Al Gore's messianic certainty that our planet will perish without his guidance is a modern example of gnosticism.
The Da Vinci Code movie is a purely fictional attack on Christianity employing, as part of the background material, one of the gnostic gospels to provide a patina of ancient, secret wisdom powerful enough to unravel existing civilization.
Mr. Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, goes further, making the gnosticism of his book Earth in the Balance the whole content.
Mr. Gore is the loudest spokesman for an elitist group who are dead certain that only they know the truth, a group prepared to impose their doctrine upon mankind regardless of the costs in human life and well-being. In that respect, the Gospel of Al follows the pattern of gnostic eruptions from the earliest days of Christianity, through the 18th century advent of socialism.
Mr. Gore unites in a single personality the messianic pretensions of the gnostic mystic and the scientistic (pseudo-scientific) materialism of today's liberal-socialist theoreticians.
Karl Marx's gnostic vision inaccurately predicted the inevitable, revolutionary triumph of socialism. In the Marxian manner, Mr. Gore, a liberal-socialist, preaches a sweeping, gnostic revelation of earth's End Times, a catastrophic destruction of life that will befall civilization, if we don't repent and follow the Gospel of Al.
Mark your calendars. The Gospel of Al predicts that the End Times of atheistic materialism will commence in about ten years.
In his book, Mr. Gore writes, "But [writing this book] has also led me to undertake a deeper kind of inquiry, one that is ultimately an investigation of the very nature of our civilization and its relationship to the global environment." He fears that, "…we will not be able to see how dangerously we are threatening to push the earth out of balance."
This is the gnostic core: the deep knowledge revealed to Mr. Gore, without which we are doomed. He stands ready to save civilization, if we will only heed his gospel and accept him as our savior (i.e., elect him President).
This is remarkably similar to Auguste Comte's founding The Religion of Humanity in the 1830s. Comte was confident that he uniquely had fathomed the Immutable Law of History that was propelling civilization into the age of scientific socialism. He predicted that all of humanity would abandon ancient traditions and forms of government to follow his positivistic philosophy.
To construct his Immutable Law, which has proved somewhat more flexible than he imagined, Comte took fragments of history and reworked them to fit his hypothesis. Mr. Gore and his greenhouse-gas gang have used the same approach.
Evidence that contradicts the greenhouse-gas hypothesis is removed from consideration. For example, Mr. Gore's charts and graphs ignore the Medieval Warm Period, from approximately 1000 AD into the 1300s, and the Little Ice Age, from the late 1300s into the 1800s, both worldwide phenomena. During the Warm Period, today's uninhabitable, ice-covered areas of Greenland were cozy enough for Vikings to establish farming colonies. In the Little Ice Age, glaciers advanced all over the world, in the Swiss Alps crushing whole villages. Yet Mr. Gore belittles these massive phenomena with jokes. His followers dismiss them as fiction.
Mr. Gore is, of course, free to speak his mind. The mischief arises from his call for us to repent our sins by abandoning use of fossil fuels and subscribing to the Kyoto Protocol.
When assessing the reliability of Mr. Gore's all-or-nothing gospel, let's not forget that the same crowd who now champion Mr. Gore's word as revelation of gnostic truth were, thirty years ago, equally firmly convinced that the earth faced an imminent disaster from a new ice age. In its April 28, 1975, edition, Newsweek featured an article titled "The Cooling World."
Let's also not forget that these same liberal-socialists in the 1980s were firmly convinced that President Reagan was about to provoke the Soviet Union into World War III by re-arming the United States and branding the USSR an evil empire.
Becoming followers of the Gospel of Al will entail more than just piously mouthed sentiments. There will be a real price to pay.
Many studies have documented the enormous economic costs from compliance with the Kyoto standards of CO2 emissions control. All have demonstrated that the actual costs in lost jobs and reduced standards of living will far outweigh any theoretical benefits.
In an article posted on the Slate website, New Republic editor Gregg Easterbrook wrote:
This raises the troubling fault of An Inconvenient Truth: its carelessness about moral argument. Gore says accumulation of greenhouse gases "is a moral issue, it is deeply unethical." Wouldn't deprivation also be unethical? Some fossil fuel use is maddening waste; most has raised living standards. The era of fossil energy must now give way to an era of clean energy. But the last century's headlong consumption of oil, coal, and gas has raised living standards throughout the world; driven malnourishment to an all-time low, according to the latest U.N. estimates; doubled global life expectancy; pushed most rates of disease into decline; and made possible Gore's airline seat and MacBook, which he doesn't seem to find unethical.
A less respectful review of the movie can be found in Wesley Pruden's column in the Washington Times.
No matter how many people deride Al Gore as a nutcase, I think he has two major benefits.
1) If his hysteria can push scientists to work harder to develop useful alternate energy and get us off of fossil fuels, I say “Go Al!” If he wants to claim later that he invented alternative fuel sources, let him.
2) If Al’s resurgence makes him decide to enter the presidential race…Well, he probably wouldn’t win, but he’d probably batter the heck out of Hillary before the primaries were over, making her less likely to get elected president.
