Another good one from Carus.
Blick auf Dresden von der Brühlschen Terrasse - Carl Gustav Carus - c. 1830
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slave morality is still better than slave immorality, and simply abolishing that morality does not free men make.
The aphorism above comes from Laeth’s Wee Wisdom on his Trees and Triads blog. I am inclined to agree with Laeth to a certain degree here. On its own, morality is superior to immorality. After all, who could argue that virtue is inferior to vice, that wrong is infinitely better than right, or that the unprincipled is nobler than the principled? However, things take on a different hue when the word slave becomes an attributive noun for morality. Even after you have set aside Nietzsche’s strict and venomous definitions of what slave morality comprises, you’re still left with something that is perceptibly inferior, faux, and mendacious because slave morality is constructed upon a spiritually fatal foundation of resentment and value inversion. Within that context—and contrary to what Laeth appears to suggest—slave immorality is probably far better than slave morality, provided that the slave’s apparent wickedness involves reversing or overcoming resentment and value inversion. In that sense, abolishing slave morality may make men somewhat more free. Nevertheless, the abolishment of slave morality alone is no guarantee of spiritual freedom. On this Laeth is correct. Master morality—the aristocratic antithesis of democratic slave morality—is certainly more positive and life-affirming, yet it leaves the strong-willed value-creators just as enslaved as their slavish counterparts. Slave morality and master morality are mostly about power and authority. More precisely, this-worldly power and authority. Both inevitably fall short concerning the fundamental problems of fear and death. Morality alone, regardless of its flavor or inclination, cannot make men spiritually free. On the contrary, morality alone often enslaves as much or perhaps even more than it liberates. Spiritual freedom requires confronting fear and death head-on, and the only way to do that, at least as far as I can confirm, is by following and believing on Jesus. Christ was a free man, the freest of the sons of men. He was free from the world; He was bound only by love. Christ spoke as one having authority, but He did not have the will to authority, and He was not a master. - N. Berdyaev I regard Berdyaev as a premiere philosopher of freedom, right up there with Rudolf Steiner, and I am of the humble opinion that people should definitely be reading the philosophers of freedom, now more than ever.
Slavery and Freedom had a profound effect on me despite the notable differences between Berdyaev’s metaphysical assumptions and mine. Putting such difference aside, I respect Berdyaev’s penetrating insights into the nature of spiritual slavery, which, on the one hand, is ubiquitous and all-encompassing, and, on the other hand, virtually indetectable. For Berdyaev, human freedom is not just a political or social construct but a spiritual principle permeating Creation, especially man. Aligning with this spiritual principle is almost entirely a matter of consciousness. The freedom Berdyaev concentrates on has little to do with conventional notions like financial independence, power, autonomy, sovereignty, and so forth. Berdyaev does not reject such conventional definitions but bores through them to demonstrate that true freedom does not depend on such external considerations. Consciousness that exteriorizes and alienates is always slavish. God the master, man the slave; the church the master, man the slave; the family the master, man the slave; Nature the master, man the slave; object the master, man-subject the slave. The source of slavery is always objectification, that is to say, exteriorization, alienation. People are generally blind to spiritual slavery—others’ and their own—because they cannot conceive of consciousness as doing anything but exteriorizing, particularly when it comes to matters of public opinion, politics, social issues, and the like. Man can be a slave to public opinion, a slave to custom, to morals, to judgments, and to opinions imposed by society. It is difficult to overestimate the violence perpetrated by the press in our time. The average man of our day holds the opinions and forms the judgments of the newspaper that he reads every morning: it exercises psychological compulsion upon him. And given the falsehood and venality of the press, the effects are very terrible as seen in the enslavement of man and his deprivation of freedom of conscience and judgment. It is indeed difficult to overestimate the violence which public opinion and the press perpetrate in our time. Few actually regard such violence as violence. Rather than innately recoil from it, most eagerly welcome such violence into their lives and could not conceive of living without it. In the worst (most) cases, such violence is seen as the epitome of freedom itself. Berdyaev is very much a philosopher for our time because our time is one of intense yet virtually imperceptible spiritual slavery. Slavery and Freedom illuminates the nature of the problem in a way very few books do. Having said that, I doubt this post will inspire many to pick the book up, let alone read it. In light of that, I offer some excerpts from the table of contents in the hope that it may at least get people thinking about the scope of spiritual slavery and the lures that trap people into such states. God and Freedom, The Slavery of Man to God Society and Freedom, The Social Lure and the Slavery of Man to Society Civilization and Freedom, The Slavery of Man to Civilization and the Lure of Cultural Values The Slavery of Man to Himself and the Lure of Individualism The Lure and the Slavery of Sovereignty, The Twofold Image of the State The Lure of War, The Slavery of Man to War Okay, so how does one avoid spiritual slavery and attain spiritual freedom? Berdyaev offers his thoughts in the final chapter of Slavery and Freedom: The Spiritual Liberation of Man, Victory over Fear and Death My thirteen-year-old son and I were talking today, and we somehow wandered into the topic of famous people.
