I completely agree with Mr. Auster’s insight as presented in his chapter excerpt, and its relevance not only to the creeping (and “creepy,” I might add) non-judgmentalism we see today, the astounding lack of ethno-cultural self-awareness among Western élites, and other glaringly baffling defects of post-modernism, but relevance to what I believe is an inability — one based on weakness — to grieve for, or mourn, tragically-killed family members, school mates, neighbors, community members, and other loved ones without the help of professional “grief counselors.”

This dispatching of “grief counselors” every time there is tragic loss of life in a family or community is a phenomenon which would have been shocking to, and totally rejected by (as being wildly inappropriate), the world in which I grew up some decades ago.

My family when I was growing up was never, thank God, visited by tragic bereavement due to some Columbine-type, 9/11-type, or airline-crash-type death, for example. But if it had been, and some government-dispatched “grief-counselor” arrived at the door of our home to “guide us through the mourning process,” my mother would have sent him packing back to where he came from, I can guarantee it.

I hope and pray that the tokens of societal ill-health which Mr. Auster discusses in his excerpt are not the earliest warning signs of what H.G. Wells foresaw for the West.

If indeed they are, then we’d better all practice how to wrap our heads with a turban and how to kneel five times a day in the direction of Mecca to pray — because the Muslim world has surely NOT caught this disease yet, and if the case of it which we suffer from continues to advance unchecked, the Muslims will ultimately find us push-overs in the epic struggle that now looms before us.

“What does the human product of a nihilist culture look like? As white America has progressively lost its belief in God, in objective truth and morality, in law, in nationhood and in race, whites have acquired an increasingly bland, complacent, pacific aspect.”

I dont believe that the disbelief in god is directly connected to nihilism. It just doesnt fit with me easily, How could it be that the Chinese say arent running themselves into this wall then. They maybe have a philisophical tradition which replaces this. Athiesm I believe can be as much anti-nihilistic as it can nihilistic. And I anyway now have come to the conclusion that nihilism is of no value because it is not an affirmative of my own satisfaction and happiness. However most of my own friends have either become more unwilling to except a reality other than the divine and thus become more protected morally from liberal pressures or have become annoyingly nihilistic athiests who are outspokenly judgemental on liberal dogma. I still find it more easy to argue against liberal points with athiests though as the religious will underpressure be more likely to not listen at all because of moral judgmentalism that is bestowed to them by the churches heirarchy of judgmentalism. This Heirarchy means the popes bad decision on multiculture means the catholics collectively take a step towards eloi-ness.

Stephen says:
“This Heirarchy means the popes bad decision on multiculture means the catholics collectively take a step towards eloi-ness.”

What Stephen says is true, but no more so than during the Arian crisis or after the Second Council of Constantinople, for example. It would be more true to say that neocons’ bad decisions on multiculture makes conservatism in general take a step toward eloi-ness, and that the Novus Ordo specifically, unlike traditional and eastern Catholicism, has not proven immune to neoconservatism. One of the great things about being Catholic though is that one can look at things from a long historical perspective.

Stephen, you seem to say that not all judgementalism is an antidote to today’s eloi-like non-judgementalism, citing the counterexample of that judgementalism which is part of the typical traditional Catholic outlook, in the case where Catholics themselves have become eloi-like — since traditional Catholic judgementalism in that case will only bolster eloi-ism against criticism of it.

But that is a false counterexample: clearly what is needed in this struggle is appropriate forms of judgementalism. Inappropriate forms only risk exacerbating the original problem, obviously.

(On the other hand, I had some difficulty understanding your post. If I’ve misinterpreted it, please re-state your point in simpler, clearer terms — I’m not the brightest bulb on the tree.)

Reading Stephen’s post again, I wish to comment on it just a bit further. He wrote,

“And I anyway now have come to the conclusion that nihilism is of no value because it is not an affirmative of my own satisfaction and happiness.”

