Category Archives: Defining Religion

07/26/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 8 of 10)

0040 A suprasovereign liberal civic religion dies with the unraveling of the individual2, defined as the intersection of commonsense2V and vulnerabilities2H.

In the normal context of technocratic progressivism3, a mystery2cC unravels into a two-level interscope.  But, the unraveled individual2b does not make sense to humans in their natural… um… state3a.

0041 The two-level interscope characterizes sensible thought.  However, the emotional judgments2cA, phantasms2bA, impressions2aA and feeling2aA of vulnerable persons is more like a religious experience2b, compared to an exercise in commonsense2a.

Yet, this religious experience2b is sensible in the normal context of a state of fear3b, where the leviathan has the potential to declare a state of exception1b.  Consequently, in technocratic progressivism, the perspective levelc does not come into play.

Or, at least, itc appears not to.

0042 Here is a diagram.

Figure 17

0043 How does Locke’s human nature3a become regarded as sociopathological3a?

How does Hobbes’s state of nature3b manifest as a state of fear3b?

The original normal contexts do not seem exceptional.

The latter normal contexts do.

0044 Crawford writes that, in the 1990s, social scientists dispose with the “rational actor” model of human behavior.  Cognitive psychology (and evolutionary psychology) sees humans as unconsciously employing evolved cognitive modules.

Along the same lines, bureaucratic criteria1b, such as performance metrics2b, replace commonsense judgments2a.  Examples include so-called “evidence-based medicine”, standardized tests and curricula, and self-driving automobiles.  These policies are designed to protect vulnerable persons2b, given the sociopathic (unconsciously employing evolved cognitive modules) nature of doctors, teachers and ahem… people who drive.

0045 Here is a picture of what human nature transitions to under the normal context of technocratic progressivism3.  Evolutionary psychology informs us that human nature is full of sociopathic tendencies, due to our “selfish genes”.  Cognitive psychology models human thought processes as circuits of unconscious modules, working in tandem.

Figure 18

Commonsense2a gets redefined.

Some call this progress.  Others call it, “dehumanization”.

0046 During the 2000s, theatrical political initiatives introduce a perspective-level actuality2c, the state of exception.  Astate of exception is declared in order to confront emergent vulnerabilities2b.  These declarations do not need to satisfy commonsense2a, in the old sense of the word, because “commonsense” has been redefined.  In fact, the original concept of human nature3a has been narrowed by scientific inquiry into a suite of sociopathic tendencies3a.

Technocratic progressivism3 dons the mantle of science in its pursuit to remake humans1.

0047 Here is a picture of the transitioned unraveled individual.

Figure 19

0048 Of course, the most recent theatrical incident coincides with a complex sequence of conjunctions among Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto in the Houses of Capricorn and Aquarius.  See Razie Mah’s blogs for March and April 2020.  A novel coronavirus (the common cold) rages through Wuhan after the New Years Festival celebrating the Year of the Rat, then spreads to the world.  The virus’s progress is marked by the technocratic implementation of a polymerase chain reaction test.

Never mind claims that the test also shows positive for influenza.  Hospitals in China and Italy are overwhelmed with old people in the middle of winter suffering complications and the doctors are calling for experts to save them with medical protocols.  Corporate television reports the breaking news.

Disease translates into data.  Data feeds panic2b.

07/25/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 9 of 10)

0049 The federal government responds.  But the term, “federal”, is now delocalized.  It used to refer to a federation of sovereign states in America.  Now, it means a federation of sovereign states in both America and Europe, even though the Europeans have not recognized the subtle shift in terminology.

Technocratic progressivism knows how to shift the meanings of words.

0050 Here is a picture of the plague-unraveled individual.

Figure 20

0051 The normal context of the federal government3c brings the actuality of a medical state of emergency2c, complete with quarantines of healthy citizens, into relation with the potential of ‘biosecurity’1c.

The normal context of a state of fear3b brings the actuality that the novel coronavirus endangers vulnerable persons2b into relation with the government apparatuses of subsidiary states, such as Germany and Italy, as well as America and Canada1b.

The normal context of the sociopathic reactionary resistance3a brings the actuality of common folk denying the well-publicized dangers2a into relation with the potential of a countervailing democratic initiative1a.

Of course, the federal government3c and the leviathan1b can manage the anticipated3a commonsense2a democratic1ainitiative.  That is where the control files on politicians, influencers, corporate media celebrities, religious leaders, and so on, enters the picture.

0052 How about some anecdotal evidence?

Crawford describes his observations of people in the California Bay Area, a technocratic progressive heartland.

First, people wear masks outdoors, not so much for personal protection, but because zero covid is a heroic battle, requiring a literal effacement of the individual.

Ah, wearing masks1a signals one’s virtuous solidarity with vulnerable persons endangered by the virus2b.  It is an expression of democracy1a in support of the leviathan1b, rather than common folk, who do not care about those designated as “vulnerable”2a.

0053 Here is the virtual nested form in the category of firstness.

Figure 21

The normal context of biosecurity1c virtual brings slogans from the leviathan1b into relation with the potential of affirmation by democratic expression1a.

Here is a diagram.

Figure 22

0054 What about lockdowns?

Does staying home during a lockdown show democratic assent?

Here is a picture of the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality.

Figure 23

0055 Crawford describes how lockdowns force social isolation.  Social atomization is one of the conditions that support the rise of totalitarian movements.  The Party offers the only way to… um… party.

Also, social isolation purifies the citizens of the Bay Area, who democratically assent1a to the leviathan1b rather than what used to be called “commonsense”2a.  Those wearing masks outdoors dance to the cultish vibe of hygiene maximalists.  Here are the uncontaminated spiritual warriors of a nascent hygiene state.

Crawford waxes eloquent about a social scene that makes common folk want to puke.

0056 Here is a picture of the virtual nested form in the category of secondness.

Figure 24

0057 Need I continue?

The denizens of the San Francisco Bay Area abandon commonsense2a and embrace medical tyranny1b.

Denizens?

Well, they aren’t individuals anymore, are they?

07/25/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 10 of 10)

0058 The coronavirus of 2019 ends liberalism as a civic religion.

These diagrams, inspired by and roughly coherent with Crawford’s text, provide complementary food for thought.  The resolution of the mystery of the individual marks the death of liberalism and the coronation of technocratic progressivismas a suprasovereign being.  A religion is supplanted by its heresy.

0059 The liberal religion holds a mystery as the object that brings all into relation.

The individual is the intersection of commonsense and vulnerability.  Crawford notes that individuals have a certain nobility.  Liberals never strive to destroy that spiritness.  They desire to create a better individual, the old fashioned way, through reform and renewal.

0060 The religion of technocratic progressivism (which I also call big government (il)liberalism), suspends the lively, spontaneous party that defines individuals, and imposes a three-tiered interscope, where the normal context of the federal government3c virtually brings the actuality of a state of fear3b into relation with the potential of a reactionary resistance3a.

The virtual nested form in the category of thirdness is prophetic, since it suggests that an ultimate state of exception2c will occur when common folk become dangerous to vulnerable persons2b because of the common folk’s tendency to use commonsense and value self-governance2a is declared to be “toxic”.  In short, “commonsense2a” (in the original sense of the word) is regarded as “criminal2b” (according to the leviathan1b).

0061 Indeed, what Crawford does not say stands just beyond his mournful lament of the tragic end of individual spiritness.

What Crawford does not say is prophetic.

0062 The website is UnHerd.

Michael Crawford contributes regularly.

