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Metaphysical Assumptions Must Be Assumed

10/31/2023

Metaphysical assumptions are beliefs about the fundamental nature of reality. Metaphysics deals with ideas, doctrines, or an asserted reality that lies beyond the sense perception of humans.

As such, metaphysical assumptions cannot be proven through the objective or empirical study of material reality. Instead, they rely on the acceptance of ideas and beliefs as true, albeit without proof.

Empirical science has yet to succeed in proving the existence of the spiritual. At the same time, empirical science cannot disprove the spiritual. Hence, belief in the spiritual exists in the realm of assumptions – in things that are accepted as true without being proven as such at the material level of the senses.

The metaphysics part is the hope that these unproven beliefs are not merely fantastic notions or pipe dreams but reach all the way down to the fundamental nature of reality, thereby explaining or fleshing out aspects of reality that extend beyond the reaches and capacities of empirical study.

An empirical study of the universe can formulate the idea of the Big Bang, but it offers little to explain the overarching purpose or meaning of the Big Bang.

In light of this, all serious metaphysical assumptions require assumption; that is, all individuals holding such assumptions must take them on and shoulder personal responsibility for them.

Metaphysical assumptions cannot be assumed in a “take for granted” sense; they must be assumed in a “taken on” sense -- assuming responsibility -- complete with the willingness to regard them as a personal duty by which one structures, approaches, and lives life.

To know our metaphysical assumptions is to live by them and to live by our metaphysical assumptions is to know them.

Such assumptions require choice, and choice relies on motivation.

An honest appraisal of the motivations behind one’s choices is the first step toward “knowing” the truth of one’s metaphysical assumptions.

Claiming that one has no choice in such matters or that motivation is of little consequence in metaphysics should be taken as signs that inevitably point to the presence of seriously flawed or false metaphysical assumptions, regardless of the supposed authority from which such assumptions arise.

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The Only Point About Other People’s False Assumptions Is What They Can Teach Us About Our Own

10/30/2023

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To reflect upon the delusions of civilization cannot, of course, serve any other useful purpose than to help us detect our own delusions which we acquired unawares in school and from books, magazines, television or while necking at the movies. There is nothing any of us could possibly do about the chaotic mental condition of mankind; so the only point about other people’s false assumptions is what they can teach us about our own.

This excerpt from Stephen Vizinczey’s The Rules of Chaos provides a pointed reminder about discerning false assumptions, delusions, and general stupidity in others. If such discernment does little more than make us feel good about our own intelligence, then we have not penetrated deeply enough into the genuine point of recognizing false assumptions. I'm not sure about this being the only point, but it is a big one.

We often interpret our discernment of false assumptions and stupidity in others as confirmation of our own sagacity and wisdom when we ought to use such moments of clarity, understanding, and acuity to determine what they might contribute to revealing about our own lingering false assumptions, delusions, and stupidity – and then learning from this and taking responsibility for this learning.

Indeed, the ability to learn from the follies of others to recognize one’s own is another vital element of intelligence. Without this ability, one cannot hope to become as bright as one’s capacities would otherwise allow. The difficulty is that most of us tend to assume that seeing through someone else’s stupidity is proof of our own wisdom.

Vizinczey was an avowed atheist of the “could no longer bring himself to follow the hypocrisy of organized religion” variety. Rather than explore the possibility of believing in God beyond the context of churches and organized religion, Vizinczey chose the well-trodden path of the mid-to-late twentieth-century freethinking artist/intellectual. His motivations for doing so are likely complex, but I suppose they come down to simply going with the twentieth-century flow of secularization and despiritualization in the West.

Vizinczey offers some interesting points and insights, and I consider him an intelligent, albeit limited, writer. His motivations are often blurred, yet I believe he was essentially writing and thinking from a “good place,” or at least as good a place he could occupy given his materialism.

Having said that, I firmly believe that his metaphysical assumptions are false. The trick now is avoiding feelings of superiority and figuring out what this discernment may reveal about my metaphysical assumptions.

Lately, I have been doing the same with nearly all the nineteenth and twentieth-century writers and thinkers I have read or encountered, to say nothing of the endless parade of civilizational delusions we have all endured since 2020.

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A Couple of Quick Climate Crisis Questions

10/28/2023

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Anyone happen to know what the carbon footprint of an average bomb or missile happens to be?

I only ask because a lot of them have exploded over the past two years or so, and I suspect all of them have negatively affected the environment, to say nothing of their impact on global warming.

So . . . how are we supposed to meet our climate targets if we keep blowing things up?

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Evil's Empty Promise of Providing Safety in a Structurally Unsafe World

10/28/2023

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At the height of the birdemic, when the peck campaign was ramping up, governments and global institutions opted to employ the old if it can save even one life, then it’s worth it argument, which ranks among the most fallacious and lamest lines of argumentation said powers frequently utilize.

The “logic” behind no one is safe until everyone is safe was both simple and underhanded.

Locking down the world and pecking every human on the planet was promoted as an effective – nay desirable – course of action even if such a course succeeded in saving just one human life.

Supporting this deceitful line of reasoning was the equally deceptive lie that those in power care about protecting and saving human life.

The falsehood that those in power care about human life is now ubiquitous and undeniable. The whiplash, schizophrenic manner in which the world’s rulers and the masses have shifted from wanting to protect every single life to declaring open war on everyone and everything is a staggering thing to behold, at least to those who remain untethered to mainstream narratives about terrorists, brutes, animals, defenders, aggressors, and so forth.

The world has jarringly shifted from the ominous undertones of no one is safe until everyone is safe to the shrieking cacophony of no one is safe until everybody else dies. All this in the span of about two years.

The inclusion of the safe aspect in both mantras is far too conspicuous to escape comment, and for this I turn once again to Stephen Vizinczey, who offers the following observation in The Rules of Chaos:

Our most dangerous emotion isn’t a thirst for blood but such a seemingly innocent feeling as the desire to feel safe, to be reassured.

Ever since the time of Herod, grown men have been massacring children, not out of cruelty but in order to feel more secure.

As the chaotic world can offer us anything except safety, our longing for security is a longing for incomprehension – the inspiration for every kind of delusion and mad behavior.

Unlike Vizinczey, I don’t view the world as chaotic, but his thoughts on the yearning for safety hit the mark (though I question the cruelty part).

Sadly, the powers aligned against God and Creation continue to exploit this seemingly universal longing for safety in a structurally unsafe world with remarkable ease and effectiveness.

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This Sort of Thing Used to Trouble Me, But I Now See the Upside

10/26/2023

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From a site called National Catholic Reporter, which I had never visited before:

Census records a 30% drop in Hungary's Catholic population

A recent official census of religious identity in Hungary offered bad news for those concerned with the future of Christianity in Central Europe.

For the first time, a majority of Hungarians (56.6%) failed to declare membership in a faith tradition, with 16.5% declaring "no religion" and a further 40.1% choosing not to answer the question at all.

While all the country's main denominations were hit badly, results for the Roman Catholic Church, historically the nation's majority tradition, were worst of all — a drop of 1.1 million (nearly 30%), compared to 2011. The numbers went from an estimated 3.69 million people identifying as Catholics in 2011 to 2.6 million today.

Combined with a smaller loss between 2001 and 2011, Hungary's Catholic population has shrunk an astounding 50% this century, to just 27.5% of the population.

Like all Hungarian citizens, I was essentially forced to participate in the national census mentioned above on pain of severe financial penalty, and I was among those who chose not to answer the membership of a faith tradition question. I provided no answers to any optional questions and provided “potentially misleading” answers to quite a few of the mandatory, non-religious questions.

So, why did nearly half of all Hungarian citizens choose not to answer the question at all?

However, the dramatic rise in non-response (more than non-belief) to the survey has caused some commentators to wonder if immediate problems in Hungary's faith communities may have contributed.

I humbly suggest that said commentators stop wondering and start reflecting on things like the 2020 church closures, inessential religious services, and Orban’s annual drone cross spectacle.

"Sociologists of religion aren't at all surprised by these [census] results. Our surveys have been indicating this outcome for some time. Unfortunately, our warnings weren't heeded by either state authorities or the leadership of the various churches," retired university professor István Kamarás told NCR.

