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Traditionalist Conservatism Forum > Traditionalist Conservatism > Stereotypes and Anti-Inclusiveness |
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Old Guard Registered User (4/21/01 3:42 pm) Reply |
Stereotypes and Anti-Inclusiveness Jim -- Your FAQs on Anti-Inclusiveness and Vindicating Stereotypes raise some interesting questions. In general, I agree with the spirit in which they are written. Discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes are necessary to human existence. However, let's recognize that anti-discrimination laws, however misguided, are sometimes attempts to address real social problems. Sometimes discrimination *is* based on hatred or unjust prejudice, and sometimes institutional discrimination becomes a question of justice. Such has been the case with American Blacks and other groups over the years. The best solution, of course, is the conversion of souls. Would that most men at least tried to be charitable most of the time. In the meantime, however, there may still be a problem. I agree that ham-handed civil rights legislation is not the answer, but shouldn't traditionalists at least recognize the problems and offer alternatives? If we are to be a nation, all citizens should be included in the life of the nation in a way that is not degrading. Reasonable people could easily conclude from your writings that "traditionalists" want blacks and others to stay in their ghettoes, and when they don't, to drink from their own fountains and ride in the back of the bus. This perception, I trust, is mistaken. But it should be credibly addressed nonetheless. Jeff Culbreath |
 JimKalb  ezOP (4/22/01 7:16 am) Reply ezSupporter 
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Re: Stereotypes and Anti-Inclusiveness I've avoided prescribing what the relationships between ethnic groups should be because they vary so much with circumstances. Should I condemn strictly orthodox Jews for being such separatists? Gypsies for considering all outsiders unclean? That would put me in the position of proposing that those groups abolish themselves. Also, it seems to me that I would have a hard time persuading the reasonable people you mention of my good faith in any event. Not many people are willing to respond to what is actually said. If you take issue with orthodoxy on these issues people feel justified in reading between the lines, picking up on code words, etc., and attributing the worst motives imaginable. If you protest that you didn't mean XYZ they see through you immediately. Still, you may have a point. I've written things criticizing antidiscrimination orthodoxy and defending the necessity of prejudice, stereotypes, and so on, but nothing describing how a possible more sensible arrangement might work and defending it as better than what we have now. So it's worth some thought. Jim Kalb |
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Old Guard Registered User (5/3/01 1:05 am) Reply |
Christian Order, Racial Ideology, and Disclaimers Dear Jim, Thanks for taking my post in the spirit in which it was written. I admire your work overall and am grateful for it. My reply is that a traditional Christian order would definitely have something to say about relationships between ethnic groups. Let there be no scruples about saying, for instance, that Orthodox Jewish separatism, if it means what I think it means (though I am sure to be missing all kinds of nuances within Judaism), is intrinsically immoral and at loggerheads with Catholic social doctrine. As for reasonable people "reading between the lines" of your writing, we should always expect that they will do just that. After all, that is what conservatives must do all the time with liberals: if we know enough of their language and their "code words", we can get to the real meaning which is hidden behind the words they have written. We may well be wrong, but we will often be right, and so we rightly make use of stereotypes and prejudice to interpret the messages of liberals. The problem with your Sterotype and Anti-Inclusiveness FAQs is that the wrong kinds of people -- crackpot racial theorists and biological ideologues -- agree with your words while they too are reading between the lines. Witness the kind of people that show up here often enough: of all the myriad ills besetting Britain today, your latest contributor can only bemoan the censoring of a racial insult. Once, I had your Traditionalist Conservatism site linked to my own (now defunct) website, and a good friend of mine decided to do the same. However, my friend was disturbed enough by some of the material that he felt compelled to write the following disclaimer: www.angelfire.com/pa3/Old...aimer.html I agree with him, and I wish that his disclaimer were not necessary. There is a vacuum in the world of internet conservatism that should be filled with a site like your own. However, because of the many unwholesome characters who seem to be attracted (and perhaps deceived?) by some of your material, it is impossible for a Christian to give it a wholehearted endorsement. Jeff Culbreath |
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JimKalb ezOP (5/3/01 9:34 am) Reply
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Re: Christian Order, Racial Ideology, and Disclaimers I could certainly deny being a racial ideologist, one who believes race is more important than common humanity. I could even deny believing that race has any very definite implications. What people demand though - on pain of extremely unsympathetic reading-between-the-lines - is wholehearted acceptance of the view that (1) race should be socially irrelevant, and (2) it is an overriding moral imperative to bring about by all effective means a situation in which race is socially irrelevant. That seems wrong to me, for reasons given in my essays "Freedom, Discrimination and Culture" and "Anti-racism". As I see it, the basic problem is that a tolerable society requires the legitimacy of particular culture, all particular cultures have an ethnic connection, because culture and ethnicity both arise through the long life together of a particular group of people, and ethnicity always has racial implications because it's something held in common by a particular group of people. If race is to be made truly irrelevant, which is what's demanded, then the same goes for ethnicity and