{"id":184426,"date":"2019-03-01T08:57:42","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T08:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=184426"},"modified":"2019-03-03T08:39:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T08:39:07","slug":"a-world-still-split-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=184426","title":{"rendered":"A World (Still) Split Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction \u2013 Feb 28, 2018<\/h1>\n

\"\"In the early 20th<\/sup> century esoteric Christian teacher Rudolf Steiner warned that Ahriman, more commonly known today as Satan, would incarnate on Earth later in the same century.<\/h5>\n
I guess that the objective would be for Ahriman to prevent humanity taking advantage of the opportunities to evolve spiritually that would abound during these times.<\/h5>\n
Steiner taught that Ahriman is in his element in the material realm. From the halls of banking and high finance to the fields of science and digital technology, Steiner warned that Ahrimanic impulses would prevail toward the latter half of the 20th century and in the decades beyond.<\/h5>\n
Of course, this doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that scientists and financiers perform strange rituals around inverted crucifixes (although some certainly do). It means that the men in charge of the modern world would tend to see things in purely materialistic terms, as indeed they clearly do.<\/h5>\n
Modern science openly acknowledges this under the mantle of \u201cscientific materialism\u201d. While the bankers and financiers like George Soros obviously only see things in terms of material profit and loss.<\/h5>\n
According to Steiner, this materialistic view would inhibit the growth of more reflective states of mind and open the way for much darker impulses to take hold. In this time humanity would see fast paced digital development, along with a greater frequency of psychotic breakdowns and sexual perversion.<\/h5>\n
In itself the heightened pace of technical and digital developments won’t enable Ahriman’s return. Rather they are symptomatic of conditions more favourable to the manifestation of Ahriman’s impulses.<\/h5>\n
It appears that Russian writer Solzhenitsyn had a similar sense of foreboding about what lay ahead.<\/h5>\n
While it’s true that Steiner warned that Ahriman incarnate would rise to prominence as an individual and no one presently on the world stage seems to fit the bill, at least not yet. That doesn’t mean to say that he’s not waiting in the wings until the time is ripe.<\/h5>\n
In the meantime every kind malfeasance is flourishing, often with “official” approval. From Syrian crisis actors who have been linked to al Nusra being given sanctuary in the West<\/a><\/span>, to covert Western support for ISIS<\/a><\/span>, to those advocates behind the transgender movement who have been generously funded by George Soros<\/span><\/a>, conditions grow ever more favourable for Ahriman to appear.<\/h5>\n
While Steiner implied the West’s impending decline under such influences, a revitalised Christianity would re-emerge in Russia. For Steiner taught that the Slavic peoples with Moscow at their centre would take the role once held by London, during the British Empire at its height, and Rome, during its Empire. Ed.<\/h5>\n

A World (Still) Split Apart<\/h1>\n

By: Amir NOUR[1<\/span>]<\/a><\/sup><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The Saker Blog Feb 27, 2019<\/h2>\n
\u201cWhen men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything<\/strong><\/em>\u201d
\n(Attributed to Gilbert Keith Chesterton)<\/h5>\n

The dramatic turn for the worse in the evolution of humanism and in the dizzying advances in science and technology has triggered heated debate among great thinkers and writers of the 20th century[2<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/sup>. And the discussion about its deep impact, on both man and the environment, is far from resolved; in particular concerning the key role the West has played, and is still playing, down such an exciting though perilous path.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, there should be no question of having a bone to pick with modern technology\u2014overwhelmingly originating in the West\u2014which has yielded remarkable successes and rendered yeoman service to humanity as a whole, in almost every realm of human activity. To be sure, the \u201csame technological warp drive that has given us iPhones and streaming services has cut extreme global poverty in half. The same tsunami of data that has revolutionized medicine has, with a twist and a tweet, given us 24-hour news with its howling stridencies. We spit and get our genetic history, press a button and access all human knowledge, navigate the globe on six-inch screen.\u201d[3<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Conversely, one can as well see this as a mixed blessing, and ask whether it doesn\u2019t seem possible, in the midst of our digital lives, that Silicon Valley\u2019s darkest, stealthiest triumph has been to merge personal technologies that improve our efficiency with personal technologies that alter our humanity?[4<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/sup> And whether we still have control over this rapid pace of development so that to ensure that we\u2014and our powerful future quantum supercomputers\u2014direct research in such a way as to reap the benefits of the ongoing staggering technological progress while avoiding its potential pitfalls?<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, with much less benefit of hindsight than Franklin Foer and many other contemporary scholars, but with far more foresight, Nobel Prize laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn dealt with this very topic eloquently in an historic speech[5<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/sup> delivered before a large audience gathered at the prestigious American Harvard University in 1978\u2014at a time when the East-West Cold War was at its peak, and only four years after he had been deported to the West from his then communist Soviet Union. He observed that in the Western societies the defense of individual rights had reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals, and destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Such a tilt of freedom in the direction of evil, he affirms, has \u201ccome about gradually, but it was evidently born primarily out of a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which there is no evil inherent to human nature [\u2026] The fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their offensive; you can feel the pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Russian philosopher then asked how had such unfavorable relation of forces come about, and how did the West decline from its triumphal march to its (present) sickness? He answered by stating that the West found itself in such a state not because there had been sudden fatal turns and losses of direction in its development, since it had kept advancing socially in accordance with its proclaimed intentions with the help of brilliant technological progress. Rather, the mistake, according to him, must have been at the root, at the very basis of human thinking in the past centuries. He referred specifically to the prevailing Western view of the world which was first born during the Renaissance and found its political expression from the period of the Enlightenment, and which \u201cbecame the basis for government and social science and could be defined as rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and enforced autonomy of man from any higher force. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of everything that exists\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result of this new way of thinking introduced by the Renaissance, says Solzhenitsyn, Western civilization \u201cbecame founded on the dangerous trend to worship man and his material needs\u201d, and everything beyond physical well-being and accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of subtler and higher nature were \u201cleft outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any superior sense\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Nobel Prize winner in Literature then warned of a looming disaster which has been under way for quite some time, that is the calamity of a de-spiritualized and irreligious humanistic consciousness. He explained that on the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but \u201cwe have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and irresponsibility\u201d only to find out that we were being deprived of \u201cour most important possession: our spiritual life\u201d. In the East, he explains, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party; and in the West, commercial interests suffocate it. Consequently, the split in the world is \u201cless terrible than the similarity of the disease plaguing its main sections\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

In concluding his masterful speech\u2014which remains strikingly relevant today, apart from the facts of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the ensuing demise of communism\u2014Solzhenitsyn made the observation that if the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history \u201cequal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance\u201d, and that if we want to save life from self-destruction, there needs to be a spiritual upsurge, whereby humans shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to \u201ca new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middles Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era\u201d. This ascension, he stressed, \u201cwill be similar to climbing onto the next anthropologic stage. No one on Earth has any other way left but upward\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, perhaps more than ever before, humanity is in the midst of a tidal wave of change. Astrologers insist this is inherent to the \u201cAge of the Aquarius<\/em>\u201d[6<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/sup>; Solzhenitsyn and some other ingenious and visionary writers\u2014like Yuval Noah Harari, Jonah Goldberg, and, before them all, Algerian Malek Bennabi[7]<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/sup>\u2014believe it is symptomatic of the transition into the next stage of mankind\u2019s history.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, now that the diagnosis of humanity\u2019s current predicament has been made, the burning question that arises with increasing urgency is how can humanity rise to the daunting challenge of offering a prescription both to cure the multifaceted ailments that are threatening its very survival, and to navigate wisely our way forward in a growingly complex world?<\/span><\/p>\n

In his latest book[8<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/sup>, Harari rightfully notes that there is today just one civilization in the world. He explains that ten thousand years ago humankind was divided into countless isolated tribes, but with each passing millennium, these fused into larger groups, creating fewer and fewer distinct civilizations. Thereafter, more prominently in recent generations, the few remaining civilizations have been blended into a single global civilization. And although \u201cpolitical, ethnic, cultural and economic divisions endure, they do not undermine the fundamental unity\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rejecting the \u201cmisleading\u201d thesis of the \u201cclash of civilizations\u201d, he believes that mankind is losing faith in the liberal story that dominated global politics in recent decades, exactly when the merger of biotechnology and Information technology confronts us with the biggest challenges humankind has ever encountered. Harari is convinced that \u201cany story that seeks to gain humanity\u2019s allegiance will be tested above all in its ability to deal with the twin revolutions in Infotech and biotech\u201d. He, accordingly, draws the conclusion that \u201cif liberalism, nationalism, Islam or some novel creed wishes to shape the world of the year 2050, it will need not only to make sense of artificial intelligence, Big Data algorithms and bioengineering\u2014it will also need to incorporate them into a new meaningful narrative\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

For his part, Jonah Goldberg[9<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/sup>, building on the research and theories of dozens of sociologists, historians and economists, makes the case that America and other democracies are in peril because they have lost the will to defend the values and institutions that sustain freedom and prosperity. For the West to avoid \u201csuicide\u201d and survive, he says, \u201cwe must renew our sense of gratitude for what our civilization has given us and rediscover the ideals and habits of the heart that led us out of the bloody muck of the past\u2014or back to the muck we will go\u201d. In other words, he advocates a return to core, conservative values.<\/span><\/p>\n

More significantly, Goldberg also makes an important observation which has been \u201coddly\u201d overlooked by almost all book reviews, even though it constitutes the main theme of the book\u2019s conclusion titled \u201cDecline is a choice<\/em>\u201d; that is \u201cwhether you believe in God or not, it is simply the case that the idea of God has shrunk in society and in our hearts\u201d. This, in turn, has greatly impacted the influence, on individuals and societies alike, of the notion of \u201cGod-fearing\u201d\u2014that God is watching you even when others are not. Quite justifiably, Goldberg views this notion as the greatest check on the natural human desire to give in to one\u2019s feelings and do what feels good or even what feels \u201cright\u201d; and, as such, it is \u201cthe most powerful civilizing force in all of human history\u201d. Such a negative evolution, Goldberg further explains, creates an opening for all manner of ideas to flood in, thence agreeing with the well-known dictum attributed to Gilbert Keith Chesterton: \u201cWhen men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

