Francis Berger

Permacrisis Requires Permacompetence

9/25/2023

The Collins English Dictionary Word of the Year for 2022 was permacrisis. I’m not sure what words the fine folks at Harper Collins have shortlisted for the 2023 Word of the Year, but here is my suggestion for their expert consideration – permaincompetence (that is, permanent incompetence).

Sure, permaincompetence is not word (as if permacrisis is) and has not entered the flow of general usage; however, it should because it aptly describes the ubiquitous ineptitude saturating the System, more specifically, virtually all governments, organizations, institutions, and corporations.

I suspect Harper Collins chose named permacrisis as its 2022 Word of the Year to help broadcast the Establishment’s continuing and overarching goal of using cascading crises as pretexts for locking the world in a nightmarish Ahrimanic totalitarian surveillance state.

Many conspiracy-inclined bloggers have compared these permacrisis modes of operation to the Hegelian Dialectic of thesis – antithesis – synthesis or, more plainly, problem – reaction – solution.

The process is simple enough. Create a problem or crisis, incite the masses to react in a predetermined fashion, and then offer a solution to that quells the instigated reaction and solves the manufactured problem. Every Establishment "permacrisis" solution aims to further consolidate the System’s power by increasing bureaucratic despotism and eroding freedom.

The master plan appeared to come together via the birdemic in 2020-2021. The Ahramanic totalitarians succeeded in locking the world down for nearly two years. During that time, they proclaimed that the world would never again be as open as it had been.

They did their utmost to convince people that measures, such as global digital IDs, peck passports, restricted travel, curfews, intermittent lockdowns, and so forth, would become permanent fixtures of the post-birdemic world. They even successfully implemented such measures in some places, yet they couldn’t make it permanent.

They had the world seemingly at their mercy. The totalitarian prison they had been dreaming about for decades was on the cusp of becoming an indissoluble reality, but in the end, it slipped through their fingers.

The explanations for this failure to “close the totalitarian deal” are numerous. Many factors undoubtedly played a part, but I believe good old incompetence was principal among them. Yes, incompetence. Granted, it required a high level of competence and coordination to pull the birdemic off, but the incompetence bled through the moment the Establishment seized control.

For the sake of brevity, I won’t wade into endless details. Instead, I will simply note that the permacrisis world the Establishment seeks to implement requires permacompetence.

Global totalitarianism entails consistent and committed proficiency, capability, and expertise – the Establishment appears to have a severe shortage of these indispensable qualities.

What they appear to have an abundance of is permaincompetence. On the one hand, I guess you could consider this a blessing of sorts because it is practically guaranteed that none of their totalitarian dreams will ever come to full fruition. On the other hand, permaincompetence is extremely capable of one thing – destruction.

The Ahramanics only win if they are permacompetent.

Permaincompetence is the realm of Sorath and the potential for an authentic, genuine permacrisis.

3 Comments

There Are No Political, Social, National, Institutional, Religious Saviors or Protectors in the West, Not Even in Hungary

9/23/2023

9 Comments

Conservatives, nationalists, Christians, and other individuals holding "rightist" views continue to heap respect and adulation upon the Hungarian government, often elevating Orbán et al. to lofty heights verging on hero-worship.

In reality, Orbán and his government craftily manoeuvre within an illusion they have skilfully constructed to not only dupe the nation they purportedly serve but also delude salivating rightist supporters around the globe, some of whom have gone as far to declare Orbán to be the “savior” and “protector” of Hungary, Western Civilization, and Christianity.

Illusions deserve nothing but shattering, so I’ll cut right to chase here – Orbán et al. aren’t saving or protecting anything in Hungary, Western Civilization, or Christianity.

In many ways, the current Hungarian government has done more to harm Hungary, Western Civilization, and Christianity than the most rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth radical leftist government could ever hope to do.

And it has managed to inflict these harms precisely because it operates from behind a thin, flimsy, and clichéd veneer of conservatism, nationalism, and Christianity.

Regardless, rightists around the world want to believe in the Hungarian Hope, to the point that they conveniently ignore Orbán et al.’s glaring lies, self-contradictions, and malversations, the vast majority of which directly undermine the very conservative, nationalist, and Christian principles the Magyar ruling class professes to uphold and defend.

Case in point, the Hungarian government recently made a deal to purchase and “nationalize” the Liszt International Airport in Budapest using 3.9 billion euros of public money in a 50/50 ownership deal with Blackrock – yes, that Blackrock – in which the US “investment giant” would possess management rights.

I don’t know about you, but that is some odd nationalization.

