Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

FYI-FTR: A plea for civilizational sanity

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Overnight CF and Aleta threw down a gauntlet in WJM’s thread on subjectivism:

CF, 148 : >>KairosFocus: “CF, again you are asserting when something you have consistently refused to address is on the table.”

[CF:] the fact that you disagree with how I have repeatedly addressed the issue does not mean that I have “consistently refused to address” it.>>

Aleta,149 : >>Re 148: what he means is that you consistently refuse to agree with him.>>

Of course, the truth is, CF and others of like ilk have consistently side-stepped dealing with evidence that there are self-evident moral truths (07 is still missing in action . . . ), that we are under moral governance, and that this directly impinges on how justice intersects with identity, sexuality, marriage and family as pillars of sustainable community.

Vivid, in 150, aptly answers the mentality:

Clown RE129: “Sure there is. If society as a whole agree that these should be fundamental basic rights, they have a strong basis. Until such a time as society as a whole thinks differently. Again, check the history of what have been considered fundamental rights.”

[V:] Remember the phrase from I think Seinfeld “No soup for you” Clown is saying “No inalienable rights for you”

A grim warning.

Let me pause and use an adapted FAO model of collective, community decision-making and consequences in the socio-cultural, economics-policy and bio-physical environmental domains, to illustrate a context of thought:

nat_resce_stress_decisions

This of course emphasises the bio-physical, but the sociocultural and economic-policy domains are just as much environmental domains subject to degradation and consequences of unsustainable collective decisions and behaviour. Where also, information through social networks, the broadcast/print and online media shape public perceptions. However, should things break down shatteringly, reality trumps artfully crafted perceptions

change_chall

. . . and Plato’s cave BATNA games:

Overton_window_PC_cave

But, if we insist on learning from going over the cliff and breaking our civilisation’s back, we have a terrible price  to pay.

It is in this context that I responded as below, which I think I should headline:

KF, 151: >>CF,

You have in fact failed to substantially address the first matter . . . objectivity of moral SET’s.

The second matter, objectivity of good and evil vs extreme nominalism, relativism and/or subjectivism in the context of the sexual, pivots on the import of the first.

We are undeniably under moral government, manifest in conscience and seen in even your implicit assumption in exchanges that we have conscience urging us on to truth and right in reasoning or debate.

Were that an illusion (as say evolutionary materialism — and yes such is self-falsifying and inherently amoral — and its fellow travellers implies) —  such would let grand delusion loose on the life of the mind, reducing all to an infinite regress of Plato’s cave shadow show worlds.

This can be set aside as absurd.

We can be confidently certain that we are morally governed and are informed by the moral perception faculty, conscience. Like other senses this can be dulled or trained, but on the whole we do perceive core moral principles and our fundamental equality and worth thus the need in justice to duly balance rights, freedoms and responsibilities. Therefore — as Plato counselled 2350 years past in The Laws Bk X — we are well advised to set extreme nominalism, amorality and relativism aside as absurd and destructive, leading straight to the nihilist’s credo: the highest right is might.

So too, the basic facts and evident purpose of complementary sexes and requisites of family and social stability (it takes a village . . . ) for sound child nurture point to core sexual morality and the foundational nature of conjugality in marriage.

That then leads directly to the above, which you studiously side-stepped:

The real issue is, do we have a nature and so a proper purpose, leading then to the evident complementarity of the sexes, marriage and the act of union, childbearing and requisites of the stability to sustain families and communities. It is becoming ever more evident what the dangers of extreme nominalism are: might makes right, truth, meaning, value, etc — nihilism in one word has been let loose and blinds us to the significance of good vs evil and the nature of evil as privation, frustration or warping out of proper purpose or end, of the good. And as law and justice are entailed, this is yet another manifestation of the dangerous divisions and manipulations that are afoot. Our civilisation is setting itself up to pay a terrible price.

The further evidence is, that no our genes do not program us sexually (nor on the whole do developmental processes in the womb etc) such that we have genetic determinism of sexual behaviour. This too would set grand delusion loose, undermining responsible, rational freedom, a condition of reasoned argument.

