'But this is the lowest level of knowing: it is not even out of the soil. Nothing has broken through yet. There is no truth to be found here.' You are making sense of feelings I've not been able to name, let alone articulate. Thank you.
Yes. These essays and books that Paul Kingsnorth is writing are making sense of the patchy illusive concepts in my head that I couldn't quite keep hold of or articulate, that strike a deep cord within me. They always have.
Maybe this is taking the analogy too far, but I'm thinking of plants that do not hold their blossoms up above the foliage. Garden bred hybrids do this, for an exaggerated show. Often wild plants have small, nodding, blossoms nestled among or under the leaves. Sometimes fragrant or night blooming, they target a specific audience: their preferred pollinators. All this to say, in my life I have been part of various groups that sought to "rise above" the ordinary, irritating, silly, needy people of everyday humanity by organizing around some principle, theology, or concept. Of course it never works because even if the founding members are all of the 'right sort' they'll end up having kids who aren't, or spouses, mothers, newcomers, and it is impossible to make a more pure group. The attempt pretty much ruins any good intentions that were there initially. You did say that bit about "people we don't like". I think that's the nugget of insight. The best growing conditions are uncomfortable many times. Plants often fail to flower if over fertilized.
In my experience, the real insight, and the way to that ineffable light, is precisely the opposite of 'rising above' others. This is why Christ moved among the poor and the mocked, and taught his disciples (who were endlessly trying to rise above each other to gain his favour) that they would gain power by serving and not by ruling. We're not supposed to be rising above other people; that's entirely the wrong way. But we are supposed to be rising above our own passions. Much harder!
There's something about how roots work, that is pinging me here - along with your point about humility. I don't disagree with your point at all! But the plant life metaphor wanders off in a different direction. Roots and soil are beautiful things. The most essential. Roots and bulbs survive even when the plant above ground dies and is killed off. (When the flower of reason is lost?) All the potentiality lies in the humble roots, and long periods of dormancy pass before there is another flowering. (A dark age?) If you've seen diagrams of trees and their roots, the roots are as big and as magnificent as the tree. There's so much happening below ground. So much life. And as the common Buddhist saying goes, "No mud, no lotus." While I agree we all need to be much less nasty with one another -- I also do not wish to denigrate the "being below ground" phase. Yes, we've lost the Flower of Wisdom - or maybe we've just lost our cultural story about what wisdom is. But there's value here, down in the Earth, the roots, and the darkness. And it occurs to me that this time in the mud is time well spent. Perhaps we all just need to be more patient, more curious, more humble. The West likes to be in Full Flower. We are impatient with not knowing. Perhaps it's time to lean into it, to let go, to witness and observe the ambiguity. Not in utter passivity - but in the sense of allowing it to unfold. We do too much "bulb forcing" -- to much forcing of blooms out of season.
A slightly different point from the one I was making here though, and a different image too. A bulb is needed for a flower to grow, but the bulb is not the point, it is - well, the starting point.
But also, as you say, a flower cannot be forced. It will bloom when conditions are right.
Oh yes! I loved the poppy imagery in this piece of yours. Thank you for sharing it.
You're correct - I'm making a slightly different point than your original piece, but only because I believe the meaning is latent in your flower/plant/bulb metaphor. I don't disagree with your original point - that there is much better way to have this conversation! More that...I think there is ALSO something interesting to be learned from the metaphor of the plant.
Because IS the flower the point? I'm not sure the plant would agree, if plants expressed opinions. From the plant's example, I'd venture that the entire cycle is the point. The seed, the bulb, the shoot, the flower are all equally valuable, all equally the point. I suspect what I'm taking issue with is the Western linearity / verticality of the diagram itself I think our view of time as linear vs. circular and cyclical is highly problematic. Preferring flowers over seeds and bulbs also is problematic. Just as valuing life over death is problematic. Isn't the western problem that we want ONLY the flower?
If we loved the whole cycle, how would it change things? If we valued death as much as life, seeing it as the necessary gateway to resurrection and rebirth, perhaps we wouldn't be in the huge mess that we are in.
