EPH–2 / THE CONSPIRACY THEORY AS SECULAR GNOSIS

It is far more easy to irritate and throw the people into revolt, than to appease them when once put in motion.

– Augustin Barruel, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism

I. MYSTIFICATION. What is the commonality in the following? A declassified document made available to the press suggests that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was organized by members of the American Congress; the U.S. government’s recently released report on the “Roswell Incident” is purported to be just another machination to conceal the fact that alien cadavers still reside at Area–51; the Mafia and the CIA worked in complicity with the Swiss Guard at the Vatican to poison Pope John Paul I as the pontiff’s political agenda would have obstructed the international trade of arms and narcotics; a bestselling book by an self–taught archaeologist on the Dead Sea Scrolls affords “overwhelming evidence” that Christ was a political revolutionary whose blood lineage travels through to modern day monarchs; a newspaper reporter has interpenetrated Opus Dei and in his “special feature” supplies quotations from memoranda which “proves” that it is a secret society which operates to brainwash millions so as to induct a new age of global ultramontanism; the Bush administration planned and set into motion events that led directly to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 – and so on…

II. Obviously, the aforementioned are indicative of conspiracy.

III. PROLIFERATION. Considering the abundance of conspiracy theories which have arisen into the forefront within the last two decades or so – by book or by broadcast, it would be an interesting exercise to philosophically analyze the principal characteristics of the modern day form of a conspiracy theory; and to determine how it, like the many “metanarratives” of postmodernist commentators, comports itself as a surrogate religion, or an “ultimate reality”, by attempting to fill the spiritual vacuum left after the rejection of traditional religion in the West.

IV. REITERATION. Now TH2 is not here going to address those secular ideologies that, in their very modes of explication, in their beliefs and hopes and fears, can be analogized to traditional religious doctrines. One does not require a keen eye to discern the eschatological proclivities inherent to Karl Marx’s “dictatorship of the proletariat”.[1] It is a pedestrian task to pinpoint how the ultraistic rallying call for the preservation, if not plain divination, of the environment by the radical ecologists intimates a kind of redemption for man’s “ecosins” against nature.[2] Sigmund Freud’s postulation that an all–pervasive sense of guilt in humanity can be traced backwards in the distant past to a father, who was murdered by a “primal horde”, is just a psychologistic reiteration of the doctrine of Original Sin.[3] Other worldviews can be included here as they provide elaborate, sometimes totalistic, explanations of man – his history, his nature, and his future. However, these secular ideologies are internationalist so to speak, wide–ranging and commonplace, formally taken as verities by many as they agglomerate themselves into the modern day super–religion of secular humanism.

V. MARGINALIZATION. The degree of acceptation of the modern conspiracy theory (i.e. an endeavor to explain the unknown or to acquire information withheld) is, however, nowhere as great in its scope. Their claimants are marginalized in a sense. Proponents of these theories are manifested in disparate groups, have variegated spheres of interest, there is myriad number of them and, unlike the secular establishment, no organizational schematic or centralizing factor exists to unify all the parties. Because the conspiracy theory introduces phenomena and eventualities in human affairs that are entirely unexpected, astonishing or even scandalous, they are automatically categorized as preposterous by those in the secular sphere. This discordance to the methodical ongoings of the secular day aggravates the assumptions and sensibilities of secularity by the fact that a conspiracy theory tosses into the arena the very thing which secularity finds inadmissible, deems ridiculous or simply abhors: mystery. In an age where science alone is hailed to be the panacea for human misery, where the mechanics of opportunism and utilitarianism reign in politics; where compilers of economic and social statistics effectively delineate a culture which moves forwards in uninterruptible cycles void of deviation from the norm; and where the media and psychobabblers extol that drone of catchphrases which equate evil and suffering with unemployment, diet, exercise and housing conditions – to all of these euphemistic determinisms the notion of mystery (which is the life–support system of the modern conspiracy theory) is considered a nuisance, or even a serious threat to national security if that theory (not only widely popular) poses a scenario with worldwide repercussions.

VI. DESPIRITUALIZATION. In a more general sense, there is an aversion to the conspiracy theory because the mystery that is necessarily entailed suggests a force that works discretely, covertly, closed to public examination. This is at variance with secularity as it is, or claims to be, open to everything. All is on display, obviousness and self–assertion connote greatness, nothing is sacred, reductionism prevails, and a predominant relativism says that there are no true values. But most of all, secularity is spiritless. True, the kaleidoscopic systems of the world adopted within the secularist milieu can, as before, be cross–correlated with traditional doctrines of religion. Yet because the attitude is effectively atheistic and materialistic, mystery or some kind of immaterial force operating behind or beyond the daily toil is totally negated, compensated with pantheism (which is just a emotive form of materialism) or other immanentist explanations, such as cosmological infinitism. But history clearly demonstrates that man is spiritual by nature, drawn to the really transcendent, and as such has always been magnetized to mystery, irrespective of what has been done or declared otherwise.