Our civilisation is playing with fire sexually and is beginning to be burned (cf here on 12 step recovery alternatives):

We live in a world in which we credibly are responsibly and rationally free, morally governed and so under the rule of OUGHT. The rule of evident core principles of a moral law of our nature. So also, a world in which at world-root level (the bridge cannot be effected at any subsequent level) there must be an IS capable of sustaining the weight of OUGHT. And after centuries of debates, it is clear that there is only one serious candidate: the inherently good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of our respect, loyalty and the reasonable service of doing the good in accord with our evident nature.

If you would doubt or dismiss this, simply provide a viable alternative: ___________________ (Predictably, you cannot.)

In that context, we can make sense of evil and of sometimes seemingly strange or unappealingly constraining moral rules in that further light. Namely, evil is the privation, frustration, wrenching out of proper end of what is good by nature of creation. So, we may discern the good and right from the bad and evil by its perverse tendencies that will also strongly tend to undermine the good ends that are evident to a reasonable mind. Often, such will not be instantly obvious, it sets up a seemingly attractive but slippery slope that leads to a hard crash with reality.

That is the context of Kant’s categorical imperative: evils use other persons as means to our ends, frustrating or wrenching out of course their proper fulfillment of their natural and good ends. Likewise, evils parasite off the general good, i.e. they profit from being the exception not the rule. Were lying and cheating or thievery and murder to become the rule, damage and harm would spread across the whole community, breaking it down.

This also obtains for the sexual order of our being.

It is quite evident that maleness and femaleness are complementary and are connected inherently to reproduction. Where, sound upbringing of children requires stable, committed families based on lifetime covenant of man and wife, mother and father. Where, families and clans come together in communities to further stabilise and protect this central end of humanity through the civil peace of justice.

When sexual attitudes, thoughts, expressions and behaviours are wrenched out of this context and are twisted away from such ends, it brings ever increasing privation to these ends. That holds for general sexual promiscuity, it holds for the porn plague, it holds for the divorce game, it holds for mass abortion, it holds for the attempts to warp our understanding of the proper use of sex organs under false colour of law and love, it holds for attempts to warp the definition of marriage under colour of law, it holds for the latest agenda item, to warp sense of sexual identity itself, equally under false colour of law.

Nor, can it be fairly, responsibly argued that “my genes MADE me do it.” (That claim, under false colours of science, and spread far and wide by the media and education systems, has done much harm.)

So, it is time to re-think; lest we find ourselves so far down mutually opposed slippery slopes that a hard crash with reality becomes inevitable.

And frankly, I have my doubts that such a crash can now be averted. Too many institutions have become too warped and manipulating.

But maybe we can soften the impact somewhat.

Maybe.

What chills me to the core is an observation in a work on the Great War, now 100 years past. Namely, that the Allies could not win until the best German troops were dead. That is, they had to soak up the horrible casualties of attrition (often at unfavourable exchange rates) until German strength was broken. Only then could they advance decisively — and still at stiff cost.

tapered divideOur civilisation is descending into polarisation that on such matters will soon reach that kind of entrenched irreconcilability. Already acts of 4th generation war are being resorted to by radical progressives to impose their will through lawfare. Yes, the usurpation of the sword of justice — note the morally freighted central concern of law — to impose an agenda by might and manipulation is a de facto declaration of war by launching a campaign.

And I do not mean war metaphorically. The sword of justice carried by solemn courts, police forces, parliaments and executives is an instrument of force. Only when it is truly and manifestly guided by justice is it a defence of the civil peace.

Once usurped, it is a means of war.

And the clever agit prop trotted out to lend it plausibility and mob support are then also instruments of and tactics of war.

Might makes ‘right’ war.

When a critical mass wakes up to the ruthless determination to manipulate, usurp, impose and subjugate, that remonstrance is useless in the face of the ruthless, that mere votes make little difference given the machinations of the political machines and that ruin lies ahead, there will be a terrible price to pay.

As happened with Athens.

If we are lucky, there will be enough peaceful confessors and martyrs that enough will wake up before we go over the brink as a civilisation.

God help me, I am looking at confessors and martyrs as a blessing of MERCY for our civilisation, even as was the man of my family whose name I bear.

But I fear the seed of hate has been so deeply sown that many will not perceive such for what it is; peaceful witness willing to pay terrible cost without retaliation, to stand unflinchingly for the truth and the right in the face of demonic government gone wrong.

(Do you not see the dragon’s teeth being sown when you so triumphantly label those who protest the agenda: bigots, tantamount to KKK racists, and more?)

