The ‘Solway Statement’, revisited

[Santiago Odo]

The entire document is here.

The purpose of this review is to approach David’s statement from an angle that, as far as I am aware, did not receive attention in the numerous pages that ensued as David’s ‘accusations’ were contested by the local geniuses. My interest is in examining structures of belief and, as I have said in numerous postings recently, to attempt to notice and to describe how in a situation where a previous total metaphysic has collapsed — has slowly collapsed and continues to collapse — a dangerous psychic situation arises in which people experience acute *desperation* and are forced to arrive at conclusive views which aid them in holding their selves together in the face of an onslaught.

As a result of and a response to my encounter with the Genius Forum I have come to see my involvement here as, shall I say, necessary in the philosophical sense. If I use such a term I do connect it, loosely perhaps, with notions of ‘Providence’. That for me means that in the process of living life here in this plane of manifestation there are guiding powers difficult, perhaps impossible, to give name to. What I mean to say is that it had been ‘necessary’ as well as providential to have entered into a radically desperate space as I understand GF to be and to experience it as a manifestation of *nihilistic processes*, and processes of psychic dislocation, that correspond in some aspects to the strange movement in ideas that one discovers in the various conspiracy movements that have devloped mostly in the Postwar period.

To define that is to be able, dimly or clearly, to perceive it. And to perceive *it* would mean to have achieved a sort of fulcrum of perception; a position outside of the currents of shifting perception and fluctuating metaphyscs that has all of us in its grip. In order to have such a fulcrum of perception is to have available to one the perspective of a ‘master metaphysician’, yet I do not know of such a person and am making no reference to anyone specific. My object is simply to propose that such a position is possible and in this sense attainable. And further to propose that it is only attainable through study and familiarity with what I loosely call *our traditions*. Therefor, disconnection from our traditions is seen as erroneous, insofar as we are living and walking representatives of them, and that re-connection is required — not advised but required — in order to recover the distressed and desperate self from calamity. Thus ‘desperation’ and the extemist choices that seem necessitated by calamitous conditions is understood to be destructive and undesirable and, of course, to be resisted. I further assert that no one has any clear ideas how to recover the submerged self and that this is, to put it under a simple term, what *nihilism* is in essence.

What is horrifying to the geniuses is that the lens of view is turned around and that they are placed under that lens. In general their position is understood (by them) to be an ascendent one and to provide them with a Cat Bird’s Seat. The geniuses are the critics of all human social and civilizational processes and, by definition, stand outside of these, and having gained ‘true knowledge’ and having established themselves on that platform, pontificate to others, working to draw them in to accept what amounts to a specific religious position described not as such but as ‘reason’. It is safer to say that it is rationalistic but not necessarily reasoning. And therein is, as I see it, an essential core : this hard structure of view could be said to have more in common with cultic and conspiracist strategies than it does with the *real* traditions of Occidental reason. But I recognize the problematic in this statement.
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In relation to David’s confrontation with Kevin, which would seem to have a certain commonality with ruptures within religious organizations or, as I suggest, within fringe and conspiratorial groups who struggle to make sense of their world when that world has become dangerous, I have extracted these comments:

Eric wrote: “As I see it, Trump is a demon that has taken solid form.”

David commented: “I think you're onto something here. Right from the beginning, there has been a very dark element to Trump’s candidacy, which has placed people under a spell. No matter how much Trump lied openly to people, or offended them with his crassness, or revealed how incompetent he was, or openly showed how fascist he was going to govern - no one seemed to mind. Indeed, it just made him even more popular. Only a demon has the power to do that.”

Diebert wrote: “As for American politics, to be honest I'm surprised you're engaged with the topic as much as you sound here.”

David responded: “I can’t ignore the signs. The end times are upon us. We have to prepare.” [Italics mine].
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Obviously, it is necessary to see these statements in what I suppose is safe to call a ‘post-Christian context’. But this is part of what I find compelling and interesting about them, and then of course as GF as a manifestation of such post-Christianity. What that means, of course, is a condition that I describe as post-metaphysics or collapsed metaphysics. That is, the totality of the perceptual system seems to have collapsed — it is no loger *believed in* — but yet at the same time the general structure of the System is still there, functioning like a *ghost*. I propose that when one examines the entire perceptual world of the Postwar in the light of the conspiricist movement[s], one discovers that the Viewstructure is essentially intact but the elements and the terms of the narrative have morphed and expanded to include new and extraneous elements, the detritus, as it were, of modernity.

Therefor, when I say that man lives in and operates from a position within his *imagined world* what I mean is that each man is forced to articulate, consciously or unconciously, decisively or more as something received, his vision of The World, which means some level of description about how he came to be *here* and what he is to do here. The only place where this is done and can be done is in man’s imagined world. Certain of my references here have come from a reading of Michael Barkun’s A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions of Contemporary America, and though I find that his approach is dismissive of some of the main elements of conspiricist thought (it could not be otherwise in a scholarly work published by a university press), I am definitely not one to simply dismiss conspiratorial notions. In fact it is quite the opposite. As an example I can arrive at no perceptual alternative but to understand 9/11 as a prime event of a conspiratorial nature, and my view is that it is quite rational to arrive at this conclusion if one examines the conventional narrative. But what is important to notice, and to state, is that it is not so much the initial perception (about a given conspiracy) that is *wrong* but rather all that accretes on it, over it, around it. It leads into a perceptual labyrinth where, it seems, the imagination becomes unhinged.

But since that ‘unhinging’ is part of my understanding of what has motivated our friends at GF, it becomes necessary to trace the unhinging back, causally, to a source.

Well, here you have my preamble. I asked David 2 or 3 times to define what he meant by End Times, and though I am sure that he read my request he declined to explain himself, likely because he saw that by doing so he would wind up in a difficult zone. It is an apocalyptic idea, of course, and it is not strictly Christian. The last Incarnation of Vishnu, Kalki, shares features with the vengeful returning God of The Revelation. But what I find interesting in whatever source of Apocalypse one recurs to is the idea that it is the metaphysics itself, the God of the way things Truly Are, who comes back with terrifying vengeance to *correct* the deviance and, essentially, to destroy the malefactor. It shoud go without saying that we are, indeed we are, in an emerging psychic battle in which these are the defining terms.

This is just the overt element in a perceptual and moral-hysterical critique of *Trump* who, let us be honest, is inflected with sulphuric odor. Perhaps he is evil, perhaps he is not, and this is not really what matters. What matters is the *space* where man’s imagined world takes place and, of course, what are the basic elements in his operational metaphysics.

[Santiago Odo]

David gives glimpses into, as it were, his Worldview:

This is what we all face now. A lunatic who makes up policy on a whim without bothering to consider facts. Virtually all of Trump’s views and policies thus far either rest on “alternative facts”, or on no facts at all. Whether it be the big beautiful wall, the immigration ban against those seven countries, the investigation into 3 to 5 million illegal voters, the war on climate change policy, linking autism to vaccines, equating Putin’s regime with a normal democracy, attacking the judiciary, attacking the intelligence services, asserting the need to engage in trade wars, and so on ad infinitum - nearly all of it is based on information that is purely fictitious. Who needs facts when you can get by with exploiting the fear and ignorance of your followers?

I am no politician, but even I know there is no way on God’s earth that policies created in a fact-free environment are going to make anything great again, let alone America. The consequences of this foolishness, not just for Americans but for all of us across the world, will be devastating. Yet Kevin Solway is perfectly ok with all this because, and note this well, Trump also promises to sweep away the evil feminists and social justice warriors. For it seems they are the ones who constitute the biggest threat to humanity.

If Trump manages to succeed in his hostile take-over of America and installs a totalitarian regime, do his followers really believe that things will be better? Do they honestly think there is going to be more freedom of speech, an unbiased media, universities free of political correctness and all that? Is Trump really the man to create this Utopia? One look at the man tells you no. He is, simply put, an unfettered ball of destruction. If left unchecked, he will sweep away not only the undesirable aspects of the liberal establishment - the feminism and the political correctness - but also everything that makes the liberal establishment great - namely, a free press, a culture of individual rights, a non-politicized judicial system, a non-politicized education system, a cultural deference to expertise, a culture of free scientific inquiry, and so on.

If all these structures are swept away, what will replace them? What will fill the vacuum? Everyone will be as egotistical as ever, we can be sure of that, so what will be left to serve as a check? Not a lot, I would say. Criminals and thugs would be free to take over. Society would go feudal. The values of right-wing Christian fundamentalism would be rammed down our throats. The concept of individual rights would disappear. All in all, it would represent a massive step backwards into the Middle Ages. How will this be an improvement over what we have today? How will this benefit the survival of wisdom? It won’t, clearly. And yet Kevin Solway is perfectly okay with such a prospect because it means that the evil social justice warriors and feminists, who apparently are the biggest threat to humanity, will also be swept away.
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This needs to be slowly gone through and I think if it is done carefully a great deal can be gained from the process.