VII. REPLENISHMENT. This is where conspiracy theories find part of their appeal. The spiritlessness of secularity,[4] and factoring in the general antagonism for traditional Judeo–Christian beliefs which now prevails (fostered not so much by an irreligious intelligentsia, but more so by heretics and apostates from within the Catholic Church over the last forty years or so), permits for the development of a spiritual vacuum to be replenished with some other explanation. Though not only with oriental philosophy, or the occult or New Age esoterica (which, too, attempt to satiate man’s spiritual propensities, however anomalous or fantastical they may be). Eastern views are excessively aprioristic and anti–material, with the spectre of all–out gnosticism always looming in the background. Yet there is a new brand of spirit, the spirit of the conspiracy theory, which possesses attributes of a dissimilar kind that can account for things that orientalism is inefficacious at providing (I will return to this later).

VIII. MYSTERY / REVELATION. The word conspiracy is derived from the Latin word conspiritus, meaning "to breathe together with or in spirit". Hence the formulators of conspiracy theories maintain that those personages clandestinely enterprising behind the scandal or realization invariably withhold information from the general public. A select group work together and against the common good of society. In the context that I am speaking, this information can be translated into secret or superior knowledge. So we see that a kind of secular gnosis has been fingerprinted. The phenomena or event or person that is of concern in the conspiracy theory may not be directly associated to religious issues or establishments. Rather, secularity is itself considered to be the religious orthodoxy. That old Marxist argument of power/authority transposition keeps popping up: the technocrat, the politician, the economic advisor, the industrialist, the CEO, and so forth, are believed to be the priests of religion, be it political or economical. Attendant with this comes the one thing, again, that secularity cannot provide and thus nullifies as an actuality: mystery.[5] The conspiracy theory thus injects its own concoction of mystery into the secular framework. But notice: even if the conspiracy theory is disproven, even if objective evidence is furnished to demonstrate the untenability of the theory, conspiracy wielders will nonetheless maintain that a “cover–up” exists, that other activities are still underway, that crucial facts remain undisclosed, regardless of what is propounded contrariwise. Aficionados of conspiracy theories will still and most obstinately assert that some information is being hidden from view and must be revealed (and may I again emphasize that last word, implying man’s innate need for some form of revelation).

IX. COUNTERPOSITIONINGS. These counterarguments fired by the conspiracy theorists are made not so much because the testimonies of their opponents are logically sound and convincing (and I would hypothesize that not a few conspiracy theorists, when alone, know that they speak rubbish, for man’s conscience whispers to him at these quiet moments), but because that propensity towards mystery is steadfastly there, whatever its incarnation may be, however it is interpreted. Furthermore, because this condition of perplexity exists, since there is no extraneous standard or authority which discriminates between the truth and error of the two viewpoints, others will soonafter be attracted into the fray, submitting new variations and glosses on the original conspiracy theory. More denunciations will come again from the secular establishment. The conspiracy theorists will then issue another barrage of speculations, allegations, insinuations, and so on ad infinitum. But – and here comes the cruncher – because secularity is spiritless, devoid of, and leaving no space for, mystery, it is not even outfitted in the first place of supplying a sufficiently broad and final answer to resolve the predicament.

X. "THE UNKNOWN" = ONTOLOGICAL X. Most conspiracy theories today are just that, not at all extramental, productions of the mind minus interconnection to socio–political, economic, scientific or cultural realities, i.e. it is a secular gnosis. Effectively, the “unknown” that the conspiracy theory necessitates to sustain itself is, upon general examination, not really a quest for the mystery that works behind secularity per se. Contrarily, I posit that the recent burgeoning of conspiracy theories is an echo of the irreligious dilemma in modern Western society. It is a faint and unvoiced admittance of man’s lure to, and real need of, true mystery – not mystification and its associated vagaries. A mystery that must be theological in quintessence, and to which the secular “mystery” (the conspiracy as secular gnosis) is no match whatsoever. Speaking theologically, the “unknown” is an ontological X whereas the “unknown” in its secularist guise is an X that has been deontologized (“deconstructed” is the word now being employed), and made apprehensible only in a physicalist–immanentist fashion. Even if, say, a conspiracy theory was confirmed to be true, and if this was made public, others theories would surely emerge, simply because of that inevitable dissatisfaction that arises whenever a thorough explanation is supplied to some issue or predicament which appertains merely to the level of immanency. That compulsion for real mystery would still be present as it is intrinsic to man. Spiritual mysteries still supplant those of the pseudo–transcendent secularized sort. A vacuum will develop and subsequently be filled, then denounced or demystified. Another vacuum will form, refilled, and so forth. And is this not the great trick of gnosticism? Does it not infinitely tease and trick onwards to the spatiality of the “out there”? Or forwards into the temporality of the “event horizon”? The motto of a popular science fiction television program X–Files was: “The truth is out there”. The gnostic ontologism of the philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), perfectly aligning himself with that sense of a forward thrust into the future (emblematic of German philosophy), spoke of “time as the possible horizon”.[6] As some commentators have deduced, Heidegger substituted time for God.

