The Lynching of Harrison Butker
Progressives vs. Patriarchality
In the definitive exposition of his teachings, All & Everything, GI Gurdjieff highlights the central importance of two “being impulses” which he calls Patriarchality and Religiousness.
In a discussion of the development of modern psychology, for instance, he laments:
Thanks merely to this branch of their science, there was acquired in the psyche of the ordinary beings of this ill-fated planet several still new forms of what are called ‘being-Kalkali,’ that is, ‘essential strivings’ which became cast into forms of definite ‘teachings’ existing there under the names of ‘Anoklinism,’ ‘Darwinism,’ ‘anthroposophism,’ ‘theosophism,’ and many others under names also ending with ‘ism,’ thanks to which even those two data of their presences, which still helped them to be at least a little as it is becoming to three-centered beings to be, finally disappeared in them.
“And these essential data which have until recently been in them engendered in them the being-impulses they called ‘patriarchality’ and ‘religiousness.’
And in his discussion of the emergence of modernity in France, he says:
“One must simply even be astonished, that the majority of beings of the community France could, although without the participation of their consciousness, nevertheless preserve in their presences those data for the two being-impulses on which objective being-morality is chiefly based, and which are called ‘patriarchality,’ that is, love of family, and ‘organic-shame,’ in spite of the fact that they exist in the sphere of conditions of ordinary being-existence there which have now become quite abnormal, thanks to the fact that their capital, as I have already told you, has to their misfortune begun to be considered, and really is, the contemporary ‘chief-center-of-culture’ for the whole of that ill-fated planet.”
And again, in his discussion of developments in Russia in the late 19th century, he notes:
“Thanks to these innovations, there is no doubt but that exactly the same will be repeated with the beings of this Turkey as occurred to the beings of the large community Russia after they had also begun to imitate everything European.
“It may be noted, for example, that, indeed, in all the beings of that large community Russia, only one or two centuries ago, before they had yet begun to imitate everything European, these two being-functions still obtained which are called ‘Martaadamlik’ and ‘Nammuslik,’ or—as these being-feelings are still called—the ‘feeling-of-religiousness’ and the ‘feeling-of-patriarchality.’
“And it was just those same being-feelings which a couple of centuries ago made the beings of that large community famous among other beings of the whole of this planet in respect of their morality and the patriarchality of their family foundations.
“But when afterwards they began imitating everything European, both these being-feelings still remaining in them began gradually to atrophy in them, and now at the present time almost all the beings of that community have become, in the sense of religiousness and patriarchality, such… the notion of which our wise teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin expresses by the mere exclamation:
“‘Eh!… get along with you.”
Far from sharing the contemporary hostility to these two impulses, My Gurdjieff here indicates that patriarchality and religiousness, along with what he calls ‘organic shame’, are essential impulses, required for the normal functioning of man and society, and one of the chief characteristics of modernity is the atrophy of these impulses.
One useful way to understand progressivism, the driving ideology of modernity, is as an explicit and violent drive to eradicate these particular impulses. For example:
On May 11, Kansas City kicker Harrison Butker gave a commencement address at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. Butker, a devout Roman Catholic, speaking to a largely Catholic audience at a Catholic college, unsurprisingly gave a speech that affirmed traditional Catholic beliefs and morality, including a vigorous affirmation of the importance of family and motherhood. He called on the Catholic graduates to live up to the teachings of their faith, including the defense of human life. (Read the full transcript here)
In a normal society, this speech would be completely uncontroversial. But, in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t live in anything like normal times. And according to Mr. Gurdjieff, one of the chief causes and symptoms of our abnormality is the decline and outright hostility towards these sacred impulses.
The left has marked Harrison Butker for cancelation and firing, and he’s been the recipient of death threats. And the City of Kansas City is collaborating. In the days following his speech, the City’s official account sent out a post on X revealing where Butker lived, clearly giving a signal to those who intended violence against Butker and his family.
Here’s the passage from his speech that has drawn the most fire:
“I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I'm on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”
That’s it: He loves his wife, thinks family and children are important, and is grateful to God. Or, as Mr. Gurdjieff would call it: Patriarchality and Religiousness. That’s sufficient to make him and his family a target for cancellation and threats of violence.
This rage, according to Mr. Gurdjieff, is directly tied to the atrophy of these impulses;
“And indeed, my boy, owing to the complete absence of good patriarchal customs and to their notorious ‘education,’ the contemporary beings of that continent have already become completely transformed into what are called ‘automatons’ or living mechanical puppets.
“At the present time any one of them can become animated and manifest himself outwardly, only when there are accidentally pressed the corresponding what are called ‘buttons’ of those impressions already present in him, which he mechanically perceived during the whole of his preparatory age.
“But unless these buttons are pressed, the beings there are in themselves only, as again our highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin says, ‘pieces of pressed meat.’
Here, Mr. Gurdjieff explicitly links this mechanicality to two factors: the absence of good patriarchal customs (the same customs referenced by Harrison Butker) and the modern educational system.
How do these factors contribute to mechanicality? We’ll get into that more in later posts, but one way to approach it is to see that both Patriarchality and Religiosity contain implicit unchosen obligations to the extended family and God. The fulfillment of these obligations, what Mr. Gurdjieff called “genuine being duty” and “paying for your arising” are the first and fundamental steps in authentic development.
The struggle to prioritize these obligations over selfish concerns produces a kind of friction that can develop a kind of gravity and a sense of self that is greater and more substantial than momentary desires and whims.
Absent this sort of friction, this gravity doesn’t develop, and the individual remains a non-entity, at the mercy of internal urges, societal pressure, and programming - a non-entity. Or as Mr. Gurdjieff says, “living mechanical puppets.”
These non-entities only respond when they are triggered, or when their “buttons are pressed,” like when someone like Harrison Butker says things that everyone once knew were true and essential.