Culture – Page 17

The Work of Social Atomization

The common error was to believe that if the individual were liberated from the smaller organic groups he would be set free. But in actual fact, he was exposed to the influence of mass currents, to the influence of the stage, and direct integration into mass society. Finally, uprooted, the individual became much less stable.

Jacque Ellul

Propaganda; The Formation of Men’s Attitude

1.) Most men are chameleons. They will blend into their socio-cultural background. Strip man of the Institutional covenantal backgrounds of a decidedly Christian family, community, and church, and man will not cease to be a chameleon. Instead, man will begin to blend into the larger pagan background of the pagan state, the pagan media-cultural complex, and the pagan legal framework.

Paradoxically enough, the Atomization of man that Ellul chronicles here does the yeoman work of creating mass man.

2.) On the issue of the uprooted individual becoming much less stable, I would contend that this is creating a kind of social insanity. Social sanity requires the kind of stability of which Ellul laments the loss. This kind of stability requires long established community and familial infrastructure, customs and routines that are inter-generational, and a sense of place. All those have been largely lost.

The uprootedness (the social insanity) that we often see in our social order can be directly traced back to the loss of our organic groups.

3.) However, this uprootedness serves the interest of the heathen state

An unstable and uprooted people are not likely to have the foundation or moral capital upon which to rebuke and resist the tyrannical state. It is a net positive for the usurpatious state to uproot and destabilize its citizenry because in doing so there is job security for the bureaucratic class.

Inescapability of Religion In Driving Culture

“The culture of a people [is] an incarnation of its religion,” and “no culture has appeared or developed — except together with a religion. . . .”
T. S. Eliot
Notes towards the Definition of Culture, pp. 32, 13

Of course, the drum that Eliot is beating here is a drum that is often beat on Iron Ink. Religion is the animating spirit of culture and culture is the visible expression of religion. It is proper to make a distinction between them but they cannot be isolated from one another. Culture is the body of which religion is the animating soul. When I look at a culture I am seeing its religion. When I examine a people’s religion, their culture makes sense.

As an extension of this the form of civil Government of a people, being a part of their culture, is also a manifestation of their religion. All States are organized religiously. There is no such thing as a state that has separated itself from the religion of its church. Now, it may take some doing to locate what is serving as the Church to the State (Temple, Shrine, Government Schools, Mosque, etc.) but the idea of separation of Church and State is at best an illusion and always a surd.

Now, many of been my conversation partners who have denounced this idea. They have contended that it is past obvious that the Church is in decline, and if they are talking about organized Christianity or organized religion in general, they might be right. Recently, in the publishing world, it has been open season on organized religion and religious observances. It is understandable that people might observe that we are living in increasingly profane times.

Not so.

The total amount of faith of a people (or a person) never dissipates though it may change the object of its affection that it sets itself upon. The faith tank remains full. Only the service of the god the faith fuel is being burned for changes.

To locate the new religion in service of the new god one has to identify the new sacred center of a social order. This is done by identifying a people group’s borders of what is tolerated and what is not tolerated. What kind of speech is blasphemous? Who defines unacceptable behavior and what must be done to remove the guilt of said behavior?

This means that there are no “ages of irreligion,” or “ages of skepticism.” Organized religions may recede but they recede in favor unorganized or embryonic religions. Curiously, it is the “so called” skeptics who write the books denouncing religion who are most obviously full of the inescapable religious impulse. Their objection is not religion as it is other people’s religion that they don’t approve of — a disapproval only arrived at as informed by whatever religion they harbor.

An interesting phenomenon when organized Christianity goes into decline is the rising of the Shaman. The Shaman is thought of being a person uniquely in touch with the spirit-world. Indeed, he is often the bridge between the unknown and the known. He often is the incarnation himself of the god’s will or even of the god.

Contemporary Shamans in our enlightenment culture are most often found in the field of Psychiatry. The Psychologist-Psychiatrist knows what the laymen cannot know about himself and the laymen visits the Shrink-Shaman in order to be cured of what ails him. The Psychiatrist Witch Doctor identifies the sin, and for a price provides an incremental cure for the sin.

Contemporary Shamans in more animistic cultures will typically direct their customers to a potion or spell or a ghost dance or a spirit-animal to provide relief. But whether in antiseptic materialistic enlightenment cultures or in animistic spiritist cultures the Shaman always rises when objective Christianity goes into abeyance. In our religio-culture in the West, one can find both expressions. Whether it is some form of psychoanalysis for urban professionals or whether it is astrology or necromancy for those in the santeria cult in New Orleans or New York city the Shaman arises when organized Christianity recedes.

