The decline of psychological depth

There are different levels of meaning in holy books — some of which are quite esoteric. Contemporary culture, including intellectual culture, appears to have taken a very philistine turn, whereby everything that is written down must necessarily be taken in its most literal sense. Therefore you get entirely stupid interpretations, such as the one that my memoir is about “getting things wrong”. Sure it is, if you lack a sense of humor and are not prepared to take a fairly distant stance towards political correctness.

A lot of Jesus’ recommendations are thoroughly shamanistic, in that he elevates subjective experience and subjective knowledge over official, authoritarian or materialistic perspectives. That is the core of Christianity that is worth saving (the patriarchal stuff, not so much).

One absolutely has to be able to take things in a non-literal sense and sometimes in an ironic sense to be any kind of higher human being. Literalness is for those who are still struggling.

Nietzsche, for instance, interpreted literally, ends up being quite a boorish, misogynist pig with very little to say for himself. If you interpret “masculinity” to mean “males” and “femininity” to mean “women”, then we are left with a prescription for a very rigid social order, in which men go about and act heroically and women can’t figure out what they hell that means, because women are too base and uncomprehending to be able to figure out much of anything.

At the same time, there is an equal and opposite danger in not realizing that when religiously based politicians pronounce, “We are loving women best by restricting their freedoms,” they are quite literally being boorish and contemptuous of women’s intelligence, whilst using a religious veil to cover their ugly demeanor.
Perhaps the resort to literalness is a natural result of people feeling so often tricked. Dorpat says that one resorts to a very literal frame of mind when one senses a relationship has become abusive. One is no longer open enough with oneself or others to be able to dig deep from the psyche.

STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism