Yes, I'm aware of all that - and should note that I started writing Book I of Kingdom of the Wicked both in response to Obama's release of the various CIA "enhanced interrogation" memos and Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ". The Cato Institute piece explains how I came to watch the latter film (it wasn't my intention to do so, shall we say).
It's long been my view that a lot of people lost their moral compass during the War on Terror, as I was discussing on Twitter with someone who's read both my books earlier today.
One thing Woke has in common is regard for the downtrodden. Christianity was revolutionary in saying all people were equal before Christ, therefore equal before Christians.
However woke goes pagan when it places regard on a hierarchy - who deserves solicitity? When it elevates ancestry and status over the individual person. Its the Christian inverse of the 0agan standards but the pagan conception of the First Shall Be Last.
All very and highly relevant points for discussion. Without quoting all these, what I take from this is that both paganism and Christianity imposed transcendental thinking. Both came from the heart of hierarchical governed civilization. Both tried to transcend this meaningfully but failed. I will go into more of this in a post but this does very much explain where we are today. Appreciated. Thank you.
Years ago a friend and I were philsophizing and he said something that stuck:
"Humans work best under a benevolant dictator"
He's not wrong!
All monotheistic relgions are basically that (I mean heck, all religion)
But even the atheists love it. In fact, it's rooted in our pscyhology. As a father, I'm a benevolant dictator though my goal is to grow us into an anarchistic relationship.
Helicopter parents are these benevolant dictators. But with these we can see the damage it creates. So maybe not that benevolant per se. But humans actually don't really like a lot of choice. Freedom isn't easy.
I'm still torn becasue we really do like our beneolant dictators. Many people actually need them. So I'm not suprised they liked your Rome.
As I wrote in this piece (https://freethinker.co.uk/2022/10/when-science-and-civil-liberties-clash/), "Liberals on both left and right often fail to appreciate how people quite like paternalism. From time to time, when voters are given a straight-up choice between paternalism and liberalism, paternalism wins by a landslide."
100% Paternalism is easy. It reduces risk. It provides structure and meaning. Liberalism is hard! It's hard to be independent and have to investigate and act.
Feb 12, 2023·edited Feb 12, 2023Liked by Helen Dale
Great article. I'm definitely going to give Kingdom of the Wicked a read. But as far as the theme of the article, I agree with what was written broadly. I think it's a little difficult to map the old dichotomy of pagan vs Christian from antiquity onto our modern context. Because it doesn't map out neatly at all. Both sides today (meaning vaguely left vs right) inherited characteristics from both the old Pagans and old Christians. I would also agree that Christianity is far more present in both then Paganism is in either.
I'll add, I don't even think the environmentalism of the modern left is 1 to 1 with the nature worship of the pagans. Nature was a much more broad concept then it is today. Nature isn't just the trees, mountains, oceans, various landscapes. It's not even the atmosphere. It's everything. We are nature in the pagan view. In contrast to today, where people draw this arbitrary line between Man and nature. I think this has some different implications then the modern leftist view of nature in regards to environmentalism.
This may be just my interpretation of it. But I think the authentic pagan view of environmentalism is more like "You can take from nature, but you must give back to nature in the same breathe, and never forget where you came from". Rather than "we have to eat bugs and make ourselves slaves to Gaia". Though we may never know, because the various Pagans never had to deal with the issues of environmentalism.
Yes - I think you're right that modern environmentalism still has an element of special creation in it (a Christian doctrine that separates man from the animals because only man has an immortal soul). Classical paganism was truly pantheistic: the divine in everything, everything in the divine.
Thanks for re-publishing this review/article, Ms. Dale. I bought this book on the strength of your July 2019 piece, and on its strength bought it and both volumes of Kingdom of the Wicked. Enjoyed all three. Might you eventually write a similar book using modern society and the Code of Hamurabi as contrasting systems? That might be fun. I enjoy reading your cool-at-a-distance commentaries. Thank you.
I've got a UK publisher chasing me for a memoir at the moment, something I admit is rather stalled at present because I've been doing so much other writing for magazines/newspapers.
Yes, I'm aware of all that - and should note that I started writing Book I of Kingdom of the Wicked both in response to Obama's release of the various CIA "enhanced interrogation" memos and Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ". The Cato Institute piece explains how I came to watch the latter film (it wasn't my intention to do so, shall we say).
It's long been my view that a lot of people lost their moral compass during the War on Terror, as I was discussing on Twitter with someone who's read both my books earlier today.
One thing Woke has in common is regard for the downtrodden. Christianity was revolutionary in saying all people were equal before Christ, therefore equal before Christians.
However woke goes pagan when it places regard on a hierarchy - who deserves solicitity? When it elevates ancestry and status over the individual person. Its the Christian inverse of the 0agan standards but the pagan conception of the First Shall Be Last.
All very and highly relevant points for discussion. Without quoting all these, what I take from this is that both paganism and Christianity imposed transcendental thinking. Both came from the heart of hierarchical governed civilization. Both tried to transcend this meaningfully but failed. I will go into more of this in a post but this does very much explain where we are today. Appreciated. Thank you.
Cheers!
Thanks. I will definitely need these as I plunge into these waters feet first. Difficult territory to say the least.
Years ago a friend and I were philsophizing and he said something that stuck:
"Humans work best under a benevolant dictator"
He's not wrong!
All monotheistic relgions are basically that (I mean heck, all religion)
But even the atheists love it. In fact, it's rooted in our pscyhology. As a father, I'm a benevolant dictator though my goal is to grow us into an anarchistic relationship.
Helicopter parents are these benevolant dictators. But with these we can see the damage it creates. So maybe not that benevolant per se. But humans actually don't really like a lot of choice. Freedom isn't easy.
I'm still torn becasue we really do like our beneolant dictators. Many people actually need them. So I'm not suprised they liked your Rome.
As I wrote in this piece (https://freethinker.co.uk/2022/10/when-science-and-civil-liberties-clash/), "Liberals on both left and right often fail to appreciate how people quite like paternalism. From time to time, when voters are given a straight-up choice between paternalism and liberalism, paternalism wins by a landslide."
100% Paternalism is easy. It reduces risk. It provides structure and meaning. Liberalism is hard! It's hard to be independent and have to investigate and act.
I actually wrote my original comment into an article on Benevolent Dictatorship. I'd love your thoughts.
https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/benevolent-dictatorship
Great article. I'm definitely going to give Kingdom of the Wicked a read. But as far as the theme of the article, I agree with what was written broadly. I think it's a little difficult to map the old dichotomy of pagan vs Christian from antiquity onto our modern context. Because it doesn't map out neatly at all. Both sides today (meaning vaguely left vs right) inherited characteristics from both the old Pagans and old Christians. I would also agree that Christianity is far more present in both then Paganism is in either.
I'll add, I don't even think the environmentalism of the modern left is 1 to 1 with the nature worship of the pagans. Nature was a much more broad concept then it is today. Nature isn't just the trees, mountains, oceans, various landscapes. It's not even the atmosphere. It's everything. We are nature in the pagan view. In contrast to today, where people draw this arbitrary line between Man and nature. I think this has some different implications then the modern leftist view of nature in regards to environmentalism.
This may be just my interpretation of it. But I think the authentic pagan view of environmentalism is more like "You can take from nature, but you must give back to nature in the same breathe, and never forget where you came from". Rather than "we have to eat bugs and make ourselves slaves to Gaia". Though we may never know, because the various Pagans never had to deal with the issues of environmentalism.
Yes - I think you're right that modern environmentalism still has an element of special creation in it (a Christian doctrine that separates man from the animals because only man has an immortal soul). Classical paganism was truly pantheistic: the divine in everything, everything in the divine.
Thanks for re-publishing this review/article, Ms. Dale. I bought this book on the strength of your July 2019 piece, and on its strength bought it and both volumes of Kingdom of the Wicked. Enjoyed all three. Might you eventually write a similar book using modern society and the Code of Hamurabi as contrasting systems? That might be fun. I enjoy reading your cool-at-a-distance commentaries. Thank you.
I've got a UK publisher chasing me for a memoir at the moment, something I admit is rather stalled at present because I've been doing so much other writing for magazines/newspapers.
Writing entire books is a lot of work!
I can only imagine. But the symmetry between 1776 B.C. and 1776 A.D. is just so...symmetrical.