Periodic Musings
Entries from December 11, 2005 - December 17, 2005
The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/004729.html
I mentioned in my first blog entry that I am neither paleocon nor neocon. Here's an example why. When Old Rightists start talking and behaving just like leftists, the red flags fly (no pun intended). One reason I'm so keen on Mr. Auster.
I am resolved not to be an ideologue. And that includes rightist ideologue.
Caedmon
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EmailDum Spiro Spero.
"While I breathe, I hope."
Is hope for America gone?
(Originally posted 11/6/05.)
From Lawrence Auster's blog: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/004494.html . The text of this blog entry follows my comments immediately below.
As the posts below show, Auster and I think alike on hope , since we both see in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings the true biblical message, set forth in an admittedly mythological form but fully reflecting the true Christian theology of a sovereign God who works His will throughout history even when the immediate reason for hope is not evident. History appears fightening to the faithful at times, but as Robert E. Lee wrote, "It is history that teaches us to hope." Lee knew that though "the march of Providence is so slow," Providence indeed it is. God "provides" the victory, and in that we have hope. "There is always hope," says Aragorn. Not the irrational hope of the sentimentalist, but the hope, the biblical hope, that arises from faith that Christ is King. Auster's post:
Is all hope for America gone?
A reader considers me naïve for envisioning the possible recovery of our civilization. One cannot deny the accuracy of the grim picture he paints. However, I think he goes too far in embracing a counsel of despair.
You write,
“The way to increase the white birthrate is to restore traditional family morality, and to do all the other things needed to recreate confidence in the future. Among these are stopping non-Western immigration; banning the culture of sleaze which is a culture of despair; and banning the anti-white and anti-Western propaganda in our schools and entertainment and politics, which has a profoundly demoralizing effect on whites, and white men in particular.”
How do you propose to do this?
It has taken decades for liberals to gain complete control of the communications media (press, television, radio, etc). Most journalism graduates have a liberal orientation. How do you propose to reverse that?
High schools and university staffs are 90% liberal. What they teach students is pure liberalism. How do you propose to reverse that?
The entertainment world is completely liberal. Nine out of ten films have a liberal orientation. How do you propose to reverse that?
Two thirds of the churches have departed from the original faith to become liberal. The priesthood of most churches now accepts non-Biblical standards. How do you propose to reverse that?
Sexual products to detach sexuality from morality (like contraceptives) are freely available (and dispensed in schools). How do you propose limiting those companies?
One could go on forever...what I’m saying is that you have a hope in hell of “reversing” the culture of death. Almost every institution in society is calculated to undo what you suggest. This has been America’s condition for over 40 years now. Solidly ingrained in our mindset.
You use the word “ban.” In order to “ban” something, you need the political will and legal support to do so. One half of the political base in the US is liberal. Remember Bush actually had less of the popular vote than Gore. How are you going to ban things on screen, in films, from the pulpit, and in the classroom? The ACLU has succeeded in getting removed small symbols like crosses from public displays. In small battles like this, the conservatives have been losing badly. In large battles—such as censoring classroom material and content—the ACLU would walk away with a victory in a heartbeat.
Realistically, what hope do you have for “reversing” this society’s values? By “hoping” that somehow things come to a head, people regain their common sense, and a mass popular uprising reverses the tide? You think liberalism can accelerate to an apocalypse of sorts and then implode? Exactly what concrete program do you have in mind apart from hoping that liberalism can self-implode (which doesn’t seem to be happening in America)?
Trust me I’m with you ... but at my age (57) I’ve seen America’s better days behind her. I live in a small town in northern Georgia with good, like-minded neighbors (think Andy Griffith’s town of Mayberry) and I could care less what happens to the hell holes of New York, Washington and LA in the next 20 years of my life. New Orleans frankly got what it deserved—a thorough wash out (the Noah effect). Remember the Book of Revelation where Christ says that because a group has become “luke-warm”, he will spew it out. The US is getting spewed out as she rejects Christ. “Deny me before men and I will deny you before my father and the angels of heaven” said Jesus The US in denying Christ is being denied before God and heaven (how do you propose to reverse THAT). America is getting the hell it deserves and to try and reverse it somehow is absolutely chimerical. That day has passed...
My reply:
That is a very good summary of the true depth of our plight. But you go badly wrong in your conclusion:
“The US in denying Christ is being denied before God and heaven (how do you propose to reverse THAT). America is getting the hell it deserves and to try and reverse it somehow is absolutely chimerical. That day has passed...”
This is no way for a Christian to talk. Instead of looking for the truth to reverse falsehood, you are positively wallowing in the prospect of doom and punishment. You sound like Denethor in The Lord of the Rings, the Steward of Gondor who has closed out all hope for his country and looks forward only to death.
Sage McClaughlin adds excellent refections:
The melancholy exchange you have posted under the title “Is All Hope for America Gone?” is an interesting one. It illustrates a split amongst real conservatives, some of whom believe that advanced liberalism simply cannot be undone—it will destroy its host, and something concrete will step in to replace it, like Islam. Others such as yourself are less despairing. Note that I do not say “hopeful.” But you do not succumb to despair, and there is something to this distinction. Your point about Denethor is well-taken, one to which I have often had to refer over the years.
It is evidence of Peter Jackson’s and his writers’ total disconnect from the philosophical content of The Lord of the Rings , that they twisted the most important detail of Denethor’s death. In the film, Gandalf—Servant of the Secret Fire, the messenger from the heavens—actually strikes Denethor down, hurling him into the flames. But this robs the story of Denethor’s death, not only of its essential drama, but of its entire meaning. Tolkien’s Denethor leaps into the fire himself, casts himself into the darkness, and he does so precisely because he despairs. Sauron does not have to destroy the White City with his own hand. By staring too long into the Eye of the Enemy (through the Palantir), Denethor becomes overawed by the power of the growing darkness. As it closes in about him, he abandons the will to resist. Even Gandalf denies that he has any real hope—only “a fool’s hope.” What he does possess is the piety to see his appointed task to its conclusion, to fulfill the demands of his station, even without the hope of worldly victory.
And recall also that it is not only Saruman’s power-lust, but also his errant conviction that Sauron cannot finally be defeated, which leads him to join in a personal struggle for control of the One Ring. (I think he stands in nicely for neoconservatives in our present dilemma. They believe, foolishly, that conservative ends can be achieved by liberal means without succumbing to liberalism as such. Liberal means, at least in so far as politics is concerned, are indistinguishable from per se liberalism.) In both cases, men who refuse to resist become in their own ways tools of the One, and are ultimately destroyed by their loss of will in the face of evil.
Clark Coleman sees an interesting basis for hope:
In response to the despair of your 57-year-old correspondent in your latest blog entry, I consider it quite credible that liberal implosion represents a great hope for America. Americans are not ideologues. Most have no conscious political philosophy at all. But they know what is working and what is not working. Liberalism is based on a false conception of human nature and the corresponding limits of government action. Because of its false foundations, it always fails. As it fails, people notice.
Ask the ordinary American 10 years ago if we should profile Arab or Muslim men at airports, and the answer would be NO. Ask them now, and the answer would be YES. No conscious change in philosophy; just pragmatism. In other words, the short-term hope for America is the Unprincipled Exception. The long-term hope is to get Americans to realize why they keep having to make Unprincipled Exceptions in order to survive: because of the falsity of liberal principles.
Lawrence Auster on hope.
(Originally posted 7/24/05.)
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/003769.html
This is, in fact, the theme of this web site: that Christian civilization WILL prevail.
"They say that it is hopeless."
(Originally posted 4/17/05.)
http://novaemilitiae.squarespace.com/periodic-musings-blog/2005/12/15/aragorns-rage.html
"My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them, or indisposed me to serve them; nor in spite of failures, which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge; or of the present aspect of affairs; do I despair of the future. The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope."
(General Robert E. Lee)
Aragorn's Rage.
(Orignally posted 3/27/05, in response to the judicial murder of Terri Schiavo.)
Tonight, I am reminded of a scene from the Peter Jackson's cinematic version of the second work of Tolkien's Lord of The Rings trilogy, The Two Towers.
The people of Rohan, along with Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and a contingent of Elvish archers, are awaiting siege in the fortress of Helm's Deep. All seems lost, as they are vastly outnumbered. Awaiting the arrival of Saruman's army of Orcs and Uruk-Hai, Aragorn is sitting somewhere on the walls of the fortress, absorbed in contemplation. He looks up and sees two boys, armed for the battle and attempting to come to grips with the situation and the weaponry forced upon them in their innocence. Aragorn calls out to one of the boys, and a short dialogue ensues:
Aragorn: Give me your sword. What is your name?
Háleth: Háleth, son of Háma, my lord. The men are saying that we will not live out the night. They say that it is hopeless.
