when e.g. Voegelin was complaining about “Gnostic” ideas of rearranging society, he was 1) obviously excluding any transformation he approved of, perhaps considering it “natural” and not dangerous meddling
Um, no. He was complaining about attempts to rearrange society from the top down.
The problem is, hardly anyone else would describe a person who’s actually in a position of power to do the rearranging—like e.g. Lenin—as “Gnostic”; he has certainly been known as a dreamer blind to reality, but as I pointed out that’s a very general indictment. The way it’s actually used throughout history, “Gnosticism” has the connotations of a monastic life and mystical pursuits, detached from daily life or outright fleeing from society; after all, no leader who actually left a noticeable mark on society has ever been called that. Many parallels have been drawn between Marxism/Facscism/transhumanism/etc and religious fundamentalism, but those parallels did not include a persecuted, non-populist and underground branch of a religion.
The word has always been associated with “heresy”, and a tendency that’s imposing its own dogma & suppressing opposition is not called a “heresy”. Voegelin should’ve introduced a new term for the category of people he wanted to indict instead of appropriating an unsuitable word.
Um, no. He was complaining about attempts to rearrange society from the top down.
The problem is, hardly anyone else would describe a person who’s actually in a position of power to do the rearranging—like e.g. Lenin—as “Gnostic”; he has certainly been known as a dreamer blind to reality, but as I pointed out that’s a very general indictment. The way it’s actually used throughout history, “Gnosticism” has the connotations of a monastic life and mystical pursuits, detached from daily life or outright fleeing from society; after all, no leader who actually left a noticeable mark on society has ever been called that. Many parallels have been drawn between Marxism/Facscism/transhumanism/etc and religious fundamentalism, but those parallels did not include a persecuted, non-populist and underground branch of a religion.
The word has always been associated with “heresy”, and a tendency that’s imposing its own dogma & suppressing opposition is not called a “heresy”. Voegelin should’ve introduced a new term for the category of people he wanted to indict instead of appropriating an unsuitable word.