The Gnostic Never Blames Himself

the weekly U-demon. Full steam ahead. The podcast gets back on track, just had an unbelievable flu back in December the first week of December and it was followed by bronchitis and I couldn't stop coughing so during the flu quite frankly I couldn't even get to the microphone much less. Give a rip I'll get this podcast out I felt so bad, almost with the hospital I was begging to but I told my hospital it was awful and then I bronchitis I couldn't stop coughing and no one wants to hear that and I don't have a cough button I do it's the way I'm set up it's hard to get to it's a long store that no one wants to hear and I don't want to talk about it and I can go back and out the cost but we're taking hours doing so anyway then Christmas came and I thought you know no one's sitting around taking their Christmas season socks because they didn't get a podcast download for me so anyway back on track I'm not sure it'll be a Monday every Monday feature I think it will I think something will come out if you didn't know I can publish a newsletter on Saturdays called outside the modern limits go to the website daily demon and download or go to the show notes here that's daily demon you'll see a place to subscribe and on Mondays when I'm not going to be able to do a podcast a regular one like along these Gnostic or the existence strikes back and line of thought on those Mondays I'll probably just put out my newsletter podcast we'll see how it goes but basically these Monday columns are just getting to be enormously time-consuming the one today I'm guessing I have four hours into it and I already had notes written down for it wasn't like four hours to start to finish just like I know how many hours but four hours last week alone put this in together so can't maintain a quality that product like that I can't anyway you know 4.3 times a month which is how many weeks or in a month so anyway there will be a Monday podcast going forward it just may not be in the same format anyway this week is the Gnostic never blames himself as you may recall we'll work through Eric Vogelen's six traits of Gnosticism this is number two man is born free and everywhere he is in chains Jean Jacques Rousseau Rousseau's passage from the beginning of the social contract contends for the most famous in philosophy Rousseau's point was simple humans are good but there's a lot of suffering so social institutions must be corrupting everything significantly Rousseau didn't see any problems with himself he was arguably the most self-centered philosopher of all time he was so self-centered biographers biographers wonder if he was even capable of love he said of his longtime mistress and lowly laundress that he quote never felt the least glenrene of love for her the sensual needs I satisfied with her were purely sexual unquote when those sensual needs resulted in five children he put them into orphanages which given the state of orphanages in 18th century was practically a sentence of torture and early death only five percent of orphan children survived to adulthood and most adult survivors became beggars and vagabonds that's the sense that Rousseau put his five freaking babies into his delusions of grandeur were incredible after he condescended to marry the peasant laundry woman after 25 years of banging her he toasted himself and told everyone in attendance at the wedding that posterity would erect statues to him and quote it will then be no empty honor to have been a friend of Jean Jacques Rousseau he was to be blunt a first-rate ass but it never seemed of crossed his mind that suffering exists because of people like him he imposed cruel sentences on his children but it wasn't him it was society's fault that's where the chains came from and that's the thing you need to know the Gnostic never blames himself that's the second trait of Oakland's Gnostic I'm gonna read Voguelands second trait and as I've mentioned before Vogueland he like didn't suffer fools gladly and he didn't suffer even half ignorance he when he wrote he wrote what he thought was technically empirically scientifically what how do you want put it accurate and he used terminology he didn't care if you knew the terminology did know terminology that's why if you read Vogueland biographers they're often glossaries they go with it so I'm gonna read Vogueland summary here it'll take about 60 seconds I bear with me because it's dry anyway here he goes he says and this is from science politics and narcissism it's probably his most accessible book believe it or not the second aspect of the Gnostic attitude the belief that the drawbacks of the situation can be attributed to the fact that the world is intrinsically poorly organized for it is likewise possible to assume that the order of being as is given to us men wherever its origin is we saw it is good and that is we human beings who are inadequate but Gnostics are not inclined to discover the human beings in general and they in themselves in particular are inadequate if in a given situation something that's not as it should be in the Gnostics opinion I should add then the fault is we found in the wicked wickedness of the world now I say this Gnostic rejection of reality takes three forms we're so rejected reality by believing that the social institutions that are risen organically over the course of thousands of years are illegitimate that's one form of the Gnostic rejection of reality and by way when I say rejection reality I'm saying is the rejection of the world because you think there's something wrong with the world that that is the rejection or a type of the rejection or a I guess a gerund the gerund form of rejection anyway this Gnostic rejection reality could take it at least two other forms one believe that the earth is illegitimate and illusion a trap or prison two believe that the transcendent isn't legitimate an illusion a kind or drug we've gone through this before but going through it again the ancient Gnostics believe the earth isn't legitimate sperm cults orgies free love gluttony such things were permitted to the ancient Gnostics again the ancient Gnostics are those existed right around the time of the early Christians and they competed with the early Christians for adherence and the counts of the ancient Gnostics decadence are almost unbelievable I mean literally because we only have their Christian opponents accounts which are probably exaggerated because these these people they wore the Christians didn't like the Gnostics and Gnostics did not like the Christians if you weren't aware of it it's Aeronaius's against the heretics or against the heresies adverse his heresists or something like that that's like the key Christian texts this stuff anyway Aeronaius is probably fairly accurate but there are other Christian writers who probably exaggerated things but but no matter if only half of that stuff is true wow these people are freaking perverts so the ancient Gnostics logic worked like this an evil God made the world therefore everything in the world is illegitimate the Gnostic is a holy spiritual being not made by the evil God therefore nothing in the world can defile him and he could do whatever he wants the earth is matter the Gnostic is spiritual the two don't intertwine if you go back listen to the podcast about Descartes that type of dualism is there as well I'm not saying Descartes and Gnostic I'll emphasize it later on in this podcast I'll emphasize it throughout there are six traits of a