XI. PERSONALISM / INVOLVEMENT. There is another reason why the contemporary conspiracy theory, which I classify as secular gnosis, is so enthralling to many. With the mystery that is necessarily involved, with those collaborative spirits who work behind, a feeling of intrigue, excitement, anticipation, drama and perhaps tragedy come into play. Basically, the situation is very personal. The conspiracy makes an allowance for individual involvement, its is an interactive affair, it speaks directly to the person who investigates it, enticing him to greater participation as the implications of the theory, if it is true, will affect that person’s life in a monumental way. The priests of secular establishment cannot, of course, offer this personalism. There is nothing as drab and necessitarian as the worldview of pure secular humanism (i.e. nonchalant negation of the transcendent aspects of human existence). Neither can that hodgepodge of New Age worldviews intrude. This is because they find their antecedent in Eastern philosophy that, as most of us know, is terribly impersonal. Indeed, since orientalism ascribes reality to be an illusion, subjective and shadowy and intangible, it cannot in any significant way provide that real interassociation to, and hence a personal encounter with, physico–cultural externalities. With the conspiracy theory, however, the realness of people, events and phenomena (though they may not be in actuality) are nevertheless believed or assumed to be true.

XII. SCENARIO. Consider: just think of the feeling of adventure involved when someone purchases a book on a conspiracy theory. Perhaps this person is lonesome, discontented with his job, without friends, presupposing that his life is meaningless. Yet this book, which reads like a spy novel, has seized his attention. It has its worldwide ramifications, its cast of characters, all of them revolving around the elusive mystery and its concomitants. Upon reading this book, this drama, this new awareness of a so–called secret spirit which operates in collusion – this effectively begins to fill up that emptiness which an unsympathetic, mystery–denying secular society cannot. He draws the curtains, shutting out the cold blue lights of the secular metropolis, makes a cup of coffee, and sits in his favorite chair while he reads his book late into Saturday evening. He is fascinated, mesmerized at what he reads. He ruminates and reconsiders the thesis that the author presents to him. He intercompares this fact with that, this scenario with that one. In simpler words, he is becoming personally involved, engrossed with the conspiracy.

XIII. AS IF / AS IS. Now I am not denigrating or caricaturing this hypothetical person to evoke laughter and ridicule. To be sure, I would assert that there is something good and natural at what this person is doing – probing mystery, searching for a reason and truth, trying to comprehend the circumstance. However, because the conspiracy, or this secular gnosis, cannot by its very nature furnish him with a specific or final explanation, he will in most cases become despondent upon his realization that the book itself does not even wish to offer a final solution. Only inferences and possibilities are granted, leaving the reader dangling in mid–air, in a sort of suspended animation, as the answer is invariably “out there” and that “the future will tell” of the theory's veracity. In other words, the reader will discover that the conspiracy theory asserts that the truth is not really present, it is “not now”, not in a present tense and always relegated to a future tense. The conspiracy theory is grammatically grounded in the "as if" clause, the Als–Ob philosophy which was popularized by the philosopher Hans Vaihinger (1852–1933) [7]. Thus this conspiracy theory turns out to be only a theory, a secular gnosis. In this context, it is not even a surrogate religion since a religion will delimit truths, it will distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil, it will tell of ends and means to them. It will speak of the beliefs “that are true”, not “as if” they were so.

XIV. DISTRUST / SUSPICION. If we dredge further into the subsurface we discover another reason why the contemporary conspiracy theory has continued to flourish without abatement. Indeed, it is so frequently overlooked as it is so apparent. It has to do with the West’s distrust or extreme skepticism of all authority, be it political, religious, parental or otherwise, especially since the antinomian Sixties. Our culture is increasingly becoming comprised of morally autonomous Kantians running all about, demanding this, calling for that, acting as if their dictates are universally applicable when their first principles contradictorily state that there are no absolute truths. Why should the conspiracy theorists and their adherents defer to the explanations of government officials, leaders, and others of reliability, when our media commentators, political pundits and philosophers insist (blatantly, stealthily or even inadvertently) that one should always be suspicious of any authority?[8]

XV. POTENTIALITY. The offshoot of this phantasmagoric swirl of confusion is worse and somewhat disturbing when final consequences are factored in. Because we have one side the accusatory conspiracy spinners who incessantly doubt and disbelieve what the holders of power and authority tell them; and because, on the opposing side, the secular establishment will have the tendency to dismiss the conspiracy theorists as amateurs or fanatics, reckoning them disrupters of the system, an avenue is left open for an actually occurring conspiracy to operate without any hindrance or answerability. And if members of that conspiracy (political, socio–economic, scientific) possess a large measure of influence, the potentiality is there for their aims to reach fruition or for the unleashing of insurrectionist ideas seemingly benign at first sight.

