Sam Francis on Globalism.
"But in fact globalism is not at all the same thing as imperialism. In imperialism, at least the historic versions of it we know, a particular political and cultural unit expands and imposes itself and its power on other particular political and cultural units, as when Rome, Great Britain, or the United States conquered and controlled other countries and other territories. Up to a point, imperialism is a perfectly normal and natural (though not necessarily harmless) result of any successful state. If a state keeps winning its wars, if its subjects or citizens are economically successful, then sooner or later the state and its people will wind up with an empire, and typically the state then sends out some of those people to govern the empire, exploit it, and bring back lots of swag and ego-gratification for those remaining at home.
Globalism is rather different. Under globalism, the political and cultural unit that is expanding is not the city-state, nation, or people that expands under imperialism; indeed, the dynamic of globalism works to submerge and even destroy such particularities. What expands under globalism is the elite itself, which progressively disengages itself from the political and cultural unit from which it originated and becomes an autonomous force, a unit not subordinated or loyal to any particular state, people, or culture. In the globalist regime that is writhing to-ward birth today, the transnational elite that runs it does not even claim to be advancing the material or spiritual interests of the nations it uses; the elite has only contempt for national identity, regards national sovereignty as at best obsolete and at worst a barrier to its aspirations, and believes (or affects to believe) that nationality and all its characteristics are on the way out. "
Sam Francis falls into the very common pitfall Moldbug pointed out years ago. Francis' "globalists" and "globalism" obviously refer to substantially the same people and phenomena as Moldbug's "Brahmins" and "universalism". Quote:
ReplyDeleteThe Brahmins, universalists, ultracalvinists, etc, do not hate "our culture" at all. They have a very distinct culture of their own - with a family tree that spends a remarkable amount of time in Massachusetts, upstate New York, etc, etc. (In Charles Royster's excellent and only mildly neo-Unionist picture of the Civil War, The Destructive War, he mentions a foreign traveler in 1864 who asked some random American to explain the war. "It's the conquest of America by Massachusetts," was the answer. Massachusetts, of course, later went on to conquer first Europe and then the entire planet, the views of whose elites as of 2007 bear a surprisingly coincidental resemblance to those held at Harvard in 1945. But I digress.)
No, the Brahmins love their own Brahmin culture. And they hate the culture of their enemies, the Optimates and Vaisyas. I mean, where does a bear shit? Not in the Vatican, that's for sure.
(...)
Brahmins don't really believe all cultures are equal. They believe their culture is superior, and they have a system of thought ("multiculturalism") that contradicts all other systems of thought on the planet, past and present.
(...)
If there is one general weakness in the conservative strategy, it strikes me as this unwillingness to admit that "liberalism" is actually mainline Protestantism, which is actually Christianity. Whether or not it obeys any specific detail of Christian or Protestant doctrine, such as the validity of the Holy Trinity, the existence of God, the divinity of Jesus, the predestination of the elect, etc, etc, etc, is entirely irrelevant.
(...)
Of course, if you are a Christian, you don't believe these features are superficial. But doesn't that make a nice trap? Neither side can call a spade a spade. The ultracalvinists need to hide the fact that they are spades, and the conservatives, since they believe that only conservative spades are true spades, refuse to bestow upon their enemies the prized status of spadefulness.
Whereas if you can make it past this trap, you are rewarded with an enormous store of clear and easy-to-apply metaphors for religious persecution, an entirely quotidian and extremely common phenomenon which everyone understands.
For example, if ultracalvinists are Christians, "political correctness" is religious orthodoxy. Hm, where have we seen this before? Perhaps in Massachusetts? I mean, is it any surprise that Ivy League schools are acting, in effect, as ultracalvinist seminaries? Isn't that exactly what they were founded as?
And what are "multiculturalism" and "diversity" but religious tests for office? Hm, I don't know anything of the sort in history. Maybe in Nepal? Nah.
End quote. In many other posts, Moldbug remarks that it is very advantageous to "globalism" to represent itself as merely an insipid rational "globalism" rather than a distinct culture and religion.
@Candide.
ReplyDeleteEnd quote. In many other posts, Moldbug remarks that it is very advantageous to "globalism" to represent itself as merely an insipid rational "globalism" rather than a distinct culture and religion.
The rationality of globalisation is preceded by its metaphysics, so yes, Globalisation is a religion who's roots are a variation of Protestantism. Likewise Atheism is a religion as well when looked through at in this manner. It too, tends to paint itself as being totally rationalistic, though its underpinnings are irrational as shown by Godel.
I am not sure purely mathematical results have any relevance here. (There are any number of interesting axiomatic systems which are decidable. For instance, Tarski's axiomatization of Euclidean geometry is decidable.) Some people like to bring up Godel as a cudgel to a certain kind of half-educated superficial "rationalist", but the meaning of "rational", its relation to belief and to religion are by no means simple matters. It may be rational to believe the Sun will rise tomorrow, but we can't prove it or demonstrate it except a posteriori, and the only difference from believing in God is that we remember seeing the Sun rise in the morning a few times before — but that's not an argument to people who claim to have had true conversion experience.