But, perhaps all this is an unnecessary digression. Your original point - that mere opinion, and wars of opinion, won't really get us anywhere - well, that still stands.
“The seed, the bulb, the shoot, the flower are all equally valuable, all equally the point. I suspect what I'm taking issue with is the Western linearity / verticality of the diagram itself I think our view of time as linear vs. circular and cyclical is highly problematic.”
I had a late-blooming off-shoot (forgive the pun!) to elaborate your thought. I appreciate your concerns about linearity, although I don’t see it as the problem per se. The problem is equating “good” or “true” knowledge with a particular location—for example, “higher” knowledge at a higher location of the plant. It actually risks lapsing into a gnostic characterization (although I don’t think this was Paul’s intention or point).
We can know in different ways, by different sources. We can know by logic; we can know by feelings and preferences; we can know by intuitions that we can’t quite put our finger on; but we rarely know by any one modality. Intuitions can be tested (and refuted or affirmed) by logic and observation; facts have emotional contexts; and sometimes being in the soil—groping blind through the darkness by “mere” faith—is more elevating and bright than the uppermost blossoms of the flower.
I don’t make these observations to suggest we can’t come to a higher Truth, but rather that coming to Truth may require faithfulness to multiple sources of knowledge, including (at least) reason, inner experience, what we learn in relationships, and revelation. All of these are part of what it means to be human. None should be excluded. Of course we are each often inclined to one than the other depending on our background (scientist versus priest, poet versus mathematician) but it seems unWise, perhaps, to elevate one of these over another. Rather it would make more sense to struggle with trying to hold this heterodoxy of knowledge together as we strive toward “true” knowing. Love the garden, dirt to petal.
Peter - thank you! You articulated this better than I did. I love what you say here about multiple sources of knowing - YES. I believe wisdom arises (when we're lucky) when we honor all these disparate ways of knowing - intuitive, rational, "low", "high", etc. The beauty is in the integration. My parents were scientists and overly "enlightened"; my grandparents were full of faith. We need both ways of seeing (and perhaps others beyond this binary set) to see clearly.
Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated
Truth is the handmaiden of love
Dialogue is the pathway to truth
Humility is recognition of personal insufficiency and the willingness to learn
To learn is to die voluntarily and be born again, in great ways and small
So speech must be untrammeled
So that dialogue can take place
So that we can all humbly learn
So that truth can serve love
So that suffering can be ameliorated
So that we can all stumble forward to the Kingdom of God”
― Jordan B. Peterson
Thank you for everything you're doing Paul. I would dearly love for you to have a talk with JP. Your mutual friend, Jonathon Pageau could help jack it up I'm sure. Cheers, David.
Thank you for your reply Paul. That biblical series he did opened a lot of hearts and minds to Christianity, it did for me. Here's a little slice from that: The sermon on the mount and the Kingdom of God. https://youtu.be/t2RX9GqnIxo
Yes, I find that series immensely significant. The sheer number of people who will watch a middle aged lecturer stand in a boring theatre and talk about dense Biblical imagery for two hours - it would have been unthinkable until quite recently, I think. Something is going on there. He is a vessel.
This welcome note acknowledges the central role of that great taboo of our compulsively egalitarian culture: hierarchy. Such is the vehicle by which a jumble of sensations or data become perception (as noted by Jonathan Pageau in your video conversation with him) and I believe it is counted as one of the primary "needs of the soul" in Simone Weil. That it can begin in and then yield to mystery is the touch that keeps it from ossification and idolatry instead of a path to true worship. A hard path but, as your note and illustration witness, a proper response to and journey into true life and light. Thank you. We look forward to the next installment.
A very good point. I think the modern West is allergic to both hierarchy and order - and indeed structure in all its aspects (certainly true of the progressives at this point, for the most part.) We have come to confuse order and hierarchy with injustice, but we are learning now that they are needed for stability. You are right, Weil considered hierarchy a vital need. Perhaps we will learn how to come to the real thing afresh, if we can avoid the pitfalls.
