I shall be going across the pond for a month. In that time, I do not plan to maintain this blog. But fear not! I shall be back, like that half-human progressive android, Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In the meantime, two or three parting observations:
1. Sarah Palin's resignation effectively takes her out of the running for the 2012 Republican nomination. Dare we proclaim the end of the Wild Witch of Wasila? Another casualty of the Republican undoing...
2. Someone recently accused me of elitism for despising Wal-Mart and fast-foods. There is a distinction between myself and elite snobs. The distinction is this: snobs despise Wal-Mart because of what its customers have done to it, while I despise Wal-Mart becaues of what it has done to its customers.
3. Does anyone else find the veneration of St. Michael the Dancer slightly appalling, especially that it involves the same people singing his praises who only weeks ago relished in his mental downfall?
Yours, &c,
Friday, July 3, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Walking Out on the Liberal Bargain
In light of the recent debate over at Front Porch Republic and First Things over localism and traditionalism, I feel it would do me well to formulate a logical argument against the "liberal bargain" of Mr. Damon Linker and its implications (I find that my knee-jerk revulsion at many species of modern politics is usually quelled once I've formulated my disgust into an argument against the politics). As Mr. Linker writes,
Like every other citizen, you must be willing to accept what I call "the liberal bargain." In my book, I describe this bargain as the act of believers giving up their "ambition to political rule in the name of their faith" in exchange for the freedom to worship God however they wish, without state interference. What does this mean, in practical terms? It means that your belief in what the Roman Catholic Church believes and teaches is irrelevant, politically speaking. It simply shouldn't matter whether or not you think that justice has a divine underpinning, anymore than it should matter whether you prefer Jane Austen to Dostoevsky. In a word, liberal politics presumes that it's possible and desirable for political life to be decoupled from theological questions and disputes.
Let us first begin with the end of that statement. Liberal politics does indeed presume that it is "possible" and desirable for political life to be decoupled from Theology -but before discussing desirability (which is more subjective) let us discuss possibility. First, Mr. Linker's use of "Theology" is to a degree disingenuous. Catholics do not demand that the Assumption of Mary be a creed of faith for every political official -and if by theology, we mean the nuances of internal theology, it should be pointed out that these questions almost never come out. The questions that -do- come out are horses of a different stripe -they are foundational, philosophical questions. Does God exist? Is the government obliged to follow natural law? Divine law? What is life? And so on. It would be more clear if we called these "metaphysical" questions.
By seeking to decouple Theology from political life, Mr. Linker is not proposing that we avoid the metaphysical questions or take a neutral stance on them. There is no avoiding metaphysics. He is merely disqualifying religious metaphysics in favor of a proposed secular metaphysical order -one that is neither patently true, nor widely accepted; one, furthermore, that does not allow for political arguments grounded in a religious metaphysics. The problem with such an order is best formulated by Dostoyevsky; it has no bottom. Fundamentally, the order relies not on its logical consistency (for the logical end of such an order is, as Ivan Karamazov said, that without God, everything is permissible), but rather on the "illative" sense of most people -that sort of natural, "common sense," teaching embedded in all of us that is not merely rational or merely moral but makes all believe that murder is wrong. The problem, however, is that while the order relies on the illative sense, it neither recognizes nor accepts that it does so and thus has no logical authority.
So the problem is that while Mr. Linker would wish to decouple Politics from Theology, his politics presupposes a nihilistic "theology" and ends up relying on a set of prejudices and emotions that imply a "theology" which it itself rejects. The problem with the liberal bargain, therefore, is that its metaphysics are mush. Mr. Linker writes that it shouldn't matter whether justice has a divine underpinning -but surely it matters because, if justice has no divine underpinning, then it seems to have no underpinning at all. Are we all supposed to go on pretending that the Emperor has clothes, all supposed to go on accepting the -effects- of justice while ignoring and reviling the causes that produce those effects?
