The Broken Clockwork of the Western Mind

In case it wasn’t obvious, the Western mind is damaged goods. Many observers would say that this is a recent state of affairs, but in truth it’s something that has been slowly building for centuries. It started with the broad acceptance of Cartesian dualism, the conceptual separation of the mind from the body that developed as an over-mechanised response to the scientific discoveries of men like Copernicus and Kepler. This “analytical mindset,” in the original sense of analysis as “the resolution of something complex into simple elements,” destroyed the manifold intricacy of organic traditional society as it was conceptually applied outside of a strict philosophical setting and into the broader stream of society. It has replaced traditional society with social systems that are ever more disintegrated.

In tandem with this has been the philosophical “mechanisation” of Western societies. Because social systems are no longer viewed as organic wholes, the divorce of soul/mind from body has led to the same within larger systems such as cultures and civilisations. This view of everything as a “machine” has destroyed the whole fabric of society and created a feedback loop that has consequently broken the holistic unity of each individual within our societies. It has reached the point where the very minds of massive numbers of people in our nations are broken. Yet, the answer is not in treating them like mechanisms in need of a new gear or a wound spring, but in trying to help people to reject this mechanised mindset and return to a traditional understanding of society and every individual’s place in it.

It’s important to understand that when we talk about a return to a more genuine and traditional type of society, that we are describing a worldview, not externals or accidentals. When we talk about “organic versus mechanical society,” don’t take this to mean that I’m advocating for an untechnological society, which has never really existed anywise. Man - no matter his “technology level,” always uses means by which to control and utilise his environment. Rather, I mean a society that has broken away from the atomised mechanistic ideology exemplified by the modern world and has returned to an introspective, self-reinforcing traditional society wherein man may exist as a more authentic self than he can in the artificial, broken world of the modern age.

Inevitably, mechanical society leads to social atomisation. Instead of each cell and tissue contributing in its own unique and irreplaceable way within the greater body, in mechanical society we are treated merely as infinitely replaceable and interchangeable consumer units. Indeed, the baleful effects of the replaceable parts mentality continues with us today! While thinking to “liberate” the individual, modern mechanical society merely turns him into a cog who can be replaced when a less expensive model comes along.

At this point, we should observe the difference between worldview and ideology, since these are often confounded. A worldview can be defined as a comprehensive understanding of humanity and its place in the greater social realm, and even within the universe. As such, worldviews tend to be holistic and self-reinforcing in a natural, non-contradictory way. Ideologies, on the other hand, typically involved a more atomised set of individual doctrines and are integrated more artificially. A worldview guides the one holding it by providing a comprehensive framework that meshes naturally within the larger belief system. Ideologies tend to be more ad hoc and artificial, driven by circumstances and exigency, changing as the contingent needs of the individual or group holding the ideology are challenged. In a sense, worldviews anchor and guide traditional societies, while ideologies give ever-evolving modern society an epistemic framework to justify that perpetual evolution.

This gets to a point about the psyche of the modern Western man. The problem with the clockwork mind is that it’s easily programmable. Because it has no firm, comprehensive basis of belief, what’s left is “public opinion" and the propaganda that he is fed. Propaganda is used to form ideology, whose ever-changing charactre lends to modern societies their “progressive” nature, even when these ideologies are “classically liberal” of some sort or another (classical liberalism is still liberalism, after all).

The hackable mind is a terrible thing. Its way of thinking is modularised and contingent - all you need to do to change the behaviour or beliefs of hackable people is to change the programming they receive.

Because their opinions are divorced from any deep, abiding holistic worldview, there’s no “body” to them, no deep substance to which the “mindset” is tied. In a sense, the “mindset” is really just a “chipset,” infinitely replaceable as circumstances dictate. Just within the past two years, we have seen this with how NPCs have been worked up into a frenzy about covid as well as with the current Russia hysteria. And if you think it’s bad now, just wait until we finally develop a working mind-machine interface where people can be hooked up to the ‘net directly. The damage currently done by ubiquitous smart phones will be multiplied a hundred times over.

It works, however, because The Powers That Be have discovered the formula for weaponising this clockwork approach to the functioning of the mind in modern man. So many modern society westerners buy into propaganda because they’ve literally been programmed by modern culture to do so. Even a lot of so-called “conservatives” have been hacked. This is why people who even two weeks ago would have sworn up and down that you can’t believe anything the mainstream media say are now banging the drums for nuclear war with Russia in defence of the most crooked regime in Europe. It’s why most Americans are absolutely convinced that consoooomerism and unbridled growth are good things, no matter the social or physical costs. It’s why most people in the West have this cartoonish worldview where they can only filter inputs through the prisms of Marvel movies, Harry Potter, or Star Wars and their only point of historical reference is a weird, sanitised version of World War II. There is literally no deeper conceptual lens that these people are capable of using.

