tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5935204160787760272024-03-13T21:05:23.804-06:00Man of the WestConfronting modernity from the depths of the human spirit, in communion with Christ the King.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-16907615777615815692012-05-26T18:15:00.002-06:002012-05-26T18:15:53.820-06:00Friends of John Reilly, you are welcome here.This post will serve as a meeting place for online friends of John Reilly, especially those who have frequented his website, The Long View. Please post any news and information, prayers for John and his family, and discuss your plans for continuing his work in the wake of recent serious health concerns.<br />
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This blog is certainly not a substitute for The Long View, and I am not much of a webmaster, but we can meet here for as long as we have to.<br />
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Your posts are most welcome.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-91013394361615162342012-01-04T09:12:00.001-07:002012-01-04T09:13:23.622-07:00Peak Oil CommentPeak Oil is a real, immanent, and very serious problem. It is nothing like Global Warming at all. Here's why. <br />
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While there may have been a point in time when the Global Warming hypothesis merited some attention (back when the issue was first mooted, perhaps), subsequent years of sober and rational reflection have shown us that those concerns can be safely dismissed. Mankind simply cannot produce enough carbon dioxide to affect the climate. The scale is too vast, the feedbacks are too complicated, and the other forcing and/or buffering mechanisms we have identified completely swamp whatever paltry effect our miniscule contribution to global greenhouse gas levels may be causing (if there even is such an effect, which we cannot definitively conclude).<br />
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On the other hand, the lexicon of alarmist terms with which we have become familiar through the Global Warming debate -- terms like 'tipping point' and 'runaway feedback' -- really do apply in the case of Peak Oil. Just one Iranian nuclear weapon, whether or not it is even detonated, could set off a chain of events which will disturb the world's oil-producing region for the foreseeable future.<br />
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There is a human dimension to this problem which most commentators seem oblivious to. Oil in the ground does nobody any good. If it cannot be extracted, bought, sold, transported, and refined into useful products, it might as well not exist. It is human societies which produce and consume oil, and our ability to exploit a resource is conditioned by numerous factors besides the level of stated reserves. You cannot simply assume that we will have the resources and finance capital to utilize unconventional oil sources. You cannot simply assume that "technology" is a silver bullet which will overcome all production hurdles. And only someone blissfully ignorant of all world history could believe that governments will ever "get out of the way" and allow private oil producers to pump the wells dry in a Libertarian fantasy-land. The world is the theater of bloody politics: it always has been and it always will be. People will fight for power, wealth, and security, and many delicate fruits of our exigent civil society -- fruits like easy access to finance capital and loads of money for R&D -- will get trampled in the process. The system of intellectual and financial tensions stretched across the global economy is now so tight that any minor supply disruption could cause the threads to begin to snap. And with the world's advanced economies getting older and deeper in debt, they will not be able to consume oil as efficiently as before. This is just the beginning of a process that will result in a slowdown of the global economy and the outbreak of hostilities. We will have to get used to living in a world where war is more frequent and wealth less taken for granted; a world, in short, of less civilization.<br />
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Ultimately, it is man's ability to produce and consume energy efficiently which has peaked. This is the critical measure, the only one that counts in the last analysis. It has a complicated relationship with resource reserve levels, but is not linearly dependent on them. It is more dependent on culture, on the societal discipline which develops the talent necessary to rule the world with the force and intelligence that such requires. The West began depleting that resource quite some time ago.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-79218423779811859252011-07-19T19:39:00.000-06:002011-07-19T19:39:26.749-06:00'Harry Potter' finale exposes Wayne Dyer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rNcvKgzFR9U/TiYwTNQIbqI/AAAAAAAAAFI/xvcmrYKtD8g/s1600/Dyer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" m$="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rNcvKgzFR9U/TiYwTNQIbqI/AAAAAAAAAFI/xvcmrYKtD8g/s1600/Dyer.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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I knew it. I just knew it.<br />
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</div>Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-36794898316780510502011-05-22T03:01:00.005-06:002011-05-26T16:21:05.601-06:00Masculine CompassionSpeaking as a man (that is to say, not generically as a member of the human race, but specifically as a <i>male</i>), there are certain things I just know—call it masculine intuition, if you will. And from that ineffable font of knowledge there comes also a fine sense for the characteristically masculine type of compassion; a type which is not widely discussed today, for it has largely been buried beneath two centuries of modern socialist-egalitarian rhetoric. That is not to say that there are none who now practice it; but they do so, in a manner of speaking, out of sight, in the hidden courses of life where the warmth of recognition seldom penetrates. It is not much admired openly, still less is it called forth and given its right and its due; for it moves against the basic presuppositions of our era, and consequently it is proscribed, ridiculed, and even eviscerated by the whole tone and timbre of our public existence.<br />
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Yet it does not die. It is, however, shifted into the realms of fiction and history, where alone it still seems permissible to venerate it. For there, in fiction and in history—in the timeless sighing of the human spirit, in the worthy accomplishments won by that spirit in the past—there only do we yet find those essential prerequisites which are necessary for comprehending the operations of masculine compassion. We may mention here, as examples of the same (but certainly not an exhaustive list thereof), such things as an acknowledged hierarchy of men and values; a settled and universally accepted understanding of what constitutes virtue, goodness, and the correct ordering of society; the presumption of permanence that attaches to marriage and property; and the duty of men (males), each in his own domain, to rule—to set forth laws and administer punishments—as the good of the place requires. This pattern is instinctive to us and therefore desired by us; however, in accordance with the now ascendant canons of modernism, it cannot be reflected in our ordinary manner of speaking. Thus it will behoove us, unfortunate men of the modern world, to throw off such mannerisms; and, eschewing all pretensions to sophistication, to speak a plain word, heart-spoken and real, in defense of our love and compassion, defining them in contrast to the phony versions thereof with which we’ve been saddled today; and in so doing, free our consciences from the guilt of acting falsely, to the great benefit of ourselves, and to that of the whole world around us.<br />
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The plain word, of course, is <i>fatherhood.</i> Masculine love is always an expression of fatherly care, either literally or metaphorically. But no man can act as a father to one who is greater than he; which is why, in all types of society, there must be a social hierarchy with a man at the head of it. In the absence of either one of these conditions, the possibility of fatherhood is implicitly denied. Therefore hierarchy there must needs be if we are to have fathers and be fathers; but we should not confuse this with some merely bestial struggle for primacy within the social group, or with a desire to put down our inferiors and lord our power over them. It is quite the opposite, in fact. The point is worth some attention.<br />
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Whenever a good man comes to realize that the person he’s dealing with is truly his spiritual and intellectual inferior, he is borne out of himself on a wave of fatherly compassion which lays claim to the other person and seeks his safety and his good. The bad man, of course, does not feel this way—he tries to exploit the weaknesses of the other. But since this essay is not meant to be a comprehensive treatise on virtues and vices, I will leave off talking about the bad man just yet. For the good man, on the other hand, the feeling is both familiar and, in the ordinary run of things, automatic. It is almost identical with the noblest aspirations he entertains, i.e. the chance to be somebody’s benefactor and hero. I would go so far as to say that a man’s kindly disposition towards his ward is the masculine analogue of the natural affinity women have for infants and children. So strong is this feeling, at times, that it seems not to matter if the inferior man has actually done you an injury in his ignorance and carelessness. You want to redress the wrong, certainly; but you try to do so in such a way that the punishment is not too harsh, that the lesser man may be raised up and tempered by the experience. In such fashion do good men love their children. So even do they care for their wives, domestic servants, and the whole of their extended family. So also do they adopt others, become mentors, take on students and apprentices. To their commercial and public lives they apply something of the same basic attitude. In short, to as much of the world as comes under their care in some capacity, for so much do they feel responsible, and would seek to bower so much under the protective mantle of their foresight, their thoughtfulness, and their courage. And finally, this high-minded gentility is the quality they look for when choosing friends. It is what they expect their friends to display, and what they expect their friends to expect them to display, so that they all may sharpen and perfect one another in goodness and humanity.<br />
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Universal among mankind (except in the modern world, that is) is the belief that commanding, courageous fatherhood is a virtue to be cultivated and respected. Universal, too, is the solemnification of the principal rites and practices which lead to fatherhood, or in which fatherhood is notably conferred or exercised. The revelation of the true religion of Christ has done nothing to negate this common conception of mankind; on the contrary it has strengthened it immeasurably. Therefore we can say that, in its plenary aspects, fatherhood is both a natural and a supernatural virtue. It is natural inasmuch as even the pagans practice it, for it appeals to man’s sense of natural goodness, justice, and permanence. It is supernatural inasmuch as God has established himself as Father over all; that He has given His divine blessing to both marriage and worldly authority; and that Christ His son has infused His own dignity into all our acts of care, sealing it with His solemn promise that, for good or for ill, He will count what we do to the least of His brethren as something done unto Himself.<br />
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(Now, in the interests of synthesizing and simplifying all that has been said thus far, and before proceeding to other matters, please permit me to offer the following summary. We have said that masculine compassion is something instituted by God as well as something good in itself. We have given this type of compassion a name: We have called it <i>fatherhood,</i> by which we mean to express both fatherhood properly so called, and also the characteristic manner in which men care about anything or anybody <i>inferior to themselves.</i> That the object of fatherly care is inferior to the father who cares for it, is intrinsic to the nature of fatherhood and inseparable therefrom. Absent this condition, fatherhood cannot be said to exist.)<br />
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Of all the components and characteristics of fatherhood, it is the unapologetic existence of a hierarchy of individual men and the differing values that they represent, which most directly opposes the sentiments of the modern world. For mention the words ‘lord’ or ‘master’ to anyone of the modern mindset, and you will elicit only negative reactions from him. He hears in such words nothing but the footsteps of <i>tyranny,</i> which he has never actually experienced himself, but which he regards as an ancient menace which his delightful modern society has rightfully put off. Now tyranny and oppression are abuses of the fatherly concept, to be sure; but democracy, egalitarianism, relativism—these deny the very <i>nature</i> of fatherhood. In a world where true lordship can scarcely even establish itself, it is something of a red herring to maintain an exaggerated fear of its prior <i>distortions</i> once again becoming prevalent. But since it is the latter, “popular” qualities for which modernity has set its cap, and since these qualities would not long endure the presence of genuine lords and masters, it is necessary for modernity to somehow prevent lords and masters from showing up its pretensions, which it does by (among other methods) calumniating them as “tyrants and oppressors” when they attempt to exercise their prerogatives. So prevalent is the capacity of modern man to equate authority with oppression, that proper respect for properly constituted authority—and knowledge of the nature and limits thereof—have all but disappeared from the scene. It may be helpful, then, to sketch a picture of masculine authority in action, which we can later contrast with the counterfeit version in vogue today.<br />
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So imagine, if you will, a small human community living a relatively uncomplicated life in a rustic setting. We say ‘rustic’ not because we are trying to set up some speculative primitivism as the standard by which to judge modern societies, but simply because, for the purposes of this example, we wish to avoid the logistical complexities introduced by contemporary urban living arrangements. You may allow your community to have machines, internal combustion engines, even electricity if you wish. The important thing is that they cannot count on receiving much outside assistance, nor can they take their standard of living for granted. They depend on their own efforts and on the land around them to supply them with their daily requirements.<br />
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Let no one in your community be known to you. In fact, remove them as far as possible from all familiarity. Set them in the distant past, the remote future, or perhaps even on another world. You may wish to endow them with a coat of fur or some other exotic feature, the more so to distance their mere humanity from your own. It goes without saying that you cannot speak their language. Finally, imagine yourself as an invisible man, a secret anthropologist projected into their midst, able to observe them but capable in no wise of interfering with them or even making your presence known. It is true that much of their culture and conversation will be lost upon you, for you will never participate in their mysteries or catch the nuances of their speech; but precisely due to this lack of involvement on your part, the pure and essential facts concerning your subjects—their basic characters and the power relationships that exist between them—will stand forth, bold and denuded of all the attachments and ironies that so complicate such analyses in our own world; and you will see their hearts, perceiving therein the substance, logic, and effects of all their actions, as solid and algebraic as brick-masonry.<br />
