Replies

At the risk of extreme oversimplification, could it be said that "The Second Reality" boils down to a systematic rebellion against "The First Reality?"
On the political plane communism, on the social/political plane feminism, environmentalism, the homosexual agenda, racial seperatism; they are all radical rejections of the existing hierarchy: they are all anti-nominal and they are all manifestations of "The Second Reality."
In laymans' terms isn't Voegelin saying that it is impossible to enter into dialogue with people hell bent on overthrowing "The Father?"
29 ricpic

ricpic, this is hardly an "oversimplification." What you say above and the rest that followed in your last is precisely what Voegelin is saying. Truly, you get the picture. IMHO. Thanks for writing!
31 -BB-

Thanks you two! - At #24, I wrote:

Words have meanings.
Great teachers are capable of using them to illustrate ideas. Voegelin uses them to make his 'ideas' obscure. - Intentionally, imo, because in essence, he has no real insight on 'debate or existence'.
I would challenge anyone to write a paragraph or two that could outline even his main point in that essay. - I doubt one exists.

You appear to have proved my point with one sentence, ric.

In laymans' terms, if all that Voegelin is saying that it is impossible to enter into dialogue with people hell bent on overthrowing authority figures; -- then he has no real insight on 'debate or existence'.
Thus, his whole mind numbingly convoluted essay is an intellectual sham.

In laymans' terms, if all that Voegelin is saying that it is impossible to enter into dialogue with people hell bent on overthrowing authority figures; -- then he has no real insight on 'debate or existence'. Thus, his whole mind numbingly convoluted essay is an intellectual sham.

Dear tpaine, for Voegelin -- taking a page from Plato -- the authentic "authority figures" in society are never the same people as the people who wield political power. Bona fide "authority figures" are philosophers, not politicians. Plato, for one, said the polis (the "state," or government) is an organic community, a common culture formed in the crucible of "the human condition," extended into the forms of public life, for the welfare of the polity and the individuals who comprise it.

A lot has changed since then. The political class these days who so bedevil and impede us in the exercise of basic human freedoms, are the very same who refuse to pay homage to the conditio humana, to the basic human condition as explicated by ancient (and modern) experiential understandings of human existence. The political class hates personal liberty as an affront to its own authority and privilege. This is not a modern development -- it has always been so, throughout history....

The Framers certainly knew this. They tried to protect us, their "progeny," from such an outcome. They used the language of the classical and Christian thinkers to defend us against just such an outcome. But hardly anybody seems to realize that, these days. Least of all you -- unfortunately, who seemingly has the most to gain from getting this problem "right," given your love for Liberty....

The denizens of Second Reality simply hate First Reality; not only do they themselves not want to "live there"; but if given the power to do so, they would prohibit anybody else from "living there."

There is a simple formula involved here. It's called the Will to Power. And the Will to Power is the creature of Second Reality. It has no source in First Reality -- which is constituted by and in God. (I just know you'll hate me for saying that; but if you don't want to be "bedevilled" by the Devil himself, then please tell me: where do you think you can you go for relief from His Pestilence?)

For in First Reality, the only power that really counts, from "the alpha to the omega" is God's. And what powers we humans have derive from God. IMHO.

So go figure.