Dear frank sorry about your car I wish you and your family a very blessed and enjoyable stay in our Country which was the land of saints and scholars and will be again
May god bless you and your family and reward you for all your good work
Please continue to share some literary works with us. As an American college graduate who took many literature classes, I must say that it was a lot of rot and nothing worth reading! I am always happy to hear suggestions for edifying literature, so scarce in our age.
Have a wonderful vacation! I always enjoy your posts.
Thank you for the reading suggestions, the Catechism of Modernism is wonderful! and the vocabulary word from TS Eliot is an absolute delight; "Tergiversation" also describes Vatican II and Modernism as well!
Enjoy your vacation; Ireland is the only place I have ever visited and did not want to leave.
I think it's important to note that modern (postmodern cultural relativism) liberalism deliberately misreads Berlin, and if we look at a comparison between Popper and Berlin then it becomes apparent that Berlin had a far more tragic outlook. The chattering classes tend to ignore the fact that Berlin recognised that liberalism could become tragic when values conflict and subsequently prove to be irreconcilable. He believed that some values were irreconcilable. He called the problem of the incommensurability, although if we are splitting hairs one could divide the problem into incommensurability, incompatibility/conflict, and irreconcilability.
It's useful to go back to one of Berlin's four favourite counter enlightenment philosophers when constructing an argument in opposition to the cultural relativist version of the Open Society which has become dominant. Herder made a distinction between objective (scientific) and subjective (cultural) knowledge. He deliberately rejected the notion that any culture was inherently superior to another. He also believed every culture would eventually find its own centre of gravity.
Importantly, Herderian pluralism does not logically entail unlimited immigration, multiculturalism, or cultural convergence. In fact, it can potentially point in the opposite direction. If cultures are historically developed forms of life with their own internal coherence, then rapidly combining fundamentally different cultural systems isn't necessarily an uncomplicated enrichment, instead it can lead to the incomparable loss of a precious and culturally unique way of life.
In the modern context the correct question to ask is not whether another culture is better or worse, but rather is it right for us, and does living in close proximity to other specific cultures require us to compromise our own culture in ways that violate our basic sense of dignity, safety or our most important values? It shouldn't be rocket science to understand that when it comes to values and cultures, the host culture's values should prevail unless the large majority of the host culture wants to incorporate some particular custom and practice which might make for an improvement.
Some people like Salsa dancing. Other people like line dancing. I'm sure most Brits wouldn't be too upset to keep both. If only all foreign customs and practices were as savoury...
A great excerpt of Berlin in interview from the Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library: 'Like Herder, I regard cosmopolitanism as empty. People can’t develop unless they belong to a culture. Even if they
rebel against it and transform it entirely, they still belong to a stream of tradition. New streams can be created – in the West, by Christianity, or Luther, or the Renaissance, or the Romantic movement, but in the end they derive from a single river, an underlying central tradition, which, sometimes in radically altered forms, survives. But if the streams dried up, as, for instance, where men and women are not products of a culture, where they don’t have kith and kin and feel closer to some people than to others, where there is no native language – that would lead to a tremendous desiccation of everything that is human.'
I like a lot about Berlin and I can’t do that comment or him justice in this small space. You’re right it’s unfair to him and I think I should go on about him in future.
Have you read any Hannah Arendt? The Weimer Republic is a prime example of how liberalist universalism doesn't even work within a monoculture. Cultural history and tradition are inherently organic. Liberalist universalism is a mechanistic attempt to dissolve traditional forms without recognising that depriving a people of their roots and cultural values will invariably lead to social fragmentation and the obsession that the political can somehow act as a surrogate for things which give our lives far deeper meaning and purpose.
I watched your Peter McCormack Show appearance. Very good.
Yep. That's why I noted liberals deliberately misread him (to support their own preferred vision for society). With Karl Popper I'm a lot more conflicted. On the one hand I absolutely love his codification of scientific knowledge with falsification. On the other, his views on culture were a massive misdiagnosis of the causes of WWII. He seemed to want to dissolve all human connection to group beyond the immediate. An atomised dystopia.
