A longer time has gone by than I remembered since the last. Sickness has stalked the house again, and the late winter grays have done their work. I would change some pictures to ones of spring, but we are still in the grip for a few more days.
Heard a robin in the front yard, beginning on Feb 27th, and the first sand hill crane yesterday. The sand hill cranes have proven to be the most reliable barometers and forecasters. Last year they came early and made it clear it would be a very early and warm spring. This year, one has come a little early -but only one - so we may be looking at a more ordinary spring.
I always look at the crane and think, "what must you think of all this? Our highways, plowed fields, cities, you who have seen so many climate changes, including numerous ice ages. Is our work just another of many changes to you? Are we that fleeting to even the birds?" Of course the answer is yes, and it is not a disheartening truth. Rather, it is one of freedom. All of your failures, your social faux pauxs, even your pains, all as nothing. The glaciers, the fields, the cranes don't care. You in infinity won't care either, I expect. It is not dust in the wind, but light in the air. Dance in the motes while you can.
Saw a movie recorded from an offering of free Showtime the other day, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I am too much of a literary snob to spend 10 hours reading the book, but I can spend 2 while strumming idly on the guitar or feeding the dog. The action and intrigue grabbed me, and the acting was tremendous. However, I could feel soul rot within 15 minutes of the show, and by the end felt dirty and doomed. There was no morality in the characters - only actions based on custom or advantage by the best and extreme rages of foul and perverse libidinal activity by the worst. Revenge was the only sentiment that spoke of justice. Some psychiatrists would claim that these two examples represent who we are without our personas - the bad and the ugly more or less controlled (by most of us) by our social veneer, all while another part seethes and squirms in some dark unconscious underworld kept carefully out of the persona's sight by - by whom?
Let me pass on that last one for now. What concerns me here is the vision that we have been given of ourselves in recent times, one that is well represented in this film. From the roots of existential philosophy, this is what we have left - a hard "reality" that we must tame for reasons that remain vague and ultimately valueless. In contrast, I have just finished the book, The Crises of Western Civilization by one of the paramount traditionalists, Rene Guenon. Written in 1927, it must have stirred some waters then, but now, much of what he has said has been well discussed - except the central point. Yes, he expounds on the preoccupation with material wealth, the enslavement of the masses in industrial plants, and the overall destruction of the human and natural environment - all well trodden territory by our campus political activists; but key to it all is that we (and now, this includes most of the world) have taken secondary causes for primary ones. What they teach in the academy is that the West has abused power; what Guenon teaches us is that we have replaced the primal causes for an ephemeral one. The difference is huge, and you will NOT find Guenon's perceptions taught at the university - for the primal causes lead to the Primal Truth, and that is God, the Absolute, the beyond-all-conception.
The primal causes might be envisioned as a ladder leading from our middle world, or the world of humans, to more inclusive levels until the ultimate is reached. In this middle world we would find our ordinary motivations and actions, selfishness and sentimentalities included. As we expand our awareness moving up this ladder (a mixed metaphor I know - take it as given that as we see more from the ladder, so it is incorporated), so we become more aware of our connection with other people and things - and thus, we naturally become more sympathetic. Thus, to see your neighbor as yourself is not a sentimental end in itself, but a code for the acquirement of advanced esoteric knowledge. From this comes a better world as a matter of course
But there is also the descending rungs of the ladder, where everything becomes less coherent and related. This, says Guenon, is what scientism has done done to knowledge. This is especially true in psychology. What are we taught now in this field? Generally something of what I mentioned above - that we are a bundle of urges held together loosely by a socially constructed self. For Guenon, this "true" self of the psychological discipline is our lowest, even infernal, self. Yes, it is there, but it is only a fragment of the greater, more comprehensive (and moral) self. So the view that we get of ourselves from such movies as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is of our lowest selves, our least important and least powerful selves.
So, yes, the movie made me feel dirty. And so would society if it elevated the lower aspects of self to that of the true self. Then I, too, would want to see this civilization fail, just as certain members of the ivory tower believe they want at this moment. But what would they do if they got their wish?