Thanks for this essay. I too don't want to take the analogy too far, but I couldn't help wondering if weeds play a part in this garden. Ignorance, appeals to base motives and emotionalism are all intentionally sown in a garden to devastating effect. Here in America where the cultural soil is barren and shallow weeds are ubiquitous. I have, within the past year or so, without seeking them out, been treated to noxious weeds/beliefs. Among my friends and family I have heard that; the Clintons are serial murderers, Democrats and Hollywood elite eat fetuses as a means of maintaining their youth, COVID is a plot to get rid of old people because they cost too much to insure (spoken by a "scientist on TV" so it had to be true), that in the Santa Monica Mountains (urban hills in Los Angeles) there is a "Nazi house" built "during the holocaust" by the Nazi's because they wanted to be prepared for when they won the "holocaust war". All of these came from seemingly sane, functioning people who at least graduated from high school and live normal productive lives. The problem is, the sowers of the weeds are openly and proudly continuing their efforts and those efforts are increasingly successful. Can the garden survive or will it only revive after a cleansing conflagration sweeps through? I hope these cheerless thoughts have not wandered too far from the topic at hand.
To quote the goofy American sitcom character Ted Lasso, "Be curious, not judgemental." (He attributes this quote to Walt Whitman, though I'm not sure the poet ever said it, lol.) Even if it's the most pedestrian meme ever coughed up by the Internet, it's decent advice. I fail at this often - but it does tend to work to ask more questions, look for commonalities, and adopt the stance of a person seeking to understand, rather than to be understood.
The way we differentiate facts from opinion is by calling upon an external authority. In the days of covid-19 we are subjected to the external authority of ‘experts’, for better or worse. Over recent decades all forms of institutional authority have been systematically deconstructed. Be it parliament, or the church, science or religion, all have experienced a loss of authority. Consequently, having rejected any form of external authority, we have made ourselves the ultimate arbiters of truth. My opinion has become my truth; not only my truth, but significantly, my identity. Therefore challenging my opinion is to call into question not only my ideas, but the core of who I am. It is an attempt to deconstruct me. It is a form of violence. There is a pathway out of this dark place, but only as we turn towards the Ineffable Light.
That last observation, about opinion as truth, is very profound and explains a lot about the state of so many people (especially young ones) now. Yes: to argue is to 'deny their humanity.' Really worth thinking about. I'm planning to look further into this breakdown as the essays go on.
"It is only from the light which streams constantly from heaven that a tree can derive the energy to strike its roots deep into the soil. The tree is in fact rooted in the sky." Simone Weil
How strange and wonderful! I've just finished painting a stone as a present for someone, and it developed unconsciously. It had on it the Celtic symbol for protection, with tree roots intertwined into it, and then stars at the roots. The light of the stars seemed to be feeding into the roots, and I was thinking about my physicist husband telling me about everything being made of stardust. So not only does the tree's energy come from the 'light which streams constantly from heaven (the sun as a star)', it also feeds from the stardust soil below it. That idea about the tree being rooted in the sky hit me, as the finished article looked as if it was upside down until you paid attention...
“Because we can not circle above all existence—sleepless, unbroken, boundless, glowing—we content ourselves with being submerged and awakening.” —Martin Buber
I am really looking forward to reading these! It's like food for thinking. At first I thought, well there's a whole new universe in 'consider the lilies' there! Then I was thinking about Jesus being the Alpha and Omega; the ineffable light and the soil below...made sin, humiliated beyond belief/utterly divine. Could it also be that different people will always be at different levels of knowing- some in one part of the plant all of their lives, some at different places at different times in their lives. Could it be that any part of the plant is meaningful so long as it's not cut off from the life of/acknowledges the importance of the whole plant. It also reminded me of Paul's (apostle not Kingsnorth (!)), image of the body (church) writ large as society in general? If the hand says 'I have no need of the foot' etc... I have heard western civilization referred to as a cut flower... it's as important to acknowledge the roots as to remember the direction... I will try to think about this a bit more, but it seems to work so well on so many levels...