The separation of human life into discrete categories is an acute problem of modern thinkers, it strikes me. They would have it that our life is a department store, with "Religion" in one aisle, "Politics" in the other, "Sex" in the other, "Family" in one, "Work" in the other, and so on, and that not mixing politics and religion, for example, is so easy a matter as making sure none of Religion's products stray over to the Political aisle. But life is not a department store -it is a journey and, therefore, a drama. It is a story. And in the story of our lives, as in any story, everything is connected, nothing happens alone, in the abstract, and everything has a purpose; what you think on Religion will affect all other sections of your life and, if it does not, then you have merely not thought.
The liberal bargain is not some compromise struck in an Istanbul spice market, as Mr. Linker would make it sound; rather it clothes within itself first a radical compartmentalization of our life, one that is grounded neither in reality nor good sense, and second, a radical secularization, one that grants the religious believer the ability to believe, but not the ability to take his belief seriously.
There is nothing to do on such a bargain than to walk out.
Yours, &c,
Like every other citizen, you must be willing to accept what I call "the liberal bargain." In my book, I describe this bargain as the act of believers giving up their "ambition to political rule in the name of their faith" in exchange for the freedom to worship God however they wish, without state interference. What does this mean, in practical terms? It means that your belief in what the Roman Catholic Church believes and teaches is irrelevant, politically speaking. It simply shouldn't matter whether or not you think that justice has a divine underpinning, anymore than it should matter whether you prefer Jane Austen to Dostoevsky. In a word, liberal politics presumes that it's possible and desirable for political life to be decoupled from theological questions and disputes.
Let us first begin with the end of that statement. Liberal politics does indeed presume that it is "possible" and desirable for political life to be decoupled from Theology -but before discussing desirability (which is more subjective) let us discuss possibility. First, Mr. Linker's use of "Theology" is to a degree disingenuous. Catholics do not demand that the Assumption of Mary be a creed of faith for every political official -and if by theology, we mean the nuances of internal theology, it should be pointed out that these questions almost never come out. The questions that -do- come out are horses of a different stripe -they are foundational, philosophical questions. Does God exist? Is the government obliged to follow natural law? Divine law? What is life? And so on. It would be more clear if we called these "metaphysical" questions.
By seeking to decouple Theology from political life, Mr. Linker is not proposing that we avoid the metaphysical questions or take a neutral stance on them. There is no avoiding metaphysics. He is merely disqualifying religious metaphysics in favor of a proposed secular metaphysical order -one that is neither patently true, nor widely accepted; one, furthermore, that does not allow for political arguments grounded in a religious metaphysics. The problem with such an order is best formulated by Dostoyevsky; it has no bottom. Fundamentally, the order relies not on its logical consistency (for the logical end of such an order is, as Ivan Karamazov said, that without God, everything is permissible), but rather on the "illative" sense of most people -that sort of natural, "common sense," teaching embedded in all of us that is not merely rational or merely moral but makes all believe that murder is wrong. The problem, however, is that while the order relies on the illative sense, it neither recognizes nor accepts that it does so and thus has no logical authority.
So the problem is that while Mr. Linker would wish to decouple Politics from Theology, his politics presupposes a nihilistic "theology" and ends up relying on a set of prejudices and emotions that imply a "theology" which it itself rejects. The problem with the liberal bargain, therefore, is that its metaphysics are mush. Mr. Linker writes that it shouldn't matter whether justice has a divine underpinning -but surely it matters because, if justice has no divine underpinning, then it seems to have no underpinning at all. Are we all supposed to go on pretending that the Emperor has clothes, all supposed to go on accepting the -effects- of justice while ignoring and reviling the causes that produce those effects?
The separation of human life into discrete categories is an acute problem of modern thinkers, it strikes me. They would have it that our life is a department store, with "Religion" in one aisle, "Politics" in the other, "Sex" in the other, "Family" in one, "Work" in the other, and so on, and that not mixing politics and religion, for example, is so easy a matter as making sure none of Religion's products stray over to the Political aisle. But life is not a department store -it is a journey and, therefore, a drama. It is a story. And in the story of our lives, as in any story, everything is connected, nothing happens alone, in the abstract, and everything has a purpose; what you think on Religion will affect all other sections of your life and, if it does not, then you have merely not thought.
