The postmodern ideology really suffers from having a near-total divergence between the mindset of the intellectual elite, which is more obscure and consigned to the margins than ever, and the mindset of the masses. This divergence has always existed to an extent, but in the history of Europe, the men of letters had a great effect in shaping cultural life. Now, the only thing they are 'useful' for is to churn out scientific and technical innovations, and apart from that to sit and rot in the moth-eaten halls of academia.
I am not terribly interested in most of the currents of science today except for the purer forms, that is physics and mathematics, which are both closest to the old philosophy. And in these fields, a small remnant of the intellectually rigorous thought of the old times lives on. The modern physicist might be able to give some due to people like Kant and Schopenhauer for, in their philosophies, predicting many of the things that would now more-or-less be taken for granted. Among the more enlightened of these, then, the old understanding of metaphysics may be alive and well.
But the popular worldview, and the cultural energies (such as they are), are oriented now toward only the most crass and embarrassing activities. Science is constantly invoked in the instruments of propaganda, but the masses have no understanding of any of it. I've come to realize, also, that the pop-science worldview that permeates the MSM and all public spaces, has little in common with actual science. If anything it's an antipode of science. It seems to put conclusions ahead of experimentation and trim evidence to fit them as needed, and needless to say, that isn't science.
But the perversion of science to mislead the masses is not really the worst part of it. Instead it is the total corruption of metaphysics in the West that is worthy of the highest contempt. Atheism is a kind way of putting it, and doesn't really capture the dark heart of the rot. Denial of God is bad enough, since I take the traditional European view of these things, but it's really completely beyond that. It's more along the lines of a nihilistic sensualism that denies anything higher in life. It's totally focused on vanity, brutality, and hysteria. This is what is properly called evil.
Even materialism, flawed metaphysic or no, is actually above this. Materialism must logically imply eternity for anyone who has thought about it for a moment, if the propositions of modern physics are correct. For matter is energy in a certain state, so they say, and energy is neither created nor destroyed, hence is eternal and only 'transformed'. This, to me, is eminently compatible with traditional metaphysics so long as we allow for the existence of non-material 'energies' as well (which we must, as the human mind, for instance, is not material), and do not give the world of matter precedence over the inner world from which it proceeds.
I do not believe it would be false to say that the men who built the higher culture of Europe with their unique combination of intellect and psychic energy would be appalled to see where it all lead. But that is what happens when what Plato called 'the men of iron souls' are allowed to rule. It cannot but happen, when those who hold the authority are only of the appetitive character. The dross of postmodernity, shorn of any remaining dignity by advanced technics and social chaos, are adrift in a world that is doomed and their leaders are unable to offer anything more than further decay.
I do not mean to suggest that there is no hope, for hope is one of God's great gifts to man, and is never extinguished so long as even one good or partially good man yet lives. And I have no doubt that many good men yet live. But a return to normality would entail a return to the ways of life that make proper human affairs orderly. The only necessary castes, as observed in the Medieval times, are knight, boor and priest. No other caste is necessary, and the traditional states that realized this and severely limited commerce were the longest ones to last - Tokugawa Japan, Byzantium.
PS I hope to add to this a bit more when I am able.
I also should have mentioned, and I really do believe this is a huge factor, the dysgenic effects of the 19-20c wars on the European population. We've really never recovered from that time. The exhaustion of the higher castes in war allowed for the further consolidation of the power of the bourgeoisie, and contributed much to the downfall of higher culture.
ReplyDeleteI now think it couldn't really have happened any other than the way it did. A friend of mine and I had a chat last year and we agreed the Europeans on the eve of WWI had been a "super race" of sorts, ruthlessly selected over centuries for empire and expansion. The problem of that is immediately apparent: All those peoples had the same impulse at the same time toward each other. It was bound to blow up at one point. Imperial peoples tend to contain within them the seeds of their own destruction. How did we end up with the Levantine Priesthood of today? Well, they're one of the residue castes that emerged to lead previous completed high cultures in their civilized phase, and they were ready to step in when our own aristocrats began to falter. It happened in other places and times too.
ReplyDeleteThe tone of these earlier essays is kind of "Hesiodic" in that I believed we were in a terminal age of decline and I felt in a pessimistic or even depressive mood about it. I still think we're in an age of decline, more than ever, but I also see it as part of the normal cycles or fluctuations of history, and I also don't feel particularly depressive about it anymore. It's just something that happens, like people aging and passing away.
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