I mentioned some posts back — possibly in one that Spider Mother *relocated* for arachnoidal purposes — that it surprised me that so many foreigners had such developed ideas about America and indeed followed the politics and social trends in America so closely. While I suppose this is not hard to undertand, it is interesting to attempt to explain why this is so. In the writing of Pierre Krebs he often speaks of ‘the Americanopolis’ and this is a term I have adopted to refer to this strange entity called America. I am of the opinion, though I won’t go into it just yet, that America is on the verge of, or now undergoing, fracturation. Obviously, this is occuring at an idea level as the sustaining ‘proposition’ (as in ‘propositional nation’) is now beginning to unravel. Therefore, in order to understand what is now happening in the Americanopolis, one has to get a grip on the various strains of ideation which, in David’s statement, are referred to as ‘fascistic’. To get this sense involves a study of the Civil War and the forced creation of a Lincolnian propositional nation. It is in that, and what followed, that the America of the Americanopolis is to be discovered. I have not gotten the impression that any foreigner who I have read here has this understanding. What they seem to have is opinions based on a superficial, glossary view. And into their ‘view’ they project content from their own ‘imagined world’, and in this I refer to the tone and content of David’s critical piece.

Now, to get a more accurate picture of what is going on in this odd country, now beginning to unravel dangerously, I think it more helpful to refer to a more native position and experience of this unraveling-event. Here is an article by Kevin MacDonald that just came out. It is necessary to point out that the roots of this new manifestation of civil conflict have arisen for a host of reasons, and it is important to understand that one large element directly ties to the Lincolnian notion of a ‘propositional nation’. That is, a nation of divergent people and races who agree to live together and create civilization together on the basis of their *agreement* to do so. It is this, shall I say, falsely contrived agreement that is now unraveling. In order to understand this one must understand ‘social engineering’ as a top-down process. And one must understand that the ‘down’ portion in that dynamic, that is, the side that is being engineered, is now approaching a rebellious turning and no longer agrees to agree. The ‘proposition’ begins to come undone.

It is my assertion that Trump represents a strange and peculiar manifestation within the Americanopolis. I do not profess to *understand* him in this sense, but I am using the term Trump more, perhaps, in a Jungian sense : as a manifestation of an unconscious and unrecognized *will*. And I would tentatively locate that *will* within the original demographic of the US and, thus, link Trump’s manifestation to a racialist movement. That is, to one directed to *identitarianism*, to Eurocentrism, to ideas and sentiments that run counter to the liberalist trends that have moulded the world in the 20th century. So, and as I have said in other places, in order to understand this peculiar manifestation (*Trump*) one is advised to turn one’s attention back to the European Interwar Period.

To do this is to look at disturbing ideas, trends and movements within the social body of America and among Americans. And the first order of business, though a strange one, is to examine the American Ku Klux Klan. Why? To answer the question is to immediately involve oneself in a very difficult territory and one where, in essence, the civil conflict now unfolding in America resides. But in brief — and this is my own view just so there is no mistake about that — the KKK came onto the scene as a reactionary movement as-against the social conquest by the North of southern civilization. To understand this as an event, one does well to consider, as a comparative example, the invasion and occuation of Iraq. When a powerful state does such a thing it destroys social fabric and into that vacuum of destruction rushes a compensatory force. The Northern will was to destroy the South and to bring it under its control on many levels. And though the South had been conquered and occupied, it is perhaps just a fact about human resistance that though the *body* was controlled the *spirit* would not allow itself to be controlled. Thus, out of a tremendously destructive upheaval as is a physical war and an occupation, there arose as a pathological reaction a resistance-movement. Yet it did not happen all at once nor consciously. It arose, as I am fond of saying, ‘out of the body’ and as a necessary reaction. The comparison to Iraq is apt insofar as the machinations of invasion, destruction and occupation have led, as many know, to ‘fascistic’ groupings who rush in to fill the void of power vacuum. This is normal and predictable reaction. My assertion (and that of numerous social philosophers now asserting themselves into the world of ideas in Amerca and elsewhere) is that one needs to examine ‘social engineering’ and simultaneously to understand resistance to it.

And one of the first orders of business in breaking out of ‘social engineering’ is to develop contrary narratives. Yet when one is weak, underinformed, *uneducated* and unfamiliar with the larger world, one approaches the necessary topic of contronting the driving narratives of those who seek to control you with cobbled-together narratives that contain disparate, and of course improbable and *illogical* narrative-elements. Therefor, developing counter-narratives becomes a dicey affair and one where man’s ‘imagined world’ and his imagining ability come, starkly but very really — necessarily — into play. One understands oneself to be engaged with a superior enemy who has at his disposal superior narratives that seem, to all purposes, to be ‘true’ and ‘proper’. One finds that sort of narrative in ‘the American civil religion’ : a construction, and ideology, a powerful tool as it were of social manipulation. But one who lacks a solid and complex basis for developing another, competing narrative, will resort to what lies at hand. And what this means is simplistic, binary, but poignant counter-narratives made up of elements that make sense to those who use them. They may be real insofar as they have real elements, but they are unreal insofar as they are, like a great deal of what we think and believe, essentially imagined constructs. I mean only held in the mind and in man’s imagined world. What is ‘true’ is really another conversation . . .

At an extreme (in case you do not get where this is going) that might be conspiratorial ideas that suggest (that confirm as a priori assertions) that the US, for example:

• . . . is controlled by a human elite under the control of reptilian over-masters who are inter-dimensional beings who are themselves involved in a War and opposed by ‘beings of light’, similarly inter-dimensional, who exist here along with all of us and within the kosmos. The ‘common people’ are being held and manipulated by such superior and Machiavellian powers and they seek to assert reclaiming of their power through rebellion and counter-mandating. The first order of business is knowledge and communication of what is known.

In order to gain control and to get out from under an over-reigning idea-set, one requires an idea set capable of countermanding, as is the case, the one that seeks to assert theirs against your own. Consider the Klan, Ruby Ridge, Waco and Christian Identity in this light and things make more sense. But one could also find a similar structure on the Liberal left.

In the weeks and months ahead — years perhaps! — more on these topics will be brought out. Yet I think the idea is crucial: to see and to understand how counter-narratives develop, why they develop, and how they are used by people without material and intellectual power to resist those with superior resources who, malevolently in numerous respcts, prey upon them (as all nations are systems that, in their differing ways, establish a flesh-population for an elite class that they herd and feed off of, to put it colorfully).

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Just a short, quick contribution.

Well, here you have my preamble. I asked David 2 or 3 times to define what he meant by End Times, and though I am sure that he read my request he declined to explain himself, likely because he saw that by doing so he would wind up in a difficult zone.

The same questions I had as well but I doubt David meant it that literally. He also wrote not soon after "I still like to think that there are enough intelligent, sensible people in the world who are motivated enough to want to take control and steer the ship through these rocky waters". Which is not the religious "finality" of any End Time.
Another quote from the next page:

I’m not saying that America *will* become a police state, only that Trump is pushing the country in that direction and destabilizing everything in the process. Things might indeed erupt into civil war before then, but that is hardly a better outcome. If America is destabilized, the whole world will be destabilized.

All I read here is fear for instability. Which would be what is underlying a lot these days. psychologically at least, a return to the existentialist fear of the heavens falling on our head. My view on life and existence is pretty wild, a great burning, explosive, unstable and yet persistent. So the attitude Quinn displayed here reads to me like "old age" and I don't mean only biologically.

It's not cynicism to say the world is ending or burning, if it's qualified as a constant state were one can wake up to and redefine it or otherwise succumb to fear or fantasies as some kind of coping.

The following paragraph of Dan might be interesting as well:

Should politics concern a thinker of the Infinite? Maybe. Maybe not. It rather depends on their chosen goals. If one of those goals is the survival and promulgation of truth and reason, and indeed science and intellectual curiosity and integrity at its most basic level, then this current political paradigm in the USA matters, because it represents a threat to those things, as does the rise of intersectional feminism and the patently absurd social thinking it has spawned.

It would make way more sense to see the political paradigm as a sudden, forceful counteraction to " the rise of intersectional feminism and the patently absurd social thinking" which is then seen as legacy of the Obama-Clinton ("clique") politics.

Later on in the discussion the question came up how a Trump administration exactly threatens science, intellect or curiosity. There's little to nothing in the policies which reeks anti-science in particular to me unless climate change becomes part of the discussion. But it's a non-argument as there are still scientific arguments being made even in that discussion. And there is still massive funding for space exploration and high-tech enterprising and fundamental research all over the place under Trump. There's of course a lot of failing "fact check" on a political level but that's nothing new under the sun. For some perhaps "blatant" as if they never engaged in politics before. It has been way, way worse IMO, perhaps a question of rather having 10 big lies than a 1000 small ones? So this critique is about something else entirely, I believe, some underlying contradictions are being exposed, as they sooner or later do.

[Santiago Odo]

The same questions I had as well but I doubt David meant it that literally. He also wrote not soon after "I still like to think that there are enough intelligent, sensible people in the world who are motivated enough to want to take control and steer the ship through these rocky waters". Which is not the religious "finality" of any End Time.

I think you are very wrong, Spider Mother, and this is part of my larger point and also the thrust of my general idea, developed at length.

David especially is a person who functions under the false-notion of being an enlightened being and as such one who *sees reality clearly* and can help others to distinguish that reality; guide their way through it. I call to your attention that this notion is also a tenet in various new-age circles as well as among some of the more outrageous conspiricists. I suggest that this entire ‘enlightenment’ pose is part of the self’s tricks and distortions and, ultimately perhaps, a manifestation of pathology. But I do not mean this as a personal criticism of David. Evidence of this can be found everywhere. Special knowledge, knowledge difficult of attainment, and knowledge gained through coming under the influence of a special teacher ... this is what functions at David’s core. And GF was begun under that general idea. More than an idea really. It is a reactionary idea which leads to a reactionary praxis.