"It seems quite likely that some of the non-respondents expressed their criticism of the government and the church leaderships by skipping the religion question — though we'd need separate research to be sure," said Kamarás, retired chair of the Department of Anthropology and Ethics at Veszprém University.

I’ll save the time and effort the research would require by saying, yes, some of the respondents certainly expressed their criticism of the government and church leadership by skipping the religious question.

Moreover, I would hope some of the respondents took the non-response even further and began focusing on something beyond freedom from church and government corruption, convergence, and coercion and perhaps, just perhaps, began focusing on some freedom for aspects of being a Christian.

The academic is wary of asserting that anger with the government has driven church decline but observes: "What we can say with confidence is that in Hungary, high levels of government material and symbolic support for religion in the name of political Christianity has been spectacularly ineffective."

Aw, come on, now. Rod Dreher loved the drone cross!

"I believe this is a conscious protest by believers," she told NCR. "After all, 40% of the population didn't respond to the question on religious affiliation. Among them, there must be many faithful Catholics who've completely turned away from their church, but not their faith, in the last decade."

If there is any truth to this, I welcome it because I believe the future of Christianity lies outwith organized, institutional Christianity, regardless of the flavor or the tradition.

Where do I stand on all of this personally? Well, I haven't completely turned away from the church in my small village, but that decision has nothing to do with being on board with the Church or any other form of insitutional Christianity. In that sense, I suppose I qualify as the sort of Christian who has turned away from their church but not their faith, and I welcome the idea that there may a few others like me in this country.

Anyway, Catholic theologian Rita Perentfavi continues:

This, Perentfavi said, is "because they're in a serious identity crisis … they cannot identify with a church that has completely turned away from Gospel values by working so closely with [Orbán]."

Working with Orbán is a problem, but it is the least of the Catholic Church’s worries at the moment. I mean, the headline story on National Catholic Reporter today describes the Pope’s recent positive meeting with a nun who is also a passionate Qwerty-people advocate.

Perentfavi, a Hungarian who is a researcher in Old Testament studies at Graz University in Austria, lays particular blame on the example of Hungarian Cardinal Péter Erdő, who has led the Archdiocese of Esztergom-Budapest since 2003 and is sometimes seen by supporters abroad as a possible conservative successor to Francis.

As a brief aside, I found this paragraph interesting for non-religious reasons. Like any Hungarian with brains, Perentfavi works in Austria or somewhere else in Western Europe to escape the ridiculously low wages here in Hungary. Good on her. I did the same for five years – at least part-time – until the Austrians canned me for refusing the peck. I hope Perentfavi refused the peck and didn’t buckle under Austria’s ruthless yet short-lived “ve haf vays of getting you pecked” mandatory peck campaign, but somehow, I doubt it.

"This kind of institutional failure, the loss of about 30% of Catholic believers in a decade, has inevitably to be seen in significant part as the responsibility of that institution's number one leader," she said. "In our case that's Péter Erdő."

Church leadership is certainly to blame, but I believe there is more going on. Serious Christians are choosing to take personal responsibility for their faith, salvation, and theosis rather than leave it all in the hands of bureaucrats. I believe this decline would be apparent even if churches had stellar leadership or clergy.

A radical rethinking of the church's approach to either the government or its pastoral strategy seems unlikely based on the hierarchy's initial response to the census results.

Well, of course, it’s unlikely! It all comes down to honesty and motivation, doesn’t it? Maybe some Catholics have figured out that they don’t need to obey or submit to corrupt churches and governments to be Christians. Nay, more to the point to say that some Catholics understand that disobeying and not submitting to corrupt churches and governments is the only way to remain truly Christian.

An official statement from Hungary's Catholic bishops commenting on the census expressed pleasure in noting that "more than two-thirds of our fellow citizens who stated religious affiliation declared themselves to belong to the Catholic Church" but noted that regrettably “international trends can also be observed in the census data, and our country is no exception.”

I have to tip my hat to the Catholic bishops’ epic positive spin here. If only three Hungarian citizens in the entire country had stated religious affiliation, the bishops would still be pleased to know that at least two declared themselves to be Catholic!

Perentfalvi is pessimistic about the chances for longer-term change. "Unfortunately, I fear this shocking result won't sober the leaders of the Catholic Church … the church's entire financing is in the hands of the government, it is in a straitjacketed, completely dependent position," she said.