"Do you know any famous people?" he asked. "No. Not personally. I've known a few somewhat famous people in the past, but they have all died." "What about those bloggers you read?" "What about them?" "Those people are famous, aren't they?" "I don't think famous is the right word to describe the bloggers I read." "How about Charles Bruceton? He's famous, isn't he?" Many theodicies insist upon the “necessity” of evil on the grounds that God utilizes evil to arrange or create some greater good.
Such assumptions tend to culminate in the declaration that even the evilest of evil deeds all inevitably contribute to our individual and universal salvation. That declaration is grounded in the assumption of God’s omni-powers and Divine Providence. One obvious problem with this line of thinking is the utter denigration of human freedom and agency. If evil is necessary for a greater good that God will unfailingly bring about, then what right or duty do humans have to prevent evil from manifesting? Also, since the greater good apparently requires evil, it would be impertinent for humans to stop evil from manifesting because doing so could hinder or arrest the manifestation of some consequent greater good. After all, any action, no matter how well-intentioned, might interfere with God’s providential plans. People could never know if their choices to oppose evil were ever truly “good.” Worse, individuals could end up like Sophocles’ Oedipus and run headlong into the evil they are attempting to escape. Why? Because an Omni-God entails that Providence is a “fixed” state in all senses of the word. God’s supernatural powers have already predetermined everything, leaving no meaningful room for human freedom. What about free will? Okay, what about it? How free is your choice if Providence has already determined the direction and consequences of your choice? Not very free at all, which helps explain why some Christian denominations do away with the concept of human freedom altogether and adhere to assumptions like predestination (which reaches far more sincere and coherent conclusions about man’s freedom within the framework of Omni-God and Providence). Taken a step further, such lines of thinking also tend to fire up the old rationalization furnaces to the point that any evil act becomes a prerequisite for some subsequent greater good that God will eventually bring about. If God allows evil to happen, it must, eventually, serve some purpose toward the greater good. Taken to the extreme, this line of thinking can harmonize any absurdly evil state of affairs with God’s omnibenevolence and other omni-qualities and declare it to be Providence, despite the glaring incompatibilities such harmonizations produce. What other options exist? How about this? Human freedom could be authentically free, entailing that God may not be as omni as most Christians presume. Moreover, Providence may be more of an open-ended, co-creative work-in-progress that positively requires the input of authentic human freedom to move in the direction God desires, with the caveat that God’s involvement in the project is no guarantee of success. Pump and dump schemes are a prevalent type of fraud involving the artificial inflation (pump) of the price of a stock or other asset via false, misleading, or exaggerated statements regarding the supposed worth of said stock or asset. The fraudster hopes the manipulated demand will rapidly inflate the price so that he can profit by unceremoniously selling the security or asset at a high price (dump).
