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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   26777 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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Let me take an aspect of this: Regardless of what any other internet rando says, Christianity is the organizing principle of western civ. It is also indisputably a slave religion of slave morality for the sort of people who aspire to slavery. As such I find it practically, morally and metaphysically ridiculous.

I also think that the shift in the sixties was the beginning of a new version of the old religion adopting the skin of academia in an end run around the establishment of a state religion.

"Wokeness" is just the latest christian heresy, with state backing. Nor will it be the last.

How does Christianity map to wokeness? Outside of the cheems mindset slave morality.

It’s not the monotheism, or anything resembling belief in an almighty God. No equivalent to the Trinity. No miracles, no message of salvation.

If wokeness has none of the cosmology, mythology, or eschatology, what’s left?

The exaltation of the pathetic. The moral superiority of whoever is the biggest victim.

Which gets thrown into the Christians' faces whenever said Christians complain about the actions of people more pathetic than themselves. And the Christians capitulate.

Just as Jesus would.

or anything resembling belief in an almighty God

I don't know; from where I sit, there's not a huge difference between "the arc of history" and "Divine Providence." Plus, the way some talk about being "on the right side of history" sounds rather like being "right with Jesus."

There's also the whole "paladin" instinct to moral crusading I discussed here as a "Puritan" trait.

...I think this might be using 'slave' in an idiosyncratic way, fully detached from any concept of slavery in the traditional sense, i.e. the owning of human beings.

I know this is just a riff on Nietzsche, but it bears noting that Nietzsche's master-slave morality is itself idiosyncratic to him and I'd argue a very implausible way of understanding the history of Western civilisation.

Not at all. Straightforwardly, the religion preaches slavery (to Christ). Politically, it accepts actual slavery and counsels christian slaves to uphold the institution. Early christianity was big among the slaves of Rome. And at the metaphysical level, it counsels submission to greater powers, both spiritually to god, and secularly to Rome. Top to bottom, at every level of analysis and description, Christianity is for slaves and those who aspire to slavery.

The wild Teutone women who hanged their children from their wagons and slew their defeated husbands fleeing the battlefield before committing mass suicide were not Christians. They at least preferred death at the personal and cultural level to slavery and assimilation. This is why there are no non-slave major religions.

What?

Let's take even just the first claim you made - that Christianity preaches slavery to Christ. Quick sanity check here.

John 15:15 - "I do not call you servants [douloi] any longer, because the servant [doulos]does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."

Galatians 4:7 - "So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God."

(See also the entire allegory of Hagar and Sarah to follow, in which Christians are identified with the children of the free woman, not of the slave.)

Galatians 5:1 - "For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

1 Peter 2:16 - "As servants [douloi] of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil."

2 Peter 2:19-20 - "They [the ungodly] promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first."

It seems pretty clear to me. I've recently had the pleasure of re-reading The Screwtape Letters, and its demon narrator's apt description of the natures of Hell and Heaven is, "We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons."

I'm not sure how much more clear it could have been - the goal of Christianity is not subjection to God as a miserable slave, but rather adoption as co-heirs with Christ, sharing in the glory of Christ's own status (cf. Romans 8:29, Christians are "to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family"). This is explicitly contrasted with the image of slavery in the Bible. Thus St. Athanasius summarises (ch. 54), "He was made man that we might be made God". This isn't some hidden secret.

Where images of slavery or servanthood appear in a positive context (e.g. Galatians 5:13), it is reconfigured in a deliberately surprising way - "through love become slaves to one another". The image of a voluntary mutual 'slavery' where each person genuinely seeks the other's good is striking and noticeably not the same thing as the domination of a master over chattel.

Let's go on:

Does Christianity counsel slaves to uphold the institution of slavery? I can only assume you are referring to 1 Corinthians 7:21-24. But this does not at all tell slaves to uphold slavery, or to recommend slavery as a practice. Rather, it is the position I just described - that slavery is irrelevant. He doesn't even tell slaves not to become free, if they get the chance. Paul's counsel is that worldly status just doesn't matter. This is supported by, as I noted in that previous message, what we see in Philemon - Paul isn't an outright abolitionist (as indeed would be pretty impossible in the first century), but his advice to the Christian master is to receive Onesimus "no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother".

