{Left and Right Conflict (1) [continued]}[29th October 1990]

[Redbook8:74][19901029:2250]{Left and Right Conflict (1) [continued]}[29th October 1990]

.2250

There are slight – very slight – indications that the events* – political/military conflicts – which are least clearly G~ or M~ by nature are the ones which are least clearly G~ or M~ by location (ie of degree).

Hollow laughter is not in order: I do try to assess nature independently of location.**

*[See last previous entry]

**[ie of degree (on the Circle). Perhaps mocking laughter was intended.]

[continued]

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{Left and Right Conflict (1)}[29th October 1990]

[Redbook8:74][19901029:1805]{Left and Right Conflict (1)}[29th October 1990]

.1805

Filling in the chronological chart* for Roman Britain highlights one serious problem with G~ ↔ M~: that one man’s conquest is another man’s disaster.

On the whole, conquests should be M~, whoever is conquering; G~ should be rebellions and revolutions, ie directed ‘upwards’ at authority. If G~ are** vertical, M~ are** horizontal:*** G~ upwards, M~ outwards.

Many cases are unclear: Vortigern inviting Saxons to settle and guard his shores, is a kind of blow upwards against authority, a weakening of authority, as much as (or more than) a conquest. Hmmm....

Where two scales are involved, there need be no such clear conflict: the conquest of Britain is a local event for the British, but part of a longer and wider pattern for the Romans. In any case, expansion by conquest, merging into migration, continues from M~ round to G~ and R~ even as stability is being undermined.

M~ is as much an attitude of mind, as a type of event.****

*ref [[Redbook8:44-67][19901027ff]{Comparative Chronology}[27th October 1990],] 60

**[sic]

***[Not downwards? Possibly the direction suggested here for M~-type movements is more geographical than political.]

****[& G~? &c?]

[The nature of G~ & M~ & their relationship with each other continued, like many other ideas, to be explored and developed during the course of this Journal, so this entry should not be regarded as a final conclusion.]

[continued]

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{Epiphanies and Theophanies at Crisis}[29th October 1990]

[Redbook8:74][19901029:1050b]{Epiphanies and Theophanies at Crisis}[29th October 1990]

19901029.1050

[continued]

‘Jewish and gentile literature of the Graeco-Roman period is full of these “epiphanies” and “theophanies”, illustrative of divine omnipotence.’*

[–] N[ew] J[erusalem] B[ible], Note g to 2M[accabees] 3:30 (which is part of a description of an angelic appearance).

The Graeco-Roman period presumably begins with the conquests of Alexander. c330bc[e], and continues for 300-400 years after 0ce. This is 2048R~-C-S~/r~ (and 4096cC),** when the circle comes nearest to divinity.

*[There is an implication in the quoted text, on which the implied connection with the journal text relies, that this is not true of other periods; but this is neither spelt out not evidenced.]

**[That’s settled?]

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{Confession and Philosophy}[29th October 1990]

[Redbook8:72][19901029:1050]{Confession and Philosophy}[29th October 1990]

19901029.1050

I read yesterday an article in the T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] re Wittgenstein’s unity of philosophy and emotional and spiritual life: ‘for Wittgenstein, all philosophy insofar as it is pursued honestly and decently, begins with a confession.’*

*Monk, ‘Ludwig Wittgenstein: the duty of genius’, quoted in T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] 19901019-25:1115, Danto, ‘True Confessions’.

{

}

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{Chronology, Conjuncture, and Comparison}[28th October 1990]

[Redbook8:73][19901028:1645]{Chronology, Conjuncture, and Comparison}[28th October 1990]

.1645

‘Steinberg* thus turns to the historian’s tools of chronology and conjuncture** to establish the particular historical circumstances within which the Italian {potential}*** for humanitarian behaviour was in fact realised.’****

‘Chronology and conjuncture’ – I like that. I do it, too.#

#*

*[Almost certainly the Jonathan Steinberg who was a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, during the writer’s time at Cambridge, & to whom the writer idealistically if rather ill-advisedly sent an early version of S&C....]

**(sic – not conjecture)

{conjuncture = ‘Combination of events, (= condition, state) posture of affairs’.

(Concise Oxford Dictionary)}

***[‘{potential}’ corrected in ms from ‘behaviour’]

****-- T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] 19901019-25:1125,

Browning, ‘Genocide Forestalled’

#*{Surely there must be more to Historical Methodolgy than this? Yes – eg comparison! (later in [the] same T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] article)***}

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{Description, Explanation, and Transformation}[28th October 1990]

[Redbook8:73][19901028:1630b]{Description, Explanation, and Transformation}[28th October 1990]

.1630

[(continued)]

If the Visual Arts* may be seen most naturally to describe things – yes, I know, but we always come back to that in the end – then Literature,** allowing for overlap and movement between categories, may be said to explain matters, and Music*** may be felt to transform qualities, lifting them into a higher realm; or merely returning them to the first, or even to a lower.

