The World

[This went way beyond the short few lines I’d hoped initially to write, but anyway these are some thoughts. It might also come fairly randomly to a close, but I had to stop myself somewhere! ]

This is a continuation of the last post which involved the divide between the spirit and the carnal, or the individual self. What is meant in Christianity by “the world” that it denotes something at odds with the spiritual, where Jesus says, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because I take you out of the world, the world hates you” or James writes that “friendship with the world is enmity with God.” Why is the world denoted so negatively? We all live in the world, we can’t divorce ourselves from it, so what is specifically meant by it here that it is at war with spirit and God? 

The world is a world of values and structure which is built on the foundation of the individual self as the highest value. So it is the world and values of of the carnal or selfhood, but extended into society as a whole. Think of the Roman Empire, and the dual dominant values of self: power and pleasure. And the more powerful someone within it, the more pleasure also available. To add though, as with Rome, the progression of pleasure into decadence erodes the discipline upon which the power depended in the first place, and so the world is by its very nature a kingdom divided against itself. 

So the world is the self as the ultimate value, and with inevitably all kinds of hierarchical power structures resulting that will reward those especially dedicated to this sense of being. Filled in more and more with people of its own vibration, the world becomes more and more worldly. Left to itself “the world” is rotten, and it is only because spirit and a sense of goodness are integral to us that the true nature of the world of selfhood is masked. It is the presence of the spirit in people, which is not of “the world”, that keeps things decent. Where that co-existence becomes next to impossible, like in the Nazi party ruling Germany, then the evil nature of the world alienated from spirit becomes blatant. There is nothing anymore to mask itself, and we see this world and self removed from spirit become unveiled as actively evil. If we are self-castrated from spirit, things begin to get very ugly. They don’t somehow stay neutral.

 

A very clear reflection of this divide and even war between spirit and flesh or world is the ideology of materialism, which is precisely a philosophy of selfhood, or carnality, i.e. that the flesh is all there is to our nature, and the spirit an illusion. This extends into the non-existence of both virtue and vice, and all intrinsic value to life. Thus nihilism. This ideology of the flesh based self then extends into for example related threads of communism and consumerism, where the ideal is to be attained on earth in the material plane. 

With communism there is the veneer of morality or brotherhood that initially propels the movement - gains it believers and gives it its dynamic force - which is very telling as it is this very idealism that is coming from the ties to spirit and is actually alien to materialism. Materialism is ultimately divorced from all idealism as being a false intrusion to the purely physical. However, because the sense of truth and goodness is actually integral to us, no movement can have any success unless it somehow taps into some idealism supposedly related to goodness, even if it is actually opposed to itself. Otherwise no one but sociopaths and psychopaths will support it! Thus the necessity for equating the materialist ideology with brotherhood or social justice in whatever sense.

Antichrist means a substitute for Christ, and particularly in the ardent Christianity of Russia, Communism had to particularly equate itself on this plane of the spiritual ideal, even whilst aggressively attacking Christianity. It had to come in as a substitute. Communism is rabidly, ideologically driven, and here is both initial strength and its later failure. As said, though aggressively materialist in its philosophy, stemming at a deeper level as an emanation of the self as the highest value, to attain any possible force in terms of popular support, it is tied to an ideal of utopian brotherhood and which gives it its initial successful taking over the state apparatus of a country, as in Russia in 1917. Not long later though, after this initial adrenaline filled honeymoon period, it begins to become very clear that there is no utopian new self and state of mutual love appearing, and that one’s brothers and sisters are not becoming so beautiful after all. We just played a bit of musical chairs at the level of power, and amidst all this aggressive state activity, gulags, etc we maybe as individuals even got uglier rather than more perfect. and so now the idealist aspect of the movement begins to rapidly lose its power. Now that it clearly fails to produce the promised fruits, its unity on the willing level of felt brotherhood collapses, and soon it is by hostile force that much of the state’s structure depends. The ideology of totalitarianism - the bullying, controlling aspect of self - comes nakedly to the fore, and apart from the people doing the bullying, this isn’t much fun for most people.

