Thursday, May 24, 2012

This and that

Santayana I think it was who described the difference between classical religions, eg Catholicism, and Protestant modernism. He used the metaphors contrasting a Renaissance Roman fountain and a rural well. In the first case, you drink from waters flowing through a complex and beautiful structure that predates you. In the second case you drop your pail down a dark hole and bring up likely muddy water, in which you see your own muddied reflection. Tendentious, to be sure, but not altogether off the mark. Like religion vs spirituality.

Reminds me of the diff between the Divine Office, the ancient services of Matins and Vespers and Compline, etc. vs the "Spirit-filled" spontaneous prayer-drivel that Catholic charismatics used to inflict on us. No contest.

American Catholicism reminds me of English Catholicism in the 1500's. When the English State began to assert control, although the process was not as smooth, swift or welcome as the old histories lead us to believe, most of the Catholics became State Christians. Listening to liberal Catholics shrink in horror that "the bishops and the Vatican" would stridently oppose "President Barack Obama" [hic genuflectitur] makes me see them as first of all, creatures of the liberal Democrat State. After all, it embodies the values they really worship.

I'm taking B to another cultural event this weekend: a Marx Brothers marathon at the Castro theatre. Groucho Marxism, the only kind worth a damn.

Two female soldiers are suing the US for being excluded from combat. It prevents them from career progress, says the suit. Part of feminism's drive to ensure that no all-male spaces exist. The ideology of universal equality is a cancer.

The egalitarian infection reminds me of 1984. The goal of the torture is to get the victim to actually believe that 2+2=5. The Long March has been very effective. On a taboo race-realist site, a White woman panics when she realizes she and a group of other middle aged White couples have booked a weekend at a place where 300,000 Blacks party and crime rates soar. Judges have forced business there to remain open to avoid discrimination fines. When she expressed her fears to her husband and the others, their response was, "Well, now we'll get to know what it's like to be a minority."

Speaking of crime and Blacks, it's common to read that Blacks make up 13% of the country and account for more than 50% of the crime. But it's actually 3% of the country, because the vast majority of the crime comes from Black males 18-39. Obama's sons.

Getting caught up on my Brit TV dramas. Season 2 of Sherlock. Season 2 of Downton Abbey. Found a great free download site. Also followed up on Game of Thrones. Downton 2 isn't so tensely driven as the first season and has a few flawed attempts to create it: the presumed-dead heir shows up, having had amnesia and now so disfigured from the war that no one can recognize him, so he has a fit of pique and leaves? Cheap soap opera ploy. The first and third of the Sherlock 2's were very good, riffing creatively on the originals. The middle one's connection to Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles was not so cleverly or complexly done.

It's been quite cool in SF this spring, but sunny and clear and bright. That helps a lot.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All praise to the Divine Office of _Roman_ Catholic _Christianity_ vs charismatic driver (helmsmanship by non-ego) that doesn't even give self-reflection in muddy water and thus prevents contest or agôn. ... But perhaps one would prefer to see self-reflection manna in muddy water in a pale (Rev. 6:8 yellow*; Canaanite) than drink water from unknown sources purvey'd by a renaissance labyrinth.

*obedient will-to-power whites become pale, yellow, tan -- usually nowadays in artificial sun booths, rather than in Sun Self light. Cf the (Canaanites) B-tches of Basker Ville, eh?

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