****

In this way the arts are a vital part of that recollection of cycle with which a great culture approaches its Crisis.#

*{J~}

**{G~}

[Originally ‘the literary arts’ in ms, deleted]

***{R~}

****{(And Science & Technology, on the right O[uter] C[ircle]?)

? Description of things	S~?	(But also U~)
Explanation of matters	M~
Transformation of properties	U~?

}[This analysis seems less persuasive; the order of degreees might work better (if at all) reversed, ie U~→M~→S~]

#ref [[Redbook8:68][19901027:2248]{Recollection for Crisis (1)}[27th October 1990],] 68

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{High Sensitivity [continued (3)]}[28th October 1990]

[Redbook8:72][19901028:1630]{High Sensitivity [continued (3)]}[28th October 1990]

.1630

This journal should be dedicated to Dr [...], late Head of the History Department at [my secondary level boarding school], whose advice it was to his pupils to keep a journal of occasional thoughts, quotations etc., which started this one.*

*[See [Redbook0:3-4] [19670520] [20^th May 1967]]

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{High Sensitivity [continued]}[28th October 1990]

[Redbook8:72][19901028:1530]{High Sensitivity [continued]}[28th October 1990]

.1530

The image* I have is of the figure of a man whose trunk (and particularly the heart) is indeed blown this way and that; but whose feet remain firmly on the ground, and whose head remains pretty much vertically above them.

Being so sensitive to the winds of the Spirit, I was also (necessarily) in some sense transparent to them: registering these impressions with great depth, I did not, in consciousness, record them. In other words, my memory was and still is associative and creative rather than logical and accurate. I still have to be extremely careful not to claim knowledge of disassociated facts, eg in general conversation, as I am often wrong; the work I am doing now, the reading and general study, is not so much retained, at least consciously, as trawled.

(Another useful metaphor is the colander, ** which in its upside-down position describes how I have felt in religious terms: open in scattered parts to the rain from Heaven).

What the ‘unconscious’ part of my mind or brain does with what I read is another matter altogether.

*[See last previous entry]

**ref VI? [] ...

[continued]

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{High Sensitivity}[28th October 1990]

[Redbook8:71][19901028:1032b]{High Sensitivity}[28th October 1990]

.1032

[continued]

That ‘high sensitivity’:* I return (because I am sure I have recounted this before, even in so many words) to that image of my younger self – really until about the age of 32 and the start of self-employment – as a Soul open to all spiritual winds: blown first one way and then another by the gentlest of breezes,*** so that a phrase of music or of poetry, a painting perhaps, a moment on stage or in film, the misfortune or reconciliation of others, or a glimpse of the wholeness of things – any of these, for example, might raise up in me great tides of emotion and empathy, swelling in tears and breaking in laughter and joy; to little of which could I allow expression, and for almost none of which I had any explanation at all.

*ref [[Redbook8:70][19901028:0050]{Poor relations}[28th October 1990],] 70

**{But see [next ts entry, next page in same journal entry] 72}

***To me, a gale

[continued]

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{End-times}[28th October 1990]

[Redbook8:71][19901028:1032]{End-times}[28th October 1990]

.1032

It’s interesting that a great deal of the ‘end-time’ prophecies of Jesus, given near the ends of [the Gospels of] Matthew, Mark and Luke* – particularly the signs of the end – can be applied to all G~-R**~-C periods, ie all pre-end times, the approaches to C, according to their scale.

(This needs closer study.)

*M[at]t[hew] 24-25

M[ar]k 13

L[u]k[e] 21 (+17:20-37)

**[Ms has G~-J~-C, but this must be a mistake as the period sequences are never written out of order.]

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{The Secondary Historian}[28th October 1990]

[Redbook8:71][19901028:1006]{The Secondary Historian}[28th October 1990]

19901028.1006

‘To make the subject his own, to explore its by-ways, to be meticulous about details, is the business of the original historian, but the person making the adaptation must be allowed to aim at conciseness of expression and to forgo any exhaustive treatment of his subject.’

– 2 M[accabees] 2:30-31*

*[from the Compiler’s Preface][New Jerusalem Bible]

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{Poor relations}[28th October 1990]

[Redbook8:70][19901028:0050]{Poor relations}[28th October 1990]

.0050

All this – all the great endeavour* of discovering C[ircles] A[nalysis] and S[ynthesis], whether C[ircles] A[nalysis] and S[ynthesis] is valid or not – can be seen as a personal method of filling the gap left by general under-achievement, not so much now when the motivation to discover leads to the general under-achievement,** as long ago: long ago, when, at and after school, I carried a terrible, a crushing burden of inadequacy, based almost entirely on my perception of my own inability to relate to others of my own age.

This inability goes back almost, but not quite, as far as I can remember.*** It seems to be connected with a high sensitivity**** and a tendency to deep depression, in those days: being perhaps, at least partly, caused by the one and cause of the other.

Given this inability to relate, to create personal networks, it is not surprising (as I now realise) that I was relatively unsuccessful in employment (colleagues at [the Accountants], committees at [the Trade Association]), and almost wholly lost in the T[erritorial] A[rmy].#

Even now, my ability to relate to others seems to me to be largely superficial: an acquired#* skill rather than an instinct; moving towards a deeper level of understanding, much though I may wish it, I still tend to ‘freeze’.

What a case! – and what a pressure to write.#**

*[sic]

**(ie by comparison with the ambition to discover, I presume)

[Not sure that this presumption is correct; it seems more likely to have referred to the diversion of energy, time, and motivation from the achievement of other things.]

***{I vaguely recall an early childhood in which I did relate properly to other children}

[There is some photographic evidence to confirm these memories. The social damage seems to have been done at boarding school, from the age of about 8.]

****[See [Redbook8:71][19901028:1032b]{High Sensitivity}[28th October 1990]]

#[This is clearly somewhat subjective; recollection now suggests that the problem in an Accountancy firm was simple inability to do the work and pass the exams to the standards required commercially, mainly due to very poor handwriting and a methodical (relative) slowness with numbers; committees remain a problem, and with good reason, although do-able and done (including chairing) for many years; and it is perhaps worth mentioning here that on being told that the writer was leaving the Reserve Forces (just after being promoted), his O.C. said to him. “I’m sorry”; and then after a moment’s thought, very seriously: “I’m very sorry.” – the writer deliberately not then allowing him the opportunity to say anything else. But problems with formal hierarchies and informal networks remain.]

#*{by which I think I meant almost conscious[ly acquired/practised]}

#**{And to get published, of course}

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{The meaning of ‘Revolution’}[27th October 1990]

[Redbook8:69][19901027:2310b]{The meaning of ‘Revolution’}[27th October 1990]

.2310

[continued]

‘Historically, “revolution” was a term describing the cycles of types of government.* After the American and French revolutions of the 18^th century, revolution began to imply a radical departure from any previous historical pattern.’

– E[ncyclopaedia] B[ritannica] 10:9

*{We’ve been here before, then?}

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{Fruitfulness and Decay}**[27th October 1990]

[Redbook8:69][19901027:2310]{Fruitfulness and Decay}**[27th October 1990]

.2310

*

In Economics, interpretation of cycles works best if the O[uter] C[ircle] left semicircle is seen as a period of increasing apparent prosperity disguising increasing expansionist overheating, fragmentation and breakdown.

In my own life, the period up to age 32 – ie [up to] c1983 – was marked by increasing apparent prosperity disguising increasing personal-spiritual unhappiness. However, from 1983 to c1986 (age c35) the prosperity became almost notional – the line between existence and non-existence being invisibly thin – and the pace increasingly frantic; and from 1986 onwards, if you exclude the notional ‘value’ of our house, our material standard of living has definitely declined. (Looking back, I suppose you could trace the beginnings of material increase to some time around [age] 16 or thereabouts – I’m not sure.)

**

Roll on, age 48!

*ref [[Redbook8:40][19901020:0835]{The Integrated Cycle}[20th October 1990]&f,] {40} (above)

**{(The point of this was, I think, to be that (as in the case of Autumn) apparent (and actual) fruitfulness may be intimately linked with underlying decay)}***

- - - -

***This fruitfulness at such a late stage being unexpected given the association of C with spiritual wealth and material poverty – but that is, of course, the choice which C brings: the Crisis. <901028>

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{Alternating Cycles?}[27th October 1990]

[Redbook8:69][19901027:2305]{Alternating Cycles?}[27th October 1990]

.2305

Does (or can) the rotational direction of any cycle alternate, generally, with those next (in the period-doubling series) below and above it?

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{Recollection for Crisis (1)}[27th October 1990]

[Redbook8:68][19901027:2248]{Recollection for Crisis (1)}[27th October 1990]

.1048[pm]

I guess it is part of the function of each C-time* to draw into itself, or recollect, all previous times in the cycle of which it is C.  Jesus did this for the preceding Jewish 2048 year cycle (and so, I suspect, for a great deal more: previous paganism, and Greek wisdom?).**  So also the Greeks themselves, and the Romans for the Greeks. 

And so we for our cycle and all cycles gathering into it, to present to the future.

***

*{Or Crisis Approach Phase  (ie G~-R~-C) – cf the Recording Angel, etc.? (ref earlier Vols []) – 

cf [[Redbook8:73][19901028:1630]{Description, Explanation, & Transformation}[28th October 1990],] 73, 

[[Redbook8:68][19901221:0036]{Recollection for Crisis (2)}[21st December 1990],] 134}

**(cf N[ew] J[erusalem] B[ible] 2M7:9c re effect of Greek thought on doctrine of immortality <901104>[)]

[– developing from resurrection of the body to non-corporeal immortality]

***cf [[Redbook8:73][19901028:1630]{Description, Explanation, & Transformation}[28th October 1990],] 73

[→[Redbook8:134][19901221:0036]{Recollection for Crisis (2)}[21st December 1990]]

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