The liberal bargain is not some compromise struck in an Istanbul spice market, as Mr. Linker would make it sound; rather it clothes within itself first a radical compartmentalization of our life, one that is grounded neither in reality nor good sense, and second, a radical secularization, one that grants the religious believer the ability to believe, but not the ability to take his belief seriously.
There is nothing to do on such a bargain than to walk out.
Yours, &c,
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Does Front Porch mean "Get Off My Porch"?
The following concerns a debate on Front Porch Republic and First Things over racism and localism. Take a look at the links here and here for context.
Firstly, Mr. Bottum is being disingenuous in the extreme in the way in which he tosses around racism without defining what it means. The word has become so charged (possibly because it is the only sin that the modern world has sufficient moral force to condemn) that it has become the supreme allegation, against which there is no defense. If a person, group, society, or idea can be stained with "racism" or if it excepts anything less than strict racial orthodoxy, the whole thing becomes dismissed. There is nothing else that has a similar effect -if an idea can be shown to be illogical, murderous, rotten, evil, intemperate, foolish, or barbarous, it still has a good chance of being accepted by modernity. But if it can be shown to be racist -my God, that's a whole 'nother matter.
But, there is a larger point.
Nothing is without a price; localism is not perfect, nor does it pretend to be. The question raised by the Front Porchers, as I see it, is this: is the present, comfortable, bland, sterile, therapeutic, multicultural, industrial, consumerist existence worth the price it takes to accept it? And, let's not be mistaken, there is a price -the price of what someone (I can't remember his name at the moment) called the grand "liberal bargain." The price of the liberal bargain is this; the sacrifice of roots and hearths, of local patriotisms and local quarrels, the sacrifice of "thumos," of chivalry and honor and yes, violence; the sacrifice of self-sufficiency, of place, the sacrifice of the drama of limits and orthodoxy, of consequences, and the sacrifice of tradition and prejudice (in the Burkean sense). The question raised by the Front Porchers is: do all these sacrifices entail a sacrifice of our humanity?
Let me be frank. Does localism engender racism? To a degree, yes. Does localism engender conflict? To a degree, yes. Does localism engender prejudice? To a degree, yes. But that is because localism is, at essence, humanism; it is Man in his proper state, a life lived on a human scale. And Man is not perfect; even in in his proper state, in a well-ordered community, he will have problems.
But let us not forget that it takes modernism to make local racism scientific racism and justify mass genocide; to make local conflicts bloody global wars; to take prejudices and make them national policies, enforced by a pervasive state.
The impulses behind racism and violence are not inherent to any system, but to man. They will be present in a localist society because all of Man's nature will be present in its proper proportion, and a mistrust of the unknown and willingness to use force to avenge wrongs is part of our nature. We can try to "engineer" or legislate these things out of ourselves, through the grand liberal project that views Man as infinitely malleable. But we will not be able to legislate or engineer them out without legislating or engineering out something far more important -our humanity.
To paraphrase Chesterton, the liberal bargain wishes us to stop being human so that we may start being humane.
The "localist" or "traditionalists" or "Front Porchers" or whatever-you-have-its have a different vision; they propose that we be human, but do not and cannot guarantee that we will be humane.
Feel free to comment.
Yours, &c,
Firstly, Mr. Bottum is being disingenuous in the extreme in the way in which he tosses around racism without defining what it means. The word has become so charged (possibly because it is the only sin that the modern world has sufficient moral force to condemn) that it has become the supreme allegation, against which there is no defense. If a person, group, society, or idea can be stained with "racism" or if it excepts anything less than strict racial orthodoxy, the whole thing becomes dismissed. There is nothing else that has a similar effect -if an idea can be shown to be illogical, murderous, rotten, evil, intemperate, foolish, or barbarous, it still has a good chance of being accepted by modernity. But if it can be shown to be racist -my God, that's a whole 'nother matter.
