Here, we will seek to explore the deepest levels of analysis of our current problems, our politics, our philosophy, and our faith. Prepare for some discomfort, as we learn that we are all, fundamentally, not creatures of reason, but of faith.
On Everything
The nature of all philosophy is an attempt to bridge the gap between man (consciousness) and nature (reality). Reality is discerned by man through his senses, and this information is transposed onto a biological framework of neurological structures that is universal, though divergent, among us as humans, and an as-of-yet poorly understood consciousness: that which you consider you.
Among the extant neurological framework-consciousness system is, somewhere, a universal access to the faculties of reason – though clearly not of equal distribution. It is through reason we all have the ability to connect cause and effect by simple deduction. This effect, and its causative factors (as they truly exist in the real world) are taken in through an imperfect set of senses. This renders us each subject to the faulty paradigm of perspective, which is simply a way of saying that we both lack a total knowledge of reality, and possess a flawed data set that includes items not of reality.
There is a third consideration in terms of our understanding of, and actions in this word: first principles. This is simply a way of saying an “ethic,” or a set of beliefs one holds that are not subject to reason (on purpose). They cannot, in fact, be subject to reason because they come before reason, and upon the application of reason fail to be first any longer.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are crossing a small stream in the woods via a set of steppingstones. These stones are arranged nicely to allow for a comfortable stride as you proceed across the lazy, babbling brook. Now, as you picture yourself crossing this slice of nature remember back to that position you stood on when you first pictured this stream and considered crossing it. Whether that exact point was the close shore, or a very first steppingstone, or even a third person birds-eye view matters not. What matters is that you started somewhere before you ever considered how to get across the stream via the stones.
Likewise, when you consider anything in philosophy, ideology, ethics, or your actions in this world you started somewhere, and not nowhere. This process is something like a child asking “why” in infinite regression. Slavery is evil. “Why?” Because people are not property to be owned. “Why?” Because each person as a part of the universal human experience desires to be free of arbitrary controls (this is probably false). “Why?” It just is. In this way it is little different than Descartes “I think, therefore I am.” It is an article of faith that “I am” (conscious). After all, you don’t even truly know what “I am” is.
The place you start – that place that is not subject to reason, but from which you begin to reason – is that “absolute” point of which St. Augustine spoke, and whatever you consider yourself – atheist, agnostic, Humanist, Christian, just plain alive, even – this starting place occupies a place of faith. It occupies this position of faith because it is accepted prima facie, without argument, and because it is clearly so.
I subject you to this affront to your sense of the nature of things (which probably goes, “reason is subject to faith my arse”) because it is only with this knowledge that you might grasp that it is at this level of analysis – that of first principles of faith – that the war is now fought, and it is where you are vulnerable.
The method of combat now underway has achieved many goals in breaking our understanding of the linkages between first principles, faith, reason, politics, and acting in the world by inserting postmodern relativism, and its predecessor nihilism, as a disruptive force between them that promotes compartmentalization. This disruption of these links serves to sever our minds from reality, and even from our own perceptions through our senses. The fatal fact is this: by severing our minds from reality we are indeed severing ourselves from our ability to act in rational ways conducive to continued life, and the avoidance of suffering in this reality.
We must rejoin these links. We must understand with purpose that first principles of faith will, should, and ought to permeate to all other spheres, and be determinative, as informed by reason, and tested by reality, of our actions in this world as part of an ideal, or ethic. We must reject the alchemical linguistic spells of the enemy. We must see phrases such as, “we should teach children how to think, not what to think” as the utterly nonsensical, and significantly harmful deceits that they are. There is, in reality, no difference between what to think, and how to think, as the mode of thought in the application of reason is a phenomenon that begins from first principles of faith, and so this phrase makes you vulnerable to the desires of those of a different faith (in this context most likely that of a Marxian gnostic Statism) who wish to see your children indoctrinated not into your own faith, but into theirs. They make little secret of this fact, but this phrase is the magic words that serve to make you forget it. All education is indoctrination when first principles are contested.
This same logic applies to the field of politics. If the Communists ever got one thing right it was this: the personal is the political. After all, when you disagree at the deepest level of analysis what is there that isn’t up for debate? When your faith in Christian heritage (whether that means Christianity proper, or simply Americanism) confronts their faith of identity Communism what is there to agree as off limits? The answer: nothing. And anything not agreed to, by both parties, is contested space. They don’t care that you don’t want to fight. They do, and they will take your forfeiture gladly.
Perhaps you take umbrage here. Perhaps you say, “the personal is political because Communism is totalizing (or totalitarian).” Indeed, it is. But so once was Christianity, and Americanism totalizing (if not totalitarian). Just because it is in the Christian tradition to set certain areas in life as off limits to authoritative control doesn’t mean Christianity doesn’t have anything to say about it. It does, and saying it’s off limits is, in fact, saying something about it: it’s an instruction to uphold these liberties in the face of aggression. It’s an instruction to not simply cede the ground as we have done.
That was the essence of liberalism as understood by our founders: to persevere in the tradition of upholding liberty against all encroachments. It was the tenets of these faith systems that Americans once lived their lives by before demoralization by the Communists. We knew once that our first principles must form our absolute point from which to reason and act in this world. This is why – no matter the outcome of the political battle – we will ultimately lose. That is, we’ll lose unless we can achieve what no civilization at our stage of collapse has before managed: remoralization.
To this end we must stop deluding ourselves. We must abandon relativism and nihilism. We must tear down those thorny hedgerows the enemy has built within our minds around those thoughts we must allow ourselves to think to defeat them. We must reconnect with our senses. We must find our way back to reality, and when we do we must purge our minds of the false data that doesn’t comport with it, and adjust our perspective to minimize our own errors going forward. We must be willing to stand on faith, apply reason, and hold the ground for liberty that Americanism instructs of us.