XVI. HISTORY OF THE FUTURE. To use a historical example, proponents of the “official view” on the causes of French Revolution would condescendingly smile at the thesis put forward by Abbé Augustin Barruel who, in his Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, provided copious documentation contending that it was a combinatorial anti–Christian, anti–monarchical and anti–social conspiracy manoeuvered by the philosophes (Voltaire, D’Alembert), the French Masonic Lodges and the German Illuminists. There was a detailed and pre–planned conspiracy (drawn out over many years) in the manner that the Abbé spoke. Convincing documentation exists to evidence a conspiracy in the events which lead to the French Revolution.[9] What is important to the conclusion of this essay, a general state of confusion was existent in European culture at the time that can in many ways be analogized to modern times. A situation where there was a stalwart disdain for legitimate authority, where truth was cast aside, where many writers were capriciously extolling their own theories on whatever subject matter, without historical consideration, qualification and forethought of social aftereffects. The circumstance was certainly ripe for a real conspiracy to function.

XVII. But is this really the state of affairs today? Time, that great truth teller, will tell.


NOTES / REFERENCES 

1. For example: “Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is the political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat”. From the “Critique of the Goth Programme” in Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed. D. McLellan (Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 565.

2. Canada’s most notorious environmental radical, David Suzuki, writes that we must “liberate land and creeks from rubbish, concrete and asphalt.” See his The Sacred Balance, Discovering our Place in Nature (Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1997), p. 154. 

3. S. Freud, “Totem and Taboo” in The Penguin Freud Library, ed. J. Strachey (London: Penguin Books, 1990), vol. 13, pp. 216–217. 

4. For the first time in the history of western civilization, especially after Nietzsche and Marx, those in the “public square” effectively and informally assume the non–existence or irrelevancy of God and/or any objective morality. It is Secular Humanism, sometimes called the “New Atheism”. 

5. Herbert Marcuse, intellectual celebrity of the “New Left”, propounded this view in his One–Dimensional Man, Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), p. 189: “The technical achievement of advanced industrial society, and the effective manipulation of mental and material productivity have brought about a shift in the locus of mystification”. 

6. M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarie and E. Robinson (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Incorporated 1976), p. 1. Originally published in 1926. 

7. The Philosophy of 'As If': A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind, trans. C.K. Ogden (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited, 1924). 

8. In many cases, skepticism of authority works not so much to reveal an alternative and more promising view of the world – and convince others of it. Rather, it becomes skepticism for skepticism’s sake (a secret form of cynicism), often leading to a state of general perplexity, leaving listeners not knowing what at all to believe or who to trust. Still, arguments from authority are needed to form the basis of knowledge and belief. 

9. Just before his death, Edmund Burke (1729–1797, author of the conservative classic, Reflections on the Revolution in France), personally knowing five of the conspirators, wrote a letter to Barruel commending him and confirming the anti–Christian plot commentated on in the first volume of the Memoirs. See introduction by Fr. Stanley L. Jaki to Abbé Barruel’s Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism, trans. R. Clifford (Fraser, MI: Real–View–Books, 1995), pp. xix–xx. First published in 1798. Subnote that most anti–Catholic historians will score off this opus, which was a bestseller at the time of publication (in various languages). Read the introduction to the aforementioned book by Fr. Jaki and you will know why.

EPH–2 / THE CONSPIRACY THEORY AS SECULAR GNOSIS

APPEAL TO HELP HERO PRIEST – FR. ALPHONSE DE VALK

I have a friend... oh, but, gentlemen. He's a friend of yours too.
– Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From Underground

FOUNDER/EDITOR OF CATHOLIC INSIGHT: Fr. Alphonse de Valk

Hey Catholic peoples !

Perhaps you may consider helping Fr. Alphonse de Valk, editor of Catholic Insight, an orthodox Catholic magazine based out of Toronto, Canada.

THE SITUATION

Readers may be aware that Catholic Insight is under investigation by the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Ottawa after a complaint was filed over our coverage of the homosexual issue. The Canadian Human Rights Act, under subsection 13(1), categorizes as a "discriminatory practice" the communication by individuals or groups of messages "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt". Hatred and contempt are not defined, allowing anyone to file a complaint on the flimsiest of grounds. These messages then become "thought crimes". While the legal expenses of human rights complainants are funded from the public purse, those of defendants are not. We need to engage legal counsel and defray expenses for additional staff time, publicity, correspondence and so on. Our regular fundraising appeal takes place only once every two years. However, at this time, we must make a special request for funds in light of the unexpected new demands being made upon our budget. If you are able to help, please send your cheque or money order to Catholic Insight, P.O. Box 625, Adelaide Station, Toronto, Ontario, [Canada] M5C 2J8. For a credit card donation, you can call us at (416) 204–9601 or e–mail admin@catholicinsight.com. Catholic Insight is fighting to preserve the rights to freedom of expression, religion and the press as guaranteed by our Constitution. God bless you for your support. [PayPal also available]

TH2 COMMENTS: Although its circulation is relatively small, Catholic Insight is Canada’s national Catholic magazine, in terms of its adherence to orthodoxy. Canada's oldest English–speaking Catholic periodical/newspaper is The Catholic Register, although now it promotes a wishy–washy, borderline–dwelling Catholicism, and I can think of one histrionic radical still on its writing staff. In contradistinction to this squeamish neutrality, the courageous Fr. de Valk and his team are fighting the good fight. Ever since Pierre Elliot Trudeau (1919–2000) became Prime Minister in 1968 – a notoriously bad Catholic, his instituted policies (e.g. Gallicanism, Mulitculturalism) have led Canada on a downslide along the road called Fabianism (see definition in Note 2, EOS-2). This has devolved to such a degree that Fr. de Valk / Catholic Insight has been accused of a “hate crime” (read thought crime, Orwell 1984) when he published writings – wholly in line with the Magisterium – against homosexualism.

If unable to contribute, your prayers for this good, holy and longsuffering priest would still be appreciated. Fr. de Valk is one of my heroes, and if you read about his plight (see links below), then, Catholic peoples, he might become a hero of yours too.

UPDATE / 3 September 2009: Section 13 of "The Canadian Human Rights Code" has been ruled to be inconsistent to the Canadian Charter of free expression (see link). Nevertheless, the damage has already been done. Please consider helping Fr. de Valk if you can.

Catholic Insight: www.catholicinsight.com

Catholic Insight Defense Fund: LINK


READ ABOUT FR. DE VALK AND HIS FIGHT AT THE FOLLOWING LINKS...

Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL): Human Rights Complaint Costing Catholic Insight

LifeSite News: Fascism has come to Canada

The Interim: Freedom of Religion Threatened, Human Rights Tribunals – Curb 'em or Close 'em

Ezra Levant Comments: Who's Fr. de Valk

APPEAL TO HELP HERO PRIEST – FR. ALPHONSE DE VALK

AJOTW / No. 3

click to enlarge

VERSUS

ITEM: On the death of Ted Kennedy (radical advocate and perpetuator of abortion), Chris Matthews thrillingly said on his MSNBC program: "Barack Is Now the Last (Kennedy) Brother".

[FADE IN]

[SCENE: Metropolitan Park. Weekday morning. Weather sunny and clear.]

[SITUATION: TH2 sitting on park bench, waiting for you know who. Time passes. His Scampersness arrives.]

TH2: You're always late for appointments.

MR. SCAMPERS: Relax.

TH2: Did ya hear the news? Ted Kennedy is dead.

MR. SCAMPERS: Yup. He's dead.

TH2: He's dead.

MR. SCAMPERS: He's dead.

TH2: He's dead.

MR. SCAMPERS: He sure is dead.

TH2: I think he's dead.

MR. SCAMPERS: Indeed, the evidence shows that he is dead.

TH2: Hell? Purgatory?

MR. SCAMPERS: [silence]

TH2: Remember that meeting in Maine in the mid-1960s? That the Kennedy's had with those apostate priest/theologians?

MR. SCAMPERS: I sure do.

TH2: They convinced the Kennedy clan that it is acceptable to be pro-abortion and Catholic at the same time.

MR. SCAMPERS: Yes. Their names were: Robert Drinan, Richard McCormick, Joseph Fuchs, Giles Milhaven, Charles Curran and Albert Jonsen.

TH2: Explains alot, doesn't it?

MR. SCAMPERS: It sure does, you pathetic excuse for a blogger.

TH2: What ever became of Fr. Robert Drinan?

MR. SCAMPERS: He's dead.

TH2: Richard McCormick ?

MR. SCAMPERS: He's dead.

TH2: Joseph Fuchs?

MR. SCAMPERS: He's dead too.