If memory serves, in previous posts on another VFR thread Stephen indicated that he considered himself to, in effect, no longer have free will, since — as he saw it — his having accepted God into his life had taken all ability to make choices out of his hands and placed it in God’s hands. That view happens to be a form of nihilism, since it renders one’s life essentially devoid of morality, of free will, and of meaning.

Yes and I rejected god because of that, They are alternative ways Unadorned, Atheism does not lead to Nihilism.

To answer your first post.
I am saying that atheism and nihilism are not tied together.

You can be a Nihilistic Atheist, such people though devoid of structured philosophies tend towards eloi-ness. they are more susceptible towards liberalism I believe due to the fact they must develop all of their value judgments on their own which takes too long. They eventually are corrupted and indoctrinated by the dogmatic liberal church.

You can be a traditionalist Atheist, Have a nice bit of philosophy like Confucianism under the belt and a large social support network and history of success to make you have faith in this ‘way of being’ and you don’t become immoral.

I’m a bit in between in that I have rejected God, become a little Eloi-like initially but gradually through experience and reading some Nietzsche and even some of Jim Kalbs stuff and managed to reject things like modern liberalism, state-socialism, feminism, Communism, Nazism, the promotion of ignorance, and a whole load of other -isms. It made me even feel sick to realise how broken western tradition is. I would say I am still partially Eloi on a number of topics but I would say my own form of Growth Atheism is better than just resigning myself to Catholicism and referring my arguments to a higher power constantly when I know for a fact that one of these higher powers, he pope, is wrong.

“I would say my own form of Growth Atheism [LA note: whatever that is. It sounds like something out of Shaw’s Man and Superman] is better than just resigning myself to Catholicism and referring my arguments to a higher power constantly when I know for a fact that one of these higher powers, the Pope, is wrong.”

The higher-ups in all the churches are wrong. I am so to speak a member of the Episcopalian church, and virtually every bishop of that church that I’ve had any experience of is either an anti-Christian, a non-Christian, or a Christian whose Christianity is so cerebral, attenuated, and tortured that he might as well not be a Christian at all. And, as if the 1979 Prayer Book was not bad enough, they’re coming out with another that will undoubtedly be far worse. (My own parish still uses the 1928 Prayer Book.) My point is that somehow, despite the abysmal falsity and bad faith of the human beings running these institutions, these institutions still serve as the vehicles and instruments of God’s presence and grace coming into our lives. The mortal men who occupy the seats don’t matter; what matters is the Holy Spirit that runs the church, or, at least, communicates itself and operates through it.

“I am so to speak a member of the Episcopalian church…” — Lawrence Auster

I didn’t realize this. For some reason, I had gotten the impression that you were a Catholic, which is why I addressed you as such before. I apologize for the error.

Stephen says:
“…but I would say my own form of Growth Atheism is better than just resigning myself to Catholicism and referring my arguments to a higher power constantly when I know for a fact that one of these higher powers, he pope, is wrong.”

The point I made earlier though (similar to Mr. Auster’s recent one) is that this is a false choice. It is true that someone catechized by the “orthodox” neo-Catholic establishment in America will be told that this is the choice, but oddly enough this view isn’t even supported by this Pope, no doubt a very holy man but in many respects the primary engine of neo-Catholicism.

“There are people who in the face of the difficulties or because they consider that the first ecumenical endeavors have brought negative results would have liked to turn back. Some even express the opinion that these efforts are harmful to the cause of the Gospel, are leading to a further rupture in the Church, are causing confusion of ideas in questions of faith and morals and are ending up with a specific indifferentism. It is perhaps a good thing that the spokesmen for these opinions should express their fears.” — Pope John Paul II, _Redemptor Hominis_

He goes on to argue (in 1979) that the traditionalists are wrong to give up on the Vatican II programme too early, but obviously the Pope himself doesn’t find it problemmatic, and even thinks it is a good thing, for trads to disagree and voice that disagreement. The notion that assent to dogma entails the sort of comprehensive agreement and submission to the Pope that the neo-Catholic establishment will tell you it does is outright anti-Catholic, leading to the sort of false trap of utter submission against conscience that Stephen describes, and *is not supported by the Pope himself*.