Aragorn takes the sword from the boy, examines it and then proceeds to cut the air several times with it. He draws it up before him, clenches the sword powerfully two or three times, manifesting a look of pure rage on his face. He then settles, hands the sword back to the boy and says: “This is a good sword, Háleth, son of Háma." And he bends down, looks compassionately into his eyes, and says, "There is always hope.”
Tonight, the situation appears hopeless. It appears that we will not live out the night. The Culture of Death, manifested before us in the persons of Michael Schiavo, George Felos, and Judge George Greer, and in phenomena such as the pending sodomite festival in Jerusalem ( http://www.glbtjews.org/article.php3?id_article=4 ) , seems undefeatable, the modern-day version of the hordes of Orcs and Uruk-Hai besieging Helm's Deep.
But the sword of Aragorn, and the sword of Háleth, and the swords, lances and spears of Rohan, the arrows of the Elves and the staff of the wizard laid waste to the hordes of Saruman. The eventual defeat of all the murderous and unnatural inhabitants of this world, who strive to remake creation in their own deathly image, is just as certain. I am reminded of this hymn, especially Christian guitarist Phil Keaggy's rendition of it:
Rise up O men of God,
Have done with lesser things
Give heart and soul and mind and strength,
To serve the King of Kings,
To serve the King of Kings.
Rise up O men of God,
His Kingdom tarries long,
Bring in the day of brotherhood,
And end the night of wrong,
And end the night of wrong.
Rise up O men of God,
The Church for you doth wait.
Send forth to serve the needs of men
In Christ our strength is great,
In Christ our strength is great.
Lift high the Cross of Christ,
Tread where His feet have trod,
As brothers of the Son of Man,
Rise up O men of God,
Rise up O men of God.
Rise up O men of God,
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and soul and mind and strength,
To serve the King of Kings,
To serve the King of Kings.
To war.
Blog entries on hope posted above.
Four of them, posted from March 2004 through November 2005.
True Aristocracy.
Some time ago, a friend of mine posted an article on a discussion board about the nobility in John Kerry's bloodline. My response was that whatever regal nobility flowed through Kerry's veins, it had been thinned into unrecognizability by many ideological transfusions. It's not so much a matter of bloodline as it is of spirit, and if I remember correctly Tom Jefferson made comments along these lines in his musings on "Natural Aristocracy." By this measurement Bush beats Kerry handily. I think this Victor Davis Hanson article speaks to the issue: www.nationalreview.com/ha...130813.asp
It's funny when folks call Bush a "cowboy" in an attempt to demean him. When certain folks over on a certain Orthodox discussion list whose name I will not utter here -- Orthodox Christians, including a certain OCA bishop and some pinko priest from Ireland -- were engaging in this kind of name calling, I posted the following response from a letter to the editor to the Rocky Mountain News:
(The French) refer to Americans as 'cowboys,' thinking it is an insult. Actually, most Americans do not mind being called cowboys. In American culture, the cowboy has always stood for honesty, courage and hard work, three areas that the French have forgotten about . . . or perhaps never learned.
Somewhere in my research on chivalry I ran across an article about how the chivalric code survives in the American cowboy culture, and I believe it to be so. Bush's kind of aristocracy is not like that of the sniffing, liberal "East Coast elite" to which Hanson refers, and to which John Kerry belongs. Those folks have pretty much spent all of their intellectual, moral and spiritual and hence royal capital. Accordingly, they are paupers, not kings, and consequently not fit to lead.
The chivalry theme here.
I had promised a few words about this.
First of all, a disclaimer: I don't mean to suggest the Middle Ages were superior to modern times in all respects. There are certain things about that era that I detest, and certain things about the modern era that I laud. With conservatives such as Kirk, I am comfortable with the idea of "change," provided that it is not radical and almost imperceptible, and I rather prefer many of the things that have changed since then. If I were a soldier fighting a battle with a small arm, for instance, I would prefer the rifle to the sword. (Not very chivalrous, that.) I appreciate the fact that modern medical science is better able to cure ills than was the science of that day. And lastly, there is a sense in which Christian chivalric attitudes about seeking the well-being of our fellow humans is more perfectly realized, albeit sometimes to a fault, in modern times than it was in medieval times.
That being said, I will now say, along with C.S. Lewis, that I am a "dinosaur."
