In case you've never encountered it, here is some juicy ammunition to use the next time you get into it with a member of the cult, and from one of their heroes no less!
It was good to see religion getting credit for giving people ideals and aims and comfort and consolation (as I see it, anyway), and to see the bleakness of science characterized so adeptly. As always, I am stimulated by your work, realizing as I read it how often I fall into line with the patterns you point out.
I get a lot out of these essays. At first I think I won't, that all this is too finely parsed, but I start to see how practical, indeed sensible, your arguments are.
But what might some of those tools be? Take up art as a hobby? Meditate? Journal?
We’ve all heard these things, but I would like a moment-by-moment. “walk and live with me“ metric … to provide a sense when the Emissary is ignoring or overly taking control…versus balance between the two.
I wonder if some sort of deep long-term cross perspective practice like Ira Progoff used to have is the way to deepen the understanding of this left/right dynamic for the individual ….
I have a friend whose catch phrase is "Don't overthink it!" Wonderful person. I wish I were like him in so many ways because my tendency is to overthink some of the more insignificant acts. I've seen the "don't overthink it!" motto work out poorly in many instances, too, so I don't think it's an especially great guide to life... but for folks who tend to be overly conscientious, it's a necessary mantra to return to. I jokingly refer to the overthinking tendency as OCD-lite, but in many ways it's just OCD. If I find myself caught in a thought loop that's spinning out, I tell myself, There you go! Don't overthink it! That's the extent of my struggle in a nutshell. Let it go! Let the mystery be! Not sure if that addresses your line of questioning. I'm not familiar with Progoff. But when it comes to psychoanalysis, I try to draw the line where healthy conscientiousness becomes self-obsessive.
"When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth."
That's the original tag line for George Romero's movie Dawn of the Dead (1978). Back then Romero imagined zombies originating not from a lab leak, but from the moral and spiritual disintegration inherent in selfish materialism. His zombies were a horde of drowsy ghouls and it was their sheer numbers that overwhelmed the living, as opposed to modern movie zombies with their rabid vitality like animals gone berserk.
What I also find timely about the more traditional zombie is its cosmic dimension, the idea that some kind of invisible breath (à la Bergson) bears the mystery of life and joins us to the intelligent universe; but when that breath no longer inspires us, we become like the undead, like mindless Eichmanns who make one horrible decision after another, ending up in hell.
The classic zombie as pure unthinking, unfeeling mechanism seems to anticipate the irony of this hollow narcissism you describe, because while the narcissist is completely self-absorbed, there's literally no self to become absorbed in. It's like staring into an abyss of banality, where evil becomes horrifying because of the lifeless, everlasting boredom it promises.
Thanks RDM. As I understand it, so long as the analytical mind serves the analogical rather than denigrates it, developing tools to manage and balance that relationship effectively should be a good thing.
An overly analytic (scientific) mindset is an abstraction of reality that reduces everything down to quantitative elements. Emotional intelligence is removed and replaced by what is believed to be a more objective frame of reference that routinely overlooks and is dismissive of the whole. In scientism life is nothing more than a different kind of machine to be mastered and controlled.
Thanks Beach Hippie. Sadly, this is indeed the case (though it really doesn't need to be). Seems you'll find yourself very much at home here at analogy where we distinguish between the analytical and analogical minds, the outer and inner worlds, the left and right brains, the brain life and the heart life.
Thanks Chris. As you are aware, I have written extensively on this topic and come up with the "will to incorporation" to explain the all-devouring instinct institutions express: incorporation and excommunication of elements that refuse to join or that threaten to destroy the entity.
Typo: 'Spok' should be 'Spock'. I personally would not mention a rank, either, since it varies throughout the Star Trek media, but I am a Trekkie nerd and you have no reason to care! 🖖
Thanks. I fixed the misspelling, though I've likely made this error elsewhere. A couple of funny observations: (1) isn't it Trekker? and (2) arguably Spock was humanised later... his half-human origins, so strictly speaking, the Commander version was the emotionless version. Of course the first series also implied that Vulcans were not emotion free, but essentially repressed and sublimated, but by nature exceedingly violent. There's probably room for some pretty involved analysis of Spock's evolution.
Great commentary here, Asa - and 'Trekker' and 'Trekkie' are both in use. I never liked 'Trekker' personally, but let everyone call themselves whatever they will! 🙂
Music to my ears!
In case you've never encountered it, here is some juicy ammunition to use the next time you get into it with a member of the cult, and from one of their heroes no less!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popper%27s_three_worlds
Thank you! I have indeed never encountered it. Very compelling.
It was good to see religion getting credit for giving people ideals and aims and comfort and consolation (as I see it, anyway), and to see the bleakness of science characterized so adeptly. As always, I am stimulated by your work, realizing as I read it how often I fall into line with the patterns you point out.
Thank you, Allen. I'm glad you're finding value here.
