1. I’m amazed & disturbed how many people, after reading one article of mine that they agree with, write to me as if I know all the answers to life—if they saw the shambolic details of my life they would not do this. It’s easy to see how the unscrupulous could take advantage.https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1045307656804560896 …
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2. I think this is obvious in religion. Islam means submission to the will of Allah, and Roman Catholics submit to the Church. “Religion” derives, in part, from the Latin “to bind fast”. It places a person under authority; it is this absence that destroys many under modernity.
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Again, I wouldn't want to dispute this point. I'd merely say that it's not the whole story. Religions can be quite fissiparous - authority is not always welcome amongst the religious. And the sense of mission can also be what's keeping them in the cult.
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I’m disputing it. I’m a disputing man. I think religion is discipline, once a religion stops accepting authority it has become decadent. Ultimately, religion rests on the Tao or the unity of opposites found in Heraclitus. Both are analogous to a path or river—straying is death.
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I'm going to disappoint you with my conciliatory nature;-) Nevertheless, my (very) religious upbringing (nonconformist low-church Protestantism) left me with a sense that what authority there was in the church did not lie with people, but with texts. An anomaly, perhaps.
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1. Protestantism is decadent Christianity. It was founded on the principle of a revolt against authority, namely the Vatican. Paradoxically, its decadence springs from a desire to perfect Christianity, which was why it emerged in the most perfectly Christian lands: Germany.
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2. This was Nietzsche’s argument, re: Germany. Protestantism today is dying everywhere, and few Protestant “Christians” believe in a metaphysical God or the biblical teachings. Protestantism is leftist in the sense that it is organisational entropy for Christianity.
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3. You can see a similar pattern in Marxism, which, in a sense, wants to perfect capitalism. The Marxists want to unlock the utter transformative power of capitalism in a “rational” way. In this, they are like the Protestants who sought a Christianity uncorrupted by the Vatican.
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4. Marxism is organisational entropy for capitalism. In both cases, Marxism & Protestantism, the revolt against authority is a deviation from the path—the Tao—& these revolts, suitably Satanic, always claim to be the complete and perfect fulfilment of the authority they subvert.
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Yes. You were emphasising the "being told" and I wished to add the "backs to the wall". They're frequently, but not always, the same thing.
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It’s existential in both cases. I think that’s where the purpose comes from. In war, you are told: “Do this, or we will be destroyed.” Rounding Cape Horn, you are told: “Do this, or you will die.” The state in one case and nature in the other— ultimately both are nature.
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Soldiers are frequently hostile to their commanders, though, and those who have been in combat report that their sense of mission is tied to their sense of comradeship. I'm not sure this can be subsumed under a workable conception of "authority".
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1. They are hostile to remote “desk jockeys” & bureaucrats (soldiers beyond a certain rank are the same as any stupid bureaucrat, because they must play politics to rise). They may also be hostile to an incompetent local commander who is a “paper tiger”, not a natural leader.
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2. They are, as you observe, fiercely loyal to and motivated by their comrades, rather than abstract ideology. This is because the small team is the most natural state for a man in evolutionary terms. A natural leader will emerge in any such group.
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3. This leader may not be the “politically approved” leader, since the paper qualifications to be an officer or commander often do not accord with reality in war. See, cases where the officer is killed and a more natural and effective leader rises from the ranks.
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4. Why does this create meaning and purpose? It is the same as an expedition: a small group of comrades fighting to exist. Heidegger and Sartre agree meaning springs from confronting death. This is terrifying for an atomised individual, but in a small group it is canalised.
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5. The authority they submit to is nature: the need to survive & to do what is necessary. In the contemporary technocratic/technological world, this authority is veiled from us. The world of adventure, sailing, and war is a meaningful world for men. Dr. Johnson knew!pic.twitter.com/GEBEmmYltS
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