When the entire progressive movement is founded upon the abnegation of the divine and worship of the self, the belief that each person is infinitely perfectible and that wishes and desires are better than thought, logic and truth, that indeed there is no truth, only one’s “own” truth, what is the movement to surrender to? Their entire worldview is dependent upon this, and without it, they have nothing. Once the only “god” is one’s own desires du jour, there is no future beyond life, and no interest in any good other than the good one desires for oneself. Attempting to destroy any culture that believes differently is vital to this worldview, and expecting the progressive worldview to change on its own will not succeed.
Since conservatism has surrendered culture and education as well as entertainment and media to the left, we have precious little left in our quiver. I fully agree with the statements, but how to proceed? DW and Substack have begun to open cracks, and getting some connection with the young is vital. I don’t have the answers, but am not very optimistic about the short term. However, that is my nature. I will not give up, as that is also not in my nature, and we already know the end of the story, as Fr Scott likes to say. We need to work on subsidiarity, working with the local people, in our communities, and bearing witness wherever possible. Doing so without words works best.
You can really see the devil's fingerprints all over this ideology. It's the ultimate inversion of truth and how things work in reality. The spiritual is subordinated to the physical, love is subordinated to power dynamics, the soul and mind are subordinated to feelings, and the best things of Man, like forgiveness and hope, are not even existent. The ultimate goal of all of this is so obviously to subordinate God to me.
And how's all that working out in reality? Is anyone better off? But that's the cunning-ness(?) of the lie, what makes it so brilliant. You can, truly, have whatever you want, but be careful what you wish for.
It reminds me of that radio guy that's been going around recently, if I were the devil. If I were the devil I would have an entire ideology that looked just like Woke/Progressive/Postmodernism and then I would enforce this ideology in every school, preschool through post-graduate, to adhere to it, thus ensnaring entire generations of people in it, making them believe they could and should subordinate God and his people to themselves and their every passing whim, while simultaneously convincing the indoctrinated they are the good ones and everyone who opposes them are evil.
This is the danger of losing the institutions, but most importantly, education. The future is dictated most by the ideology of education. Whatever schools teach and value, you will see everywhere in 15-20 years.
The enormous weight of conscience is one of the reasons for the sacrament of Confession. The Lord wants us to lives full, happy lives. He knows, and the Church knows, that we cannot do that if our consciences are not clear.
It is a feeling too though. Or rather the absence of a feeling. Its forcing your will against the anger or resentment felt towards people. Sometimes it takes time and practice before you can let go of resentment but there is no forgiveness in its presence.
Turn the other cheek. If he takes your shirt, also give him your coat. Walk the extra mile. All creative ways to stand up for your principles while taking the unnatural steps of resolving conflict through God's desire for us to forgive and win over hearts.
"But we clutch so desperately at our precious figments of virtue that we can’t admit we recognize ourselves in other people’s nakedness."
I think it's precisely this universal participation in sin, nakedness, and guilt that Doestoevsky is talking about in the good Father Zosima's words which I'll paraphrase and condense with "we are all responsible for every person and every person's sin". For within the burden of guilt and the act of forgiveness we see ourselves, our own participation in the sin of our brother, and in seeing this, we see ourselves in him and he in us. We are linked in universality and, in my opinion, some kind of spiritual reality as well, probably what the Catholic Church calls the Communion of the Saints, which has something to do with our mystical union in God, but now I've strayed beyond my comfort and knowledge.
And those are all good words and all, "we're all united, we all need to forgive and love with the love of God." But what do we do when someone offends us, hurts us, or hurts someone we love. That's when the rubber really hits the road and we see that reality is a lot bigger and harder to accomplish than words can express. Or as Portia says (in another paraphrase) "if only taking advice was as easy as giving it."
But when we zoom out even more, and something I've been thinking about and wrestling with for years is, how does a nation heal from its own wounds of guilt, caused by the sins of men in power, and/or our own countrymen or even ourselves? How do we climb out of the black hole of the Holocaust? How do we come back from that healthily in any way?
The women of the Civil War seemed to climb out of the worst calamity of their time and make as meaningful a symbolic action of healing and unity as they could. They addressed the wounds caused by the war in an incredibly difficult and beautiful act for the desire of unity. But they, and everyone else, failed to address the underlying wound that caused the war in the first place.
