The unseriousness and primitivity of secularism.

To pull on a thread from last week: “There are no atheists in foxholes.” And we’re in a foxhole again, aren’t we?ⁱ Of course, we still seem to be relatively uninhibited from walking out the front door, free as a bird, but the present landscape – informational as much as infrastructural – is so algorithmically poisoned and polluted with “degrowth” degradations that most of us have scarcely any choice but to constantly imagine boogeymen around every corner! There’s the ever-present threat of (anthropogenic!)ⁱⁱ environmental disasters,  swarms of dark-skinned immigrants taking our jobs and endangering our streets, deinstitutionalised crackheads screaming bloody murder while we’re trying to enjoy a quiet afternoon, social media suiciding our youth,ⁱⁱⁱ post-colonial legacies wracking us with the guilt of a thousand lifetimes, succession failures papered over by corporate borgocracies, cancel culture muzzling ours freedoms of speech, pointless geriatric politics scraping the bottom of the relevancy barrel, endless international conflicts tearing our attention from issues closer to home, runaway currency debasement undermining our earnings and destroying our savings, and so much else besides…

But the world has always been crazy! To quote Mr. Cowen, in our present system, what we’ll now call the “Cicada-Meets-Ourobouros-Primitive-Secularism” (CMOPS) system, “context is that which is scarce.”^iv And given the zombified unseriousness with which our current culture and society views our physical and metaphysical worlds,^v its meaning, and our responsibilities amidst the chaos of the cosmos,^vi all to a degree scarcely imaginable amongst even the most “primitive” cultures of history, what could we possibly say about the “sustainability” of this current modus operandi?^vii

Now there are some signs that the CMOPS system is trying to reform itself, certainly by grasping at whatever the levers of control it can, but also by reinventing religion from “first principles” in all but name. Y’know, just like the Soviets!^viii And so it tries oh-so-feebly to square the circle with “secular” art that’s really religious art (see: Rothko), “secular” anthropology that’s really religious anthropology (see: Lévi-Strauss), “secular” theoretical physics that’s really religious physics (see: Bohm), and even “secular” military intelligence that’s really religious intelligence (see: Gateway Experience), and on and on and on…^ix And perhaps this points not to any error of the present CMOPS states themselves so much as to the fundamental error of the “separation of church and state” enshrined by the First Amendment of the US Constitution? Perhaps that was a left-hemisphered bridge too far? And in such a power vacuum, the CMOPS state has been left little choice but to fill the impossibly large existential void with… itself. Inadequate though it must necessarily be to the task!

And maybe this inadequacy is the point! That we may be torn down so that we can be rebuilt anew. If not so orchestrally determined by secret kabals then by the invisible hand of the Universe itself. Surely this spiritual dark age masquerading as a technological golden age is yet another test to see how long our Tower of Babel will stand before it falls. Maybe longer than last time?

To be sure, there’s no progress without control, and the only thing new in the world is the history we didn’t know yet. Now let’s solve for the (foxhole) equilibrium.

1. And it’s quite possible that we’ve been in a foxhole since the French Revolution, but bear with me! ↩
2. Does it strike anyone else that “carbonism” is really spreadsheets-as-negative-geoengineering? Which begs the questions, what would agentic positive geoengineeing really look like? Seeding clouds is not a new idea so think bigger! ↩
3. Indeed, the Reverse Opium Wars are upon us! What, you think China forgot about 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860? You think they’re “above” returning the favour with fentanyl and tiktok to give westerners the long-awaited 1-2 punch we seemingly deserve? ↩
4. What is the ultimate context but that of the interconnectedness of all things? And who could’ve predicted that everything is “intelligent” and to at least some degree “conscious”? I mean, other than every ancient and traditional culture ever?
   