TH2: The others? Milhaven... Curran... Jonsen?

MR. SCAMPERS: They're getting on in years... old men... they'll soon be dead.

TH2: You're a mean guy, Mr. Scampers... you are one mean dude.

MR. SCAMPERS: Ya, say that to the millions of children slaughtered in the womb on account of that Kennedy kook. Oh! Did I forget to mention Mary Jo?

TH2: [silence]

MR. SCAMPERS: Don't bother me, I have a headache.

TH2: Judging by the size of that head, it's gotta be one big monster headache.

MR. SCAMPERS: Such rapier wit! I thought we came here to discuss Jackass Number 3, Chris Matthews.

TH2: Uh huh. We did. Heard what he said about the Kennedy-Obama relation?

MR. SCAMPERS: Ya. He's still got a woody for that Marxist creep.

TH2: To be sure, my good man. A thriller. Anyway, you got anything in the works for the Catholic peoples?

MR. SCAMPERS: Yes, I do, TH2. I'm thinking... "Graphical Fun with Luther".

TH2: Sounds interesting...

[SITUATION: Mr. Scampers immediately get's up. Says nothing. Walks away into distance. It starts to rain... A day without Mr. Scampers is like a day without sunshine.]

[FADE OUT]

AJOTW / No. 3

EPH–1 / PHILSOPHIA FUTURIS: MEDITATION AND AFTERWORD

It appears now that nothing is a proof of a man being wise, unless he can foresee the future.

– M.T. Cicero, Oration for C.R. Postumus

I. When a gentleman of the Faith retires after the toil of another day, when that leaden sky of unbounded atmospherics which the German poets praise gives him an idealistic stomach ache, and when he ruminates upon the unmitigated materialism of today’s man of action, he will speak internally: “Yes, these ways pervade the world. There is an imbalance. The Fall has occurred”. Afterwards, our gentleman will make himself a cup of coffee and sit down at his simple and durable dinner table. His eyes will subsequently focus directly and intensely to the cup of coffee atop the table. Then releasing a sigh which eventually translates into a minimalistic smile, and with a sense of a quiet, metaphysical knowingness, two more words come to him: “It is.”

II. He knows... He is still astonished by the existential reality of the thing.

III. Now our rather somber man is not of the fatalistic type. Though his day may have been plagued by unexpected eventualities, regardless of the global apocalyptic scenarios which his mind seems to unceasingly concoct – for he knows not where they originate; and irrespective of his foreseen clamor and nihilism which the next day will bring to his complete amazement – all of these will perhaps affect him momentarily. But only momentarily. For some peculiar reason the man in question in no manner has acquiesced to defeat. He refuses absolutely to escape reality absolutely like the Buddha. The gnosticism of the present day cosmologist is to him only an ephemeral annoyance. Thinking of Kant’s “Second Critique” of Practical Reason, he will at least laugh in agreement with Heinrich Heine’s zinger: “the farce after the tragedy”.

IV. Clearly, our fellow affirms reality as such. A painstaking and sometimes beleaguering reality it may be, but it is the only one he has and it is the only one that there is. Signs and symbols in themselves, and the mind working unto itself, will just not do. He knows too well of the irrealities that have resulted therefrom. Perchance it is safe to assume that the man in question is no friend of the Prussian philosophers and their forward thrusts to futuristic horizons, always promised and envisioned, yet never to reach fruition.

V. Let us say that our hypothetical fellow is immensely interested in knowledge and learning. This, however, is not really necessary to indicate because, by his very instinct and faith, he is always open to, and adequately studied in, the intellectual foundations of his belief system, including those of his opponents. He is wide–eyed, his mind is agapé to the world as it were.

VI. As a result of this mindset, he has, over the years, accumulated a copious array of books which glut the shelves of his private study; and although the intensity of the day has made his body weary, his intellect nonetheless screams quietly for nourishment. He requires encouragement and inspiration. Yet on this particular evening he possesses not the endurance or the patience to peruse a book not amenable to his current state of mind.

VII. He now begins to scan the ensemble of works, and his eyes immediately catch the name Dostoyevsky. His mind is already in motion. He imagines the great Russian novelist is somewhere overhead, observing and assessing the countenance and thoughts of our fellow. Dostoyevsky is eating brown, Russian bread and drinking a bottle of vodka as he watches, endeavoring wholeheartedly to withhold with what seems to be laughter. At last, unable to contain himself, an admixture of bread and vodka spews out of his mouth, portions of it dribbling down his beard. Dostoyevsky belches and says in a loud, almost angry voice: “Young man! I have already tried. I have asked and probed everything. Do not even try. Do not contaminate yourself because the territory you are heading towards is very unstable and dangerous. You will soon realize that you are out of your league. Your opponents are formidable, as well as sinister. But if you do enter the fray, young fellow, you must continue to look forwards and never look back. Never! This is because the past will vanish. And, young fellow, if you are courageous enough to go onwards – I warn you – be prepared for the unthinkable, the unspeakable. Good luck, young man.”