Here’s another one. Orbán et al. energetically support the implementation of the WHO Pandemic Treaty and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

And let’s not forget that Orbán’s crew was also the first EU country to approve the UN’s 2015 climate deal in Paris. They were also terribly disappointed when Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2017.

Of course, Trump - Mr. Drain the Swamp, Make America Great Again - then went on to launch operation Warp Speed . . .

No, I'm not going to "link to support the above." If you are inclined to verify, do it yourself.

Listen. Forget this rightist, conservative, Christian social/political bullshit.

There are no political, corporate, media, institutional, religious, or social saviors and protectors in the West, so stop searching for them.

They are all Of the System, By the System, For the System, regardless of their stripe or bent.

The sooner you accept that the freer you will be to focus your energy elsewhere.

9 Comments

The Other Exists for Self-Discovery, Not Self-Annihilation

9/22/2023

7 Comments

Discovering oneself – one’s true self, real self, divine self, call it what you will – is one of the underlying purposes of Creation. With that in mind, it is clear that this journey of self-discovery involves other Beings.

If it didn’t, God, as a Being, as the primary Creator, and as a loving parent, would probably have placed us in a creation comprised of isolated, self-contained, hermetically sealed, worlds-of-one deprived of all contact, communication, and relationships with other Beings. The sort of arrangement where we would have no one but ourselves to contend with. No one but ourselves to find and discover.

Creation is the polar opposite of that kind of arrangement, which reveals much about the limits of isolated and secluded forms of self-discovery. One of my deepest metaphysical assumptions involves the belief that we existed in self-containment, isolation, seclusion, and aloneness before our mortal lives; however, this condition of “perfect freedom” represented an extremely low form of consciousness that deadened awareness of ourselves as free beings.

We may have been dimly aware of our existence, but we were probably completely unaware of why we existed or what we could do with this existence. We may have had some murky grasp of self, but I suspect this understanding was at best tenuous and intermittent, blinking off as mysteriously and suddenly as it had blinked on, indicating that self-knowledge is unachievable through the self alone – it required other Beings.

One way to think about Creation is to see it as an arrangement in which the self is in continuous contact with other Beings or selves, who, as selves in their own right, are in constant contact with other Beings or selves. This arrangement inevitably depends upon relationships between Beings. It is through these relationships that individual Beings can work toward discovering their true selves.

Thus, an underlying purpose of Creation is to discover oneself through others, which is not the same as the modern altruistic impulse of denying the self for others.

I may never fully understand another Being in mortal life, but relationships with other Beings may help me to know myself. Likewise, another Being may never fully understand me as a self, but my “self” may help the other Being better understand its “self”.

Other Beings cannot help me to understand myself if they demand I dissolve my “self” into their “selves”, nor can I help other Beings if they subsume their selves under my “self”.

With this in mind, Christianity is a religion of discovering and fortifying the self, not for self-worship or self-annihilation, but for being or becoming the sort of self that aligns with God, participates in Creation through love, and, thereby, adds to and expands both love and creation.

We may not be able to achieve this fully in mortal life, but if we believe on Jesus . . .

7 Comments

Day or Night Dweller?

9/19/2023

5 Comments

God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day

-- William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

So where do you dwell?

Night or Day?

5 Comments

Why Do the Destructive Insist on Everyone Being Constructive?

9/17/2023

2 Comments

Those actively aligned against God and Creation utilize many murky, sleazy, and polluted words, but few are as murky, sleazy, and polluted as “constructive.”

We tend to associate constructive with the positive. Thus, when someone offers us constructive criticism, we assume that the person is offering something helpful and encouraging instead of something unhelpful and discouraging.

When someone suggests that we be, do, or think constructively, we generally believe people are nudging us in the positive direction of being, doing, and thinking that is more useful, productive, effective, and beneficial.

As with all words, the real meaning of constructive depends heavily on the alignment and motivation of those who use it.

What then are those aligned against God and Creation really saying when they offer constructive criticism or ask us to be more constructive?

What help are they extending? Moreover, what are they encouraging us to be, do, or think?

Constructive extends far beyond general English and into law and legal writing, where its definition differs vastly from conventional usage. In law, constructive refers to “something legally declared, even if not technically true in a given case”, which translates into “judges and lawmakers making things constructively true so that the intent of the law cannot be easily thwarted by a loophole or a lack of personal responsibility.”

Again, making something constructively true in law relies heavily on discerning motivation or lack thereof. It is, in essence, a legal fiction.

