Latin Civilization, Byzantium and Felix

To know what the Latin civilization is, Catholicism must be practiced due to the fact that it is simply a Catholic Church civilization. For man imitates, acquires the ability to realize at the end. According to Felix Koneczne (1862–1949) civilization is simply a social life system.

Finding congregations practicing Catholicism means uncovering Latin civilization in the sense of Conecan. This is highly hard today, as fewer practice authentic Catholicism.

How to be civilized?

The problem is that man learns by imitating. Socratean moral intellectualism identifying virtue with cognition is simply a mistake. Without surviving patterns, moral fitness cannot be acquired. Nor can 1 learn morality as part of one's own creation. To realize that, it is adequate to compare a man with another primates. Monkeys incapable to copy their antennae's behaviour must learn all their skills on their own. As a result, successive generations of monkeys are forced to start at precisely the same place as the erstwhile ones. So they would gotta get morality if they were able to.

Unlike monkeys, humans pass on culture to another generations, so that generations do not gotta start over. "Civilization itself is not a social being, but strictly individual and nowhere but an individual human individual does not be [...] but it is clear that if it were not for society, the individual would never have reached the level he has" (I.M. Bocheński OP, "In the defence of Christian civilization", [w]: "Polish testament. Homeland, Europe, Civilization", 2006, p. 114). The Magisterium of the Church recognizes this fact, taking as a basis an uninterrupted apostolic tradition (the message of religion received by the Apostles personally from Christ). The failure of tradition would mean the end of it, since its "recreation" would always be something new. The failure of culture so means an unrepeated loss. ‘Aside from this is the ethical standard [...]. A unit or even a generation must not have its civilization freely” (ibid.).

Traditionally passed culture is besides liable for worldview differences. "Really, to a man on specified a level of culture, encountering all alien civilization is always a large humiliation and large joy at the same time. It shows him, on the 1 hand, its own limitations, on the other, it usually opens fresh horizons" (ibid., p. 115).

Concise Errors

The art of analyzing abroad culture is difficult. It did not win yet either to Koneczny, who, though practicing Catholicism himself and having Catholic knowing of civilizations, did not have adequate sources of the societies he analysed. Thus, he designed the experiences of his own nation for another communities. Therefore, the typology of Koneczne civilization meets well-deserved criticism. It is noted that its characterization of Byzantine civilization is methodologically arbitrary. Rather, it is due to the fact that the Catholic Church besides identified the Catholic Church as a nation for which the Church was based in a situation of deficiency of statehood. The possessive states which do not identify themselves nationally but alternatively imperialally recognized themselves as representatives of Byzantine civilization, characterized by bureaucratic – legal strategy of social control at the place of ethical Catholic control.

Thus Germany and Russia were attributed the alleged features of the Byzantium. "It would be unfair to discuss with the author from the position of today's cognition of Byzantium, but it must be said honestly that the literature which Koneczny had in his time was not utilized adequate by him. mediocre Byzantine! Either looked at them through the prism of Moscow and the image of Constantinople covered the domes of the Council in the Saski Garden, or through the German prism, where the picielhaubs of Prussian Bismarck soldiers obscured the Cone Roman over the Bosphorus, to which the Romans consistently refused Romanism. But was he right?" (M. Dąbrowska, "Second Eye of Europe. Byzantium in the mediate Ages", 2015, p. 330).

Researchers pointed out that the components of Byzantine civilization are the same as Latin. “Following P. Tzermias we could say that Byzantine culture was characterized by a combination of Hellenism, Romanity and Christianity” — Sylvain Gouguanheim, “Glory of the Greeks”, 2024, p. 301. "B. Tatakis felt that the Byzantine Empire had combined 3 fundamental elements of European civilization: Greekism, Roman law and Christianity. The same opinion is expressed by A. Ducellier’ (ibid., p. 302). If the same elements specify Latin civilization (Catholic), what makes it different?

Important are not the components themselves, but their combination, the fields in which they are applied. It is the work of authority, due to the fact that the transmission of culture is due to it. “For example, the axiomatic explanation of authority that assumes that authority is simply a two-member relation is worthless, whereas in reality it is simply a three-member relation (Einstein is for individual an authority in physics – but not in logic)” (I.M. Bocheński, “Polish Testament”, p. 179). Conclusive did not take this into account, claiming categorically that 1 cannot be civilized in 2 ways. If he were right, the Latin civilization would not have been created at all, not being able to combine elements of Greekity, Romanity and Christianity.

Notabene Koneczny is no exception. In political thought to this day, he does not usage the three-member explanation of authority and hence theorizing about 1 or the another of the alleged relationships: ruling or ruled, postulating anarchy or totalizm e.g. communism – libertarianism, fascism – anarchism, statism – anarchocapitalism, elites – People, etc. Therefore, the definition of civilization needs to be clarified. In order to do this, however, we must abandon the social model of the Coneical, as besides active in historical issues.

Three Civilizations

Behind the quoted Joseph Maria Bochenski I propose to item 3 meanings of the word "civilization": subjective, material and model. Behind the Polish philosopher, therefore, we find that “civilization” is an abstract of the adjective “civilized”. Civilization in this subjective sense is as much as a set of qualities that make a individual have them "civilized." “All these features are active without exception: they are performance, i.e. intellectual dispositions, through which a individual can first experience certain values (e.g. realize the mathematical treaty, or experience a large musical symphony); secondly, act in a manner consistent with these values (e.g. number or play piano). In a immense group of features of this kind we usually separate the 4 most crucial groups, which together consist of alleged spiritual civilization, besides sometimes called culture. These are performance: 1) intellectual (having the object of truth), 2) aesthetic (beautiful), 3) moral (good), 4) spiritual (holy). Note, incidentally, that 1 can be very civilized in 1 area and a complete barbarian in another" (I.M. Bocheński, Ibid., p. 111). As far as I know, the Cone point 4 has left out, exposing vitality and wellness in return, as well as Bocheński's last and large attention.

Byzantine icon (XIV century)

The “material” civilization is the products of the subject civilization, in another words the works of people civilized, e.g. technological works, paintings, buildings, rituals, tools, etc. They are a vehicle utilizing which the subject civilization passes from generation to generation. Without it, the process of civilization would be impossible, which has already been mentioned on the occasion of the human form. reflection of the essence of civilization in both given meanings raises a key problem of the content of civilization, besides omitted in Koneczny. The Bochen tolerance (kunktatorski?) here formulates a broad position, which he himself calls "idealistic" and company names Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas of Aquinas, Spinozy, Kanta, Hegel and Whitehead (ibid., p. 113). I'll usage a longer quote.

“People have a civilization as they are better or worse able to apply themselves to certain values. For example, ethical civilization is the higher, the greater the sense of reason and the will of ethical ideals. These ideals, values, patterns, or whatever we want to call them, combined are just civilizations in an perfect sense, or model civilizations [...] So the situation is as follows: at the top we have a Pattern – an idea, an ideal, unchanging and eternal civilization. Under it is simply a man living, empirical, biologically conditioned by inheritance, socially by the influence of the environment and working on himself. This man seeks to [...] make as much knowing of values as possible and to forge in his character the ability to act in accordance with them. Work is hard and long-term. There are geniuses – large explorers of science, masters of art, heroes of morality, saints – whose mass is inactive immature and blind to the higher levels visible to them – usually the forew and crosses. slow the large spirit opens the way for the lower ones and the thought begins to live, penetrating deeper and deeper the given social group. another groups little advanced on the road to civilization destroy, sometimes irretrievably, the full centuries-old achievement. The work begins again to yet mature after millennia and spend on any section of high-quality crop” (ibid.).

Bochenski in his analysis advises to avoid 2 extremes. Although the model civilization is 1 in relation to different individuals and unchanged in relation to the historical process of deepening the subject civilization, it is highly rich. Bocheński is simply a boastful philosopher with the exception of taking the directives of logic seriously. This applies in peculiar to the directive prohibiting all opinions. "We will never know the magnitude of the perfect sphere, even roughly, due to the fact that it would mean to exhaust the full sacred content of God with a finite mind. We know only fragments, crumbs falling upon our earthly domains. It would be utmost presumptuous to say that we have already and yet learned all the values, norms, ideals and that we know the core of civilization so well that this allows us to specify its kind without rest, unilaterally and categorically" (ibid., p. 115).

Therefore, the distortion (deidencies) is both the view that there is only 1 civilization and the view that all civilizations are equal. "Meeting in a unusual cultural ellipse of attitudes and norms, which we know from our own, as lower levels, after which we have been able to emergence to the present level with effort – we have no reason to respect these lower forms of life as equivalent to what we have achieved." Under conditions in which comparative assessment is difficult, it is simply a moral work to work constructively in the defence of own civilization in respect and knowing that there are also shades of civilization even incomprehensible.

Latin specificisation

Armed with the presented optics we can look closer to Catholic civilization. “Maybe the best way to effort to clarify this is to consider the factors that played a decisive function in the origin of modern Christian civilization. I personally see 3 and only 3 specified factors: Greek thought, Gospel and Roman law. If we were looking for a thinker, in which the action of these 3 powers was the strongest, and the most harmonious, in creating the full – nobody would be more typical than St. Thomas of Aquinas. The thinker of the large Greek school, so Greek that it is simply a kind of historical phenomenon [...] was besides a saint of actual occurrence, of the kind of life and spiritual perfect – ethically highly close to St Francis of Assisi. But at the same time in each of his writings, he speaks in addition to the Gospel and Hellada something 3rd and new: Ius Romanum, the law of ancient Rome" (ibid., p. 117).

All 3 components made the concept of the soul available to mankind. "The Platonic explanation about the soul exalts it infinitely due to the fact that it subjugates it without the remainder of the idea, nonsubjective form and value. The belief that specified a planet of superhuman and super-empiric exists that all man, even the smallest, represents him, is precisely the large thing that – theoretically at least – gave Hellad.” Christianity strengthened it by the soteriological doctrine of action, with the strict dogma of Incarnation and Redemption, without which it would stay the highest participation of philosophers in the kind of Mark Aurel. According to Bocheński, Christ dies on the Cross with the death of a proletarian, with which 1 should agree, for “all without exception men”, which is already questionable. The spiritual expression of consecration of wine says directly: “pro multis”, that is, besides many. More specifically, about many of whom the Prologue for the Gospel of St. John says that they accepted the Word and were born of God: “qui non ex sanguinibus, neque ex voluntáte carnis, neque ex voluntate viri, sed Deo nati sunt”. A change in the form of consecration to “pro omnibus” would most likely render it invalid, as it would deprive Christianity of meaning.

Bochenski further argues – which is besides hard to agree with – that John Locke, encyclopedists, the French Revolution and Marxism after “cleaning up the elements of our hostile civilization” come from the Greek thought and Christianity. past shows that the cleaning mentioned is highly difficult, if at all feasible. It's alternatively the opposite. "A tiny mistake at first is large at the end," says 1 of the principles of the spiritual discernment of St. Ignacy of Loyola, besides cited as a methodological informing by St. Thomas of Aquinas. There are besides Gospel parables of the consequences of returning to evil: "And there is simply a final condition worse than the original" (Luke 11:24-41). This phenomenon is completely consistent with the Bocheński model. That's why my point about weird squatting. "Positive Saints" specified as John Stuart Mill were raised in Christian culture but they did not pass it on anymore. Therefore, it does not substance whether 1 believes in the Platonic idea, the first motor, the transcendental same of Kant, or the God of Jesus Christ.

Fall

The common recognition of civilization with the level of technology, i.e. the productions, is due to the cessation of transmission of Catholic culture. Civilization in this sense brought gun-armed colonists to natives deprived of specified weapons. Today's counterpart will be comparing the quality of smartphones or cars as civilization criteria. This knowing of civilization he introduced for good Francis Bacon (156-1626) according to which the object of cognitive activity is to master nature ("Novum Organum", 1620) and not to contemplate fact or moral perfection. "We, Europeans, and we only, have produced ... impersonal and nonsubjective science. Even in the spiritual ellipse of civilization closest to us, in India, where even logic has been created, each of its textbooks begins with the consideration of the usefulness of this teaching – an unthinkable thing in us" (Bochenski, Ibid., p. 120). What Bocheński is unthinkable is now the norm and does not surprise anyone. Even at school, the question is why learn unprofitable knowledge. From Catholicism utilized and inactive aristocratic trichotomic division of sciences into theoretical ones—the intent of which is to formulate cognition for herself (metaphysics, physics and mathematics); practical—the intent of which is to formulate cognition for the attainment of moral perfection (ethics, politics); conceptual (genuine, from gr. poiesis) – whose intent is cognition by which certain objects can be produced, after being castrated in the spirit of Bacon, only the manufacturing teachings remain.

Bacon was powerfully impressed by 3 inventions: printing, compass and gunpowder. He felt that they had revolutionized the planet for the better. This is how a technological Western civilization was born, making a meaningless Catholic model of life. The sacraments and their object, or contemplation of God, become meaningless. Hence Protestant rejection of the Magisterium of the Church, criticism of the sacraments, criticism and liquidation of the Orders, especially these contemplative ones. Consequently, man is left alone with his psyche. The consequence must be the budding of more or little successful denominations, passed on to the same way as Catholicism by tradition (the another does not exist!) until the next challenge by any frustrated rebel. After rejecting the existence of the perfect sphere, rejecting the human psyche is simply a substance of time. In Marxist view, man is only a function of production relations. This is simply a logical consequence of the overthrow defined by Francis Bacon, but not Greek thought, or even Christianity. While the Antique and the Christian mediate Ages knew alleged "liberated arts", i.e. cultivated for themselves, we only know "slavery" or cultivated for something else.

Humiliation

The pragmatic consequences of utilizing discipline for non-cognitive purposes have late accumulated in pseudo-epidemic covid-19, compromising the authoritative "science" pretending to be medicine by means of the rehabilitation of the superstitions of folk quacks. The rejection of Catholic knowing of civilization besides spread in the Church itself, leading to the naturalization of spiritual life and the complete secularization of societies. In the end, if religion is spoken of today, it is only as the request of man (Catholic modernism) and not the service of God, and even more nonsubjective cognition of God. It is adequate to remind that wellness (if not the financial interest of pharmaceutical companies!) was put above the salvation of souls and medical experiments were considered equivalent to love (sic!). Pope Francis refused to accept the alleged mRNA vaccine even considered it a grave sin.

Open atheism (if not just Luciferianism) goes below the manufacturing arts, to the methods which the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) He trained dogs by examining their conditional reflexes. The condition is shared between man and another animals and so is not specifically human. And of course, he doesn't make anything. However, in a period of civilizational decline, this is the main, consciously implemented method of social control (see Paolo Lionni, "Liska School and systematic demolition of education", 2020). It is becoming increasingly crucial with the expansion of electronic media and another information technologies. There is no indication of a change in this trend (see Jan Białek, TECH. Criticism of technological development, 2017).

In order to defy these destructive tendencies, 1 must have effective control of another kind. As for Catholicism, the unbroken tradition was preserved only by the Priesthood of St. Pius X, founded for this intent after the revolutions of the Second Vatican Council by the French bishop Marcela Lefebvre (1905-1991). It cultivates a civilization which, like everyone, cannot be taught alone. For man first imitates, then acquires the ability to realize what he has learned. It must so be acquired through individual participation and imitation.

Vladimir Kowalik

Photo: Photo: Christian mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (now Istanbul)

Think Poland, No. 41-42 (12-19.10.2025)