The entire structure of his self and his person is built on this peculiar self-perception. It is, overall, a declared stance. It is essentially religious though not seen as such by him. In my view, when a statement about End Times is brought out, it arises out of a certain unconsciousness. Demons, the demoniac, Trump, his republican or post-republican politics, the anger of atmospheric gods (global warming and the terrors of change) : these are sub-rational aspects of perception that, psychologically, affect us all. They surge up into perception.

In my view — tentative perhaps — I see those who see themselves as having the most stable and hardened rationalistic core as being, in odd ways, most susceptible to their own unconscious currents.

You might also say that the world-scale hyper-liberal-left does not take *literally* its projected perception that Trump (et al) represent a demonic possession. Yet it structures a view based in these notions as *sentiments*, as shadows, as lurking perceptions.

In any case, the point is still larger and it has to do with collapsed metaphysics, the estranged soul, and the desperate choices of people under the stress of desperation.

A ‘thinker of the infinite’ means what exactly? Clearly, a concerned Occidental, aware of his time and place, and concerned and involved in his culture and civilization would not ever have to pose such an idiotic question as if it had any weight at all.

Obviously, we have to think about politics. It is really the most basic tenet of Platonism and, for us, philosophy is tied, intimately, to Greco-Christian notions.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

You might also say that the world-scale hyper-liberal-left does not take *literally* its projected perception that Trump (et al) represent a demonic possession. Yet it structures a view based in these notions as *sentiments*, as shadows, as lurking perceptions.

This was just about your somewhat distorted view on typical apocalyptic thought, which is really simply about finalities, at least how it functions within religions. It's not simply another change or transformation: it's the end, contrapuntal to a beginning, like a creation myth. What has a beginning, requires an ending. Linear time. Desire the one (eg past), fear the other (eg future).

This is all textbook stuff and everyone is free to departure from this in their own fantastic ways. But it's hard that way to get meaningful conversations going. I mean "the idea that it is the metaphysics itself, the God of the way things Truly Are, who comes back with terrifying vengeance" -- has simply nothing to do with how Quinn is talking about this. Although the notions of ressentiment in late Christian theology is well known territory. The concept of vengefulness: way older and different.

... to *correct* the deviance and, essentially, to destroy the malefactor. In any case, the point is still larger and it has to do with collapsed metaphysics, the estranged soul, and the desperate choices of people under the stress of desperation.

Well, everything has to do with that. In any case you're making a rather typical postmodern sounding point about "collapsed metaphysics". For me it's now time to bow out the discussion so far as I do not desire to be the great Satan and challenger; a truth and reality bringer into the macabre dances of the fantastic. But do carry on!

[Santiago Odo]

For me it's now time to bow out the discussion so far as I do not desire to be the great Satan and challenger; a truth and reality bringer into the macabre dances of the fantastic. But do carry on!

This is a form of self-deception insofar as what you desire to do is what you always do: oppose, contradict, derail, meddle, et cetera. It is more proper and honest to simply note what you do. To try to see. To get to the bottom of it. It can be done and it begins by seeing through the narrative you present to who and what you really are, in an intellectual/spiritual sense of course. As *philosopher*. Therefor, when I speak to you (now at least) I try to hold this ordering idea in my mind.

This was just about your somewhat distorted view on typical apocalyptic thought, which is really ...

And so on and so forth. I am quite obviously not interested in apocalypse per se, nor am I writing about apocalypse, but rather I am noting the influence of apocalyptic sensations and ideas within a calamitous present. I brought out that David gave evidence of a relationship to such notions in a projection onto *Trump-the-Devil-Figure*. And I think it fair to locate David, as I would also locate you, within post-Christianity. Thus the assertion is really not terribly complex. It is a beginning point only.

This is all textbook stuff and everyone is free to departure from this in their own fantastic ways.

Well, I would say that you have reduced certain things to ideas that you treat as if they are textbooks (or something like this). And with that strategy you somehow manage to carry out years of inane 'conversation' of the sort that results in nothing. That is, reveals a dead-end which is glorified into something grand and important. But the main point is not to go down your rabbit holes into those labyrinths where The Deebs has set up his domain. As I have often said, you are a blocking agent to understanding and insert your interpositions to mire ideas into the locale that best suits your . . . spidery pursuits. What are those pursuits?

And that is one reason why you are a useful foil, and another reason why GF has been extremely useful for me. That is, to show how intellectual error occurs and what its ramifications are.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Well, it seems I need to say a few more things.

In my view, when a statement about End Times is brought out, it arises out of a certain unconsciousness. Demons, the demoniac, Trump, his republican or post-republican politics, the anger of atmospheric gods (global warming and the terrors of change) : these are sub-rational aspects of perception that, psychologically, affect us all. They surge up into perception.

Although I generally do agree with such paragraph, even raised the same line of thought in the discussion you mentioned, the thing is, a notion like "things are going to shit" does not have to be about daemonic possession. All forms of fear and worry is tied, even neurological, to many deeper, older associations. When trying to understand Quinn's reaction to Trump, it's about the level of irrationality, ugly showmanship and constant appeal to base emotions being on display. This strikes at the core of what Quinn, rather openly, has battled against. My position in the discussions was ultimately that it might have been simply more on display now, like some exposition, but not that differently than it used to be, especially when the many postwar decades are seen in context. That is: the modern Western world order is based on contradiction and a couple of core emotions. In almost classical Marxist sense, these contradictions are played out to the point that they might indeed cause more friction and peek through the surface. That's an alternative to trying to explain why people react to strongly: what is on display right now is also pretty confronting stuff, which has to be faced, even demands to be faced. It's unclear if there's anything to do about it though.

In my view — tentative perhaps — I see those who see themselves as having the most stable and hardened rationalistic core as being, in odd ways, most susceptible to their own unconscious currents.

A great entertainer, James Randi, claimed that same thing often enough, simply because the most rational, educated people seem to be worse at detecting illusion or trick as if the mind rejects it, even abhors it or simply does not expect it. And that's why the academics, technicians and scientists in his audience were generally easiest to trick! Scepticism, therefore, is something completely different.

You might also say that the world-scale hyper-liberal-left does not take *literally* its projected perception that Trump (et al) represent a demonic possession. Yet it structures a view based in these notions as *sentiments*, as shadows, as lurking perceptions.

In my view it's not just a projected perception. Trump represents a set of policies which simply does threaten their world ordering, morally, economically and ideological. That this happens in a style which offends sensibilities is yet another layer to it.

In any case, the point is still larger and it has to do with collapsed metaphysics, the estranged soul, and the desperate choices of people under the stress of desperation.

Yes, but you bring up the same apocalyptic sense of fear: we had strong metaphysics and now it's crumbled! Our soul was safe at home and now lost out there, we were comfortable in our choices without pressure but now we're living in the end of those times. The typical Christian theology is rather double here: we're created from dirt, imperfect flesh which can only dream of the divine and yet there's the idea of a state "pre-fall". However, generally ancient as well as modern Christianity does not empathize the pre-fall state at all within their theology. They are aware of sin and suffering as fate, liberation through faith or by entering afterlife only.

But instead of examining this fear present inside your own material, you seem to be obsessed with detecting it in the other. Alex-Gangham style!

[Santiago Odo]

All forms of fear and worry is tied, even neurological, to many deeper, older associations. When trying to understand Quinn's reaction to Trump, it's about the level of irrationality, ugly showmanship and constant appeal to base emotions being on display. This strikes at the core of what Quinn, rather openly, has battled against.

Yet there is more. And uncovering that *more* takes some effort. One possibly helpful means in order to explore that *more* is to examine David’s statements within the context of the Left’s general moral hissy-fits. Also, to see and describe what I have referred to as the ‘conspiracist’ movements in ideas which I alluded to by referring to Michael Barkun’s A Culture of Conspiracy. This does not mean to imply that I think DD&K are involved in such conspiracies, but rather that all thinking, all perceiving, all opining, all organization of conceptual models to describe *reality* now are of a cobbled-together variety.

I do not agree with your glossary — yet also dismissive — analysis of David’s act and his intention in decrying Kevin. As I have said a few times this rupture seems very telling on many levels and, quite simply, I think it can be explored more carefully.

In my view it's not just a projected perception. Trump represents a set of policies which simply does threaten their world ordering, morally, economically and ideological. That this happens in a style which offends sensibilities is yet another layer to it.

I think you are missing an important point, and it is that it is a ‘projected perception’ in any case. Who Trump is and how he is seen occurs in man’s ‘imagined world’ of perception. And how he is seen fits into established paradigms. The point is not terribly complex, really, but it is an important one. I am of the opinion, as I have said and continue to say, that we need to recover ourselves and also a structural metaphysics that is part-and-parcel of *our heritage* and the base on which our culture was built. I am not only interested in noting oddities of the postmodern condition but in seeking after those who, consciously or unconsciously, have been captured by currents of *destructive nihilism*. Part of what is needed is to confront *them* and to demonstrate that a counter-current exists.

David represented himself as a (if you will allow this word) ‘savior’ of sorts. I mean only that the sage-pose was based in the self-sense of having salvific knowledge that would/could transform the individual. Thus, his reaction to Trump and the attendent phenomena of a, shall we say, genuine reactionary movement as it begins to take shape, and his open opposition to it, and his incapacity to see that he and D&K were, in their way, heralds of this coming reactionary movement, is not only curious and interesting, but worthy of a more intense examination. Note that I would agree that Trump is a botched personality, of this there is no doubt, and a man with dubious motives, this I do not doubt. And he should in all moments be viewed with suspicion. Yet, and specifically in relation to America, he represents, as it seems, a social awakening among the European-American population.