For example, the law can determine that a landlord has “constructively evicted” a tenant if the landlord failed to provide the living conditions required to allow a reasonable tenant to stay on the premises, like turning off the heat, power, or water or neglecting sanitary minimums. Living conditions deteriorate so much that the tenant finally leaves. In this case, the landlord did not hand the tenant an actual eviction notice, but the landlord’s actions are tantamount to an unwritten, undeclared eviction notice that resulted in the tenant actually leaving the premises.

I eschew law-thinking and legal mindsets, but from a spiritual perspective, I think it is crucial to treat constructively any communication that asks us to be more constructive, that is, discern the spiritual intention or aspect, even if the spiritual intention or aspect is not technically obvious or “true” in a given case, so that spiritual matters cannot be easily thwarted by a loophole or a lack of personal responsibility.

An off-the-cuff example is being more constructive about implementing a D.I.E. agenda at a workplace. Or thinking more constructively about the climate crisis. Or receiving advice or criticism suggesting you or some aspect of you become more System-aligned.

Those who ask us to be more constructive are usually motivated by the destructive.

2 Comments

Freedom Presupposes Superable Resistance

9/16/2023

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From Nicholai Berdyaev's Slavery and Freedom (bold added):

Slavery is characterized as the social position of people in the objective world. Thus, for example, in a totalitarian state all the people are slaves. But this is not the final truth of the phenemonolgy of slavery.

It has already been said that slavery is in the first place a structure of consciousness and that, a certain kind of objective structure of consciousness. Consciousness determines being, and only in the secondary process does consciousness fall into slavery to being.

A servile society is the outcome of the inward slavery of man. Man lives under the sway of an illusion which is so powerful that it appears to be normal consciousness.

This illusion finds expression in the usual awareness of the fact that man is in slavery to an external force, at the same time as he is in slavery to himself. This illusion of consciousness is different from that which Marx and Freud detected.

Man defines his relation to the 'non-I' in a servile way. That servile social philosophy according to which man ought to put up with external slavery and emancipate himself inward only, by no means follows from this. Such a philosophy is an absolutely false interpretation of the relation between inward and outward.

Inward liberation demands outward liberation also, and the destruciton of servile dependence on social tyranny.

The free man cannot put up with social slavery. But he remains free in spirit, and in that case if it is not within his power to overcome the external social slavery, it is a struggle which may be very hard and long drawn out.

Freedom presupposes superable resistance.

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Thoughts:

Superable here means conquerable, surmountable, which is interesting.

Does this mean that resistance itself can be overcome, or that resistance can overcome anything?

Perhaps both.

Berdyaev provides an overview of people who could be categorized as Christian slaves.

A core truth of Christianity that is continuously conspired against and denied is that one can be both a Christian and a slave; however, this requires the conscious, honest acknowledgment that one is indeed a slave; that one cannot overcome the external slavery of society or any other external force or internal failing, but remains committed to following Jesus into eternal life despite everything.

Being a Christian slave also entails repentance and a commitment to practicing and living the Good, regardless of how constricted and restricted this practicing and living may be.

Berdyaev's insight about freedom presupposing superable resistance reveals much -- primarily that a Christian can remain free even when his resistance to the external crumbles or is conquered, implying that freedom must be anchored in something beyond mere resistance.

Freedom from may be conquered; freedom for is always unconquerable.

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A Truly Overwhelming Thought

9/16/2023

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Sometimes I get this notion that I would be quite content in eternal life if I were to experience only half the love I have experienced thus far in mortal life.

But then I remember that love in eternal life is infinitely more abundant, deeper, higher, and purer -- and the thought of such love overwhelms me, to the point that I feel my heart may rupture from the sheer beauty of it all.

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One Tough Toad

9/15/2023

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There is this toad that lives in one of my sheds. I first noticed it in the early morning about two months ago when it hopped inside the shed and hid behind a pile of junk. That same evening, I saw it emerge just after sundown.

The next morning before sunrise, it returned to the shed and hid in the same place it had occupied the night before. I keep the door of that particular shed open year-round, and the toad had figured out that it could come and go as it pleased without much interference from me.

I caught sight of the toad throughout the summer months, always leaving the shed at twilight and returning just before dawn. Thankfully, my cat has not found the toad’s comings and goings as interesting as the comings and goings of the mice and voles that live in the yard, the sheds, and the henhouse. Like me, she sometimes spots it exiting the shed in the evening or entering in the morning, but the most she has ever done is give it a playful swat or nudge.

As for me, I have fallen into the habit of wishing the toad a good morning or evening when I encounter it and have been extra careful whenever I step into the shed or move anything inside, at least until yesterday morning, when I entered before daybreak and experienced the awkward sensation of having stepped on something soft and squishy.