0063 The overall argument is introduced in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.

The topic of the individual is discussed in A Primer on the Individual in Community and in points 0081-0086 in The First Primer on the Organization Tier, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

07/22/22

Looking at Carlo Vigano’s Speech (2020) “How the Revolution of Vatican II Serves the New World Order” (Part 1 of 14)

0001 The presentation under consideration appears in a book, titled A Voice In the Wilderness: Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano On the Church, America, and the World, edited by Brian M. McCall and published in 2021 by Angelico Press, in Brooklyn NY.  The article is located at the end of Part II on pages 251 through 274.  It is a transcript of a speech given to the Catholic Identity Conference on October 24, 2020.  A video can be found on Remnant TV.

0002 The presentation is of interest as a follow-up to the June 2022 blog, Looking at Peter Redpath’s Essay (2000) “The Homeschool Renaissance”.   It complements the professional path taken by Dr. Redpath, who now promotes online courses, teaching “uncommon” common sense.

0003 Indeed, Vigano’s talk can only be described as “uncommon”, in the same way that Redpath’s essay, published 20 years earlier, is uncommon.  Plus, Vigano’s talk expresses common sense in the same way that Redpath’s essay does.

0004 Here is the difficulty.

How does one portray a turn of events that makes no sense?

0005 Redpath portrays the history of Italian humanists, who jettison logic at the very start of their movement, and who end up subjugated to the deterministic (and incomplete) logic of empirio-schematics.

Perhaps, the European humanists did not see it coming.

A little mathematical and mechanical logic can overthrow no logic at all.

0006 Vigano fixes on the political stagehands behind the theatrics of Vatican II, who embed themselves in the matrix of positional authority in the traditional Church as the drama of the Novus Ordo unfolds into a lurid parody of historic Catholicism.

Perhaps, the participants of the Council of Vatican II did not see it coming.

A little political intrigue can overthrow the realm.

0007 No, it does not make sense.

0008 How can one make something that does not make sense make sense? 

Obviously, the word, “sense”, has two implications.  The first implication is that it is sensible.  The second implication is that it impacts our five senses.  That is, it is sensical.  Sensible is not the same as sensical.

Something that does not make sense is not sensible.

Something that one cannot see, hear, taste, smell and touch is not sensical.

0009 Here is the trick.

Through diagrams of triadic relations, something that is not sensible may become sensical.

0009 So, my examination transforms into a question, asking, “How can I associate features of Vigano’s argument to empty slots in purely relational triadic structures, such as the category-based nested form?”

That is my task.

0010 The following blogs rely on the three works listed below.  Each displays the synthetic process of association and implication.  Once I associate features of Vigano’s speech to elements in a category-based nested form, I consider the implications.

0011 The three works are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Search for the author, Razie Mah, along with the title.

A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form

A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction

How to Define the Word “Religion”

0012 Vigano’s presentation breaks into eleven sections.  Each is covered by a blog.  Then, a conclusion suggests other applications of Charles Peirce’s synthetic logic.

07/21/22

Looking at Carlo Vigano’s Speech (2021) “How the Revolution of Vatican II Serves the New World Order” (Part 2 of 14)

0013 Section one starts boldly.

We live in extraordinary times.  The norms of the integralists do not apply.

0014 Who are the integralists?

They are the ones who expect ritual and doctrinal continuity through time.

According to their antagonists, integralists conflate material continuity and tradition, as if a change in form coincides with a change in matter.

What primitive cogitations!

“Integralist” is a pejorative term among Bergoglio’s party.

0015 How do I associate Vigano’s opening with a nested form?

The integralist is a person who expects the hylomorphic realness of the Catholic Church to remain unaltered through time.

0016 What is a hylomorphe?

A hylomorphe is an actuality that has the structure of matter [substance] form.  A hylomorphe corresponds to Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  The nomenclature is one real element [contiguity] other real element.

0017 So, what type of hylomorphe does the Catholic Church manifest?

Here is my guess.

Figure 01

0018 Surely, other associations may work just as well.

0019 The integralist holds that the hylomorphe, body of Christ [substance] kingdom of God is an actuality2.  Body of Christ is like matter.  Kingdom of God parallels form.  The contiguity, labeled “substance”, reflects the potential1underlying this actuality.  For now, I will call this potential1, “the third person of the Trinity1“.  Later, I will call this potential, “the charism of Christ1“.

The normal context3 is the Catholic Church3, an institution that has weathered many centuries, and still, somehow, remains afloat.

0020 Here is the integralist’s nested form.

Figure 02
07/20/22

Looking at Carlo Vigano’s Speech (2021) “How the Revolution of Vatican II Serves the New World Order” (Part 3 of 14)

0021 Vigano starts section two with one metaphor, and then goes to another.

Since Vatican II, an anti-church has infiltrated the historic church.  It is like a moon eclipsing the sun.  The moon follows the orbit of modernism.  The sun shines in the splendor of truth.  The sky is Faith.

Then, Vigano switches up.  The moon lies under the feet of the woman, at once the image of Mary Most Holy and the Church, clothed in the sun of righteousness.

The moon blocks the sun.  Modernism is a synthesis of all heresies.  Modernism associates to the dark side of the moon, as well as the shadow cast on the lands below.

0022 To me, Vigano’s shifting metaphors imply a contradiction that cannot be resolved.  The sunny integralist reality and the moonny modernist reality co-participate in a single reality that is rife with contradictions, just like an eclipse.

Say what?

The actualities of solar integralism and lunar modernism compose a single actuality.

0023 Here is a diagram of the two realities.  The modern lunar reality is an alternate to the sunny integralist’s reality.  Yet, both compose a single actuality.  Two celestial bodies move above the mundane Earth.

Figure 03

0024 What does the “alt” superscript denote?

The integralist and the modernist realities2 are not the same.  At first, they appear to be no different.  When the modernist reality starts to eclipse the integralist actuality, then the difference shows up.  Both belong to a single actuality2, which Vigano labels an eclipse2.  This eclipse has both heavenly and mundane dimensions.

0025 Just as the integralist actuality2 is understood in terms of a nested form, so the modernist actuality2 will be understood in terms of a nested form.

Here is a picture of the two nested forms.  The top one holds the integralist actuality2V.  The bottom one contains the modernist actuality2H, as it begins to cast its umbra upon the integralist world.  The mundane metaphor is the moon blocking the sun during a solar eclipse.  The heavenly metaphor is totalizing error blocking the light of truth.

The term, “eclipse2“, labels the two actualties2 constituting a single actuality2.

Figure 04
07/19/22

Looking at Carlo Vigano’s Speech (2021) “How the Revolution of Vatican II Serves the New World Order” (Part 4 of 14)

0026 Here is another picture of the resulting intersection.

Figure 05

The intersection is introduced in the chapter on message in the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.

0027 In section three, Vigano notes that the revolution of Vatican II coincides with the establishment of a New World Order.

Perhaps, this allows me to fill in the blanks with respect to the horizontal nested form in the interscope pictured above.

Figure 06

0028 Note how matter, the body of Christ2, starts to fade, when placed in the normal context of Vatican II3. 

Does Vigano’s claim intimate some type of transaction?

Of course, those in the Catholic hierarchy do not own the Church, anymore than an elected politician owns his or her office.  Nevertheless, religious hierophants and secular politicians may “sell” what the do not own, that is, their office.

The operators behind Vatican II sell their offices by discounting the transcendent dimension of the Church and marketing, for the world to buy, its social dimension.  According to Vigano, the Council’s first error consists of a lack of transcendent perspective, a God’s eye view, so to speak.  The most recent fruit of this error is the encyclical Fratelli Tutti, extolling human brotherhood, ecumenism among all religions, unrestricted migration across borders and so on.

0029 Note how the form, the kingdom of God2, starts to fade above the potential of ‘the charism of Fratelli Tutti’1.

Behold, the modernist’s nested form begins to yield an alternate hylomorphe, in the theodrama following the Council of Vatican II3.

The charism expressed in Fratelli Tutti1 allows clarification of this alternate hylomorphe.

0030 Here is the modernist’s new actuality.

Figure 07
07/18/22

Looking at Carlo Vigano’s Speech (2021) “How the Revolution of Vatican II Serves the New World Order” (Part 5 of 14)

0031 Here is a snapshot of the developing intersection.

Figure 08

0032 The eclipse2 is a single actuality composed of two, apparently independent, actualities.  Modernism2H more clearly differentiates from integralism2V. They are no longer variations on a theme.  Each actuality demands its own normal context3 and potential1.

0033 Here is a picture of the hylomorphic structures of the two actualities of integralism2V and modernism2H.

Figure 09

0034 In section four, Vigano suggests that the new theology of lunar modernism arises as Catholic elites are humiliated by Freemasonry in civil, political and cultural spheres.

0035 On one hand, such a claim sounds like some sort of conspiracy theory.

But, aren’t freemasons in secret societies, where each member is compromised, even as he participates in compromising other members?

No wonder conspiracy theories are so complicated.

0036 On the other hand, some of the conspiracies, such as the agenda of the Rockefeller Foundation, are plain to see (even though, they are complicated, because they are twisted).  E. Michael Jones provides the receipts in two books, Libido Dominandi and Degenerate Moderns.

0037 Plus, there are plenty of other highly credentialed ideologues and well-connected bureaucrats eager to humiliate Catholic integralists.  Communists and big government (il)liberals have ready-made slurs.

0038 In response to humiliation, so-called “new theologians” adopt a revolutionary approach.  These revolutionaries figure that the Church can come into alliance with the contemporary world, despite the warning issued in Genesis 3:15.  Then, they serve as facilitators at the Council of Vatican II.

The most glorious expression for Vatican II is the reformed liturgy, aptly labeled, “The New Order”.  The Novus Ordo only needs one more qualifier, such as the adjective, “seclorum“, to achieve complete irony.

07/15/22

Looking at Carlo Vigano’s Speech (2021) “How the Revolution of Vatican II Serves the New World Order” (Part 6 of 14)

0039 In section five, Vigano considers the eagerness of Vatican II innovators to address the demands of the world.

Demands?

The term is familiar to economics.  Someone wants to sell something to someone else.  When “someone else” wants to buy, then there is a “demand”.  Since the innovators of Vatican II are selling irreplaceable works of the intellect, I suspect that “someone else” has lots of money.  “Someone else” has plans for a New World Order.

0040 Vigano provides a long list of wares that were sold.

0041 Here is one.

Is there a demand for a primacy of matter over spirit?

Surely, “someone else” will buy that.

When matter has priority over spirit, then the human brotherhood, as matter, can substantiate a preferred form of ecumenism, where the Church gets off her pedestal, which happens to be the moon, in the ongoing metaphor.  Then, the Church can join all other religions in the umbra of what she used to be standing on.

The complication is that spirit has primacy over matter. So, the Church never really gets off her pedestal, leaving unsophisticated integralists scratching their heads.

Yes, some products are more complicated than others.  The primacy of matter over spirit is one of them.  At least, it gets the Church off her pedestal, in appearance, if not in deed.

Who wouldn’t shell out taxpayer money for that?

0042 Here is another.

Is there a demand for accumulating power through the method of delegating decision-making roles to episcopal conferences, synods of bishops, commissions, pastoral councils, and so on?

Surely, a congeries of experts will buy that.

No one in these temporary gatherings wants to be responsible for what the temporary gathering decides. So, the proceedings fall upon experts.  Experts guide episcopal conferences, synods, commissions and the like.  Indeed, the options listed on multiple choice surveys are fashioned by experts in such a manner that only the “reasonable” choice may be selected.  Power accumulates in expertise.  In particular, human brotherhood [justifies] those who exercise the power of expertise.

Who wouldn’t shell out their expert commendations for that?