Do not be astonished, if the ruthless activists and their strategic backers persist in the march of folly, to see secession and acts of civil then at length military defence against the rise of demonic despotism.

Have you not learned the lesson of the US DoI after 240 years?

{Let me add a cite:

>>When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government . . . .

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.>>}

Do you not see that as esp. the US is the leading maritime power, it is chief guardian of global stability? Things are utterly different from 1861 . . . FYI the Royal Navy is effectively gone and is not coming back, and standing for sexual and marital sanity on principle is not to be morally equated with explicitly supporting or enabling slavery. Which, God help us, someone tried to do.

(The neo-isolationists of various stripes are themselves on another march of geostrategic folly, with the Persian Empire being reborn before our eyes and with Israel and Egypt as the cork in the bottle holding back the thrust into Africa to seize continental scale strategic resources. FYI, France cannot bear the cost and Nigeria and South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia even moreso cannot. God help us, I see rivers of blood, fire and tears ahead.)

geostrat-pic

Do you not see what playing at Wiemar Republic is doing?

Early IslamIST expansionism
Early IslamIST expansionism

Do you not see that since 1979 we have been in a slow burn, 4th gen global war, renewal of World War Zero, the 1400 year war of IslamIST expansionism?

Do you not see the red, double green unholy alliance of convenience and how this sets up internal chaos as a renewed global threat stalks the world?

Do you not see that the dogs of war are about to slip their chains?

Do you not see the fire that is being so foolishly, so blindly played with?>>

I believe we need to ponder the matches we are playing with.

Headlined FTR, discussion can continue in WJM’s thread. END

PS: I think it helpful to add two further comments:

seven_mountains_culture_agenda
The seven mountains framework, cultural/policy agendas and the significance of woldviews

WJM, 156 – 7:>>[156]

Aleta asks a good question here:

Does it make any difference at all that the Christian and the Buddhist believe in some objective metaphysical foundation that supports their adherence to this belief (even though they don’t believe in the same metaphysical foundation), and the atheist doesn’t?Why is the fact the these three human being share common values and beliefs not enough?

Here we have a prime example of what I mean by “moral privilege”. I assume that Aleta has been raised in western countries, which were all founded entirely upon the concept of moral objectivism. Further, through the enlightenment, the civilization of the west has flowed from and prospered through an enriched understanding of that moral objectivism mediated via the principles of sound reasoning.

This gave rise to what many consider the pinnacle of the concept of objective natural law employed as the basis of the founding of the USA – the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, rooted in the idea that people have inviolable, natural rights and are metaphysical equals (because obviously, we’re not physical or mental equals).

The social/cultural history of western countries, regardless of how “secular” they have grown over time, is entirely framed by this Judeo-Christian, enlightenment-reformed model. Our behaviors, expectations of others, feelings, views, norms – all incubated within an enlightened, Judeo-Christian cultural oven.

Think of Western civilization as a tower built almost entirely with and upon a foundation of a certain material and using certain engineering principles. It has stood the test of time and provided a home for great success, prosperity, freedom and innovation, unlike almost anything else the world has ever seen.

Now, more and more, some people are offended by the kind of material that has been used to build the tower they live in (and enjoy the benefits thereof), and wish to start tearing out the old material and replace it with a different material that has never – anywhwere in the history of the world – been shown to be able to build a tower.

What will the effects be of tearing out moral objectivism, the idea of free will, and faith in god on the tower we all live in, and replacing that material with moral subjectivism, physical determinism, and no faith in any higher spiritual purpose?

Aleta asks (from my perspective) with her example, “Isn’t it enough that we all live in the same tower (meaning, having lived in the tower, share the same general sense of oughts and have similar sensibilities)? Why do we have to have to agree about the materials the tower is founded upon, built up with, and the engineering principles that keeps it from collapsing?”

Aleta was born in and lives entirely within a tower engineered with and built from theistic metaphysics, where even the secular protections and separations are generated entirely from that perspective. Aleta thinks she and others can simply start tearing out parts of the tower and its foundation and use subjectively-preferred engineering techniques where they wish as if this haphazard building method doesn’t pose a risk to the tower.

No, Aleta, it’s not enough that we all just happen to live in the tower. You an your ilk are haphazardly ripping out sections of foundation and wall and slapping in your subjectiely-preferred materials however you “feel” like while sneering at KF, myself and others who are raising warnings from a building material and engineering perspective about what you’re doing to the structural integrity of the tower.

