Gab@StFerdinandIII - https://unstabbinated.substack.com/
Plenty of cults exist - every cult has its 'religious dogma', its idols, its 'prophets', its 'science', its 'proof' and its intolerant liturgy of demands. Cults everywhere: Corona, 'The Science' or Scientism, Islam, the State, the cult of Gender Fascism, Marxism, Darwin and Evolution, Globaloneywarming, Changing Climate, Abortion...
Tempus Fugit Memento Mori - Time Flies Remember Death
There is precious little ‘Science’ in the cult of Scientism. There is plenty of darkness in ‘The’ Enlightenment (roughly 1650-1750), as if there was only ‘one’ era in history which saw an increase in ‘scientific’ understanding, or technological application. As if this ‘Era’, and this one alone, stood up, self-standing, a monolith with no prior dependencies or influences, a stand-alone century or two, independent of culture and heritage, supremely alone, an ‘Age’ which burst through the rotted timbers of all things past, rendering what was existing and previous as irrelevant, dark, dank, sordid and superstitious. This is what the propaganda, shrill, sterile, simple and stupid, screams. None of it is true.
The ineluctable conclusion of ‘Enlightenment’ thought is Totalitarianism. The main objective of the Enlightenment era if one reads the Philosophes, Jefferson, the ridiculous Voltaire, the American founders, Locke, Hume et al, is simply this: there is only ONE rational current of acceptable thought that must be implemented, with all legacies, cultures and religious immaterialism expunged and ignored. Only one rational interpretation or ‘right think’ can be allowed. There can only be one narrative. One interpretation of data. One expression of social control. One uniformity of culture and attitudes. One definition of science. One imperative. Only one idea which is protected that of the one rationalism. Nothing else is tolerated. We see this Totalitarian Scientism most clearly expressed in the cults of Evolution (bacteria grew brains), Warming (trace chemical produced by climate causes the same), and Corona (for a 0.3% virus death rate you must be Stabbed with experimental drugs, since your immune system does not really exist).
The problem for the Enlighteners, expressed by many critical thinkers as diverse as Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Russell Kirk, C.S. Lewis and Nietzsche (amongst many others), was the core of their cult, namely: ‘what is reason, what is the correct definition of reason, what is rational inquiry and how does one know that there is only one ‘reason’, one ‘rationalism’, if true critical inquiry will present many?’
The question over ‘right reason’ was never answered by the Enlighteners. They simply expressed ‘reason’ as some independent, abstract legal entity, a constant, almost a product, to be understood by all, and available to all to be reused in various patterns, consistent in its core and design. In essence, the Enlighteners and their progeny have never bothered to prove or consider the core of their cult, namely, why is there only one philosophical and material rationalism? Wouldn’t many exist, based on experience, viewpoints, context and desired outcomes? If there is only ‘One’ rationalism, wouldn’t that limit inquiry, science and technological application? Wouldn’t that lead to technocracy and statism based on the ‘One’ narrative?
What about the immaterial, the cultures of heritage, faith, virtues, morality, emotions and non-material objects and values? Does the immaterial have no role to play in the intersection of a person with his/her reality? Wouldn’t denying the immaterial offend the very notion of being human? By denying the immaterial isn’t ‘The Enlightenment’ anti-human? Doesn’t the cult of Reason as expressed in the Atheist French Revoluion reduce a person to a rational mathematical symbol, part of an equation, unimportant in herself or himself, just part of a process which must support ‘rationalism’, itself never defined as an idea which comports with reality? Are you really just a mathematical expression or a GDP producer? Is that all life means?
When you elevate the absurdity of ‘The Enlightenment’ with its many flaws and failures (abiogenesis, witch burnings, book burning, massive thefts of treasure, wars etc); as the ‘One’ model to emulate and follow, the inevitable outcome will be Totalitarianism. Far from being ‘diverse’, ‘tolerant’, or ‘proud of constituent parts’, the modern technocratic state is fascistic, control-obsessed, intolerant of dissenting opinions and beliefs, dismissive of counter-narratives, murderous in implementing its ‘One’ model, its ‘One’ program of ‘right think’ and ‘group think’ in which all must conform to and accept. Ironically, the end result of ‘The’ Enlightenment is Darkness.