sofiechan home

Is Islam a more appropriate starting point than Christianity for the modern Western elite?

anon_kigu said in #3094 2mo ago: received

I've been reading "Cities of God", about the history of early Christianity and how Christianity rapidly spread through the late antique Mediterranean world by filling a niche in the urban centers. (It was nearly absent in rural areas until forced conversions centuries later). Basically, nobody could survive in those disease-ridden hellholes (population densities exceeding modern Manhattan but with virtually no plumbing or public health) except a really tight, communally oriented group with an ethic of self-sacrifice.

The "render to Caesar" and "turn the other cheek" stuff is also pretty clearly an adaptation to a situation of being a subject people.

In contrast, my perception of our situation is that we're part of an emerging supercoordinating elite with the mandate of heaven, no particular need to mind-control a bunch of peasants, nor survive the horrifying conditions of a antique mediterranean urban center.

This is much more closely analogous to the historical situation of early Islam, which was the religion of an outgroup warrior elite whose main problem was coordinating to take over and rule vast swaths of land controlled by immensely rich and prestigious but rotten institutions.

Makes me curious to read more about the history and theology of early Islam and how exactly it managed to spread so quickly - would love to get recommendations.

referenced by: >>3102 >>3110

I've been reading "C received

judges said in #3099 2mo ago: received

Interesting question, but Islam doesn't seem like a good pick up for this purpose. Islam emerged in the context of military conquest, raiding, and looting, with coordination based largely around clans and blood ties. Not a good analogue to the present situation you describe.

If you're looking for historical analogues closer to "supercoordinating elite with the mandate of heaven, no particular need to mind-control a bunch of peasants, nor survive the horrifying conditions of a antique mediterranean urban center" then maybe you might want to look at Confucianism, ancient Greek polytheism, and idk maybe Zoroaster.

That said, I think you're too quick to discount Christianity. It's been a religion of emperors and aristocrats for 85% of its existence, and that's been very thoroughly incorporated into the theology by now.

Interesting question received

anon_soku said in #3102 2mo ago: received

>>3094
To answer the question directly: no. Three arguments: the historical roots of the west in Christianity, the racial character of Islam, and the untruth of the magical claims in the Mosaic religions make it inappropriate as the religion of the restored west. I could go into more detail, but that's not really what your post is about. The interesting question you are asking is "is early islam a better historical analogue for our future resurgence than early christianity". The answer to that is maybe.

Christianity as you note is a sort of sincere and highly functional underclass solidarism for rotting favela-empires. This is hopefully not our future, but few would seriously claim it's not a plausible one. So the case for Christianity is that we're living in a world where a superstitious "slave morality" is optimal whether we like it or not. If you want a picture of the future, imagine the mighty being brought low and the meek inheriting the earth—for ever.

>our situation is that we're part of an emerging supercoordinating elite with the mandate of heaven, no particular need to mind-control a bunch of peasants, nor survive the horrifying conditions of a antique mediterranean urban center.
This is wonderfully optimistic. Let's run with it. You aren't really asking what religion they (we) will have, but I will. The only basis for large-scale political coordination is some kind of sincere zeal capable of breaking through the old taboo and establishing itself as the new one. What is the taboo we are breaking through, and what is the new one that we believe in and will establish? I say "believe in" sincerely: the Platonic noble lie, argument for the transcendent from the practical, is a dead end.

Here's my view: due to the political events of the 20th century, we are stuck in a philosophical-religious dead end. The scientific-technical revolution of the past several hundred years, which was also a religious revolution, wants to culminate in a natural-biological view of man and society. In that worldview we leave behind the false metaphysical distinctions of the Mosaic/Platonic tradition (eg spirit/flesh, human/animal, morality/ecology, value/fact, person/nonperson, saved/damned, miracle/nature, heaven/earth, etc). Most controversially this hits the issue of eugenics: if man is a natural product of breeding, then the quality of the race is at least a core priority of the state. But the factions allied to this view lost the wars and revolutions of the 20th century to a reactionary anti-eugenic egalitarian irrationalism, which established itself as the dominant taboo, and eugenic thought as beyond the pale. Eugenic thought being one of the natural conclusions of the scientific thought our civilization is built on, this puts us in a deadlock.

What you're seeing now with the emerging new elite (which may or may not succeed) is the slow and reluctant breakdown of that core taboo of post-20th-century. Non-egalitarian scientific eugenic philosophy is coming back, or at least political philosophy open to breaking that taboo, and this more than anything else is the driving faith, the revolutionary zeal, of the new elite.

Is that like Islam? Maybe. It's like some other things too. And unlike them. How does it work as the operating system of society or as a historical event? We don't know. We have to study and synthesize and fight to find out. But that's what I live for.

As for early Islam, I agree we should study closely. I liked the Muqaddimah but it's hardly contemporary.

To answer the questi received

anon_lisa said in #3113 2mo ago: received

I'd conjecture that the Brahmins (and perhaps a more contemporary 'take' on the varna order) are the directly analogous historical archetype for a supercoordinating elite.

referenced by: >>3233

I'd conjecture that received

anon_muba said in #3205 2mo ago: received

I mean if you're Andrew Tate yeah

I mean if you're And received

anon_sobw said in #3233 2mo ago: received

>>3113
This will become especially true if we do end up with low-grade speciation from either some kind of genetic tampering or selective breeding between the elite. Already, you could argue that selection mechanisms in the West have led to a sort of situation like this; however, ideologically, it's certainly not true that political or aesthetic preferences follow the cognitive divisions of modern society.

On the wider question of Islam, I've heard good things about certain practices and orientations within the Sufi sect. Guénon was a fan, and that's certainly an endorsement. However, the modern identity of Islam and global Third Worldism seems to be an insurmountable obstacle for any reappropriation of Islamism from an elite perspective. The Qur'an, while widely praised as a work of world-historic literature, seems to me to be insipid and banal. Say what you will about the holy texts of the Jews, Christians, and Buddhists, but at least there is a certain beauty and power in those works themselves. All of the beauty that has accrued to Islam as a religion is due to the generative restraints against figurative artwork in the Islamic Golden Age. However, that's not an endorsement of Islam but rather an argument for restraint or for certain intellectual sensibilities in modern art.

This will become esp received

You must login to post.