“Yes, and I rejected God because of that — there are alternative ways, Unadorned; Atheism does not lead to Nihilism. … You can be a Nihilistic Atheist … . You can be a traditionalist Atheist … . I’m a bit in between, in that I have rejected God, become a little Eloi-like initially, but gradually, through experience, and reading some Nietzsche and even some of Jim Kalb’s stuff, [I’ve] managed to reject things like modern liberalism, state-socialism, feminism, Communism, Nazism, the promotion of ignorance, and a whole load of other ‘-isms.’ It made me even feel sick to realise how broken western tradition was. I would say I am still partially ‘Eloi’ on a number of topics, but I would say my own form of Growth Atheism is better than just resigning myself to Catholicism … ” — Stephen

Stephen, “Growth Atheism” cannot grow very tall. It will not, in the end, flourish or blossom for you in the ways you are seeking. I wish you had not rejected a belief in God just because you came to feel, falsely, that that belief took away your free will. You should instead have continued to believe in him but in the proper way — the way everyone else does, continuing to see that you possess free will.

Can’t you see that without the existence of free will there is neither sin, nor evil, nor goodness, nor even meaning, in the world? I would say there probably can’t even be consciousness as we know it, without free will.

You admit that you are become partially “eloi-like.” That comes as no surprise: the pursuit of what you call “Growth Atheism” leads exactly to an Eloi form of existence, since it denies ultimate meaning. Atheism can “grow,” it is true — but only just so far, and no further. In the end, it’s a blind alley, for the simple that it cannot get at ultimate meaning. Do you think it’s an accident that the greatest minds — Socrates, Plato, St. Paul, Sir Isaac Newton, Voltaire, Albert Einstein — all believed firmly, unshakably, in God?

Come back to where you were before you accidentally took your wrong turn: come back to a belief in God, only this time do it right, and see that it in no way infringes on one’s free will. Do you think for one second that a proper belief in God can co-exist very long with the behavior, mentality, and lifestyle of the Eloi as portrayed in H.G. Wells’ prophetic book?

Stephen’s position has to be a naive one, since the enslaved will comes from Lutheranism and Calvinism not Catholicism. The chapter on Luther in E. Michael Jones’ indispensable book _Degenerate Moderns_ makes this concrete in a very compact, rigorous way.

“Non-judgmentalism, rather than necessarily always being a principled thing, can be sort of the lazy man’s or the obtuse man’s or the man-who-lacks-moral-fiber’s easy way out…. People like that obviously will fail to see the absolute inappropriateness of calling Hitler a ‘tragic’ figure.” — Anonymous

Since Mr. Auster has seen fit to continue his attack via the mouth of an anonymous correspondent on the front page, let me address this issue one last time:

There is nothing in the least controversial about my definition of tragedy. Tragedy is a form of drama in which the protagonist COMES TO DISASTER THROUGH A FLAW IN HIS NATURE, and I cannot for the life of me see what is controversial about declaring that Hitler came to disaster (as did all those around them) in just such a way. Precisely as, say, Achilles suffered from the flaw or vice of wrath, so did Hitler suffer similar flaws and vices—moral faults—from which flowed his crimes. SAYING HE “SUFFERED FROM A FLAW” DOES NOT MEAN HE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE AND COMPLETELY CULPABLE FOR HIS ACTIONS. I don’t know how many times or how many ways this has to be said. What Hitler did he did according to free acts of his will, and he could have resisted the temptations had he so willed. There is no sense in which I am attempting to excuse Hitler of his crimes, as I have said repeatedly, nor do my words, properly understood, demand such an intepretation.

I am not somehow married to the idea of Hitler as a tragic figure in the idiotic sense you people seem to mean. I do not walk around bemoaning the “tragedy” of poor Adolf’s life, crying over the injustice of it all and asking that we “understand” and forgive Hitler. That’s what you assume I think, because that’s as deep as your understanding of tragedy and the Christian religion goes, but it’s not true. In the posts that started this all, I was merely contrasting Mr. Meyjes’ portrayal of Hitler with that of the JDL. I was not offering up some sort of defense of the man. But here in the humid fever swamps of the paranoid and half-educated, I have apparently been taken for some sort of liberal subversive who must prove himself through loyalty oaths and whatnot. Well, Mr. Anonymous, I am neither obtuse, nor lazy, nor lacking in moral fiber. If you point out an error in what I have said, and it truly is an error, I will acknowledge it and retract it. Until you do, you have no cause whatsoever to say those things about me.

