Will a Perfect Storm Soon be upon us?

Anthony Flood thinks so.  Here is how his piece begins:

The dictionary defines a perfect storm as an “unusual combination of events or things that produce an unusually bad or powerful result.” The latter, as I see it, is life as we’ve become accustomed to enjoying it.

Four years ago, I stated my grounds . . . . 

And now Flood adds to the list:

My list didn’t give sufficient attention to the open southern border of the United States, which is being invaded daily in great numbers, or the explosion of urban crime.

I was not thinking of the resurrection of Nazi-level, genocidalist  antisemitism within the walls of the institutions tasked with handing on civilization’s treasures.

I inexcusably paid no attention at all to the moral depravity that acquiesces in (if not celebrates) infanticide and the gender confusion that spits on the revelation of God (Genesis 1:27, 5:2; Matthew 19:4-6) Whom the “perfect stormtroopers” hate because they love death (Proverbs 8:36). Structural instabilities have followed the culture of death as the night the day. (I’ll let others decide if the charge of post hoc, ergo propter hoc is relevant.)

The world-historical figure who may win the general election in 168 days (to which victory I will contribute) may slow the rate of decline and postpone some of its consequences, but he can’t reverse it.

On November 6, 2024, no perfect stormtrooper will say, “Well, you beat us fair and square! Better luck next time!” No, they’re prepared to “accept” such an electoral result the way the PLO famously “accepted” the state of Israel, that is, an enemy to be destroyed and whose people are to be exterminated. Their plans to destroy Western Civ in general and its American outpost in particular will be pursued.

Like Napoleon, Trump may reshape the trajectory of a post-revolutionary era and bevel a few of its sharp edges. In the offing, however, I see no counterrevolution worthy of the name. As I wrote in the cited post:

Call me a secular pessimist (although I’m an eschatological optimist), but I see no liberation in this dispensation, libertarian or otherwise, from those scourges. God will stop the wicked in their tracks:

So shall they [God’s enemies] fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him (Isaiah 59:19).

He’ll lift it. God’s promised government is a future intervention that God, not man, will inaugurate; its blessings will be manifest to all, and delivered directly. “Thy Kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10).

Think you can cheer me up in the short run? Have at it.

Comments

[Joe Odegaard]

The deluded and the wicked are in general not reproducing, but the happy Christians and Jews are. That will eventually change everything for the better. It will take 30 to 40 years as the bitter leftist ladies pass beyond their child-bearing years, then another 3 or 4 decades after that for the bitter males and females to croak off. And, we are already some years into this. Of course, this is not short run.

[james soriano]

I’m not the one to cheer up Anthony Flood. His cry is the cry of Michel Anton, whose Everything’s Falling Apart thesis has been posted here in the past.

We might call Anthony Flood’s “perfect storm” a general crisis of civilization, which differs from a simple crisis as a whole differs from its parts. An acute emergency may affect one part of society, but it could also leave other parts unaffected. In a simple crisis, we can isolate the problem, take it apart, and even tinker with trial-and-error solutions. But a general crisis affects all aspects of life almost simultaneously, from our intellectual outlooks, religious beliefs, social relations, and so on. Problems seem to be inter-connected. The whole system is at risk, and as frustration grows, there is a tendency to impose political remedies in the place of informal social and economic adjustments. The spectrum of social relations becomes politicized, and when that doesn’t work, the ruling elite can resort to militarized coercion.

It would seem that the whole of the West is in this kind of situation today. To add to Anthony Flood’s list of catastrophes, the debauchery of the currency should be high on everyone’s list because of its cross-cutting destructiveness. Mass poverty and class envy are typically signs that the whole system has fallen into crisis. Today the state’s ineptness at maintaining a stable value of the coin in your purse is global. It intensifies social woes.

How to fix a general crisis? One could airily say that the most therapeutic thing a society in crisis can do is to get in touch with its roots, but the problem with that is that the ruling elites on both sides of the Atlantic are hostile towards to founding experience of Western Civilization.

I think the first guy in history to notice that Everything’s Falling Apart was Epicurus. He renounced allegiance to the state and to military service, and invited men to find their true satisfactions by sitting with friends “in a quiet garden” and conversing over plates of grapes and cheese.

If it’s any consolation to Anthony Flood, the Epicurean temptation was not the last word. Some centuries would pass before man found new forms of psychic and social satisfaction in the small groups of the catacombs. Their numbers would grow and eventually they would go on to conquer the state itself. In that way, the general crisis of the ancient world was resolved in a new interpretation of life.

[BV]

James,

I don't believe that Anton has an article by that name. Here are some of his articles: https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/author/michael-anton/

[BV]

Tony,

Your "perfect stormtrooper" is a brilliant coinage just begging to be appropriated by this blogger.

James,

You are certainly right about the debasement of the currency.

To which I add:

https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2024/03/cashlessness-and-the-road-to-totalitarianism.html

and

https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2023/09/the-end-of-liberty-is-nigh-the-digital-pound-and-cancel-culture.html

It says something that the spot price of gold is over 2400 USD per oz. https://www.kitco.com/charts/gold

[Anthony Flood]

I appreciate James Soriano's comments. True, I didn't mention the debauchery of the currency explicitly, but did note in passing "the trillions of dollars in unpayable debt and the hyperinflation that must follow central banking as the night the day."

The perfect storm that I conjecture is not necessarily an existential threat to humanity. No member of the crew of the fishing vessel Andrea Gail survived, but their survivors held a memorial service. Millions of Germans and Russians are alive today because, even in the worst years of Stalin and Hitler, people still fell in love, married, and had children. For tens of millions, however, there was no memorial service. They would not have the privilege, as we do, of reading and reflecting upon the history of their era in their golden years. It was simply "over" for them. They await resurrection.

If my mind were a quantum computer with all historical and current data at my fingertips, I could score the accuracy of my Antonesque "cry." But it's not, so I can't. I'm only a Christian struggling to make sense of a fallen world in the light of God's Word in the day of God's (relative, gracious, and temporary) silence. (See my series on this topic: “The Silence of God”: Anderson’s 1897 book, Otis Q. Sellers’s 1929 turning point—Part 1. https://anthonygflood.com/2022/05/the-silence-of-god-andersons-1897-book-otis-q-sellerss-1929-turning-point-part-1/ )

Offsetting the gloom-and-doom is knowing that the human drivers of the storm's vectors are not omniscient or omnipotent. And neither is the Prince of this World (kosmos; or age, aionos). It's a safe bet that he inspires them, even coordinates some of their actions (John 14:30; Eph 2:2-3, 6:12; 2 Cor 4:4). But I foresee no programmatic response to their programmatic attacks except the blazing forth (epiphaneia) of His Kingdom (not yet His second advent) for which I live in expectation (1 Tim 6:14; 2 Tim 1:10, 4:1, 4:8). That is to say, there is a programmatic response, but it's divine.

[BV]

Tony,

One topic we should discuss at some point is the notion that 'world' in the NT sense refers to a period of time, an age, as opposed to an atemporal condition of fallen humanity. Just to formulate my question properly is not easy.

A second, related topic is the proper interpretation of "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" from the Pater Noster. I take it you would say that the kingdom of heaven in not "within you" in any Platonic-Plotinian, or mystical or eternal sense, but is literally in the future, and thus in temporal series with the present.

[Joe Odegaard]

Ah, but the future is not really inaccessibly ahead of us, because our true selves transcend time, and thus the kingdom of heaven can very well be within ourselves even now.

I find the rotten present much more bearable because of this.

[BV]

Joe,

Here is one way to put the question: can I gain access to the kingdom of heaven right now, from the present, by turning within and by a gracious granting by God of infused contemplation, OR must I want around for some future event?

[Joe Odegaard]

Bro Bill, I think you can get it now; that's what I try for, and I seem to find very, very tiny bits of it now and then. Rarely, actually. & It is a good thing that the bits are tiny. If they were large, one probably couldn't physically survive them.

[BV]

Joe,

We're Catholics by upbringing, and trad RCC doctrine is unthinkable without the Platonic-mystical side -- which puts us at odds with many forms of Protestantism which has much cruder soteriological conceptions, though not as crude as the popular Islamic conceptions, e.g. endless sexual disportation with the 72 black-eyed virgins . . .

Ah be brushin' here with a mighty broad brush, and invokin' mah blogosheric privilege as ah do so.

[Vito B. Caiati]

“Can I gain access to the kingdom of heaven right now, from the present, by turning within and by a gracious granting by God of infused contemplation, OR must I want around for some future event?”

I think that it is both. One thing to consider is the essential temporal element in Christian soteriology: Christ is born in the year of the census of Cesar Augustus, when Quirinius was governor of Syria; He rises from the dead on the morning of the third day; He ascends into Heaven forty days after Easter; He sends the Holy Spirit ten days later; and in a final future eschatological moment, the culmination of this history, “appear[s] the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then all of the tribes of the earth…shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt 24:30). In this, the Gospels continue and reconceive the great ancient Hebraic theme of God’s salvific acts in time, in human history, which is found throughout the Old Testament. I see no way to avoid this highly historical (temporal) aspect of Hebraic or Christian thought. But that does not mean that this inbreaking of the divine in time is restricted to the great acts of human salivation. As long recognized by the Church, some are graced with glimpses of the coming kingdom, whether though contemplation or other mystical experiences. I leave aside the issue of the sacraments, and in particular the Eucharist, the belief in which, if Roman Catholic or Orthodox, offers a specific notion of the relation of the Incarnation of time past to time present, that is, of the actual and not simply future real presence of Christ, and hence of He who brings the Kingdom.

[BV]

Vito,

Yes, both. I can't fault anything you say. What concerns me, however, is the tension between the two, between the eschatological and contemplative. I hope to come back to this.

I suspect Vladimir Lossky has something interesting to say about this.

From Amazon page:

Vladimir Lossky
Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky was born on 8 June 1903 in Göttingen, Germany. His father, Nikolai Lossky, was a professor of philosophy in Saint Petersburg. Vladimir Lossky enrolled as a student at the Faculty of Arts at Petrograd University in 1919, and, in the spring of 1922, was profoundly struck when he witnessed the trial which led to the execution of Metropolitan Benjamin of St Petersburg by the Soviets. Metropolitan Benjamin was later canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.