particular culture. Social life must be carried on on purely abstract principles. That, it seems to me, leads to a totalitarian hell. So race, I think, must be allowed to have social relevance. I don't think Christianity tells me anything different. Christianity isn't Islam, which creates a single people observing a single body of laws and traditions. It allows the social more autonomy and particularity. That can be seen in the distinction between the things of Caesar and the things of God, and in the practice of the church in baptizing local observances - the rites of gods and goddesses became rites of saints, Easter went from a pagan spring festival to the holiest day of the Christian year. Christianity accepts loyalties and connections that are not specifically Christian - if you have a pagan wife or master before you become a Christian you still do afterwards. Christianity tells the members of one family or people not to hate the members of other families and peoples but not that it is illegitimate for them to exist as a separate family or people and feel a distinction between members and non-members. I certainly agree with OldWorldRus.com that some of the links on the Traditionalist Conservatism page set forth views that should be rejected. As the introduction to the page says its function is to raise issues and provide material for thought and discussion rather than to persuade. It seems to me ethnicity is one issue that should be dealt with, and one on which discussion is now suppressed. There's a lot of insanity about ethnicity just as there's a lot of insanity about sex, religion and politics. The basics of human life are like that. It seems to me important to explore the issues. If I only included links to views I agreed with there wouldn't be many links and the issues - including both dangers and truths that have fallen into the hands of cranks because no-one else will discuss them - wouldn't be brought out adequately. When you talk about basic things, especially basic things you're not supposed to talk about because everything is supposed to have been resolved already, you can't expect universal agreement. The most you can hope for is to raise issues so people will do their own thinking and the outcome will be something more intelligent than the established dogma. If the materials I've put together contribute to that goal I will be more than satisfied. If someone thinks some other collection of materials would advance the goal better comments are welcome but won't always be followed. Each is free to present what seems best to him. Jim Kalb at: 5/3/01 9:37:29 am |
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Old Guard Registered User (5/3/01 6:30 pm) Reply |
Is race socially relevent? It sounds like we may be in agreement. Some quick comments: 1. Ethnic/racial particularity has in the past been naturally maintained by things like geography and religion. This has not been a moral imperative, but a matter of logisitics, religious conformity, habit, and personal loyalities. In America, people from different ethnic backgrounds live in the same neighborhoods, the same cities, and often have the same religion (or non-religion) and the same personal loyalties. Geography and religion serve as much to unite different ethnic groups as to divide them. A campaign to "save" ethnic particularity under these circumstances defies common sense and will needlessly delay any hopes for cultural renewal. 2. Christianity does indeed allow for ethnic particularism, in the context of Christian brotherhood, and even embraces it. But it does not demand it, it does not regard ethnicity to be fixed and unchanging, and does not require that ethnic particulars be maintained in perpetuity. 3. The appropriate relationship between ethnic groups is pretty much settled as far as the Church is concerned. All men are of one blood. There is no moral imperative to maintain separate ethnic identities and there is no moral imperative to merge them either. The good of individual souls take precedence over the good of ethnic groups and even of families. There is no absolute "racial hierarchy" and there is no accomodation for racial or ethnic hatreds. Beyond that, let a thousand flowers bloom. 4. Race/ethnicity is sometimes socially relevent, sometimes not, and sometimes relevent in varying degrees. A campaign to make it relevent in all cases is just as abstract as a campaign to make it irrelevent in all cases. Jeff Culbreath |
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JimKalb ezOP (5/5/01 12:00 pm) Reply
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Re: Is race socially relevent? I have no very settled views on these questions. Some thoughts though: 1. I think ethnicity and therefore the ethnic prejudice and discrimination required to maintain ethnic boundaries have a future because ethnicity is the concrete existence of a tradition comprehensive enough to order a whole way of life, and form a people capable of common deliberation and action, and those things are difficult to do without. 2. In Western Europe, where until very recently populations had been settled with no major movements of peoples for 1000 years, ethnic distinctions have mostly been maintained the way you mention. That's had advantages - for example it has permitted the existence of an important public sphere in which fairly free discussion was possible. 3. Elsewhere, in the traditional Middle East and South Asia for example, mixture of populations has meant that the survival of definite traditions has required more explicit boundaries - the division of society into separate inward-turning communities, the millets of the Ottoman Empire or the castes of India. That's had disadvantages. The differences between the public sphere in Europe and the East is the difference between the public square and the bazaar, or between a European state and a dynastic despotism. In both cases I prefer the former. Still, a tolerable life is impossible without coherent traditions, and the latter must be maintained in whatever way circumstances permit. These considerations are of course speculative, and they don't suggest any grand vision it makes sense to campaign for. To my mind they do suggest that open borders, forced integration, antiracism etc. are bad ideas, which is all I've ever argued for. In a way they repeat the suggestion you make about feminism, that liberal attempts to abolish fundamental human distinctions end up bringing the distinctions back in a less civilized form. Jim Kalb |
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Old Guard Registered User (5/8/01 1:00 am) Reply |
Exaggerating ethnicity Dear Jim, It is difficult for me to argue with any of your specific points. However, I would say that you are making too much of ethnicity: your definition extends far beyond mere biology and begs a number of questions. It is true that the biological traits shared by members of ethnic groups often coincide with many other important things -- language, religion, geography, personal loyalties, a common history, etc. -- but not necessarily so. This is increasingly the case in our American communities, for better or worse. The bottom line is this: if there is to be a restoration of a traditional Christian order in America, it will not "look" the same as it once did. The new Christian order will only come about through the common life of our people who have very different ethnic backgrounds: but they are people who speak English together, who live and work together in the same communities, and who in many cases share the same religious faith. Those natural things that once preserved ethnic particularities in the old country, like language and geography and religion, are now serving to assimilate them in America. It is obviously wrong to encourage an increase in ethnic prejudice and bigotry to take their place. Even more important, language which tells immigrants we are sorry they ever came to our shores because they are the wrong color -- besides being grossly bigoted and uncharitable -- will only serve to alienate and radicalize them. The immigration debate, for instance, needs to be framed in such a way that does not insult or degrade the legal immigrants (in most cases American citizens) who already live here. Any attempt to destroy ethnic differences (frankly I haven't noticed this -- only the attempt to exaggerate them by multiculturalists) does indeed risk bringing them back in less civilized form. But the momentum here, because of human nature, is heavily one-sided. In the absense of religion, family, and kingdom, many modern people will cling to their biology as their primary identity. Therefore attempts to exaggerate older ethnic differences when they are naturally assimilating will probably be welcomed by those who are the least rooted and the most dangerous. Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat! Jeff Culbreath |
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JimKalb ezOP (5/8/01 9:10 am) Reply
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Re: Exaggerating ethnicity Dear Jeff, It seems a lot of what you and I say seems at cross purposes. That's OK, because it brings out issues, but it means most of the issues just sit there because one or the other of us doesn't have a concrete position he wants to argue for, just a collection of more or less relevant concerns. You're quite right that my definition of ethnicity is not essentially biological. If some long-lived tyrant cross-bred the human race for 20 generations, so that there were no racial differences, and then dropped the project and left things to go their own course, distinctions would appear that in time would be ethnic although not (at least until a much longer time had passed) racial in nature. The reason I treat ethnicity as important is that culture is important. Since moral and religious truth is transcendent it exists for us concretely in particular cultural forms that must be authoritative for us but cannot claim to exhaust all truth. It is best therefore that there be multiple cultures, which means multiple cultural communities that maintain their coherence and mutual distinctiveness over the generations and are guarded by particularist loyalties. I don't see any real difference between saying that and saying there should be multiple ethnicities that maintain their distinctiveness from other ethnicities. If there were only a single worldwide culture I think it would be bad because it would believe too much in its own self-sufficiency. It would suffer from a form of blindness. The story of the Tower of Babel is very much in point - when man was one he lost a sense of his own limitations and of the transcendent, and thought he could abolish the distinction between heaven and earth. As a result he became unable even to think rationally - language itself lost its meaning, social order disappeared and man was scattered. In this connection it seems to me that one feature of Christianity is that unlike Islam it does not of itself establish a particular culture. It permits and indeed relies upon particularity within itself. When we see God face to face there will be only one culture, but while we see through a glass darkly it is essential that we realize that there are different perspectives. So my comments have to do with conditions that somehow or other must be satisfied in the long run for man to live a truly human life. Most of your comments have to do with practicalities in a particular situation. So our comments don't necessarily conflict, although ultimately each should take the other into account. Working out a comprehensive view that includes both relevant general considerations and specific tactics and strategy would be a lot of work and I've never done it. All I've done is say that ethnic prejudice and discrimination are not per se evil, any more than gender prejudice and discrimination are, and that the antidiscrimination laws should be repealed. Those it seems to me are minimal consequences of my general view. On multiculturalism - it seems to me clear that its function is to abolish separate cultures and thus the existence of separate peoples by forcing all significant social institutions to give equal consideration to every particular culture. The result is that every historical culture becomes a private hobby, with no public authority, and the constructed culture of liberalism becomes the universally authoritative public culture which everyone is required to accept. Jim Kalb |
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Old Guard Registered User (5/8/01 12:25 pm) Reply |
