The Illusion of Liberation…
Modern Man’s Attempted Revolt Against God, Nature, and Himself
“The endless cycle of idea and action, endless invention, endless experiment, brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; knowledge of speech, but not of silence; knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, all our ignorance brings us nearer to death, but nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust”…
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems
Metaxy
/me.tak.sý/
a Greek proposition meaning “between”
In-Between Worlds — Immanence and Transcendence
a “sacramental view” of reality: matter and spirit in one (Christian perspective — a Visible and Invisible Reality)
the permanent in-between structure of existence. Sometimes referred to as the between or in-between, meaning that humans live in a structure of reality that is between the poles of existence
[Michael P. Federici, Eric Voegelin] [ LINK ]
Semantics
/sɪˈmantɪk/
the study of meaning
General Semantics
the meaning or relationship of meanings of a sign or set of signs especially: connotative meaning
Ontology
/ɒnˈtɒlədʒi/
noun
the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being
a set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them
Epistemology
/ɪˌpɪstəˈmɒlədʒi/
noun
the branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [LINK] was a German polymath — a novelist, poet, playwright, scientist, and statesman who lived from 1749 to 1832.
He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in German literature and a pivotal figure in the development of Western thought.
Written in two parts over a ~60-year period, it explores the human struggle between the restless yearning for infinite knowledge, experience, & meaning of the immanent realm, and the stillness, spiritual & moral dimensions of the transcendental realm.
The play draws on the medieval Faust legend, enlightenment rationalism, and romantic idealism thought to portray the life of Dr. Faust, a scholar dissatisfied with the limits of human reason [LINK] and the finitude of mortal experience.
Mephistopheles (Satan) [LINK] makes a bet with God: he says that he can lure one of God’s servants, Faust, who is striving to learn everything that can be known, away from righteous pursuits.
Faust enters into a conditional pact with Mephistopheles [LINK] — the ‘spirit of negation’ (Hegel) — who will serve him in life.
Pursuing boundless experience, insight, and creative achievement, Faust wagers the eternal fate of his soul (eternal) to Mephistopheles on the chance that Faust’s restless striving might be stilled by a moment of perfect fulfilment (temporal).
In other words, Faust is prepared to risk eternal damnation (eternal) for the possibility of perfect but fleeting earthly fulfilment (temporal) — noting that despite believing that Human reason, learning, and achievement would give him meaning, it has so far proven to be inadequate and he has a longing for something that transcends the limits of human finitude and intellect that ends his restless striving for self-overcoming.
However, Goethe ultimately transforms the tragic Medieval narratives moral ending of the Faust legend [LINK] (i.e. Medieval version results in Faust damned — the peril of trading one’s soul for temporal power, pleasure, or knowledge — the hubris of a human who, dissatisfied with the limits God has set on human life and reason[LINK]), instead depicting Faust’s salvation as the result of righteous pursuits — Divine Grace, love and a lifelong striving directed towards higher selfless ends.
Together, these two parts form a vast work that reflects upon human ambition, temptation, redemption, and our place within a Divine Order [LINK].
The Metaxic Nature of Human Being — Metaphysical and Physical Dualism
“Two souls, alas, reside within my breast, and each withdraws from and repels, its brother” …
— Goethe, Faust
A tension that is illustrative of the “in-between” metaxic nature of human existence [LINK].
A Human Being that exists (i.e. act of Being) between the temporal and eternal.
[LINK]
A tension between a yearning for transcendence of the metaphysical & eternal and the urge for self-willed mastery of the physical & temporal.
“There is indeed an essential opposition between the spirit of Greek science, orientated towards contemplation, and the secular spirit of modern science, directed at dominating the world through technology, and this informed by the spirit of domination and power”…
— Augusto del Noce
Goethe’s quote of the “two souls” captures the essence of a central theme of the play’s narrative and the philosophical dilemma of the human condition [LINK].
“Our heart is restless until it rests in You”…
— Saint Augustine
Faust’s dualism reflects the restlessness and tension between these two souls.
The distinction between the infinite error [LINK] of Human “self-overcoming” (Nietzsche) (via continous self-improvement, dialectical materialism & “spirit of negation” (Hegel)) of the immanent realm and the possibility of bringing an end to such restlessness via love, divine grace and faith in God (St Augustine) of a higher-order understanding of a Divine Order of the transcendental realm.
