CS Lewis and Home

Sedum

   Clive Staples Lewis - a name we in the dyslexic community often confuse with Lewis Wonderland "I might be a repressed pedophile but I'm not stoned" Carroll. Lewis Carroll's real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

  Clive Staples Lewis had this idea of home. It stemmed from his understanding that a society built around morality that was based on changing whims gets itself into trouble and always has. He argued that through the course of the past couple centuries of the enlightenment our species had changed a bit.

   And why did he think this? A number of reasons, one of which can be summed this way : we more modern people, having mastered nature, were now constantly searching and will never be happy, almost, it was as though we came from somewhere else and were trying to go home.

   His point, drifting around on whims does not help us to get settled into our lives, it had nothing to do with aliens it had everything to do with progress. 

   CS Lewis, in his respect for morality, leaned muchly on what's called "The Golden Rule." I don't mean to be trite or disrespectful but the golden rule is just a feeble excuse to whitewash humanity with unsupported impressions bolstered by thoughts and prayers.

   The golden rule has three classroom ways of expressing itself to the Front Row. Mathew 7:12 - Do unto others what you'd have them do unto you. The Eastern Version - Do not treat others in ways you'd not want to be treated. The Sleeping Cat Leaping Leopard Position - What you wish upon others you wish upon yourself.

   Lewis divided us people into three parts. The Head was where rational thinking was found. The Chest was where trained, I'll repeat trained, emotions, honor, courage and moral instincts were found. The Belly is where biological appetites and other base unthinking instincts have their jolly liver damaging and increasingly pointless existence.

   Amongst other things, Lewis was an Anglican lay theologian, he wasn't ordained or trained by a seminary he was just fond of pontificating on pretty much everything, including religion.

    His brilliant suggestion that Jesus, the Christian savior, was either "liar, lunatic or lord" might equally well be applied to any one of thousands of Cult Leaders, including the current you know what. And again his point was that old excuse Kant also clung to, a "look at that sunset, so sublime, there must be something more out there," is not a Creed, an "I believe" final decision. 

   Lewis was a front line soldier in the final year of the First World War. He was in the Oxford Home Guard in the Second World War. He was 64 when, like Bernard Shaw and Emily Dickinson, he died of kidney failure in 1963, seven days before his 65th birthday.

  Dodgson - Alice in Wonderland - died of pneumonia following flu in the January of 1898 about nine months before CS Lewis was born. So we got that to think about.

Paradox and Irony in Liberal Democracy

Back to Sumac

    Instead of posh-snotting around let's just go ahead, call them Postmodern Fascists, give them fox hunting retirement homes in what's left of rural Northern Virginia or Gloucestershire where they can randomly pattern their ideas around the lucky dip of neoplatonic scribblings which no one understands but which fills the emotional gaps substituting for an explanation of 21st Century.

   And here, for no good reason, the word 'explanation' is defined like this : details, reasons, or statements given to make something clear, intelligible, or easy to understand. As in a 'because' followed by 'the moon is made of cheese.' Or a 'because' followed by 'I said so.' Or a 'because' followed by 'reading a book in public is virtue signalling.'

   Core characteristics of Pre-modern Fascism include the following : Extreme Nationalism, Forcible Suppression, Dictatorial Leadership, Social and Economic Regimentation, Militarism, mass rallies, chanting, uniforms, songs and other cult like reactions behaviors.

   Core characteristics of Postmodern Fascism include the following : Causes all six look-alike Mitford Sisters to say 'ick' or something equally infantile like 'yuk' and return to their group Facebook Page. A dismissal of Moses' objections to Golden Calves and reigniting of Socio-economic Class Warfare. A Shift from biological differences to cultural differences. Fluid, loosely connected online networks that manifest and understand themselves through memes and online swarms promoting a deep skepticism of liberal democracy. 

   In Postmodern Fascism, as in 20th Century Fascism, explanations that try to answer the question Why? continue to depend on the relationship between the brain and the written word which is why, unlike Facebook et al, education isn't really about self esteem, it's about individual understanding rather than a communal understanding,. 