Hah. I now use AI to check my points are factually correct, not distorted by time and personal perspective. AI has got to the point that it remembers our previous discussions about wounded nationalism. Alongside humiliation and insecurity it through a new word at me: ressentiment. It's a good way of describing the motivations behind the woke (especially in relation to themselves). It's weird because I've read some of the texts in which it appears. Perhaps my tendency to skim read when I was younger is to blame.
It's not so much that AI is programmed to lie. It's more that the sources it's fed upon are filled with liberal platitudes and half-truths. The Left has an overwhelming advantage in information production centres. Some have argued that an AI fed upon knowledge from the beginning of the printed word to around the fifties world have a far more accurate understanding of reality.
Here's the thing. It is possible to use AI productively but this requires the user to have specific domain knowledge in order to push the AI to resort to using knowledge which is less pre-approved, regime-friendly and truth-seeking.
For example, you're not going to be able to push back much on the social sciences with AI unless you're familiar with Raj Chetty and similar work (surprise, surprise, family structure is the best predictor of upward social mobility).
It's also important to know how Newspeak actually functioned, even before the rise of AI. Most browser algorithms worked to actively supress conservative or culturally dissident content. Most dissenters really heavily on new media and private forums to pass dissident content. Before Substack or the X takeover, Discourse was probably the best platform in this regard.
This Tablet article describes a playbook which is as chilling as it is real:
Quote from 'The Cult of the Chosen Ones' by Makia Freeman:
"As we enter a new age of advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology, machines can now simulate just about anything (eg Deep Fakes of people acting and talking). Any document, image or video can easily be faked, and very convincingly so. Humanity is being hit with an Archontic perceptual onslaught. For those that wish to control the entire world, the future belongs to those who can gaslight and perceptually trick the masses into believing their lies and fictitious narratives. It will be vital to remember this concept in the years and decades to come, especially if the NWO controllers attempt to pull off some kind of scenario like Operation Blue Beam (a fake alien invasion) with holographic images in the sky designed to ensnare your five senses."
I can't recommend this book highly enough. Just wish it had been published 6 years ago when I first started researching!
Please continue with "useful things" which explain the mess we're in and how we can clean it up. I grew up in the era of "if it feels good do it", at the epicentre of the the cultural revolution, which left me and many of my adolescent peers confused about the new self-created morality.
Somehow you were "square" or had "hang ups" if you weren't a follower. The one thing I have trouble understanding is objective versus subjective truth. Do we not individually experience things differently, like art, music, how we see the world. For example, if you asked 10 different people to draw a picture of, say, a chair, the representations would each be different, yet for the most part, we would still recognise the object as a chair. Do you mean that subjectively we interpret things differently but objectively, a chair is still a chair? How does this apply in the philosophical context that you discuss?
I would be most grateful and interested if you could expound on this subject.
"If you remove from the word 'human' all that the belief in the supernatural has given to man, you can view him finally as no more than an extremely clever, adaptable and mischievous little animal."
Animals have an innate connection to divinity, as part of God's creation.
Most humans have been divorced from nature (God's creation) by the industrial/ technological revolution. No longer self sufficient, no longer connected to the natural world. Reduced to dependency upon a corporate system of enslavement. Schools do no teach life skills. They indoctrinate children to become obedient consumers. Unable to fend for ourselves, we are totally reliant upon corporate masters who do not have our best interests at heart.
“This is about life and death ... They are trying to kill us off. That’s definitely the case as far as I’m concerned over the... 400+ interviews that we’ve done this is the conclusion I have come to.” {Reiner Fuellmich (ICIC) ~ personality changes after mRNA vaccination.(2023)}
May I recommend the book "The Cult of the Chosen Ones" by Makia Freeman.