[LINK]
“The death of the spirit is the price of progress. Nietzsche revealed this mystery of the Western apocalypse when he announced that God was dead and that He had been murdered. This Gnostic murder is constantly committed by the men who sacrificed God to civilisation.
The more fervently all human energies are thrown into the great enterprise of salvation through world–immanent action, the farther the human beings who engage in this enterprise move away from the life of the spirit. And since the life the spirit is the source of order in man and society, the very success of a Gnostic civilisation is the cause of its decline.
A civilisation can, indeed, advance and decline at the same time — but not forever.
There is a limit toward which this ambiguous process moves; the limit is reached when an activist sect which represents the Gnostic truth organises the civilisation into an empire under its rule.
Totalitarianism, defined as the existential rule of Gnostic activists, is the end form of progressive civilisation”…
― Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction
One that seeks a higher metaphysical intellectual, moral & spiritual meaning in a final purpose (Teleology) grounded in Divine Redemption (Christian Theology) — Christian Platonism [LINK] -and the other that seeks to satisfy Human Being in the physical world [LINK] grounded in Anthropomorphic Salvation [LINK] such as a Theology of Marxism [LINK] and Modern Gnosticism [LINK].
“A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognise truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others.
When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices.
And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself”…
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
The lifelong struggle between the angels and devils that reside within each of us.
“Within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals”…
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
[LINK]
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”…
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Modernity’s Revolution and Liberation
As briefly discussed in The Philosophy of Mechanisation — Primacy of Conscious Man — Reductionism, Determinism, Materialism, and Technocracy [LINK] and Schism — The Anthropomorphism of Christian Theology, Philosophy and Metaphysics [LINK], the arrival of Modernity was revolutionary for Man.
Reason was a key idea of the Enlightenment (e.g. Temples of Reason [LINK], Cult of Reason [LINK] ) that equipped Man to use his own judgment and discernment to think (e.g. “Cogito, ergo sum” — Descartes), determine what was right and wrong (e.g. Marx — Legal Positivism [LINK]), and ultimately transform the Material World(e.g. Marx — Historical Materialism [LINK]) and liberate (e.g. Nietzsche) himself.
- A liberation from the transcendent, including traditional moral values and religion (refer to Nietzsche);
- A liberation from the Human Condition that was inherent within the Contingent Being of Man (refer to Artificial General Intelligence, Trans Humanism, Scientific Gnosticism (Scientism), Nietzschean Übermensch, Nietzschean Will to Power);
- A liberation from the intolerable conditions and suffering of the Material Realm through attaining a Consciousness — a Gnosis (refer to Gnosticism, including Modern Gnosticism, Trans Humanism, Geo-Bio-Genetic-Engineering, Cartesian Mechanical Machine World View, Heidegger’s Technology Enframing (Bestand — Standing Reserve), and Jacques Ellul’s Technology Society & System); and
- A liberation from an independent objective Reality (refer to the Theology of Marxism (i.e. a power-directed system of thought), Nietzsche’s Theory of Perspectivism, Saussurean Dyadic Semiotics, Jean Baudrillard’s Post-Modern Simulacra, Simulation and HyperReality ).
The material manifestation of this idea is ever-present in various Marxist Revolutions that have occurred across the World post the arrival of Modernity, including inter alia the French, Russian, and Chinese variants.
Conscious Man was now empowered to transform the nature of Reality (e.g. Hegel’s Second Nature) through embracing the Primacy of Human Consciousness, rules of abstraction [LINK] and the application of instrumental reason [LINK].
A Revolution of the Mind [LINK], the emergence of the Individual [LINK] and human freedom — a thinking, conscious, acting being [LINK].
A Primacy of Modern Man.
The pursuit of a Theory of Everything [LINK] where the human intellect had unbounded rationality — limitless explanatory power [LINK] — as we accelerated our progressive long march forward [LINK] to the Singularity [LINK] and the Omega Point [LINK].
[LINK]
Liberation Ideology and a New Modern Theory of Knowledge
“In his physics, Aristotle had come to represent the world as an ensemble of forms constituting an eternal harmony, which he paused to contemplate in order to enjoy it as a spectator.
Descartes conceived it as a machine that produces its effects over time and that he intends to know in order not to contemplate it but, rather, to learn how to make it work and how to use it.