False Facts

Very Dry

    Dewey will be rolling in his grave as he watches democracy attempt to raise banners against minds that relish the prospect of autocratic rule by a chosen few none of whom are anywhere near men of gold, they are closer to what Dewey, in one of his lighter moods might have called der geistig behinderte.  

   How can one old, old, weird looking yellow person cause so much damage. The answer is encapsulated thusly : "The ultimate gourmet treat is finally here......Freshly, handcrafted, fig and walnut bites." If you can't see the flaws you're what Dewey in one of his darker moods might have called Teil des Problems.

  Don't know about you, but I read the words and don't believe any of them. Why did anyone think anyone would believe them? Was it the illustration of a back to the 1950's man wearing dungarees, a straw hat on his head, sly eyes and pedophile facial hair who's pictured handling food and not wearing gloves.

   As a species we have always communicated through uncertainties., which is why Dewey called for an education system devoted to promoting reflexives Denken. More recently in our attempts to manipulate each other we have returned to communicating through Falsche Fakten.

Averages : Congress 59, General Public 39.

Sunrise and No Rain

   For those in our number who may be reading from an Alternative or Fake Sacred Text, the hard truth is that God  while welcoming the saintly, well behaved and obedient to the host did not allow Moses to lead his people into the promised land. They had to wait until Moses died at 120 years of age before Joshua, Sweeter than Lemon Squash-you-are, said "OK Chaps, let's stop all this aimless and mostly pointless wandering around carrying the old man's commandments and find somewhere to park the Arc of the Covenant." 

    To find out more let's talk The Iron Law of Oligarchy, with particular reference to this quote from Michels : "whoever says organization says oligarchy."

  Briefly stated, Robert Michels book Political Parties (published 1911), says this: "All complex organizations, even those founded by democratic beliefs, will eventually become oligarchies dominated by a small group of elites."

   Michels who was 60 in 1936 when he died in Rome, he was a German Italian, he cultivated less facial hair than Max Weber. Weber died when he was 56. Michels thinking, is classified as belonging to the Italian School of Elitism, he was a sociologist who specialized in criticizing, poking at and upsetting Intellectual Elites, kind of like Bishop Berkeley's contributions to the Enlightenment. 

  For your interest an Intellectual Elite is a collection of individuals who read the right books, went through the same training, acquired and continue to develop a group knowledge and more often they connect through specific academic circles, drinking clubs, second home ownership, journals, Aspen etc, and urban hubs.

   Michels insisted that just like schools of knowledge - such as the Dullards of Harvard, the fraternities of Cornell, the keys of Yale, the rowing club of Oxford and the spires of Cambridge - all organizations as well as Political Parties become Oligarchies. As in dominated by a small group of elites.

   Max Weber challenged Michels use of the words iron and law.  Weber argued that many organizations did indeed have a responsive relationship with leadership. You couldn't just say that all organizations become oligarchies, some were better than others. 

   Weber was about understanding society in terms of rational behaviors. Everyone had a similar rational response to work, to home, to play, to holidays and in Weberian circles there was a hope that if you could determine the patterns of these rationals then Bob was your Uncle.

   Michels saw organizations as Power structures. His thinking was very much in line with Disraeli who said "I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole" when, in February of 1868, the Queen confirmed him Prime Minster of Greater Britain. In the UK an unelected, disgustingly wealthy and scandal prone Monarch is the Head of State

    Disraeli, a One Nation Conservative was 75 when his party, the Tory Party, was defeated by the Liberal Party allowing William Ewart Gladstone to get his second chance to visit the Queen, where once again he'd get an opportunity to piss off her majesty by treating her as though she were a "public meeting." The Her Majesty in question was the German Queen Victoria who died when she was 81 of cerebral hemorrhage.)

    In short, here in the USA, if you're over seventy and are still clinging to power there's 98% chance you have outstayed your welcome -  Schumer (D) is 75. Grassley (R) is 93. Rogers (R) 88. There are 24 members of Congress who are over 80 and there are 120 members of Congress who are over 70.