Pascal gives us an interesting thought experiment to chew on.[4]
If we dreamed the same thing every night, he says, it would affect us as much as the things we see every day while awake. If an artisan, for example, dreamed for ten hours per night that he was a king, he would be about as happy as a king who dreamed for ten hours that he was an artisan. In the same way, if we dreamed every day of horrible things, we would dread going to sleep, and would fear these evil things as much as if we encountered them in real life. The traveler who is haunted at night by terrible visions would be afraid of waking up to such mishaps on the road of travel. Thus the world of dreams carries over into the world of the real. And over time, the two worlds begin to overlap. In this way, we can use our dreams to shape our reality. “For life is a dream,” Pascal says, [but] a little less unstable.”
Life is a dream. Find your dream, and dream your dream with intensity. Believe in it with an overwhelming passion. And over time, as Pascal says, that dream will become part of your reality. You evolve into your dream, and incorporate it into your guiding vision. The imagination can indeed shape your external world.
So I say this: behave in the manner of Giovo’s “patient and honest slave” while you bide your time, and at the same time, dream with the fervent intensity of Blaise Pascal. This is the way for us to restore some degree of certainty to our minds, some fuel to our muscles, and face the swelling hostile seas of the Age of Turbulence.
Read More: The World Will Teach You
[1] See Shaw, M.R.B., Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades, New York: Penguin Books Ltd. 1983, p. 169.
[2] Id. at 173.
[3] Gouwens, Kenneth (ed.), Paolo Giovio, Notable Men and Women of Our Time, Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2013, p. 169. (translation mine).
[4] See Pascal, Blaise, Pensees, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2005, p. 198.
This is deep.
Just like western culture.
Lmaoooo true!
Indeed it is!
Kali Yuga
http://jhaines6.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ba50b-desnudos-artisticos-mariaxhe-blogspot-com-2.jpg
Kali Yuga (also called the Iron Age)
When Kali himself appeared in the court of Parikshit, the king who reigned during the transition between the Dwapara Age and current Kali Yuga, he held the two organs (two tongues) of man in both of his hands. When asked why the king’s court should be defiled by such an offensive sight, it was explained that all of Kali Yuga would be affected by man’s inability to control the gratification of these two organs.
The tongue in the mouth seeks constant pleasure through food and drink; and through too much talking, idle chatter, and gossiping. The tongue between the legs seeks the gratification that it brings over and above the purpose of procreation. If these two organs can be brought under control, then the individual can be redeemed … in this very lifetime.
” . . .the second half of the twentieth century cracked the foundations of Western societies’ moral edifices.”
Thank God the first half was just peachy.
Moral certainty was one of the primary reasons that the US won WWI and WWII. Such struggles would absolutely crush the US today, as we have no foundation to stand on….
The US is not the world. Wilson brought the US into the war, which the populace was against, as a facet of his leftist utopian views. Walk outside in urban/suburban US and most of what you will see is the result of post WWI nihilism. The Walmart being built today is founded in 1920s philosophy, the Golden Age of the American socialist movement.
Quintus, you know how much I value your contributions. I would agree that, for a man that does not yet have his certainties, “biding his time” like a clever slave and choosing to halfway believe in a beautiful dream, is better than floating through an ugly reality without any attachment to even the idea of goodness and conviction. But I would say the best thing, is to truly find the path to conviction.
This is because, in the end, a man who knows that he is biding his time and dreaming, will not be free of an haunting uncertainty: for he knows that he is biding time and dreaming, rather than knowing. I think you fundamentally err, when you say that art and faith were more important to the Medieval man than reason. The Church Fathers and the Medieval theologians saw human knowledge as of a piece, apprehended in two modes: faith AND reason. They saw faith as laying a certain groundwork of first principles whose reasonableness reason itself approved, and finally, they saw faith as involving a certain body of final propositions, whose reasonableness reason itself recommended, but could not prove to man in his present, limited capacities. Anybody who reads the great thinkers of late antiquity and the Middle Ages, will see that they expected faith and reason to go hand in hand. Faith could believe nothing contrary to reason, and reason itself showed the reasonableness of faith.