The first is an artist’s physics, which abstracts from the needs that are imposed on us by our life on earth, and interprets the world as a beautiful thing to see, so that we may act just like pure intellects and dedicate ourselves to the divine pleasure of contemplation.
The second is an engineer’s physics, which, rather than regarding the world as a beautiful thing and becoming aesthetically absorbed in its beauty, regards it as a good thing to possess and strives to possess it for the purpose of satisfying the needs of earthly life.
On one side, a science of the contemplation of the world, on the other side a science of its exploitation.
Starting from here, we understand their two theories of knowledge.
For Aristotle it is a matter of identifying oneself with the world in knowledge; conversely,for Descartes it is a matter of distinguishing oneself from the world in order to affirm oneself apart from it and above it (the thought process that leads to the cogito ) for the purpose of knowing the world from above and using it for one’s own ends” …
— Augusto del Noce
Rather than build on the ideas of Aristotle, where Man identified himself with the World in which he was entangled (i.e. Being in the World — this Being (Dasein) with Being — Heidegger) through knowledge (i.e. a Unity of Being), instead Modern Conscious Rational Man’s confidence had grown through the course of the Scientific Revolution and the development and application of Scientific Reason to more & more Technology to transform the World. [LINK]
A Modern Gnosticism (a Gnosis) [LINK] emerged where knowledge was now a matter of transcending Reality (i.e. Necessary Existence of God, the Natural World and Human Being).
A rational being anchored in more and more Cartesian abstraction (apart from the World) [LINK].
A Promethean Impulse [LINK].
[LINK]
The decoupling and liberation of Man (i.e. Theology of Marxism — Man as God [LINK] ) from the World.
Knowledge had become the instrument and catalyst for liberation and transcendence (e.g. Marx and Scientific Socialism [LINK] — Modern Gnosticism[LINK]).
The Labour of the Negative [LINK] of progress in transforming the World.
[LINK]
Scientific Gnosticism and the Inversion of Knowledge
“Now subjectivism reduces all science to the knowledge of one individual, the Ego — which, as just shown, is no science at all.
If its fundamental definition of knowledge means anything, or is faithfully adhered to, subjectivism teaches that the intelligent subject has no intelligence save for itself — has no warrant for believing in the existence of anything save itself — knows nothing but the inexplicable order of its own sensations and thoughts.
It reduces all existence to an unrelated One, while of an unrelated One no science is possible.
In a word, subjectivism if logical, annihilates science at a blow”…
— Francis Ellingwood Abbot
[LINK]
[LINK]
[LINK]
“In his physics, Aristotle had come to represent the world as an ensemble of forms constituting an eternal harmony, which he paused to contemplate in order to enjoy it as a spectator.
Descartes conceived it as a machine that produces its effects over time and that he intends to know in order not to contemplate it but, rather, to learn how to make it work and how to use it.
The first is an artist’s physics, which abstracts from the needs that are imposed on us by our life on earth, and interprets the world as a beautiful thing to see, so that we may act just like pure intellects and dedicate ourselves to the divine pleasure of contemplation.
The second is an engineer’s physics, which, rather than regarding the world as a beautiful thing and becoming aesthetically absorbed in its beauty, regards it as a good thing to possess and strives to possess it for the purpose of satisfying the needs of earthly life.
On one side, a science of the contemplation of the world, on the other side a science of its exploitation.
Starting from here, we understand their two theories of knowledge. For Aristotle it is a matter of identifying oneself with the world in knowledge; conversely, for Descartes it is a matter of distinguishing oneself from the world in order to affirm oneself apart from it and above it (the thought process that leads to the 𝘤𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘵𝘰) for the purpose of knowing the world from above and using it for one’s own ends” …
— Augusto del Noce
The Paradox of Liberation — The emergence of New Totalitarianism
“The essential element of totalitarianism, in brief, lies in the refusal to recognise the difference between “brute reality” and “human reality” so that it becomes possible to describe man, non-metaphorically, as a “raw material” or as a form of “capital.
Today this view, which used to be typical of Communist totalitarianism, has been taken up by its Western alternative, the technological society”…
— Augusto del Noce
Modernity and Post-Modernity’s attempts to re-orientate the nature of Reality towards the Primacy of Human Consciousness (e.g. Cartesianism, Gnosticism, Nietzschean Perspectivism, Idealism) and Primacy of Man (e.g. Theology of Marxism and Materialism) result in a fundamental shift in how we understand the nature of Reality.