What would a similar act have looked like to address the wound caused by slavery? Maybe the first step to national healing is to acknowledge the wound, and maybe why nations and people often don't take that first step is they would rather hide from their guilt, like Adam, then confront and heal from the forgiveness of it. If we don't, try, though, we find ourselves where we are now, buried under at least a century and a half's worth of national guilt.
Only the all encompassing expiation of Christ is enough to lead us out again, but doesn't a nation, like an individual, have to make some kind of a move in that direction for there to be any kind of meaningful national change? Otherwise we're in danger of continuing the way we have been, trying to dig our way out of the hole we're spiritually stuck in, and just getting deeper in it.
Note that slavery is not unique to our country, and until the nineteenth century was all but universal. It is still practiced in asia and africa. It is Western culture and particularly anglo-american culture which stopped it and waged a bloody war to stop it. This does not expiate our sins, but it does indicate the universality of evil, and humanity's ability to rise above it, often with faltering steps and badly, but in the proper direction.
As for me, my ancestors came to the US starting in 1900. I reject the "slavery built this country" nonsense. Should slavery have come to an end sooner, and should we have stopped prejudice and Jim Crow sooner? Of course, but it did happen. It is a difficult thing to fight millenia of prior practice in favor of the new and better?
These ladies who strewed the flower petals were on to something, and they were heroic in their actions.
I don't think we can state merely "men in power" causing the sins of slavery, injustice and all the rest when these are part of the human failures for as long as humans were, well, human. Right down to the tribal levels, many of these actions are found, even today. As Klavan the elder says, Athens and Jerusalem were the civilizing forces of western thought, and slowly led us from barbarity and tribalism.
My siblings and I loved that movie. We could recite the entire thing word for word for an embarrassingly long time (yes, we do have autism diagnoses, why do you ask?).
To actually get to the point, though, it seems as if the movie itself also presents some amount of the solution: poverty (they lose all the gold), chastity (they bring the girl with them), obedience (they follow the dictates of their conscience to save the city).
When the entire progressive movement is founded upon the abnegation of the divine and worship of the self, the belief that each person is infinitely perfectible and that wishes and desires are better than thought, logic and truth, that indeed there is no truth, only one’s “own” truth, what is the movement to surrender to? Their entire worldview is dependent upon this, and without it, they have nothing. Once the only “god” is one’s own desires du jour, there is no future beyond life, and no interest in any good other than the good one desires for oneself. Attempting to destroy any culture that believes differently is vital to this worldview, and expecting the progressive worldview to change on its own will not succeed.
Since conservatism has surrendered culture and education as well as entertainment and media to the left, we have precious little left in our quiver. I fully agree with the statements, but how to proceed? DW and Substack have begun to open cracks, and getting some connection with the young is vital. I don’t have the answers, but am not very optimistic about the short term. However, that is my nature. I will not give up, as that is also not in my nature, and we already know the end of the story, as Fr Scott likes to say. We need to work on subsidiarity, working with the local people, in our communities, and bearing witness wherever possible. Doing so without words works best.
You can really see the devil's fingerprints all over this ideology. It's the ultimate inversion of truth and how things work in reality. The spiritual is subordinated to the physical, love is subordinated to power dynamics, the soul and mind are subordinated to feelings, and the best things of Man, like forgiveness and hope, are not even existent. The ultimate goal of all of this is so obviously to subordinate God to me.
And how's all that working out in reality? Is anyone better off? But that's the cunning-ness(?) of the lie, what makes it so brilliant. You can, truly, have whatever you want, but be careful what you wish for.
It reminds me of that radio guy that's been going around recently, if I were the devil. If I were the devil I would have an entire ideology that looked just like Woke/Progressive/Postmodernism and then I would enforce this ideology in every school, preschool through post-graduate, to adhere to it, thus ensnaring entire generations of people in it, making them believe they could and should subordinate God and his people to themselves and their every passing whim, while simultaneously convincing the indoctrinated they are the good ones and everyone who opposes them are evil.
This is the danger of losing the institutions, but most importantly, education. The future is dictated most by the ideology of education. Whatever schools teach and value, you will see everywhere in 15-20 years.
The enormous weight of conscience is one of the reasons for the sacrament of Confession. The Lord wants us to lives full, happy lives. He knows, and the Church knows, that we cannot do that if our consciences are not clear.