A common and recurring thread in the above big ideas is the belief that civilization without religion is doomed. This is a proven historical fact that has been extensively documented.[10<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/sup> It is therefore my conviction that the world is still split apart, but not exactly along Solzhenitsyn\u2019s Cold War lines anymore. To be sure, the 20th century has been both the cradle and the cemetery of all ideologies and all \u201cisms<\/em>\u201c. And once again, history is taking an unexpected turn: the latest of its victims, the last of the ideological Mohicans, is now liberalism, which not so long ago\u2014having successfully dealt a death blow to its communist rival\u2014seemed set to last forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s split is fundamentally between believers and non-believers. If it really is the case, then the big question to ask is inescapably: how can we possibly find the best ways and means to live together in peace[11<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/sup>, by reconciling science, reason and faith, hence bridging the dangerously widening gap between those two components of today\u2019s single global civilization dwelling in a rapidly changing and tightly interconnected world?<\/span><\/p>\n

We shall attempt to answer this big question in a forthcoming analysis.<\/span><\/p>\n

* * *<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Algerian researcher in international relations, author of the book L\u2019Orient et l\u2019Occident \u00e0 l\u2019heure d\u2019un nouveau Sykes-Picot<\/strong><\/em> (\u201cThe Orient and the Occident in time of a New Sykes-Picot\u201d), Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2014: downloadable free of charge, by clicking on the following links:http:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/blog\/lorient-et-loccident-a-lheure-dun-nouveau-sykes-picot-par-amir-nour\/<\/a> (French)<\/span>
    \n    http:\/\/algerienetwork.com\/blog\/\u0627\u0644\u0639\u0627\u0644\u0645-\u0627\u0644\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a-\u0639\u0644\u0649-\u0645\u0648\u0639\u062f-\u0645\u0639-\u0633\u0627\u064a\u0643\u0633-\u0628\u064a\u0643\u0648-\u062c\/<\/a> (Arabic) \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. See Amir Nour, The Enduring Quest for \u00dcbermensch: From Renaissance Humanism to Silicon Valley\u2019s Posthumanism <\/em>(https:\/\/thesaker.is\/the-enduring-quest-for-ubermensch-from-renaissance-humanism-to-silicon-valleys-posthumanism\/<\/a>) \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. David Wolpe, Awaiting the Prophet<\/strong><\/em>, Los Angeles Review of Books, June 3, 2018. \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Franklin Foer, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech<\/strong><\/em>, Penguin Publishing Group, 2017. \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart<\/strong><\/em>, Harvard Commencement Address, June 8, 1978. \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Astrologers believe that an astrological age affects humanity, possibly by influencing the rise and fall of civilizations or cultural tendencies. Traditionally, Aquarius<\/em> is associated with\u00a0electricity,\u00a0computers, flight,\u00a0democracy, freedom,\u00a0humanitarianism,\u00a0idealism,\u00a0modernization, astrology,\u00a0nervous disorders, rebellion, nonconformity,\u00a0philanthropy, veracity, perseverance, humanity, and irresolution. (Source: Wikipedia<\/strong><\/em>,<\/strong> and Geoffrey Dean et al, Recent Advances in Natal Astrology: A Critical Review 1900-1976<\/strong><\/em>, Astrological Association, 1977). \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  7. In his book titled L\u2019Afro-Asiatisme: Conclusions sur la Conf\u00e9rence de Bandoeng<\/strong><\/em>, published in Cairo, Egypt, in 1956, Malek Bennabi predicted the realization of a \u201cgreat human mutation\u201d whereby \u201cmankind, which had crossed with the Neolithic the first level of its history by rising to the level of civilizations, must now move to the second level of its history by rising to the level of the civilization of the ecumenical man\u201d. \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  8. Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century<\/strong><\/em>, Jonathan Cape, London, 2018. \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  9. Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy<\/strong><\/em>, Crown Forum, 2018. \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  10. See: Amir Nour, Fighting for Survival: Whither Modern Civilization<\/strong><\/em>, The Saker, July 7, 2017 (https:\/\/thesaker.is\/fighting-for-survival-whither-modern-civilization\/<\/a>). \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  11. At the initiative of Algeria, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, on 8 December 2017, resolution 72\/130 (https:\/\/undocs.org\/A\/RES\/72\/130<\/a>) declaring the 16th of May as the International Day of Living Together in Peace<\/strong><\/em>. \u2191<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The forces of Evil are on the offensive, writes Amir Nour. The West lacks the spiritual vigor to resist, while its obsessive materialism seems ready to welcome it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Predictions_from_the_past_or_for_the_future"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184426"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184472,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184426\/revisions\/184472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}