As we’ve seen, those who are capable of seeing through this programming because their minds are undivided from their spirit and soul make up an oftentimes small minority in western societies.

This circumstance, however, creates a world in which “morality” is driven by manufactured public opinion. In our mechanistic modern society, there is no reference point higher than man himself, even when he tries to be “spiritual.” The mechanistic way of thinking has led to a nearly complete dearth of true spirituality in the West. Western man often tries to be spiritual, but it’s so often superficial and self-centred. The rejection of the sense of the sacred as something that should permeate society rather than being compartmentalised from it is merely another symptom of the mind-body division as it bears itself out in society.

Religion in the West is now about self-help rather than being God-centred. It takes the eyes of man from looking upward to looking at himself and his neighbour as the measure of all things. It’s mere psychology instead of being a means of uniting the entire man in fellowship with a perfect God. This “analysis” of society (in the denotative sense of the word) is seen most formally in the “separation of church and state.” This effectively ghettoises God away from playing a role in most of society (not just the government), which is completely contrary to the balanced, holistic role that religion plays in traditional societies. This, in turn, leads to an irreverence towards God that not only expresses itself in outright atheism and blasphemy, but even in the flippant “fishin’ buddy Jesus” of American country music and the like.

This desacralisation of our society is a direct result of the centuries of mechanistic, divided thinking. It’s driven by the part-whole fallacy involved in thinking that being able to explain some things scientifically means that we can dispense with the spiritual, which operates on a deeper and broader plane than is accessible to the merely material chipset. The breakdown of organic traditional society has led to the ills of the modern world.

What is the answer? Well, for most of society, there probably is no answer, at least until the collapse comes and the next cycle starts. Sadly, many people are simply too fractured and broken and isolated for mere words to bring them back. The best place to start with them is evangelism - society itself may no longer be permeated with God, but we should at least try to restore these broken people to God and give them support within our churches. For those of us who haven’t internalised the modernist clockwork way of thinking, we can work to resacralise those elements of our society that are within our reach. We can seek to make holy once again everything we do, whether secular or sacred, understanding that before God it should all be sacred. The goal should be the restoration of a traditional society, not because it fits an “ideology” but because it’s what actually works best to bring lasting peace and stability.

“so the authot looks to The Age of Enlightenment, and all the names that are part of it, as a bad event?”

That’s a simplistic take. Something or someone can be both good and bad in different measures. Yes, the Enlightenment brought great advances in science and technology, but it also inflicted a fatal wound on Western civilization by striking at the moral foundation of our societies.

A society can’t survive without a cohesive worldview that gives people purpose and meaning. The last few hundred years of history have been mostly the struggle between one segment of our societies trying to preserve and reinvigorate the old worldview, and other segments trying to foist a new one on us with disastrous results each time.

The problem was Descartes. But the author of the article got wrong what the problem was that descartes presented. Descartes was a follower of Michael Servetus who can be counted by some as the first martyr for modern science. He was among the last polymaths in the 1500’s who learned all there was to know. A century later the amount of information grew so large it was impossible to learn all there was to know. In science servetus was known for his book on the human body. In religion he was known for taking the low view of christ. Calvin had Servetus burned at the stake for this heresy. The low view of christ—that he is just a man— is the view of unitarians and soto voce the liberal protestants and also the liberal side of the catholic church. The low view of christ—again—that he was just a man—was considered the modern elite view of christ in the 18th and 19th centuries. the founders divided on this issue. Adams and Jefferson took the low view of christ —whereas the Madison coterie believed the traditional view. That Jesus is fully God and fully man.

The problem with the low view of christ is that it turns the central mystery of Christianity into a human sacrifice. That is, something really creepy that renders its adherents the most pitiful of all men—as St Paul put it.

Descartes dictum was that “man is the measure of all things.” this was the greeks of Plato’s republic motto. They applied it to their gods. This view was what st paul encountered when he was in athens. St Paul scandalized the greek epicurean and stoic philosphers he encountered in athens because his main point was that God is the measure of all things.

Descartes Motto never the less — led people to believe that man is the measure of all things —including God. That’s when the logical took over. If man is the measure of all things then that must include the God of the bible. Since God is measurable -then therefor God cannot be God. There for, there is no God. And man sits on the throne of grace. (which is a very very bad place to be.)

