The older I get the less enamoured with labels I become. They have become meaningless; poorly defined and poorly understood. What is liberty? What are we conserving? Tradition is no better. Traditionalism burned witches and crucified the Messiah.
What is the peg about which we move? Is there a peg? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And now I must learn how I should live. Within the machine, outside the machine, the question is the same. To be in the world but not of it. To love life but not the things of the world.
We are relational beings but our first and primary relationship is vertical, with God. Our life is meant to be lived in community, parallel communities if necessary. We are to be light in darkness, we are not called to isolation.
I am sympathetic to these discussions, and they help my thinking. The wheels are going to have to put on the wagon in small groups of two or three families. Communities will be built around groups of groups knit by a common understanding of the Essential and great freedom around the nonessential. This is liberal conservatism, or conservative liberalism, and it will be opposed by those who mean to rule. Those who seek to live godly will be opposed.
Good thoughts. Part of this whole exercise, I think, in doing all this thinking ad writing is to let others know that we are not alone. We may not all think exactly alike, but we share a lot more than we thought we did. We spark some conversation. Change some minds. Awaken others. Thanks for sharing.
Precisely. Our thinking in isolation may be hazardous to our mental health. Exposing it to light and air is healthy. Thinking we are isolated is also a hazard.
"Tradition is no better. Traditionalism burned witches and crucified the Messiah."
Traditionalism didn't do anything of the kind. People did that - on their own free will and everything, as the Messiah would agree. And people of the current are just as, or even more, capable, violence and destruction, as we should be able to tell after 2 world wars, a Holocaust, and untold number of attrocities by "Enlightened", "Modern" societies.
Not to mention the "current" destroying the environment, building nuclear bombs enough to destroy the whole planet, mechanizing our every day, surveilling every move, making everything for sale, and dispensing with human fertility altogether.
The problem of the modern day is so much of Western tradition has been uprooted to the point where what people would take for granted 100 years ago is considered foreign is not downright evil today. As demographics change, so will the shared cultural history that America borrowed from Europe disintegrate, leaving our shared culture as nothing more than an H.R. Code of Conduct.
So how do we even start? It's going to require an alternative cultural network that creates strong immediate family bonds capable of expanding out to an incredibly tribal and insular community. It is enormously difficult to create a new cultural tradition out of the wasteland of modernity, and will take at least three generations to create and will have to survive a hostile outside world.
None of the adults reading this stand a chance of seeing these new traditions and folkways come to full fruition, and likely we'll all be fighting the mind-worm of liberalism our whole lives. But maybe our children's children's children will live and breathe these new folkways and traditions that take the best lessons from our shared heritage as well as allowing them to navigate new technologies in a life-affirming way.
Dropping a note to say I enjoyed this, only reason it's not in tomorrow's poast is that I try not to share paywalled stuff.
But thought you might enjoy hearing something I learned recently, which is that the company that makes the excellent Instant Pot pressure cooker recently filed for bankruptcy because their product was simply too 'tried and true.' They couldn't turn a profit because their product was too reliable and never broke down.
I was thinking about this more and I wonder if the reasons are different, that this was a novelty product. Once the newness wore off, people wanted food cooked the normal way. And for stuff that can be cooked in a crockpot, why not just use the crockpot?
Reasonable assumption, but you can have perfectly cooked falling-off-the-bone roasts in under an hour, which would take a crockpot many hours. It's great for beans and rice. I am typically skeptical of kitchen gadetry but it's become essential in our kitchen. And analog pressure cookers are finicky and even dangerous.
It took me far longer than usual to read this essay because it provoked much thought and some stark realisations.
'The rules which govern society when you are born should be the rules which govern society when you are old', this speaks volumes, it encapsulates precisely the gravest of our problems. Society has been modelled deliberately to prevent any continuity, it constantly stops and starts so recollection of the past is distorted.
I shall visit this post again, I need to grasp it fully.
The older I get the less enamoured with labels I become. They have become meaningless; poorly defined and poorly understood. What is liberty? What are we conserving? Tradition is no better. Traditionalism burned witches and crucified the Messiah.
