There is a clear distinction between two types of thinking; and they are far more different than night and day - for they are the difference between gratitude and pride, between good and evil.
In the study of the physical universe, this distinction can be drawn between science and scientism, or the worship of technology. For the purpose of technology is to harness the structure of the universe, not to know it per se; and science, though it is necessary for creating technology, by no means includes application as a necessity. Science is the search for knowledge, the map of the known discovered by explorers of the universe. Its purpose is liberal, not technical. And more importantly, this knowledge, and the technology derived therefrom, is not (read CSL's The Abolition of Man) for dominion over man.
By nature, by definition, technology is dependent upon science; if science is pursued for the purpose of creating technology, we go against the nature of both science and technology, and the result is a putrid mess (think of "Jewish science" rejected by Hitler, and so on).
The very same dichotomy is present in the humanities (as opposed to... the inhumanities? The siderealities?) - but on a clearer and even more insidious level. It is the thesis of modern "scholarship" that narrative or story is primarily of means of controlling others - of having power. Or more accurately, of domination. This is the driving premise of postmodern literary theory, historical theory, and so on... and it is among the greatest heresies to ever spring to death. It is the great and horrible evil infesting our universities today.
The classical - and sane, and human - literary theory is just like classical theory of physical science: that we write to find what is already there; to discover; to illuminate the soul. The poet, like the philosopher, intends to know himself and his world (or more of it).
What madmen were our fathers, that they listened to one who called all men liars? For the one that says this is by their own claim a liar. To believe the one who claims to be a liar before those who claim to be honest, on the basis of that lying liar's testimony, is madness. Indeed, whoever that liar is (but he is Satan, the accuser, the prince of liars) has pulled the greatest ad hominem in history (bar one). He has called the whole human race liars!
Another name for the ad hominem is "poisoning the well." Well, this ad hominem has poisoned not only the well, but the village well; making every historian a liar, the whole family of ancestors, the "democracy of the dead." Not even the dead are safe from defamation; and who shall defend them?
We shall.
The supreme irony is that these liars are liars by their own admission. They are forced by their false philosophy to slander honest men and honest women; but we do not slander them when we say they use what they can to pursue dominion over their fellow-men. The vast majority of people can feel this, vaguely, but have no words for it. They do not wish to be lied to; they desire the truth. If we but reveal the truth, no honest man or woman would choose lies. And we cannot live searching for truth without the virtue of gratitude, the enemy of pride.
As for the those who would still chose a world of liars and tyrants, those prideful savages, we may pray for them: but they are a brood of vipers, and the devil is their hindmost. We cannot change their mind by force or by trickery, for they live in a world of their own devising; it is hell.
-Christian Boyd
Carthago Delenda Est.