Makia Freeman talks about his book, The Cult of the Chosen Ones, which looks at the historical and ideological roots of a group he believes has influenced major world events and religions.
He explores the links between Judaism, Christianity, and Gnosticism, as well as the Rothschild family's role in global affairs and how events like the World Wars have played into this.
Makia also dives into the JFK assassination and its continued impact today. He stresses the importance of thinking critically about these complex stories.
Fr. Denis Fahey talked about this supernatural vs natural worldview in his critique of the Jews as an opposing force representing the natural opposing the supernatural Christian worldview. It reminded me that my youthful gullibility was influenced by a Jewish political philosophy professor back in the mid 70s—real big on The Enlightenment, but only discussed Rousseau’s book, The Social Contract, in a sketchy way which I cannot remember. Why this professor said to me, “If I could belong to any other religion it would be Catholicism” induced me to ask him, “Then why don’t you become one?” The answer was “Because I am a Jew.” I loved the man and as I keep looking and reading about our present times and I fear that I may have been mislead. The Enlightenment has become very American, perhaps even Catholic now.
Dear frank sorry about your car I wish you and your family a very blessed and enjoyable stay in our Country which was the land of saints and scholars and will be again
May god bless you and your family and reward you for all your good work
Viva Cristo Rey!
It could have been a lot worse and it wasn’t - thanks be to God! Thank you too for your welcome and your kind wishes!
Thanks for the list Frank. Enjoy the holiday.
Thank you, Frank ... now will read :-)
Dear Mr. Wright,
Please continue to share some literary works with us. As an American college graduate who took many literature classes, I must say that it was a lot of rot and nothing worth reading! I am always happy to hear suggestions for edifying literature, so scarce in our age.
Have a wonderful vacation! I always enjoy your posts.
God bless you and yours!
Thank you for the reading suggestions, the Catechism of Modernism is wonderful! and the vocabulary word from TS Eliot is an absolute delight; "Tergiversation" also describes Vatican II and Modernism as well!
Enjoy your vacation; Ireland is the only place I have ever visited and did not want to leave.
I was not able to proceed past primary school …long story. But as a mature age student I did attend university..
So the comments are as helpful as your essays Frank.
Blessings and appreciation from Sydney Australia.
My fallen nation.
I think it's important to note that modern (postmodern cultural relativism) liberalism deliberately misreads Berlin, and if we look at a comparison between Popper and Berlin then it becomes apparent that Berlin had a far more tragic outlook. The chattering classes tend to ignore the fact that Berlin recognised that liberalism could become tragic when values conflict and subsequently prove to be irreconcilable. He believed that some values were irreconcilable. He called the problem of the incommensurability, although if we are splitting hairs one could divide the problem into incommensurability, incompatibility/conflict, and irreconcilability.
It's useful to go back to one of Berlin's four favourite counter enlightenment philosophers when constructing an argument in opposition to the cultural relativist version of the Open Society which has become dominant. Herder made a distinction between objective (scientific) and subjective (cultural) knowledge. He deliberately rejected the notion that any culture was inherently superior to another. He also believed every culture would eventually find its own centre of gravity.
Importantly, Herderian pluralism does not logically entail unlimited immigration, multiculturalism, or cultural convergence. In fact, it can potentially point in the opposite direction. If cultures are historically developed forms of life with their own internal coherence, then rapidly combining fundamentally different cultural systems isn't necessarily an uncomplicated enrichment, instead it can lead to the incomparable loss of a precious and culturally unique way of life.
In the modern context the correct question to ask is not whether another culture is better or worse, but rather is it right for us, and does living in close proximity to other specific cultures require us to compromise our own culture in ways that violate our basic sense of dignity, safety or our most important values? It shouldn't be rocket science to understand that when it comes to values and cultures, the host culture's values should prevail unless the large majority of the host culture wants to incorporate some particular custom and practice which might make for an improvement.