Culture building Dear Jim, You use a definition of ethnicity that is more correct. However, there are several reasons why I prefer to use the word "culture" in its place. In the public mind "ethnicity" is used primariliy to refer to racial subdivisions. A second-generation American Catholic of Chinese descent, who speaks perfect English and no Chinese, will often be expected to identify his "ethnicity" as Chinese. This, of course, doesn't even begin to identify the person's culture, language, habits, loyalties, or religion. Therefore to use the word "ethnicity" in the sense you do -- even if more correct -- is misleading to most people. Ideas have consequences, and as you have noticed I am more interested in the nuts and bolts of culture-building that theorizing about it. We need our thinkers and theorists, of course, but their ideas must have some practical implementation. This seems to be consistent with the traditionalist ethos of living in a concrete reality instead of an abstract world of theories. So when your ideas are presented, people who like them will naturally want to put them into practice somehow. I am trying to discover, in a bumbling way and without making too many assumptions, how it is that you envision putting your own ideas into practice. (The assumptions I have made are based on other people I have encountered with similar ideas and definite ideas about implementation.) Insofar as people tend to identify ethnicity as a racial sub-category, the inevitable questions for them, upon accepting your ideas, become: What can I do about race in my corner of the world? How can I preserve my own racial/ethnic particularity against a world that wants to take it away? Do I have sufficient ethnic prejudice? Do I discriminate enough? Am I a race-mixing one-world globalist because I go to church with Russians and Ukranians, or because my best friend is from El Salvador? My contention is that these are the wrong kinds of questions and we should not be inspiring them. The only answers that satisfy are segregationism and racially homogenous communities, artificially imposed in the absense of natural barriers already discussed. And even if these were achievable in our land without hatred and violence, they are no longer desireable because they would dissolve healthy communities already in existence. I believe it is also a mistake to put things like race and sex on the level of equality. Race is fluid, dynamic, transitory, and without specific moral imperatives: racial groups come and go. Sex, however, is fixed and unchanging, a permanent fixture in this world, containing within it all the mysteries of human existence, and possessing transcendent moral qualities. Otherwise, I agree with much of what you have written about Christianity and particular cultures, and the importance of particular cultures in general. Jeff Culbreath But most importantly, ethnicity is not a variable which can be bout which individuals can do anything. |
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Old Guard Registered User (5/8/01 4:42 pm) Reply |
More on ethnic prejudice and discrimination While ethnic prejudice and discrimination are not always and everywhere wrong -- depending upon context and motives, of course -- I think we can say they are objectively wrong far more often than sex discrimination is objectively wrong. And we can say this especially when ethnic prejudice is attached to notions of racial superiority, as is very often the case. It seems to me that the issues of race and racism, and of ethnic particularism and ethnic nationalism, are a bit like sex and pornography. Sex, in its proper context, is a good thing, as is race and ethnicity. But when perverted and stripped of context, it becomes obsecenity. Now, what sort of things can turn race and ethnicity into an obscenity? Certainly language that encourages people to find their primary identity in their race/ethnicity will do this. A friend of mine has just sent his son to the naval academy. He told me what he told his son: "Never forget that you are a Heterosexual White Male, and be proud of this!" I replied that it is a ridiculously flimsy thing to hang one's identity on being a Heterosexual White Male. Do you have no faith? No family? No community? No state? No country? Are you so desperate for identity that you must adopt the labels of your enemies: that is, the labels of the Liberals and Multiculturalists who make war on the Heterosexual White Male? There is no virtue in being White or being Male, and being Heterosexual is to possess a minimum of morality that is common to wild beasts, requiring very little effort for most people. To the extent that one adopts the enemies' label one is also adopting the enemies' worldview, just as advocates of "Capitalism" end up adopting the Materialism and Atheism of the man who invented the word: Karl Marx. Like sex and sexuality, race and ethnicity easily get out of control. Appeals to racial identity and ethnic nationalism can easily become appeals to the ego, to the extension of self, to the dehumanizing of the other, and to the lowest of human instincts -- the very opposite of Christian charity and the antithesis of Christian brotherhood. There must be social "hedges" around such language just as there are "hedges" around the language of sexuality. If Multiculturalism -- which, as you correctly point out, is really anti-cultural -- is about eliminating ethnic distinctions, it has failed in its mission and has already had the opposite effect. Much like we discussed with Feminism. In the case of Feminism, the Christian must oppose not only the Feminist ideology but the barbarian reaction to it: hence we should speak out against Howard Stern and WWF as much as we do the N.O.W. and N.A.R.A.L. Likewise with Multiculturalism, the Christian must oppose the White Separatist and Black Nationalist reactions, AND the language of such movements, with the same fervor as we oppose Multiculturalism itself. I am obviously rambling, home sick with a bad cold. Forgive the incoherence. Jeff Culbreath |
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JimKalb ezOP (5/9/01 6:12 am) Reply