Final note:
“…All have demonstrated that the actual costs in lost jobs and reduced standards of living will far outweigh any theoretical benefits.”
I think that any who subscribe to global warming would point out that the “theoretical benefit” would be saving the planet. Just thought I’d point that out.
It seems you wrote the article without watching the movie. Even if you had watched the movie, why should I trust the opinion of someone whose background is in political philosophy over that of climatologists?
To make the claim that Al Gore is being gnostic is plain silly. Would you call the “For Dummies” series of books gnostic? That is all Al Gore’s movie amounts to, Global Warming for Dummies. There isn’t any deep secret, merely the imparting of what is widely recognized in the scientific community to the non-scientific public at large.
The following links should address your concerns over the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age:
Myth vs. Fact Regarding the “Hockey Stick”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11
Weren’t temperatures warmer than today during the “Medieval Warm Period”?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=64
Al Gore’s movie
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/
It would be great if you left comments on that site so that climate scientists will answer you.
Great comment, Ron!
However, I would say that Al Gore isn’t really interested in pushing scientists to develop alternative fuels. He most certainly wants government to force businesses, and ultimately us, to “do the right thing” via punitive taxes and ill-conceived “incentives.” And, of course, Kyoto, which the Senate rejected 96-0 while Gore was still Vice President.
I think the market will solve our fossil fuel dependence. When it gets too expensive, people will stop buying it as soon as a viable alternative presents itself in the marketplace.
Rich, sometimes I think the market needs a little push. That push now comes from the war and if Gore can help at all, all the better.
Do we really want to wait until either the fossile fuels run out or they are exhorbitantly expensive? I don’t think that would be wise.
I’m trying to stay positive. :-)
I understand what you’re saying. But I don’t think Gore has all that much credibility. The only people listening to him are those who agree and are also engaged on the issue. That’s a pretty small number.
Actually, I think that it would be the right thing to wait until fossil fuels run out. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” as the saying goes. There is no motivating factor like supply and demand.
I think the fossil fuel problem will solve itself. Certainly Gore hasn’t solved anything, and he had eight years as vice president and how many years as a senator?
But if we wait for the fuels to run out, what happens? Not much. We can’t get to work, goods don’t get moved. Chaos reins between the time the fuel runs out and when someone comes up with a plausible energy source.
I don’t think we, as a society, can afford to wait. I guess an analogy would be waiting until your car is completely out of gas before going to the gas station.
Another thing is that most of our fossil fuel comes from peoples that don’t like us very much. If they’re hatred ever overcame their greed, I think we’d be in serious trouble.
Please substitute “reigns” for “reins” and “their” for “they’re” in the above post.
OPEC oil ministers like their opulent lifestyle too much to let oil prices exceed the break-even point for oil-shale extraction ($60/barrel). Throw in gasification of the USA’s abundant coal reserves, and there will be enough fuel to allow several centuries to develop practical nuclear fusion.
Rebuttals:
“It seems you wrote the article without watching the movie. Even if you had watched the movie, why should I trust the opinion of someone whose background is in political philosophy over that of climatologists?”
Yourself sounds more like guess works on the author’s insight into Gore’s movie. You listen to a political scientist who is an expert in political philosophy because philosophy is all about logics and truth. Math is based on the fundamentals of philosophy. His analysis certainly carries both. The word “climatologists” is not a dictionary-accepted word as yet, so be careful tossing it around.
“To make the claim that Al Gore is being gnostic is plain silly. Would you call the “For Dummies” series of books gnostic? That is all Al Gore’s movie amounts to, Global Warming for Dummies. There isn’t any deep secret, merely the imparting of what is widely recognized in the scientific community to the non-scientific public at large.”… “It would be great if you left comments on that site so that climate scientists will answer you.”
Such elitist sentiment does not reside within science. Any thing you need to prove to anyone? Again, sicence is all about logic and truth.
“The following links should address your concerns over the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age:
Myth vs. Fact Regarding the “Hockey Stick”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11
Weren’t temperatures warmer than today during the “Medieval Warm Period”?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=64
Al Gore’s movie
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/”
In plain sense, the links are all from the same outfit. Any real scientific links? Ha…, merely incontinent, perhaps.
The end is near says AL. Personally, I love “global warming.” I live in Wisconsin, and with Al’s help I suspect to have Arizona and Florida type real estate markets in 9 years 182 days 6hours 12 minutes 4,3,2,1 seconds. Yes, I feel like I am in the original Superman movie. Al Gore is my Lex Luthor and the moderate temperatures of Wisconsin are the new Pacific coastline. Everyone please, please, please, believe Al Gore. It is the only retirement plan a democrat has ever proposed that benefits me. Lots available now at a reduced price. Get them while they are COLD.
“Rich, sometimes I think the market needs a little push. That push now comes from the war and if Gore can help at all, all the better.”
One of history’s greatest lessons is that the “pushes” from government usually do more harm than good.
“Do we really want to wait until either the fossile fuels run out or they are exhorbitantly expensive? I don’t think that would be wise.”