VIII. But even Dostoyevsky knew, in his heart of hearts, that all answers and the Truth are to be found in the God–Man, Who was nailed at the intersection of two wooden beams.

IX. Dostoyevsky was a great writer, one of his favorites. But he can take only so much of that incessant anxiousness which runs the mind down; and all of those cries of impending and unnamable cataclysms or utopias to “soon arrive” are so commonplace that they only induce boredom in him. He has become very proficient at recognizing the deception involved: the Protestant fundamentalist screeching about the nearness of Antichrist’s arrival; the gnostic cult leader hailing the dawn of the “new age”; the atheist astronomer’s hope for the evacuation of the human race to distant planets; the liberation theologian’s oration on the Marxist dystopia; the astrologer’s foretelling of events to come; the flying saucer to land on earth to save humanity from itself. These threats and promises, and so many more, always bespeak of the “out there”. All of them, even when disguised under the false intellectualism of the philosopher, manipulate a person’s future and hence his freewill. Promises never kept. Hopes to be dissolved.

X. His eyes start to scan again.

XI. He passes over the disciples of Darwin, Marx and Freud. He gazes at the Humean skeptics, the German pantheists, and the alpine–soaring Nietzscheans. For a quick smirk, he randomly opens to a page in a book on deconstruction and reads: “...the coextensive anteriority of the de–modulated and hyper–retrogressive existent, collaterally, with the consideration of the Nubian shorelines, engenders a dipolar and dexterous coagulation in the thing’s propension to...”– quickly, he puts the book back into the chaos from which it originated, regretting the loss of money that could have been spent on a pack of smokes. Next he finds a book he received from a former girlfriend. Apparently, the thesis of the text, written by an ecofeminist influenced by liberation theology, claims that the evils of the world can be halted if only the West would consider a reconciliation between Mother Earth and Marxist sexuality.

XII. His stomach contracts. The reaction is visceral.

XIII. Yet this cast of philosophers and tragedians, in our man’s depths – at the point where man meets his final answerability to God, are proven to be alien to him. Their immanentist territories are but reiterations of the sophisticates and solipsists. Different grammars, same erroneous ideas: exclusively temporal, vague, ridiculous, mechanistic and chimerical. Expressions of a false transcendence. They wail over the gods, engage in textual hedonism, and praise the unheavenly Faustian heights. Their anticipations and despairs reside solely in prognosticated futures which never arrive, while their universal view of becoming dissipates into that from which it came: negation. The great gift of the present is ignored, wasted. The minds of impressionable and uninstructed readers are robbed and taken into landscapes of the profane and transient – and all of this in the name of not liberty, but of license.

XIV. Stepping back from his bookcase our man makes a more expansive visual swath, opening up his mind to the universality of being and truth. He briefly deliberates upon re–reading Being and Time but decides otherwise, not wishing to lock himself inside the temporal prisonhouse of a former Jesuit novitiate who made ontological gnosticism into an intellectual fashion.

XV. He decides to go home.

XVI. Newman’s Grammar of Assent, Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, and Maritain’s Trois Reformateurs require further investigation. Not this evening, however. He needs something more apologetic. The Summa Theologica? By no means! “On the contrary”, as St. Thomas repetitiously dictated to his four secretaries. An examination of Q. 94, Art. 2 of the first part of the second part will have to be delayed for another time. Sheen’s God and Intelligence is also out of the question. He has read it five times, nearly memorized.

XVII. He relents, almost succumbing to the signs of the times. Yet as this happens the gleam of an author’s name invades his dreariness. For amid the cacophony of abomination and unsuredness which now displays itself; midst the shattered remnants of fallen Babels; between the fragments of the pre–Socratics and the post–modernist semioticians – he sees the name of not a scholarly man, not a man of systematic treatises. Instead, the name reminds him of wit, paradox and disinterested irony, which are the stereotyped trademarks of the Englishman. Once again, he envisages what this man of letters might express upon the realization of our gentleman’s almost defeatist condition: “My good fellow. Have you forgotten Exodus 3:14? What fool existentialist has claimed to counter that? Find the rascal and throw him to the Thomist dogs.”

XVIII. We are speaking, obviously, of a certain Mr. G.K. Chesterton, Esquire. The immovable next to the Immovable Himself… So now our man resigns to the truth, the everlasting. He sits down in his somewhat gaudy yet comfortable chair and begins to read a book entitled The Everlasting Man.