So within Christianity —elite opinion rendered the central mystery a human sacrifice. Outside of Christianity the larger population became increasingly atheistic.

All this was enshrined in the academy by decartes who created the academic system of knowledge. you can still descartes tree of knowledge. at the root is metaphysics, the trunk is philosophy. the branches are the various discipline: math, chemistry, biology etc. On one small branch was witchcraft and theology.

Descartes got the picture wrong. The roots were witchcraft, astrology divination god worship and all manner of primitive systems of cause and effect.

Philosphy properly reins over the primitive systems of cause and effect.

Theology doesn’t belong on descartes tree at all. Why not? Because God is the measure of all things. Think of the difference as being something like William Blake’s picture of man point to God and God pointing to man.

‘This “analytical mindset,” in the original sense of analysis as “the resolution of something complex into simple elements,” destroyed the manifold intricacy of organic traditional society as it was conceptually applied outside of a strict philosophical setting and into the broader stream of society.’

How exactly does seeking understanding of large complex problems by examining the components “destroy the manifold intricacy” of anything? Seems to me that the effect is the opposite. Imagine the classic “2001 A Space Odyssey” sequence of proto-humans marveling at an enigmatic black rectilinear form. That’s the alternative method of understanding the author prefers to evil analysis.

“It started with the broad acceptance of Cartesian dualism, the conceptual separation of the mind from the body that developed as an over-mechanised response to the scientific discoveries of men like Copernicus and Kepler.”

While the article has some interesting food for thought in a thinking-outside-the-box kind of way, the premise seems weak and unsupported.

“Cartesian dualism is bad because I don’t like it,” is not an argument.

There’s no explanation of what is incorrect about it, and there is no evidence provided that it is the root cause of the decline of the west.

“How exactly does seeking understanding of large complex problems by examining the components “destroy the manifold intricacy” of anything?”

Not just “seeking understanding”. The problem is to insist that the only legitimate knowledge is that which is obtained by those means. It leads to strict materialism, which leads to nihilism, which leads to the kind of society we see around us everywhere today.

The mechanism of that is simple enough to understand. Once you have decided that your method of analysis is the only sure path to knowledge, then you must confront things in this world which do not yield to analysis. What is the response? To either attribute those phenomenon to things that you can analyze, regardless of the inability to support that connection, or simply to deny their existence.

But that doesn’t solve the conflict, it just papers over it. The fundamental problem remains unaddressed and unaddressed problems fester. We have seen the result of this festering in our own society. People have a fundamental yearning for meaning and materialists can provide none. The best they have come up with is either the existentialists’ “make up your own meaning” answer (which is unsatisfactory), or the nihilists’ “there is no meaning” answer, which appeals to those who wish to excuse hedonistic behavior, so it tends to become the more popular choice for the people as time progresses.

Descartes was kicked out of holland as he was accused of being a follower of Servetus—the father of the unitarian church.

The unitarian church pushed the low view of christ—that is that christ is just a man. Which makes christ a mere human sacrifice —such sacrifice is no better than the sacrifice of a chicken or pig. This form of christianity is no better than an aztec ripping the heart out of man spread eagled on an alter.

Descartes slight of hand was to place theology right next to witchcraft—and these two were branches on a tree whose trunk was philosophy.

Theology, since its God centered, by definition—cannot be a subgroup of philosophy—since philosophy is man centered.

Nor was descartes slight of hand unintentional. It followed logically from his low view of Christ.

The french including rousseau—who came 100 years after descartes took the proposition that man is the measure of all things—to its logical conclusion—that man is the measure of God. That therefor, if God can be measured—he is not God. That therefor there is no God. That therefor man is free to fashion the world according to the passions of his own demons.

Now I grant you that that’s not what Rousseau said. Rather it was the premise of the age from which he started.

On the other side of the english channel Newton became a unitarian. he also held to the low view of christ.

Newton’s low view of Christ quickly jumped the atlantic to harvard in the 1700’s.

i am neither catholic of any swage, protestant, nor unitarian.

since humans, both male and female, are supposedly ‘in ‘his’ image, meaning a reflection of ‘his’ form, youare correct in thinking we “cannot measure”.
with feet from size 5 to size 14-which also alludes to a male appendage in different lengths, as well.
with hat sizes varying, height, weight, frame shape, were we to take all these in one sweep , the best we could do, is to obtain the average meSurement in each category, and declare where the averages fall.

so, he may be short fat multicolor hair , and fitted with a stubby!!!

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