I'm reminded of Alasdair MacIntyre's 'After Virtue.' His metaphor of the shipwreck is probably the best hermeneutic I've ever read for explaining the inability of cultural factions to find any shared sense of reality. When the most basic shared meanings no longer exist then dialogue is essentially impossible.
This probably leads to what Austrian economists would call 'creative destruction' - the system rips itself to pieces and collapses like 4th century Rome and is replaced by a new order built on the ruins of the old.
My daughter is 13 and is reading deeply in these areas which leads to some fascinating discussions when I drive her to school. Yesterday I reminded her of Pontius Pilate's words to Christ, "Truth...what is that?" I've always felt that the exchange between Pilate and Christ in that moment is one of the most significant exchanges in human history.
It seems we face an interesting cultural paradox. In one sense we treat truth as utterly irrelevant with only the 'will to power' having any solidity. And yet, culture warriors seem utterly convinced that they possess the truth. As such, truth is almost nothing and everything at the same time.
I was reminded when I read your comment about Pilate, hearing recently, I think it was Dallas Willard, saying that, had he been Christ, rather than appearing to his friends, he would have gone to visit Pilate first..."now back to that conversation we were having about truth!"...Willard made the point that this says quite a lot about both the difference between us and Jesus, and about the nature of truth as God is prepared to reveal it to us...
I would like to ask about your thoughts also about the difference between wisdom and gnosis. Does wisdom always require that we are open to revelation? We don't so much attain it as receive it?
Western philosophy chose the wrong segment of the Socratic inheritance. In short, we have consistently tried to ask the "what is it?" question in order to ensnare reality in the net of words. To create a total system that explains everything without remainder. This project ended in postmodernism -- the exact opposite of finding truth--and have become unmoored, knowing neither up nor down or where we are even headed. ["If the rule you followed let you to this, of what use was the rule." -Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men.] There is another element--which is displayed in this post-- of the Socratic/Platonic tradition which is the real heart of it: The Allegory of the Cave. Nietszche derided Christianity as Platonism for the masses. May it be so.
Even in the Platonic dialogues themselves, Socrates' pursuit of the "what is it?" question itself leads to getting tangled up in words and failure. (i.e., aporia = an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, argument, or theory). Maybe that was part of Plato's point.
Is this why Christianity kept being reduced to systems and therefore losing the Life which IS it? Should we have been asking 'who is it?'. Saying reality is 'ensnared in the net of words' makes words sound quite negative. But maybe our idea about language and what it is for has been debased? Can we learn something about the real use of words themselves by meditating on what it means for God to speak creation into being - the creative word? I'm thinking also about how the 'name' of Jesus; and asking 'in the 'name' of Jesus' is so much more than 'with the label' of Jesus. I'm thinking about the 'language' of DNA also, being encoded into life itself.... These are all random thoughts swirling around. I would like to know more about what the Hebrews thought about words and names
Specifically, Jesus saying 'I am the way...the truth and the life'; rather than 'belief about me' is the way the truth and the life." If Jesus is the Word; does this mean that Life-less language/language uninhabited by Jesus (whether it uses His 'label' or not), literally leads to death.
Yes, well Jewish, I think he spoke Aramaic. But I believe Jesus is God, so overflowing in love as the ultimate expression of his power, as to choose to be born into a specific place and culture for our benefit, not his. The one (Word) through whom all things were made and who upholds creation... who makes himself powerfully available by his Spirit (just as he promised), raising us up to share in his nature...a new life. So I think I'm saying that living by the life of this Word means being prepared to let go of (die to) a way of using language that is manipulative, that tries to retain control of its object and source (God or others)...that words at their best bring forth worship. That's why I like a lot of Paul Kingsnorth's writing, and the writing of other poets who do this.
'But this is the lowest level of knowing: it is not even out of the soil. Nothing has broken through yet. There is no truth to be found here.' You are making sense of feelings I've not been able to name, let alone articulate. Thank you.
Yes. These essays and books that Paul Kingsnorth is writing are making sense of the patchy illusive concepts in my head that I couldn't quite keep hold of or articulate, that strike a deep cord within me. They always have.