As you know, and as I’ve said many times, I see the DD&K choices as being fundamentally flawed. And yet I recognize the importance of their reaction. That is, they responded, genuinely, against the destructive-nihilistic powers that are radically set loose. The critique of ‘GamerGate’ and ‘Breitbart’ are, in fact, only the tip of an iceberg of ideation worthy of exploration. For example in how it leads toward traditionalism and people like Evola and Guenon : the people that David should have knowledge of (and Kevin as well for that matter). My sole aim in delving into these issues and problems is to note, and to explain, how it is and where precisely these chaps went off the rails. Along with so many going off the rails. And the whole point is to genuinely recover *the rails*. To define them, to see and understand them. This is one area that you are extremely weak in. And the reason is because you are, essentially, given over to a postmodernist acquiescence. In your own way you too give evidence of being *captured* by nihilistic currents. Yet in your case these are part of your Hermit Crab’s house, or to put it another way, an exceedingly elaborate web that you have spun.

Yes, but you bring up the same apocalyptic sense of fear: we had strong metaphysics and now it's crumbled! Our soul was safe at home and now lost out there, we were comfortable in our choices without pressure but now we're living in the end of those times. The typical Christian theology is rather double here: we're created from dirt, imperfect flesh which can only dream of the divine and yet there's the idea of a state "pre-fall". However, generally ancient as well as modern Christianity does not empathize the pre-fall state at all within their theology. They are aware of sin and suffering as fate, liberation through faith or by entering afterlife only.

There is not one drop of fear nor hysteria in attempting to work out a conceptual path back to sound and structured metaphysics. But there is recognition of what stands to be lost, by the individual and by the culture, by our civilization, if we do not succeed in a project of self-recovery. The way that you ridicule, in your way, the loss of sound metaphysics, indicates to me that you do not really understand the ramifications of this loss. True, you *play* ironically within that loss as a postmodern does in levels of irony and mis-match. But I have gained the sense that you do not understand nor can you really *see* yourself. You, like DD&K, resent the viewing lens being turned around to focus on you. But this indicates a sort of hubris in my view.

You go on to yack in ‘textbook fashion’ about the shells of culture that have crumbled without, as I say, recognizing the distressing ramifications. You act like a jaded old-timer. You have been up and down this block so many times it is simply familiar territory. Yet there seems to be a movement afoot which is responding — more sincerely, more realistically, more genuinely, and potentially with more real effect — to the destructive currents. But you seem (to me anyway) comfortable in your *errors* as it were. You yack about the surface and the shell of the incident, seemingly unaware of your own relationship to the problem.

But instead of examining this fear present inside your own material, you seem to be obsessed with detecting it in the other.

Talk about this. Demonstrate the fear in my own assertions. Bring it out clearly and make it plain. It is, in my view, absurd to say that I am obsessed with other’s issues when at every turn I describe this as *our problem* and speak about how we are all captured in different ways in currents of nihilism. But, yes, I do assert that I have a somewhat better platform-of-view. Definitely in comparison to DD&K who move now toward irrelevancy. I also believe that you are *trapped* and have said this openly many times. You are exceedingly artful at avoiding the examining lens. I certainly imply a *territory* that requires recovery.

[Pam Seeback]

Diebert: All forms of fear and worry is tied, even neurological, to many deeper, older associations. When trying to understand Quinn's reaction to Trump, it's about the level of irrationality, ugly showmanship and constant appeal to base emotions being on display. This strikes at the core of what Quinn, rather openly, has battled against. My position in the discussions was ultimately that it might have been simply more on display now, like some exposition, but not that differently than it used to be, especially when the many postwar decades are seen in context. That is: the modern Western world order is based on contradiction and a couple of core emotions. In almost classical Marxist sense, these contradictions are played out to the point that they might indeed cause more friction and peek through the surface. That's an alternative to trying to explain why people react to strongly: what is on display right now is also pretty confronting stuff, which has to be faced, even demands to be faced. It's unclear if there's anything to do about it though.

What keeps irrationality at bay is to keep it at bay. As I see it, the key method of preventing irrational thoughts from 'leaking' out is to reason only about principles, not intentions or motivations (people). The Solway/Trump is chock-a-block full of intention-assumptions, this as I see it, is its main flaw. Trump is perhaps the reigning king of intention-assumptions (postured for the fearful and worrying ignorant as 'truth') and we only add more muck to the dirt pile of his fan base when we join his intention-assumption parade.

If it is not your truth and only your truth, keep your lips buttoned! ~ my Dad :-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Trump is perhaps the reigning king of intention-assumptions (postured for the fearful and worrying ignorant as 'truth') and we only add more muck to the dirt pile of his fan base when we join his intention-assumption parade.

But.. you're here speaking out against Trump then? I mean you prefer some alternative? Lets position Pam politically! :-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

... but rather that all thinking, all perceiving, all opining, all organization of conceptual models to describe *reality* now are of a cobbled-together variety.

Yeah, well, some postmodern sounding analysis there! It's unavoidable perhaps. Then again, I do prefer the simple explanation of age. The young sage is more of a reformist which is also the biggest temptation to start believing it. The older sage is more about holding on, fleshing out what he achieved, what he hoped to have achieved. And sees the world moving further way. Which is also his biggest temptation, to start believing that.

I have said and continue to say, that we need to recover ourselves and also a structural metaphysics that is part-and-parcel of *our heritage* and the base on which our culture was built.

After all these years you have not been able to flesh out what we need to restore to. Which condition, out of its own context, lies there waiting ot be rediscovered? Any heritage is built only in retrospective, like most of our dreams are created during the process of recall. Then again, I do agree with your suggested links between metaphysical structures and cultures.

...his incapacity to see that he and D&K were, in their way, heralds of this coming reactionary movement, is not only curious and interesting, but worthy of a more intense examination.

Perhaps. Although I've resolved a lot of this during my discussion with Dan & David on this topic. What I got more into focus back then is it was not any "reactionary movement" of any kind. More like oppositional with Dan & David shifting their opposition to the new right and "failed father figure' but Kevin shifting his opposition more towards SJW, various liberal projects and what I'd call community or social centered politics which define center-left nowadays.
The split revealed to me that the prime motives which propelled them into sage hood were quite distinctive but the differences, over time, became apparent. This is why I believe the topics should not be mixed in existential-philosophical discussions because one should seek in such dialog the common human base, the elemental consciousness and avoid going over the Ten Thousand things again and again with their basic contradictions taking everyone and everything apart over time.

you are, essentially, given over to a postmodernist acquiescence. In your own way you too give evidence of being *captured* by nihilistic currents.

You are imagining things. What is true is that your particular journey will lead you more to postmodern thinkers and modes of thinking. Unavoidably and it's not even up for discussion! Already this year I can see your posts increasingly arriving there. It will be difficult to accept for you that so many went before you with the things you are exploring. It can only go one way and yes that's certainty, like gravity. Unless you'd stop for some reason and cement yourself in. Always an option.

The way that you ridicule, in your way, the loss of sound metaphysics, indicates to me that you do not really understand the ramifications of this loss.

This is what I quoted for David and now pass it on. In terms of metaphysics and future of human kind, I do walk around the aisle.

You know when you’re told to adopt the brace position in an aircraft because you’ve got some turbulence? It’s as if everyone’s in the brace position at the moment, and they don’t dare look out of the window and see the world for what it is. All the people terrified [...] are in the brace position — you know, as you gulp another whiskey, ‘Oh, my God — are we going to drop down 20,000 feet?’ If you’re in that position and someone starts walking around the aisle, you want them to stop. You’re in the brace position. They’re teasing you. They know you’re frightened. They decided to get up and walk around the plane, and you don’t like it.”

[Santiago Odo]

You are imagining things. What is true is that your particular journey will lead you more to postmodern thinkers and modes of thinking. Unavoidably and it's not even up for discussion! Already this year I can see your posts increasingly arriving there. It will be difficult to accept for you that so many went before you with the things you are exploring. It can only go one way and yes that's certainty, like gravity. Unless you'd stop for some reason and cement yourself in. Always an option.

Actually you are in no position to pre-visualize either where I am or where I am going, and less to make any prescient predictions. This paragraph is typical of you and manifests an oft-used strategy to shift the focus. I cannot say that I blame you for that though it is, really, tiresome. It is a part of your style and really more a facet of your personality it seems to me.

I avail myself of certain rather simple postmodern models simply because postmodernism is a condition, a thought-poison more than anything. And I think you should drop the pretension that *you have gone before* and stop in your forward march to give advise. I don't think you have much substantive advice to offer, but (often) oodles of mumbo-jumbo : a hundred thousand ways to say little. This is pose Diebert and it is more than unbecoming.

Yeah, well, some postmodern sounding analysis there! It's unavoidable perhaps. Then again, I do prefer the simple explanation of age. The young sage is more of a reformist which is also the biggest temptation to start believing it. The older sage is more about holding on, fleshing out what he achieved, what he hoped to have achieved. And sees the world moving further way. Which is also his biggest temptation, to start believing that.

The notion of 'sage', as you use it here and as it has been used on this Forum, can only be seen as a bull-shitter's term and that is how I see it. The term is simply dismissed. The notion of 'the sage' had been constructed on false-premises altogether. This is really very basic in my view. Though I think I can understand why it is such a formidable stumbling-block for you and others.

After all these years you have not been able to flesh out what we need to restore to. Which condition, out of its own context, lies there waiting to be rediscovered? Any heritage is built only in retrospective, like most of our dreams are created during the process of recall. Then again, I do agree with your suggested links between metaphysical structures and cultures.

