The True Rot of the Culture War

 

As he (Jesus) was returning to the city at daybreak, he was hungry: and, seeing a fig-tree by the road-side, he went up to it, and found nothing but leaves on it. And he said to it, Let no fruit ever grow on thee hereafter; whereupon the tree withered away. Matthew 21: 18-19

I've told this story a few times on this blog, but it bears repeating. When I was a kid I learned that Benny Urqidez, one of the greatest fighters to ever live, had claimed that the spinning back kick was the most powerful move in martial arts, by the biomechanics. Me being the perennial smartass I was I asked my sifu Deano what the most powerful move was. He smiled at me, knowing I'd borrowed the book where Benny Urqidez had said that, and told me "Whatever knocks your opponent out. That's the strongest move". When I tried to argue about the biomechanics of particular moves Deano laughed at me: "If you knock a guy out with a spinning back kick and I knock out a guy with a bottle to the head we both used the strongest move, because the goal of all moves is to knock your opponent out." Deano taught me possibly the most important lesson of my life: what you are doing, right now, right in front of you, is the most important thing in the world. Not what you want to be doing five years from now, not whether or not it lives up to some weirdo abstract principle that sounds nice but you can't do anything with it. 

A few years ago one of those truly deep friendships you hardly ever find died. There were a lot of warning signs, of course, but the one that I knew at the time to be bad, possibly beyond repair, was when he called me a centrist. That may sound like a silly thing, but two seconds of this blog or actually talking to me will reveal it is impossible for me to be a centrist; it is constitutionally impossible for me to take a moderate position. He made this claim because I had loudly proclaimed that I couldn’t vote at all for any of the candidates in the 2016 US election, due to a lack of any suitable candidates. He claimed I was making a centrist position. And honestly at the time I didn’t make a good argument against him, beyond a wild gesticulation at my own temperament. If the accusation happened now I’d probably say that there was an underlying unity to left and right I sensed. I couldn’t pin it down, I didn’t understand why I felt that way, but I felt the entire game was rigged. And until I understood the game and how it worked I didn’t care to play into someone else’s hands; incomplete information always makes one a sucker.

But sure, that made me a centrist. 

Years went by, and I watched the world turn to madness around me. Labels were thrown around, people rioted and were either ignored or harshly treated, and propaganda (known as the news “being more politicized”) increased a hundredfold. I most definitely sympathize right more than left, and still do… but something held me back. Something seemed wrong and I kept trying to question the debate in the first place. This created some waves, so that the former friend said in a a fit of sheer cowardice: “You have to stop thinking sometime.” It was a statement that chilled me to my soul. I couldn’t say why it did, but the whole time there was a nagging feeling we were all asking the wrong questions, moving too quickly to be genuinely doing any good at all. Even when I started to get more comfortable with some political ideas, specifically the distant right (also known as neo-reactionaries) something still felt wrong. It frustrated me greatly, but I felt the questions that led me to The Distributist and Curtis Yarvin were wrong. As much as I appreciated the distant right I felt something was backwards… and the Distributist’s critiques of the distant right confirmed it. So I waited. I got sick of waiting, but honestly most of my former friends had made such complete jackasses of themselves that I held the course out of fear of cessation of thought. 

And then I read The Book of the New Sun, and stumbled upon the following passage:

"When a client (torture victim, note by blogger) is driven to the utmost extremity, it is warmth and food and ease from pain he wants. Peace and justice come afterward. Rain symbolizes mercy and sunlight charity, but rain and sunlight are better than mercy and charity. Otherwise they would degrade the things they symbolize." 

This passage stopped me dead. A lot of leftist complaints are about the poor and the marginalized, and the right's response is usually with ideas... but you know where it stays? A conversation. Symbols remain the center of the conversation. You wanna know why I say symbols stay the center? Because I'm not hearing about a sudden influx of charity work from everyone. No, I didn't say from organizations, I mean individuals. But something still hadn't clicked, and I've been trying to put the last pieces together. A lot of my friends from college had completely fallen into one of two extreme symbolic camps. Deano's words came back to me: the goal is to knock the opponent out, not do something that's technically correct. Thought follows life to improve it, life is not dictated by thought.

And Christianity, real Christianity, agrees with this sentiment.The Last Judgment (Matthew 25: 31-46) reads thusly:

31 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit down upon the throne of his glory,

32 and all nations will be gathered in his presence, where he will divide men one from the other, as the shepherd divides the sheep from the goats;

33 he will set the sheep on his right, and the goats on his left.

34 Then the King will say to those who are on his right hand, Come, you that have received a blessing from my Father, take possession of the kingdom which has been prepared for you since the foundation of the world.

35 For I was hungry, and you gave me food, thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you brought me home,

36 naked, and you clothed me, sick, and you cared for me, a prisoner, and you came to me.