Well, I'm up for it. :)
Maybe this is taking the analogy too far, but I'm thinking of plants that do not hold their blossoms up above the foliage. Garden bred hybrids do this, for an exaggerated show. Often wild plants have small, nodding, blossoms nestled among or under the leaves. Sometimes fragrant or night blooming, they target a specific audience: their preferred pollinators. All this to say, in my life I have been part of various groups that sought to "rise above" the ordinary, irritating, silly, needy people of everyday humanity by organizing around some principle, theology, or concept. Of course it never works because even if the founding members are all of the 'right sort' they'll end up having kids who aren't, or spouses, mothers, newcomers, and it is impossible to make a more pure group. The attempt pretty much ruins any good intentions that were there initially. You did say that bit about "people we don't like". I think that's the nugget of insight. The best growing conditions are uncomfortable many times. Plants often fail to flower if over fertilized.
In my experience, the real insight, and the way to that ineffable light, is precisely the opposite of 'rising above' others. This is why Christ moved among the poor and the mocked, and taught his disciples (who were endlessly trying to rise above each other to gain his favour) that they would gain power by serving and not by ruling. We're not supposed to be rising above other people; that's entirely the wrong way. But we are supposed to be rising above our own passions. Much harder!
There's something about how roots work, that is pinging me here - along with your point about humility. I don't disagree with your point at all! But the plant life metaphor wanders off in a different direction. Roots and soil are beautiful things. The most essential. Roots and bulbs survive even when the plant above ground dies and is killed off. (When the flower of reason is lost?) All the potentiality lies in the humble roots, and long periods of dormancy pass before there is another flowering. (A dark age?) If you've seen diagrams of trees and their roots, the roots are as big and as magnificent as the tree. There's so much happening below ground. So much life. And as the common Buddhist saying goes, "No mud, no lotus." While I agree we all need to be much less nasty with one another -- I also do not wish to denigrate the "being below ground" phase. Yes, we've lost the Flower of Wisdom - or maybe we've just lost our cultural story about what wisdom is. But there's value here, down in the Earth, the roots, and the darkness. And it occurs to me that this time in the mud is time well spent. Perhaps we all just need to be more patient, more curious, more humble. The West likes to be in Full Flower. We are impatient with not knowing. Perhaps it's time to lean into it, to let go, to witness and observe the ambiguity. Not in utter passivity - but in the sense of allowing it to unfold. We do too much "bulb forcing" -- to much forcing of blooms out of season.
I once wrote an essay which referred to poppy seeds lying dormant in the soil for up to a century. Could be that is our task now, indeed:
https://www.paulkingsnorth.net/poet
A slightly different point from the one I was making here though, and a different image too. A bulb is needed for a flower to grow, but the bulb is not the point, it is - well, the starting point.
But also, as you say, a flower cannot be forced. It will bloom when conditions are right.
Oh yes! I loved the poppy imagery in this piece of yours. Thank you for sharing it.
You're correct - I'm making a slightly different point than your original piece, but only because I believe the meaning is latent in your flower/plant/bulb metaphor. I don't disagree with your original point - that there is much better way to have this conversation! More that...I think there is ALSO something interesting to be learned from the metaphor of the plant.
Because IS the flower the point? I'm not sure the plant would agree, if plants expressed opinions. From the plant's example, I'd venture that the entire cycle is the point. The seed, the bulb, the shoot, the flower are all equally valuable, all equally the point. I suspect what I'm taking issue with is the Western linearity / verticality of the diagram itself I think our view of time as linear vs. circular and cyclical is highly problematic. Preferring flowers over seeds and bulbs also is problematic. Just as valuing life over death is problematic. Isn't the western problem that we want ONLY the flower?
If we loved the whole cycle, how would it change things? If we valued death as much as life, seeing it as the necessary gateway to resurrection and rebirth, perhaps we wouldn't be in the huge mess that we are in.
But, perhaps all this is an unnecessary digression. Your original point - that mere opinion, and wars of opinion, won't really get us anywhere - well, that still stands.