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Now whom would you call the ‘good men’ in your community?—not merely the ‘successful’ men, as if we were describing the dominant animals in the herd, but the truly good men? They are none other but the ones who bring order to the sprawling life around them. They are the ones who patiently instruct their children in all the important matters of life and conduct, not permitting them to deviate into base habits. They are the ones who order the work of the community, accurately foreseeing distant exigencies, appointing to each member some useful task that lies within the range of his skill, managing all with a wisdom that takes account of the complex interrelations between means and ends. The chiefest among them take thought for the welfare of the entire community and provide for its defense: some representing its interests in the world abroad; some judging cases and mediating disputes at home; while others of a different kind offer fitting sacrifices to the God in the temple, blessing the people and making atonement for their sins, exhorting them to remember those eternal things upon which their continued existence depends, and teaching them to live justly in the sight of the Lord. In other words, they all act like <i>fathers,</i> these good men, taking responsibility to see to it that what needs to be done, is done. They are empowered, each according to his level and his office, with a dignity of command, a sort of prescient beneficence such that disobedience to them seems both a crime and a folly, while obedience to them is revealed as righteousness.<br />
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But this power to command is not gotten for nothing; for the leader-man is not permitted to keep his ease or to amuse himself, or to follow his fancies wherever they may lead. He must develop a sort of immunity to ordinary pleasures and pains, must direct his mind toward the things which are higher than himself, and become grave. He must go forth from his comfort to wrestle with the Nothing, the Chaos; for his task is to make sure that his domain adheres to a form of justice which exists nowhere as a material fact but as spirit and contemplation only; a form, moreover, whose inexorable demands endlessly summon him to remake the life around him according to its fashion, while that very life in its wantonness is forever slumping and slipping away from it. So the leader must deny himself and take up his cross. He must knit himself together with cords of iron, shunning any affection, society, fame, or pleasure that threatens to interfere with his purpose. He must become competent at discerning spiritual things; and the things he comes to understand are things he must give away, dispensing incarnate wisdom in the form of edicts, corrections, reproofs, and punishments. He must hold aloof from all that is lesser than he, unless he worketh his love upon it so that it may come up higher. Above all he must strive to bring all things to perfection, such that the community lives in and through the strength of his spirit, feeding off his wisdom and his courage. He must break and divide himself and pour himself out in offering, sanctifying the world around him with lordly acts of chivalry and condescension. And <i>that</i> is masculine compassion. It is like heaven kneeling down to embrace the earth.<br />
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Surely such chivalry deserves the name of ‘master.’ Surely it can insist on its right to command, its right to be obeyed. But there will be some who say that this is not compatible with what they’ve been taught about goodness. They will say that the good man is humble, that he does not care to impose his will upon others. They will point to the figure of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, and telling them that he who wishes to be the greatest among them must be the servant of all. And to these objections I say: Exactly! Commanding is the highest form of service that there is. For who is it who carries more cares, does more work, is more anxious for the future, is more solicitous for the wellbeing of others besides himself, after the manner of servants: the father of many children, or the children playing within his tents? Obviously it is the father. And which of these can truly be said to be the “greatest among them:” the children or the father? Again it is the father; for the children derive their protection, their nourishment, and everything else they possess—and indeed even their very existence—from him. And again, who is it who more carefully attends to a company’s bottom line, or who watches over its assets and husbands its resources more closely: the owner of the company or the wageworker? And who is willing to lay down his life for the sheep: the shepherd or the hireling? But clearly the father who provides for his children has the right to command the ways of their upbringing, lest his work be all wasted when they grow up to become dissolute knaves. Clearly the company owner, who provides his workmen with a living wage, has the right to order their work so that the company does not go bankrupt, and nobody receive a wage. So it is nothing contradictory to suggest that the prerogatives of command are attached to, and even inseparable from, the concept of service. And in response to those who would now reply that I am simply employing a creative use of words here, a kind of obscurantist newspeak which means the opposite of what it says, when I equate lordship with service, let me simply ask you this: Is there any greater <i>disservice</i> a father can do his children than to not raise them properly? Is their any greater <i>disservice</i> that a general can do to his army than to leave them leaderless at the approach of battle? Indeed, to serve by leading is simply an elaboration of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Who but a father proves himself ‘neighbor’ to his children?<br />
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So much suffices to describe our good men. Now we must turn our attention to some of the bad men in the community. Certainly some of them will be bullies, abusers, molesters, liars, shucksters, cowards, and dandies. Some of them will be intemperate, drunk, quarrelsome, lazy, and good for nothing. Among the most notable of bad men will be those who appropriate the powers of some office to themselves but are incapable of discharging the duties thereof, being interested only in the amenities of rank and the freedom that their station affords them to indulge their crude appetites. But about these types of men we need no further warnings. All of human culture and human history are already full of admonitions and excoriations concerning them, so there is no need to say much more about them here. These men are <i>obviously</i> bad. They suffer from glaring defects which are difficult to miss, but which they could quite possibly correct if they were willing to work hard at it. I would like to talk instead about the men whose badness is not so obvious, but is all the more insidious for that.<br />
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“The corruption of the best is the worst,” said Aristotle; and as is so often the case with Aristotle, nobody can argue with that. Therefore, as we survey the ranks of bad and worthless men falling like flakes of detritus down through our society, we ought to pay special attention to those who are not content with merely corrupting themselves, but are intent on ruining all who follow them. These are the men who pretend to be fathers, but who drag everything down to a lower level rather than raising it up. They are not hard to discover, these false fathers and pseudo-males, especially when you are quite detached from all inward involvement with their society. You will know them by their low standards, by their immodest refusal to put on that dignity which the good of their community requires them to assume. You will see them walking about among the masses, shamelessly fraternizing with the very people whom they are supposed to command, dissolving that pathos of distance without which there can be no respect for any authority whatsoever. In their upside down system of values they call this being compassionate, although in reality compassion has nothing to do with it. It is more a type of theatrical production, a certain <i>persona</i> they affect, which has its root in their codependent personalities. They seem to have had it impressed upon them one too many times, perhaps through pious-sounding phrases which are innocuous enough in themselves, how generous the “good” man is when it comes to helping the poor, how the “good” man will take the shirt off his own back to clothe the poor, etc. But being natural drama-queens themselves, they focus all their attention solely on the <i>performance</i> of