Today's video is some commentary on the recent @ContraPoints video on Envy plus harvesting some of the observations from @TheRestHistory on deColonization of Africa.
I haven't watched much @ContraPoints. This video was recommended to me by a viewer. It was a revelation. I had very profound admiration of her for the quality of video. "Envious" would be the wrong word because I had zero feelings of enmity.
She masterfully took the audience with powerful illustrative examples of individual and personal envy all the way to an ideology of resentment. She finally critiqued her own tribe. It was masterful.
I then sort of clumsily make the transition to @TheRestHistory podcast on deColonization of Africa. https://pca.st/6iqgfb14 Much to the feigned horror of @dcsandbrook the guest connects the thread with @holland_tom book Dominion, much to MY delight of course...
How many 20th century "revolutionaries" are led by nationals who were educated in the elite reaches of their colonial master? Ho Chi Mihn, etc. deColonization is sort of a re-Colonization of yet another Christian variant. All our culture wars are Christendom civil wars.
These de-colonizers actually imagine a perfected ancestral home through Westernized hagiography trying to re-instantiate that vision back on their native soil.
Now back to @ContraPoints . What is she looking for? What is she longing for? Envy is the sinful, cynical doppelganger of longing and desire for blessedness. Jamella instantiates beauty. @KimKardashian instantiates family and community. We desire but know it's out of reach.
We can strive, lament or curse. To succumb to envy is to curse. It's to burn the world down and gleefully burn with it if need be. To reverse this polarity is to come humbly to the Ontological Argument.
Doesn't my desire suggest that the beloved vision can be attained? Doesn't the wandering son of the colonized homeland see the vision for perfected home? Wouldn't an instantiated dream be greater than the desired dream itself?
In Christianity the resurrection of Christ isn't just personal escape from death, it is the promise of new heavens and earth instantiated in the flesh of one man. To believe is to dare to hope and believe that our desires will be fulfilled.
Now you may say that's just a story, but so is Jamella's perfect skin, and Kim's perfect party. To succumb and then embrace the idea that such blessedness will not overcome the darkness puts us on a road to envy and its fires.
To say "I believe in the resurrection of the dead" is to put us on a quite different road, one where death is not feared and beauty not hated but one where goodness in the darkness offers hope of final victory.
Her video is incredibly well done, and the commentary is thought-provoking. It became even more nuanced & complex when I learned from her 2018 XOXO speech that Natalie is a trans woman...
You will be wondering where this comment is coming from, off topic as it is. It really fits with the previous essay, but as usual, I am too slow to respond to be on topic. I am using this unusual route because a comment of mine to your YouTube video disappeared. It may have happened twice, but I am only sure of once, as I went back to check. I have been trying to call your attention to Them Before Us, by Katy Faust. If you are groaning now, and saying, why won’t she give up already, that’s okay. If it is the case that it does not fit into the parameters of your broadcast, I’d like to know why. But, I would just like to know you saw my message. If the internet is censoring me, I’d sure like to know that! This book makes a real attempt to apply scholarship to the question of the impact of same sex marriage on children. There would be a lot for Dave Rubin to think about should he read it. With sincere gratitude for all you do to help me understand a Christian perspective on these confusing times, and all best wishes from Susan Cassan, Connecticut participant.