So why my emphases on chivalry and the use of symbols of the Crusades and of a Christian state? Regarding chivalry first of all, because chivalric culture is a prominent feature of he high Christian culture our faith naturally produced. Chivalry set itself against the sexual license and predation of the "popular" culture of the day, as Terrence Moore notes in his article, A Return to Chivalry? :
Chivalry took root, slowly, as the response to one of the gravest crises in the history of the West: the total collapse of civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire in the Fifth Century A. D. and again after the collapse of the more precarious Carolingian Empire in the Ninth Century. True Hobbesians should spend some time with the early Middle Ages, for truly there has never been a period when life was as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." There was no government. There was no police force. Property and persons were utterly at the mercy of very bad men. These men might be called "young," partly because of their age and partly because of their youthful energy and disrespect for any older, established order. Young men on horseback roamed the countryside in huge packs and pillaged whatever semblance of civilization they found: families, churches, farms, markets. Like all young men, they came around to the idea of finding young women. Having no respect for decency, their method was simple. They just took any women they might come across. They took widows, wives, daughters, and nuns, from any place they might find them. Young men had no notion of courtship. Their desire for the opposite sex expressed itself in venereal hooliganism. In short, the behavior of young men during the Dark Ages did not differ considerably from that found in the inner-city gangs of today.
The solution to this crisis came through a gradual change in the motives and manners of the armed horsemen. Established men, the Church, and young ladies themselves combined forces to tame the unruly passions of these violent predators. They did so by effecting a direct exchange of male freedom for duty. To become true knights, young men had to submit themselves to an elaborate set of regulations known as chivalry that brought them into the social order and established them in marriage to young, beautiful heiresses. To enter the ranks of knighthood, young men had to submit themselves to a thorough regime of ethical training that prepared them for a life of service. The element of danger and enterprise remained in their lives since they had to protect their land and their ladies. The idea of male honor came into being. It became dishonorable for a strong man to intimidate or injure someone physically weaker than himself. The ritual par excellence for the display of chivalry became the tournament. No other event allowed the young knight to shine in combat before the eyes of anxious maidens and discerning parents so much as this great pageant of courage and courtesy. The tournament was not simply a game or a sport. The virtues and martial skills developed in the lists prepared young men for encounters against enemies at home and abroad in these lawless times. The deference paid to ladies guaranteed that manly strength would never be employed against the fair sex but rather in its defense.
At this point in the discussion, the teacher should drive home his point. The women are still silently sympathetic to the plight of women in the Middle Ages and perhaps realize that modern manners are reverting to early medieval conditions. The men are wishing they could become knights. The teacher should ask the men, "In the course of your education have you ever been taught what it means to be a man?" The question will floor them. Immediately they sense the need for such an ethical education and its total absence in the schools, the culture, and too often in the home. The fact of the matter is that young males today do not have the slightest idea of what it means to be men. And yet the desire of young men to be something more than irresponsible boys or even "nice persons" remains as strong as ever, despite the efforts of radical feminists, androgynists, and hyper-egalitarians. The evidence comes from a most unlikely source. Christina Hoff Sommers in The War Against Boys aptly draws our attention to a wonderful collection of essays called Between Mothers and Sons. The authors are left-leaning, pacifistic, feminist, and very much children of the sixties. Yet these mothers discover in their sons something they did not inculcate: the male nature. One such mother, Janet Burroway, describes how she nervously came to terms with her son's adventures in the military, conservative political ideas, and fascination with weaponry. She saw the sewing lessons she gave to her son in hopes of turning out a little feminist "put to use on cartridge belts and camouflage." In short, even many of the feminist mothers of today are finding themselves in the position of Perceval's mother who had never let her son see a knight since "if the knights told him of their way of life he would wish to be one also." Yet on first seeing knights pass through the forest, Perceval knew he must become one. When his mother realized "her caresses availed no longer to keep him" she supported Perceval in his decision:
Fair son, I wish to teach you a lesson which you will do well to hear, and if it pleases you to remember it, great profit can come to you. You will soon become a knight, my son, if it please God, and I approve it. If, near or far, you find a lady who needs help, or a maiden in distress, do not withhold your aid if they ask for it; for in this all honor lies. He who does not yield honor to ladies, loses his own honor. Serve ladies and maidens, and you will receive honor everywhere. If you ask a favor of any, avoid offending her and do nothing to displease her. He who wins a kiss from a maiden receives much; if she permits you to kiss her, I forbid you to take more if, for my sake, you are willing to forego it. . . . Fair son, speak with noble men and go with them; a noble man never gives bad counsel to those who frequent his company. Above everything I beseech you to enter church and minster and pray Our Lord to give you honor in this world and grant you so to act that you may come to a good end.