the action. They know that such charitable acts—especially the more visible and melodramatic varieties thereof—are already lauded throughout the wide world, and far be it from them to forsake so ready and eager an audience. What be it to them if they lose a <i>shirt,</i> when in return they gain the adulation of the masses that they so slavishly crave? Yet in their continuing quest for popularity they find that they must stoop to ever more and more absurd levels of self-abasement, as if the value of charity consisted not in lifting up the dignity of a fellow man but in disencumbering oneself of one’s own. Any negative consequences they experience as a result of their foolishness—from the ruination of their fortune to the loss of their children’s respect—these they count as a burnt offering made unto God, a further proof of their sincere generosity and their attunement to a spiritual reality perceptible to no inner eye but their own. Thus they gradually lose contact with all real life and sobriety. Their very faculties for understanding actuality become corroded through chronic exposure to the dissipation they call charity and the self-indulgence they call compassion. So here we see a man pretending to be a father, even though—in fever-fits and mad iconoclasms—he is busy destroying both the fruits and the nature of fatherhood wherever he can find them; and there we see him pretending to be a leader, even though his only “leadership” consists in exhorting others to imitate his own vicious sentiments as he drums them down a path that tends to the destruction of all virtues, and ends with both him and his flock shipwrecked in the very abyss of hell. Here, my friends, we see a being who is consumed with the most strident pride, who amplifies the miseries of the world to gain the cheers of the gallery; and who does all this, moreover, under the astonishing supposition that he is being <i>humble!</i><br />
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It is quite a sad spectacle to behold, even among a tribe of hairy-backed foreigners. Yet if this was the uppermost limit of the devastation we might still be compelled to overlook it, however much we pitied the children of such a man, however much we might wish to break our anthropological silence and extend a helping hand to his poor, deluded followers. We may regard it all as a necessary aberration which must be allowed to persist if real charity is to exist in the world. But unfortunately the damage does not stop there; for, you must understand, the pseudo-man’s kabuki theater is not a one-man play. Besides himself he always requires the presence of some wretch to serve as his counter-pole and the object of all his theatrical compassion. Therefore he not only makes a habit of consorting with all manner of undesirables, he soon presses his preference for them to the utmost extremes of irony. This is why, after exalting the common man and trumpeting his ordinary accomplishments, he proceeds to cultivate an especial affinity for the truly stupid. After making an ostentatious display of “mercy” and “understanding” for some notorious ne’er-do-well, he deigns to excuse all criminals from their crimes and absolve them from their punishments. When unwelcome immigrants start showing up in troublesome numbers, he can ever be found among them crowing about “our universal humanity,” the better to show off his broad-minded cosmopolitanism. Saddest to see, perhaps, are the concessions he makes to the enemies of his own country and creed. Not only does he disgracefully praise their good qualities in the public places, but he actively undermines his own people by carping ceaselessly on their supposed faults while remembering none of their virtues. Perhaps there is no need to see any more. At the conclusion of our observations we are tempted to say that these false men, whatever their ostensible motives might be, yet show every sign of being nothing but small, jealous creatures, prideful to a fault and sore contemptuous of all that is not devoted to their worship. Although they advance their whole program under the banner of kindness, liberality, and disinterested care for the world, they have done little more than to re-baptize old villainies as the virtues of a new, enlightened age—and that is <i>NOT</i> masculine compassion. It is the very opposite thereof.<br />
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Let us jog on back to our world, the real world, now that our excursion into alternative society has (hopefully) furnished us with some new eyes wherewith to comprehend our own situation more clearly. Who are the false men of here and now that we must beware of? Who are those seducers and deceivers of the people who make great shows of their compassion, but inwardly are filled with bile and the nastiest sort of cunning? We know them at once to be the liberals, socialists, Democrats, internationalists, environmentalists, and other professional mourners who use their twisted sense of morality as cover for their devious power-grabs. And it is not a new discovery, that this is so. The same, or similar, point(s) have been made by others, sometimes at greater length and with more artfulness than what I have done. George Orwell, for instance, owes his enduring fame to several not dissimilar observations, which he largely confined to the political sphere.<br />
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My field is otherwise. Before I leave off and commit this essay to the fickle winds of public digest, I would have it known that every charge, every criticism, every rebuke I’ve here laid down, I mean to stick squarely to the foreheads of the Roman Catholic clergy and the mindless dolts who follow them. These are the falsest of false fathers, these pedophile priests, illegal immigrant lovers, world-development enthusiasts, ecumenists, labor union agitators, pacifists, and progressivist punks. They are far worse than any ordinary Leftist, for they have taken the best, noblest, and truest religion—the only religion established by Christ for the salvation of mankind, the Roman Catholic Church—and turned in to another of their fetid illusionist hives. The corruption of the best is the worst. If there are any who still maintain that disaster did not strike with the Second Vatican Council, let them compare the “masculinity” of the churchmen 100 years ago with their counterparts today. Compare the thoughts, writings, gravity, and mien of Pope St. Pius X with, say, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, current president of the USCCB. Compare clerical <em><strong>authority…</strong></em><br />
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…with clerical <em><strong>buffoonery.</strong></em><br />
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Who is the real man here? Which of these would you rather have leading you through the Valley of the Shadow of Death: St. Pius X, who did confront and withstand all heresies, or Timothy Dolan, cheesehead and idiot? The choice seems clear to me. I hereby warn all Catholics everywhere that to follow such men (as Dolan) is dangerous. I warn the clergy that they are leading vast numbers of souls down the easy paths into hell. I admonish everyone to turn themselves around and embrace the faith of our fathers, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, as it was constituted prior to Vatican II. And I warn you that failure to do this will result in you falling into the pit that is bottomless, there to burn for all eternity. I tell you this to raise you up, to save your soul.<br />
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And that, too, is masculine compassion.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-6880204747127013302011-05-15T22:14:00.017-06:002011-05-16T00:25:59.331-06:00Fisking Bishop Conley<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have never attempted a “<a href="http://www.blogger.com/”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking”">fisking</a>” before; but the never-ending stream of garbage coming out of Catholic newspapers, blogs, chanceries, and even the Vatican itself these days, has led me to the conclusion that I need to develop a certain competency with that particular literary form. I have unfortunately picked a monster to begin with. Below the asterisks is the first of a three-part series by James Conley, Auxiliary Bishop of Denver, in which he purports to explain the necessity for the new English-language missal. The original text can be found at the website of the <i>Denver Catholic Register</i>, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/”http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/6003”">here.</a> A shorter rendition of the same material can be read in the PDF version of the newspaper’s print edition, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/”http://www.archden.org/repository//Documents/DCR/2011/DCR_05-11-11_website.pdf”">here.</a> It was the shorter version I originally intended to fisk, but I was unable to copy and paste the text from the PDF. Therefore I have undertaken to destroy the longer version—I apologize in advance for the tedium. A word about the format of the succeeding criticism: In proper fisking fashion, I have left the Bishop’s own words in plain text. My interposed comments will be rendered in <span style="color: red;">[red bracketed text].</span> The article will begin beneath the line of asterisks and will end with another such line, after which I will append a few concluding remarks. May God have mercy on this work and use it for the glory of His kingdom and the restoration of His Church. Amen.<br />
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************<br />
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<br />
<b>‘A Universe Brimming with Fruitful Spiritual Life’: Reflecting Transcendence in the Liturgy</b><br />
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<i>Most Rev. James D. Conley, S.T.L., Auxiliary <span style="color: red;">[sic]</span> Bishop of Denver, delivered the following address during the Midwest Theological Forum in Valparaiso, Indiana on April 25, 2011.</i><br />
<br />
I want to begin our conversation by recounting a story a friend told me recently.<br />
<br />
During Lent this year, my friend’s parish started the worthy custom of praying the <i>Sanctus</i> and <i>Agnus Dei</i> in Latin<span style="color: red;">.[How wonderful. Liturgical Latin revived as a quaint custom. Tell me, why were they ever prayed in any other language in the first place?]</span> My friend is in his early 50s and we converted to the Catholic Church around the same time during our college years, through a classical “Great Books” program, which included the study of Latin. <span style="color: red;">[So you admit that a classical education is profitable for conversions]</span> He and his wife taught their children Latin at an early age and they sent their children to a private Catholic school where they prayed these prayers in Latin every day at Mass. <span style="color: red;">[Good for them.]</span> <br />
<br />
But he and his family were by far the exception at his parish, which is a big, suburban parish made up mainly of young families. He looked around one Sunday and noticed that only his family and some of the older parishioners were praying the Latin. Everybody else looked a little confused.<span style="color: red;"> [Is it not the job of the clergy to educate the laity on such arcane matters as, oh, the Liturgical language and principal prayers of the Mass?]</span><span style="color: black;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">T</span>his story gives us some important context for our conversation this evening.<br />
<br />
The “new Mass” is almost a half-century old now. A generation of Catholics has grown up knowing only the Novus Ordo. <span style="color: red;">[Do they know nothing of the Church’s history?]</span> I would venture to bet that many younger Catholics have no idea that the prayers we say at Mass are translated from an authoritative Latin text. <span style="color: red;">[if true, an inexcusable oversight on the part of the Bishops.]</span><br />
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In Advent, we are going to introduce a major new English translation of the Mass with the third typical edition of the Roman Missal.<span style="color: red;"> [Another one?]</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What are Catholics in the pews going to make of the changes in the words they pray and the words they hear the priest praying? Will the changes make any difference in their experience of the Mass? In the way they worship? In the way they live their faith in the world?<span style="color: red;">[If the Novus Ordo had been as innocuous as you say, there would be no need for a new translation to “make a difference." In fact it would be scandalous if there was.]</span><br />
<br />
These are important questions. And the answers are going to depend a lot on you and me.<br />
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This new edition of the Missal is the Church’s gift to our generation. It restores the ancient understanding of the Eucharist as a sacred mystery. It renews the vertical dimension of the liturgy — as a spiritual sacrifice that we offer in union with the sacrifice that our heavenly High Priest celebrates unceasingly in the eternal liturgy.<br />
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<span style="color: red;">[The above paragraph is pure gobbledygook. In the first place, this is no “gift” to our generation. It is the imposition of yet another distorted Mass in place of the traditional Latin Mass which had worked just fine for centuries prior. Restoring the Latin Mass—now that would be a gift! In the second place, the ancients did not understand the Eucharist as a “sacred mystery.” They understood it in the same way the true Church has always understood it—as making visible Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, the only pure and unblemished sacrifice in the world. In the third place, the talk about a “vertical dimension” to the liturgy is nothing but obscurantist phenomenological JP2 newspeak. And in the fourth place, Bishop Conley’s final sentence fragment makes neither grammatical nor theological sense. The Eucharist is not a spiritual sacrifice—it is the sacrifice of Calvary, plain and simple. Our heavenly High Priest does not sacrifice himself for us unceasingly in heaven—he is transfigured and impassible. Finally, we do no offer any sacrifices at all. It is Jesus Christ who offers himself through the person of the priest. Nothing we have to offer could possibly affect our salvation.]</span><br />
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In order for the Church to realize the full potential of this gift, it is vital that we understand why we need this new translation. <span style="color: red;">[We would need it only if there was something wrong with the old one—an implicit admission that the old one was no good.]</span> The changes are not superficial ritualism. There is a deep liturgical and theological aesthetic at work. And we need to grasp the “spirit” and “inner logic” underlying these translations.<br />
<br />
This is what I want to talk about with you this evening.<br />
<br />
As a starting-point, I thought it would be useful to return to the “scene of the crime” so to speak — that is, to the introduction of the Novus Ordo.<br />
<br />
Let me say up front: I’m joking here, sort of! I know that some people still talk about the Novus Ordo as if it was a crime. <span style="color: red;">[It was.]</span> I have close and dear friends who feel this way. I can understand their frustration. And I’ll talk about that more in a minute.<br />
<br />
But I want to be clear: I was ordained a priest and a bishop in the Novus Ordo. I have spent my entire priesthood praying this Mass with deep reverence. Although I have a great love and appreciation for the Tridentine Rite and I am called upon to celebrate this form of the Mass from time to time, I believe the Novus Ordo is a result of the ongoing organic development of the Roman liturgy. <span style="color: red;">[There can be no development of the Liturgy, “organic” or otherwise. The liturgy was laid down once and for all by Jesus himself at the Last Supper, and was codified for us by Pope St. Pius V at the Council of Trent in the bull <i>Quo Primum</i>. The Latin rite predates the Council of Trent by at least 1000 years. In all that time there has been no organic development. Perhaps the Novus Ordo is one of those 1500-year cicadas?]</span><br />
<br />
I do think it’s important for us, however, to recall the “culture shock” caused by the Novus Ordo back when it was first introduced. <span style="color: red;">[Lamentably there was not enough culture shock to save us from it.] </span>That helps us better understand the concerns and purposes of this new edition of the Missal.<br />
<br />
