Posted on 02/08/2010 11:33:17 AM PST by betty boop
SOTU I: Or, How to Peddle a Second Reality Using First-Reality Language
By Jean F. Drew
Every single man is but a blind link in the chain of absolute necessity by which the world builds itself forth. The single man can elevate himself to dominance over an appreciable length of this chain only if he knows the direction in which the great necessity wants to move and if he learns from this knowledge to pronounce the magic words (Die Zauberworte) that will evoke its shape (Gestalt). — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831)
Am I alone in thinking these statements sound “creepy” somehow? And yet they lay out the essential presupposition, or foundation, of Hegel’s masterful construction of the very model of “second reality,” in the Phänomenologie.
Hegel was a German Transcendental Idealist philosopher of enormous distinction and importance. I would argue, however, that in the Phänomenologie, he has constructed a “parlor game,” or divertissement that, notwithstanding, shows us the way to “logically” construct a second reality.
This is the work in which Hegel lays out his case for “dialectical science” (described as thesis–antithesis–synthesis, with each “synthesis” providing the base for the next thesis–antithesis, inevitably producing yet another synthesis, and so on and so on, evidently forever, evidently purposelessly), from which Karl Marx later abstracted his own theory of “dialectical materialism.”
Which in its turn laid the base for Left Progressive political ideologies of all stripes, especially including the Saul Alinsky school of progressive sociopolitical dynamics (i.e., the “community organizer” model) of which the sitting POTUS — on the basis of his history (as scanty as it is) and his daily actions — is clearly an acolyte.
We’ll come back to that point shortly; but a little groundwork might be useful first.
The Phänomenologie is an abstruse work. Detailed discussion of its arguments lies beyond the scope of the present writing. Suffice it to say that Hegel’s “dialectical science” is a purely mental construction; i.e., it is completely abstracted away, detached, from any and all referents to the world outside the mind.
Thus Hegel utterly guts Natural Law theory in one fell swoop.
Which is something quite startling: For the entire Western cultural tradition, including the natural sciences, arguably rests on Natural Law theory. The Declaration of Independence is a late epiphany of precisely that tradition. And as we know, the DoI is the foundation on which the U.S. Constitution rests. And all that follows from that.
Natural Law theory is, in the words of the great mathematician/theoretical biologist Robert Rosen (1934 – 1998), “the explicit underpinning on which all of science rests.” That is, on which reason and logic rest. There could be no reason, no rational thought, without it. Its most fundamental holding is that there is an ultimate correspondence between the natural world and the world of the self, defined as follows:
The Natural World
The world of nature, or the world external to the self; the phenomenal world, whose order appears to be not entirely arbitrary or whimsical; rather, Natural Law asserts the phenomenal world manifests causal relations in the behavior of its elements; i.e., that its behavior is in some sense “lawful” or “orderly.”
The World of the Self
Or of the mind; the observer of the Natural world. Natural Law asserts the orderliness of the Natural World is discernible to, and articulable by, the self — that is, the posited orderliness of the external world can be matched by, or put into correspondence with, some equivalent orderliness within the human self.
Rosen adds, “Mathematics is the language science uses to bring these two worlds into correspondence.”
Yet as the great German-American philosopher Eric Vöegelin (1901 – 1985) observed, “The Phänomenologie admits no reality but consciousness.” That is, it admits only the World of the Self — which Hegel then proceeds to erase in due course (except his own, of course). The “Natural World” partner just magically disappears. In this way, Hegel can dispose, not only of the world, but also of God and man as well. In the end, for Hegel there is just one great big collective consciousness; it is the consciousness of nobody in particular, of nothing in particular.
Notwithstanding, as Vöegelin astutely points out, “Since consciousness must be somebody’s consciousness of something, and neither God nor man is admitted as somebody or something, the consciousness must be consciousness of itself. Its absolute reality is, therefore, properly defined as ‘the identity of identity with nonidentity’ [Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis as a foundation of “science.”]…. The reader would justly ask what a consciousness that is nobody’s consciousness could possibly be?”
One gathers for Hegel, gutting Natural Law in this way has the salutary effect of providing for the requisite tabula rasa on which to construct an alternative or “second reality” unencumbered by the “baggage” of First Reality — which preternaturally includes God, man, world, and society.
What motivates the construction of a Second Reality? The great poet T. S. Eliot had a useful suggestion:
They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one
Will need to be good
But then the poet adds this caution:
But the man that is will shadow
The man that pretends to be.
At this point, let us “deconstruct” Hegel’s opening remarks. He stipulates man as but a blind link in a chain of necessity. This seems to harmonize rather well with conventional ideas of Newtonian determinism. If man is blind and has no free will, his status in Nature seems to be little better than that of any ordinary material particle: He ultimately is determined by Newton’s laws. He is nothing more than that.
To get out of this situation, a man has to be very “bright,” indeed. For he is embedded in a wholly random process, and then tasks himself with the problem of finding “the direction in which the great necessity wants to move” — which of course, could not possibly be discerned in a random process to begin with: There can be no discernable movement involving direction in a purely random process. And if it’s totally random, the possibility that an “observer” could have possibly emerged in the first place gets odds of slim to none.