Makes one wonder in whose hands the entire financing of the government is, doesn’t it? Ah, but we already know the answer to that one.

There was a time when I found articles like this demoralizing and depressing, but they now have the opposite effect on me because they energize my hopes about the continued emergence of a more authentic form of Christianity – the sort of Christianity that Berdyaev describes in the following manner:

We are entering an epoch of a new spirituality, that will correspond to the new form of mysticism. It will no longer be possible to argue against a heightened spiritual and mystical life that human nature is sinful and that sin must first be overcome.

A heightened spiritual and mystical life is the road to the victory over sin. And the world is entering a catastrophic period of choice and division, when these will be required of all Christians, an uplifting and intensification of their inner lives.

The external, everyday, moderate Christianity is breaking up. But eternal, inward, mystical Christianity is becoming stronger and better established.

And within mysticism itself, a 'paraclete' type is beginning to predominate.

The epoch of new spirituality in Christianity can only be an epoch of a great and hitherto unheard-of manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

I refer to this sort of Christianity as Romantic Christianity, but the name is unimportant.

What is important is that eternal, inward, mystical Christianity becomes stronger and better established.

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Power Weakens as It Grows. Sure, But Chance Offers No Meaning For Why This Is So

10/24/2023

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The second rule from Stephen Vizinczey’s philosophical sojourn, The Rules of Chaos is -- power weakens as it grows.

At first glance, such a declaration appears antithetical, but when we consider that the “space” in which power grows involves time and place, the notion begins to make sense, at least from a purely material perspective. Vizinczey playfully outlines his rule in the following way:

As there is no time without place and no place without time, the extension of either will extend both, thus increasing the interference of chance in our affairs.

The convergence of
otherwise unrelated = time + place = chance
events

TIME + PLACE = CHANCE

The number of possible and actual occurrences increases with time, so that the extension of time alone will involve progressively more people and events over a wider area – in short, will involve an extension of place.

Vizinczey posits that this combination of expanding time and place also expands chance. To illustrate his point, he uses the example of a thief breaking into a house, pointing a gun at the homeowner’s face, and demanding loose cash and other valuables. The space involved is initially confined to a room within the house, but the house belongs to a world that is in perpetual flux and is also involved with the house in some way or other.

As time passes, the relevance of the outside world and its potential interference in terms of time and place increases. In that first minute, the thief can safely assume that no one else will phone or drop by the house, but as time spreads – and Vizinczey insists that time spreads rather than flows – the probability of one of the homeowner’s friends calling, or the gas man appearing, or another family member returning increase. In this sense, the room in which the thief and homeowner stand also expands.

The burglar understands that the biggest obstacle to his success is not the homeowner but the situation, which is the combination of time + place. Thus, his primary motivation is to limit the situation by minimizing both time and place, thereby limiting the expansion of chance. He can accomplish this by grabbing the loot within minutes and leaving the house as quickly as possible.

The last thing the thief wants is to prolong the situation – that is, extend time or place. The longer it takes him to achieve his objective, the more the room expands into the outside world, and the greater the chance of the outside world coming in-between him and his goal.

In a nutshell, Vizinczey argues that time + place (situation) inevitably weaken power because they increase chance. To support his point, he uses the following examples, “My chances of getting myself a glass of water are greater than my chances of bringing ten thousand people to turn on the tap. The greater the scope of one’s activity (that is, the greater one’s power) the less is one’s ability to influence events.”

Put another way, “Power involves its lucky possessors in ever-expanding situations over which they can exercise ever-decreasing control.”

As I stated at the beginning of the post, all of this makes a lot of sense, at least from a purely materialist perspective, but as with all purely materialist perspectives, it falls short on finding meaning. Everything is just random flux. The more time and space the flux is given, the more random and “chancier” it becomes.

As entertaining and convincing as all of this may be, believing in this sort of pure randomness and chance adds little in the way of meaning, especially within the context of power. It also denies God’s overarching creative purposes and activity, to say nothing of our own overarching purposes and innate spiritual creativity.

Replace the random flux and situations with Beings interacting, relating, and creating, add generous portions of freedom and agency, set this against the inherent entropy of the world and Jesus’s offer of resurrection to eternal life, and “situations” suddenly become far more meaningful, to say nothing of the observation that power weakens as it grows.