It seems worth adding to this, well, the subsequent two thousand years in which Christianity and Christians seem to have been quite well-positioned as regards the abolition of slavery. Sometimes this was in the form of large organised movements, as in Britain, but other times it has been slower. Privately I find something inspiring in the history of slavery in the Byzantine Empire - there was no society-wide war against it, no great battle. Rather, they just... slowly... stopped. Laws were passed against abuse of slaves, and then reducing slaveholders' power, and eventually it just faded away. The tempering aspect of Christianity here seems evident. By contrast the Teutonic pagans you describe were much more enthusiastic slavers.

What's next? Does Christianity counsel submission to greater powers? Well, define 'power'. It certainly counsels obedience and love to God, who is naturally the greatest power, and from there it recommends peaceful coexistence with earthly authorities to the extent that it is possible without disobeying God. But when that is not possible, it recommends protest. I hate to invoke the stereotype here, but you are saying that the tradition that encouraged people to peacefully yet defiantly become martyrs, steadfastly refusing to cooperate with the compulsion of the Roman state even to the point of being torn apart by lions, is a tradition that "counsels submission... to Rome". Does that not seem even the slightest bit off, to you?

If you argue that Christianity counsels obedience to God, certainly. No one's going to dispute that. But this is hardly unusual. If you want to make the Teutonic comparison again, it is not at all clear that a Teutonic tribesman's submission to the chieftain is qualitatively different to that of a Roman citizen's submission to the emperor - not least because, in Christian Rome in particular, the emperor's authority was contingent upon being accepted by the citizen body. That was why there could be so many revolutions in Constantinople, for, while the emperor's power was at least partly theocratic, it was also something held from the republic and there could be revoked, should the emperor be a tyrant. You can see this kind of legacy also in English-speaking Christian traditions - in Britain, where parliament claimed the power to overthrow and replace the king if necessary, and even more radically in America. The evolution of Christian views towards autocratic authority is definitely complex. I'm not going to say that there are no Christian bootlickers, whether historically (de Maistre etc.) or today (the caesarism of someone like Stephen Wolfe, say); but I am saying that a view of Christianity as uniquely servile in its understanding of politics is absurdly mistaken.

And... that's it. Those are all the specific points you make.

You're just, well, wrong.

I think it’s a reasonable framework for ideological thinking. A “slave” ideology would be one that places value on passively accepting fate, on not being assertive or demanding of other groups. A master ideology would do the opposite and be demanding and assertive and less concerned with helping others.

That’s different than Nietzsche's use of the term. “Slave morality” lionizes the underdog, but it doesn’t have to be passive at all.

“Enlightenment” causes revolt, for the slave desires the unconditioned, he understands nothing but the tyrannous, even in morals, he loves as he hates, without NUANCE, to the very depths, to the point of pain, to the point of sickness—his many HIDDEN sufferings make him revolt against the noble taste which seems to DENY suffering. The skepticism with regard to suffering, fundamentally only an attitude of aristocratic morality, was not the least of the causes, also, of the last great slave-insurrection which began with the French Revolution.

Beyond Good and Evil, III.46

I wouldn’t say that Christianity guarantees slave morality, Christians had after all conquered and subjugated the majority of the world a century ago. I just think it lacks any safeguards against slave morality the way that Judaism (with its inherent ethnonationalism and more vigorously harsh Old Testament) and Islam (with Muhammad the conqueror cemented as ultimate example for mankind) have. If your civilization has a brief slave morality cult or phase, there’s nothing in Christianity or Christian-descended secular society to say ‘stop’.

Nietzsche specifically calls out Judaism as slave morality. Or, uh…

\195. The Jews—a people "born for slavery," as Tacitus and the whole ancient world say of them; "the chosen people among the nations," as they themselves say and believe—the Jews performed the miracle of the inversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a new and dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets fused into one the expressions "rich," "godless," "wicked," "violent," "sensual," and for the first time coined the word "world" as a term of reproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which is also included the use of the word "poor" as synonymous with "saint" and "friend") the significance of the Jewish people is to be found; it is with THEM that the SLAVE-INSURRECTION IN MORALS commences.