I lifted my foot immediately and, wincing, clicked on the light. It had been the toad alright. It writhed on the floor for a few seconds and then, to my unmitigated surprise and relief, hopped off and concealed itself in the pile of odds and ends it called home. I examined where my foot had fallen but noticed no blood or other fluid staining the floor, which struck me as odd since I had inadvertently pressed about half of my body weight down upon the toad.

Palming the flashlight on the nearby shelf, I knelt and illuminated the toad’s little lair. Half-expecting something gruesome, I was cheered to see the toad simply staring out at me from the circle of blinding light. I clicked the flashlight off and left the shed feeling somewhat comforted. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I must have injured the toad, and quite seriously, too, if nowhere else, then internally, by crushing some vital organ.

The ambivalence plagued me for the better part of the day. At times, I wondered why I was even worrying about the well-being of a toad, but the creature had become a part of my summer landscape, and I had grown fond of it. Its comings and goings had been as reliable and faithful as the sun's movements. I arrived home late that evening and, still fearing the worst, could not find it within myself to visit the shed.

The next morning before sunrise, I stepped outside with a mug of coffee and looked toward the shed. In the dawn’s dull light, I made out the toad’s form hopping through the grass toward the building. I stepped closer and leaned forward. There was no doubt about it; it was the same toad. It paid me no attention as it entered the shed and took its usual place beneath the pile of clutter.

The force I had pressed down upon that unsuspecting toad had been enough to crack a walnut, but it is carrying on as if the accident had never happened.

Not only is it intact, but it appears completely unscathed. I don’t know what to say other than that is one tough toad, and I would consider it a tremendous honor if it chose to overwinter in that shed of mine.

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That's a Lot of Souls

9/13/2023

13 Comments

People assume that the earth's current population exceeds the number of people who have ever lived in the past, but this may be far from accurate.

According to a group called the Population Reference Bureau, "about 117 billion births have taken place since 190,000 BCE, far outnumbering the 8 billion people who are alive today."

117 billion. That is a lot of people and a lot of incarnated souls.

So how did PRB arrive at this conclusion?

Well, it "used population estimates from various points in history and prehistory and applied an assumed birth rate (which got lower over time, to reflect the declining birth rate). The method gave a rough estimate of the number of births . . ."

Moreover, PRB claims that 117 billion may be a gross underestimation, and if they were to revisit and revise their figures, they would likely increase the 117 billion to, well, who knows?

PRB’s methods sound like they come straight from “the science,” and the organization is all about helping to "build climate resilience", so color me skeptical when it comes to the 117+ billion figure.

Still, the notion that the people who have ever lived on earth since 190,000 B.C. outnumbers our current population of eight billion makes sense to me.

Granted, the vast majority of those people did not make it past the age of five, but they were born, and they did live, so they do count.

I don’t think we can ever truly know how many people lived and died in the world in the past 200,000 years, but I think we can safely say that number easily surpasses eight billion, which means this world of ours has hosted a lot of souls through the ages.

And if you believe in God and Creation, as I do, then each one of those souls came into the world for a specific spiritual purpose. Anyway you estimate it, that’s a lot of souls and a lot of specific spiritual purposes.

13 Comments

Certain Dimensions of Thought and Creativity Are No Longer Attainable

9/12/2023

4 Comments

The literary critic/philosopher/novelist George Steiner once noted that “where God's presence is no longer a tenable supposition and where His absence is no longer a felt, indeed overwhelming weight, certain dimensions of thought and creativity are no longer attainable.”

I appreciate where Steiner -- George, not Rudolf -- is coming from with this line of thinking.

The unattainable dimensions of thought to which Steiner alludes are most glaring in the arts, particularly poetry. I have this personal theory that the novel maximized the creative space between man and God, and it did so in a positive rather than a negative sense – at least for a while. This no longer holds true for the most part.

At the same time, this creative chasm between man and God proved too great for poetry. Though some good poetry still existed in the mid-twentieth century, the creative space-separation became too strained to be tenable, and poetry basically collapsed.

The arts aside, unattainable dimensions of thought and creativity are now ubiquitous in all areas of human life. Ironically enough, these are most pronounced in spiritual and religious thinking, which virtually lack all semblance of creativity today.

I would argue that the "certain" dimensions of thought and creativity Steiner refers to depend on much more than God being a tenable supposition or the deep feeling (or not feeling) of God's absence as an overwhelming weight.

The dimensions of thought and creativity Steiner mentions are attainable once man understands that the overwhelming absence pressing down on Creation emanates from himself, not God.

And this absence can only be filled by man making the unattainable attainable via thinking and creativity.

God is there. Man isn't.

God is waiting, patiently for a creative answer to His call. Man continues to insist on being absent in Creation.

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