Gnostic and someone has to hit all six of them to be a Gnostic by the way even Rousseau who hits this second trait like I'm a freaking head in this person life and it's not I'm not prepared to say he's a Gnostic I don't really have an opinion and I don't the best of my knowledge don't think vogue will never call him a Gnostic or exonerate him from being a Gnostic I don't think you ever really addressed yourself anyway just be careful before you label someone a Gnostic anyway but that that idea that total split between what the the body and the spirit and the spirit can do it do it when it wants the body because the body doesn't really exist that's a perennial phenomenon it happened in the Middle Ages if you go back listen to podcasts about the brother and of the free spirit it happened to a large degree in the hippie culture of the 1960s the free loved one with things like that they didn't see themselves have been defiled by orgies there's being free the spirit had be set free now here's the thing a good ancient Gnostic is not merely permitted to do what he wants he's expected to in order to show that he's one of the spiritual ones who isn't affected by earthly matter indeed in the ancient Gnostic system he becomes obligated to do these things it's a rite of passage Christians renounced a devil through second on rituals the ancient Gnostics renounced the world through the orgiesic rituals the principle that the world is a creation of an evil god however can also result in asceticism a severe asceticism in the attempt not to indulge indulge any element of it much like people back to refuse to come near a lever so again you have two different polar opposite reactions this like none of the world is so illegitimate filthy I don't want to touch it I don't touch another woman I want to touch anything I don't I sure it's like I don't eat too much food because it's all this wicked product of evil god all right by the way you can see that same phenomenon among Hindu ascetics who renounced the world because they deemed the world and entrapping illusion it's called Maya in a YA they would kill themselves but that would be an act of the will which would merely be another act within the illusion so instead they wither away and suffocate their will until they get to their vast ages then they might wade into the Genghis Genghis Genghis Genghis River and accept death by crocodile literally that's true okay so the modern acid believe the transcendent is illegitimate this is the third type of rejection of the world this is the Promethean and I've already dressed in the two podcasts in the past six weeks or so it's the belief that the divine order sucks it's either stupid Prometheus's view of Zeus or illegitimate without his help Prometheus believed Zeus wouldn't be Zeus or is simply non-existent but there is no transcendent no matter the form as centers on one thing hatred of the gods and revolt against them and the tradition and the traditions norms and organic growth over the centuries emanated from those guys Vogel said this type of quote numopathological consciousness can be found in varying degrees of prominence in virtually every moment of note within modern political thought unquote and make no doubt about it but for this rejection of the transcendent we will be talking about at these podcasts this third form of narcissism is the key one that we're focusing on because it is the key form of narcissism that informs modern thought and it's intertwined with Rousseau's form rejection of the social institutions because the social institutions come up come from the transcendent and if I reject the transcendent you want to reject the social institutions go with it so those two forms really are intertwined together anyway Vogel actually well it's really his biographer Michael Franz who lists all the different isms that Vogel said are suffer from this numopathological consciousness that is modern narcissism I'm just gonna read him here anarchism behaviorism biologism constitutionalism existentialism fascism Hegelianism liberalism Marxism positivism progressivism psychologism or psychologicalism scientism utilitarianism okay final session the nastic revels in the disruptive a nastic might reject societal norms like Rousseau he might reject creation like the ancient nastic she might reject the transcendent like Prometheus and the modern nastic all three forms celebrate disruption the nastic likes to shake things up he strives to be jarring I have little doubt that much of a stems from simple pride you see the nastic doesn't want to be just another person the nastic wants to be elite or at least part of an elite group that's why cherishes the special knowledge that is a core of narcissism and that will be addressed in a trade six and if you see portents of the woke movement you're not far off the special knowledge of the inside knowledge they're awake the nastic wants to be one of them and this love for disruption is more profound than mere vanity I should point out though the profound aspects are wrapped in vanity see the nastic rejects reality as given he doesn't want reality as it has been laid out in the culture over the course of thousands of years this means he doesn't want anything that is soaked in that reality including tradition norms and institutions especially the institutions so a nastic text institutions always and also traditions and norms such things don't comport with the way the nastic sees or wants them to be so he tears at them distrust rejection and destruction of institutions becomes implicit in everything he thinks and does it becomes his default mode of thought and action you know I once had a priest who reveled in quote unquote shaking things up he laughed I like to shake things up he never wanted people to be comfortable he said that I don't want people to be comfortable now that doesn't mean he's a nastic and again all six traits have to be hit but it does mean he was an ass and he was an ass and so was a nastic the nastic desire to disrupt things emanates from his pride why except things as given when nastic has better rational ideas as you control pride is the essence of an ass now Rousseau was an ass I mean he was one of those guys I believe who drove himself to insanity with his arrogance much like Prometheus going rightfully mad on that rock he was a great stylist in a culture that valued letters so people wanted to be his friend but he was incapable of friendship such was the self-certainness when we were so claimed to be a literary martyr in France David Hume brought him to England it gave him a hero's welcome treat him practically like royalty but Rousseau became convinced that Hume was part of a plot to persecute him further he quarreled with Hume and Hume was not a man who quarreled he's a hell of a decent guy and then he went back to France here's how one modern academic described Rousseau or speculation speculates basically looking at his biography concluded these things about Rousseau he said he was a masochist exhibitionist neurosthenic hypochondriac on an s which means he masturbated a lot I suppose late homosexual afflicted by the typical urge for repeated displacements incapable of normal or parental affection incipient paranoia narcissistic introvert rendered on social by his illness filled with guilt feelings pathologically timid except the maniac infantilized infantilis irritable and miserly Rousseau in short wasn't maniac and so was a nastick the nastick is always maniac always as always