Posted on 09/03/2014 3:15:06 AM PDT by markomalley
How have we gotten into this mess wherein we have set aside reality in favor of what we think reality is? No longer do we go out to meet reality and accept the obligation of conforming to reality; now we sit back and claim the right to posit our own reality, to project reality and define it on our own terms. How did we get here?
Look to the nominalists, my friends.
A rather informative, though challenging, book on this matter is Journey to Modernity by Louis Dupré. In it he traces the medieval synthesis and rise of nominalism in the late 15th century, which in turn gave way to the Cartesian Revolution in the 17th century.
The nominalist revolution introduced the concept by insisting that we do not go out and discover reality so much as we simply create it by categorizing it with “names” (nomina –> names –> nominalism). The names we assign are not a recognizing of reality; they are a “making” of it. We assign meaning rather than discover it.
Welcome to the modern dark ages—dark, and getting darker. Welcome to the age of nominalism, invented in the late 15th Century and now a weed that has been allowed to flourish and is more widespread than ever.
The old version of nominalism denies the existence of universals: qualities or characteristics that can be illustrated or exemplified by many particular things. At least this version of nominalism was debatable. Is there a universal “chair-ness” that all chairs exemplify, or is this just a human abstraction? Here a legitimate debate can be had.
The modern and more lazy version of nominalism, which I will call here “neo-nominalism,” holds that words (nomen = word) are simply arbitrary sounds we assign to things that reflect us, more so than anything we call reality. In a more sweeping way, whole categories are also dismissed.
Thus, for example, words and categories such as male, female, marriage, abortion, euthanasia, etc. are just words we assign; they are mere human “constructs” that do not exist in reality. So, many claim the right today to move beyond these human words and categories. They also claim the right to assign new words to describe these realties. Abortion becomes “choice,” “reproductive freedom,” or “women’s healthcare.” Unnatural acts of sodomy are called “gay” (a word that used to mean happy) and anal sex is celebrated as an “expression of love.” Same-sex “pseudo-gamy” is called “marriage.” Suicide or killing of the aged or imperfect is called “euthanasia” (a word that means “good death” in Greek). Sexual identity is now called “gender” (a grammatical classification of nouns found in nearly one-fourth of the world’s languages, not a word for human sexual differentiation).
Neo-nominalism claims the right to define new reality and scoffs at the more humble proposition that we ought to discover reality and conform to it. Neo-nominalism casts aside such humility and claims the right to define reality by inventing new words and thoughts and then imposing them on what really is. And thus we get endless absurdities such as LGBTQ (and Lord knows what letter will be added next). We have bizarre notions such as being “transgendered,” a concept that denies human distinctions that could not be more obvious and are literally inscribed in our bodies. But the neo-nominalists will not be troubled with reality.
The next and even more absurd “edge universe” for many of them is the so called “trans-human” movement in which even the reality of being human is dismissed as a mere “construct.” People will claim the right to start calling themselves other species and (presumably) the right to consort in all sorts of bizarre ways with animals, the “right” to develop cross-cloning, etc. For after all, who is to say what is “human” to these neo-nominalist iconoclasts?
For them, there is no reality, per se, just human constructs that are fungible. So-called “reality” is merely to be toyed with and defined according to the latest whim and need for self-justification through the re-describing of what is actually happening.
Neo-nominalism gets very dark and very absurd very quickly, as we are observing every day in our increasingly indecipherable “anti-culture.”
In effect, for them nothing is real; everything is just names, sounds, and abstractions. Reality is not something to go out and meet; it is not something to discover. There is no reality, just constructs that we invent and publish.
Welcome to the world of tyranny, where the powerful, the richly endowed, and those who have access get to say what reality is, rather then reality itself and those who have the intelligence and common sense to recognize it. Welcome to deep and gloomy darkness.
Rebel by insisting on reality, common sense, and the obvious. Refuse the lies and the rationalizations. Point unceasingly to reality. And remember this: facts are stubborn things and in the end reality will befriend you and win the day. The nominalists currently have the power, but reality cannot be on holiday forever. People who live in this fantasy world will eventually either die in their sleep or awaken to the strange nightmare of reality. It will come; stay at your post. Do not forsake reality!
Msgr Pope ping
This is a very good point. Nominalism has really taken over our universities, and it strikes at the very concept of reality, particularly at God-given reality ordered to any purpose.
At the end reality will exact its revenge.
Romans 1:18ff
Good stuff (if one is willing to accept the assignment of goodness and the concept of stuff;)
The first two are already happening. Human/animal gene combination is not yet a practical reality, but if you argue that it should be prohibited or prevented, you "hate science."
Ping!
Nancy Pelosi is a nominalist par excellence.
Right on the mark as far as my understanding of some of the words permits me to say.
Journey to Modernity may be good reading, the only problem is that only the people who agree with the thread will be apt to buy it and we do not need it any more than we need to buy a book to give us gospel that we can not find in the Bible.
This is an excellent article. Thanks for posting it.
I see this as deeply intertwined with moral relativism, one of the most corrosive cancers ever released into the public mind.
It will come; stay at your post. Do not forsake reality!
_________________________
Our post is IN the DIVINE WILL...allowing God to transform us and make us holy...and interceding and working for the salvation of others.
Does this have somthing to with the words “political correctness?” Thank-you for your responses.
Thank God for Monsignor Pope! He allows me to realize it’s not me, it’s “them”. Trying not to be cranky and depressed.
Yes, it’s a good if somewhat complicated explanation.
Or this definition?
NOMINALISM
A theory that universal ideas, like truth, goodness, and humanity, are only names. It denies that universals are true concepts, present in the mind, that correspond to and are founded on objective reality. All abstract ideas, according to the nominalists, are only useful labels. (Etym. Latin nominalis, belonging to a name.)
All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.
This world can be a real downer can’t it? It’s a real mystery why God keeps it around. He must have something in mind. Something that will truly glorify Him and us. Sometimes that realization is the only thing that sustains me.
I think it goes hand in hand with political correctness yes.
It seems to me to be a way of living that serves the inward, selfish man first even at the expense of reality. It’s truly where the rubber meets the road for all of us. Every single human being. We all have to make this choice at some point in our lives.
Do we want truth? Or do we want ideas that sound good, i.e., ideas that don’t “offend” either ourselves or others? The nominalist seems to decide the latter.
We are but pilgrims here on this earth. As I get older, I really have come to understand that there are worse things than mortal death.
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