So, though emanating from materialism, communism sells itself as equating to spirit, the attainment of perfect brotherhood, a soon to be realised heaven on earth, and which it fails utterly to deliver because, despite the veneer, it is hostile to spirit. Also spirit isn’t material in nature, so it can’t arise obediently because of some material conditions - which is the promise of all social utopianism. Crucially though, because this ideology is so self-divided, it also simultaneously fails utterly to deliver on the carnal, sensual side of things which is the very essence of the carnal self’s desires! Communism becomes miserable on both fronts of spirit and flesh.

By contrast, consumerism is not bound by ideological ties to idealism. Instead this culture is entirely dedicated to satisfying the desires of the individual sensual self in its goods and entertainments. It goes all in on the flesh! And that’s why it is so successful as an emanation of “the world” - which is simply an extension of the individual self as the highest value. Consumerism is dedicated to gratifying the self’s drives, and in the sense of spiritual war, specifically keeping the self happy on this spirit-denying plane. Because these drives can be so addictive and powerful, for all the lack of higher idealism, this is no small thing to be founded on. 

So here is a materialist culture dedicated to sensual temptation and gratification. To add whereas communism had to be very elaborately formulated as an ideology, no academic type needs to formulate a theory for people to then create goods that will gratify the carnal self! This is very obvious stuff. The communists were right to accuse consumerists of being decadent, but this decadence is much more truthfully consistent with the material self the communists should be in allegiance to - if they were actually truly materialists and abandoned pretensions to idealism. It’s not very nice though to come face to face with such truths! Again though like communism, this time more subliminally, consumerism sells itself as heaven on earth, and this is most obvious with tv ads for products which if you pay closer attention, are full of celestial light around the wonderful product. God is to be found here on earth with these products, with your football team scoring goals, a Hollywood actress taking her clothes off, or maybe James Bond killing some villains in a sensually satisfying manner. The ideal doesn’t go very far, but it doesn’t need to when one is being made crude by dwelling on or amidst this plane.

There are problems for a world of consumerism, which is the attempt to dwell wholly on the material plane of self gratification. And a huge one is that the yearning for the ideal is integral to us, and simply at odds with a world dedicated to sensual self pleasure. The more this world of spirit is denied, the more shallow the world built on self becomes in this absence of spirit. Also things again don’t simply stay morally neutral. Just like with a drug addict, the pleasures needed to satisfy this self, which is being cut off from goodness and spirit, need to become more stronger to produce the desired  results - and so for example the world of porn, which it is no coincidence how utterly integral it is to this self pleasuring world, will become darker and darker. This all hints at the spiritual nature behind and integral to these ideologies.

One interesting point of contrast between consumerism and communism is the approach to art. Because communism is so tied into an ideology of equality and brotherhood completely on the material plane, the only value for art is that it serves as propaganda towards this ideal, and more importantly the state which serves it. And so it is extremely intolerant of any intellectual or artistic outpouring not serving as propaganda. Thus for example  Boris Pasternak being treated as an enemy of the state for writing and getting published abroad Doctor Zhivago. The artist is not allowed create independently of the totalitarian state’s wishes.

Consumerism has no such ideological qualms and so is by contrast extremely tolerant. So within this world you could have a painting that reflects spiritual values totally alien to consumerist ideals of the ego-driven, carnal self, but all that matters is how much money the painting is worth! And if it is worth a lot of money, even if it’s say a spiritual icon, then in this world it’s worth a lot! Worth is measured in terms of material value, and isn’t burdened by a pseudo-spiritual ideological puritanism, as is the case with communism. 

On this point broad point, in western materialist culture, obviously of late things have gotten a lot more authoritarian and a lot less tolerant about what should or shouldn’t be said - cancel culture -  and this is the result of the pouring in of academically fostered, spirit-substituting, toxic ideology back into the mix.