But, there is a larger point.
Nothing is without a price; localism is not perfect, nor does it pretend to be. The question raised by the Front Porchers, as I see it, is this: is the present, comfortable, bland, sterile, therapeutic, multicultural, industrial, consumerist existence worth the price it takes to accept it? And, let's not be mistaken, there is a price -the price of what someone (I can't remember his name at the moment) called the grand "liberal bargain." The price of the liberal bargain is this; the sacrifice of roots and hearths, of local patriotisms and local quarrels, the sacrifice of "thumos," of chivalry and honor and yes, violence; the sacrifice of self-sufficiency, of place, the sacrifice of the drama of limits and orthodoxy, of consequences, and the sacrifice of tradition and prejudice (in the Burkean sense). The question raised by the Front Porchers is: do all these sacrifices entail a sacrifice of our humanity?
Let me be frank. Does localism engender racism? To a degree, yes. Does localism engender conflict? To a degree, yes. Does localism engender prejudice? To a degree, yes. But that is because localism is, at essence, humanism; it is Man in his proper state, a life lived on a human scale. And Man is not perfect; even in in his proper state, in a well-ordered community, he will have problems.
But let us not forget that it takes modernism to make local racism scientific racism and justify mass genocide; to make local conflicts bloody global wars; to take prejudices and make them national policies, enforced by a pervasive state.
The impulses behind racism and violence are not inherent to any system, but to man. They will be present in a localist society because all of Man's nature will be present in its proper proportion, and a mistrust of the unknown and willingness to use force to avenge wrongs is part of our nature. We can try to "engineer" or legislate these things out of ourselves, through the grand liberal project that views Man as infinitely malleable. But we will not be able to legislate or engineer them out without legislating or engineering out something far more important -our humanity.
To paraphrase Chesterton, the liberal bargain wishes us to stop being human so that we may start being humane.
The "localist" or "traditionalists" or "Front Porchers" or whatever-you-have-its have a different vision; they propose that we be human, but do not and cannot guarantee that we will be humane.
Feel free to comment.
Yours, &c,
Monday, June 29, 2009
Modern Monday: Zoning Laws, Twitter Poetry, & Facebook Narrative
One of the means by which America became McAmerica (f0r those who were wondering) was the use of so-called "zoning laws." The totalitarian sound of these laws ("zones of residence," "zones of industry," "zones of consumption," and so on) betrays the soft despotism resulting from their misuse.
Zoning laws grant local governments the power to regulate the use of "real property" (land). In the United States, driven by a badly-thought out community-planning movement known as Euclid Zoning (after Euclid, Ohio, not the geometrician whose understanding of form the Euclid zoners can never hope to achieve), zoning laws have been used to create suburbia. In suburbia, for those of my readers who have never had to live with it, there are different zones dedicated to specific things, like aisles in a supermarket; there are industrial zones, commercial zones, residential zones, zones left to nature and so on. The compartmentalization of life, though in some hideous sense efficient, means that in effect that the different aspects of life (the home, work, the market, nature) instead of being centered in a local community, are widespread into different areas.
What does this mean? It means that suburbians are reliant on the automobile to get from one aspect of their life to another, that their lives are fragmented, that they cannot enjoy the simple pleasure of walking to a local bakery to get bread or of walking to a local river or lake or forest or, even, of walking to their home and back. This means that they have no attachments to their community, and who can blame them? Suburbia is even more alienated from community (and by community I mean being able to exit your house, wave hello to your neighbors, meet up with friends who live close by, walk to some activity, walk to work, and so on) than the industrialized slums of England, where, at least, you were confined to a smaller, if more disgusting, area ("I met my love by the gas-works wall).
But getting rid of zoning laws is not the answer. Houston, for example, is a city without zoning laws, and it has been liberated of none of the evils of Euclidean zoning. Rather, what we need is smart zoning, a movement that is gaining ground in some parts of the country and, more importantly, "mixed use" zoning; zoning where you are allowed to set up a pizza shop by your house and where you can even run a business a few streets down. The confluence of these elements will create a community that is at once more personal and more beautiful; one that feels less like machinery and more like an actual place. There are many words used to express the desire to create something like this in the modern vocabulary -from "small town community" to "downtown-feel" to "pedestrian-friendly." Wherever these terms crop up, they should be encouraged as signs of a move away from the utilitarian suburbs to actual places.
On another subject, here is an excellent modern Iranian poem that came via Twitter and is now on Youtube.
I do not mean to sound pretentious, but the mix of new and traditional forms (video/poetry/Twitter) raises some interesting possibilities. As new forms of expression arise through technology, artists must "deal" with them somehow, and find ways of improving or at least establishing narrative through the use of non-traditional forms. We can easily all write historical fiction in archaic prose, but the problem is that when the "archaic" fiction was written, it was modern, not archaic, and it was usually on the "innovative" side of its tradition, working in a tradition but not simply repeating what had already been done. Which is why I believe that art in the digital age will have to find ways of incorporating digital reality -Internet communication, phone conversations, television, and so on- into the narrative. This his opens up both new avenues and potential pitfalls for the artist -new avenues if he is successful, pitfalls if uses modernity as an excuse for poor quality of work.
Here is a lighthearted example of a "successful" attempt at what I mean about new methods of narrative.
As always, feel free to comment.
Yours, &c,
Maro
Zoning laws grant local governments the power to regulate the use of "real property" (land). In the United States, driven by a badly-thought out community-planning movement known as Euclid Zoning (after Euclid, Ohio, not the geometrician whose understanding of form the Euclid zoners can never hope to achieve), zoning laws have been used to create suburbia. In suburbia, for those of my readers who have never had to live with it, there are different zones dedicated to specific things, like aisles in a supermarket; there are industrial zones, commercial zones, residential zones, zones left to nature and so on. The compartmentalization of life, though in some hideous sense efficient, means that in effect that the different aspects of life (the home, work, the market, nature) instead of being centered in a local community, are widespread into different areas.
What does this mean? It means that suburbians are reliant on the automobile to get from one aspect of their life to another, that their lives are fragmented, that they cannot enjoy the simple pleasure of walking to a local bakery to get bread or of walking to a local river or lake or forest or, even, of walking to their home and back. This means that they have no attachments to their community, and who can blame them? Suburbia is even more alienated from community (and by community I mean being able to exit your house, wave hello to your neighbors, meet up with friends who live close by, walk to some activity, walk to work, and so on) than the industrialized slums of England, where, at least, you were confined to a smaller, if more disgusting, area ("I met my love by the gas-works wall).
But getting rid of zoning laws is not the answer. Houston, for example, is a city without zoning laws, and it has been liberated of none of the evils of Euclidean zoning. Rather, what we need is smart zoning, a movement that is gaining ground in some parts of the country and, more importantly, "mixed use" zoning; zoning where you are allowed to set up a pizza shop by your house and where you can even run a business a few streets down. The confluence of these elements will create a community that is at once more personal and more beautiful; one that feels less like machinery and more like an actual place. There are many words used to express the desire to create something like this in the modern vocabulary -from "small town community" to "downtown-feel" to "pedestrian-friendly." Wherever these terms crop up, they should be encouraged as signs of a move away from the utilitarian suburbs to actual places.
On another subject, here is an excellent modern Iranian poem that came via Twitter and is now on Youtube.
I do not mean to sound pretentious, but the mix of new and traditional forms (video/poetry/Twitter) raises some interesting possibilities. As new forms of expression arise through technology, artists must "deal" with them somehow, and find ways of improving or at least establishing narrative through the use of non-traditional forms. We can easily all write historical fiction in archaic prose, but the problem is that when the "archaic" fiction was written, it was modern, not archaic, and it was usually on the "innovative" side of its tradition, working in a tradition but not simply repeating what had already been done. Which is why I believe that art in the digital age will have to find ways of incorporating digital reality -Internet communication, phone conversations, television, and so on- into the narrative. This his opens up both new avenues and potential pitfalls for the artist -new avenues if he is successful, pitfalls if uses modernity as an excuse for poor quality of work.
