"I suggested at the beginning of this series that certain distinctions in philosophy really do seem to come down to temperament."
So basically the Radical Dualist Gnostics were the Leftists of the ancient world? The common formula being something like, "My life/existence is miserable because of the evil machinations of [insert name of external agency]!!" (I'm half kidding around here)
I remember a few years back Jordan Peterson (before he went nuts) talking about how people of a particular temperament or personality type tend to be prone to embracing leftist ideologies; those who are of an intellectual orientation but have a lot of difficulty asserting their own will/agency onto the world around them and achieving things in life on their own. He associated this sort of character with people high in the traits Openness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. In summary, the nerdy wet noodle who always gets pushed around by the jock.
So perhaps it was people of this character type within the Jewish community of the Hellenistic/Roman world who became the first Dualist Gnostics. Not so much of a stretch, since it's obvious that within the OT corpus, Yahweh is often depicted as a tyrannical and capricious father figure, thus "Daddy is mean! Therefore he is literally Satan" might be a conclusion some very Hellenized Jews might reach and then proceed to craft a "flip the script" mythos of their own from. However, I tend to go with the simpler view that this brand of "Gnosis" is just a misunderstanding or misapplication of Platonism, and perhaps a corruption of the kind of the kind of esoteric teachings found within the Orphic, Bacchic, and Mithraic mysteries of that time period.
I've noticed some current-day political commentators on the right making the connection between historical Gnosticism and modern leftism. Their mistake though is to claim a genetic connection between the two, when it fact the evidence for this is practically nonexistent. They miss the obvious: that similar ideas can pop up in totally different places and at different times. But don't common sense get in the way of a quick and dirty attack narrative.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-11-28 05:48 pm (UTC)So basically the Radical Dualist Gnostics were the Leftists of the ancient world? The common formula being something like, "My life/existence is miserable because of the evil machinations of [insert name of external agency]!!" (I'm half kidding around here)
I remember a few years back Jordan Peterson (before he went nuts) talking about how people of a particular temperament or personality type tend to be prone to embracing leftist ideologies; those who are of an intellectual orientation but have a lot of difficulty asserting their own will/agency onto the world around them and achieving things in life on their own. He associated this sort of character with people high in the traits Openness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. In summary, the nerdy wet noodle who always gets pushed around by the jock.
So perhaps it was people of this character type within the Jewish community of the Hellenistic/Roman world who became the first Dualist Gnostics. Not so much of a stretch, since it's obvious that within the OT corpus, Yahweh is often depicted as a tyrannical and capricious father figure, thus "Daddy is mean! Therefore he is literally Satan" might be a conclusion some very Hellenized Jews might reach and then proceed to craft a "flip the script" mythos of their own from. However, I tend to go with the simpler view that this brand of "Gnosis" is just a misunderstanding or misapplication of Platonism, and perhaps a corruption of the kind of the kind of esoteric teachings found within the Orphic, Bacchic, and Mithraic mysteries of that time period.
I've noticed some current-day political commentators on the right making the connection between historical Gnosticism and modern leftism. Their mistake though is to claim a genetic connection between the two, when it fact the evidence for this is practically nonexistent. They miss the obvious: that similar ideas can pop up in totally different places and at different times. But don't common sense get in the way of a quick and dirty attack narrative.