Rather than understand Reality from a Thomistic Philosophical perspective as a triadic relationship between Conscious Man, the Natural World and God [LINK] — a Divine Order — a relationship between the contingent being of the created and the necessary being of the creator, instead Reality was now a Marxist Social Construct [LINK] shaped through narratives [LINK], semiotic signs [LINK] and prevailing human social tribal beliefs [LINK].
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness”…
— Karl Marx
Historical Materialism [LINK] and transformation via a Philosophy of Mechanical Action [LINK] — dialectical materialism that combined idealism, materialism, reflexivity and praxis [LINK].
“Thus, the concept of reflexivity yields a “shoelace” theory of history.
It must be recognised that the shoelace theory is a kind of dialectic. It can be interpreted as a synthesis of Hegel’s dialectic of ideas and Marx’s dialectical materialism. Instead of either thoughts or material conditions evolving in a dialectic fashion on their own, it is the interplay between the two that produces a dialectic process” …
— George Soros, The Theory of Reflexivity
[LINK]
Hence, the paradox and irony of Man’s attempts to unshackle and liberate himself from God, the natural world and himself was that Reality had to now be imposed through force, mechanical action [LINK] and control.
“A totalitarianism of a new nature, much more progressive, much more capable of an absolute domination that past models, including Stalin and Hitler, could not manage, today declares itself quite openly: the technocatric super party”…
— Augusto del Noce
A new totalitarianism [LINK].
[LINK]
“I am tempted to propose the following definition of totalitarianism: a regime that persecutes those who love truth”…
— Augusto del Doce
The antithesis of standing on the shoulders of giants [LINK] and embracing the rich intellectual history of Western Civilisation [LINK].
“ European civilisation rose on the principle of a World of universal and eternal truths, in which all men participate — on the principle of the Logos, in other words”…
— Augusto del Noce
The attempted Deconstruction of the Logos [LINK].
“ Man possesses in himself an agent [i.e. reason] whose essence is divine, and this agent and the power [i.e. the Logos] that eternally shapes and organises the world are ontologically, or at least in their principle, one and the same; hence reason’s aptitude at knowing the world”.…
— Augusto del Noce
The attempted denial of Truth [LINK] [LINK].
“Truth is exact correspondence with reality”…
— Paramahansa Yogananda
The attempted denial of History [LINK] — an apparent end of History [LINK].
“History is not history unless it is the truth”…
— Abraham Lincoln
An attempted inversion of Reality — a denial of metaphysics and realism [LINK].
“ European civilisation rose on the principle of a World of universal and eternal truths, in which all men participate — on the principle of the “ “Real” is a word invented in the thirteenth century to signify having Properties, i.e. characters sufficing to identify their subject, and possessing these whether they be anywise attributed to it by any single man or group of men, or not”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
An attempted denial of Christian Platonism [LINK].
“Plato was the philosophical founder of Europe”…
— Augusto del Noce
An attempted denial of a World with influences beyond Mechanical Action [LINK].
“All nature abounds in proofs of other influences than merely mechanical action, even in the physical world”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
An attempted denial of +2,000 years of accumulated and refined intellectual thought grounded in Christianity [LINK] [LINK].
“Only the principles of Christianity can save society from catastrophe”…
— Augusto del Noce
An attempted overriding of a Divine Order [LINK] — the emergence of a New World Order [LINK].
“Tragedy occurs when man, through pride (or even through stupidity as in the case of Ajax) enters into conflict with the divine order, personified by a God or incarnated in Society. And the more justified his revolt and the more necessary this order, the greater the tragedy that stems from the conflict” …
– Excerpt from Albert Camus, On the Future of Tragedy
[ LINK ]
The Illusion of Liberation — a New Road to Serfdom [LINK] — New Totalitarianism [LINK].
“Totalitarianism and secularism are inseparable”…
— Augusto del Noce
[LINK]
Modern Man’s attempted revolt [LINK] against God, Nature, and Himself, which are all grounded in the Univocity of Being [LINK] (John Duns Scotus — [LINK]) — the foundation for understanding sacredness [LINK].
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