The tower in which we all live and upon which we all depend for our freedom, rights and enlightened culture depends entirely upon the principles and material used to build it. You seem to think that such principles and materials are nothing but a matter of subjective, aesthetic art and are not necessary to the integrity of the tower itself. You think the builders and engineers that planned and built the tower are merely artists, and that the only thing keeping the tower up is a shared artistic aesthetic, which when changed in any subjectively-preferred way the tower will remain standing.

That’s what makes you and others like you so dangerous. You have no regard for any of the principles or materials used to build the civilization that affords you your privileged position; you think it’s all a matter of subjective personal preferences, emotions and empathy.

And so we get to things like “transsexual protections” and SSM. You think “everything will be just fine” and poo-poo any alarms raised when you alter fundamental aspects of the tower you live in without any regard whatsoever to how such changes might affect its structural integrity. We get laws and policies based on sentiment which have vast unintended consequences down the road. You advocate and argue to rip out and replace fundamental, core building concepts and materials like free will, the sanctity of human life and objective morality without any concern or consideration about the potentially devastating effects such reckless acts might have on the very tower you live in.

No, Aleta. That we might share many of the same sentiments is not enough to keep the tower up.

[157]

Aleta: Saying that you disagree with KF is not the same thing as actually addressing his points and making logical rebuttals or showing how his premises are unsound.

I doubt you and others here even read much of what KF posts; I’ve never seen you or anyone else offer a point by point rebuttal argument against his premises and ensuing logical inferences and conclusions. Actually, I doubt any of you here in opposition are even capable of understanding his argument, much less offer an effective rebuttal, because you don’t care about logically defending your worldview structure. You don’t even appear to care about worldview structures and whether or not they are sound and what conclusions they logically lead to. I’ve never seen you make any such case or argument.

To me, you and others seek only to summarily dismiss what KF posts because you’re too lazy and/or ignorant to actually address/rebut it, which leads you to invest in some narrative about KF and what he posts that justifies dismissing him and not actually responding to the meat of his posts.>>

KF, 160: >>WJM,

I endorse your analysis and warning as just presented [in 156, 157 overlapped].

I add to it that we seem to have suppressed the history and formerly deeply understood lessons on the inherently unstable self destructive nature of democracies. Thus, the need for stabilising supports, checks and balances in the face of demagogues, mobs manipulated by agit prop and schemers alike.

It is as though some view Western, constitutionally Democratic, private enterprise funded, ethical theism rooted, conjugal family based civilisation as what is wrong with the world and are willing to enter into unholy alliances to utterly change it and break its power. Especially the maritime power that secures global stability, trade and economic prosperity.

 

(And neo-isolationists, there is no Royal Navy of consequence now. The dinky corvettes and slightly armed merchantman logistics ships that now perform West Indies/Atlantic guard duty are a chilling reminder of how the mighty have fallen. Indeed, I suspect the former are only marginally capable of standing the sort of seas we have in this part of the world. Cold fingers grip my heart every time I look out across Carrs bay and see the visiting guard ship. The days when a Fisher could say there are five gates to the world and I have the keys in my back pocket are over. WWI and II did that, and guess what, in winning the war geostrategically, and the cold war too, you the USA signed up for the duties of global ocean guard. Absent that, chaos — predictable chaos. Think Delian League without ambitions of empire vs surrender of the seas to whoever would impose will to power.)

— We can in fact see the clear connexions of a de facto red double green alliance,

— we can see the undermining of consensus within, the usurpation of the sword of justice,

— we can see the agenda of mass immigration of clearly incompatible and terrorist riddled “refugees” despite the warnings of the precedent of the collapse of the W Roman Empire,

— we can see the re-emergence of Persia,

— we can see the MB 100 year plan and civilisation/ settlement jihad strategy,

— we can see demographic collapse,

— we can see breakdown of family,

— we can see despising of the church,

— we can see Africa as a geostrategic continental base that is poorly governed and worse garrisoned,

— we can see the Nile corridor and the land bridge from the Sinai to the Bosporus,

— we can see the lines of a fourth generation world war moving from slow burn to nuclear backed heat,

— and more.

And we can see the dismissiveness in the face of warnings on history and geostrategic dynamics and worldviews and cultural dynamics and more. All the signs of a march of folly, as Tuchman warned a generation past.>>