Oh, lastly: there’s no way to tell the date of your exchange with Mr. Auster. Knowing him as I now do, I suspect it dates from the beginning of our little set-to rather than the end. But in case it doesn’t, let me point out that the charge of “non-judgmental” has been well answered. I have said, plainly and without waffling in any way, that Hitler was AN EVIL MAN. I have said that it’s hard to imagine a man MORE evil than Hitler. I will now go even further than that and say that there is no doubt that Adolf Hitler deserves to burn eternally in Hell for his crimes, and in all likelihood that he is. Now, perhaps someone would be so kind, if that is not sufficiently judgmental for them, as to let me know what is.

To Mr. Newland re his condemnation of Hitler:

Yes, it is sufficiently judgmental, and you are hereby absolved of the charge of non-judgmentalism.

However, it is still inappropriate—given the common accepted meaning of the word “tragic”—to describe Hitler as a “tragic” figure. Which was what created the impression of non-judgmentalism in the first place.

Also, my quote from a VFR reader with which I began this post was not intended as a continuance of my previous criticism of Mr. Newland, though, obviously, it did continue the criticism. The reader had sent me an e-mail relating to the “Eloi,” which made me think of posting my own item on the Eloi, but I wanted to use his e-mail as an introduction, which included the reference to people who describe Hitler as tragic.

Mr. Newland, Othello was a “tragic” figure, but would you call Iago “tragic”? I don’t think so. Hamlet was a “tragic” figure, but would you call his uncle who murdered his father “tragic”? I doubt it. MacBeth might be seen as a “tragic” figure, but I doubt Lady MacBeth would. Romeo and Juliette were both “tragic,” as were Antony and Cleopatra. But Richard III was not.

Or am I wrong?

Richard Nixon was a “tragic” figure, but would you call Bill Clinton “tragic”? Both men were deeply flawed in ways that gravely sullied their public reputations, disgraced their administrations for all time, ruined their prospects for ever again being held in high esteem by their own parties let alone by the American people, and kept very important governmental work from being accomplished during their tenures in office. But I do not see them both as “tragic.” Nixon to me was a “tragic” figure, while Clinton doesn’t even come close.

It should go without saying that I don’t mean to compare any of the above even remotely with Hitler. I just want to show, in a slightly different way, how calling some figures “tragic” doesn’t seem appropriate. To be “tragic,” one must possess redeeming qualities which, but for some fatal flaw which is narrow in scope, would have made one’s life admirable. Neither Richard III, nor Iago, nor Bill CLinton is a “tragic” figure.

Though in an entirely different league, of course, neither can Adolph Hitler be considered to be “tragic.”

I have a suspicion that Eloiness, especially in men (who one has the impression are affected more seriously by this condition than women) may be a direct consequence of the prevailing belief that there is no such thing as excessive sexual self-indulgence. Anyone care to comment?

Ian Hare, I don’t follow your point. Eloiness is much broader than that. Can you make your point more fully?

I would blame pot more than excessive sexual self-indulgence.

But even more so, young men are affected by an overall loss of moorings. What is supposed to motivate young men these days? They aren’t meant to be masculine protectors & providers anymore, not for their families, nor for their race, nor for their church.

The young man who is not by nature careerist, or materialistic, or hedonistic is at a serious disadvantage in modern society, since these are the remanining prime motivators.

Undoubtedly Eloiness is broader than merely a lack of vitality resulting from sexual dissipation. I suppose that the general point I’m trying to make is that there may be important “low-level” factors involved in problems which in this forum tend to be talked about purely in “high-level” intellectual or spiritual terms. A hundred years ago the sapping of physical and spiritual energies through excessive sexual indulgence would have been a commonplace idea. The Eloi phenomenon sounds like a disease. What it could be cured even partially by physical means?