To illustrate what I mean about “culture shock,” I want to recall the experience of Evelyn Waugh, the author of <i>Brideshead Revisited</i> and the <i>Sword of Honor trilogy</i>, among other memorable works. Waugh was a brilliant novelist and essayist. He was a convert to the Catholic Church and he was not bashful about speaking his mind on what he thought was wrong in the Church. We converts can be like that!<br />
<br />
And make no mistake: Waugh thought the Church had a made a wrong turn at the Second Vatican Council.<br />
<br />
In his correspondence and writings in the Catholic press, Waugh was most disturbed about the Council’s plans for liturgical reform. The reformers, he complained, were “a strange alliance between archeologists absorbed in their speculations on the rites of the second century, and modernists who wish to give the Church the character of our own deplorable epoch.”<span style="color: red;"> [Note Bishop Conley does not bother to refute this characterization.]</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Waugh certainly had a way with words, didn’t he? And here, as in so many cases, he was razor-keen in his insight.<br />
<br />
His worst fears came to pass when the Mass was finally introduced in the vernacular. In early 1965, he wrote to a friend: “Every attendance at Mass leaves me without comfort or edification. … Church-going is now a bitter trial.”<br />
<br />
He complained often — as did many others — that the Novus Ordo stripped the Mass of its ancient beauty and destroyed the liturgy’s contact with heavenly realities. Waugh for one, never recovered from the shock. He would say things like: “The Vatican Council has knocked the guts out of me,” and “I shall not live to see things righted.”<br />
<br />
Waugh’s end reads like something out of one of his novels.<br />
<br />
On Easter 1966, he asked a Jesuit friend to say a Latin Mass for him and a handful of his friends and family at a private chapel near his home. People later remarked that Waugh seemed at peace for the first time since the Council. About an hour after the Mass, he collapsed and died.<br />
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It was a dramatic ending to a fascinating and complicated life. <span style="color: red;">[How could you miss the import of a story like that? Yet like the scribes and Pharisees, Bishop Conley fails, and fails utterly, to read the signs of the times.]</span><br />
<br />
The lesson I want to draw here is this: Evelyn Waugh was on to something. He sensed that something had gone awry. <span style="color: red;">[Yes, it was called Vatican II.]</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But he was wrong not to trust the Holy Spirit’s guidance of the Pope, the Church and the Council fathers if, in fact, he did begin to despair with the direction the Church was headed. God in his kind providence spared him the experience of much of the post-conciliar silliness and the gross liberties taken with the liturgy. <span style="color: red;">[Now the Bishop has devolved into pure blasphemy. How could the Holy Spirit be responsible for a reform which resulted in so much chaos and lost 75% of the Church?]</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Novus Ordo is an organic development of the Church’s ancient liturgical rites and traditions. It is a genuine sign of Christ’s faithfulness to his promise — that his Spirit would guide the Church into all the truth and would glorify him in all things. <span style="color: red;">[Attributing the works of Satan to the Holy Ghost is an unforgivable sin.]</span> <br />
<br />
But the new does not replace the old in the Church. <span style="color: red;">[At Vatican II, it did.]</span> There is always continuity and not rupture when it comes to the authentic development of doctrine — and also when it comes to the authentic development of the liturgy. <span style="color: red;">[Authentic doctrine cannot develop. The deposit of faith was sealed with the death of the Apostles. That goes for liturgy, too.]</span> <br />
<br />
I believe our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, like Pope John Paul II before him, has given us a healthy way to think about the relationship between the Novus Ordo and what Benedict calls the forma extraordinaria. <span style="color: red;">[The traditional Latin Mass which held for 15 centuries is now “extraordinary?”] </span>They are not two distinct liturgical rites. They are two expressions of the one Roman rite.<span style="color: red;"> [What sort of nonsense is this? One rite needs only one expression. If the other one is not superfluous then it is different. If it is different, it is defective.]</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I said, I have great love and appreciation for the Tridentine, or “extraordinary form” of the Mass. But I also see how the ordinary form, the Novus Ordo, has nourished and sanctified the spiritual lives of countless souls over the past 40 plus years. <span style="color: red;">[25% Mass attendance? Catechetical crisis? Pedophile priests? Parish closures?]</span> It has helped the Church to rediscover the Eucharist as the source and summit of our lives.<span style="color: red;"> [This exactly contradicts what you said earlier about the need for a new translation.]</span> And we cannot forget that this Mass nourished the spiritual lives of two great figures of our generation — Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the soon-to-be Blessed John Paul II. <span style="color: red;">[Two heterodox Catholic “Blesseds” attested with dubious miracles.]</span><br />
<br />
And yet<span style="color: red;">.[Bishop Conley, your two-word, once-sentence paragraphs are making my HTML coding unnecessarily difficult. If you must take theology lessons from Rob Bell, could you at least refrain from taking writing lessons from him also?]</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And yet I think many of us would agree with Waugh on this point: Something has been lost. Something of the beauty and grandeur of the liturgy. Something of the reverence, the mystery, the sense of the transcendent. <span style="color: orange;"><span style="color: red;">[You don’t say?]</span> </span>This has been a persistent criticism since the Council — and not only from so-called traditionalists.<br />
<br />
But I can’t agree with those who blame the Novus Ordo or the vernacular. This answer is too facile. <span style="color: red;">[Oh, please! A subtle <i>ad hominem</i> from a man of your station? Yes, you’re right. It is just so utterly <i>facile</i> to think that changing the language and rubrics of the Mass somehow altered the character thereof. Silly me. What do languages and rubrics matter?] </span><br />
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The problem has been with the way the New Mass has sometimes been understood and implemented. <span style="color: red;">[Certainly that can have nothing to do with the language or the rubrics now, can it?]</span> <br />
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I, along with not a few friends, have had the unfortunate experience that Pope Benedict has described in his 2007 "Letter to the Bishops of the world" when he issued his Apostolic Letter, <i>Summorum Pontificum</i>, on the use of the Roman Liturgy prior to the Reforms of 1970:<br />
<br />
“In many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear. I am speaking from experience … I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church.”<br />
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Again, the problem is not the Novus Ordo — but the license that people sometimes take in celebrating it. <span style="color: red;">[A situation which the Bishops could have amended with the stroke of a pen had they shown the slightest interest in doing so.] </span><br />
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I would add that another big part of the problem has been the translations we’ve been using. <span style="color: red;">[So I guess language does have something to do with it. Never mind the fact that you cannot really “translate” anything. Every translation must necessarily be a paraphrase.]</span> <br />
<br />
There is a banal, pedestrian quality to much of the language in our current liturgy. <span style="color: red;">[What happened to your beloved “organic development?”]</span> The weakness in the language gets in the way and prevents us from experiencing the sublime spiritual and doctrinal ideas woven into the fabric of the liturgy.<br />