Some people like Salsa dancing. Other people like line dancing. I'm sure most Brits wouldn't be too upset to keep both. If only all foreign customs and practices were as savoury...
A great excerpt of Berlin in interview from the Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library: 'Like Herder, I regard cosmopolitanism as empty. People can’t develop unless they belong to a culture. Even if they
rebel against it and transform it entirely, they still belong to a stream of tradition. New streams can be created – in the West, by Christianity, or Luther, or the Renaissance, or the Romantic movement, but in the end they derive from a single river, an underlying central tradition, which, sometimes in radically altered forms, survives. But if the streams dried up, as, for instance, where men and women are not products of a culture, where they don’t have kith and kin and feel closer to some people than to others, where there is no native language – that would lead to a tremendous desiccation of everything that is human.'
https://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/interviews/gardels.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
I hope the link works. I couldn't find it without the help of AI.
I like a lot about Berlin and I can’t do that comment or him justice in this small space. You’re right it’s unfair to him and I think I should go on about him in future.
Have you read any Hannah Arendt? The Weimer Republic is a prime example of how liberalist universalism doesn't even work within a monoculture. Cultural history and tradition are inherently organic. Liberalist universalism is a mechanistic attempt to dissolve traditional forms without recognising that depriving a people of their roots and cultural values will invariably lead to social fragmentation and the obsession that the political can somehow act as a surrogate for things which give our lives far deeper meaning and purpose.
I watched your Peter McCormack Show appearance. Very good.
Yep. That's why I noted liberals deliberately misread him (to support their own preferred vision for society). With Karl Popper I'm a lot more conflicted. On the one hand I absolutely love his codification of scientific knowledge with falsification. On the other, his views on culture were a massive misdiagnosis of the causes of WWII. He seemed to want to dissolve all human connection to group beyond the immediate. An atomised dystopia.
Hah. I now use AI to check my points are factually correct, not distorted by time and personal perspective. AI has got to the point that it remembers our previous discussions about wounded nationalism. Alongside humiliation and insecurity it through a new word at me: ressentiment. It's a good way of describing the motivations behind the woke (especially in relation to themselves). It's weird because I've read some of the texts in which it appears. Perhaps my tendency to skim read when I was younger is to blame.
Good to know that you know…..the AI is programmed to lie.
Gosh how come ? It is programmed by humans (kinda ).
It's not so much that AI is programmed to lie. It's more that the sources it's fed upon are filled with liberal platitudes and half-truths. The Left has an overwhelming advantage in information production centres. Some have argued that an AI fed upon knowledge from the beginning of the printed word to around the fifties world have a far more accurate understanding of reality.
Here's the thing. It is possible to use AI productively but this requires the user to have specific domain knowledge in order to push the AI to resort to using knowledge which is less pre-approved, regime-friendly and truth-seeking.
For example, you're not going to be able to push back much on the social sciences with AI unless you're familiar with Raj Chetty and similar work (surprise, surprise, family structure is the best predictor of upward social mobility).
It's also important to know how Newspeak actually functioned, even before the rise of AI. Most browser algorithms worked to actively supress conservative or culturally dissident content. Most dissenters really heavily on new media and private forums to pass dissident content. Before Substack or the X takeover, Discourse was probably the best platform in this regard.
This Tablet article describes a playbook which is as chilling as it is real:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/whole-society-american-politics
What you have written is helpful , thank you.
And , AI is , programed to lie.
Quote from 'The Cult of the Chosen Ones' by Makia Freeman:
"As we enter a new age of advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology, machines can now simulate just about anything (eg Deep Fakes of people acting and talking). Any document, image or video can easily be faked, and very convincingly so. Humanity is being hit with an Archontic perceptual onslaught. For those that wish to control the entire world, the future belongs to those who can gaslight and perceptually trick the masses into believing their lies and fictitious narratives. It will be vital to remember this concept in the years and decades to come, especially if the NWO controllers attempt to pull off some kind of scenario like Operation Blue Beam (a fake alien invasion) with holographic images in the sky designed to ensnare your five senses."
