according to the voegelinians, the other thing about modern ideologues, as "gnostics," is that they view the world as essentially bad (in contrast to the old testament -- "and god said it was good" -- and the platonists). this is related to their atttempt to bring heaven down to earth, to "redeem" the world, as it were. this, according to voegelin, leads to all the deformations of ideology. in other words, the "final solution" is result of the attempt to make the transcendent immanent. i deal (or will deal) with this attempt to make the transcendent immanent among the neo-vedantins at my site. i make no normative claims however as to whether or not such a thing is necessarily a "deformation" of consciousness as voegelin claims. however, i think that voegelin has indeed found one of the marks of modernity in this idea "immanentizing" transcendent goods; that is precisely how vivekananda and aurobindo speak, and this fact makes them moderns, in this sense. as for the politics of voegelin, the response to this kind of conservative is that his position merely reflects his attempt to maintain the status quo. it is not necessary even to invoke the ideal of progress, or the ideology of the "left" in general, to note that this kind of conservative is not interested in even the pragmatic or local improvement of the lot of man. "if things suck, well that's just the way things are and that's too bad," seems to be his take on things. that attitude is fine if you are born into privilege, but kinda sucks if you're not. i believe there is a book called "philosophers of consciousness" on voegelin, ricouer, bernard lonergan (a catholic hermeneut), and some others, kierkegaard i think.Quotes of the Day (or, Only on the Ken Wilber Forum): "I am a fan of quality gibberish..." ~Theos
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