AFTERWORD: This short, fictional meditation was written for two reasons. The first being to emphasize that one need not be a scholar per se to defend or combat (whether it be in formal debate or in the everyday happenstance) an opponents claim that Roman Catholicism is mere myth or superstition run amuck. Usually, the scoffing apperceived by the believer is the consequence of an unconscious envy or the scoffer’s unquestioning acceptance of slander perpetuated about the Faith. The second reason relates to the sense of an inner and quiet relief which one periodically undergoes following a long day of being in a world of becoming (this piece was written after a rather trying day of work). For you will hear in the world that – whether from the literary critic or the social engineer, the reactionary or the journalist, the scientist or the social theorist – all which is, becomes. Essentially, it is propounded that morality, law, society, culture, even God Himself, are, in every way, in flux, that they incessantly change and “progress”.

Now this whole fiasco of the Philosophy of Becoming has its root in The Fall of Modern Philosophy as it were, viz. the confusion of the mind (the sign) with the world (the thing). The error is easily traceable to Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), and runs through the majority of the German philosophes ever since. We could even go further back in the time and trace the origin of this epistemological bonanza to a very loud Augustinian monk of the 1500s – but that is another story (see H-1, paras. LXXV to CII). The Philosophy of Becoming, however, and the subjectivist worldview to which it attends, has always been with us in greater or lesser degrees. From the Greeks and Romans, as with Marcus Aurelius (121–180 AD): “…all actions [are] in a perpetual change; and the causes themselves, subject to a thousand alterations, neither is there anything almost, that may ever be said to be now settled and constant” [1], to the droll ruminations of the mythographer Joseph Campbell (1904–1987): “The end of the world is not an event to come, it is an event of psychological transformation, of visionary transformation. You see not a world of solid things but a world of radiance.”[2]

The aim here is not to comment on epistemology, however. TH2 only recognizes the aftereffects of the Philosophy of Becoming, of that forward thrust to the future for future’s sake. For example, Marxist’s predicted that the glorious revolution of the proletariat would be the final and inevitable consequence of bourgeois capitalism. Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) hailed that “to us belongs the future, and already the morning glow of victory is dawning.”[3] So what was the outcome of this philosophia futuris? Stalin sends millions upon millions to extermination. There was no “glow of victory” in Germany after the Nazi atrocities... In that despair which negates redemption, what does Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s (1821–1881) Underground Man cry after the most existentially devastating of monologues addressed to humanity?: “Last of all, gentlemen: it is best to do nothing!”[4] Total inertia. Astonishment at existence. “Why is there something rather than nothing?”[5] asked Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716). Silence. The brilliant Frederick Wilhelmsen (1923–1996) wrote: “Silence without God is intolerable. This is why atheists talk so much.”[6]

TH2 spoke briefly on alleged revolutions and cataclysms to eventuate in the future because, in the midst of the turmoil and strife in the early part of the last century, inside that fantastical world of Herbert Spencer’s (1820–1903) social Darwinism and the annihilationism of H.G. Wells (1866–1946), there arose a chivalrous man of whose pen inscribed words which became a sort of way–station which readers could stop at after departing from that Ship of Becoming which the daily toil presents; and where this ship was symbolic of the universal flux which pervaded, and still does pervade, the way in which the modern world thinks out, interprets and acts its existence. This man was G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936). Reading GKC’s works is an excellent prescription to prevent oneself from being overwhelmed by the crisis of the signs of the times. C.S. Lewis, a fan of Chesterton himself, wrote: “A man can’t be always defending the truth; there must be a time to feed on it.”[7]

GKC books from Ignatius Press. See also Gilbert! Magazine.

NOTES / REFERENCES

1. The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius, trans. M. Casaubon (London: J.M. Dent & Company, 1906), Book XIX, p. 52.

2. B. Moyers and J. Campbell, The Power of Myth, ed. B.S. Flowers (New York: Doubleday Books, 1988), p. 285. Campbell rejected his Catholicism as a young man in the mid–1920s, then coming under the influence of Hindu paganism.

3. H. Heine, Concerning the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, trans. H.H. Mustard (New York: Random House, 1973).

4. F. Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground / The Double, trans. J. Coulson (London: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 43.

5. G. Leibniz, “The Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason” in Philosophic Classics, ed. W. Kaufmann, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice–Hall, Incorporated, 1968), vol. 2, p. 217.

6. F.D. Wilhelmsen, "The Good Earth" in Citizen of Rome, Reflections from the Life of a Roman Catholic (La Salle, IL: Sherwood Sugden & Company Publishers, 1980), p. 146.

7. C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1958), p. 9.

EPH–1 / PHILSOPHIA FUTURIS: MEDITATION AND AFTERWORD