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Re: More on ethnic prejudice and discrimination I think I've given my version of "what to do about it" several times - get rid of antidiscrimination legislation and restrict immigration, and after that let people act (within the limits of the laws etc. otherwise applicable) in accordance with their sense of belonging and whatever other motives they have. As to race, ethnicity etc. it's a libertarian approach, except that it recognizes that free political life is aided by common understandings, common loyalties, a common history, and so on. I suppose it's a 19th c. liberal approach, since 19th c. liberals tended to prefer states that corresponded to ethnic peoples. I agree that sex is more fundamental than ethnicity, just as I would agree if the issue were raised that food is normally more fundamental than clothing and shelter. I do think though that multiculturalism and antiracism generally attack the possibility of particular culture and therefore the possibility of a tolerable human way of life. They must therefore be fought, and a necessary part of fighting them is pointing out that prejudice and discrimination sometimes serve a positive and indeed necessary function in human life. I don't think I've done more than that. I prefer "ethnicity" to "culture" because it emphasizes the tie between culture and a particular group of people living together, and to the concrete personal prerational ties among those people, in opposition to the tendency today to dematerialize everything and make it abstract. That tendency leads to the view that we can make everything into whatever we want just by redefining or reinterpreting. As to people who give race too much importance or base their views on race hatred or contempt, everyone's hysterical about them anyway. I don't think I need to campaign against them too. Do bounce back from your cold! Jim Kalb |
Old Guard  Registered User (6/4/01 12:33 am) Reply
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Race and the Church Dear Jim, Thanks for the kind wishes; I have indeed bounced back from my cold. There's not much more for me to say on this subject other than what has already been said. I've since done some more surfing on your website, and am even more troubled than before. Suffice it to say that a good deal of your material pertaining to race and ethnicity is radically anti-Catholic and morally repugnant. The solutions you present are sort of non-threatening, except that sometimes anti-discrimination laws are harmful, and sometimes they are necessary. For instance, my local fire department *should* discriminate on the basis of sex, but to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity would be an injustice. I think a good case can be made for restricting immigration, but the racial motive is suspect and could morally taint any efforts to do so. Catholic Family News, a traditionalist publication, has just this month featured an excellent article presenting Catholic teaching on race and the Church. I beg all Catholics who are perusing this site, especially those tempted by racialism or nationalism as a reaction to modern egalitarianism, to read this article and digest the sober wisdom of our Holy Catholic Faith: www.catholictradition.org/cfn-race1.htm In Christ the King, Jeff Culbreath "The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid." - G.K. Chesterton |
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JimKalb ezOP (6/4/01 8:00 am) Reply
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Re: Race and the Church There's also a lot of material on my website not about race that's anti-Catholic, morally repugnant, or whatever. Khomeini, Mussolini and the Unabomber were none of them good moral Catholics for example. The function of the links is not advocacy, it's opening up areas for discussion that in America in 2001 are pretty much closed. Material that touches on questions or includes material or gives leads that seem important is in even if there's something basically wrong with it. I have nothing against a fire department with a non-discrimination policy or a political entity adopting such a policy in its own operations or insisting on it for its instrumentalities. My basic objection to antiracism is its extirpationism. What particular people or agencies find it appropriate to do is not the issue. I have no objection to the analysis in the article to which you link. I don't know what you mean by moral taint though. Everything in politics is morally tainted. One must nonetheless do something. Jim Kalb |
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Old Guard Registered User (6/8/01 1:50 am) Reply
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Re: Race and the Church Dear Jim, One of the nice things about being a conservative is that I don't have to pretend to be tolerant or to believe in "free thought". Conservatives take a stand. :-) I guess the question in my mind is this: Why would a traditionalist conservative want to open up discussion on Fascism, Nationalism, Radical Environmentalism, Neo-Paganism, Eugenicism, Biological Determinism, and the like? Some ideas belong "in the closet" because they are enemies of civilization, and it seems to me that a traditionalist conservative will not want to give the enemies of civilization a public platform. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. Just as it is a mistake to cozy up to Communists because one is against the Nazis, so it is a mistake to cozy up with Fascists because one is against the Multiculturalists. I will take you at your word that you do not intend advocacy. But without your word, it sure looks like advocacy. You do say, without qualification, that "the cause of the extreme right is the cause of humanity", and many of your links would certainly be characterized by reasonable people as the "extreme right". Although this isn't meant to get too personal, I can't help but wonder what it is you do believe. Jeff Culbreath "The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid." - G.K. Chesterton |
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JimKalb ezOP (6/8/01 6:51 am) Reply