Ah, time flies. Until tomorrow, FK
Heard a robin in the front yard, beginning on Feb 27th, and the first sand hill crane yesterday. The sand hill cranes have proven to be the most reliable barometers and forecasters. Last year they came early and made it clear it would be a very early and warm spring. This year, one has come a little early -but only one - so we may be looking at a more ordinary spring.
I always look at the crane and think, "what must you think of all this? Our highways, plowed fields, cities, you who have seen so many climate changes, including numerous ice ages. Is our work just another of many changes to you? Are we that fleeting to even the birds?" Of course the answer is yes, and it is not a disheartening truth. Rather, it is one of freedom. All of your failures, your social faux pauxs, even your pains, all as nothing. The glaciers, the fields, the cranes don't care. You in infinity won't care either, I expect. It is not dust in the wind, but light in the air. Dance in the motes while you can.
Saw a movie recorded from an offering of free Showtime the other day, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I am too much of a literary snob to spend 10 hours reading the book, but I can spend 2 while strumming idly on the guitar or feeding the dog. The action and intrigue grabbed me, and the acting was tremendous. However, I could feel soul rot within 15 minutes of the show, and by the end felt dirty and doomed. There was no morality in the characters - only actions based on custom or advantage by the best and extreme rages of foul and perverse libidinal activity by the worst. Revenge was the only sentiment that spoke of justice. Some psychiatrists would claim that these two examples represent who we are without our personas - the bad and the ugly more or less controlled (by most of us) by our social veneer, all while another part seethes and squirms in some dark unconscious underworld kept carefully out of the persona's sight by - by whom?
Let me pass on that last one for now. What concerns me here is the vision that we have been given of ourselves in recent times, one that is well represented in this film. From the roots of existential philosophy, this is what we have left - a hard "reality" that we must tame for reasons that remain vague and ultimately valueless. In contrast, I have just finished the book, The Crises of Western Civilization by one of the paramount traditionalists, Rene Guenon. Written in 1927, it must have stirred some waters then, but now, much of what he has said has been well discussed - except the central point. Yes, he expounds on the preoccupation with material wealth, the enslavement of the masses in industrial plants, and the overall destruction of the human and natural environment - all well trodden territory by our campus political activists; but key to it all is that we (and now, this includes most of the world) have taken secondary causes for primary ones. What they teach in the academy is that the West has abused power; what Guenon teaches us is that we have replaced the primal causes for an ephemeral one. The difference is huge, and you will NOT find Guenon's perceptions taught at the university - for the primal causes lead to the Primal Truth, and that is God, the Absolute, the beyond-all-conception.
The primal causes might be envisioned as a ladder leading from our middle world, or the world of humans, to more inclusive levels until the ultimate is reached. In this middle world we would find our ordinary motivations and actions, selfishness and sentimentalities included. As we expand our awareness moving up this ladder (a mixed metaphor I know - take it as given that as we see more from the ladder, so it is incorporated), so we become more aware of our connection with other people and things - and thus, we naturally become more sympathetic. Thus, to see your neighbor as yourself is not a sentimental end in itself, but a code for the acquirement of advanced esoteric knowledge. From this comes a better world as a matter of course
But there is also the descending rungs of the ladder, where everything becomes less coherent and related. This, says Guenon, is what scientism has done done to knowledge. This is especially true in psychology. What are we taught now in this field? Generally something of what I mentioned above - that we are a bundle of urges held together loosely by a socially constructed self. For Guenon, this "true" self of the psychological discipline is our lowest, even infernal, self. Yes, it is there, but it is only a fragment of the greater, more comprehensive (and moral) self. So the view that we get of ourselves from such movies as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is of our lowest selves, our least important and least powerful selves.
So, yes, the movie made me feel dirty. And so would society if it elevated the lower aspects of self to that of the true self. Then I, too, would want to see this civilization fail, just as certain members of the ivory tower believe they want at this moment. But what would they do if they got their wish?
Ah, time flies. Until tomorrow, FK
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