It became much easier to forgive when I learned that it's an act of the will and not a feeling.
It is a feeling too though. Or rather the absence of a feeling. Its forcing your will against the anger or resentment felt towards people. Sometimes it takes time and practice before you can let go of resentment but there is no forgiveness in its presence.
Turn the other cheek. If he takes your shirt, also give him your coat. Walk the extra mile. All creative ways to stand up for your principles while taking the unnatural steps of resolving conflict through God's desire for us to forgive and win over hearts.
So the weary and heavy-laden could include the very poor, and the poor in spirit, along with the affluent pious types. Thats interesting.
"But we clutch so desperately at our precious figments of virtue that we can’t admit we recognize ourselves in other people’s nakedness."
I think it's precisely this universal participation in sin, nakedness, and guilt that Doestoevsky is talking about in the good Father Zosima's words which I'll paraphrase and condense with "we are all responsible for every person and every person's sin". For within the burden of guilt and the act of forgiveness we see ourselves, our own participation in the sin of our brother, and in seeing this, we see ourselves in him and he in us. We are linked in universality and, in my opinion, some kind of spiritual reality as well, probably what the Catholic Church calls the Communion of the Saints, which has something to do with our mystical union in God, but now I've strayed beyond my comfort and knowledge.
And those are all good words and all, "we're all united, we all need to forgive and love with the love of God." But what do we do when someone offends us, hurts us, or hurts someone we love. That's when the rubber really hits the road and we see that reality is a lot bigger and harder to accomplish than words can express. Or as Portia says (in another paraphrase) "if only taking advice was as easy as giving it."
But when we zoom out even more, and something I've been thinking about and wrestling with for years is, how does a nation heal from its own wounds of guilt, caused by the sins of men in power, and/or our own countrymen or even ourselves? How do we climb out of the black hole of the Holocaust? How do we come back from that healthily in any way?
The women of the Civil War seemed to climb out of the worst calamity of their time and make as meaningful a symbolic action of healing and unity as they could. They addressed the wounds caused by the war in an incredibly difficult and beautiful act for the desire of unity. But they, and everyone else, failed to address the underlying wound that caused the war in the first place.
What would a similar act have looked like to address the wound caused by slavery? Maybe the first step to national healing is to acknowledge the wound, and maybe why nations and people often don't take that first step is they would rather hide from their guilt, like Adam, then confront and heal from the forgiveness of it. If we don't, try, though, we find ourselves where we are now, buried under at least a century and a half's worth of national guilt.
Only the all encompassing expiation of Christ is enough to lead us out again, but doesn't a nation, like an individual, have to make some kind of a move in that direction for there to be any kind of meaningful national change? Otherwise we're in danger of continuing the way we have been, trying to dig our way out of the hole we're spiritually stuck in, and just getting deeper in it.
Note that slavery is not unique to our country, and until the nineteenth century was all but universal. It is still practiced in asia and africa. It is Western culture and particularly anglo-american culture which stopped it and waged a bloody war to stop it. This does not expiate our sins, but it does indicate the universality of evil, and humanity's ability to rise above it, often with faltering steps and badly, but in the proper direction.
As for me, my ancestors came to the US starting in 1900. I reject the "slavery built this country" nonsense. Should slavery have come to an end sooner, and should we have stopped prejudice and Jim Crow sooner? Of course, but it did happen. It is a difficult thing to fight millenia of prior practice in favor of the new and better?
These ladies who strewed the flower petals were on to something, and they were heroic in their actions.
I don't think we can state merely "men in power" causing the sins of slavery, injustice and all the rest when these are part of the human failures for as long as humans were, well, human. Right down to the tribal levels, many of these actions are found, even today. As Klavan the elder says, Athens and Jerusalem were the civilizing forces of western thought, and slowly led us from barbarity and tribalism.
My siblings and I loved that movie. We could recite the entire thing word for word for an embarrassingly long time (yes, we do have autism diagnoses, why do you ask?).
To actually get to the point, though, it seems as if the movie itself also presents some amount of the solution: poverty (they lose all the gold), chastity (they bring the girl with them), obedience (they follow the dictates of their conscience to save the city).
YOU NEVER REBUFF
YOU NEVER REBUFF
The word that always give me peace - surrender.