“Slave morality” describes a set of values, not a methodology. So Christianity and Judaism are both perfectly capable of dominating their surroundings. They just do so by convincing people that suffering is moral. This is an incredible competitive advantage against “master” moralities, which lack leverage on the have-nots.

Islam is a good example of how this gets weaponized. The general concept of jihad—struggle—fits slave morality. Fighting the good fight is supposed to be hard. More specifically, martyrdom for eternal rather than temporal reward is textbook slave morality. I’d argue that Western coverage of Islam in the GWoT era actually centers on eroding that moral high ground, mocking its abstract rewards to make them seem base and worldly. 72 virgins, huh?

But I digress. Nietzsche observes that slave morality wins, citing Judaism as well as Christianity. They won using their inverted morals, not in spite of them.

Slave morality can be exploited by non-slaves

There is no non-slave morality

Then why use the term at all?

Look, I don’t think Nietzsche had a very realistic model of history, either. But if you’re going to ignore everything else about his “slave revolt in morals,” maybe you should pick a different term.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. From those who have much, much is expected (and the corollary, from those who have nothing, nothing is expected, explains Grant's Pass). Blessed are the poor. Etc. It's a slave morality.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. From those who have much, much is expected (and the corollary, from those who have nothing, nothing is expected, explains Grant's Pass). Blessed are the poor. Etc. It's a slave morality.

You're passing a progressive or nietzschean interpretation of those elements as their true, indisputable meaning. Consider the possibility those teach self-discipline ("bearing the cross") rather than as statements bashing those high in status.

Blessed are the poor. [...] from those who have nothing, nothing is expected

The beatitudes describe various hardships as the blessings of God. "Blessed are the X" is not to say the status of poverty/mourning/persecution intrinsically grants righteous status — that is, "poor people are good" — but that poverty/mourning/persecution are blessings from heaven to mortify the evil in you. In this reading, being rich, happy, and safe carries the dangers of you becoming self-satisfied and thus not seeking God. To the contrary, in another context of Jesus's ministry, the poor person who receives only one talent is cast into hell for sitting on his laurels. The two richer servants are praised and the master grants them greater dominion in his service (AKA puts them above the lesser servants).

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven."

The lesson here is that the rich man does not value God higher than his own material status. When challenged on the point, he prefers money; his mouth says "I want God" but his mind says "I want earthly passions" — this lesson holds for the beggar with his bottle just as much as Scrooge McDuck with his gold swimming pool. At other parts of scripture, Jesus meets well-to-do people and does not demand they pauper themselves for God's kingdom.

To be clear, it's very questionable that Bezos can be saved, because he is chasing money and status above all else. But is not at all clear that Jesus categorically condemns money any more than he condemns enjoying marital sex, food, or earthly luxuries such as come to you in your service to God.

You're passing a progressive or nietzschean interpretation of those elements as their true, indisputable meaning. Consider the possibility those teach self-discipline ("bearing the cross") rather than as statements bashing those high in status.

You're sanewashing a two thousand year old Judean mystic/revolutionary. Consider the possibility that Jesus meant what he said, and Paul meant what he said, and the whole religion is straightforward.

To be even more clear, the Catholic and Orthodox interpretation of that passage has always been that the rich young man sought monasticism and was dissuaded by the requirement of poverty.

This sort of interpretation tends to strip Jesus' preaching of anything particularly novel or interesting. "Well when he said turn the other cheek he didn't mean you should let your enemies kill you, he just meant, you know, don't go off half-cocked, control your anger," "Well when he said 'it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye...' he didn't mean it's bad to be rich, he just meant don't love money too much." This is all stuff any Greek Pagan would have happily nodded along with. What was so hard or so shocking about the path Jesus offered?