Perceval's mother learned that she could not deny her son's nature. The attempts to deny the male nature today have proven harmful both to men and women. For the history of chivalry has taught us that the young male can become gentle, provided that he is allowed to do so on his own terms, provided that gentleness does not reflect pusillanimity but allies itself with strength and honor.
Once the male students realize that what is at stake in this discussion is nothing less than their own manhood, and once the females begin to see what men could become, this distant epoch from the past will become a source of living instruction. The moral teacher must throw down the gauntlet. Currently, there is a great cultural battle being waged on every street corner, and in every school, and in every family in this country. It is the battle for common decency. On many fronts, the battle is being lost, but the tide has perhaps turned. The fact that the children of the sixties generation could even be interested in a theme like chivalry is a great sign of hope. But more than being interested, they must act upon the moral principles of their nature. Just as Churchill said that World War II would be won by the unknown soldier, so the battle for common decency will not be won by one great thinker or statesman or teacher. It will be won by millions of ordinary men and women doing their duties as ordinary men and women. The return to chivalry requires that every young man exercise his courage in becoming a gentleman and that every young woman exercise her modesty in becoming a lady.
What is this but the Christian stress upon Christlike and courteous behavior of men and women, the restoration of right relations between men and women, the grace-filled font from which a gracious culture would flow?
A chivalric man is at once a man of peace and a man of war. A man of peace because he seeks the well-being, not only of ladies, but of his fellow man. A man of war because he takes the battle to his enemies, external and internal, corporeal and incorporeal. He is ever vigilant against the passions, not only his own but those of his implacable enemies who war against his fellows, his women, and his society.
I hasten to add that not all Christian men are meant to be warriors in the worldy sense. Monastics are not warriors in the manner of the world, but spiritual warriors they most certainly are. And for those who are not monastics, it must be noted that there is a time not to take up arms, but instead submit to the way of martyrdom. The determination whether or not to resist evil with force of arms is always a difficult one, and requires the clear leading of the Holy Spirit, which is normally (but not always) made known through the Church's hierarchy. For instance, as historian James Cunningham notes, at the beginning of the Bolshevik revolution, the formation of militia to counter the Bolshevik revoultionaries was seriously considered by the people and their pro-Czarist leaders. But the Sobor, headed by Tikhon, urged against it, recommending instead "public demonstrations of faith through Processions and other manifestations of mass piety . . . in the hope of deterring Bolshevik excesses and shaming Orthodox believers from supporting them." Despite repeated attempts to effect a change of mind, St. Tikhon did not budge from his stance, something we will have to attribute to the providence of God. If he had decided otherwise, a force of civilian freedom fighters in the form of militia may have dwarfed the White Army whose resistance proved to be futile.
Nevertheless, as the author of Ecclesiastes wrote, there is "a time for war," and Orthodox peoples have taken up arms against tyrants, the most recent case being that of Romania. The Christian man must be willing to fight and die, if need be, as a soldier. Thus was the chivalrous man of medieval times. But if he is to be a soldier, he is called to be a gentleman in all respects: compassionate, merciful, kind, respectful, peaceable, quiet, and ascetic. Thus also was the chivalrous man. Does anyone not see the fruit of the Holy Spirit in these knightly qualities?
The wars we fight today are somewhat different than those fought by our medieval forebears, but much remains the same. We are to be extremely vigilant against our own passions, but just as vigilant against the passions of the enemy, these days (just to pick a few examples) those who make and distribute pornography, which degrades women to the utmost, or those who would seek to destroy our society with their mindless, decadent "art,", or those who seek to kill our fellows, our future, still in the womb, or those who would seek to impose an alien, fatalistic and repressive religion upon the West. And this is why I've adopted the Crusader imagery, for the Crusaders fought not just the external enemy, Islam, but also several corrupting enemies within Europe itself. In the Middle Ages it was the fight against the Islamic imperialists and the Albigensians. The fight is very much the same today, except that liberal secularism has taken the place of of the Albigensians and that the manner of our warfare is different. Medieval Christians fought to preserve their society; we fight to regain it.
And so, those images of Christian sovereignty are not meant merely to bring to wistful remembrance the Christendom of the past, but to arouse hope for a Christendom of the future. Therefore, I have adopted these things -- Christian chivalry, the imagery of the Crusades, and the insignia of temporal Christian rule, because these things serve well, now as then, to symbolize "the pulling down of strongholds, and casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."
Christus Victor. Christus Rex. Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered. That is the prayer of the simple Orthodox Christian. But it is also the prayer of knights, both those who war in the manner of the flesh and those who war in the manner of the Spirit.