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Re: Race and the Church I think part of the problem is that you seem to have little theoretical or scholarly interest in things. That's OK, not many people do, but it leads you to misinterpret those who approach ideas differently. When I present a list of things I've found it helpful to think about in coming to a position and understanding its implications, relationships and distinctives you mistake it for a list of things I approve. It seems to me that there is a comprehensive orthodoxy today that to a greater or lesser degree has a grip on all of us. It is very difficult to distance oneself from that orthodoxy since so many of the habits of thought and even turns of expression we have learned support it. For some of us a necessary part of dealing with the situation and getting beyond it is knowing what the ideas are that oppose the orthodoxy and to some degree working through them. In the nature of things most of those ideas will have something wrong with them. As expressions of rebellion they will be presented in a one-sided way. On the other hand, those who present them will raise important concerns that the existing orthodoxy suppresses. If they go wrong then where they go wrong is important as well. I don't see including a link in a very long and diverse list of links as giving a public platform, any more than putting something in a bibliography is giving it a public platform. In any event the danger to civilization today does not seem to me to come from fascists. If Haider is the best threat the Left can come up with then there aren't any fascists to speak of. Some comments on your particular examples: Fascism - an attempt to recapture something of the transcendent within modernism. Instead of God though it must depend on aesthetics, arbitrary decision, and in the end violence. In a sense it is modernism's understanding of traditionalism. Since almost all thought today starts with modernism I think it's worth knowing something about. Nationalism - a fragmentary break with modernism. Modernism is universalizing and denies the cultural and social particularity that human life demands. So one natural response is to make particularity the standard. It's an insufficient standard so it makes up for what it lacks by speaking loudly and getting pushy. That's not good, but even so nationalism vividly expresses something that is missing in modernism and through its limitations and failures points to what further is needed. Radical Environmentalism - A vivid expression of the impossibility of comprehensive universal management of the world. A modern way of saying that it is something greater than us that made us and not we ourselves. There are problems with the presuppositions of modern ways of saying things, but if we live in the modern world they remain of interest. Neo-Paganism - a protest against the this-worldly universalism of modernism. Neo-paganism treats the monotheistic God as a rational concept that can be fully grasped here and now, the claims of which to be the Supreme Being must therefore be rejected. As such it points to a genuine issue although not an insurmountable one. Eugenicism, Biological Determinism - highlight the conflicts among liberal this-worldliness, liberal egalitarianism, liberal belief in the efficacy of social manipulation, and the appeal to science. If it drives liberals up the wall it must be important for understanding the problems of their position. If you don't find it useful to think about any of these things in understanding what's wrong with liberalism and modernism, and why any worthwhile comprehensive response must involves tradition and the transcendent, that's OK. I do, and I think others may as well. The bit about the extreme right and the cause of humanity is on a page that does not include links to fascists or the Unabomber, that outlines a position, and on which I am speaking in my own voice but taking an explicitly combative stance. Look higher up on the page for reasons for accepting the extremism label and for treating the established orthodoxy as essentially a program for abolishing humanity. Opposing the abolition of humanity counts as an extreme right cause today - your opposition to sexual egalitarianism would count as extreme right, for example - and the slogan at the end makes the point in as striking and provocative a way as possible. It also uses large red letters and an exclamation point. I try to say what I think as clearly as possible. If you want to know what I think all I can suggest is read what I have written. Look at www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat/jk_publications.html. There's even a search engine. If something puzzles you you can ask questions. If you insist on believing that I think something other than what I say - and this discussion has gone on for quite a while now - I can't help you. Jim Kalb at: 6/9/01 9:40:11 am |
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Old Guard Registered User (6/10/01 2:09 am) Reply
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Brief comments Dear Jim, Of course, it is true that I am not a scholar and have little time for scholarly pursuits. Nevertheless, I do support and admire the world of scholarship, even if I do not completely understand it, and make good use of a personal library approaching three thousand volumes. Philiosophically, I do not agree with just "opening up" the world of ideas to anyone -- say Fascists and Communists, for instance -- without any kind of commentary or judgment. It is hardly thinkable for an orthodox Catholic to mention the ideas of Marx, even in a scholarly context, apart from a forceful condemnation at some point. I own and have read several volumes of Marx. But Marxism is not something to flirted with like an intellectual toy: it is dangerous, like dynamite, even if there seem to be no real Marxists left anymore. The same goes for fascist skinhead thuggery that calls itself the "European New Right". Dangerous ideas should be studied, examined, and explored, but always in the light of Truth and history, and never as just a part of an intellectual buffet. Here's what it looks like to me. You are fiercely against Liberalism and have amassed an army of anti-Liberals. That much is clear from your writings and internet work. And while you do not intend "advocacy", in the strict sense, by "opening up" the debate to some very unsavory anti-Liberals, you are willing to make use of them as part of an ideological coalition. Am I close? Today's orthodoxy is liberal relativism, and you are quite right that it is difficult to escape. I confess to being affected by it in all my thinking. The categories of "left" and "right", "liberal" and "conservative", are themselves products of Liberalism, and to accept them is, in some degree, to accept the assumptions of Liberalism. The liberal premise is that ideas are only important in relation to an ever-shifting Center. Yet we seem to be stuck with these categories because we have lost the vocabulary of religion. It seems to me that a true restoration will involve the recovery of the vocabulary