Here is a lighthearted example of a "successful" attempt at what I mean about new methods of narrative.
As always, feel free to comment.
Yours, &c,
Maro
Sunday, June 28, 2009
A Structure of Posting and a Warning
Because all things craveth structure, and because bad poets prize poor alliteration, I shall structure this blog on the following guidelines:
Monday: Modern Monday - A post on modernism and modern culture
Tuesday: Tell-Tale Tuesday - A post on literature and literary theory
Wednesday: Washingtonian Wednesday - A post on politics (generally, American)
Thursday: Traditionalist Thursday - A post on traditionalism-in-theory
Friday: Financial Friday - A post on economics & finance
Saturday: Strategic Saturday - A post on grand strategy and international relations
Sunday: Supreme Sunday - A post on God and faith
As far as these seven areas regarding art, literature, politics, philosophy, economics, diplomacy, and religion, in art I am a humanist, in literature I am a Romantic, in politics I am a conservative, in philosophy I am a Thomist, in economics I am a localist, in diplomacy I am a hawk, and in religion I am a Catholic. For reference.
And a warning: blogging on this blog shall be interrupted in a week's time for a month's time, at which point it shall resume regularly. Details not forthcoming.
Yours, &c,
Maro
Monday: Modern Monday - A post on modernism and modern culture
Tuesday: Tell-Tale Tuesday - A post on literature and literary theory
Wednesday: Washingtonian Wednesday - A post on politics (generally, American)
Thursday: Traditionalist Thursday - A post on traditionalism-in-theory
Friday: Financial Friday - A post on economics & finance
Saturday: Strategic Saturday - A post on grand strategy and international relations
Sunday: Supreme Sunday - A post on God and faith
As far as these seven areas regarding art, literature, politics, philosophy, economics, diplomacy, and religion, in art I am a humanist, in literature I am a Romantic, in politics I am a conservative, in philosophy I am a Thomist, in economics I am a localist, in diplomacy I am a hawk, and in religion I am a Catholic. For reference.
And a warning: blogging on this blog shall be interrupted in a week's time for a month's time, at which point it shall resume regularly. Details not forthcoming.
Yours, &c,
Maro
A Sketch of a Traditionalist Platform
The end of the Reagan era and the "Fusionist" iteration of conservatism -the fusion of traditionalism and libertarianism- has sent the "Right" into disarray. There are many competing visions of what a new "Rightism" would look like -libertarian, neoconservative, traditionalist, localist, distributist, agrarian, natural-law republican, communitarian, moderate, and so on. I cannot pretend to have the answer to what the New Right would look like in all its details, but there are several salient features that I believe it should incorporate.
The great difficulty of genuine American conservatism has always been that it has been placed in the position of conserving a fundamentally liberal order, even if that liberalism is the old liberalism of Mill and Locke as opposed to the New Liberalism of the sixties or the Progressivism of the twenties. Nevertheless, what American conservatives have failed to see is that the logical conclusion of the path charted by Mill and Locke is the New Liberalism of the 60s. Economic liberalism, that is, a defense of an all-embracing laissez-faire market, leads to social liberalism and an undoing of all that conservatives cherish. The laissez-faire market creates a consumer society, and a consumer society creates a consumer reality which upsets all the mores, customs, and folkways of the Western tradition that conservatives are so enamored of. This moment of reinvention, however, after the age of Reagan, presents conservatives the rare opportunity to abandon their defense of Big Business on the grounds that Big Business and Big Government are really two sides of the same coin -and embrace an alternate vision, a vision of small, local markets, more sustainable growth, and a restoration of civil society.