It is not really my domain of interest to come up with some sort of program. But it is not that I have not made many different recommendations. A large influence in my own case was Christopher Dawson and his orientation is essentially what I mean by *Greco-Christianity*, and I certainly am inclined to theistic metaphysics. I will not make recommendations except to point to sources. And yet I make all manner of different references; allusions if you will. But more important as a starting-position to notice 'thought-poison'. That is the first step.

Perhaps. Although I've resolved a lot of this during my discussion with Dan & David on this topic. What I got more into focus back then is it was not any "reactionary movement" of any kind. More like oppositional with Dan & David shifting their opposition to the new right and "failed father figure' but Kevin shifting his opposition more towards SJW, various liberal projects and what I'd call community or social centered politics which define center-left nowadays.

Excuse me, I say this sincerely, but I do not trust you at all to make good assessments or to resolve anything really. With you, now, these are necessary statements. You are, it seems to me, classically blind with a great deal of will-to-lead. You share this character trait with the Mahatmas. If you sucker others with that pose all well and good I suppose. It doesn't fly with me as I assume you can guess. Thus: we eye each other with suspicion.

The split revealed to me that the prime motives which propelled them into sage hood were quite distinctive but the differences, over time, became apparent. This is why I believe the topics should not be mixed in existential-philosophical discussions because one should seek in such dialog the common human base, the elemental consciousness and avoid going over the Ten Thousand things again and again with their basic contradictions taking everyone and everything apart over time.

A convoluted paragraph that renders very little. From where I sit . . .

This is what I quoted for David and now pass it on. In terms of metaphysics and future of human kind, I do walk around the aisle.

Rabbit-hole material. Fancy, pretentious : a waste of time. The sooner you cut this shite out, the better.

[Pam Seeback]

Trump is perhaps the reigning king of intention-assumptions (postured for the fearful and worrying ignorant as 'truth') and we only add more muck to the dirt pile of his fan base when we join his intention-assumption parade.

But.. you're here speaking out against Trump then? I mean you prefer some alternative? Lets position Pam politically! :-)

I am speaking out against reasoning what one believes are the intentions or motivations of others in contrast to the reasoning of principles. I vote according to this philosophy - Pam is positioned! :-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Actually you are in no position to pre-visualize either where I am or where I am going, and less to make any prescient predictions.

In as far you have been able to vocalize sufficiently where you are or trying to go, I'm of course able to visualize it. If not you would be a lousy communicator or just a liar. And what I've been able to see is just all too familiar and I know where it has to lead if you decline any fearful cementing in. So time will tell -- with time, even eternity, being fully on my side.

I avail myself of certain rather simple postmodern models simply because postmodernism is a condition, a thought-poison more than anything.

You call it a condition but that's your own private definition with which I do actually agree, generally. But as for the broader topic of postmodern philosophy itself you are simply not sufficiently educated or experienced with. The things holding you back are related to fear and perhaps some disgust. And unless you find a direct way to deeper intuitions, the only way forward intellectually is towards the very mode you now despise.

The notion of 'sage', as you use it here and as it has been used on this Forum, can only be seen as a bull-shitter's term and that is how I see it.

Well that is true to some degree. Generally one could exchange the term freely with thinker (within existential contexts), wise man, explorer, fellow courageous traveler, man of knowledge, etc. In other cases just "holy fool" or "prophet" will do as well. From another perspective it's clearly a "non-term" as the philosophy involved addresses the nature of any inherent self or agent as dependent arising, turning the whole idea of "sage" and "genius" into potential humorous labels but only to the extent that it challenges the usual ideas surrounding genius, sage, holy man or superman.

After all these years you have not been able to flesh out what we need to restore to. Which condition, out of its own context, lies there waiting to be rediscovered? Any heritage is built only in retrospective, like most of our dreams are created during the process of recall.

It is not really my domain of interest to come up with some sort of program. But it is not that I have not made many different recommendations. A large influence in my own case was Christopher Dawson and his orientation is essentially what I mean by *Greco-Christianity*, and I certainly am inclined to theistic metaphysics. I will not make recommendations except to point to sources. And yet I make all manner of different references; allusions if you will. But more important as a starting-position to notice 'thought-poison'. That is the first step.

But your whole mode of thinking hinges on there being something to "restore to", a past condition to restore. And yet you can only make "allusions". This is a faith based model where a muddled view on the past has been enshrined, partly subconsciously,as some religious longing to restoration to something that never existed in that form. And when that fails there's always our blessed after life, a belief which provides hope when life, past and future visions, become too dark. And yet, here one can find out how "reason-poison" really works and delving exactly here is important.

[jupiviv]

...his incapacity to see that he and D&K were, in their way, heralds of this coming reactionary movement, is not only curious and interesting, but worthy of a more intense examination.

Perhaps. Although I've resolved a lot of this during my discussion with Dan & David on this topic. What I got more into focus back then is it was not any "reactionary movement" of any kind. More like oppositional with Dan & David shifting their opposition to the new right and "failed father figure' but Kevin shifting his opposition more towards SJW, various liberal projects and what I'd call community or social centered politics which define center-left nowadays.
The split revealed to me that the prime motives which propelled them into sage hood were quite distinctive but the differences, over time, became apparent. This is why I believe the topics should not be mixed in existential-philosophical discussions because one should seek in such dialog the common human base, the elemental consciousness and avoid going over the Ten Thousand things again and again with their basic contradictions taking everyone and everything apart over time.

I agree on the different motivations for sagehood. However, I don't think political positions per se have anything to do with that. Most of QRS' past writings on "worldly affairs" were intended to describe or vindicate reason in high relief of them. As such "femininity" was usually a sublimated category of worldliness in general. Kevin's assessment of things like actual females/femininity always seemed more accurate though (and that may indeed be relevant to "different motivations").

The recent conflict was more about QR and S naturally adopting the premises of whatever news/opinion environment they reside in, and Q foolishly trying to use them to attempt a classic Genius-type deconstruction of what he perceived as S's deterioration. Here different motivations might be relevant, with QR apparently integrated into the Australian liberal community/opinion-set and S going off on his own. My guess is they all feel lonely and wish to believe, each in their own way, that at least some progress towards wisdom is being made in the broader context of society/politics/economics. That is a failing, but understandable. All we can do is learn the lesson and be on our way.

[Santiago Odo]

But your whole mode of thinking hinges on there being something to "restore to", a past condition to restore. And yet you can only make "allusions". This is a faith based model where a muddled view on the past has been enshrined, partly subconsciously,as some religious longing to restoration to something that never existed in that form. And when that fails there's always our blessed after life, a belief which provides hope when life, past and future visions, become too dark. And yet, here one can find out how "reason-poison" really works and delving exactly here is important.

I think you have described how you view such matters and this particular framing is not my own and, in fact, I have never said as much in so many words.

What you must remember is that I noticed that the DD&K program was, taken in the large, a reactionary movement against a human madness which, I had gathered, was increasing and intensifying in the present. And these 3 fellows -- nobly and in a real sense bravely -- rose to the occasion and took a radical stand. They made their reaction real by setting down anchors. And as you are aware, they based their entire program on a specific definition of a specific metaphysics. In David's case that was a neo-Buddhist pantheism. When David *described his world*, therefor, he brought out a vision of that world formed in his *imagined world*. The descriptions he cobbled together, as far as my critique of them are concerned, are vital to my counter-argument. DD&K provide a conceptual model of an atheistic, dead-pantheistic description of All THINGS.

That means that they attempted to construct what amounts to a New Metaphysics as an aspect of their social reaction. As you know I mercilessly critique the choices -- the forced choices -- they made in the process of establishing this peculiar and tendentious model. You are also aware that I have critiqued many of the choices that necessarily flow from their core predicates, and you must be aware that I see these predicates as essentially and fundamentally flawed. What has made them *flawed*? To answer that question provides a launching point for what is the basic thrust of my posts. Just in this thread I have brought out that in a stressed *postmodernism* we are forced into *desperate conditions*. Were you to follow up, as one example, Michael Barkun's study The Culture of Conspiracy, you would better understand not only what goes on in the human mind and spirit as it confronts *the world* from a distressed and *split* position, but you might be able (as is my case) to understand why I see DD&K as functioning from inner conditions of desperation. This is surely no crime. That is, to be under such conditions. But when I refer to the need for a 'master metaphysician' in order to help a given person to see, from a point above, what has happened to them, I am of course working under the idea of 'turning the examining lens around'. Therefor and as you know I tend on the whole to see DD&K as operating out of a certain pathology. And therefor what they recommend as *praxis* cannot and will not 'heal' or 'restore' but will lead, as is my argument, to greater levels of nihilism (nihilism being no more than a convenient word for *metaphysical displacement*).

It is quite absurd to think, as you seem to, that I am recommending a return in time to some former condition or state of society. That is obviously an impossibility in all senses. I do recognize that some describe their recommendations (their *program*) in language that makes it seem as if they are suggesting a negation of the present and some sort of magical return to a former and glorious age. But what I am speaking about, and strictly within a long-standing critique of the DD&K position, has to do only and principally with redefining the basic tenets on which a *proper* metaphysics can be built. Therefor, I recommend (as I have said) a re-writing of the DD&K tenets. Jokingly, I said that I would re-write the entire QRS program. But it was not entirely a joke. When one confronts essential errors one is forced into a position of correcting those errors. But we do not operate in a vacuum and we are not separated. The forces that have *split* these fellow are the same forces that have *spilt* all of us, and the recover of self, and the reestablishment of *correct metaphysical foundations* is much more than just a mental reorganization of a philosophical position that one could describe in an essay, but has to do with existential life-choices and an inner (and outer) reorientation of the self in regard to the manifest world.

