Above is the title of Peter Burfeind’s article at The Federalist, and here is the introductory sentence: “We’re watching our culture commit logocide—killing, not just discussion, but any potential framework for discussion. It means to end the West.”
Here are Burfeind’s opening four paragraphs — it’s a long post, but worth reading in full:
Conservatives are realizing we haven’t just lost a few arguments on social issues, global warming, or the economy. We wish. Rather, like something out of “The Matrix,” the very cosmic architecture that allows for argument in the first place has warped beyond recognition. We are witnesses to a logicide, the murder not just of discussion, but the possibility of any framework for discussion.
Some of us have been screaming in the wilderness about the effects our cultural Gnosticism is having on public discourse. (See here, here, here, here, and here, for starters.) It’s a very real thing, and you’d better get a handle on it if you want a roadmap for the future.
No less than Pope John Paul II said, “Gnosticism…has always existed side by side with Christianity, sometimes taking the shape of philosophical movement, but more often assuming the characteristics of a religion or para-religion, in distinct, if not declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian.”
Additional insights from political philosopherWilliam Voegelin, existentialist philosopherHans Jonas, and literary critic Harald Bloom reveal Gnosticism as a “theory of everything” explaining transgenderism, change-the-world utopianism, gay marriage, the erosion of borders, but also movements in conservative Christian circles like contemporary worship and the mega-church movement. It helps explain why media-induced phantasmia—manipulation through music, movies, and trending Internet memes—are the new authorities. It explains how the personality cult has become the default venue for social organization.
Read more: The Federalist
Image credit: www.illinoisfamily.org.