First, fossil fuels won’t simply “run out” someday. There’s going to be a gradual reduction in fossil fuel production and recovery over the course of several decades. Second, we won’t be able to make a sudden change to a new form of energy. There will be a transitional period when fossil fuel technology coexists with whatever “new” technology will replace it. It will be like the early 1900s when people drove the first cars along road that were still heavily traveled by horses.
I am so damned tired of people using Herr Voegelin’s stupid and lazy reading of gnosticism to tar positions they don’t like. Believe me, I’d rather vote for George Bush again than have to listen to two seconds of Al Bore, so I have no love for his environmental apocalypticism. But that’s what it is, not gnosticism. Apocalyptics know the secret of things and they announce it, even offering a way out, if you’re good enough. Gnostics are, like, SO non-utopian. Gnosticism holds that this creation is not the handiwork of God, but of some lesser being and so it is essentially and structurally flawed, incapable of being fixed. That’s essential to the gnostic “secret”. Lots of people think they have the secret of things, even people who publish it all over the internt. But Gnostics also hold that the world cannot, repeat, cannot be fixed. Sort of like Voegelin’s definition of gnosticism.
W – You are a sick person and you do not belong on this sight.
W(hite) Pride… this is the “intellectual” conservative. You probably just need to skip on over to a Nazi website or a site for 43 year olds who have never had a sexual relationship with anyone they didn’t meet at a family reunion. Your fanatacism is exactly why people are developing such hostile reactions to religious groups in this country. The next time you look in your bible consider the following:
Jesus was not a WASP – he was a Jew (sorry Hitler wannabe)
more importantly, as you sit in judgment over the wicked and the righteous, just remember “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
And lastly, if people like you make it to heaven, I think I would rather be in hell.
Sic Semper Tyrannus!
right back at you W(hite) Pride…
Cris, you’re right about government sponsored ‘pushes’. I’m not looking for the push from the government, though I’m looking for the push from the market (us consumers). The war (and possibly Al’s hysteria) has put into the limelight (again) how much we depend on foreign sources for our fuels. I think that makes us more receptive to alternatives (ethanol, hybrid cars, whatever). If people see a market for this stuff, they’ll work harder to make it happen.
About fossil fuels not simply running out, you may have me on that. I always thought it was a finite (if vast) resource, but I could be wrong on that.
The ‘sudden switchover’ you mentioned was what I was trying to tell Rich. Like you said, we can’t just change fuel sources. There has to be a transition period. Unless I misunderstood Rich, he was basically saying “We’ll just wait ’til the fossil fuels are gone and then we’ll look at alternate fuel sources”.
Ron,
I actually didn’t develop a timeline for action. My only point is that if fossil fuels are the problem, the market is the solution. The market will develop alternatives, and when they are viable (i.e., cost effective, easy to use, having a distribution network, etc) the consumer will jump on them.
Look at how many more hybrids are being sold these days compared to alternative vehicles 10 years ago. The technology is finally starting to work well, and consumers are not having to give up comfort, acceleration, or usability. Sure, the government has given incentives and funding, but that was going on before. People didn’t by alternative cars until they made economic and practical sense.
The only shortage of fossil fuel we are likely to experience in the next 100 years will be politically induced. The inability to actually access crude that we know is there, let alone undiscovered reserves, is what is going to cause higher prices and less availability.
Of course, that is the strategy of the extreme environmentalists. And to a large degree they are succeeding, unfortunately.
Rich,
Well, maybe I’m a bit slow but its starting to dawn on me that we’re both saying the same thing here and probably just misunderstanding each other. Would this be considered a pointless exercise? :-) At least, it was a civil one.
I am beginning to believe that South Park’s depiction of Al Gore desperately searching for “Man-Bear-Pig” because it threatened the very existence of mankind is actually more fact than funny fiction.
“Bear-Man-Pig” is real! He’ll kill us all unless Al Gore saves us!
Help the unbelievers Al!
Seriously though, Al just needs a straw man to defeat. Without
one, his political career is over.
Last May was the coldest one on record in Washington D.C. Does that mean that global warming is coming? Sure, because anything on the weather channel is global warming’s fault. Hmmm. Someting sounds fishy here.
Andrew, (Sorry to all conservatives who want to help the enviroment)
I'm sure you don't realize your mistake. Firstly, elitism is not
a socialist idea. If, with your knowledge of political science, you think that
socialism is an elitist society, than your very notion of socialism is flawed.
Socialism is, firstly, the rights for everyone. "From each according to his abilities,
to each according to his needs (Marx)" is the perfect truth of socialism If you mean
that they only listen to ideas of proponents of socialism, then I understand
what you mean.
Secondly, the enviroment is being crushed, not by the market, but by the
uncarring laziness of individuals (massive amounts) that do not even do anything
to help the enviroment. Its not the "market" nor is it utopian ideals of Marxism,
socialism or of any other political system. The conservatives, in any country,
do not do much to help the enviroment (Canada's prime minister decided to
stop funding environment protection). In fact, they are the least likely to care for the one
thing that sustains us all. I would think that they would want to save it for themselves.