The key difference, is that the ancients considered the highest truths – truths about God, about justice, about goodness – to be of primary importance, and so their emphasis was on using reason to exposit, to defend and to deepen the knowledge of philosophical and spiritual principles. They still used reason with material things, employing mathematics and other categories of knowledge to the arts, architecture, music, etc. The last centuries of the middle ages actually saw many inventions and scientific advances.
Modern man shifted his emphasis, however, and found the material world so interesting that all of our use of reason has focused on empiricism and the so-called “scientific method,” to the point where we actually think it is *unreasonable* to hold certain opinions about anything that is not a matter of empiric experiment. But Mathematics is an example of a field of enquiry that can be certainly known by pure logic, without the need for empirical observation. Certainly other, philosophical and moral truths can be exposited with the same certainty; but modern man’s focus on the material has become so irrational in and of itself, that it no longer sees the reasonableness of this truth. As is said in Romans: “For the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable… Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”
I am a deeply religious man. But while some of my beliefs about dogmatic truths are indeed held through the conviction of faith – i.e., that Christ was Incarnate as a man, taking up a body with a rational soul, in Whose single Person are united the divine and human natures without confusion or separation – still, the vast majority of my beliefs are held through the light of natural reason: i.e., that there is a God, that man’s duty is to serve Him as His final end in accordance with nature, that nature demands the practice of the Cardinal Virtues, etc. I am always irritated when people act as though my objections to abortion, homosexuality, etc., were me “pushing my religion” on others, when in fact I would oppose these things if I lost my Christian Faith tomorrow, which may God forbid; reason itself condemns these things, but because modern man has come to associate reason only with empiricism and the material world, rather than with philosophical concepts logically discoverable, they find assertions about these moral truths to be mere opinion, or even merely religious prejudice and sentiment. Faith is not a prejudice or sentiment about God’s existence. I know God exists by reason – I am as certain of this fact by reason as I am of the fact that I am typing at my keyboard right now. And who can imagine having a “prejudice” or “sentiment” that Christ is Incarnate in a perfect union of two natures with a rational soul? This article of faith is clearly established in large part upon a chain of theological reasoning, which itself rests on principles discoverable by reason. It does require a leap or two of faith, at the very beginning and end of the chain, but the leaps are themselves reasonable, if not able to be empirically proven.
Modern man won’t recover his certainty by “biding his time” or “dreaming” about the things he would like to be certain of, until he can convince himself to believe them; for then, man still knows that he isn’t actually convicted, but simply wants to be convicted. This itself will never produce the certainty we require. Man will only find the certainty he requires, when he learns to wean himself off the addiction to material things and turn the lamp of reason upon immaterial concepts, ceasing to see faith and reason as entirely separate, or even contradictory, things. The Medieval mind understood that faith and reason are the two necessary modes in which man experiences a knowledge that, if he were not fallen, would be integral and singular. But because they knew that these two modes apprehended a single truth through a single faculty of the soul, albeit limited by present circumstances to working in these two modes more often than not, they understood that faith and reason cannot and must not ever contradict each other.
As I said: they lived in a time when reason was applied to the higher truths primarily, rather than merely to scientific processes in the material world, and so they were more certain of truth, than they were of disjointed facts about things. Now, men are more certain of a jumble of isolated facts than they are of the truth, because our age does not apply reason to the immaterial things which *demand* so much of us, but to the material things which *give* so much to us. This is why we live in an age where our scientists and our contraptions are so clever, but we are all so unwise, and use our knowledge contrary to right reason. A wise, civil and rational age took horrible women and burned them at the stake if they refused to recant their abominations; now, we call them “Real Housewives” and beam their shenanigans across the planet through space via satellites, while unmarried women awash with hormone treatments watch them in air conditioned rooms and shovel artificial food down their gullets. We have exposed the nakedness of the material world and defiled its mysteries by making them common and causing them to be vehicles of profanity; and we call this “science.” To me, this is the proof that we are the ones who do not value genuine reason, and that it meant far more to the ancients than it means to us. Perhaps it is time that I finally worked on a post for ROK, that explores the Western tradition on how man’s soul functions and knows; it would be relevant to the topics of manliness and the approach men may choose to take with women.
