We live at present in a mix of cultures. Perhaps, for the sake of discussion, I could sketch out some of these and see if there could be any possible resolution of views or a unifying principle among them, or whether, as seems the case to me, it must eventually come to a fight to the death.
I identify the following main divisions in our society:
1) The Quiet-Lifers (QLs). They live shallow lives. They go along with whatever the media and changing social norms direct, perhaps gently complaining, but docile and happy as long as they are left alone to waste their lives in trivia and comfortable enjoyment. Perhaps these are the majority. If extremists take over they will comply.
If they are English natives they will be happy as long as they have casinos, Big Brother, YouTube, and Macdonalds’ fries. If they are of a higher social band they have cricket, Big Brother, serial marriage, and Ciabatta.
If they are Muslim they will adopt the Jihadist approach if that’s the way the wind begins to blow and the direction the majority of their fellow religionists is apparently moving.
Such were Hitler’s willing executioners.
The question arises as to how you educate people not to think in this way.
2) The Rampant Cultural Corrupters (RCCs). We saw them at work last week, trying, successfully it seems, to force the Roman Catholic church to deliver children into the hands of same-sex couples. These are the aspiring thought-police. Trained in the methods of Gramschi as promulgated nowadays by cultural study and political correctness induction courses at every institute of further education (this term is beginning to look sinister) in the land, they see it as their moral duty to bring our errant thoughts into line... click "Read more"
As the views of Dawkins and the militant atheists take hold, such people will wish to close down the School and all other such avenues of spiritual and religious thought. Well, not immediately, but Dawkins is publicly expressing horror at the fact that parents are still able to indoctrinate their children with the God meme. And his book is selling like wildfire.
The RCC lobby is serious. They hunt in packs and have begun to scent blood. Once they get into full frontal power, they will have at their disposal CCTV cameras and personal files on each of us. An ID card system is being set up even as we speak.
If you think I am off my head and lost in conspiracy theories, ask yourself whether even five years ago you could have imagined the state trying to tell the church what it must believe.
These people are on a mission, and things are definitely going their way. Decades ago they established the infrastructure with which to institute their aims, and they set it up efficiently and successfully.
Compared with these people, the School, which has had some inkling of the threat since the sixties, has slept.
2) Devout Christians, Jews etc. (DCJs). Sincere and concerned, these are the only people with sufficient conviction to stand up to the RCC lobby. As always they are in a small minority. Even in its heyday the Church was mainly comprised of QLs since that was the way the wind was blowing just then.
3) New Spiritual Seekers (NSSs). There are many, many such movements, but all separate. We are one of them. I believe that such people have the potential to formulate a new way of life based on spiritual truth and leading to true and substantial happiness and social stability. Nonetheless, as we see with our own institution, such people tend to be complacent and incapable of showing solidarity with other such movements so as to stand united against a common foe.
4) Islam. Demographically the fastest growing segment of European society. These are spiritually committed people (albeit often holding to primitive and crude versions of their creed) with all that that means in terms of power and persistence. Eventually, it seems to me, it will come down to a battle between them and the RCCs. I believe that Islam will win, but either way, this will mark the end of independent thought in Europe.
Have I missed any major sector of society out? No doubt you think I am way over-larding. Say why, but note that if I am even half right, the future of independent thought is at real risk.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
A mounting threat to those who would think for themselves (and not just within the School!)
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5 comments:
I think you're more right than you're wrong -- as of now. There's also something within me that almost welcomes a straight fight for the universal mind !
I'd say we have two powerful allies in the coming battle who are keeping their heads down -- because we don't call on them : devout and informed Hindus, who are now making their voices heard in English; and devout and informed Muslims, who are as capable of reasoned behaviour as any traditional Englishman -- after all, they were the first faith to practice multi-culturalism.
Yes, and alas, to just about everything else you say.
Satyam eva jayate (or jayati ?)
SOM & anonymous:
What form do you suggest 'the fight' takes? What in your view is the practical response to all this?
Just another comment regarding the phrase 'those who would think for themselves'. I don't think I've argued anywhere here for novelty. I've argued for 'originality' in the sense of 'returning to the origin'. I want to connect with the source as far as I am capable and wish others would do so according to the path most in their hearts. It is also, I believe, only from this place of 'originality' that liberal creativity and expression may be married with the sacred and lawful.
I don't recognise this portrait.
Personally I can't abide Dawkins, but he is a total extremist who amuses some people. His series "The Root of All Evil?" (IE religion, if you hadn't guessed) was remarkable for its dullness and the shortness of the ad breaks - very few advertisers wanted to be associated with it. In a large democracy, people like him will always have a proportion of the audience.
To suggest that ID cards and CCTV are somehow the tools of the so-called "RCCs" is ... odd, verging on paranoid. The argument seems to be: "everything I don't like is a plot against my way of life"
The increasing surveillance in our society is a worry, but it's just something we have to manage and decide whether we want it. The French don't allow CCTV on the Metro, because they think it infringes civil liberty. 20% of the world's CCTV cameras are in the UK, because we're not bothered. Maybe we should be.
We have the power to stand against these things, and we have the democratic instruments. We don't need to demonise technology to do that.
Let's save our passion for what matters.
So much depends on the filters through which we see the world. Is your glass half full or half empty? Which end of the telescope is one inclined to look through? How long is history?
In the School there's an (almost) universal belief in the run-down of civilisation, the world, the universe. And yet we act as though it were not so. This encourages me to think that, though we are led to believe in the inevitable march of the Kali yuga - in our heart of hearts we still subscribe to a golden age.
Given that we wish the best for all - what can be said or done to bring about a better outcome?
I don't think I'm being overly sanguine in trusting the history trail, particularly when confronted - as we often are - by sad tales of the decline of this and that, accompanied by morose and unexamined sighs and anxieties.
Oh, yes? Please - bear up!
Not sharing a common culture today? (Consider the rape and pillage of the Saxons by the Danes.) The state telling the Church what it must believe? (Henry VIII was in an altogether different class to today's politicians.)And so it goes on.
Why do School people insist on racking up the signs of decline at every turn of the wheel? It can only be because the edifice of belief would begin to crack, otherwise.
There is a bigger picture.
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