Way beyond. In fairness though, “Which focused,” is one of the greatest sentences ever uttered by anyone, in or out of the public arena.
Why are what we call liberals so incapable of dealing with adversity or contradictions to their will? There’s loads of videos I could pick as undignified examples of this, but I’ll just make do with the assertion of this as truth. Because - and this is very much related to the last post on self-righteousness ( https://wwwinabstentia-andrewk.blogspot.com/2022/09/self-righteousness.html ) - the ideology as a whole it is an ideology of the exaltation of the self’s personal desires; rather than the humbling of self in the search of deep truth, the exaltation of self, its desires, its search for pleasures.
Think of a toddler or young child throwing a tantrum. Why this awful performance? It’s a response to the failure of his will to be the dominant mover of reality - and it seems to me it generally is much more likely to be a boy than a girl, probably as the exertion of the will is much more the archetypal masculine energy than the feminine. So the child’s parents haven’t succumbed to his holy will, and took him home from the playground, didn’t buy a bar of chocolate, whatever, and thus the awful screaming. . . His self should be exalted as the highest value in life, and the tantrum is the enraged reaction to reality not bending to his will, which he feels is and of course unquestionably should be the highest value in life. He also hopes that through the awfulness of the tantrum, making life hell for those around him, he may yet gain victory and be given in to. The sulk, and this kind of behaviour obviously can go on right through life, is another potential step in this process. “I’ll make life miserable for . . . (whoever is denying my will), and perhaps eventually I willwear them down and triumph.” And the willingness to keep this behaviour can go on a hell of a long time!
So with liberalism, especially as it gets ever more pathetic and toxic, there most certainly is no God or ascetic ideal to succumb or attain towards; instead this ideology’s legions are subconsciously fed the relentless idea that the self and its pleasures is the highest value, and obviously enough given the very people and traits all this is appealing to is to is narcissistic, self-absorption, well then here we meet again essentially the response again of the toddler to his will not being placated to as the centre of the universe.
A follow-on question is if the selfhood and its will is the highest value, why the seemingly intrinsic phenomenon that people of this ideological spectrum are typically so servile when it comes to the powers that be imposing restrictions on the individual’s will and rights: perfectly willing compliance to lockdowns, masks, forced “vaccinations”, etc. I might have a look at that another time, but just to mention Aldous Huxley seems to have covered this very thing in Brave New World, where in that projected future society, the desires of the self are wholly related to the physical and especially sensual self, whereas the desire for spiritual or inner independence from society is usually and ideally non-existent.
It’s generally accepted as a criticism or unpleasant phenomenon for someone to be very self-righteous, but actually here I’m going to try to get at this at a deeper level. Jesus obviously stresses again and again that the self must be humbled, that by definition if by contrast we are “self-righteous” about the state of ourselves, then we are at enmity with the spirit. So through humility and self-discipline is aided the loosening of the binds to the perpetual psychic swarm of ourselves, this self or inner shape which exists as a consequence to and in tandem with our behaviours, physical and mental.
Self-righteousness though is the exalting of this individual selfhood, we have no need to humble ourselves, rather ourselves in this mode of desires, passions, pride, self-love, etc is good; thus self-righteousness. There is no need for any humbling, this self is righteous, and the more of it the better.
Toxic Blandness aired a new song last night on MTV Live, Dangerous and Vaccinated, titled Who Needs Women When You Can Have Pregnant Men (Nine Months to Freedom). A quick sample of the lyrics below, presumably written by lead singer, Charles Manly:
“Egoism has replaced the former binding idea, and everything has broken down into the freedom of persons. Set free, left without a binding thought, they have finally lost all higher connection to such a degree that they have even stopped defending the freedom they obtained.”
. . . “Develop?” he said. “No, better not develop, and what’s more it’s my passion - to speak without developing. That’s really so. And here’s another strange thing: if it happens that I being to develop a thought I believe in, the result is almost always by the end of the explanation I myself have ceased to believe in what I’ve explained. I’m afraid I’ll fall into that now, too.”
Spoken by the character Versilov in Dostoevsky’s The Adolescent.
Some thoughts below a bit thrown together.
The self apart from spirit ends in complete failure, i.e. it dies physically. The nonsense of a pleasure based sense of self where sensually one’s pleasures is greater than one’s pain or suffering. However much pleasure one affords oneself, in the sense of a contest between pleasure and pain, with death pain “triumphs” absolutely on this plane. “Yes but until death, whilst alive, one’s pleasure outweighed one’s suffering.” Ok, but it still ends in total defeat of the sensual self.
So the self defining itself on this plane is underneath everything very insecure, because however much pleasure it tries to afford itself, the ultimate defeat of the physical, sensual self is certain. If only something like a vaccine could keep death at bay . . .
The bourgeois essence as a lived ethos is that on the material plane, one is part of a successful group of society where pleasure outweighs suffering. As far as one is or becomes a pure member of this class, one does not think independently but from this communal spirit or bourgeois soul, and the core here is self-perpetuation and self-exaltation. It’s not enough to simply be winning sensually, living in luxury, etc, however much we try to reduce things, we also need to believe in one’s virtue also. So it’s a combination of pleasure and a sense of virtuousness and self-righteousness, and all the veneers of elegance help lend credence to this virtuous nature. The short story, After the Ball by Tolstoy is very much about this phenomenon of veneer versus essence.
One of the key traits of bourgeois-ism is the exaltation of sensual pleasures as if they were even intellectual truths or spiritual essences. One is exalted by for instance by the refinement of one’s tastes regarding coffee. So this is the underlying essence of pleasure on the sensual plane being played out, and where the sensual pleasures are supposedly imbued with some sense of higher values also! The refinement of one’s tastes mark one out as truly of the victorious bourgeois class which is triumphing on the sensual field of existence over suffering!
So remember this is where it all goes back to: life on the plane of pleasure versus suffering, and one’s partaking of a class that is here winning. It’s not enough to experience sensual pleasure; one also has to believe in the exaltation of this essence and class as a whole. Doubts after all bring suffering back into the equation. So of course one has to be fully imbued with a sense of virtue also, and thus the importance of the convincing and elegant veneers. The veneers also serve to conceal the sensual essence, as for example, watching pornography is also within this world of sensual pleasure, but it’s very hard to convince oneself this is also somehow virtuous! Thus the need for polished veneer and refinement so we can get beyond any thoughts of crudeness regarding this all!
To add, there of course may be nothing wrong with something like good coffee, but it’s the “spiritual” exaltation of sensual pleasure and one’s ability to experience such refinements that it is the kind of bourgeois essence I’m talking about here.
The communal spirit is the self-perpetuating of the class, and of course one’s membership of it. Thus if it appears deeply conservative, this isn’t actually in terms of values but simply of self-preservation of oneself and one’s successful position within the structure of society. Thus it is deeply amoral in essence, and so the bourgeois class is only accidentally moral - depending on the ruling ethos of society. If for instance that society, in terms of its ideological engine-room starts becoming infected and deranged - “birthing persons”, etc - then the bourgeois soul will effortlessly adapt to be in sync with this, and will convince itself that, just as with sensual pleasures and their refinement, their ability to believe the new values is a mark again of its own refinement. In terms of susceptibility to spiritual temptation in the negative sense therefore, it is wide open to willingly receive concealed but pretty bloody obvious inner darknesses.
One other thought is that presumably one of the principal facets of fasting as a spiritual discipline is the deliberate undercutting of our inclination and even enslavement to sensual pleasure.
A big dollop of newness on the musical front, as relatively new band Toxic Blandness have a new song out called Pedos With Dementia (Make the Best Presidents). It seemingly takes sonic inspiration from the early years of nu-metal, whilst a further air of wistful nostalgia is subtly imparted through the drums being recorded with an intentionally big 80s sound.
The song has captured the zeitgeist to such a degree that already a new group has been formed from the ashes of several other industry outfits, calling themselves, in obvious homage, Pedos With Dementia. And their own first song has just been recorded, titled I Love Your Young Son, but I’d Love Him Even More if He Was Your Daughter (You Know What to Do). “It is quite a long title, yes, “ said a band member, “but we like to feel like we’re breaking new ground.”
A little portrayal of exactly the point in the Summing Up post, where is written:
