The Political Compass was an interesting exercise. I doubt Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc. would be "authoritarian" for long unless they were the ones on top. Thanks for sharing your journey of discovery. I also liked your model of the Russian Revolution. I once read a history of the revolutionary period that said basically the Bolsheviks prevailed in the revolution because they were willing to be more ruthless than any other faction in killing people. Maybe an oversimplification. I am grateful to be in a country (for me the USA with all its faults) than in an authoritarian country. Then, we do have a form of a minority government by design bequeathed by our forefathers {voter suppression in the system, the design of the Senate, the design of the Electoral College that determines the president and allowing gerrymandering (state legislatures making districts so they favor one party or the other which both parties do) being the worst aspects of the design of the system} with the Republican Party that is becoming more and more authoritarian. One day we too might wind up with an illiberal democracy. Some already think that is the case now even with Democrats in control of the government currently since the monied special interests rule the politicians by giving them money to run their campaigns in their safe gerrymandered districts thus our government is something of an oligarchy.
The interesting thing about Berdyaev's book, or at least what convinced me to purchase it maybe 20 years ago, was that it was marketed with the subtitle: 'What was the thought of the Creator regarding the Russian people?'. I had just read some Soloviev, visited Karelia, and become struck by the inherent "sacredness" of the local peasantry's stance towards life -- this after 70 years of religion having been declared a faux pas. I have to make time to look at this book again; I recall it was filled with interesting points that should warrant deeper reflections at some later point. Circling back to your notion of ideas as beings... within Anthroposophy and also esoteric (uncorrupted) Rosicrucianism, the notion of peoples or what we might perhaps inappropriately call nations nowadays, is deeply connected to a particular (individual) being of the rank of an Archangel. It is the lofty thinking of this being which promulgates and elaborates the thought, or idea, of Russia, say, over the course of centuries. The Russian unfoldment. (Also true however for Zulus and the Portuguese and Mongolians -- each bearing their own archangel.) The present social condition of a people, in a higher sense, I think has much to do with the contemporary quality of the people's apprehension of the true core of their nascent Idea. I think you are on the right track. Ideas, large and small, clear and still formulating, are beings in their own right. For pure thinking is a creative activity in the radical sense. Higher beings create ideas through pure thonking and occasionally so do we. Other times we perceive them, recognize them, glimpse them, catch their shadows. Yes we must nurture them if we want them to continue to inhabit the sphere of our living confused cloud of thoughts and impressions. We must make a space convivial for the being to visit. We must pay attention and notice the relations between these thought-beings. And we must be careful which ones we hausband into existence or amplify. -rob stolzy
The Political Compass was an interesting exercise. I doubt Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc. would be "authoritarian" for long unless they were the ones on top. Thanks for sharing your journey of discovery. I also liked your model of the Russian Revolution. I once read a history of the revolutionary period that said basically the Bolsheviks prevailed in the revolution because they were willing to be more ruthless than any other faction in killing people. Maybe an oversimplification. I am grateful to be in a country (for me the USA with all its faults) than in an authoritarian country. Then, we do have a form of a minority government by design bequeathed by our forefathers {voter suppression in the system, the design of the Senate, the design of the Electoral College that determines the president and allowing gerrymandering (state legislatures making districts so they favor one party or the other which both parties do) being the worst aspects of the design of the system} with the Republican Party that is becoming more and more authoritarian. One day we too might wind up with an illiberal democracy. Some already think that is the case now even with Democrats in control of the government currently since the monied special interests rule the politicians by giving them money to run their campaigns in their safe gerrymandered districts thus our government is something of an oligarchy.
The interesting thing about Berdyaev's book, or at least what convinced me to purchase it maybe 20 years ago, was that it was marketed with the subtitle: 'What was the thought of the Creator regarding the Russian people?'. I had just read some Soloviev, visited Karelia, and become struck by the inherent "sacredness" of the local peasantry's stance towards life -- this after 70 years of religion having been declared a faux pas. I have to make time to look at this book again; I recall it was filled with interesting points that should warrant deeper reflections at some later point. Circling back to your notion of ideas as beings... within Anthroposophy and also esoteric (uncorrupted) Rosicrucianism, the notion of peoples or what we might perhaps inappropriately call nations nowadays, is deeply connected to a particular (individual) being of the rank of an Archangel. It is the lofty thinking of this being which promulgates and elaborates the thought, or idea, of Russia, say, over the course of centuries. The Russian unfoldment. (Also true however for Zulus and the Portuguese and Mongolians -- each bearing their own archangel.) The present social condition of a people, in a higher sense, I think has much to do with the contemporary quality of the people's apprehension of the true core of their nascent Idea. I think you are on the right track. Ideas, large and small, clear and still formulating, are beings in their own right. For pure thinking is a creative activity in the radical sense. Higher beings create ideas through pure thonking and occasionally so do we. Other times we perceive them, recognize them, glimpse them, catch their shadows. Yes we must nurture them if we want them to continue to inhabit the sphere of our living confused cloud of thoughts and impressions. We must make a space convivial for the being to visit. We must pay attention and notice the relations between these thought-beings. And we must be careful which ones we hausband into existence or amplify. -rob stolzy