The New Dignity: Gnostic, Elitist, Self-Destructive Will-to-Power / Article

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/11/15948

Wow.  Someone is hitting the nail on the head.

But what exactly constitutes this New Dignity? The work of George Kateb, professor emeritus at Princeton, provides a clue. In a book titled Human Dignity,Kateb writes: “Since nature has no telos, the human species is at its greatest when it breaks out of nature.” Human dignity is grounded, according to Kateb, in our ability to defy nature—to go beyond natural limitations and thereby create ourselves anew. Kateb agrees with Sartre: the freedom to “become different through an upsurge of free creativity,” which “can never be conclusively defined or delimited,” is “the philosophical anthropology that underlies human dignity.” This is the meaning of human dignity in a world with no clear origin, no purposeful end, no intrinsic meaning, and nothing real beyond matter in motion.

The New Dignity demands new positive freedoms, freedoms to—to remake our gender, to marry someone without regard to sex or the procreative potential of the union, to choose our time to die and enlist the medical profession in ending our lives, to not only abort a child developing in the womb but also to harvest his or her body parts for commercial gain. It also calls for new negative freedom, freedoms from—from all unwanted pain or discomfort, from limitations on what I can do to or with my body, from language or ideas that offend me or that challenge decisions I have made.

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Not only is "relative" morality and oxymoron, "relative" dignity, also makes no sense.

Drawing, dreaming, voting

Also see Conrad Black on the subject matter:  http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/conrad-black-donald-trump-knows-how-to-make-a-deal

Honestly,  who can stay out of the theatrics that make up American politics?

What a more painful procedure could be devised?  It reminds me of the "dialectics" with a liberal I have been through.  And yet, somehow, America remains the land of the free, or does it?

One's response to it all, could truly be to bury one's heads in the coloring books.  I don't blame anyone for finding their relaxation in innocent activities.

And still, the coloring books seem like a retreat--a retreat from reading, thinking, researching, collaborating, working, working-through.  Part of me blames it on the Yoga-revolution (again, nothing against stretching and breathing--I have tried it;  it does me good.)  The Buddhist/ mindfulness meditation techniques are good for zoning out and regrouping or even marshaling your resources, but in themselves they don't deploy any energies into useful directions.  They are therapeutic and reactive in a sense, not productive or pro-active.  When we think that mindfulness in itself is going to fix the world or my need or my neighbor's need via whatever conceived cosmic convergence notion, we are taking the easy way out.

I am little too young to have been a Hippie, and in any case, in Germany that movement sort of passed us by completely.  When I was young, there was an art project competition our teacher entered us in:  make a poster with the title "Don't dream.  Do something."

Some people have tried to turn this around.  "Don't just do something.  Dream!  Think!"

I suppose, we need both, and most false dichotomies collapse.  So maybe you can even draw a mandala and then go out and vote for Trump.  Whatever.  Try to think while you color.

Summer Books / "The Truth Behind the New Atheism"

Ok, we see that the Ukulele is great, cheap, wholesome and simple fun.  I have learned some new songs and a variety of styles--more simple fun.

Let's get back to some of the books.  There is one that I have begun:
"The Truth Behind the New Atheism", by David Marshall.




I have only read it in little bits and can't say much about it as a whole, at this point.  There are, however, cogent points along the way.

It seems to me that we bump into something called Gnosticism quite often, only that it likes to be a hidden system, though not actually very systematic, and is therefore somewhat slippery and hard to grasp or identify.  Certainly, no one comes right out to say:  I believe such and such because I am a Gnostic.

But that does not make it any less real.  I am getting to have a Gnostic--radar and think maybe I should read more about what it is.

I will quote a bit from page 105-107.  Marshall takes apart Richard Dawkins's claim that the Bible teaches caring only for your in-group.

"Jesus limited his in-group of the saved strictly to Jews,"  says Dawkins. "Sam Harris says the New Testament was written by people who hated Jews.  Hartung and Dawkins say Jesus hated Gentiles."... "Here New Atheists part company even with radical New Testament scholarship, not to mention anyone who has ever read the Book with an open mind!  Even skeptical Bible scholars say the most consistent theme not just in Jesus' teachings, but in his actions, was to tear down barriers between people.  Robert Funk, founder of the radical Jesus seminar, noted that all through the gospels, Jesus "privileged" the poor, sick, infirm, women, children, tax collectors and foreigners.  Liberal colleagues such as Marcus Borg, John Crossan, and Walter Wink underline this point repeatedly.  "In a society ordered by a purity system, the inclusiveness of Jesus' movement embodies a radically alternative social vision." ...Ironically, Dawkins hones in on the phrase "love their neighbor" to illustrate his belief that Jesus only cared about the "in-group". But there was a particular moment in history when "neighbor" emphatically stopped meaning "another Jew" and came forever to mean "anyone you meet."  Dawkins should recognize that moment, for he twice uses the term Good Samaritan."  (Marshall, p. 107)

Quote Marshall, p. 108.

A Samaritan was not a Jew.  He was a despised half-breed.  He was an improbable hero for a rabbi in an era when the always nationalistic Jews were chafing under foreign occupation.  That is precisely, Funk points out, what made the Good Samaritan so typical a hero in a story by Jesus.  The sheer absurdity of accusing Jesus, of all people, of "exclusiveness"  seems almost inspired (by whom, I leave the reader to consider). 

How did we really discover our common humanity?

Aristotle held that "from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule."  He even claimed it was better for the "lower sort" to be ruled by masters, since they were "by nature slaves."  Gnostics said some were naturally incapable of being saved from this "lowest region of all matter."  According to the Rig Veda, the four great castes proceed from the mouth, arms, thighs, and feet of Brahma.

With a few kindly allies such a Confuscius, the bible taught us racial unity.  It has always been a theistic dogma that humans are alike in nature and dignity as the image of God.  In one of the earliest Old Testament documents, Job said, "  If I have denied justice to my menservats and maidservants... what will I do when God confronts me?...did not he who made me in the womb make them?"  (Job 31:13-15)  Paul wrote, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female;  for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).  Augustine thus rebutted Aristotle:  Whatever society may do to us, no one is a slave by nature.  There was a great future in that insight.  but there was also a great future in the response by social Darwinist Hermann Klaatch:  "The humanitarian nonsense which grants equal rights to all on the premise of the unity of humanity, is to be condemned from the scientific standpoint." 

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This is also interesting from the point of view of the Reformation, where a great popular movement brought literacy and biblical teaching to the masses, wresting it from a priestly class, that had gone quite corrupt.  Also, it was noted quite clearly that there needed to be a shift from Aristotle to Augustine, which I sometimes wonder what that could all mean. Here is one aspect of this shift. 

We hear often, however, even in Luther that people should stay in their callings.  What he means, though, is not that some should be serves and some Lord, but that each should faithfully do his work, since each has his own load to carry.  We need not aspire to all be in a spiritual class, but we serve God in our vocations, as husband, wife, child, student, king, soldier, farmer, pastor, etc.  These are all ennobled by the blessings and callings of God.  This teaching is quite contrary to those who see in the daily affairs a kind of bane that we need to escape.   

We see also how some rationalize their tendency to cruelty, pride and unjust behavior.