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The translators had well-meaning pastoral intentions. <span style="color: red;">[Which evidently included deceiving and insulting the flock.]</span> They wanted to make the liturgy intelligible and relevant to modern Catholics. <span style="color: red;">[An expedient which no other generation required.]</span> To that end, they employed a translation principle they called “dynamic equivalence.”<br />
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In practice, this led them to produce an English translation that in many places is essentially a didactic paraphrase of the Latin. <span style="color: red;">[What else could it be?]</span> In the process, the language of our Eucharistic worship — so rich in scriptural allusion, poetic metaphor and rhythmic repetition — came to be flattened out and dumbed down.<br />
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Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra, Australia has observed that our current translation “consistently bleaches out metaphor, which does scant justice to the highly metaphoric discourse” of the liturgy.<span style="color: red;"> [Save the words ‘metaphor’ and ‘discourse’ for the Humanities department.]</span> <br />
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This describes the problem well.<br />
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Archbishop Coleridge, by the way, is a translator by training. He headed the committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) that produced the new translation we will begin using in Advent.<br />
<br />
He has pointed out serious theological difficulties with our current translations, including problems related to ecclesiology and the theology of grace.<span style="color: red;"> [So how can you honestly maintain that the previous Novus Ordo translation was licit?]</span> <br />
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The key point here is that the words we pray matter. What we pray makes a difference in what we believe. Our prayer has implications for how we grasp the saving truths that are communicated to us through the liturgy.<br />
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For instance, our current translation almost always favors abstract nouns to translate physical metaphors for God. If the Latin prayer refers to the “face” of God, “face” will be translated in abstract conceptual terms, such as “presence.” References to God’s “right hand” will be translated as God’s “power.” <br />
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This word choice has deep theological implications. <br />
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The point of the Son of God becoming flesh is that God now has a human face — the face of Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Whoever sees him sees the Father. <br />
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Yet if in our worship we speak of God only in abstract terms, then effectively we are undermining our faith in the Incarnation. <span style="color: red;">[A rather serious charge to lay at the feet of an “organically developed” Mass. You heard it here, folks: Bishop Conley admits the Novus Ordo undermines faith in the Incarnation.]</span> <br />
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As Archbishop Coleridge says: “The cumulative effect [of abandoning human metaphors for God] is that the sense of the Incarnation is diminished. God himself seems more abstract and less immediate than ever he does in Scripture or the Church Fathers.” <br />
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I want to say this again: I don’t believe there were bad motives involved in the translations we have now. <span style="color: red;">[No, of course not. Presumably the Holy Spirit, who is supposed to prevent theological error from creeping into the Mass, was simply negligent in His duties.]</span> <br />
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I think the root problem with the translations we have now is that the translators seriously misunderstood the nature of the divine liturgy. <span style="color: red;">[And now we are supposed to trust that these rubes have corrected their own errors?] </span><br />
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Our current translations treat the liturgy basically as a tool for doing catechesis. That’s why our prayers so often sound utilitarian and didactic; often they have a kind of lowest-common-denominator type of feel. That’s because the translators were trying to make the “message” of the Mass accessible to the widest possible audience.<span style="color: red;"> [It was never their job to mess with it.]</span></span><br />
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But Christ did not give us the liturgy to be a message-delivery system. Of course, we pray what we believe, and what we pray shapes what we believe. <i>Lex orandi, lex credendi.</i> But the liturgy is not meant to “teach” in the same way that a catechism teaches, or even in the same way that a homily teaches.<br />
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On this point, the words of the great liturgical pioneer<span style="color: red;">[?]</span>, Father Romano Guardini, are worth hearing again<span style="color: red;">:[Christ is the only liturgical “pioneer.” Anyone else who tried such a thing is a heretic. I guarantee that Msgr. Guardini thought of himself in no such way.]</span> <br />
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<i>The liturgy wishes to teach, but not by means of an artificial system of aim-conscious educational influences. It simply creates an entire spiritual world in which the soul can live according to the requirements of its nature. ….<br />
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The liturgy creates a universe brimming with fruitful spiritual life, and allows the soul to wander about in it at will and to develop itself there. ….<br />
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The liturgy has no purpose, or at least, it cannot be considered from the standpoint of purpose. It is not a means which is adapted to attain a certain end — it is an end in itself.</i><br />
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This is the authentic spirit of the liturgy.<br />
<br />
As Guardini says, the liturgy aims to create a new world for believers to dwell in. A sanctified world where the dividing lines between the human and the divine are erased.<span style="color: red;"> [This is utterly false. It indicates some sort of pantheistic or polytheistic thinking, both of which are heretical.] </span>Guardini’s vision is beautiful: “The liturgy creates a universe brimming with fruitful spiritual life.” <br />
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The new translation of the Mass restores this sense of the liturgy as transcendent and transformative. It restores the sacramentality to our liturgical language. <span style="color: red;">[Another meaningless phrase. Liturgical language is not itself sacramental; it is not a repository of magic formulae. But if, by the Bishop’s own admission, the previous translation was not “sacramental,” what of the validity of those Masses?]</span> The new translation reflects the reality that our worship here joins in the worship of heaven.<br />
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The new edition of the Missal seeks to restore the ancient sense of our participation in the cosmic liturgy. <br />
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The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of the Eucharist bringing us into the heavenly Jerusalem to worship in the company of angels and saints. The Book of Revelation starts with St. John celebrating the Eucharist on a Sunday. In the midst of this, the Spirit lifts him up to show him the eternal liturgy going on in heaven.<br />
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The message is clear: The Church’s liturgy is caught up in the liturgy of the cosmos. And our Eucharistic rites have always retained this vision of the cosmic liturgy. <span style="color: red;">[Always, that is, except when bad translations ruined for 50 years at a time, requiring even more translations, etc.]</span> <br />
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The <i>Gloria</i> and the <i>Sanctus</i> are two obvious points of contact. In the first, we sing the song that the angels sang at the Nativity. In the latter, we sing in unison with the angelic choirs in heaven; we sing the song that both St. John and the prophet Isaiah heard being sung in the heavenly liturgy. <br />
