Conservatism Rediscovered | Dr. Yoram Hazony

MONDAY, JUNE 19, 2023 

POLITICS / CONSERVATISM 

Dr. Yoram Hazony is one of my heroes.   He is a true intellectual.  

Philosopher, scholar and political theorist Dr. Yoram Hazony joins John for a rich and interweaving conversation about conservatism, nationalism, democracy and modern politics. Dr. Hazony, author of several books on these matters, provides a compelling critique of the political right - where it has gone wrong, the great benefits it can convey for society and how it diverges from liberalism. John and Yoram touch on many important topics, including multiculturalism, identity politics, globalism and the question of why nationalism seems surrounded by an unearned air of controversy. John and Yoram touch on many important topics, including multiculturalism, identity politics, globalism and why nationalism seems to be surrounded by an unearned air of controversy. Yoram Hazony is an Israeli philosopher, Bible scholar and political theorist. He is President of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem and Chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation. He has written several books, including The Virtue of Nationalism (2018) and his latest, Conservatism: A Rediscovery (2022), both of which have met with popular and critical success  

Educated at Princeton University (B.A. in East Asian Studies), and Rutgers University (Ph.D in Political Theory), Yoram founded and was the first editor of Princeton’s conservative student journal, The Princeton Tory, while still an undergraduate. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Yael Hazony. They have nine children.

Bishop Robert Barron | Hillsdale College 2023 Commencement Address

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2023 

CHRISTIANITY / BISHOPS / BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

Here is a Catholic so popular, he's invited to a deeply BAPTIST college to give its commencement address!   And what a message it is, the need for Christians, even if they are the tiniest of minorities.

This is a MUST WATCH VIDEO!  

(I liked it so much, I've now posted it twice to this blog!)

Bishop Robert Barron | Hillsdale College 2023 Commencement Address

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2023 

CHRISTIANITY / COMMENCEMENT 

An absolutely outstanding commencement speech by Bishop Robert Barron.   You know things are getting close to the end-times when a famous Catholic bishop gives the commencement address at a Baptist college.  

This is a short video, and well worth watching entirely.   

PHILOSOPHY: THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 2023 

PHILOSOPHY / CONSCIOUSNESS

For some odd reason, philosophers love to talk endlessly about "the problem of consciousness", as if it were a problem.  That we are conscious beings seems to be beyond dispute, but why we are conscious certainly is not.   

Do realize that the only philosophers who have a problem with consciousness are materialists.  The reason they have a problem is that that materialism, as an ideology, is woefully inadequate to explain anything other than that there are things that can be measured and observed.  Hence, materialism is always incapable of asking the hard "why is this so?" questions, because it excludes them from consideration.  Consciousness is a real problem for them, because their ideology is literally incapable of explaining why it is.  Then again, their ideology is incapable of explaining the why of absolutely anything that exists, so this should not be surprising.      

I'm not a materialist.  I find the ideology to be incredibly stupid.  If I were to label myself, it would be a familian informationalist.  What does that mean?  Let me break it down:

FAMILIAN = from the Latin familia, where we get the word family.  It means that I view families as being the utmost in importance in regards to human flourishing.   

INFORMATIONALIST = Regarding information.  The world is not made up primarily of material, it's primarily made up of information.  As a matter of fact, it's made up almost entirely of information.  An informationalist is one who believes that the primary building blocks of all reality is information.   

So what does a familian informationalist believe regarding consciousness?  Consciousness is the filter between everything that is out there in the world, and everything that exists in the inner world.  

The outer world is all that information that we take in via the five senses: taste, touch, smell, hearing and seeing.   

The inner world is all that information that we store internally, and retrieve via intuition, pattern matching, and various other strategies.  The method used most often is just simple pattern matching.   

How does this work?  We see in the neighbor's yard a nice friendly animal, with four legs, a wagging tail, that makes a barking noise.  We literally take that animal's essence into ourselves via the the filter of consciousness.  Once the essence is inside, we take and compare the essence of that animal with our storehouse of animal essences (information) until we find a match.   Once we find a match, we decide that there is a black labrador retriever in the neighbor's yard.   

Here's the problem for materialists: , unlike dogs, the consciousness cannot be seen, felt or measured.  You can't take a ruler or scale and figure out how big it is, or how much it weighs.  And yet, it's certainly there alright, as it seems most everyone has the attributes of being conscious.  

If you are looking for a material cause for consciousness, you are already zooming down the wrong track, as the consciousness is not a material thing: it is spirit, and it exists because we spiritual beings inhabiting a material body.   The informational evidence for this is overwhelming, and unremarkable.  

Hence consciousness is just an intake and filtering mechanism that takes all the input from the world "out there" and brings it into your "inner world"-- that space that only you have access to, no one else.    

How well a person deals with the world, and their place in the world is very much dependent on the development of their consciousness.  While everyone has consciousness, the quality of consciousness varies widely between individuals.   That is why education is so crucial for human development, as it can be used to shape consciousness it make it far more efficient and effective at living life.  If education becomes corrupted, or has corrupted elements in it, then a person's consciousness will suffer as a result.   

So consciousness is not just a fixed filter, it's adaptable and changeable to a certain degree.  And it is changed and molded by the information it takes in from the outer world.  The conscious is capable of learning.  Through effective learning, a conscious being can improvise, adapt and overcome a multitude of situations.   

The real "problem of consciousness" is not why or how it exists, but rather how to we best train and educate our consciousness to become the best possible version of ourselves.   

Yet there are fixed constants ingrained into consciousness that cannot be changed, no matter what.  There are core attributes that are immutable, and it's of critical importance to understand what those immutable attributes are, because attempting to change something unchangeable will result in horrific levels of frustration, distress, pain and suffering, all of which are quite unnecessary.  

So what are the attributes of consciousness that are immutable?  Here are just a few significant ones:

  • The need to discern truth from lies.
  • The need for companionship. 
  • The need to maintain the body it inhabits.  
  • The need for a continuous stream of information. 
  • The need to classify and filter information.  
  • The need to prioritize information.  
  • The need for order and predictability.
  • The need to create and destroy.   

The education of an individual must take into account those aspects of consciousness that are immutable, and strengthen them rather than cripple or hamper them.  Of course individuals will have their own personal set of immutable attributes that exist in addition to those that are common to all, as that's what makes humans such an interesting creation.  

- Pseudo Boethius

Socrates vs. the Sophists on Ethics

Wednesday, April 12, 2023 

PHILOSOPHY / HISTORY / KREEFT / SOCRATES

The Word on Fire Institute has released an amazing video series about the history of philosophy, featuring philosopher Peter Kreeft.   

In this episode, he explains why Socrates is one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived, and one of the first.   


Can Decentralization Save Humanity? - Why Smaller is Better in Politics

Sunday, April 2, 2023 

POLITICS / DECENTRALIZATION

Should the states and provinces of nations separate and become politically autonomous? Should counties, cities, and communities do the same? What is the optimal size of a political unit? In this video, we are going to explore why the nation-states that populate the world are too big, and why decentralization – not voting different politicians into power – is the cure to many of the social and political problems that ail us. 

This is an outstanding video about the importance of small, autonomous units of government.  The founders of the United States of America understood this concept perfectly, and it's the cornerstone of conservatism, as well as the American form of government. 

It's also the cornerstone of the Protestant Reformation, though not intentionally.  The Protestant Reformation actually reached its ultimate fulfillment in the United States.  The reason why Christianity is still a force to be reckoned with in this country, in contrast to Europe where it's almost nonexistent, is the fact that truly orthodox Christians seem to intuitively understand the need and importance of small, autonomous churches.   

Sadly, thanks to socialists and communists, the USA and the rest of the west is headed towards a secular, totalitarian future based on lies and propaganda that have no basis in truth.  Neo-Marxists are working hard to consolidate power through centralized power centers, much like the old Roman Empire.  However, today's authoritarian movement is very much rooted in objective evil, and has none of the charm or brilliance of ancient Rome.   

It's interesting to note that the direct inheritor of the Roman Empire is the Catholic Church.  And much like the ancient empire, the Catholic Church has also been subject to tremendous scandal, corruption and moral failures of all kinds, hence the origin of the Reformation itself.  It seems all large-scale centralized structures, even religious ones, ultimately become corrupt by power and privilege.   

By keeping governmental units small and close to the people they govern, wide-spread corruption and moral failure is easily discovered and corrected.  This is true for almost any organization, secular or sacred.