Gene, this is an interesting review, but I'm not sure that 'Gnosticism' is a good or correct way of categorizing the beliefs that Gray seems to espouse. Eugene Webb, someone who knew Voegelin personally, has a great essay on this: 'Voegelin’s 'Gnosticism” Reconsidered.'
Voegelin thought (and I think you even mentioned this in a comment on here) that he would have to reevaluate his thought on Gnosticism given light of new historical findings.
In light of these recent findings, Eugene Webb seems to think (and I'm curious as to what you think about this) that Voegelin should be read as someone found profound patterns of consciousness that led to spiritual and social disorder. Of course, this does not make Voegelin any less interesting and profound. I would say that my continued reading of him and the study of his thought is perhaps the high point of my philosophical journey so far.
"All of this means that while the government has been artificially propping up the economy and 'stimulating' it through artificial means, peoples’ perceptions of economic life have been transformed into that which was intended by the central planners: the economic crush is over, our government cured all the problems, things are great again, go back to your old ways. Rinse and repeat."
Reader rob smeared me as "weird and out of touch" for noting how intolerant progressives and progressive institutions are today. No, he complains, they are only being "fair"! So let me share three items of interest.
At one large organization where a friend works, two black cafeteria cooks were asked to prepare a special meal in honor of African-American history month. No doubt, they thought back to their own childhood and prepared on meal of ribs, collard greens, and cornbread. A much higher status member of the organization came to the cafeteria and was sorely offended by their "stereotyping." She got them fired. So this highly privileged woman got two much less privileged, minority workers, who were probably supporting families on their low wages, thrown out of work because they had offended her progressive ideology by implying that African-American people ever ate African-American cuisine. Hey, fair's fair!
From Amherst College, as noted by the left-leaning journal Commonweal:
‘Despite the sentiment expressed in its introduction, such a document will not serve to encourage discussion, but to stifle it; the goal is not intellectual diversity, but conformity. A professor friend of mine at another college notes ruefully that colleagues who oppose the ideas and language put forth in the Amherst document don’t dare say so publicly. “They’d be ostracized and shamed,” he told me. “You just can’t disagree with this kind of thing.”’
Gene, this is an interesting review, but I'm not sure that 'Gnosticism' is a good or correct way of categorizing the beliefs that Gray seems to espouse. Eugene Webb, someone who knew Voegelin personally, has a great essay on this: 'Voegelin’s 'Gnosticism” Reconsidered.'
ReplyDeleteVoegelin thought (and I think you even mentioned this in a comment on here) that he would have to reevaluate his thought on Gnosticism given light of new historical findings.
In light of these recent findings, Eugene Webb seems to think (and I'm curious as to what you think about this) that Voegelin should be read as someone found profound patterns of consciousness that led to spiritual and social disorder. Of course, this does not make Voegelin any less interesting and profound. I would say that my continued reading of him and the study of his thought is perhaps the high point of my philosophical journey so far.
"but I'm not sure that 'Gnosticism' is a good or correct way of categorizing the beliefs that Gray seems to espouse."
DeleteNo: Gray is a *critic* of Gnosticism! And Gray is the one using the term: I didn't pick it.
Ahh right. Yeah I see that now.
ReplyDelete