of religion, of truth. Anti-liberalism, like anti-communism, is radically insufficient and even dangerous if left alone. Anti-communism defeated communism in Europe, but only by accepting the materialist assumptions of communism, and today it is clear that Europe has replaced one kind of vulgar materialism with another that is less brutal but more insidious. A Catholic must recognize, with T.S. Eliot, that "progress" usually involves the exchanging of one set of evils with another set of evils. Indiscriminately "turning back the clock", so to speak, is therefore a guaranteed return to past evils. It is to be admitted, then, that Liberalism is a foul heresy which nevertheless contains certain truths that should not be jettisoned in a restoration. Catholicism rejects ideological egalitarianism, for instance, but always opposes the old systems of caste that offend basic justice and deny fundamental truths (e.g., that all men are made in the image and likeness of God, are of one blood, etc.). Catholicism will therefore seem "liberal" in some milieus and "conservative" in others. It is past my bedtime. A good-night to you. Jeff Culbreath "The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid." - G.K. Chesterton |
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JimKalb ezOP (6/10/01 1:29 pm) Reply
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Re: Brief comments By lack of theoretical inclination I meant a tendency not to be interested in ideas simply as such, on their own terms and in their interconnections, mutual implications, and oppositions. Not many people have such an interest. It's not a matter of time or intelligence or learning or whether one is a good person. It is something though that has a use in the overall scheme of things. A single document or web page can't do everything. The traditionalist page is something like a bibliography of antiliberalism. There's very little discussion or evaluation of the various positions. That's the nature of such a compilation. It's not an attempt to create a coalition. If it were I'd say I want to create a coalition and I don't say that. I don't think there's a basis for a coalition at this point except I suppose on specific limited goals, and I'm not a practical politician who spends his time trying to organize such things. I suppose the traditionalist page is in some ways an attempt to create a groundwork for discussion. The thought is that in discussion the more complete view should have an advantage, that those who hold it should learn how to use that advantage, and that among its adherents there should be some who hold it with consciousness of what happens when one part or another is left out and why other views seem convincing to many people. The page doesn't set forth a system of anything though. It doesn't profess to present a doctrine or even an argument. It's also not something I spend a lot of time on. It's mostly an accumulation of things that have seemed relevant to me in my own thinking and that others may find relevant as well. I spend much more time on my writing. My writing attempts to start within the present world and work through its implicit suggestions and contradictions to a vision of something better. It is based wholly on human reason and not at all on revelation or dogma. That's a very slow approach that finds it hard to come to a definite conclusion, but I think in a world in which people have faith only in human reason it's a necessary one. If you say it's not sufficient that's fine but one man can't do everything. I explicitly state that the problems created by the attempt to abolish the transcendent, and the human need for concreteness and authority, make a religious understanding of things an unavoidable necessity. I don't go on to evangelize but that's not the aspect of things on which I am working. We can't all do everything. Our gifts and what we are capable of adding to the conversation differ. It seems to me an enormous catastrophe has befallen Western thought and social life. If I can help clarify the nature of the catastrophe and what caused it and suggest a direction to go I will have done a great deal. If you object that I've left out a lot I agree. I just don't see why that's much of an objection. Part of your problem seems to be that although I don't say I agree with (say) the European New Right, and when it becomes directly relevant to a discussion I'll say what I think is wrong with it, I don't write essays denouncing it, and I seem willing to associate with it. Most of the answer is the relative power of the ENR and liberalism - why join the attack on the former when it is despised and utterly powerless and the attack is part of an enormously successful attempt by the latter to create a universal tyranny? It seems to me that rational discussion of issues like ethnicity and particularism is impossible today in mainstream discourse and that's a big problem. In order to understand things that haven't been discussed you have to encourage people to say what they think and try to elicit what is valid in their views. I agree fascist skinhead thugs can't add much to the conversation but it's false to say that the ENR are simply fascist skinhead thugs. As to the permanent benefits of liberalism - what they are remains to be seen. If people are only allowed to say (i) liberal things, and (ii) other things whose truth has somehow already been assured, it will never be determined. It seems to me the natural tendency in a liberal world is to try to concede to liberalism as much as possible so that some core of nonliberal truth can be preserved and made to appear publicly legitimate. It seems to me John Paul tends to do that. I think it's a bad strategy, since if you concede everything but things that you know are core truths a lot of what you concede will be true as well and will turn out to be necessary for the practical defense of the core truths. Jim Kalb |
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Old Guard Registered User (6/10/01 5:46 pm) Reply
