Richard Fernandez (aka Wretchardthecat on Twitter/X and Wretchard T. Cat on FB) posted:
"I rhetorically asked the question: "What happens to intellectuals, when after rejecting God, they reject atheism? Where is there left to go?"
The answer? To a pre-rational state of being, a private internal world, the “life of feeling”."
I think there is a step in the middle, after they reject God and before they get to the Nietzschean state of "God is dead".
It's a search for a God replacement - or a search for gods (with a little "g"). They try to replace God with paganism - the earth, government, climate - but it seems in that search there is either authoritarianism or chaos, there is nothing in between.
The final stage is, as Fernandez describes, the "life of feeling" where people turn inward to the belief they are their own god and anything they feel is the rule, and in that belief, legitimize literally any action.
The Federalist has a timely article about America's turn toward paganism here.
A few years ago, I wrote that we are on the path to return to the Dark Ages.
Victor Davis Hanson, possibly the greatest living American historian, said something that really crystallized that thought for me. He said:
"Science is dying; superstition disguised as morality is returning. And we’ll all soon become poorer, angrier and more divided."
There is a lot packed into those two sentences.
One wonders - is the world careening headlong toward a second Dark Age?
The Dark Ages we know from the history books was a period of intellectual darkness and barbarity from the fall of Rome in 476 AD to around 1000 AD featuring:
Widespread unrest as Pax Romana ended – Rome could no longer project power across Europe to enforce order
The rejection of legal order as factions sought to establish superiority and control over traditional territories
The rise of tribalism and ethnic segregation
Loss of faith in societal institutions
Economic collapse
De-urbanization as cities died, no longer able to support their populations
Rise of Islam and Islamic conquests leading to the First Crusade
The rise of pseudo-science – such as alchemy
There are so many similarities between the fall of Rome and the waning of Pax Americana:
Widespread unrest as Pax Americana ends – America can no longer project power to enforce order (or is not willing to do so)
The rejection of legal order as factions seek to establish superiority and control over traditional territories (Putin’s nostalgic Soviet daydreams and the never ending war in the Middle East)
The rise of tribalism and ethnic segregation (unrest in the Black community and calls for self-segregation in America)
Loss of faith in societal institutions (declining church attendance)
Economic collapse (the global recession)
De-urbanization as cities died, no longer able to support their populations (Detroit – need I say more?)
Rise of Islam and Islamic conquests (i.e. ISIS and Islamofascist terror groups)
Increased conflict between organized religion and science (evolution vs. creationism)
The rise of pseudo-science (such as “climate science” and Fauci-ism)
It is the height of arrogance for people to believe that there could not be a second coming of the Dark Ages. I’m sure that the people of Rome didn’t believe the Roman Empire would ever fall and yet there are so many things about America that recall Rome in its pre-fall days of bread and circuses and gladiatorial combat.
Might want to sharpen your swords and start working on that moat you have been putting off digging.
Re: Institutions... while church attendance is the most telling institutional decline, look also at others such as the Scouts, Shriners, Lions, Kuwanis, Elks, and soon perhaps even public schools and colleges. I think Jesus was once asked about the second coming and he mentioned we would see it being like the days of Noah and of Lot. Forget the moat, best keep your knees bent and your Eyes on Jesus.
The problem I see with modern Icelanders or Norwegians (to take a specific culture) returning to the worship of Thor and the other deities of Aasgard is that it amounts to little more than cosplaying. It was completely different for their ancestors who had grown up with Odinism and whose entire culture reverberated with their belief in the Eisar and woodland spirits and in the values that could drive you into a Beserker rage during battle. Generically true of all attempts to adopt the pre-Christian paganism of one’s ethnicity.