The Ravages of the New Normal
There are a couple of excellent articles in today’s Guardian that I would like to draw to your attention.
The New Ratio
This morning, I want to pick up the thread of a theme that I raised in my response to a comment by Abdulmonem in the last post — the dissolution or disintegration of the “ratio” that informs rationality. This is, of course, revisiting a persistent topic in The Chrysalis, namely the breakdown of the mental-rational structure of consciousness in our time. The dissolution of the ratio as the meaning of the irrational is equally the meaning of the “breakdown of the human form” as Kahler describes it in The Tower and the Abyss, and “loss of the vital centre” as Gebser calls it in his Ever-Present Origin. This is also the estrangement and alienation of the ego consciousness from the intuitive self described by “Seth”, for in many ways the ratio that governs our reason is very much an intuitive affair.
Diplomacy or Clash of Civilisations?
I’ve taken note of a recent spate of articles bemoaning not just the breakdown of traditions of diplomacy, but the apparent devaluation of diplomacy itself. The most recent statement on this comes from Lt.-Gen. Stuart Beare, retiring operations chief of the Canadian Armed Forces (“Retiring Lt.-Gen. Stuart Beare says the world needs more diplomacy“, CBC).
We may assume that this devaluation of diplomacy in favour of “the gloves come off” and “the clash of civilisations” is another symptom of the disintegration and breakdown of the mental-rational structure of consciousness at our “end of history”, and that it is also another pernicious aspect of “the new normal”.
The Chrysalis 