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Looking Inside Is Not Enough; Some Random Thoughts on Vizinczey's The Rules of Chaos

10/23/2023

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Stephen Vizinczey ranks among twentieth-century writers likely to fade into obscurity. Saying such provides no pleasure. It simply is what it is.

Our twenty-first-century milieu is partially to blame for this, as is Vizinczey’s stubborn mania for literary perfection, which all but congealed his creativity after the publication of An Innocent Millionaire, leaving him obsessing over his final novel, Three Wishes, which he eventually self-published as If Only.

That final novel – which Vizinczey declared his ultimate masterpiece – consumed the last third of his life, and he published virtually nothing else during that time.

The book was a major flop. The few reviews it did garner were scathing and ruthless. After I read the novel, I found myself marveling at the aptness of the title for all the wrong reasons. If only Vizinczey had abandoned the stillborn narrative instead of obsessing over it decade after decade. If only he had decided against publishing it. If only he had focused his creativity on something else. If only. If only.

Sharp criticism. Sure, I suppose, yet I remain one of Vizinczey’s most steadfast admirers.

Vizinczey is most famous for his self-published 1965 novel In Praise of Older Women, which challenged the “values” of the sexual revolution by boldly asserting that older women made for better lovers than young ones. That shocking assertion was enough to put Vizinczey on the literary map. It didn’t hurt that he was also a capable writer imbued with the skill of his most prominent influences, including Stendhal, Balzac, von Kleist, and Dostoevsky.

I consider his second novel, An Innocent Millionaire, his masterpiece. In addition to his novels, he published two non-fiction works – Truth and Lies in Literature and The Rules of Chaos. The former is a collection of his shorter pieces and essays that appeared in newspapers and magazines, while the latter could be called an outline of Vizinczey’s philosophy of life.

Vizinczey was one of those avowed atheists who enjoyed visiting churches, and The Rules of Chaos is one of those atheist-type works that hits upon many engaging metaphysical insights, albeit from a foundation of errant, limited, and misguided metaphysics.

The overarching movement of Vizinczey’s philosophical detour can be reduced to two essential propositions. The first resides in the book’s second title, Why Tomorrow Doesn’t Work; the second rests in the seemingly counterintuitive and antithetical assertion that power weakens as it grows.

Vizinczey’s major premise for both propositions rests upon the belief that “the decisive cause of every event is chance”, and it is through this that he presents his arguments concerning individual morality and freedom via the motif that the future is a blinding mirage:

We are confused, we often don’t know how to feel, what to do, because we’re looking for clues in the wrong place – in the place where there is nothing, neither air nor sunshine, in the place of tomorrow which does not yet exist.

The results of our feelings and our actions are unknown to us. We have our expectations, of course, but whether these expectations are to be fulfilled or proven wrong in the unforeseeable future, they are only fantasies at the present.

To decide what to do, we ought to try to resist the guidance of our guesses. The only way to cope with reality is to rely on what is real, and there is nothing so real in this world as your own being.

Those who cry “look ahead!” are fools, con men, or murderers who want us to stare into a vacuum until we start hallucinating.

The true password is “look inside!”

When I read insightful passages like this, I can’t help but wonder what inspired Vizinczey’s love for visiting churches. What was he looking for when he saw the light streaming through the stained-glass window of some sixteenth-century cathedral?

More importantly, what did he see? Most importantly, what did he think? Was he merely admiring the art and the architecture, or was he probing in the hope of discovering something more?

As pure conjecture, I would say visiting a church provided Vizinczey the opportunity to look inside, but he could not bring himself to see anything beyond randomness and chance.

Vizinczey is right when he says there is nothing more real in this world than our being, but he provides no meaningful insight into the true nature of our being.

Likewise in his declaration that we shouldn't look for clues in the future because it does not exist. He quite rightly states that understanding reality necessitates relying on what is real - the present - but how real is the present if one rejects God, Creation, or one’s own spiritual nature?

What does one hope to see when one turns away from the future and looks inside?

Vizinczey provides no satisfying answers to such questions. How could he?