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Beyond Liberalism Dear Jim, First, to conclude my earlier point. Defeating Liberalism will require getting beyond Liberal categories and assumptions. Anti-liberalism makes Liberalism the standard, just as anti-communism makes Communism the standard. Likewise, Capitalism agrees with Marx that *capital* is the standard, Racialism agrees with Darwin that *biology* is the standard, Conservatism agrees with Liberalism that *progress* is the standard, and Extremism agrees with Conformism that *society* is the standard. All of these belong to the hornet's nest of Modernism, seducing men to think in this-worldly categories without regard to universal and transcendent realities (i.e., truth and falsehood, good and evil, necessary and indifferent). The pre-modern man did not concern himself with such things. He did not ask whether a thing be liberal or conservative, leftist or rightist, progressive or reactionary. He asked, instead, whether a thing be true or false; whether it be just or unjust; whether it be opposed to received traditions, consecrated authority, or Christian dogma; whether it be necessary or frivolous; whether it be good, bad, or indifferent. We need to recover this pre-modern mind if we are going to free ourselves from the tyranny of Liberalism. Combatting Liberalism on the basis of human reason alone, because we live in an age when men have faith in human reason alone, must be recognized as a contradiction. That is, it is a supremely liberal approach, to proceed as if revelation and dogma did not exist, or could somehow be divorced from reason itself. ISTM the benefit of such a method is limited to demonstrating that Liberalism can, perhaps, be defeated with its own instruments. It is important to specifically uphold those truths that happen to also be supported by the prevailing liberal orthodoxy. By doing so, we immunize ourselves from becoming the mirror image of our enemies, and from sacrificing the hard discipline of thinking to the sloth of mere *emoting*. Furthermore, let us be fair: today's liberal regime affords more freedom to traditionalist Christians than did Hitler and Mussolini. Let us take care not to invite the old demons back. At the same time, it is vitally important not to concede too much, and I agree that John Paul II and the post-conciliar Church seem over-eager to appease Liberalism. What has happened to the life and thought of Christendom --John Senior makes the point that liberal secularists prefer "Western Civilization" to Christendom, another example of the use of language betraying liberal assumptions -- is indeed a catastrophe, and in my opinion you have written well of the liberal disease and its symptoms. However, my concern is that traditionalist Christianity not be discredited by perceived associations with fanatical, hateful, and dangerous anti-liberals. We are rightly judged by the company we keep. Yes, the ENR is today small and powerless: so were the Bolsheviks and the National Socialists at one time. But today's small and powerless will be tomorrow's totalitarian masters unless we are vigilant. Jeff Culbreath "The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid." - G.K. Chesterton Edited by: Old Guard at: 6/16/01 11:57:15 pm |
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BK Glyndwr Registered User (8/10/01 10:25 pm) Reply |
Re: Beyond Liberalism Aarrgghh! Christianity getting in the way again. There are all kinds of traditions in the world and this is not a particularly convincing one for most people any more. I appreciate that you - and a lot of other contributors here - believe in it (or at least regard it historically a force for good), but it has had its day, is historically discredited (which other major religion would be guaranteed to horrify its founder if he knew of it?) and, if pushed relentlessly as part of a traditionalist package, will mean our permanent status as an object of ridicule. Many things have been destroyed by woolly liberalism and the rest, but Christianity is not one of them. It is dead in Europe and dying in America because science and archaeology have made it impossible to believe in except, and I know you'll hate me for saying this, by a deliberate act of self-deception. Let it go back to the Tropics where it belongs. Christianity destroyed Rome and it is precisely its guilt-oozing pusillanimous remnants which are, when secularised by those still desperate to believe in something, the main source of the nauseating tide of liberalism which you so heartily and rightly decry. If traditionalists are so attached to this alien cult that they can't bear the thought of life without it, it will in the end reach up from its grave and destroy us as well. |
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JimKalb ezOP (8/11/01 7:08 am) Reply
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Re: Beyond Liberalism Don't agree: 1. What scientific or archaological discoveries have made say the Nicene Creed unbelievable? The Gospel accounts in general? I can understand the view that some of the Genesis stories shouldn't be taken literally, but you seem to be saying something much stronger and more all-embracing. It seems to me that it is not any particular findings that make Christianity seem unbelievable to many people but some generalized "scientific outlook." The generalized scientific outlook includes liberalism though, so if you reject liberalism you should find some other ground upon which to reject Christianity. 2. Christianity is at the foundation of European civilization and culture. How can it be alien except to the extent that anything that touches on the absolute at some point becomes less-than-cosy and therefore seems alien? 3. Not clear why Christianity would horrify Christ, except in the way the Apostles often horrified Christ. One problem for your view is that we know of Christ only through Christianity. Another is that if Christianity could be fully realized through actual human institutions there would be no reason to take it seriously. 4. Christianity is in a sense the source of liberalism, although modern natural science strikes me as a more proximate source. On the other hand having a brain is the source of insanity and crime. When you remove something essential from a system, like a transcendent God from Christianity, you get spectacular malfunctions. 5. The basic problem is what the truth about the world is, and how we can know about it. Agnosticism like solipsism is impossible because one must after all live, act as if the world is real and things mean something, etc. So if you don't like Christianity you should show something else that is better and doesn't suffer from more serious problems. Jim Kalb |
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