I think Jesus' message probably was radically ascetic and self-denying. The story of Lazarus and the Rich Man is also interesting in this regard. It's from a different author than Matthew's gospel, so it's not necessarily going to agree on everything, but in the story, the rich man never actually appears to do anything wrong. You could kind of argue his sin was not being more charitable to Lazarus, but the text never actually says this. And when the rich man is being tormented in Hades and asks Abraham for a cup of water, Abraham tells him no, because "remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony." That's it. In other words, the rich man went to Hell just for being rich. It had little to do with his or Lazarus' deeds in life, but with a cosmic imbalance that had to be corrected. The story is kind of a didactic one even if it isn't literally a parable so it doesn't necessarily mean Luke thought every rich person was going to Hell and I'm sure he didn't think every poor person would have a share in the kingdom but the overall view of earthly wealth is very dim.

This is somewhat supported by what is known of the early church, it's self-imposed poverty and the lack of any violent resistance to persecution. People being what they are, this didn't last long and pretty soon theologians and church fathers were spinning all sorts of justification for why you can actually

This sort of interpretation tends to strip Jesus' preaching of anything particularly novel or interesting.

Absolutely. He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. The novelty of Jesus's teaching is entirely in the nature of Grace, not specific ethical teachings.

"Well when he said turn the other cheek he didn't mean you should let your enemies kill you, he just meant, you know, don't go off half-cocked, control your anger," "Well when he said 'it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye...' he didn't mean it's bad to be rich, he just meant don't love money too much." This is all stuff any Greek Pagan would have happily nodded along with. What was so hard or so shocking about the path Jesus offered?

I was of this opinion once, from most of my childhood as a protestant and most of my adulthood as an atheist, but I've changed my mind — the text of scripture does seem to have fruit beyond the autistic literal definition of the words. A lot of protestants (or atheists who were protestants) are lead astray by things like "Sheathe thy sword, for all who take the sword shall perish with the sword" and don't step back to think: Wait a second, why do twelve disciples have swords three years into Jesus's ministry if Jesus actually teaches unconditional pacifism like the literal words suggest?

This is somewhat supported by what is known of the early church, it's self-imposed poverty and the lack of any violent resistance to persecution. People being what they are, this didn't last long and pretty soon theologians and church fathers were spinning all sorts of justification for why you can actually

The steelman for your views is in the book of Acts, where the early Christians after Pentecost form what appears to be a commune. (There is also an incident right after this where a wealthy couple hold back some of their wealth, lie about it, and the Holy Spirit executes them on the spot.) I would encourage anyone to read these early chapters of Acts, because ostensibly the early Christians invested supernaturally with the Holy Spirit would be authorities on what Jesus actually meant. But again I would say there is a deeper meaning that goes beyond sanewashing cope.

He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. The novelty of Jesus's teaching is entirely in the nature of Grace, not specific ethical teachings.

If that's the case, he wasted a lot of time delivering ethical teaching. I tend to think Jesus believed 'works' were a lot more essential to salvation than most Protestants (even most Catholics) would like.

Wait a second, why do twelve disciples have swords three years into Jesus's ministry if Jesus actually teaches unconditional pacifism like the literal words suggest?

They didn't. Jesus told them to go buy some swords earlier that same week, explicitly so that he could fulfill the prophecy that he would be 'counted among the transgressors,' and then forbids them from using the swords when he's arrested. There's not a single place in the New Testament where violence against one's enemies is encouraged or even sanctioned. Divine violence on the other hand is all over the NT, you might even say it's the whole point, but that's a very different matter.*

*I would say the pacifism of the early Christians is inexplicable without the apparently ubiquitous belief that Jesus was going to come back very soon to establish the kingdom and destroy Rome and the nations; in other words, earthly Christians didn't need to do any killing because God was about to do it for them. When this didn't pan out naturally doctrine had to evolve.

I tend to think Jesus believed 'works' were a lot more essential to salvation than most Protestants (even most Catholics) would like.

Grace leads to good works because grace remakes men morally. "Grace without good works" is incoherent; if you are not doing good works, you have not accepted grace. The dispute between protestants and catholics lies in the catholic church's offer of a bargain by which a favor from God could be purchased: that you could do a good work to "buy" grace.

They didn't. Jesus told them to go buy some swords earlier that same week, explicitly so that he could fulfill the prophecy

As told in Luke, they already had two on hand.

