Not exactly
Not exactly a shared lie, more like a shared bad purpose.

After the Notre Dame fire, both "sides" want to rebuild the grandiose structure. One "side" wants to restore it precisely, the other "side" wants to make it more modern and secular in flavor.

Jules Gomes speaks passionately for the sacred side:

Gothic architecture is the “representation of supernatural reality. To those who designed the cathedrals, as to their contemporaries who worshipped in them, this symbolic aspect or function of sacred architecture overshadowed all others. To us, it has become the least comprehensible,” notes Otto Von Simson in The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order.

So how hubristic of President Emmanuel Macron to claim: “We will rebuild Notre Dame, more beautiful than before – and I want it done in the next five years. We can do it.” Really? We can do it without a vision of the supernatural? We can do it partially blinded by the cataract of aesthetic relativism? Doesn’t rebuilding Notre Dame contradict everything secular Europe represents?

The underlying vision doesn't matter. Cathedrals are centralized power.

Rebuilding a massive and hugely expensive structure is simply a continuation of centralized power, no matter which vision motivates it. Cathedrals were built to advance the Prosperity Gospel of 1200. The church was burning heretics who wanted to remind people that Jesus wasn't rich. Cathedrals were part of the same mission. A grandiose celebration of the church's wealth and wickedness, and a way of forcibly snatching labor and money from ordinary people to help the church celebrate its wealth. The spires were exponential graphs of upward redistribution and concentration of wealth.

Macron is a banker, the secular equivalent of an archbishop. He is preaching the secular version of Prosperity Gospel, which is meritocracy. You must help EU build its massive financial structures, and you must help EU invade you with migrants. Work hard to make Macron super-rich, and you will be rewarded in heaven. You certainly won't be rewarded here; you'll be impoverished by environmental nonsense and raped by migrants. But that's OK as long as Macron gets richer.

The alternative to both versions of Prosperity Gospel is decentralized religion and decentralized business. No cathedrals, no Central Banks. Storefront churches, storefront businesses. Profit motive instead of indulgences and Share Value. Let each church supply its own peculiar brand of religion, suited to its own people. People know what they need. If they aren't getting what they need, they should be able to find another church or another store that supplies it.

This requires BREAKING UP MONOPOLIES, not building new symbols of monopoly.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law, Shared Lie

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