“The seed, the bulb, the shoot, the flower are all equally valuable, all equally the point. I suspect what I'm taking issue with is the Western linearity / verticality of the diagram itself I think our view of time as linear vs. circular and cyclical is highly problematic.”
I had a late-blooming off-shoot (forgive the pun!) to elaborate your thought. I appreciate your concerns about linearity, although I don’t see it as the problem per se. The problem is equating “good” or “true” knowledge with a particular location—for example, “higher” knowledge at a higher location of the plant. It actually risks lapsing into a gnostic characterization (although I don’t think this was Paul’s intention or point).
We can know in different ways, by different sources. We can know by logic; we can know by feelings and preferences; we can know by intuitions that we can’t quite put our finger on; but we rarely know by any one modality. Intuitions can be tested (and refuted or affirmed) by logic and observation; facts have emotional contexts; and sometimes being in the soil—groping blind through the darkness by “mere” faith—is more elevating and bright than the uppermost blossoms of the flower.
I don’t make these observations to suggest we can’t come to a higher Truth, but rather that coming to Truth may require faithfulness to multiple sources of knowledge, including (at least) reason, inner experience, what we learn in relationships, and revelation. All of these are part of what it means to be human. None should be excluded. Of course we are each often inclined to one than the other depending on our background (scientist versus priest, poet versus mathematician) but it seems unWise, perhaps, to elevate one of these over another. Rather it would make more sense to struggle with trying to hold this heterodoxy of knowledge together as we strive toward “true” knowing. Love the garden, dirt to petal.
Peter - thank you! You articulated this better than I did. I love what you say here about multiple sources of knowing - YES. I believe wisdom arises (when we're lucky) when we honor all these disparate ways of knowing - intuitive, rational, "low", "high", etc. The beauty is in the integration. My parents were scientists and overly "enlightened"; my grandparents were full of faith. We need both ways of seeing (and perhaps others beyond this binary set) to see clearly.
“Life is suffering
Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated
Truth is the handmaiden of love
Dialogue is the pathway to truth
Humility is recognition of personal insufficiency and the willingness to learn
To learn is to die voluntarily and be born again, in great ways and small
So speech must be untrammeled
So that dialogue can take place
So that we can all humbly learn
So that truth can serve love
So that suffering can be ameliorated
So that we can all stumble forward to the Kingdom of God”
― Jordan B. Peterson
Thank you for everything you're doing Paul. I would dearly love for you to have a talk with JP. Your mutual friend, Jonathon Pageau could help jack it up I'm sure. Cheers, David.
That's the most openly Christian I've heard him yet! One of these days he is going to publicly convert, and then all bets are off.
That could certainly be an interesting conversation, though also intimidating.
Thank you for your reply Paul. That biblical series he did opened a lot of hearts and minds to Christianity, it did for me. Here's a little slice from that: The sermon on the mount and the Kingdom of God. https://youtu.be/t2RX9GqnIxo
Yes, I find that series immensely significant. The sheer number of people who will watch a middle aged lecturer stand in a boring theatre and talk about dense Biblical imagery for two hours - it would have been unthinkable until quite recently, I think. Something is going on there. He is a vessel.
This welcome note acknowledges the central role of that great taboo of our compulsively egalitarian culture: hierarchy. Such is the vehicle by which a jumble of sensations or data become perception (as noted by Jonathan Pageau in your video conversation with him) and I believe it is counted as one of the primary "needs of the soul" in Simone Weil. That it can begin in and then yield to mystery is the touch that keeps it from ossification and idolatry instead of a path to true worship. A hard path but, as your note and illustration witness, a proper response to and journey into true life and light. Thank you. We look forward to the next installment.
A very good point. I think the modern West is allergic to both hierarchy and order - and indeed structure in all its aspects (certainly true of the progressives at this point, for the most part.) We have come to confuse order and hierarchy with injustice, but we are learning now that they are needed for stability. You are right, Weil considered hierarchy a vital need. Perhaps we will learn how to come to the real thing afresh, if we can avoid the pitfalls.