There's not a single place in the New Testament where violence against one's enemies is encouraged or even sanctioned.

There is no occurrence where violence would be appropriate, save for crucifixion, which was Christ's intention to suffer. A centurion approaches Jesus in Matthew and Jesus praises him and says that he will enter God's kingdom with no stipulation that he give up his army gig.

What is forbidden by Christ is retribution or vengeance. That a Christian cannot take up a sword in hatred or for his own personal ends is beyond question.

I would say the pacifism of the early Christians is inexplicable without the apparently ubiquitous belief that Jesus was going to come back very soon to establish the kingdom and destroy Rome and the nations; in other words, earthly Christians didn't need to do any killing because God was about to do it for them. When this didn't pan out naturally doctrine had to evolve.

It depends on what you mean. The actions of the apostles recorded in scripture are strong evidence for any Christian that believes in biblical inerrancy — which I believe is all of them. They certainly acted as if they could not use violence to defend their own persons against persecution. However, this does not track 1:1 with the question of whether a Christian can be a soldier, police officer, defend their family against a rapist, etc: that is, commit violence not on one's own behalf. The apostles did not address that question or find themselves in that situation.

(EDIT: I see Romans 13 gets cited a lot in defense of Christian police officers, despite the main focus being Christians obeying the police. Looks cut and dry on that one.)

As for the behavior of Christians in the 2nd century, one is perfectly entitled to think individuals from that time period might be wrong about doctrine, same as one might think for the 6th century, 11th century, 15th century, or (now) 21st century.

If that's the case, he wasted a lot of time delivering ethical teaching.

His ethical teaching falls into the camps "you think you're doing enough, but you're nowhere near adequate by God's standards" or "you're hewing to the letter of the law rather than reaching the spirit of the law, which is what you know is right". Both those points are to a purpose. He avoids giving straightforward list of instructions, and he teaches in questions and riddles, because being a moral person does not mean lawyering your way around a contract of clear-cut rules as the Jews had been trying for several hundred years.

Those concepts are all largely true about Islam and Judaism too. For hardcore Nietzscheans who consider all Abrahamism slave morality that tracks, but I’d say for those specifically down on Christianity alone, it’s more that the New Testament lacks a certain martial character that is found in both Jewish and Muslim history, in the latter case especially in the life and conquests of Muhammad.

Not a Nietzschean, but his basic description of mass religion tracks just fine. Not just abrahamic, I would argue every large religion is a religion of submission, of slavery. Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism etc. all count. All are functionally about convincing the ruled to keep to their place.

Non-slave religions cannot spread beyond a tiny martial minority, nor survive social progress or the achievement of wealth and comfort. The slaves outnumber the free a thousand to one. Religion must take its adherents where they are.

For hardcore Nietzscheans who consider all Abrahamism slave morality

It's worth remembering that in Nietzsche's discussion of master/slave morality in the Genealogy, he initially introduces slave morality as a structural phenomenon - it's defined by its relationship with other systems of morality, not by its inherent content, which therefore at least in principle opens up the possibility of a type of Christianity that is not founded on slave morality (or indeed, the possibility that those who appear to be masters are actually slaves):

The beginning of the slaves’ revolt in morality occurs when ressentiment itself turns creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of those beings who, denied the proper response of action, compensate for it only with imaginary revenge. Whereas all noble morality grows out of a triumphant saying ‘yes’ to itself, slave morality says ‘no’ on principle to everything that is ‘outside’, ‘other’, ‘non-self ’: and this ‘no’ is its creative deed. This reversal of the evaluating glance – this essential orientation to the outside instead of back onto itself – is a feature of ressentiment: in order to come about, slave morality first has to have an opposing, external world, it needs, physiologically speaking, external stimuli in order to act at all, – its action is basically a reaction. The opposite is the case with the noble method of valuation: this acts and grows spontaneously, seeking out its opposite only so that it can say ‘yes’ to itself even more thankfully and exultantly, – its negative concept ‘low’, ‘common’, ‘bad’ is only a pale contrast created after the event compared to its positive basic concept, saturated with life and passion, ‘we the noble, the good, the beautiful and the happy!

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