The first order of business, in my view, is confronting 'thought-poison' in the form of a general atheism. Myself, I would place this within an inner project of discovery (and self-discovery) along Aristotelian-Thomistic lines. I am personally certain, though I am quite aware that I myself exist in a marginal or liminal realm in regard to my perceptions, that the recovery of a *genuine theism* is part-and-parcel of an antidote to displacement (nihilism) and what this ramifies for the individual and for culture -- our culture. But this is obviously a large topic and how could one possibly do more than *make allusions*? And especially on a platform where theism is, let's be honest, despised.

The second essential order stems from the first : a recovery of self through a recovery of intellectus. I have made attempts to offer a general description of what I mean with this term. You cannot have intellectus without having recovered and reestablished Theos. Right here I have presented what likely amount to very difficult stumbling blocks, not only for them but for you specifically, and you ultra-specifically as a being caught in the grip (to put it dramatically) of a post-Christian confusion. I see you in this way, and I see you as having carved out extraordinarily complex bowers and caverns within an extensive project of defending your own rejection of the 'Theos" in a sound theology and metaphysics. Therefor, Diebert as *burrowing creature* and as *web-spinning spider* become apt metaphors to describe, in essence, what you do. And obviously, so obviously, you fit in to the DD&K project, you and numerous others, as you pursue what I have come to see as *avoidance schemes*.

The challenge I have set for myself is not small, but it is one that I developed relationally and in confrontation with the false-philosophy and pathological reaction that I encountered in so many who have and who still participate here.

Within our time-frame, and rather suddenly and strangely, there developed in the Occidental World an open reaction to what I loosely describe as Liberalism's Hyper-Modernisms. To get a sense of what this means see Jonathan Bowden, Pierre Krebs and numerous others. This is only just beginning and it will be very interesting to see what comes of it. The wheel, as it were, that is rolling over us is related, in my view, to 'modernism', and I would refer you to Pascendi Dominici Gregis as a way to understand, from a Thomist perspective, what 'modernism' is and where it leads. But this is not the only perspective from which to approach the problem, just one reference in the mutable world of ideation as man muses on his position. Personally, I am somewhat dismayed at the task of establishing a countermanding metaphysics that is forward-looking and not, as you mark it, a regressive counter-productive retreat from *reality*.

But what is essential, in my view, is establishing a *proper* anthropology, a Greco-Christian anthropology. Or to put it in a different way, the rediscovery of humanism through recovery of a theistic relationship that, by necessity, confronts and also *defeats* the reigning materialistic-atheism that is a large part of the *idea-poison* that infects us all.

Finally, I draw this perspective back to the present and couch it directly within this simplistic dichotomy mentioned by David himself: that of 'Breitbart' in contrast to his peculiar sense of 'liberalism'. What he is not recognizing, and what others who write here do not seem to get, is that there really is a genuine existential-philosophical movement that has suddenly inserted itself, with a definite power and boldness, into the machinations of the present. If one reduces it to stupid categories (Breitbart for example) one will miss the larger point. It is as if David, as a health-nut, found Kevin eating unwholesome and forbidden food, snacking mischievously on the wrong kind of nourishment and one not suited to a 'sage'. But my point is that each of them, in different ways, had made themselves dependent on a 'false-nourishment' and, against that image, their spat looks quite ridiculous.

Our endeavor is to recover self in the most fundamental and relevant ways, not to get waylaid into nihilistic projects that are, as I have said, 'homosexual' and which take one away from a *proper anthropology*. I will not say and do not say that I have it all figured out and thus I do not offer a *program*. But I allude to certain ideas and truths which I think need to be considered. But it is more, really, since these involve idea-wars and grave questions which will be fought over tooth-and-nail.

PS: As to 'faith', yes, a difficult issue. My own understanding is that man arises within a platform of manifestation in a kosmos that is incomprehensible. What stands behind that manifestation -- the world, the kosmos, manifestation itself, the possibility of Existence -- is divinity. And it is man's object, his challenge, to wake up to that knowledge. Within that awakening, a metaphysics is perceived and then described, in symbols or in words. But what is expressed is, in my view, essentially ineffable. And any expression arises in 'man's imagined world'. That is a peculiar problem!

If 'faith' is to be considered real, and I believe it definitely is, I think the question hinges back into a relationship that can only be understand as uniquely singular: one individual who wakes to understand his relationship to the only existing being in the Kosmos. And that is 'God'. 'Faith' then becomes a far more elaborate question and is developed as understanding and, perhaps, conviction is augmented.

But it is crucial within this paradigm to recognize that *forces* operate against this awakening and increasing knowledge. Therefor, and this is I would suppose obvious, we can recognize a sort of duality that is part-and-parcel of *the world* and ourselves in this world. Ascent or Descent. Faith is trust on one level -- trust that the Creation has meaning and is not *meaningless* (a terrifying construct of atheistic and nihilistic thought-poison) -- but higher faith obviously leads to other vistas of awareness. But as you seem to understand 'faith' establishes itself in relation to what is only known through intellectus, and this realm of knowing is dramatically different from what rationalism locks itself into . . .

[Santiago Odo]

Well that is true to some degree. Generally one could exchange the term freely with thinker (within existential contexts), wise man, explorer, fellow courageous traveler, man of knowledge, etc. In other cases just "holy fool" or "prophet" will do as well. From another perspective it's clearly a "non-term" as the philosophy involved addresses the nature of any inherent self or agent as dependent arising, turning the whole idea of "sage" and "genius" into potential humorous labels but only to the extent that it challenges the usual ideas surrounding genius, sage, holy man or superman.

Here you show yourself as having a link to the term. That means that in certain ways it is *real* and meaningful for you. In fact I reject the term straight across the board. But by 'board' I mean specifically this forum. The term is one bound up in specific and identifiable self-deceptions, not the least being any sort of declaration about 'enlightened status'. It is a word that evidences a grandiose presentation of a false-self.

If this very elemental fact is still beyond your grasp I guess we'll have to check back in in another ten years!

True though, I am taking a harsh tack here, but that has always been the case. I am interested in defining a metaphysics, and also a recovery-of-self, that takes place within the Occident and for Occidentals. I refer to specific things and not to some generalized 'cosmic' newagism. If you succeed in presenting me with the activities of a 'courageous fellow traveler' or 'holy fool' and any of these inflated terms within a genuine anthropology and also metaphysics, then you may gain some ground (with me in any case). But as I have said many times you yourself are deeply involved in fundamental self-deceptions which are tied to *reigning nihilism* and a great deal of your web-spinning looks quite different when this basic idea is held in the mind.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But your whole mode of thinking hinges on there being something to "restore to", a past condition to restore. And yet you can only make "allusions".

I think you have described how you view such matters and this particular framing is not my own and, in fact, I have never said as much in so many words.

But you actually did and still do. But obviously you would be resisting the qualification as it would turn out to be untenable. And as such you retreat again in the metaphysical mist are invoking around your particular illusion.

As usual I do give specifics. Your project is self-described as using quotes from here

the Reactionary Right is very much on the right track if only in the sense that it gets to the *root* of the proper ideation

The question is how to discover/rediscover it?

get a grasp of the Medieval concept of the kosmos, and also of Medieval anthropology

we have no longer any means to grasp what Χριστος (Christos) meant or now means (...) we no longer have a way-and-means to understand what Christianity is and meant..

our guiding intellectuals have lost the metaphysical track.

it was understood by Medieval thinkers and psychologist

In the midst of this *diabolical war* against a worldpicture in which a ‘genuine’ Divinity with a genuine and meaningful praxis of life and a Law of Life is understood, valued, upheld and taught,

has become separated from and abstracted from, a holistic and complete worldpicture comparable, for example, to the Catholic and Neo-Platonic world.

How is that not built on a firm assumption that there's something, a past more complete, true world picture, understanding, track, grasp or condition to "restore to"? This is not about the rather idiotic, almost willfully ignorant or at least intellectual insulting assumption that I meant going back to some "former condition or state of society". It's simply pointing to your words. Just own them and accept the meaning & consequences!

What you must remember is that I noticed that the DD&K program was, taken in the large, a reactionary movement against a human madness which, I had gathered, was increasing and intensifying in the present.

Well, some bad assumptions there. The "program" has been stated more clearly and meaningful by those people themselves. The particularities of that "human madness" is pretty well described by them and many earlier thinkers they quote. They explore the reasons for the madness, the core of the returning delusion and suffering as a consequence. This is exactly my argument against the idea, as voiced in that particular thread by Quinn, that there would be some noticeable increase in the present. If any intensifying goes on it's about a focus on some particular aspect of the ignorant state of humanity about themselves. And not some kind of threat to a "rational world order". If there was such an order, the "program" would hardly be needed in the first place! It would have become just a program to iron out the kinks but not to change anything radical at all. As such I see Quinn's statements on Trump and Solway as being highly contradictory with his own philosophy. Which shows to me the inner contradictions not of his philosophy but of his life, his person, which might have come to the surface. And that's a danger even for any serious life philosopher, possibly because of an intellect becoming sloppy, complacent and lazy, mostly distracted, soothed into sleep and worries about the body or self.

