{"id":2391,"date":"2011-05-20T23:26:09","date_gmt":"2011-05-21T03:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=2391"},"modified":"2022-05-20T23:13:42","modified_gmt":"2022-05-21T03:13:42","slug":"exit-the-cave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=2391","title":{"rendered":"Exit the Cave"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plato<\/a>: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the Theaetetus<\/em>, Socrates asks: “How can you determine whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Theaetetus: “Indeed, Socrates, I do not know how to prove the one any more than the other, for in both cases the facts precisely correspond; and there is no difficulty in supposing that during all this discussion we have been talking to one another in a dream; and when in a dream we seem to be narrating dreams, the resemblance of the two states is quite astonishing.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Socrates: “You see, then, that a doubt about the reality of sense is easily raised, since there may even be a doubt whether we are awake or in a dream. And as our time is equally divided between sleeping and waking, in either sphere of existence the soul contends that the thoughts which are present to our minds at the time are true; and during one half of our lives we affirm the truth of the one, and, during the other half, of the other; and are equally confident of both.”
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Church: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14 <\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Evola<\/a>: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The sacred and the divine are matters of faith. This is the truth which has been imposed on Europe of late. Our truth is otherwise: it is better to know that we don’t know rather than to believe. In the contemporary mentality, there is a central point at which the attitudes of materialistic science and religion meet: in an identical renunciation, in an identical pessimism, in an identical agnosticism about the spiritual, declared and methodical in one case, veiled in the other. The premise of materialistic science is basically that science\u2014in the sense of real, positive and empirical knowledge\u2014can only subsist in what is physical; and that in the non-physical there can be no science, so that the scientific method neglects it and abandons it, by lack of authority, to belief, to the dull and arbitrary abstractions of philosophy, or to the \u201cexigencies\u201d of sentiment and morality. In addition, religion, insofar as it is focused exclusively on faith and does not admit an esoteric initiatory teaching beyond the profane religion imposed on the masses, or a gnosis beyond pious superstition, ends up with the same renunciation. In fact, one believes only when one does not know and thinks one cannot know. Hence, there is again the same agnosticism of the \u201cpositivists\u201d with respect to whatever is not material and gross reality. <\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nThe first step is a sort of \u201cwaking up\u201d – Evola was writing after centuries of accretion and decay, in the dawn of the modern era, and he saw how faith (pistis) separated from knowledge (gnosis) would simply be another form of numbness or deadness to what is real.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Traditionalists of every stripe, as well as conservatives, wish to \u201cstem the tide\u201d, either politically or culturally or theologically. Evola draws attention to their errors in an essay <\/a>on Junger’s work: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The merit of J\u00fcnger in that first phase of his thought is that he had rec\u00adog\u00adnized the fatal error of those who think that every\u00adthing may be brought back to order, that this new men\u00adac\u00ading world, ever advanc\u00ading, may be sub\u00addued or held on the basis of the vision of life of the val\u00adues of the pro\u00adceed\u00ading age, that is to say of bour\u00adgeois civ\u00adi\u00adliza\u00adtion. If a spir\u00adi\u00adtual cat\u00ada\u00adstro\u00adphe is to be averted mod\u00adern man must make him\u00adself capa\u00adble of devel\u00adop\u00ading his own being in a higher dimen\u00adsion \u2013 and it is in this con\u00adnex\u00adion that J\u00fcnger had announced the above-mentioned watch\u00adword of \u201cheroic real\u00adism\u201d and pointed out the ideal of the \u201cabsolute per\u00adson,\u201d capa\u00adble of mea\u00adsur\u00ading him\u00adself with ele\u00admen\u00adtary forces, capa\u00adble of seiz\u00ading the high\u00adest mean\u00ading of exis\u00adtence in the most destruc\u00adtive expe\u00adri\u00adences, in those actions wherein the human indi\u00advid\u00adual no longer counts…Now it is impor\u00adtant to point out that wher\u00adever forces belong\u00ading to the first of the three domains emerge and break forth, only the pos\u00adsi\u00adbil\u00adi\u00adties of the third domain can really face them. Any attempt to stem on the basis of forces and val\u00adues of the inter\u00adme\u00addi\u00adate zone can only be pre\u00adcar\u00adi\u00adous, pro\u00advi\u00adsional and rel\u00ada\u00adtive. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Evola’s observations could be equally taken to apply in the cultural or religious sphere, as well as political, perhaps even more so. The \u201canswer\u201d to the \u201cDecline of the West\u201d can only come in the form of regeneration for the person or individual, outside of all structure if need be, church or state. In contrast to the seamless teaching of ancient wisdom (which continued in some consciousness down through our own day, as Evola attempted to enumerate), the modern solution is very much in the spirit of Kant, who \u201cdestroyed knowledge in order to make room for faith\u201d. Rather than oppose the Zeitgeist, it divinizes it. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One doesn’t have to have the insight of B. Mouravieff to see that the Zeitgeist is in some sense \u201cwinning\u201d. As Rosenstock-Huessy notes, the modern world has melted everything but the atomistic individual and the Leviathan state. We cannot regenerate the Beast. At least, we do not start there. It is the individual who must \u201cskillfully use\u201d (and be \u201cskillfully used\u201d). The era of the individual is here: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cToday we are living through the agonies of transition to the third epoch. We have yet to establish Man, the great singular of humanity, in one household, over the plurality of races, classes, and and age groups. This will be the center of struggle in the future. They pose the questions the Third Millennium will have to answer…the State is on the defensive because it is inadequate for the needs of the coming age. The theme of future history will be not territorial nor political, but social…\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Huessy’<\/a>s sequence ran: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The \tChristianization of Europe\/Romanization of the Church
    \n<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The \tPapal Revolution 11th-13th<\/sup> century, where the Church \tdestroys the yoke of State<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Protestant Reformation<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n
  4. The \tEnlightenment<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Huessy’s flawed prophecy lacked any answer, but he saw what was upon us-<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

    “Say neither it is blessed, nor it is cursed, but only ‘it is here’…”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

    What we see now is a desperate confusion, very far indeed from the harmony of true sight into Reality, which was creative, synthesizing, and eclectic, and managed to reconcile both At hens & Jerusalem.
    \n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

    As Gornahoor has noted, reinventing <\/span>ad hoc<\/em><\/span> answers or worldviews (in the modern jargon, \u201ccritical studies\u201d) is essentially more of the problem, not a solution. It is not \u201criding the tiger\u201d. It is watching the shadows of the puppets on the wall, and convincing others to do the same, while pretending that one is not in a cave, and that this is all that there is.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

    The \u201cexcluded middle\u201d of partial ignorance does not exist in this atmosphere either. As conservative inability to mount opposition (either externally or internally) becomes more clear, there will become more people convinced that radical regeneration along ancient lines is the only possible exit from the Cave.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Socrates asks: “How can you determine whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":14315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,53,41,125,117,4],"tags":[1154,446],"class_list":["post-2391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity","category-civilization","category-esoteric-catholicism","category-gnosis","category-idealism","category-evola","tag-evola","tag-platos-cave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16172,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391\/revisions\/16172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}