May I recommend a book that addresses precisely your concerns? “Discerning the Mystery.” http://www.amazon.com/Discerning-Mystery-Theology-Clarendon-Paperbacks/dp/0198261969
It’s reassuring and comforting to know that Cui Pertinebit weighs in with us every Monday with his thought provoking commentary. May you never stop, Brother Cui.
In a moment of clarity and philosophy, I entirely agree with the saintly King; I would rather be a leper.
In the unguarded moments of my animal life, the base calculation that mortal sin can be undone whereas I’m stuck with leprosy, leads me to the sin of malice and presumption, destroying the core of my being and spitting on my God, simply because I know He’ll take me back. I thus prove by my choices that I prefer mortal sin to leprosy in actual practice.
Men should take note that, in a sense, all of creation is feminine in relation to God, the supreme masculine. We men have the dignity of being shadows of the divine masculinity and paternity. But as creatures we stand in the feminine role, for we depend upon Him for our own fecundity and support. And if any man observes his own behaviour towards his God, he would see that if God and the angels had an ROK website in heaven, *we* would be the irrational, greedy, back-stabbing bitches that they complained about… or the loveable but confused creatures, whom they talked about cajoling, somehow or another, into loving them, for our own good. Women certainly can be trouble, especially in modern times; but who can deny that preferring mortal sin to leprosy, as I clearly do, is effeminate behaviour par excellence?
That was a very well written piece. I’ve strained away from my religious beliefs to a more spiritual point of view; however your conviction and wisdom is is intriguing. Do you have any well written sources to study medieval times and religious texts?
I’ve always believed that studying the primary sources is the best way to go. Sometimes it’s nice to read an overview or a general book on a topic, but really the best thing to do is to read the Medieval, Religious, etc. texts themselves. If you’ll tell me more specifically what you’d like to learn about, I could give you some more direct recommendations.
I’ve always been fascinated with the medieval era. And ancient history for that matter. I also just read a piece about St. Benedict that was interesting.
Christianity I find is fascinating not necessarily the religion but the great figures who influenced it. I’ve been doing a bit of reading about King Richard I the Lion Heart and his crusading years. The men of great devotion to a cause have shaped and molded history.
So any pieces on influential men of these times would be great to read. From kings to monks to Saints.
I was born and raised a Christian up until I was ten but I’ve never fully read the Bible. There are good lessons to be learned
If you’re interested in reading about history and the lives of saints and others, some of my favourite things are:
The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, by the Venerable Bede; the life of St. Benedict, contained in the Dialogues (Book II) of Pope St. Gregory the Great; the Confession of St. Patrick; the life of Charlemagne by Einhard; the Life of the Jura Fathers; the Life of St. Columba by St. Adomnan of Iona. I also think that lovers of the Middle Ages should read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and other Arthurian legends, along with the Song of Roland, El Cid, Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso. The Canterbury Tales are also a personal favourite. Everyone should read Dante’s Divine Comedy.
If one likes Medieval things and also likes the lives of great men, an interesting book to read is Walter of Chatillon’s Alexandreis, which is a Medieval Latin Epic of the life of Alexander the Great, based upon the history of Quintus Curtius Rufus. There is an English translation in print.
Thanks mate. I’ll have to pick these books up or download it as an ebook. Having a broader understanding of these topics is important to me.
Best of luck to you, and happy reading.
“I know God exists by reason…”
Care to share that reason? I’m sure a whole bunch of us would love to know it.