And what is this “great necessity” anyway? (A proposal: Nothing but the idle dream of a would-be constructor of a Second Reality.)
We are to believe that, if a man is very bright indeed, and so could (somehow) surmount these logical obstacles, he could learn (Hegel assures us) how to pronounce the magic words that will evoke the SHAPE of the “new” Reality. And thus, one assumes, be able to “control” it.
Mind, such an exercise has nothing to do with any truthful account of Reality as human beings have experienced it more or less universally for some forty millennia by now; but is merely a description of its “shape.” That is, it indicates an abstraction from Reality. But the idea seems to be: If a man can “shape” Reality, he thereby proves his power….
…As a great sorcerer or magician…. Who speaks the Zauberworte, according to the dynastes megas (the power of speech).
Enter Obama.
Like Hegel, Obama relies on “magic words.” He well recognizes that, in order to instantiate a Second Reality, he has to use the language of First Reality to do it. For that is the only language the public understands.
Like Hegel, Obama appears to believe that all one needs to change the shape of Reality is to invoke the Zauberworte — the “magic words” that will evoke its putatively “real ‘shape’.”
At this point, I find it useful to ask: Can Reality ever be based in a human dream?
The great pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus discriminated two kinds of men: the “public man” and the “private man.” The public man is such because he understands the “Logos is one and common.” That is, the Truth of Reality is something shared by all men alike, at all times.
The “private man,” on the other hand, withdraws into a personal world of dreams…. He rejects any “order” to his existence beyond his own personal feelings and preferences. As such, he is (to my mind) basically functioning at the level of animal existence.
Like Hegel, Obama is obsessed with power: Hegel was a huge fan of Napoleon, whom he regarded as a kind of “New Christ” who would redeem and save Europe, once he had extended and consolidated all of Europe under his sole imperial power.
Well, it turned out that Napoleon dropped the ball on that one. So evidently in Hegel’s view, the office of “New Christ” had not been filled. One gathers it was at around this time that he began to consider himself as a candidate for this office.
And yet, the office of the “New Christ” has still not been filled, for all that Hegel seemed to have tried. Evidently, Obama is now on deck to try for it, as I gather from his SOTU this past Wednesday night.
POTUS invoked the language of First Reality throughout in order to sell us a Second Reality that thoroughly undermines the first one. He constantly made appeals to traditional American values and principles — oddly enough the very values and principles his policies seem determined to destroy.
This is the huge problem with Obama in my view: His rhetoric and his deeds seemingly never match. And the difference is the difference between a first and a second reality. The discrepancy registers as a lie.
Obama — who one hears is celebrated for his interest in language and symbolization — uses the language of First Reality to misdirect our attention from the actuality of his plans and deeds. Just as a magician misdirects our attention — “Watch the birdie!” —so we will not see what he is really thinking, actually doing; what the mechanics of the trick are — in short, what is really going on. It is our ignorance of such things that lets a magic trick “work.”
He also lied repeatedly. The most disgraceful example was a pretext to get “the mob” to insult and revile six sitting Justices of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice.
So what if he invoked constitutional values and principles. We know from his own public statements and writings that he thoroughly detests the Constitution. He hates it because it is not a “positive” charter for government action, but a “negative” statement about what government has no business doing in the first place.
But those are the very things Obama, as the nominal leader of the Progressive Left in America today, most wants to do.
Obama, the self-selected “New Christ,” cannot and will not brook any opposition to the exercise of his putatively salvific powers…. Not if he and his enablers and codependents have anything to say about it….
Just two sentences from Eric Vöegelin’s “Wisdom and the Magic of the Extreme” (1983) capture in a nutshell the problem now confronting the American people:
…[A]ll of us are threatened in our humanity, if not in our physical existence, by the massive social force of activist dreamers who want to liberate us from our imperfections by locking us up in the perfect prison of their phantasy. Even in our so-called free societies not a day passes that we are not seriously molested, in encounters with persons, or the mass media, or a supposedly philosophical and scientific literature, by somebody’s Utopian imagination.”
©2010 Jean F. Drew
The first time I heard Obama was watching the Democrat National Convention on TV when Kerry was nominated. My husband and I looked at each other and commented that this guy is dangerous.
And your essay explains why.
He speaks "magic words" which draw on the audience's own imaginations well enough to create an illusion of what he stands for, which is of course altogether false when compared with the facts on the ground.
May other politicians have said one thing and done another (e.g. Daschle) which usually catches up with them. But Obama speaks magic words.
And his magic words have a Pied Piper affect on the child-like minds, especially those who have no "real world" experience.
Spooky.
Indeed, the only "upside" to the economic problems (especially the job market) is that some of the children are having to grow up fast, perhaps fast enough to ignore the magic words.
Second realities would be very much like sheep pens except in one respect: the sheep can at least see the pasture. LOLOL!
