"a banality so complete that it courts its own kind of grandeur." is a beautiful description of the feeling which our new synthetic faith stirs up. The "coexist" bumper stickers that became popular about a decade ago would make me feel that way. The imagery of the old faiths might be included, but the resulting product is something in which nothing authentic about them survives.
Thank you for undertaking this project. It's young but already incredibly helpful.
"There is a scene in Denys Arcand’s 2003 film The Barbarian Invasions, in which a young French antiques appraiser visits a Quebec Catholic church to size up some long unused religious artifacts the local priest is trying to offload. The priest shows her around a dusty lock-up and tells her: 'Quebec used to be as Catholic as Spain or Ireland. Everyone believed. At a precise moment, during the year 1966 in fact, the churches suddenly emptied in a matter of months. A strange phenomenon that no one has ever been able to explain.'”
The ULTIMATE example of this kind of space is the Harvard Business School chapel. It's special not just because it is a post-faith faith space, but because it's not simply empty -- there's a globalist Harvard Business School corporate sense of "spirituality" that conveys there, placed as it is in a world center of power for that vision.
"a banality so complete that it courts its own kind of grandeur" - the sort of phrase that makes reading you very rewarding, but I'm unsure what the content of that "grandeur" in this case is supposed to be. I can't see it. At some point you reach pure moral negation, pure privation, which in a human consciousness should induce only pity. If the world is ruled by such a thing, there is only grandeur in resisting it.
Wesley, another great contribution today. You lay a good bit of groundwork on understanding that the current progressive/Woke movement can only be understood through a religious construct. And, like most new religions, in its attempt to gain traction it must demonize/cancel all of the heretics who dare challenge it with reason, logic and scientific evidence. The Christians no longer need a crusade against the infidels to feel secure in the durability of their faith, but that was not the case 1,000 years ago.
Wormwood, the senior devil in C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters most likely shaped those kitchen staffers, a warning penned in 1950. For me, worship in a Christian church with true fellowship constitutes deep pleasure and rich engagement. As Wormwood notes, “the deepest likings and pleasures of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which the Enemy has furnished him.” With Yang’s description of this multi-faith metal filing cabinet immersion experience, all pleasure and desire to worship has disappeared…Wormwood must be smiling!
Makes me consider if this is a secular version of Apostle Paul's notice of the unknown God in Acts 17? “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
As much as I enjoy your writing on the Successor Ideology, I have come to the conclusion that further analysis of it is pointless. It's already crystal clear that the ideology is deeply irrational, self-contradictory, and not truly authentic. More analysis isn't helping, only actions matter now. What type of action? I don't know. Perhaps some kind of "culture jamming" would make a difference. Any acts of non-compliance, no matter how small, would make a difference. How about ideas on resisting the SI?
The Kitchen Staff will hear confession from 4-5 pm.
"a banality so complete that it courts its own kind of grandeur." is a beautiful description of the feeling which our new synthetic faith stirs up. The "coexist" bumper stickers that became popular about a decade ago would make me feel that way. The imagery of the old faiths might be included, but the resulting product is something in which nothing authentic about them survives.
Thank you for undertaking this project. It's young but already incredibly helpful.
I'm reminded of the below (description from: https://newrepublic.com/article/118932/what-should-happen-unused-churches-religion-recedes)
"There is a scene in Denys Arcand’s 2003 film The Barbarian Invasions, in which a young French antiques appraiser visits a Quebec Catholic church to size up some long unused religious artifacts the local priest is trying to offload. The priest shows her around a dusty lock-up and tells her: 'Quebec used to be as Catholic as Spain or Ireland. Everyone believed. At a precise moment, during the year 1966 in fact, the churches suddenly emptied in a matter of months. A strange phenomenon that no one has ever been able to explain.'”
Lol see the kitchen staff Lolol
The ULTIMATE example of this kind of space is the Harvard Business School chapel. It's special not just because it is a post-faith faith space, but because it's not simply empty -- there's a globalist Harvard Business School corporate sense of "spirituality" that conveys there, placed as it is in a world center of power for that vision.
http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/harvard-business-school
"a banality so complete that it courts its own kind of grandeur" - the sort of phrase that makes reading you very rewarding, but I'm unsure what the content of that "grandeur" in this case is supposed to be. I can't see it. At some point you reach pure moral negation, pure privation, which in a human consciousness should induce only pity. If the world is ruled by such a thing, there is only grandeur in resisting it.
Racism --> sexism --> transphobia. And then homophobia. There's an entire book's worth of material right there.
Wesley, another great contribution today. You lay a good bit of groundwork on understanding that the current progressive/Woke movement can only be understood through a religious construct. And, like most new religions, in its attempt to gain traction it must demonize/cancel all of the heretics who dare challenge it with reason, logic and scientific evidence. The Christians no longer need a crusade against the infidels to feel secure in the durability of their faith, but that was not the case 1,000 years ago.
" I chortle inwardly, conscious of something freeze-dried within that might once have been capable of feeling the loss."
If that isnt modern man in a nutshell, I dont know what is. So bereft, so poignant and tragic. Wonderful writing, though.
No one writes like Mr. Yang. Beautiful, complex, supremely thoughtful. A joy to read, even when the subject is so disheartening.
Wormwood, the senior devil in C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters most likely shaped those kitchen staffers, a warning penned in 1950. For me, worship in a Christian church with true fellowship constitutes deep pleasure and rich engagement. As Wormwood notes, “the deepest likings and pleasures of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which the Enemy has furnished him.” With Yang’s description of this multi-faith metal filing cabinet immersion experience, all pleasure and desire to worship has disappeared…Wormwood must be smiling!
Very poetic
Makes me consider if this is a secular version of Apostle Paul's notice of the unknown God in Acts 17? “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
Phew! GREAT! NO NEED to reply. You knew that, right, Sir Wesley?
Sorry: "heteroglossia?"
"cossetted nihilism attending theTerminal Boredom at the End of History which have become a kind of inverted religious observance for me." Still HAVE?
Also, "familial dispute into which I had found been dragged" doesn't need the "found," right?
"Are novels the morbid obsession of people who need carefully constructed artifice in order to feel?"
I wonder if the Fundamentalist Wokeianity religion isn't the same morbid obsession. ICBW, tho.
Me? Too tired. Will probably hafta read third time for more.
Beautiful. Thank you.
As much as I enjoy your writing on the Successor Ideology, I have come to the conclusion that further analysis of it is pointless. It's already crystal clear that the ideology is deeply irrational, self-contradictory, and not truly authentic. More analysis isn't helping, only actions matter now. What type of action? I don't know. Perhaps some kind of "culture jamming" would make a difference. Any acts of non-compliance, no matter how small, would make a difference. How about ideas on resisting the SI?