Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Quotes #15

“If the land is not to be lost to hordes from outside, we in all the Western World shall have to recover the power to build communities. It is quite worthless to map out programs of rehabilitation or resettlement since not one of the individuals thus resettled or rehabilitated has the stamina to partake in the revival of the community. First of all, before any planners can carry out any plan, we shall have to create opportunities in which men recover their power to found or re-found communities. This power is lost. The modern mind has lost the recipe.”

~from The Christian Future, page 198

The Folly of Categorizing People

Marxist ideology catagorizes you — by your wealth, your politics, your status, your skin color, your gender, etc… And once you’ve been properly categorized, you will no longer be judged as an individual, making individual decisions and performing individual actions, you will only be judged by the category you “belong” to.

This only works to create division in a society as it destroys the ability to discuss and debate ideas. It over simplifies life by placing everyone into overly general categories. Not all black people think the same, believe it or not, therefore some blacks will oppose something like “Black Lives Matter,” or they might even be conservative.

Social Media very much fuels the fire of Marxist ideology as it causes people to judge others simply by what they post on social media. It’s like road rage. Someone you can’t see in their car cuts you off and you are ready to slit their throat. Meanwhile, the same person bumps into you while walking on the street and is able to make eye contact and apologize. Your anger is immediately diffused as you see a real living individual human in front of you and not some abstract evil who could only be your enemy.

I know people from where I used to live who were friendly acquaintances, but who now only have contact with me through social media. Never in my time spent with them in the past did political opinions create strife between us, even though our political leanings were in opposite directions. But now, whenever I post something politically conservative on Facebook, these same people become offended and angry. Now, I am not opposed to these people criticizing what they believe to be bad ideas, but that’s not what’s happening. They see the post as being the one and only thing which defines my entire life: “He’s a Christian conservative!”

I’ve made it my new years resolution to never treat people like that; to never judge a person solely on what they put on social media. I will still criticize bad ideas, but I will not categorize people into little boxes just because they express one idea in a way I don’t agree with. The same guy who praises Bernie Sanders, or Donald Trump, on Facebook is also a father, a husband, a hard worker, a generous giver, and a friend. He is not some faceless enemy stuck in an impenetrable category forever separated from myself.

At the same time, I realize that posting political stuff on Facebook may not be the best idea. Most people go on Facebook for fun and are not interested in being hit with politics or religion. I would never go to a birthday party and start spewing off political opinions. Facebook may not be the best medium for such things. Twitter seems to be a better medium for it as no one knows who you are there. A quote I read recently: Facebook is where you lie to your friends, and Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers.

No matter what the medium, the Marxist strategy of ~~fitting~~ jamming people into over simplified categories will only ever lead to tribal warfare.

A Warning to the West

Here is a video recently posted by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson entitled A New Years Letter to the World. It is quite interesting and I encourage you to watch it (just over 20 minutes).

Peterson states that the real problem of conflict in our world is not religion, but rather tribalism. And the problem with tribalism is that people will cooperate with each other but only in small groups which are in conflict with other small groups. This causes division and is unavoidable when people group together to defend a value system. The solution is not to devalue everything, which causes nihilism, nor is the solution a totalitarian state, which forces all people under one value system. The solution is individualism — but not a selfish individualism; instead, one of personal responsibility and caring action.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Quotes #4

On Eldership….

“What is the secret of eldership? It lies in the fact that an old man is through with his own life but not at all through with life. On the contrary, like a grandfather he watches all the later generations with a loving wisdom, which alone can reconcile their strife. He is the great pacifier, the guardian of life’s continuity, because people know that he alone is free from personal partisan aims. Therefore he is peculiarly the regenerative force in society; he sees to it that the full cycle of life is re-begun in the proper order. And it is the expectation of one day becoming elders that should carry us through the full cycle of our own lives.”

~from I Am an Impure Thinker: Teaching Too Late, Learning Too Early, page 104.

I Am an Impure Thinker is available for free pdf download. Click here for that.

The Higher Culture

scale The lesser culture is always drawn to the higher culture (or the perceived higher culture).

Christianity always creates the higher culture, and as long as Christians hold strong to their beliefs, that higher culture will remain strong.

Sin is the disease of the world and Christianity is the immune system. But what happens when a previously Christian society turns it back on its beliefs? The immune system becomes an autoimmune disease — which is worse than the original disease that society suffered from before Christianity came in.

Today in the west, progressive leftist ideology is seen as the new higher culture. It is nothing more than a counterfeit Babel though. Nobody 30 years ago was thinking that we needed things like gay marriage (as one example). But now, if you speak out against gay marriage you will be labeled a hateful homophobic knuckle-dragger who is stuck in the primitive wasteland known as “The Wrong Side of History” where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

If Christians want to shape the future of the western world and plant more churches, they will have to rise up to the difficult call of creating the higher culture once again. It’s harder now than before. To bring a higher culture into a pagan culture is easier than doing it in a post-Christian culture where the blessings and benefits of Christianity are still enjoyed by the very people who are ignorantly rejecting its foundations.