On The Culture of Duplicity
Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth — William Blake, “Proverbs of Hell”
The whole world is a form of truth. — Rumi, Green Ears
Only a hair divides the false from the true — Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat
In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration. — Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine
Isolation and Aggregation
I have just started reading Max Horkheimer’s Critique of Instrumental Reason, which arrived in my mailbox yesterday. It addresses contemporary issues of the human condition and prospect that we are familiar with from other observers — Jean Gebser, Rene Guenon, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Gabriel Marcel amongst them.
I am not very far along in the book so far, but Horkheimer quotes Theodor Adorno in a place that struck me as pertinent to other themes raised in The Chrysalis, but especially in respect of the last two posts — the question of whether the light of consciousness could be extinguished and the end of democracy as a viable political model in consequence.
Democracy is Finished
While I was away, and as time permitted, I entertained myself by musing on the fate of democracy.
Now that I’ve returned home, I’ve also come to a conclusion of sorts. It’s over. It seems to have returned to where it first began.
The Chrysalis 