I think that there is a monthly publication devoted to promulgating such expert analysis.

It is called America Magazine.

0043 Vigano’s list goes on and on.

The substance of the modernist actuality2H tailors itself to each particular exposition of human brotherhood and New World Order agenda.

To me, it seems that the items on Vigano’s list have a certain feature in common.

They share a common substance.

The human brotherhood [justifies the implementation of] each agenda of a New World Order2H.

0044 The modernist’s new new actuality2H tells me how the revolution of Vatican II serves the New World Order.

Figure 10
07/14/22

Looking at Carlo Vigano’s Speech (2021) “How the Revolution of Vatican II Serves the New World Order” (Part 7 of 14)

0045 In section six, Vigano focuses on the moderates.  Moderates go along to get along.  They are the polite folk who open the door for the burglar to escape.  It would be impolite to impede someone who is in such a hurry.

The moderates do not imagine that there is a reason why the burglar is in a hurry.

Indeed, significant time pressure is placed on the moderates during Vatican II.  All the facilitators are in a hurry.  They conduct special, invitation only, meetings in order to speed things up.  The moderates are told that their work is so important, that they must give approval, even if they have not fully read the documents.

0046 The moderates are confused because they cannot imagine that the reality of modernism2H can draw the reality of integralism2V into the umbra of the moon upon which Mary, Mother of God, stands.

Here is a picture of the eclipse2.

Figure 11

0047 Why the rush?

The revolutionaries of Vatican II want to resolve the eclipse2 in favor of the modern reality2H.  They want to subjugate the vertical dimension2V to the horizontal2H.

They do not succeed during the Council.  But, they lay the groundwork for later success, as seen in the promulgation of “the encyclical”, Fratelli Tutti, sixty years later, by the party of Bergoglio.

0048 Intersections are dynamic.  The contain contradictions that cannot be resolved.  Sometimes, the contradictions are honed into mysteries, irreplaceable works of the intellect.  Sometimes, the contradictions destroy the single actuality.  Sometimes, the contradictions resolve.

When an intersection resolves into a two-level interscope, one nested form ends up on the content level and the other nested form occupies the situation level.  The situation level virtually emerges from (and situates) the content level.

0049 Here is a picture of the two-level intersection that the revolutionaries of Vatican II aim to achieve, rendered sixty years after the crime.

figure 12

0050 Surely, moderates identify with the content level, but desire to be members of the situation level.  After all, the situation level is full of important people. The folk on the content level ought to admire them.  

Surely, the unfolding of the intersection of the eclipse2 gives hope to the revolutionaries who occupy positions of power and intend the “sell” their authority to the highest bidder. The bidders turn out to be the financiers of the New World Order, and sundry other characters, in the upper-reaches of various governments.

Once the eclipse2 unfolds, the content-level integralists are trapped.  They are fully situated.  Appeals to authority and tradition are answered by modernists occupying the positions of authority and tradition.

0051 What does this imply?

First, the substance of the modernist actuality2b transforms into a contiguity more pliable than justification and implementation.  Vigano calls it an “open religion” after the Soros-founded entities called, “open society”.

Figure 13

0052 The situation-level hylomorphe2b contains two contiguous real elements.  The real elements are human brotherhoodand the open society (that is, open for business for the New World Order).  The contiguity is what the Bergoglionians aim to alchemically fashion, a syncretic coagulate of all the major civilizational religions, plus any others that come along for the ride.  In order to accomplish this, modernists must dissolve the content-level nested form and harvest its tradition and authority2a.

Figure 14

0053 At this point, the charism of the “encyclical” Fratelli Tutti1b turns, like a revolving door, into a modernist manifesto1b, aiming to channel tradition and authority2a, the contiguity between the body of Christ2a and the kingdom of God2a, into the substance of an open religion2b.

Figure 15

0054 To me, this suggests that the deep church2b harvests the credibility1b of the Catholic Church3a in the service of the deep state2b.