A part of Eloihood is the general softening, feminization, cowardliness, and anomie of many young men today, which has developed right alongside the excessive self-esteem of young women. Both these things are the deliberate product of liberal educational philosophies and cultural attitudes. But I don’t think that the feminization of young men can be the major component of Eloihood, since Eloihood affects all ages and both sexes.

“The Eloi phenomenon sounds like a disease. What if it could be cured even partially by physical means?” — Ian Hare

Ian, here you have the problem, of course, that in order to attempt the cure you have in mind — a return by today’s society to the greater levels of sexual continence which characterized the pre-1960s West — the disease itself would first have to be conquered.

Anyway, rather than being one of the causes of the malaise, I suspect that is just one of its symptoms. Indeed, isn’t stringently-enforced, Hugh-Heffner-loathing, extreme sexual prudery, à la mesdemoiselles Andrea Dworkin, Prof. Katherine MacKinnon, Prof. Anita Hill, Gloria Steinem to some extent, and their ilk, one of the very pillars of the budding Eloiness we see around us? And aren’t more level-headed feminists such as Katie Roiphe and Prof. Camille Paglia trying to topple this iron-fisted régime precisely because they foresee an unpalatable world of Eloiness looming in the distance because of it?

(I hasten to add, I loathe Hugh Heffner too — but for totally different reasons!)

I’m offering the following as a tentative thought that I cannot back up by evidence beyond my own observations and intuitions.

It has often seemed to me that there is a negative correlation between the amount and degree of extramarital sexual experience a person has had, and his willingness to affirm objective moral principles. Most everyone today has had some extra marital experiences, some have had more, some have had a lot more. An extreme example is Clinton. Even in the earlier years of his presidency, Before Monica, whenever he would appear speaking on television there would be this look of such gross looseness and self-indulgence about him that the thought would come to me (excuse the vulgarity): “He looks like he just had a b.j.” As the Lewinksy scandal brought out years later, my vulgar thought was in fact the truth.

What I am speaking of here is not just a numerical index of sexual experience, but the attitudes that one has toward it. So this also applies to faithfully married people who nevertheless identify with and support the culture of sexual liberation; consider all the married, middle-class people who defended Clinton to the max, uttering the nihilistic slogan, “Everyone does it.” Think of the traditionalist Anglicans who support mixed-sex college dorms and mixed-sex dorm bathrooms. But the vanguard of this movement, as it were, consists of the people who have actually indulged in a great deal of experience, rather than the people who merely support a culture in which the right to do so is unlimited.

Here’s what I’m suggesting is the psychological core of the phenomenon. If a person has had a lot of affairs, and has not had any “second thoughts” about them or repented of them in any way, then it becomes impossible for him to stand firmly for the idea of morality, not just sexual morality, but the whole idea of a higher moral truth that transcends us as individuals. And the reason for this is that too much of the core of such a person’s identity has been formed by the experience of sexual freedom, and he (entirely correctly) sees objective morality as a direct threat to that.

To give a simple example of the incompatibility of the two outlooks: before I became a Christian believer I found it normal and natural, when with male friends, to talk occasionally about our past experiences with women; after I became a Christian believer I never did that again. No one told me not to do it; but it just came as an immediate thought that that was something that God didn’t want me to do. The liberated person celebrates and affirms his past sexual adventures; the Christian realizes that that is not the way God wants us to live. Without some experience of repentance along these lines, it is difficult for people to affirm moral principles that transcend individual desire. And so, not being willing or able to make moral judgments, they evolve into Eloi.

It would seem therefore that sexual liberationism is a component of Eloihood—perhaps even a major component, though that remains to be seen.