Save for a few painful excerpts that barely rise above unadulterated positivism and a cringe-inducing examination of Eugene McCarthy, The Rules of Chaos remains an engaging read despite being very much a product of its time.

I’ll return to some of the themes in future posts because I find books like The Rules of Chaos engaging from a "fill in the blanks" perspective. That is, they provide many insights that ultimately require extensive fleshing out.

In the meantime, if only, Vizinczey – if only . . .

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Sometimes the Study Is Better Than the Painting

10/21/2023

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During my recent visit to the Vatican Museum, I came across a Salvador Dali painting that struck me as familiar even though I had never seen it before. Called Crocifisso, the painting depicts the crucifixion with the notable absence of the cross.

Two other figures brandishing weapons employed during the Passion appear in the somber and minimalistic background. The figure on the left holds the rod struck Jesus – the same rod later placed mockingly in His hand as a scepter, while the mounted figure on the right brandishes the lance that pierced Jesus.

Despite the presence of these weapons, Jesus’s body shows no signs of injury or abuse. The nail marks on the hands and feet are absent, as is the crown of thorns. Jesus is turned away from the viewer, leaving His face unseen.

The painting is housed in one of the only parts of the Vatican Museum that does not perpetually throng with teeming masses of people, which allowed me to study the image for a while before moving on.

In that brief time, I concluded that I liked Dali’s representation of an unmutilated Christ crucified in empty space because the absence of the cross invited me to think and perceive the crucifixion from entirely new and unexplored perspectives. At the same time, I could not shake the feeling that I had seen this image somewhere before.

Shortly after arriving home, I discovered the source of my familiarity with Crocifisso. The image is a study for Dali’s famous Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus), which I had seen more than a decade ago in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

While viewing Crucifixion, I learned that Dali had painted the work under the sway of something he referred to as nuclear mysticism and that he chose to replace the cross with a four-dimensional geometic structure known as a tesseract or (hypercube) to symbolize the transcendent nature of God. I also discovered that Dali incorporated his wife into the painting as Mary Magdelene and planted five images of his wife in Christ’s left knee and five images of himself in His right knee.

I distinctly remember not liking Dali’s Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) all that much, which makes my esteem for the minimalistic study for that painting all the more puzzling.

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Van Gogh and the Aliveness of Creation

10/19/2023

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Some comments on my short post on Van Gogh's Pieta yesterday have inspired me to reflect upon the artist and his supposed greatness.

Van Gogh's Pieta is not a great painting, and it definitely is not an example of a superior pieta. Much of Van Gogh's other paintings, particularly his early work, are equally unimaginative and lacklustre. However, I consider some -- especially the ones he painted shortly before his death -- to be masterpieces.

In some of his paintings, Van Gogh succeeeded in capturing and conveying the aliveness of Creation. Everything he depicts on his canvases in such paintings -- the sky, the stars, trees, animals, plants, rocks, hills, fields, buildings, entire landscapes -- teems and overflows with life, and Van Gogh triumphantly manages to portray the dynamism and energy of Beings intersecting and interacting in Creation. Everything swirls and flows and moves and relates in dizzying yet somehow serene kaleidescopic beauty.

Thus, I am unsure how great a painter Van Gogh really was, but I consider some of his paintings to be truly great.

Note: Van Gogh was also diagnosed with "acute mania and generalized delerium" when he created the paintings below (1888-1890). Pieta was also painted during this time.

The Starry Night - 1889

Wheat Field with Cypresses - 1889

Starry Night Over the Rhone - 1888

Cafe Terrace at Night - 1888

Wheat Field with Crows - 1890

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I Did Not Know That Van Gogh Painted a Pieta

10/18/2023

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As noted earlier on this blog, I have a soft spot for pieta depictions in art. As a result, I have familiarized myself with many pietas, including Michelangelo's iconic pieta sculpture, housed in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Unfortunately, I could not access the basilica during my recent visit to the Vatican and missed seeing the sculpture in "real life."

However, as consolation, I did stumble upon Van Gogh's version of the pieta, tucked away in a small room near the exit of the Vatican Museum.

The discovery was memorable because I had been ignorant of Van Gogh's pieta before coming across it quite unexpectedly near the end of my museum visit.

Pieta - Vincent Van Gogh - 1889

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