What is the peg about which we move? Is there a peg? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And now I must learn how I should live. Within the machine, outside the machine, the question is the same. To be in the world but not of it. To love life but not the things of the world.
We are relational beings but our first and primary relationship is vertical, with God. Our life is meant to be lived in community, parallel communities if necessary. We are to be light in darkness, we are not called to isolation.
I am sympathetic to these discussions, and they help my thinking. The wheels are going to have to put on the wagon in small groups of two or three families. Communities will be built around groups of groups knit by a common understanding of the Essential and great freedom around the nonessential. This is liberal conservatism, or conservative liberalism, and it will be opposed by those who mean to rule. Those who seek to live godly will be opposed.
Good thoughts. Part of this whole exercise, I think, in doing all this thinking ad writing is to let others know that we are not alone. We may not all think exactly alike, but we share a lot more than we thought we did. We spark some conversation. Change some minds. Awaken others. Thanks for sharing.
Precisely. Our thinking in isolation may be hazardous to our mental health. Exposing it to light and air is healthy. Thinking we are isolated is also a hazard.
Exactly. Like Elijah after Mount Carmel.
"Tradition is no better. Traditionalism burned witches and crucified the Messiah."
Traditionalism didn't do anything of the kind. People did that - on their own free will and everything, as the Messiah would agree. And people of the current are just as, or even more, capable, violence and destruction, as we should be able to tell after 2 world wars, a Holocaust, and untold number of attrocities by "Enlightened", "Modern" societies.
Not to mention the "current" destroying the environment, building nuclear bombs enough to destroy the whole planet, mechanizing our every day, surveilling every move, making everything for sale, and dispensing with human fertility altogether.
The problem of the modern day is so much of Western tradition has been uprooted to the point where what people would take for granted 100 years ago is considered foreign is not downright evil today. As demographics change, so will the shared cultural history that America borrowed from Europe disintegrate, leaving our shared culture as nothing more than an H.R. Code of Conduct.
So how do we even start? It's going to require an alternative cultural network that creates strong immediate family bonds capable of expanding out to an incredibly tribal and insular community. It is enormously difficult to create a new cultural tradition out of the wasteland of modernity, and will take at least three generations to create and will have to survive a hostile outside world.
None of the adults reading this stand a chance of seeing these new traditions and folkways come to full fruition, and likely we'll all be fighting the mind-worm of liberalism our whole lives. But maybe our children's children's children will live and breathe these new folkways and traditions that take the best lessons from our shared heritage as well as allowing them to navigate new technologies in a life-affirming way.
At least three generations. But before you can get to the third generation, the first must start.
Dropping a note to say I enjoyed this, only reason it's not in tomorrow's poast is that I try not to share paywalled stuff.
But thought you might enjoy hearing something I learned recently, which is that the company that makes the excellent Instant Pot pressure cooker recently filed for bankruptcy because their product was simply too 'tried and true.' They couldn't turn a profit because their product was too reliable and never broke down.
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/instant-pot-bankrupt
I was thinking about this more and I wonder if the reasons are different, that this was a novelty product. Once the newness wore off, people wanted food cooked the normal way. And for stuff that can be cooked in a crockpot, why not just use the crockpot?
Reasonable assumption, but you can have perfectly cooked falling-off-the-bone roasts in under an hour, which would take a crockpot many hours. It's great for beans and rice. I am typically skeptical of kitchen gadetry but it's become essential in our kitchen. And analog pressure cookers are finicky and even dangerous.
Interesting...not surprising. But interesting.
It took me far longer than usual to read this essay because it provoked much thought and some stark realisations.
'The rules which govern society when you are born should be the rules which govern society when you are old', this speaks volumes, it encapsulates precisely the gravest of our problems. Society has been modelled deliberately to prevent any continuity, it constantly stops and starts so recollection of the past is distorted.
I shall visit this post again, I need to grasp it fully.
Thanks.
Glad you found it so thought provoking!