OR.... calling the sheep in the other pens HERETICS...
not all are looking thru the door of the sheep pen.. but thru the walls at each other.. pointing fingers and bleating.. all manner of bleating slogans..
When it comes to philosophy or philosophers, I’m never very sure what the point is (my failing, surely – not philosophy’s or the philosophers’).
It seems to me that if the ‘Absolute’ (as you put it) is rejected, then nothing is left but meaninglessness (a ‘how’ with no ‘why’) and that is, indeed, precisely the conclusion come to by many. Hence, the securing of “the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity” takes on a narrow and constricted significance, while ‘process’ obtains an enormous importance and the ultimate objective may consist of little more than having a Boeing 757 at one’s beck and call to fly family members cross country, or to eat $100/pound kobe beef with VIPs (and without examining too closely what makes them oh, so very important).
Well put. I think what you’ve stated is the default philosophy of liberals and classified more closely as pragmatists of the Rorty persuasion than classic Idealists.
It sounds like something frozen in time.
But God isn't frozen in time, nor are the dynamics of the universe, the world. So there's no way for me to logically connect the idea of "Absolute" with God or with physical reality....
But whatever it is, the "Absolute" sounds pretty unpleasant to me.
Lacking any precise definition, it could be used by anybody for any purpose.
In any case, I wouldn't use the term "Absolute" to denote the negative of "meaninglessness." That tells me nothing two times.
But I think I get what you're driving at: Absent a common (perhaps the better word is "public'?) moral core to which society at large gives its assent, the disorder of persons and societies increases.
Without that common moral core, "the center will not hold." In which case we should instantly begin the vigil, in expectation of the "slouching beast" coming out of "Babylon"....
RE: your second point — that "process" obtains an enormous importance when "meaning" (in your example, the historical American moral code) is eclipsed — I couldn't agree with you more.
Well, just some stray thoughts....
Thank you so much for your kind words, and for writing, dear YHAOS! It is always such a pleasure to hear from you.
Why Betty, the Absolute if defined correctly is the self-sufficient, self-existent, self-contained, a se, personal, transcendent God of Scriptures.
Idealism will claim a priori an Absolute but at some point will deny that the God of Scripture is the Absolute by making the Universe the Absolute and God merely an actor within the Universe. Thus God and man become coequal and pantheism evolves from it.
In your terminology the “moral code” is the Absolute which explains your affinity for Kant and Hume.
Never, dear betty. ( ^: }
“but I don't know what the "Absolute" is.”
Neither do I (exactly). But, in this instance I take the_conscience to be referring to the Judeo-Christian God and to the cultural fallout inhabiting Western Civilization as a consequence. Whether it be the Christian God, the Greek First Cause (or Uncaused Cause), First Reality, or the historical American moral code (as you so eloquently put it), the people I’ve critiqued with my puny efforts are in rebellion against it (all of it). And, in their frenzied intensity, they seem oblivious to what they are brining down on all our heads (if I could, I would get out of the way and abandon these louts to their fate, but we all know things don’t work that way . . . by design). And yes, surely we must all be aware of the “slouching beast” about to fall upon us. Can we not feel his hot breath on the back of our necks?
Thanks the_conscience for your response. It is very much appreciated. And thank you, dear betty, for your reply. Illuminating, as always.
No one is disputing your underlying thesis - but -0- isn't the engineer. He is an empty vessel, a script (teleprompter) reader for the masses. He has never accomplished a single thing by his own merits during the course of his entire life.
He is so bored & out of place that he has in effect resigned simply due to lack of interest. The Dems are now finding that out to their chagrin. If he's now only going through the motions, imagine what he'll be like after Nov. Hell, he may even resort to being publicly stoned (again).
Good definition, the_Conscience. It's mainly the classical one. The point is the need for us to define terms we use, so everybody's on the same page, so to speak.
But then we have to remember that the Absolute is a description; it is not God Himself.
Thank you so very much for your insightful essay/post!
LOLOL!!! Do you mean we can have a public stoning anytime soon? Wow, that would be great LOL!
Of course that's not what you meant.... You think the prez is a "stoner?" Jeepers, I'd just thought he was an Adderol addict....
In short they are in rebellion against any "ordering principle," but in particular against any that can be understood as ordained by God. They call this "freedom" I gather....
To me, it's just totally insane. Unless one happens to like slouching beasts....
Thank you so very much, dear YHAOS, for your illuminating essay/post!
I think that’s correct . . . if we remember that these DC clowns have no idea who Noah Webster is (although they’ve no doubt heard of him), and his significance in our history, particularly as it concerns the enormous distinction Webster makes in the meaning of ‘Liberty’ and ‘Freedom.’ His definitions of the two terms are not merely entries in his original dictionary of American English; they are a profound civics lesson. And, while you’re at it, throw in ‘republic’ and ‘commonwealth’ for a little additional edification.
In short they are in rebellion against any "ordering principle," but in particular against any that can be understood as ordained by God. They call this "freedom" I gather....
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