37 Whereupon the just will answer, Lord, when was it that we saw thee hungry, and fed thee, or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When was it that we saw thee a stranger, and brought thee home, or naked, and clothed thee?

39 When was it that we saw thee sick or in prison and came to thee?

40 And the King will answer them, Believe me, when you did it to one of the least of my brethren here, you did it to me.

41 Then he will say to those who are on his left hand, in their turn, Go far from me, you that are accursed, into that eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.

42 For I was hungry, and you never gave me food, I was thirsty, and you never gave me drink;

43 I was a stranger, and you did not bring me home, I was naked, and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison, and you did not care for me.

44 Whereupon they, in their turn, will answer, Lord, when was it that we saw thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to thee?

45 And he will answer them, Believe me, when you refused it to one of the least of my brethren here, you refused it to me.

46 And these shall pass on to eternal punishment, and the just to eternal life.

Notice what Christ says! He does not ask what doctrine you profess, because doctrine follows your life, not the other way around. If you live according to this Final Judgment criteria you will meet Christ and know Him as the source of your goodness at the end. Notice that the criteria does not say "did you start a charity? An organization to get others to help the less fortunate? Did you write a blog about how people need to get off their asses to help the poor?" It is an individual thing: did you or did you not do this, personally, as often as you could (or even more than you could) during your life?" And notice that the answer is black or white: did you or did you not personally do this. These actions tell you what's in your heart, because what's in the heart will manifest itself.

I've been pondering the above for awhile, but have been unable to really make much of a break-through... until (surprise!) The Gulag Archipelago, when I came acrost the following passage:

The term political consciousness really got me. See, it's a verifiable fact that anyone with a "Western" consciousness changed post-WWI. We got the notes, the journals, the poems of poets mourning a sudden lack of moral fiber, all commenting on a lack of strength that seemingly vanished overnight. We live in the wake of a great public disaster and have seemingly forgotten it happened. There was once a time where there was a cultural consciousness where Christianity, where religion, was a thing that you did. And the true measure of religion? Well, James 1:27 sure puts it bluntly, don't it?

If he is to offer service pure and unblemished in the sight of God, who is our Father, he must take care of orphans and widows in their need, and keep himself untainted by the world.

Political consciousness is a term putting the importance of the abstract above the concrete, the symbol over the thing that gives the symbol any meaning at all. Symbols, important as they are, will always be lower than the thing they represent. Christ does not ask in that Last Judgment if you believed in a Triune God, or whether or not you believe in gay marriage or whatever. Those things are important, but they're important because they fully unlock your potential as a human being, one that takes care of those less fortunate than you and who seeks out those less fortunate to help. Truth, real truth, makes you concretely better, in this world. 

And for those of you who are wondering what the "untainted" word means, the original Greek seems to be referenced frequently with "keeping the commandments". As in, the 10 Commandments and The Sermon on the Mount. So concrete actions in the world. You're asked to not hate on your parents, you're told that suffering for being kind isn't something to fear, etc. Notice it's not a freaking commandment to not play Pokemon or read Harry Potter. Con. Crete. Actions. People. What you do will change what's in your head.

The culture war distracts from this most important of things, the care of those less fortunate personally. Mindlessly quoting the Fathers to support your own sense of superiority is a distraction from caring for the less fortunate personally. True religion is caring for the less fortunate, personally, and doing it as often as you can. Only Christianity allows you to do this at max strength. You won't find it anywhere else. Not in the old pagan religions, where man was but a shade of a plaything for the gods, not in the "Enlightenment" where man is a rational animal that is responsible for all his suffering because he made a mistake, not in the new post-Soviet woke ideology where no one is responsible for any of their suffering. Christianity does not blame. It merely tells you to help, even if it makes you look like an idiot. Cause it will.

You're a materialist, like all ignorant people. But your materialism doesn't make materialism true. Don't you know that? In the final summing up, it is spirit and dream,thought and love and act that matter. -Book of the New Sun

I'm not gonna lie, folks, writing this was hard. I lost a lot more friends in the 2016 election than I care to admit, and many more went away because of the madness that was COVID and 2020. I don't think I ever really moved on. A part of me wants to pick this phenomena apart beyond what's healthy, to perseverate and ask "What happened? What could I have done differently?" But ultimately that's a trap. I can't undo what happened then. I can't make my former friends what I thought they were, what I wanted them to be.

But is that what God wants for me?

No.

God wants to help me be there for other people, genuinely. He wants to make up the difference so I can actually live, here and now. The tragedy that is reality can be subverted, Christianity is the Great Subversion of reality. He doesn't want me to sit around and try to figure out what happened and get sucked into more and more of this "are you saying and doing the proper things so you can be put into a lovely little camp and get atta-boy pats on the back" box.

Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Comfort the grieving. Visit the imprisoned. Go where there is darkness and see what you can do.

And that, that right there, is true religion. If you do that God is with you.

The rest will follow from there.