Serendipitously I have the opportunity to mention the same book twice in the same day: _Degenerate Moderns_ by E. Michael Jones. What Mr. Auster has just described is the thesis of Jones’ book: the subtitle is “Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior”. For Jones it is more than a gut feeling: he documents in detail how the public lives of diverse moderns and pre-moderns from Picasso to Freud to Kinsey to Margaret Mead to Martin Luther reflected radical attempts to paper over a (sexually) guilty conscience. We can deny the moral law, but only at the cost of denying ourselves. If Freud is not fundamental to Eloism I don’t know who is.

As an example of where this has all lead, the following article describes the state of modern “courtship” (sort of):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6351-2003Jan17.html

(link found at The NeoCorner).

It’s more a matter of the status of sex than the quantity of experience I think, although quantity does matter.

The current theory is that sex is what you make of it, which means that in and of itself it means nothing whatever. So an all-pervasive aspect of life, the thing that by nature is the most intense and all-embracing connection to another human being possible, means nothing whatever unless you happen to want to make it mean something. Once you accept that how can Eloihood possibly be avoided? If you see someone drowning how can it be anything but a ho-hum?

To quote Lawrence Auster:
“Here’s what I’m suggesting is the psychological core of thephenomenon. If a person has had a lot of affairs, and has not had any “second thoughts” about them or repented of them in any way, then it becomes impossible for him to stand firmly for the idea of morality, not just sexual morality, but the whole idea of a higher moral truth that transcends us as individuals. And the reason for this is that too much of the core of such a person’s identity has been formed by the experience of sexual freedom, and he (entirely correctly) sees objective morality as a direct threat to that.”

I think Mr. Auster has given us a very concise desciption of one of the major aspects of the “non-judgementalism” problem so widespread in Western society today. I believe the scripture descibes this as “having a conscience seared (cauterized) with a hot iron.” The breezy, crude, degenerate sexual amorality that is now so commonplace has a spiritual cost: it blinds the conscience of those who indulge in it - or even support it. It really does explain the emotional, irrational support given to Bill Clinton by the millions of middle-class, suburban, married “soccer-moms” and many of the spineless males they are either married to or living with.

There is an inversion of this on the market in the form of the recently (re)made movie version of the _The Time Machine_. In this far future, the Eloi look to be mixed race multi-cultural folk while the Morlocks are, well, very very white.

This probably fits in nicely with the long running discussion of the Nazis as the Other boogeyman for Liberals.

In an e-mail exchange about this new movie version of “The Time Machine” that shows the Morlocks as white people, a VFR reader said:

“It would be interesting if you could carry your middle class white Westerners as Eloi allegory on in light of a movie like this which seems to very much suggest the opposite.”

My reply:

In fact, that’s the *cultural* equivalent of Eloihood—allowing ourselves to be cast as Morlocks.

Apart from the Islamic terrorists, we’re not threatened with our literal collective murder as a people. The major harm being done to us is that, through a monstrous inversion of truth and falsehood, we and our whole civilization are being delegitimized by being portrayed as base and murderous—as Morlocks. And we, Eloi-like, passively accept that.

Lawrence Auster should post his article: Liberalism, the real cause of Anti-Semitism. It’s spot on. To paraphrase:

Good discriminates against evil, and since liberalism cannot tolerate discrimination, even discrimination against evil, good must be destroyed to maintain the illusion of tolerance.

Lawerence, feel free to correct me if you intended a different meaning.

Mr. Liebermann’s re-statement of my theme from the article, “Liberalism: The Real Cause of Anti-Semitism,” is correct. I thank him for pointing out the connection between the inversion of good and evil discussed in that article, and our Eloi-like acceptance of being falsely cast as Morlocks that I discussed here. The article can be found at Front Page Magazine:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5423

at the Jewish Press:
http://www.jewishpress.com/news_article_print.asp?article=2182

and at VFR:
http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/001070.html

both sexes

FOAD

“Good discriminates against evil, and since liberalism cannot tolerate discrimination, even discrimination against evil, good must be destroyed to maintain the illusion of tolerance.”

So tolerance is the new God. A God that doesn’t discriminate.

I believe the Vatican released a statement referring to the death of Arafat as the loss of someone of “Illustrius mention” .

illustrious…sorry