John Dunn

Elevated vis-à-vis the overtly moral others

Friday, 24 January 2025 at 20:14

Elevated vis-à-vis the overtly moral others

Spinoza’s god of the Lurianic Kabbalah was what he posited to be the permanent and immutable Substance, the ground of all things. The Renaissance idea that the universe could be both lawful and evolving in a constant process of perfection, was incomprehensible to him. Spinoza’s god was trapped in the same set of fixed rules in which men’s minds were trapped. Since not even God can change these fixed laws, a far less powerful mankind must live in a universe defined by these fixed relationships. It is these fixed relationships, or ‘natural law’, that set the limits to man’s activities, not moral choices of self-restraint.Such a philosophical presupposition was wholly consistent with a Spinozist socio-political outlook and can be taken as a metaphorical presentation of that outlook. In an amoral universe everyone has a ‘right’ to act deceitfully, angrily, discordantly, violently, etc. towards others, in whatever manner they see fit, as long as they are able to do so; their ‘rights’ are only limited by their ability. The holder of such a view is elevated in terms of power vis-à-vis others in society who hold to an overtly moral code of behaviour, especially when he pretends to act by that same moral code.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

‘Whig Magnificoes’ were not interfered with

Thursday, 23 January 2025 at 21:11

John Locke

‘Whig Magnificoes’ were not interfered with

Post-1688 Britain might have been nominally a kingdom, but in reality it became a 'Republick of Merchants' and its head of state was not a king but, as Disraeli pointed out, really a doge. The sovereign might be allowed absolute power, as long as the economic interests of the ‘Whig Magnificoes’ were not interfered with. The Liberal system of government,economy, and social philosophy was the offspring of the oligarchy-ruled Venice of Sarpi’s time. The Venetian model had transferred to the two maritime powers best placed to exploit the trading opportunities in America and Asia - the Netherlands of Spinoza and the England of John Locke. The crucial feature of the Anglo-Dutch liberal model was the independence from national government, elected or otherwise, enjoyed by a privately controlled central banking system. In effect, that central bank became the agent of the landholding, financier-oligarchic class.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

“I will not be a Doge”

Monday, 20 January 2025 at 19:12

“I will not be a Doge”

In his novel Coningsby,Disraeli wrote: ‘The great object of Whig leaders in England, from the first movement under Hampden to the last most successful one in 1688, was to establish in England a high aristocratic republic on the model of the Venetian....William the Third told ...Whig leaders, “I will not be a Doge” ...They brought in a new family on their own terms. George I was a Doge; George II was a Doge....George III tried not to be a Doge....He might try to get rid of the Whig Magnificoes, but he could not rid himself of the Venetian constitution.’

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Sarpian ‘Republick of Merchants’

Sunday, 19 January 2025 at 21:40

Sarpian ‘Republick of Merchants’

What Spinoza, followed by Locke, had theorised was Sarpi’s 'Republick of Merchants’. As in Sarpi’s Venice, the consensus of the community was that of a small clique of property-owning oligarchs. Their rejection of absolute monarchy was in fact a Counter-Renaissance opposition to any form of sovereign national rule over the economic sphere. The 1688 Dutch invasion of England, or Glorious Revolution as it was dubbed by the financial beneficiaries, established a Sarpian ‘Republick of Merchants’ on English soil, as Venetian and Dutch commercial and banking interests transferred to London. The Anglo-Dutch model of oligarchical rule was established, with the formerly centralising authority of the King transformed into the nominal authority of a Venetian-style Doge.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Collaborationist role

Saturday, 18 January 2025 at 21:49

John Locke

Collaborationist role

During his exile in Amsterdam, Locke would have been receptive to the ‘Counter-Renaissance’ ideas of Spinoza. The philosopher and novelist Rebecca Goldstein argues that during his five years in Holland, Locke chose his friends ‘from among the same freethinking members of dissenting Protestant groups as Spinoza's small group of loyal confidants’.53 Spinoza had died in 1677, but Locke almost certainly met men in Amsterdam who spoke of the author of the Ethics, whose ideas were compatible with the expansionist ambitions of a commercial oligarchy. Locke accompanied William of Orange's wife back to England in 1688, a high profile indication of his collaborationist role in the build-up to the invasion.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Leading collaborator

Thursday, 16 January 2025 at 21:55

John Locke

Leading collaborator

Born in the same year as Spinoza (1632), John Locke was employed by Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who as a founder of the Whig movement exerted great influence on Locke's political ideas. Shaftesbury was a prominent conspirator in the failed Rye House plot, an assassination attempt upon Charles II and the future James II, which aimed to sweep away the barriers to an oligarchical takeover of government. Locke fled to the Netherlands in 1683, under strong suspicion of involvement. It is highly likely that from this point on at least, Locke was one of the leading collaborators with the Dutch backers of the 1688 invasion.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Incompatible with free will

Monday, 13 January 2025 at 21:08

Incompatible with free will

Complete Tikkun would undo the material, differentiated and individuated world we know.The answer to ‘who am I?’ would be reduced to - ‘you are what you have to be’. It would mean the death of the self. There would be a denial of subjectivity, creativity and deviation. All you could do is understand the system, not influence it. To maximise your potential, you must understand the motivations of others and work the system; Machiavellian perhaps, but very definitely Sarpian. The Ein Sof to which Spinoza led his people was Sarpi’s ‘Republick of Merchants', or the globalists’ vision of modernity.

Spinoza’s self-caused God, or Substance, is incompatible with the freedom of the will. Not surprisingly, both Sarpi and Spinoza feared democracy. ‘Just keep the masses cheaply fed’, insisted Sarpi, whose words probably applied to ideas, as well as food. The politicised seculariser of Kabbalah, who saw the unity or monism of all things, also espoused the unity and oneness of leadership. Spinoza’s intolerance, which resulted from his monism, was wholly compatible with a crushing of difference and humanness into a 1 = 1 sameness. In a Spinozist world, the sovereign alone would have the right to determine not only the state’s laws but also religious law.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.