If you read, and can understand, sections 3-7 of the 5th chapter of St. Bonaventure’s “Journey of the Soul into God,” you’ll be well on your way to knowing it. There are numerous other, supporting elements of my conviction, as well, but this is really the essence of it which is sufficient in itself. Some of us have heard of Anselm’s Ontological Argument for the existence of God. So far as I understand Anselm, and so far as most people retell his argument, it is sloppy and doesn’t really work. St. Bonaventure gives a more precise, elegant and lucid exposition of the actual ontological argument.
What percentage of your prayers go unanswered? 99.9999999%? and for the other 0.0000001% of the time, do you think it’s just a matter of probability?
It might sound like a stupid argument, you might say, “Of course God doesn’t answer every single prayer.” And yet in the Bible it says on numerous occasions that if you pray for something (non-selfish) God will grant it.
So that leaves only a couple of scenario’s.
1. The Bible lied to you and can’t be trusted.
2. God takes a delight in not answering your prayers.
3. God doesn’t exist.
To prove I’m not talking out of my ass I’m going to pray tonight for the cure to cancer, you can too. It’s non-selfish and will do, literally, a world of good. Boy, I hope it works… no, I’m not going to hold my breath.
The real problem is that you have not understood the Bible’s intent; the second problem is that you offer false trilemma; the third problem, is that you assume the answer to a prayer is always affirmative or will pander to our (perhaps misguided, even if altruistic) desires; the final problem, is that you assume I pray for non-essential stuff I want. I pray the Office, I contemplate, I ask for grace to grow in the virtues and save my soul, I thank God for benefits and providence bestowed and pray that it may continue if it please Him. My prayers have never been neglected. I don’t ask Jesus for a new Cadillac – no, not even for the cure for cancer. Illness and suffering is a part of God’s providence in the present world, and the assumption that God wants every disease cured is a foolish one to be sure.
i.e. I misunderstood, God isn’t selective or lazy, he’s just unable to do shit. Great.
Did you ever consider that God wasn’t the good guy? That he’s a bit of a cunt (and, note, I’m talking the fictional one in the Bible). In fact if there was a super-hero in the bible it would be Satan, he was the angel of knowledge. Oooh, knowledge, soooo bad!!!! Quick question: who killed more people in the bible, God or Satan?
BAM! Mind = blown. Well they do say that history is written by the victors…
I considered such ideas, and quickly saw how puerile and foolish they were. They are beneath your dignity, so think better of the matter and rise up from the mud. Sit nomen Domini benedictum, ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum.
You err, in thinking that God has the same moral obligations as a mortal man. If the moral obligations of a man and a child, or a child and a dog, are different, how much more so for God, who gives life and may rightly take it at his pleasure. If the Lord takes a life, He has robbed it of nothing that was not already his. Every man’s life is forfeit, in the end, and he will appear before His maker and judge to render an account. God is entirely within his rights to recall a soul to judgment sooner, rather than later. “Timor Domini sanctus, permanens in saeculum saeculi; judicia Domini vera, justificata in semetipsa.” The fear of the Lord is holy, enduring from age to age; the judgments of the Lord are true, justified in and of themselves.” He that made you, may freely unmake you. With what injustice can you reproach Him? What do you have, this you do not have by His gift?
But to answer your question: death came in via the Fall of Man, a thing wrought by the prevarication. The devil, the prevaricator, initiated the process; Adam and Eve were not without fault. The sentence of death, passed upon them by God, was not arbitrary or vindictive but, as both the Scriptures and Fathers teach, made a way of escape by which the Lord would deceive the deceiver and undo the Fall. This is why at the Easter Vigil, we chant: O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est. O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem! “O certainly necessary sin of Adam, which is blotted out by the death of Christ; O happy fault, which merited to have such and so great a Redeemer.” So, who killed more people in the Bible? The Devil, if you want to reckon it in terms of malicious intent, for it was he that truly sought to murder and destroy mankind. Adam, if you want to reckon it in terms of direct responsibility for corruption into the lapsed condition, for it was Adam that finalized and confirmed the decision to act contrary to God’s counsel and command. God, if you want to reckon it in terms of the efficient and final causes, since it was God’s wisdom and providence that turned the inevitable and necessary death resulting from sin, into the very means of redemption.
