![\"Salemi](\"images\/DanAtSalemiCastle.jpg\" "\\"Dan")
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A half dozen years ago, I went to Salemi, Sicily, to show my son our family roots and to look for property to buy. The city is built on a hillside overlooking olive groves, vineyards, and farmland. At the top of the highest peak, there is a fort with a view for many miles around. Originally built by the Arabs, it was eventually taken over by the Normans. I was hoping to find evidence of Norse culture there, perhaps even Rune symbols, as well as the much larger fort in Palermo.<\/p>\n
I did find a good property, three stories, with kitchens on the 2nd<\/sup> and 3rd<\/sup> floors, and enough room to sleep 8 or even a dozen. I was hoping to found a centre there for those interested in the topics discussed on Gornahoor. With a European centre, it would have been possible to work in groups where I could have taught actual spiritual exercises. Unfortunately, the economy turned, depleting my investments, and an inheritance was much less than expected.<\/p>\n Of course, I found no rune inscriptions, since the Normans had long since abandoned those ways. However, it was in Palermo that I was struck with a deep understanding. These Normans had moved into France, conquered England, Sicily, and from there, went on to take over leadership the Holy Roman Empire. I wondered about the inner state of these knights who had come so far and accomplished so much. In the tour of the castle in Palermo, we eventually made it to the Palatine Chapel in it and there I found the answer. It was certainly beautiful and I could sense the knights of the past attending mass in it.<\/p>\n Since then I have no patience with those who deny the spirituality of those knights in favour of some remote, imaginary paganism. Particularly, since they are usually crude, vulgar, and ungentlemanly about it.<\/p>\n At a now defunct minicomputer manufacturer, we had developed a networking system; at that time, there were no turnkey solutions as there are now, so it was a unique accomplishment. At one meeting, we had to listen to a presentation of an earnest young women who was tasked with marketing the networking product.<\/p>\n Unsure of what to say, she finally blurted out with unfeigned enthusiasm, \u201cAnd the possibilities for this product are limited only by your own imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course we all mocked her. What that meant is that she could not articulate any creative or practical uses for the network, so she was counting on each audience member to think one up for her.<\/p>\n That is when I learned the lesson of specificity. It is difficult to provide specifics, so most people just fake it, counting on the audience to \u201cknow\u201d what they mean. Thus we hear about a vague, unspecified \u201cIndo-European tradition\u201d, not unlike Chomsky\u2019s universal grammar; of course, you cannot specify it. Curiously, we have just written about this, but some readers don\u2019t know how to learn a lesson.<\/p>\n When the kids were young, I had to take them to Disneyworld every now and then. There was a last time, after which I got too disgusted to return. We were on an \u201cadventure\u201d ride, and a mechanical deer would randomly pop up out of the ground. The passengers would ooh and ah, pointing to their children.<\/p>\n When you see through the contrivance, it has no effect. I thought, why not go into the woods and look for a real deer? If nature is the image of the divine, as the holy ones teach us, then what Disney provides is merely an image of an image. Yet, on a larger scale, most of our lives today consists of images of an image, from movies, to TV, to the popularity of social media. Nothing good can come of it.<\/p>\n In high school, I was one of the top two dozen scorers in a Massachusetts statewide math exam, so I was invited to meet with its sponsor, the Society of Actuaries. There were follow ups and I seriously considered a career in the field. By reducing everything to quantity, it manages to provide concrete and successful results. I learned some of its techniques, and still think it is applicable for many tasks of the producing class.<\/p>\n For example, as you all know, the insurance rates for teenage boy drivers are much higher than for anyone else. That is a simple matter of actuarial science which I cannot explain here. Some people may consider that unfair. However, when an insurance company publishes its rates, it does not have to provide copious and apologetic footnotes along the lines that \u201cnot every teenage boy is a bad driver\u201d, or \u201cnot every bad driver is a teenage boy\u201d, etc.<\/p>\n The simple mathematical fact is that without that policy, the insurance companies would simply go out of business. Contemporary western societies today are \u201cgoing out of business\u201d, but it is happening too slowly for most to notice.<\/p>\n A few months ago after the Venner controversy, we lost some readership. I read his blog and he indicated his disappointment that France did not have a religion like Hinduism to preserve its racial and ethnic identity. As an historian, he had to know that France had no problem preserving its identity prior to the Revolution. However, as an ideologue, he could not admit this. Ideology is the image of an image in the intellectual realm, i.e., the image of a thought which is the image of the spirit. Nothing good can come of that, but the world is full of ideologues.<\/p>\n There is a recent comment from someone who is expecting the \u201creal\u201d Indo-European tradition to show up, presumably just for him. To boot, it is in a post that warns against seeking any perfection in this world.<\/p>\n Does a man dying of thirst in the desert argue about which camel will take him to the oasis? Does he languish there waiting for the perfect camel to come along? There is a lesson there that few will heed.<\/p>\n Let us note again the three forces in the psyche: sex, anger, and intellect. Since these are fundamental, the vices of the first two are, as Augustine pointed out, insatiable. That is why nearly all media are geared to stimulating sexual desire or anger. The former is too common to provide examples. The latter is the basis for all the political blogs and talk shows in our time. They \u201cwork\u201d only if they get you worked up about some issue, person, place, or thing. The lesson is to always be on the lookout for that.<\/p>\n Beyond that, there is the appeal to the emotions in general. Every show emphasizes it. News stories depend on them for the \u201chuman angle\u201d. Along with that, there are always stories about dogs, elephants, or other animals displaying \u201chuman-like\u201d emotions. These are very popular.<\/p>\n However, the truth is just the opposite. The real lesson is that, for the most part, human emotions are more animal-like and that explains the rapport. That is not merely metaphysical, but also scientific as described in Carl Sagan<\/strong>\u2019s book, The Dragons of Eden<\/em>. Now I am not at all opposed to building rapport with animals, but only to the idea that it somehow represents what is higher in man.<\/p>\n Appeals to the Intellect are much rarer, and that is necessarily so. Few can attain the equanimity of Aristotle\u2019s philosopher. The philosopher, meant in the ancient sense as a way of life, would want to see into the nature of things and passions can only work against this. Even writings that aspire to a higher level are still stuck on an \u201cus-vs-them\u201d attitude, which can never transcend the thymos.<\/p>\n The philosopher is the lover of wisdom, but it is still not the state of being wise. When Jesus said we must love our enemy, it means we need to transcend all points of view and see things as they are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Appeals to the Intellect are much rarer, and that is necessarily so. Few can attain the equanimity of Aristotle\u2019s philosopher. The philosopher, meant in the ancient sense as a way of life, would want to see into the nature of things and passions can only work against this. Continue reading The Limits of your Imagination<\/h2>\n
The Image of an Image<\/h2>\n
Actuarial Science<\/h2>\n
A Continuous Tradition<\/h2>\n
Camel in the Desert<\/h2>\n
Appeals to the Intellect<\/h2>\n