Thanks for this essay. I too don't want to take the analogy too far, but I couldn't help wondering if weeds play a part in this garden. Ignorance, appeals to base motives and emotionalism are all intentionally sown in a garden to devastating effect. Here in America where the cultural soil is barren and shallow weeds are ubiquitous. I have, within the past year or so, without seeking them out, been treated to noxious weeds/beliefs. Among my friends and family I have heard that; the Clintons are serial murderers, Democrats and Hollywood elite eat fetuses as a means of maintaining their youth, COVID is a plot to get rid of old people because they cost too much to insure (spoken by a "scientist on TV" so it had to be true), that in the Santa Monica Mountains (urban hills in Los Angeles) there is a "Nazi house" built "during the holocaust" by the Nazi's because they wanted to be prepared for when they won the "holocaust war". All of these came from seemingly sane, functioning people who at least graduated from high school and live normal productive lives. The problem is, the sowers of the weeds are openly and proudly continuing their efforts and those efforts are increasingly successful. Can the garden survive or will it only revive after a cleansing conflagration sweeps through? I hope these cheerless thoughts have not wandered too far from the topic at hand.
To quote the goofy American sitcom character Ted Lasso, "Be curious, not judgemental." (He attributes this quote to Walt Whitman, though I'm not sure the poet ever said it, lol.) Even if it's the most pedestrian meme ever coughed up by the Internet, it's decent advice. I fail at this often - but it does tend to work to ask more questions, look for commonalities, and adopt the stance of a person seeking to understand, rather than to be understood.
The way we differentiate facts from opinion is by calling upon an external authority. In the days of covid-19 we are subjected to the external authority of ‘experts’, for better or worse. Over recent decades all forms of institutional authority have been systematically deconstructed. Be it parliament, or the church, science or religion, all have experienced a loss of authority. Consequently, having rejected any form of external authority, we have made ourselves the ultimate arbiters of truth. My opinion has become my truth; not only my truth, but significantly, my identity. Therefore challenging my opinion is to call into question not only my ideas, but the core of who I am. It is an attempt to deconstruct me. It is a form of violence. There is a pathway out of this dark place, but only as we turn towards the Ineffable Light.
That last observation, about opinion as truth, is very profound and explains a lot about the state of so many people (especially young ones) now. Yes: to argue is to 'deny their humanity.' Really worth thinking about. I'm planning to look further into this breakdown as the essays go on.
"It is only from the light which streams constantly from heaven that a tree can derive the energy to strike its roots deep into the soil. The tree is in fact rooted in the sky." Simone Weil
Wow, what, a great quote, will use it in my Natural Landscaping class this coming Wednesday.
How strange and wonderful! I've just finished painting a stone as a present for someone, and it developed unconsciously. It had on it the Celtic symbol for protection, with tree roots intertwined into it, and then stars at the roots. The light of the stars seemed to be feeding into the roots, and I was thinking about my physicist husband telling me about everything being made of stardust. So not only does the tree's energy come from the 'light which streams constantly from heaven (the sun as a star)', it also feeds from the stardust soil below it. That idea about the tree being rooted in the sky hit me, as the finished article looked as if it was upside down until you paid attention...
“Because we can not circle above all existence—sleepless, unbroken, boundless, glowing—we content ourselves with being submerged and awakening.” —Martin Buber
I am really looking forward to reading these! It's like food for thinking. At first I thought, well there's a whole new universe in 'consider the lilies' there! Then I was thinking about Jesus being the Alpha and Omega; the ineffable light and the soil below...made sin, humiliated beyond belief/utterly divine. Could it also be that different people will always be at different levels of knowing- some in one part of the plant all of their lives, some at different places at different times in their lives. Could it be that any part of the plant is meaningful so long as it's not cut off from the life of/acknowledges the importance of the whole plant. It also reminded me of Paul's (apostle not Kingsnorth (!)), image of the body (church) writ large as society in general? If the hand says 'I have no need of the foot' etc... I have heard western civilization referred to as a cut flower... it's as important to acknowledge the roots as to remember the direction... I will try to think about this a bit more, but it seems to work so well on so many levels...