Note, though that religion never disappears. Never. Man as Homo Adorans is a hopelessly religious being and all cultures are merely religion poured over ethnicity.

Oh … and as an addendum, this is why R2K is a lousy theology. There is no common square that is not an expression of some religion. R2K would have us believe that culture is religion free, operating instead on the basis of some potentially common Natural laws. Don’t you believe it! All law is religious law and the minute one surrenders Christianity as the cult behind the culture some other religion and god will own the culture.

The Connection Between The Second Amendment And Government Schools

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” Trump said to boos from the crowd.

“By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” he then added.

“Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Donald J. Trump

1.) Hillary Clinton does indeed support abolishing the Second Amendment. At a townhall meeting recently Clinton responded to a question regarding the desire to clamp down on gun ownership by saying,

“the [Australian] government was able to curtail the supply and set a different standard for gun purchases in the future.”

Clinton finished by saying,

“It would be worth considering doing it on the national level.”

Clinton wants to take your Second Amendment God given rights away. In such a context it is fitting and proper for her opponent to note that such an action may well lead to unfavorable consequences.

2.) Our Marxist media is hyperventilating over the fact that Trump noted that Americans in 2016 might take the same actions against a Government that seeks to seize their weapons as Americans in 1776 took when the Government sought to seize their weapons.

Trump is not calling for political assassination. He is merely saying that if the FEDS come for guns some people may not go quietly into the night. This is an objective fact.

Today’s media would have supported the British in 1776.

3.) People who are so exercised in protecting the Second Amendment are a curious lot. I say that because many many of them are so incredibly hostile to any idea of seizing their weapons and yet they turn right around and willingly give up their children to be brainwashed in Government schools. If all the people who are intensely pro-Second Amendment had not sent their children to Government schools to be propagandized into Cultural Marxist thinking no politician would ever dare bring up the idea of overturning the Second Amendment since there would not be the public support for such a policy.

4.) Clearly, rabid Second Amendment types, by their actions, demonstrate that keeping their weapons is more important than keeping their children. The same rabidness about protecting our guns from the clutches of the FEDS should be applied to protecting our children from the clutches of the FEDS. Indeed, keeping our children is more important than keeping our guns, if only because guns need trigger fingers to squeeze the trigger in order to be effective and if we keep our children there will be more children with more trigger fingers in order to fire back at the FEDS when they seek to exercise their tyranny. If you want your children to share your conviction about the Second Amendment and its importance then take them out of Government Schools.

5.) If people desire to be truly consistent about their opposition to gun control then they should be equally opposed to children control. If you really love your guns do your children a favor and get them out of Government schools.

Who Does the Shaping?

“This is what this election is about — who will have the power to shape our children for the next four to eight years of their lives.”

~Michelle Obama @ the DNC

Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers

Thomas Hodgskin

1.) I’ll make the obvious but necessary observation that this is an example of the State thinking that it is the State’s role to shape our children. Parents are merely instruments of the State.

2.) Look folks, this culture has been cooked for decades. Anybody who has managed to get out of the statist Matrix and on to the good ship Nebuchadnezzar (Matrix reference) and so out of the State conditioned culture are already the exception. It simply is the case already that the State is shaping most Children. One way we know that is that the shaping process means adults remain intellectually children. Only a handful of people would have ever caught Michelle’s words as irregular.

SCOTUS Gives White Kids A Lift Up With Quota Requirements

White kids everywhere were rejoicing when it was announced today that the US Supreme Court decided that University of Texas admission official may legally consider the race of student applicants in a limited way in order to build a diverse student body on the UT campus.

Knowledgeable White students realize that the implication of this ruling is that their chances of making it into historically black schools like Grambling State University and Alcorn State University were now dramatically improved thanks to the SCOTUS ruling.

Wise Latina female Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer was quoted as saying, “It’s long past time that White children have the same opportunity at these prestigious Universities that others have had.”

The decision was a surprising win for advocates of affirmative action, who say the benefits of diversity at the nation’s colleges and universities are worth completely ignoring the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection that forbids and makes no provision for the government making decisions based on racial classifications.

Some Supreme Court watchers and legal experts believe that the implications of this decisions will mean more white point guards on NCAA division one teams as well as a influx of White and perhaps even Asian defensive lineman on University football teams. Sports professionals insisted that one implication of this decision would be the diminution of quality at these positions in the future. One General Manager of an NBA team said, “I look for the output at the point guard position in the NBA to decline over the next 15 years.

The Obama Administration’s response to the SCOTUS decision was mixed. White bread White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said to reporters that, “I look forward to the day when a Kenyan can hold this position. Diversity is the strength in the Spokesperson business.”