   this paper on collective intelligence by @drmichaellevin is one of the most mind-blowing things I've read in a while

   it's full of examples of the under-appreciated intelligence of biological systems, with some deep perspective shifts on our understanding of ourselves

   thread: pic.twitter.com/7X6GO9eKYm

   — kasra (@kasratweets) April 24, 2024

   Like, are you fucking kidding me? How fucking zombified are you guys??? ↩

5. As CEBK rightly points out, we don’t even have coherent views about something as basic as differential taxation!
   

   Nobody has real views on any of this. The same people could just as easily argue for wealth taxes as they argue for capital gains taxes, even tho the former subsidizes those who find high yields & the latter subsidizes those who don’t. You could call either beneficiary “rentiers” https://t.co/XA3NzkC0RN

   — CEBK CEBK (@CEBKCEBKCEBK) April 25, 2024

   On the lighter side of taxation:

   

   ↩

6. Secularism has dangerously little to say about angels, demons, and dreams, and unsatisfying things to say about aliens “probabilistically existing somewhere” but providing little explanatory power to regular life or questions about the stars and our place amongst them. Should we try to conquer the aliens before they conquer us? If not, why not? ↩
7. Is there a more damning indictment of CMOPS dysfunction and inadequacy than its clearly devastating impacts on TFR? ↩
8. Hilariously, especially for those of us with an actual traditional upbringing, these “first principles” look eerily familiar, and currently include but are not limited to:

   1. CMOPS is the L‑rd your G‑d, Who brought you out of the land of your ancestors, out of the house of bondage, and we all now live like the kings of yesteryear, so you’re welcome.

   2. You shall have no other gods before CMOPS. You shall not make for yourself a traditional image, nor recognise value in anything that is in heaven above, that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I the L‑rd your G‑d am a jealous G‑d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the first and second generation of them that hate Me.

   3. You shall not take the name of the CMOPS your G‑d in vain, which includes “hate speech,” for the L‑rd will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain.*

   4. Remember the Tax Day, to keep it holy. Three hundred and sixty-four days you shall labor and do all your work; but the three hundred and sixty-fifth day is a Tax Day unto the L‑rd your G‑d. For on this Day we are reminded that all our money is phoney baloney, all the economy is a casino, that we’ve utterly mortgaged our future, and that we wanted to be African so badly that we can now but lie in the bed of straw we’ve made.

   5. Honour your influencer and guru, so that your days may be short upon the land which the L‑rd your G‑d gives you.

   6. You shall not murder unless you’re part of an “oppressed” group and in doing so can conveniently provide coverage for political assassinations.

   7. You shall not commit adultery because you shall not commit to stable and monogamous relationships.

   8. You shall not steal unless you’re part of an “oppressed” group.

   9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour unless they’re an “oppressor”.

   10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s belongings unless they’re an “oppressor” and have something you want.

   These are obviously lulzy and unserious foundations for culture and society! A state cannot be G-d, only G-d can be G-d.
   ____ ____
   *To quote Toby Young from his recent article for The Spectator:

   The Canadian [Online Harms Bill] proposal is, by some distance, the worst. It’s so dystopian, even George Orwell and Philip K. Dick failed to anticipate it. Discrimination is already banned under the Canadian Human Rights Act, but the new law will expand the definition of ‘discrimination’ to include online speech ‘likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group’. To those worrywarts who are anxious about the risk that this new law might be weaponised by woke activists, the government has said that ‘detestation’ and ‘vilification’ are not the same as ‘disdain’ or ’dislike’, which will still be permitted (thank you, Mr Trudeau), or speech that ‘discredits, humiliates, hurts or offends’.

   But is this really so different from what’s already on the books in Singapore, China, Russia, Iran, etc? I dare say not. ↩

9. Yes, you could rightly point out that a lot of these “religious” examples above are in fact “Jewish” examples, and you wouldn’t be wrong! But maybe this was the blessing-in-disguise of Napolean’s de-ghettoisation of the Jews in 1797, that we could be your scapegoats and your shephards in alternating swings of the pendulum. It’s not the most stable formation, to be sure, so maybe we’ll all just go back to Jerusalem now and leave y’all be? That would certainly make a few American university students happy… but they should probably be careful what they wish for! ↩