I can't recommend this book highly enough. Just wish it had been published 6 years ago when I first started researching!
RIP car.
Loved the video Frank. I would not have extracted near the depth and meaning from the passage without it!
Great video, Frank. Thanks for elaborating on Eliot which gave me pause for thought. Enjoy your holiday.
Hello, Frank. Please, do speak and write more about Eliot.
I hope that you and yours are enjoying your holiday in Ireland. There are few places better when the sun is shining!
Please continue with "useful things" which explain the mess we're in and how we can clean it up. I grew up in the era of "if it feels good do it", at the epicentre of the the cultural revolution, which left me and many of my adolescent peers confused about the new self-created morality.
Somehow you were "square" or had "hang ups" if you weren't a follower. The one thing I have trouble understanding is objective versus subjective truth. Do we not individually experience things differently, like art, music, how we see the world. For example, if you asked 10 different people to draw a picture of, say, a chair, the representations would each be different, yet for the most part, we would still recognise the object as a chair. Do you mean that subjectively we interpret things differently but objectively, a chair is still a chair? How does this apply in the philosophical context that you discuss?
I would be most grateful and interested if you could expound on this subject.
Best wishes and many thanks for your work.
Jeff Zafiropoulos
Sydney Australia
"If you remove from the word 'human' all that the belief in the supernatural has given to man, you can view him finally as no more than an extremely clever, adaptable and mischievous little animal."
Animals have an innate connection to divinity, as part of God's creation.
Most humans have been divorced from nature (God's creation) by the industrial/ technological revolution. No longer self sufficient, no longer connected to the natural world. Reduced to dependency upon a corporate system of enslavement. Schools do no teach life skills. They indoctrinate children to become obedient consumers. Unable to fend for ourselves, we are totally reliant upon corporate masters who do not have our best interests at heart.
“This is about life and death ... They are trying to kill us off. That’s definitely the case as far as I’m concerned over the... 400+ interviews that we’ve done this is the conclusion I have come to.” {Reiner Fuellmich (ICIC) ~ personality changes after mRNA vaccination.(2023)}
May I recommend the book "The Cult of the Chosen Ones" by Makia Freeman.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/the-cult-of-the-chosen-ones-makia-freeman-jerm-warfare
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/the-cult-of-the-chosen-ones-part-2-jerm-warfare
Makia Freeman talks about his book, The Cult of the Chosen Ones, which looks at the historical and ideological roots of a group he believes has influenced major world events and religions.
He explores the links between Judaism, Christianity, and Gnosticism, as well as the Rothschild family's role in global affairs and how events like the World Wars have played into this.
Makia also dives into the JFK assassination and its continued impact today. He stresses the importance of thinking critically about these complex stories.
Makia’s website: https://thefreedomarticles.com
🌹
Love the lists; just would like to find a copy of “The Church Speaks to the Modern World”..
Fr. Denis Fahey talked about this supernatural vs natural worldview in his critique of the Jews as an opposing force representing the natural opposing the supernatural Christian worldview. It reminded me that my youthful gullibility was influenced by a Jewish political philosophy professor back in the mid 70s—real big on The Enlightenment, but only discussed Rousseau’s book, The Social Contract, in a sketchy way which I cannot remember. Why this professor said to me, “If I could belong to any other religion it would be Catholicism” induced me to ask him, “Then why don’t you become one?” The answer was “Because I am a Jew.” I loved the man and as I keep looking and reading about our present times and I fear that I may have been mislead. The Enlightenment has become very American, perhaps even Catholic now.
Keep talking about books.
Please mister Wright, how can I rich you. Its very important. Isabelle (from Paris, my English is very poor). 🙏🙏
https://substack.com/chat/2ffd6989-7adb-414d-8d1b-615ece78afa4