I get a lot out of these essays. At first I think I won't, that all this is too finely parsed, but I start to see how practical, indeed sensible, your arguments are.
Amen! You get me. Emissary in service to Master.
But what might some of those tools be? Take up art as a hobby? Meditate? Journal?
We’ve all heard these things, but I would like a moment-by-moment. “walk and live with me“ metric … to provide a sense when the Emissary is ignoring or overly taking control…versus balance between the two.
I wonder if some sort of deep long-term cross perspective practice like Ira Progoff used to have is the way to deepen the understanding of this left/right dynamic for the individual ….
I have a friend whose catch phrase is "Don't overthink it!" Wonderful person. I wish I were like him in so many ways because my tendency is to overthink some of the more insignificant acts. I've seen the "don't overthink it!" motto work out poorly in many instances, too, so I don't think it's an especially great guide to life... but for folks who tend to be overly conscientious, it's a necessary mantra to return to. I jokingly refer to the overthinking tendency as OCD-lite, but in many ways it's just OCD. If I find myself caught in a thought loop that's spinning out, I tell myself, There you go! Don't overthink it! That's the extent of my struggle in a nutshell. Let it go! Let the mystery be! Not sure if that addresses your line of questioning. I'm not familiar with Progoff. But when it comes to psychoanalysis, I try to draw the line where healthy conscientiousness becomes self-obsessive.
"When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth."
That's the original tag line for George Romero's movie Dawn of the Dead (1978). Back then Romero imagined zombies originating not from a lab leak, but from the moral and spiritual disintegration inherent in selfish materialism. His zombies were a horde of drowsy ghouls and it was their sheer numbers that overwhelmed the living, as opposed to modern movie zombies with their rabid vitality like animals gone berserk.
What I also find timely about the more traditional zombie is its cosmic dimension, the idea that some kind of invisible breath (à la Bergson) bears the mystery of life and joins us to the intelligent universe; but when that breath no longer inspires us, we become like the undead, like mindless Eichmanns who make one horrible decision after another, ending up in hell.
The classic zombie as pure unthinking, unfeeling mechanism seems to anticipate the irony of this hollow narcissism you describe, because while the narcissist is completely self-absorbed, there's literally no self to become absorbed in. It's like staring into an abyss of banality, where evil becomes horrifying because of the lifeless, everlasting boredom it promises.
> Back then Romero imagined zombies originating not from a lab leak, but from the moral and spiritual disintegration inherent in selfish materialism.
So basically, the workers in the lab!
Thanks so much for this, Harry. What a quotation! And fantastic analysis of the zombie concept. I feel this really puts a great cap on the essay.
I read these “analytical vs. analogical” essays with increasing hunger for tools to detect and manage those patterns within myself.
(laughably, this is probably a left brain desire to control, but momentarily kindly please pay no attention to this elephant in the room….)
Thanks RDM. As I understand it, so long as the analytical mind serves the analogical rather than denigrates it, developing tools to manage and balance that relationship effectively should be a good thing.
An overly analytic (scientific) mindset is an abstraction of reality that reduces everything down to quantitative elements. Emotional intelligence is removed and replaced by what is believed to be a more objective frame of reference that routinely overlooks and is dismissive of the whole. In scientism life is nothing more than a different kind of machine to be mastered and controlled.
> An overly analytic (scientific) mindset is an abstraction of reality that reduces everything down to quantitative elements.
Except they skip the entire metaphysical portion, *which is there to be seen*.
Metaphysics is in no way incompatible with actual science, it is only incompatible with *scientism*.
Thanks Beach Hippie. Sadly, this is indeed the case (though it really doesn't need to be). Seems you'll find yourself very much at home here at analogy where we distinguish between the analytical and analogical minds, the outer and inner worlds, the left and right brains, the brain life and the heart life.
Very much appreciate here that you have put broken religion and scientism on an even keel. As ever, this Mary Midgley quote resonates for me:
"It turns out that the evils that have infested religion are not confined to it, but are ones that can accompany any successful human institution."
Thanks Chris. As you are aware, I have written extensively on this topic and come up with the "will to incorporation" to explain the all-devouring instinct institutions express: incorporation and excommunication of elements that refuse to join or that threaten to destroy the entity.
Typo: 'Spok' should be 'Spock'. I personally would not mention a rank, either, since it varies throughout the Star Trek media, but I am a Trekkie nerd and you have no reason to care! 🖖
Thanks. I fixed the misspelling, though I've likely made this error elsewhere. A couple of funny observations: (1) isn't it Trekker? and (2) arguably Spock was humanised later... his half-human origins, so strictly speaking, the Commander version was the emotionless version. Of course the first series also implied that Vulcans were not emotion free, but essentially repressed and sublimated, but by nature exceedingly violent. There's probably room for some pretty involved analysis of Spock's evolution.
Great commentary here, Asa - and 'Trekker' and 'Trekkie' are both in use. I never liked 'Trekker' personally, but let everyone call themselves whatever they will! 🙂