ReplyDeleteDawkins&co.'s atheism ("Einsteinian religion") is not substantially distinct from "globalism". They may put an emphasis on the non-existence of God, but they would not find anything to seriously disagree with with a "globalist".
Atheism is a belief (the belief that there is no God) and not a religion.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as in any other belief or opinion, it does not appear isolated. Rationalism and materialism are often associated, which somewhat contradict: it is thought that the workings of the brain of a naked ape are enough to understand the Universe and the only standard of Truth (as opposed to the products of a dog's brain, for example), while at the same way denying that this ape is the summit of evolution and equating to other animal.
Since an ethics is needed, modern times complete this with utilitarianism (the good is pleasure, the pain is bad). All the modern concepts are usually put into the mix: equality, diversity, progress, ...
When you put all together, this works as a religion and, if you have eyes, you can see a lot of traditional religious behaviors in modern atheism, which is what Mencius Moldbug detected.
Besides that, Moldbug is an example of bad reasoning. The fact that liberalism derives from Calvinism, does not mean that liberalism is Christianity.
"liberalism" is actually mainline Protestantism, which is actually Christianity. Whether or not it obeys any specific detail of Christian or Protestant doctrine, such as the validity of the Holy Trinity, the existence of God, the divinity of Jesus, the predestination of the elect, etc, etc, etc, is entirely irrelevant.
(...) Of course, if you are a Christian, you don't believe these features are superficial.
No, and if you are not a Christian, you don't believe these features are superficial either. Only Moldbug does. It is like saying that liberalism is Islam because faith in God, Muhammad, the Quran and the hadiths is secondary to the non-Muslim but the zakat (alms-giving) promotes social justice and Islam is universalist and non-ethnic.
Moldbug wants to make the essence of Christianity some third-level unimportant details of some Christian sects while saying the core of Christianity is unimportant. Pure sophistry.
@Candide
ReplyDeleteI am not sure purely mathematical results have any relevance here.
It's not the mathematics it's the logic behind the proof. Proof by self reference is not a proof. (Tarksi and his undecidability theorem). It's real life incarnation is the Turing "Halting Problem".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem
The assumption behind atheism is that everything that exists is accessible by the senses, and the proof that this is true is the fact that we can't sense it means that it doesn't exist. At the core of any hard core Atheism is Positivism which is Godel/Tarksi Inconsistent.
I suppose the best example of the limitations of Atheism is shown in the film The Matrix. The reality that most humans experience in the movie is from a computer generated program that is fed directly into their brains. The question then is, for one of these people hooked up to the machine, how do you differentiate between reality and computer generated illusion. The Answer is you can't, because you have to get "beyond your senses" in order to ascertain the nature of reality. As long as your "locked" into your limited sensory infeed you cannot determine if you are engaging with reality or are living a computer generated dream.
@Chent
Athiesm is a religion in the negative sense. It's a religion because it makes statements about factors which are non-empiricial. As said before, it is predicated on the notion that only things that can be sensed exist, and things which can't be sensed don't. The scope of reality only exists within sensory confines. A blind Atheist who have to say that colours do not exist since there is simply no way he can prove their existence. Colours to him belong to the same class as flying spaggheti monsters, physical entities which are insensate as well as Cherubin and Seraphim. This is the logical trap of Atheism.
The fact that liberalism derives from Calvinism, does not mean that liberalism is Christianity.
Agree. He lumps all of Christianity into one group, whereas the doctrinal differences have profound significance.
Moldbug wants to make the essence of Christianity some third-level unimportant details of some Christian sects while saying the core of Christianity is unimportant. Pure sophistry.
Reactionary Future has been Hammering Moldbug recently and I think that much of his Criticism is Valid. Moldbug is too much a Positivist and is therefore just presenting a different version of the current status quo. Note, a good Positivist is still better than a bad one.
You don't have proofs at all outside mathematics. Or, if you will, "proof" in mathematics and "proof" as used in ordinary speech are completely different. No mathematical proof can be transplanted to the real world, and vice-versa. Similarly, "logic" has quite different meanings in mathematics and in ordinary speech, and using the words "logic" or "proof" as if these meanings were interchangeable is a source of many philosophical errors. But this is rather irrelevant to the matter at hand. You don't need Godel to point out the logical problems in the statement that everything that exists is accessible by the senses, and the proof that this is true is the fact that we can't sense it means that it doesn't exist, since it's a simple case of circular reasoning, though I agree that if you bring out Godel and Tarski your argument — while philosophically indefensible — would seem much more impressive to a certain kind of person.
ReplyDelete@Candide III
ReplyDeleteYou don't have proofs at all outside mathematics
Sensory experience is proof outside of mathematics. Hence the power of Positivism.
In a perverse way, reality is the opposite of mathematics since the "formula" is ultimately validated by the appeal to the axioms. Note, I'm not using the term "proof" in the conventional sense. Sensory experience is axiomatic.
though I agree that if you bring out Godel and Tarski your argument....
I think Godel and Tarski are very relevant and that's why I dragged them out (and I guess I didn't impress you!). Once again it's not the proof per se, but the logic behind the proof that matters. Going "beyond the senses" is equivalent to Tarski's insight that that a higher order mechanism is needed to affirm the truth of the lower. Hence the Matrix analogy.