I'm reminded of Alasdair MacIntyre's 'After Virtue.' His metaphor of the shipwreck is probably the best hermeneutic I've ever read for explaining the inability of cultural factions to find any shared sense of reality. When the most basic shared meanings no longer exist then dialogue is essentially impossible.
This probably leads to what Austrian economists would call 'creative destruction' - the system rips itself to pieces and collapses like 4th century Rome and is replaced by a new order built on the ruins of the old.
My daughter is 13 and is reading deeply in these areas which leads to some fascinating discussions when I drive her to school. Yesterday I reminded her of Pontius Pilate's words to Christ, "Truth...what is that?" I've always felt that the exchange between Pilate and Christ in that moment is one of the most significant exchanges in human history.
It seems we face an interesting cultural paradox. In one sense we treat truth as utterly irrelevant with only the 'will to power' having any solidity. And yet, culture warriors seem utterly convinced that they possess the truth. As such, truth is almost nothing and everything at the same time.
I was reminded when I read your comment about Pilate, hearing recently, I think it was Dallas Willard, saying that, had he been Christ, rather than appearing to his friends, he would have gone to visit Pilate first..."now back to that conversation we were having about truth!"...Willard made the point that this says quite a lot about both the difference between us and Jesus, and about the nature of truth as God is prepared to reveal it to us...
That made me smile Faith. Indeed, if Pilate made it to heaven there may have been a momentary awkwardness.
I would like to ask about your thoughts also about the difference between wisdom and gnosis. Does wisdom always require that we are open to revelation? We don't so much attain it as receive it?
Western philosophy chose the wrong segment of the Socratic inheritance. In short, we have consistently tried to ask the "what is it?" question in order to ensnare reality in the net of words. To create a total system that explains everything without remainder. This project ended in postmodernism -- the exact opposite of finding truth--and have become unmoored, knowing neither up nor down or where we are even headed. ["If the rule you followed let you to this, of what use was the rule." -Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men.] There is another element--which is displayed in this post-- of the Socratic/Platonic tradition which is the real heart of it: The Allegory of the Cave. Nietszche derided Christianity as Platonism for the masses. May it be so.
Even in the Platonic dialogues themselves, Socrates' pursuit of the "what is it?" question itself leads to getting tangled up in words and failure. (i.e., aporia = an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, argument, or theory). Maybe that was part of Plato's point.
Is this why Christianity kept being reduced to systems and therefore losing the Life which IS it? Should we have been asking 'who is it?'. Saying reality is 'ensnared in the net of words' makes words sound quite negative. But maybe our idea about language and what it is for has been debased? Can we learn something about the real use of words themselves by meditating on what it means for God to speak creation into being - the creative word? I'm thinking also about how the 'name' of Jesus; and asking 'in the 'name' of Jesus' is so much more than 'with the label' of Jesus. I'm thinking about the 'language' of DNA also, being encoded into life itself.... These are all random thoughts swirling around. I would like to know more about what the Hebrews thought about words and names
Specifically, Jesus saying 'I am the way...the truth and the life'; rather than 'belief about me' is the way the truth and the life." If Jesus is the Word; does this mean that Life-less language/language uninhabited by Jesus (whether it uses His 'label' or not), literally leads to death.
I thought Jesus was Hebrew ? so you are listening to him or perhaps Im just too simplistic about this .
Yes, well Jewish, I think he spoke Aramaic. But I believe Jesus is God, so overflowing in love as the ultimate expression of his power, as to choose to be born into a specific place and culture for our benefit, not his. The one (Word) through whom all things were made and who upholds creation... who makes himself powerfully available by his Spirit (just as he promised), raising us up to share in his nature...a new life. So I think I'm saying that living by the life of this Word means being prepared to let go of (die to) a way of using language that is manipulative, that tries to retain control of its object and source (God or others)...that words at their best bring forth worship. That's why I like a lot of Paul Kingsnorth's writing, and the writing of other poets who do this.