Fuck. You is stupid fuck. I fucking made it clear that I don’t BELIEVE there is no God and that the Bible is stupid as fuck, I 100% KNOW the Bible is bullshit. I have researched. 100% bullshit. And you have to be 100% dumb fuck (like, drooling when you laugh and shit) to believe in it.
Here is some good advice: If you’re trying to peddle bullshit, keep it short, no one is going to waste their time reading a whole sermon of bullshit.
P.S. Don’t you fucking dare try and preach to me again, cunt. You are wrong. I don’t believe this. I know this. Big difference. I know, therefore you cannot, I repeat, cannot, change my mind. Now, fuck off.
Hit a nerve, huh? If you don’t want an exchange of ideas, then, in the future, don’t initiate one.
Of course, a reply like yours means that each of us knows perfectly well which man runs on emotion and ignorance, and which is the rational thinker. Since you must know this as well as I do, I can only encourage you to take a manlier approach to things: have a thought for what you are really gaining, and what you are really losing. I wish you all the best.
No, cunt. It means am ready to go capital on cunts like you. I’m so fucking sick of debating a topic as childish as Sesame Street. Talking snake. Apple of knowledge. Splitting seas. This is all fucking bullshit you stupid, stupid fuck. I’ve done the logical, but WHENEVER I present a piece of logic, or fact, that can’t be disputed that, once again, proves beyond all reasonable doubt to any dumb cunt with an IQ above 60 BAM change of subject. You’re all fucking women, grasping onto an obvious myth. Now either become athiest or agnostic, or fuck off. I’m done with you cunts.
If you were sick of debating the topic, you wouldn’t engage people on it. It is actually obvious that you are addicted to discussing the topic, and that the rush of anger you get from venting your vitriol on the topic is an important element of your emotional life. There is probably also a great degree of self-doubt on your part, since you claim that your greater intellect and rationality put you above the whole affair, yet this claim is just another breathless avowal amidst the steady stream of bilious, semi-conscious ejaculations that has thus far characterized each of your posts.
Zero self doubt. I 100% know it’s bullshit. The only kick I ever get out of debates with christians is making them look like cunts. But, frankly, that gets tiring as every single time I get them pinned they just fuck off, never to speak another word. i.e. it’s a waste of time proving anything to you cunts as you just dig you heads in the sand. So… fuck off, don’t have time for dumb cunts, got work to do.
You should post a longer comment.
That’s funny! I’m still laughing!
“Perhaps it is time that I finally worked on a post for ROK, that explores the Western tradition on how man’s soul functions and knows; it would be relevant to the topics of manliness and the approach men may choose to take with women.”
I would look foreward to reading such a piece.
I second this ! Mr. Pertinebit has had numerous contributions in the commentarry sections, let him try out for an article ! Push him upwards mates !
Another first rate, thought-provoking article. Thanks!
“If we dreamed the same thing every night, he says, it would affect us as much as the things we see every day while awake. If an artisan, for example, dreamed for ten hours per night that he was a king, he would be about as happy as a king who dreamed for ten hours that he was an artisan. In the same way, if we dreamed every day of horrible things, we would dread going to sleep, and would fear these evil things as much as if we encountered them in real life. The traveler who is haunted at night by terrible visions would be afraid of waking up to such mishaps on the road of travel. Thus the world of dreams carries over into the world of the real. And over time, the two worlds begin to overlap. In this way, we can use our dreams to shape our reality. “For life is a dream,” Pascal says, [but] a little less unstable.””
Now you see how 24/7 media with gloom and doom all of the time and CGI filled movies with horrible monsters ripping flesh from bone (I don’t bother to watch them any more) is a kind of “invocation” of the horror that the PTB want this world to descend into.
Very true. We should carefully guard which thoughts and images we allow to enter our minds. Thoughts lead to choices which then become our very life.