And as you are aware, they based their entire program on a specific definition of a specific metaphysics. In David's case that was a neo-Buddhist pantheism. When David *described his world*, therefor, he brought out a vision of that world formed in his *imagined world*. The descriptions he cobbled together, as far as my critique of them are concerned, are vital to my counter-argument. DD&K provide a conceptual model of an atheistic, dead-pantheistic description of All THINGS.

No I am not aware for any "specific definition of a specific metaphysics". You are talking here about your pigeon hole which you have dug for them, buried them in and now blame them for being in that hole. This is how you operate intellectually all the time! It allows you to continue in a circle instead of getting somewhere more interesting, to my mind.

That means that they attempted to construct what amounts to a New Metaphysics as an aspect of their social reaction.

It only shows in the current logic of Quinn's criticism on Solway. As I wrote before, it's a typical temptation to construct that. And with that this Quinn's admissions after his return make sense: "I haven’t exactly been doing a great job at this [enlightenment wisdom ] over the past few years" ..."hanging around mainstream people" or saying we're living not in a hell of ignorance but in the "most fantastic of places and the most fantastic of times." and fully backing " basic values of rationality, knowledge, science, openness, cooperation and tolerance" on a forum dedicated to bloody & dangerous thought. There I read old age, nothing more, retrofitting even his own "radical" past as being broader, open and communal, like some older well adjusted hippie!

But what is essential, in my view, is establishing a *proper* anthropology, a Greco-Christian anthropology. Or to put it in a different way, the rediscovery of humanism through recovery of a theistic relationship that, by necessity, confronts and also *defeats* the reigning materialistic-atheism that is a large part of the *idea-poison* that infects us all.

Again, you refer to your individual interpretation and projection of this superior anthropology having existed as such and how it functioned, and what kind of fruit it could provide. It looks like a selective wishful reaching for bits and pieces from the past, all through a modern fragmented method, cobbled up as some solution which provided hope and direction. At the emotional level, I do understand the need. At the philosophical level, it's just making things up as you go but nothing that can survive the scrutiny of thought or the day by day reality inside a larger world.

[Santiago Odo]

And yet, belovèd Spider-Child, you wrote:

• But your whole mode of thinking hinges on there being something to "restore to", a past condition to restore. And yet you can only make "allusions". [Italics mine]

I responded to this statement on its surface as a past condition to restore. I am not talking of restoring a past condition but rather one of recovery of a perceptual stance, the renovation of such through understanding. Quite different!

I responded to you in this vein because there are traditionalists who, indeed, describe it in that way: restoring a previous time. Now, my position contains (and allows) uncertainty as to how certain metaphysical ideas can be restored and through what internal and external processes, but I do not see a problem per se with that. It is a tough area overall.

And as such you retreat again in the metaphysical mist are invoking around your particular illusion.

Now here is an interesting issue and one worthy of consideration. I wish to include here a rather long conversation-interview on a podcast by Tim Kelly. The gist of the assertions, which are definitely *counter-propositions* to reigning ideas that function very powerfully in our present, can be gleaned in the first 20 minutes or so.

Essentially though, it describes a counter-propositional stance to the thought-poison of atheism. Very interesting at the least.

Yet it has to be said that the argument derived from 'infinite regress' does involve -- though I would not put it quite that way -- 'metaphysical mist'.

One must further deal with the attendant notion of 'illusion'. A definition: "A thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses" and "A deceptive appearance or impression."

The point is that in order to understand a divinity that has set all things in motion, and the idea on which Greco-Christianity has been built, which is the root of Occidentalism now under threat, will mean, if I can put it like this, penetrating metaphysical mist. Because the only way the idea can be grasped is through intellect and in this particular sense intellectus. In that, there, is located metaphysics in its most essential sense. It is an idea that is, shall we say, radically non-physical. Thus if a physicalist says 'You are speaking of a metaphysical mist' and 'You are forwarding an illusion', they are not wrong in accord with their system of predicates, if illusion is understood as a misperception of physical datum.

It has nothing to do with physical datum. Since there is no physical data involved -- it is purely intellectual idea -- the only way it can be grasped is through another faculty. I refer to that is intellectus and so it was understood in the previous metaphysics and by the Schoolmen. These ideas are part-and-parcel of Thomist metaphysics and, to understand them, one must revisit Thomism and an older school of thought. But that does not mean, necessarily, duplicating a former time, though it will likely lead to reform on many different levels. Because it is essentially intellectual liberalism that came to bear against a former metaphysical orientation. To understand how this happened, when it happened and why it happened is to investigate the metaphysical shift I describe. It has a great deal to do with systems of power and many other things too.

This of course is my overall point: how it has happened that we have been displaced from groundedness in a specific metaphysical point-of-view, and what exactly has displaced and replaced it. And then of course the ramifications of this shift within the person and within the culture and within our specific history.

I am not off-base in noticing that DD&K worked very hard to define a New Metaphysics and I specifically refer to David who described, in essence, a physicalistic pantheism. Such a definition would be necessary within his view-structure. And his predicate system did therefor determine the limits of what could be seen. But the overall point is to notice what happens when the divinity discovered at the beginning of the causal chain is un-seen. This un-seeing is an elaborate process, really, and has evolved over approximately 400 years.

I refer again to a poem of Blake:

This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.

The physical eye of concrete seeing, in the case of man, and certainly of metaphysical man, requires augmentation by another sort of eye. The mind's eye, or the eye of 'intellectus'. The hyper-rationalists, and those captured by a specific and hard 'rationalism' of the sort that the GF Brothers are so heavily invested in, is an end-result of specific historical and intellectual processes, and is tied as I patiently and continually posit, to nihilistic trends. These fellow attempt to build an edifice of resistance to the turning wheel of liberalism (defined in an expanded form of course) on a platform that cannot sustain the weight of the construction necessary for the restoration needed. In fact, they undermine the necessary structure which can only be built if intellectus is employed and a fuller level of seeing is understood and used.

They explore the reasons for the madness, the core of the returning delusion and suffering as a consequence.

Heh heh. You reveal here your own link to the same neo-Buddhism! As if you have any understanding at all of what delusion is or involves! The deluded who decries delusion, man that is a n interesting position! I understand why in your case this became necessary for you, and I also understand why it is that you have become holed-up in such a predicate-system. Years and years of intricate web-building! Ten million words in support of it!

I define this neo-Buddhism, as you know, as a symptom of nihilism . . .

I do not deny that they made an effort to arrive at such definitions, but the entire core of my counter-argument is that, through a willed blindedness and a severe, a debilitating and distorting rationalistic handicap, they could only fail in their project of definition. I return again my statements about inadequate predicates and ill-founded predicates. The errors start there.

In fact, as it seems to me, in order to understand 'the madness' one requires a different sort of *eye* and a different use of such an *eye*. In order to find out *what went wrong* there is requires a specific investigation of metaphysical causation. I refer you to, for one example, Richard Weaver in many of his essays, and as well to Basil Willey.

Here is his Seventeenth Century Background.

Again, you refer to your individual interpretation and projection of this superior anthropology having existed as such and how it functioned, and what kind of fruit it could provide. It looks like a selective wishful reaching for bits and pieces from the past, all through a modern fragmented method, cobbled up as some solution which provided hope and direction. At the emotional level, I do understand the need. At the philosophical level, it's just making things up as you go but nothing that can survive the scrutiny of thought or the day by day reality inside a larger world.

A spider stings his victim and then, horrifyingly, wraps it up in terrifying filaments! What you do here has little to do with Diebert, The Person, but it yet gives a sense of how idea-poisons operate. It is not you speaking but, as I suggest, more The Age speaking.

I understand that you understand, and that your understanding is an effort to gain the Cat Bird's Seat, and that this has been going on for a looooonnngggg time between you and I. Funny really.

[Pam Seeback]

Ale , re your allusion to DD & K's model of an atheistic , dead-pantheistic description of ALL THINGS: if you would take the time to go within to where thought begins and ends you would discover that nothing is dead. This is the eternal life to which the New Testament refers, the Alpha and the Omega. And from this living spirit an intellectus cannot be formed! Why? Because it is LIVING, DYNAMIC force! Finding eternal life is the antithesis of nihilism as per your definition of nihilism. Conscious acknowledgement of Life awaits your discovery -, are you afraid of finding it?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But your whole mode of thinking hinges on there being something to "restore to", a past condition to restore. And yet you can only make "allusions". [Italics mine]

I responded to this statement on its surface as a past condition to restore. I am not talking of restoring a past condition but rather one of recovery of a perceptual stance, the renovation of such through understanding. Quite different!

But what is the difference between what you now name "recovery of a perceptual stance" and the recovery to a more complete, true world picture, understanding, track, grasp or condition embedded with many references to past Medieval and Christian theological positions and beliefs? It's almost impossible to read it differently.

And it's important, because if you cannot locate in time and place this "perceptual stance" you are desiring to "renovate" or "recover", then couldn't we just say it's purely hope & faith based? And if you do locate it, at least we could agree on your orientation here.

a divinity that has set all things in motion, and the idea on which Greco-Christianity has been built, which is the root of Occidentalism now under threat

Again confirming your desire to somehow turn back to the (divinatory) past, embedded with your own private, partial explanation of Occidentalism or Greco-Christianity. Can we just at least agree on my earlier statement that your thinking here hinges on there being something to "restore to"? Some pre-fallen state, a golden age of the soul, a more mature, manly heart and other compatible notions?

my overall point: how it has happened that we have been displaced from groundedness in a specific metaphysical point-of-view, and what exactly has displaced and replaced it. And then of course the ramifications of this shift within the person and within the culture and within our specific history.