These are the things I believe any platform for the New Right should include:
1. A commitment to community and the organic bonds of community and a recognition that the bonds of community have been undone by excessive industrialism.
2. A defense of religion and public virtue as means of restraining the vices and ambitions of individuals.
3. The decentralization of the political mechanism in the form of renewed state sovereignty, unde the Constitution, and local sovereignty.
4. A recognition that the individual is not absolute but functions within society, and that government is only a facet of society; that between the government and the individual there lies a complex network of bonds that hold society together.
5. A deference to tradition and the "democracy of the dead."
6. A system of regulation that favors small businesses instead of big businesses, that encourages local production and industry, and local employment.
7. An abandonment of schemes of levelling by which men are made "equal" and a recognition that hierarchy is a natural state within society.
8. A resistance to both Big Government and Big Business, on the grounds that centralization is the enemy of liberty.
9. An understanding of liberty as a state achieved through a conscious effort, not the natural state of man.
10. A defense of the family as the "little platoon" that holds society together.
This is just a sketch. I shall elaborate later.
Yours, &c,
Maro
The great difficulty of genuine American conservatism has always been that it has been placed in the position of conserving a fundamentally liberal order, even if that liberalism is the old liberalism of Mill and Locke as opposed to the New Liberalism of the sixties or the Progressivism of the twenties. Nevertheless, what American conservatives have failed to see is that the logical conclusion of the path charted by Mill and Locke is the New Liberalism of the 60s. Economic liberalism, that is, a defense of an all-embracing laissez-faire market, leads to social liberalism and an undoing of all that conservatives cherish. The laissez-faire market creates a consumer society, and a consumer society creates a consumer reality which upsets all the mores, customs, and folkways of the Western tradition that conservatives are so enamored of. This moment of reinvention, however, after the age of Reagan, presents conservatives the rare opportunity to abandon their defense of Big Business on the grounds that Big Business and Big Government are really two sides of the same coin -and embrace an alternate vision, a vision of small, local markets, more sustainable growth, and a restoration of civil society.
These are the things I believe any platform for the New Right should include:
1. A commitment to community and the organic bonds of community and a recognition that the bonds of community have been undone by excessive industrialism.
2. A defense of religion and public virtue as means of restraining the vices and ambitions of individuals.
3. The decentralization of the political mechanism in the form of renewed state sovereignty, unde the Constitution, and local sovereignty.
4. A recognition that the individual is not absolute but functions within society, and that government is only a facet of society; that between the government and the individual there lies a complex network of bonds that hold society together.
5. A deference to tradition and the "democracy of the dead."
6. A system of regulation that favors small businesses instead of big businesses, that encourages local production and industry, and local employment.
7. An abandonment of schemes of levelling by which men are made "equal" and a recognition that hierarchy is a natural state within society.
8. A resistance to both Big Government and Big Business, on the grounds that centralization is the enemy of liberty.
9. An understanding of liberty as a state achieved through a conscious effort, not the natural state of man.
10. A defense of the family as the "little platoon" that holds society together.
This is just a sketch. I shall elaborate later.
Yours, &c,
Maro
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Introductions
When a writer is failing,
When his verse, it does shame,
When his prose, it is stilted,
And his thoughts, they are lame;
Why, 'tis then that our writer,
Bursts forth through the fog;
He opens his laptop
And commences his blog.
The first thing I should extend is my apology for assuming that my opinion demands expression. Likely as not, there is no such exigency and, if there is, it is merely the demand of my own ego. In a more silent age, a writer would not write unless he truly believed he had something to say and others the need to hear it. If the writers of our age entertain any such notions, they do a marvelous job of suggesting the contrary. Writing and expression have ceased to become means to some end but ends in and of themselves, which has made tolerable the stream-of-consciousness that is the only innovation of modern literature. But the spewing forth of our consciousness, undiluted, is not so much an innovation as an infraction; it is not that we moderns invented the form, but rather we we are the only ones who think highly enough of ourselves to use it. The man who writes a stream-of-consciousness must find his consciousness very interesting indeed.