Yeah I like this.
Civil kingship ONLY works (positively) when modeled on spiritual Kingship. Both are STRICTLY hierarchical, and the modern world, and its peoples, HATE hierarchy. People have been brainwashed to believe that their ultimate Personal Freedom derives from hyper-individualism, and that Collective Freedom results from these ‘liberated’ individuals then making ‘informed’ choices based on ‘enlightened self-interest’. (Which in reality means lotsa self-interest, and very little actual enlightenment.) It is a guaranteed fail and disaster, as we see from both the State and Church organizations resultant in the modern west. Why? Because human beings are flawed and fallen creatures, and because individuals are EASILY propagandized and manouvered into moral/political positions that serve malevolent and totalitarian interests. Our Feminist/PC nation is the perfect example of this fail.
Kingship was snuffed out completely by the various (un)Enlightenment popular ‘revolutions’ which in fact were not popular in origin at all, but were controlled by the same interests that now rule over all the west, both State and ‘churches’. Groupism via the State replaced kingship, eventually leading to the sham of voting and of the Almighty People being sufficiently wise and virtuous to control their personal and collective destinies. It’s not only a lie — it’s the complete embrace of the FEMALE MODEL of rulership and control. Demonocracy is Exhibit A: women collectively control the west through adoption of Groupist Systems of selecting leaders, and of governing. Women — not men — sit around in circles and blabber endlessly, then end up doing whatever is in their Groupist interest; that IS the Sistem everywhere nowdays.
MEN, exactly opposite, function on HIERARCHY, separating out into effective units to get the job done, whether its building a skyscraper or governing a nation. There is ONE leader, and a strict hierarchy — usually of MERIT — determining power, tasks, and decisionmaking. True, a bad king/hierarchy risks tyranny; but rule by Groupism GUARANTEES tyranny, tho a tyranny which temporarily benefits the adovcates of Groupism, i.e., Team Woman and their male funders, enforcers, and enablers.
All politics and all ideology are methods of Groupism, and are utterly feminine in their roots, expressions, and goals. This is why I shake my head when duped western males toss their chips on political candidates or solutions — they’re supporting and playing somebody else’s game, a game they cannot win, as the entire framework is totalitarian and feminine, assuring a slow and painful Fail. Yet these bozos just love to propound endlessly about politics, like cocks in a barbwire barnyard. Our Groupist Sistems permit third-rate men, released from the truth of male hierarchy, to gain great power and wealth, supposedly serving the Will of the Almighty People, i.e., the Group Will. What results? ‘Leadership’ by castrati like Obama, Biden, Roger Goodell, ad nauseum.
I reject Groupism, and its Enlightenment (satanic) roots, values, and methods, and instead live according to the God-given and natural rule of masculine hierarchy. I don’t rebel to serve my ego, and try to be the Engineer when I’m not the Engineer, or the Architect if I’m not the Architect. I accept my place in the MASCULINE hierarchy, while under Female Gropism I have no place, except that assigned to me by females collectively, usually through their male hirelings.
I have a king (Jeshua Christ), and I follow his example, his word (Scripture), and his chosen leadership (his prophets and apostles). ALL of this is 100 percent hierarchical and exactly antithetic to the female-based Groupism of politics, humanism, ideology, and the Cult of Narcissistic Individualism that modern folks have been sold. My rights come from God HIMSELF can cannot be rescinded by women or their governments. Civil ‘rights’ on the other hand, can (and are) taken away from men based on any and every whim of the Group. Thus, for all the trumpetings of wonderfulness and progress and glory, Civil Rights turn out to be cynical illusions, and in reality no rights at all.
Apologies for the length. Cheers.
I think Arnold Schwarzenegger said it best when he said you need to ask yourself who you want to be (not what, but who), believe in yourself and your vision, and become that man. So if you can’t be certain in anything else, be certain in that. That’s what sites like ROK are for. This will be your boat in this new society whose religion is an empty decadence that you describe.
Joe Rogan says it…
Be the hero of your own story.
A very valuable and refreshing article – the very advice I needed to hear today
On Leprosy:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/09/research-model-predicts-1-1-million-to-2-3-million-ebola-deaths-by-september-2015/
Fleeing Afrians must be shot on sight. The entire continent isolated from civilization. Vaccine should be withheld so that Europe and America can survive the coming plague…
It’s an interesting question Louis IX posed: would you prefer leprosy or mortal sin?
The question presumes that the party answering believes in the life hereafter and must consider: comfort in the immediate physical world purchased at the price of eternal damnation or….the kingdom of Heaven purchased at the price of intense physical suffering and perhaps premature death in the world of Man.
Louis was right to admonish his friend to think longer on his answer to this question, because it cuts to the core of any man and how he regards his principles. When reason and the physical world cease to be, what more does a man have than faith in an afterlife worth living to see? The mortal sin choice is the easy way out, putting off the sacrifice of today to enjoy our brief moments here. Eternal damnation? That’s years away…if it even exists, right?
Reading between the lines of this question, we can discern its importance to all questions of substance every man must face. Would you prefer to suffer certain harm immediately or suffer a possible catastrophic harm later? If you would prefer the later catastrophe, you cannot count that outcome among your principles. A principle is a belief so fundamental to your existence and how you understand yourself that it, in your eyes, is not up for negotiation or risk.
Everyone should take stock of their situation and Louis’s question. Don’t even apply it to the spiritual or theological. E.g. If your index finger was cut & became gangrenous and the doc offered to cut it off unless you’d rather run the 30% risk of the infection spreading to the rest of your arm/hand…what would you do? Run the risk, hoping to save yourself the immediate pain and disfigurement of losing a digit or would you cut your loses (literally) and refuse to put your remaining limb in jeopardy?
Understand what matters in life and do not negotiate on those terms once you have set them. Cultivate your certainty.
Another gem Quintus. Bravo
For those interested in the Tradition: read the work of René Guénon and Julius Evola.
Actually on article on ROK about it would be great.
I second this. Here’s a good link to get people started on the fundamentals:
http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=7502
This resonates. My God, it resonates. Especially the wave imagery of the turbulent sea.
In my youth I felt adrift, rudderless amid the patternless storm, and I learned a lot of hard lessons about myself as I began a career in a ruthlessly demanding, very masculine and hierarchical organization – at sea, as it happens. But though the Royal Navy instilled structure and imposed its discipline upon my professional life, dreaming the dream and discovering that there were, actually, pattern and meaning in life itself was to come from somewhere within.
It was an interesting journey and, though I had a curiosity about such things, the kick in the pants that got me going came from some strange things that happened to me. I mean strange as in odd. Very odd. The process of discovery never really stopped, but by the time its main surge was over I had a guiding vision that did indeed shape my external world as Quintus says. It’s weird stuff, a blend of physics and mysticism, somewhere between Christianity and Buddhism I suppose, but it suited me and proved to be a guiding star through all the storms that were yet to come. So far as I know it’s completely original, but I share Cui Pertinebit’s faith in God and wholeheartedly agree about finding the path to conviction.
Eventually I wrote and published a book in which that extraordinary time – the ships, the people, the operations, the strange notions and all the women – is recalled from a jail in Florida. Yes, that happened too, and yes, it was a woman who set me up for that experience, though she was not to know that it would gift me with the linking theme for the story I’d been itching to write for years before. It’s called “The Divine Sea” and, as someone says towards the end, “We’re all sailors in this sea, mate.”
The man I was then was Blue Pill, an AFC living a memorable life. But here I am at ROK, Red Pill swallowed, learning more each day and therefore typical of so many of us. The voyage goes on.
Thank you for this Quintus. You always manage to make me think deeply about life.
A very well-written article, thank you.
Sources were cited, well done.
Did you credit or ask the artist for using the painting “Pamlico Storm”?