Change happened. You describe it at times pretty well. But since the whole world with all its connections, technology, geopolitics, culture and meanings shift, it should be not a surprise that a lot of stuff hanging by and on it moves as well. The question if one can accept it morally or otherwise in relation to some internal notion of identity, of belonging, seems like a whole other topic. And it's in the end your problem then. The new generation has its own problems. Disappearance here is surely a possibility but again, danger holds promise. The moral dimension of "to have or not to have" continuation is not the stuff to analyze philosophically. We need to go beyond morality for the analysis at least.

In order to find out *what went wrong* there is requires a specific investigation of metaphysical causation.

No we first have to establish if something actually went wrong, against which measure and to which degree in terms of the overall wrongness and wellness of nature, existence, suffering and so on.

[jupiviv]

You are talking here about your pigeon hole which you have dug for them, buried them in and now blame them for being in that hole. This is how you operate intellectually all the time! It allows you to continue in a circle instead of getting somewhere more interesting, to my mind.

Lol! Well put. Ironically that is also what David and Dan were doing to Kevin. They defined him as a Breitbart cultist and then blamed him for being defined that way. And as with Alex, this allowed them to continue operating within a simultaneously trenchant and nebulous context.

[Santiago Odo]

But what is the difference between what you now name "recovery of a perceptual stance" and the recovery to a more complete, true world picture, understanding, track, grasp or condition embedded with many references to past Medieval and Christian theological positions and beliefs? It's almost impossible to read it differently.

But the real question here is where do you stand within this discussion in relation to the difficult definition required? The task I would set for you would be to offer a paragraph wherein you define your understanding of *proper metaphysics* and then another paragraph where you describe mine. Often, as is obvious, in conversations of this sort people speak from their own predicates and position as if it is a *given*.

In my view, to 'recover', to 'renovate', and all the other terms I use in respect to *Europe* and to the Occident, directly involve the rediscovery of a certain defined territory within ideation. Yet there is, and there would necessarily have to be, a difference between what was created then (in a Mediaeval era) and what would be created now. But this is not, at least not now, my area of interest and concern. As I have said my concern is to define 'thought-poison' and to describe where I think our Noble Friends of GF went wrong. And I ties this to general currents. And then I locate this issue, if you will, within the *spat* that developed between the Mahatmas.

And it's important, because if you cannot locate in time and place this "perceptual stance" you are desiring to "renovate" or "recover", then couldn't we just say it's purely hope & faith based? And if you do locate it, at least we could agree on your orientation here.

You would have to offer some definitions of both 'hope' and 'faith' because I sense that with those terms you do not mean hope nor faith in their Greco-Christian senses. For you 'faith' is illusion and then What would one hope in?

Your position, if I understand it, is strictly postmodern. You are a postmodernist. You are completely and absolutely a postmodernist. If I am wrong, please correct me. And please give me some sort of example of how you would describe your sense of 'metaphysics'. (I think you will roundly avoid this and at all cost).

I place both faith and hope in their established Greco-Christian theological senses and, for me, they are not meaningless. My 'orientation' is in the realm of ideas, and that as a starting point. Again, I assert that we have been removed from our foundation (in idea) by the force of other ideas which I label 'thought-poison'. The first order of business is in an intellectual renovation and, I might add, this is what is being posited by those of reformist mind who now seek to challenge the reigning 'liberalism' (hyper-liberalism as I call it). So, I would employ a cultural and temporal reference by saying 'the Mediaeval era' simply because I have no other reference point. I have also said 'Thomistic philosophy' but it should be clear that this is a general reference and in this sense an abbreviation.

Again confirming your desire to somehow turn back to the (divinatory) past, embedded with your own private, partial explanation of Occidentalism or Greco-Christianity. Can we just at least agree on my earlier statement that your thinking here hinges on there being something to "restore to"? Some pre-fallen state, a golden age of the soul, a more mature, manly heart and other compatible notions?

It is not quite right, and is substantially incorrect, to define my position and the ideas I communicate, as 'private'. What you mean by that is a term of denigration of course, and I get it. But surely I am a person who, like all of us, has been rolled under the Great Wheel of hyper-liberalism and if I propose a *process of recovery* it is in tentative and somewhat uncertain terms. How could it be otherwise?

I would necessarily attempt to avoid all of your encapsulating terms and do not agree to any of them because your effort, very obviously, is to to defeat my basic argument. The reason[s] you do this -- why you must do this -- are various. But as far as I have been able to tell, and as I continually repeat, you are a classic example of a post-Christian postmodernist. You yourself had been *knocked off the foundation* and you yourself found yourself in existential difficulty, and you yourself had to work very hard to cobble together a defensive alternative. You invested in these alternatives and you are, in the wide sense, a perfect example of it all *as outcome*. Intellectually and spiritually that is.

Additionally, you have no conceptual tools at all to define a path to the *preservation* or *restoration* I speak of in any sense at all. Personally, socially, culturally. These are terms-of-illusion and for you derive from *delusion*. So, you are forced to defend the Spidery Fort you have built and as you do so it grows more labyrinthian, more fantastic, and then requires more and more defense, and it becomes an unending cycle that feeds on its core nihilism. But this is not your problem and you certainly didn't start it. You, like all of us, exist in reaction . . . and desperation.

Change happened. You describe it at times pretty well. But since the whole world with all its connections, technology, geopolitics, culture and meanings shift, it should be not a surprise that a lot of stuff hanging by and on it moves as well. The question if one can accept it morally or otherwise in relation to some internal notion of identity, of belonging, seems like a whole other topic. And it's in the end your problem then. The new generation has its own problems. Disappearance here is surely a possibility but again, danger holds promise. The moral dimension of "to have or not to have" continuation is not the stuff to analyze philosophically. We need to go beyond morality for the analysis at least.

A convoluted, Dibertian paragraph. You would have to define 'moral' for me otherwise I am forced to guess what the word means for you.

In my view, everything we are speaking about involved the moral and morality. It is a crucial term.

No we first have to establish if something actually went wrong, against which measure and to which degree in terms of the overall wrongness and wellness of nature, existence, suffering and so on.

OK, then why don't you place that statement or observation in the context of the philosophy of GF, just as an exercise? That is, if they reacted against something was it because something really had gone wrong? And if so what were they attempting to correct?

But in your postmodern analysis nothing could go wrong. Things just change and morph. With this, and were I to go along with you, I would be pulled down into your preferred Rabbit Hole. And into the Abyss of Ten-Million Words. I am simply not interested in that useless motion.

[Santiago Odo]

Alex , re: your allusion to DD & K's model of an atheistic , dead-pantheistic description of ALL THINGS: if you would take the time to go within to where thought begins and ends you would discover that nothing is dead. This is the eternal life to which the New Testament refers, the Alpha and the Omega. And from this living spirit an intellectus cannot be formed! Why? Because it is LIVING, DYNAMIC force! Finding eternal life is the antithesis of nihilism as per your definition of nihilism. Conscious acknowledgement of Life awaits your discovery -, are you afraid of finding it?

You are here describing your own concept. You also do not have a sense of what the Latin term intellectus means. You are not taking into consideration that these honorable fellows, whose ideas I critique, have very different ideas than you. And you are not taking into consideration the *larger picture* of what has been happening in the world of ideas in the Occident for a number of centuries . . . This is why you and I cannot communicate. Our areas of focus are very different.

[Pam Seeback]

Alex , re: your allusion to DD & K's model of an atheistic , dead-pantheistic description of ALL THINGS: if you would take the time to go within to where thought begins and ends you would discover that nothing is dead. This is the eternal life to which the New Testament refers, the Alpha and the Omega. And from this living spirit an intellectus cannot be formed! Why? Because it is LIVING, DYNAMIC force! Finding eternal life is the antithesis of nihilism as per your definition of nihilism. Conscious acknowledgement of Life awaits your discovery -, are you afraid of finding it?

You are here describing your own concept. You also do not have a sense of what the Latin term intellectus means. You are not taking into consideration that these honorable fellows, whose ideas I critique, have very different ideas than you. And you are not taking into consideration the *larger picture* of what has been happening in the world of ideas in the Occident for a number of centuries . . . This is why you and I cannot communicate. Our areas of focus are very different.

How are the concepts 'Alpha, Omega, eternal life and the living god' my concepts? I used them, yes, but most certainly they did not originate with the arrival of Pam.

It is not hard to discover what the term 'intellectus' means, I looked it up on the online Latin dictionary when you first mentioned it. For your pleasure:

Intellectus:
noun
declension: 4th declension
gender: masculine

Definitions:
comprehension/understanding
intellect
meaning/sense
recognition/discerning

So once again I declare to you that you cannot comprehend, recognize or discern a Ground metaphysic because ideas, unlike the laws that form them, are not absolute. With ideas come the self - relativity. Why this is not apparent to you by now, I am at a loss for words. What is also not apparent to you is that the love of ideas - the making of idea worlds - is the antithesis of the love of truth. You choose ideas over truth and you wonder why your 'metaphysic of the divine' is not yet formed?

With regards to your argument that I am not taking into consideration that David, Dan and Kevin have different ideas than my own, I wasn't quoting David, Dan and Kevin when I referred to your idea of 'an atheistic dead-pantheistic description of all things', I was quoting you.

What puzzles me why you are struggling to rewrite the Christian metaphysic - are the ten commandments lacking in their coverage of man's moral duty? And for those who seek not the letter of the law but the spirit of the law, is not the Sermon on the Mount clear on how to find it?