As far as introductions go, I should say a few words about myself, in case my audience extends beyond New Critics. Your servant is the kind of man who can think of no higher calling than sitting in a tavern with a bottle of rum and tunelessly singing laments for forgotten heroes and lost causes. Perhaps, if he had been born in another age, he would have been an iconoclast; perhaps, if your servant would have been born in an age of Faith and Tradition, he would have been a skeptic and a radical. But your servant was born in an age of rootlessness and license, of doubt and progress, an age that has sacrificed depth for breadth, order for freedom, place for profit, contemplation for diversion, love for license. And so your servant is not an iconoclast, but an iconophile; there is nothing dearer to his heart than tradition and ritual and order and community and nothing further from it than the all-embracing, base, and utilitarian machinery of Progress. But he is under no illusions; he does not defend the old ways because they were perfect, nor does he defend them in the hopes of bringing them back. Rather, he defends them precisely because they were not perfect and had no pretensions of being so; he defends them precisely because they cannot be brought back. I have a weakness for lost causes, like Mr. Butler, once they are really lost.
When his verse, it does shame,
When his prose, it is stilted,
And his thoughts, they are lame;
Why, 'tis then that our writer,
Bursts forth through the fog;
He opens his laptop
And commences his blog.
The first thing I should extend is my apology for assuming that my opinion demands expression. Likely as not, there is no such exigency and, if there is, it is merely the demand of my own ego. In a more silent age, a writer would not write unless he truly believed he had something to say and others the need to hear it. If the writers of our age entertain any such notions, they do a marvelous job of suggesting the contrary. Writing and expression have ceased to become means to some end but ends in and of themselves, which has made tolerable the stream-of-consciousness that is the only innovation of modern literature. But the spewing forth of our consciousness, undiluted, is not so much an innovation as an infraction; it is not that we moderns invented the form, but rather we we are the only ones who think highly enough of ourselves to use it. The man who writes a stream-of-consciousness must find his consciousness very interesting indeed.
So I extend my apology; I extend my apology because, despite what I wrote above, this blog will be, of necessity, a stream-of-consciousness. There is no form here; there is no method; I am not unveiling a meticulous, thought-out work. I intend to write whatever comes to mind, for no other reason than that it came to mind. That this is indulgent, I have no doubt. I would only ask my readers be indulgent.
I intend this to be a blog on culture, but I do not think it shall be a cultured blog. I have had quite enough of those and wash my hands of the lot. I make no demands of form in the comments; by all means, feel free to be as raucous, offensive, rude, crass, and brutish as you wish. I only ask that you be honest. It is the great joy of such an endeavor that a reader can provide feedback instantly; modern technology may yet be good for something.As far as introductions go, I should say a few words about myself, in case my audience extends beyond New Critics. Your servant is the kind of man who can think of no higher calling than sitting in a tavern with a bottle of rum and tunelessly singing laments for forgotten heroes and lost causes. Perhaps, if he had been born in another age, he would have been an iconoclast; perhaps, if your servant would have been born in an age of Faith and Tradition, he would have been a skeptic and a radical. But your servant was born in an age of rootlessness and license, of doubt and progress, an age that has sacrificed depth for breadth, order for freedom, place for profit, contemplation for diversion, love for license. And so your servant is not an iconoclast, but an iconophile; there is nothing dearer to his heart than tradition and ritual and order and community and nothing further from it than the all-embracing, base, and utilitarian machinery of Progress. But he is under no illusions; he does not defend the old ways because they were perfect, nor does he defend them in the hopes of bringing them back. Rather, he defends them precisely because they were not perfect and had no pretensions of being so; he defends them precisely because they cannot be brought back. I have a weakness for lost causes, like Mr. Butler, once they are really lost.
Lastly, for cat-killing curiosity's sake, I should explain my title. Rum, because, it is the true drink; Rome, because it is the true faith; Reason, because it helps us discern both.
Yours &c,
V. Maro Grammaticus
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