Pump and dump. If pressed, that’s how I would describe the first Trump term, and I have the feeling Trump’s second go at the helm will offer more of the same, only with much more intensity. Trump’s first presidential stint promised wonderful and noble things and ended with Operation Warp Speed and the January 6th “insurrection.” People got pumped, then dumped. Before swearing the oath this second time, Trump, fittingly enough, released an official Trump meme crypto token, which rocketed to over 60 dollars yesterday during the inauguration. The Orange Man’s little gimmick—which has apparently earned him a 25 billion-plus windfall—now sits at around 37 dollars. Trump also issued another meme coin in honor of his Slovakian wife. The Melania meme token was over 12 dollars yesterday; today, it sits at about four bucks. All the same, perhaps skepticism is premature. For all I know, Trump’s meme coins could be worth several thousand in a few months. If people are willing to “invest” in things like Fartcoin, anything is possible, even a Pontifex meme coin courtesy of the Vatican. The current blending and blurring of politics and crypto-trading could not be a more apt example of our contemporary virtue-less virtual virtuality, especially against the backdrop of ludicrously pumped-up AI. Both politics and crypto are based on deluding the value-inverted masses about value, hence values. Both feed on generating manias. Oh, yes, those states of abnormally elevated arousal and energy levels we all love so much, replete with rapidly changing emotions and moods, all highly dependent on and influenced by endless torrents of external stimuli. The System thrives on mania. It loves spawning hallucinations and delusions of all sorts, pumping people up for whatever program it wishes to push through. The last big pump occurred during the birdemic mania of 2019–2022. The dump of that manipulated fear, hatred, and despair campaign was apparently so subtle and sudden that few even noticed. Regardless, the uber-successful campaign succeeded in pumping the majority of the population full of mysterious gene therapy drugs, the consequences of which are still unfolding long after the dump. I sense the present pump campaign will be of a vastly different quality. I suspect something along the lines of Dante’s second circle of hell, at least at first. Ravenous appetites and exuberant optimism will be pumped up, and these will, unfailingly, sway reason (and spirit) at every turn. The System will "pump" as it has never pumped before. There will be action everywhere, and everyone will want to get in on it. The winds will blow hard. Most will find this exhilarating initially, at least until the winds intensify into a violent storm ready to sweep away everything. People will be dumped. They will scatter, disorientated. When the winds finally subside, most people will have lost nearly everything and drift through ravaged, unrecognizable landscapes. Overly dramatic? Yeah, probably. After all, the real drama happens during the pump, not the dump. Technically, the dump qualifies as an anti-climax, in much the same way hell does. Evil opposes good but does not “feed” on it.
On the contrary, in the presence of authentic good, evil starves. It is metaphysically impossible for good to provide sustenance for evil. If evil did feed on good, then God would be little more than a 24-hour all-you-can-eat buffet. If evil did feed on good, then there would be no positive motivation to be good. If evil did feed on good, then evil could never be overcome or defeated, not in this world nor the next. If evil did feed on good, then Heaven could not exist, and Jesus’s promise would be a lie. Evil does not and cannot feed on good. Evil feeds on evil; hence, evil’s dogged pursuit of generating more evil upon which to feed. Past definitions and conceptualizations of evil no longer serve.
Evil regarded as simply the absence of good; as non-being; nothing. Evil as some divine, mysterious necessity God utilizes to create a greater good. The metaphysical impossibility of pure evil. The notion that things cannot be corrupted entirely. Everything in existence is good. Evil feeds on good. Good always defeats evil. And so forth. As true as these definitions may have been in the past, they no longer serve. They no longer serve because they are the expressed thoughts of earlier modes of human consciousness that understood God, the universe, and everything differently. Is it entirely inconceivable to consider that a Christian’s overriding task today involves moving beyond these earlier modes of understanding? “Evidence” of such past definitions and conceptualizations falling short was on full display public display from 2019 to 2022. Was the terrible, overpromoted plague that supposedly threatened to exterminate global humanity nothing more than an enormous absence of good? Does it qualify as the manifestation of non-being and nothing? Were the measures taken during that time examples of good filling the void of non-being and nothingness? Did God utilize those years to draw forth or create a greater good? Were the people who unleashed, supported, managed, and implemented the global totalitarian measures not entirely corrupted? Was everything that happened then essentially good? In ways we can never hope to understand? Did not good triumph in the end after the whole thing subsided and life went back to “normal?” And what of the church closures? Just an absence of good? A necessary evil that brought forth greater good? Just a case of evil “feeding on good?” Answering these questions involves reflecting on these past events and discerning how people, Christians especially, perceived and responded to the evils of 2019–2022. Any sincere reflection and discernment will inevitably reveal that past definitions of conceptualizations of evil no longer serve. They no longer serve because past definitions of evil, freedom, and God no longer serve. Once again . . . Is it entirely inconceivable to consider that a Christian’s main task today involves moving beyond these earlier modes of understanding? |
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