Sunday, March 9, 2014

Eso’s Chronicles 302 / 1  
A Suicidal Civilization
© Eso A.B.
All comments appearing within brackets [ ] are editorial in origin.

IS FASCISM RECOVERABLE?

A lady who I have known for many years recently surprised me by being endorsed on a network by one who works for a ‘suicide prevention’ group. Since the lady is a practicing Buddhist, one may say that from a conventional point of view this is a match made in heaven. Both work for ‘healing from within.’

My objection to the mutual endorsements is because whenever I hear talk of suicide prevention without hearing an explanation that extreme dedication to suicide prevention denies a would-be ‘suicide’ the right to argue on behalf of self-sacrifice of life, I hear an argument on behalf of an  of evasion of life. Indeed, I hear in the advocate of suicide prevention a voice denying self-sacrifice of life and arguing that self-sacrifice (and Revolution) is not necessary whatever the circumstances may be that makes one think of them. Indeed, a radical, i.e., violent defense of a right to be sovereign when it comes to a decision about one’s life is summarily dismissed on behalf of an ‘inner’ and presumably ‘spiritual’ decision of a religious nature and conviction.

My readers know that I have long endorsed and argued on behalf of self-sacrifice as essential to the existence and maintenance of the human community. If it were not so, we would not be walking upright and would be still be squatting high in a tree chattering rather than talking. When all is said, self-sacrifice is an act that, though it may begin as a small favor, may end up with the ultimate sacrifice of giving one’s life. Yet ever since before the Age of ‘Enlightenment’ and the arrival of Catholic Christianity (God is only of the Plus side) there have been people who have argued that suicide is an act of violence and a major transgression against one’s self and, therefore, needs to be preached against and condemned.

Or is it that the argument in support of fear (and avoidance) of Death comes from those who raised themselves to material wealth by repressing and killing those who stood in the way of such self-improvement? The medieval poet Dante expressed this fear (revealed in official forgiveness of sins) in his poetry http://www.stpeterslist.com/8214/forest-of-suicides-6-comments-on-dantes-punishment-for-the-self-violent/  and, like it or not, condemned the creator of Death to the lower ring of Hell, which he imagined to be like Antarctica. Who is this Creator of Death—

Satan or God?  

I argue that Death is the creation of God; while, for all I know, you may say it is a creation of Satan.  Yet if Satan is a separate creation from God, he is not necessarily either more or less than God.

A way around this is to argue that both God and Satan are only middling Creator gods, and that there is yet a Higher God who created them both. This is easily illustrated by successive digital divisions, re < into < <, and so on. The Engish poet Robert Blake called this God Urizen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urizen , God of Reason and Logic

To simplify my argument, I will stay with the idea that whether there is a God (call him the Big Other or Urizen) or not, matter brought to life was created by God to die for his own good reasons. If this is only a half a truth or in no way true, my presumption, nevertheless, justifies the argument that death is/was either created (or evolved) for a purpose. What purpose?

Here we need to look back to the old tradition of repentance and fasting—despite the fact that there are many writers who believe that “…we no longer have the luxury of tradition” (either repentance or fasting). What was the reasoning that brought fasting about?

Does it mean that fasting or lent needs a ‘tradition’ for us to give it a try? I do not quite understand, why I need ‘a tradition’ to put up with a tradition of never hearing Bill Gates, whoever he is, reprimanding himself for hanging tooth and claw to an acquisitive character, from which our culture mines the deserts of its cities.

Needless to say, I have no idea of who this Bill Gates is, except that the press keeps touting such a name as the world’s wealthiest man or oligarch, and he has been seen on a number of ‘platforms’ advocating fascism as he sees it http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/535577/20140123/bill-gates-melinda-foundation-jimmy-fallon-show.htm . When it all gets boiled to syrup, the brew differs only slightly from Mussolini’s famed definition, which I will quote following Gates three definitions:

1. Everything in the oligarchy;
2. Nothing outside the oligarchy;
3. Nothing against the oligarchy.


These definitions (of course, Gates may not even know the word ‘fascist’) do indeed deny the ‘traditional’ definition of ‘fascism’ by Mussolini, who proposed it on behalf of the ‘State’ rather than ‘oligarchy’ as in the following http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fascism :

“1.’Everything in the state’. The Government is supreme and the country is all-encompasing, and all within it must conform to the ruling body, often a dictator.

2.’Nothing outside the state’. The country must grow and the implied goal of any fascist nation is to rule the world, and have every human submit to the government.

3.’Nothing against the state’. Any type of questioning the government is not to be tolerated. If you do not see things our way, you are wrong. If you do not agree with the government, you cannot be allowed to live and taint the minds of the rest of the good citizens.

The use of militarism was implied only as a means to accomplish one of the three above principles, mainly to keep the people and rest of the world in line. Fascist countries are known for their harmony and lack of internal strife. There are no conflicting parties or elections in fascist countries.”
].

Still, if we think of it, ‘fascism’ speaks not only on behalf of oligarchy’, but also of monarchy. And as in the last words of 3., it also speaks of ‘good citizens’. So, what gives?

We may begin to start unraveling the riddle by, first, identifying appropriate synonyms for 1., 2, and 3.

A: is dictator as well as pope, president, or King.
B: is government not as in A. but as in Bureaucracy.
C: good citizens constitute the community, the city, the society.
D: militarism is outwardly turned armament. The needles of a porcupine are an excellent example.
E: fascism is a State with an outwardly violent face.
F: sometimes a nation is called a fascist State.

G: Is it possible that a fascist nation does not always project violence outwardly, but replaces it with atonement, lent, and self-sacrifice?

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