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The oldest of our Eucharistic Prayers, the Roman Canon, lists the names of the 12 apostles along with 12 early saints. This is meant to correspond to the 24 elders who John saw worshipping around the heavenly altar. <br />
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The Roman Canon also includes a prayer for the holy angels to bring the sacrifices from our altar up to God’s altar in heaven.<br />
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And of course the Communion Rite includes the Vulgate’s translation of the invitation that St. John heard in the heavenly liturgy: Blessed are those who are called to the Supper of the Lamb. <br />
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Yet we need to recognize that this experience of the heavenly liturgy has been lost since Vatican II. <span style="color: red;">[Argument by spurious apposition. How twisted can one train of logic get?]</span> <br />
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This loss is reflected — I’m tempted to say abetted — by our current translation. For the last 40 years we have erased this heavenly reference in the Communion Rite with our bland translation: Happy are those who are called to his Supper.<br />
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Again: the words we pray matter. What we pray makes a difference in what we believe.<br />
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The Mass is truly a partaking in the worship that St. John saw around the throne and the altar of God. This is not a beautiful idea, but a sacred reality.<br />
<br />
This is the teaching of the New Testament, the Church Fathers, the Second Vatican Council, and the Catechism, which contains numerous references to the heavenly liturgy.<br />
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And for years now, Pope Benedict XVI has been urging the Church to reclaim this appreciation of the cosmic liturgy, to reclaim our great liturgical patrimony. <span style="color: red;">[The Pope “urges” the Church to reclaim its own theology? Why doesn’t he simply command it?]</span> <br />
<br />
I want to underline these words of the Holy Father: “The essential matter of all Eucharistic liturgy is its participation in the heavenly liturgy. It is from thence that it necessarily derives its unity, its catholicity, and its universality.” <span style="color: red;">[‘Universality’ and ‘catholicity’ mean the same thing. ‘Unity’ is redundant in this context. Here you see a typical example of Ratzinger’s much touted “brilliance.”]</span> <br />
<br />
The essential matter of our Eucharist is its participation in the liturgy of heaven. In other words: that’s what the Eucharist is all about. The Eucharist we celebrate on earth has its source in the heavenly liturgy. And the heavenly liturgy is the summit to which our Eucharistic celebration looks.<br />
<br />
Yet how many of our people in the pews — how many of our priests at the altar — feel that they are being lifted up to partake in the heavenly liturgy?<span style="color: red;"> [And who but clergy are to blame for that?]</span> <br />
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This is why this new translation is so important. <span style="color: red;">[Yes, because the first attempt to make the eternal liturgy relevant to the unique needs of modern man failed, we must have a second attempt.]</span> <br />
<br />
I want to look briefly now at some of the changes in this new translation. I want to meditate on these changes and suggest some ways in which these changes might enhance our appreciation of the essential transcendent dimension of the liturgy.<br />
<br />
Many of the changes are small and subtle — but even in these we can sense a shift.<br />
<br />
For instance: in one of the forms introducing the Penitential Rite, the priest will now pray: “You are seated at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us.” Currently, of course, we pray: “You plead for us at the right hand of the Father.”<br />
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What’s the big difference?<br />
<br />
The new translation lifts our gaze to heaven and asks us to contemplate Christ seated at the right hand of the Father and there interceding for us.<br />
<br />
By contrast, the translation we have now aims to be didactic and efficient. It scrubs the metaphor and hence the vision of our Lord in heaven. It opts instead to give us information about what Jesus is doing for us.<br />
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The original Latin — <i>ad déxteram Patris sedes, ad interpellándum pro nobis </i>— combines two quotations from the Letter to the Hebrews. And it’s not just a random allusion to the Vulgate. It was chosen quite deliberately from Hebrews’ meditation on Christ’s heavenly high priesthood.<br />
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In the New Testament, to be “seated at the right hand” describes Christ’s divine power and authority. By removing the metaphorical reference to his being seated, our current translation weakens our prayer. This sense of weakness is reinforced by the decision to translate <i>interpellándum</i> by the word “plead” — which in common English usage suggests an inferior or powerless position.<br />
<br />
In restoring a faithful translation of the Latin, the new Missal redirects our worship toward heaven. We pray, confident in our Father’s mercy, knowing we are in contact with our High Priest — who “is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,” and “always lives to make intercession” for us. <span style="color: red;">[I thought the purpose of the Mass was <i>not</i> to do catechesis.]</span> <br />
<br />
Another example is the epiclesis in Eucharistic Prayer II. <span style="color: red;">[The new rite needs multiple Eucharistic prayers. Apparently one isn’t good enough.]</span> <br />
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Currently we pray:<br />
<br />
Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.<br />
<br />
The new translation restores the repetitive language and the biblical metaphor found in the Latin text:<br />
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Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.<br />
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Restoring the Latin here gives us a much richer prayer. <span style="color: red;">[Restoring the Latin everywhere would give us our Mass back. What’s the holdup?]</span> It also stresses that the liturgy is not our work, but the work of God, who sends down his Spirit from heaven.<br />
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The key word is “dewfall,” <i>rore</i> in the Latin. It is a poetic metaphor that is filled with Scriptural significance. Of course, the allusion here is to how God fed his chosen people with manna that he sent down from heaven with the morning dew. We are also meant to associate this with Christ calling the Eucharist the true manna, the true “bread which comes down from heaven.”<br />
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Again and again, this new translation reminds us how steeped our liturgical language is in the vocabulary and thought-world of sacred Scripture. <br />
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In just this epiclesis, for instance, we have not only the reference to the heavens that drop down manna with the dewfall. We also have an allusion to the sending down of the Spirit — upon the earth at creation, upon Mary at the Annunciation, Christ at his Baptism, the Church at Pentecost, and each one of our hearts at our Baptism. <br />
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Considered prayerfully, we can see that the Spirit’s action on the altar in the liturgy continues the Spirit’s work of creation and redemption in history. <br />
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We also must not forget that 80% of the prayers in the Roman Missal date before the 9th century. We have a duty to hand these treasures on faithfully and accurately.<span style="color: red;"> [Faithfully and accurately—like, in Latin, perhaps? I don’t even know how to properly ridicule absurdity of this magnitude.]</span> <br />
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Vatican II taught that every petition, prayer, hymn, liturgical sign and action draws its inspiration, substance and meaning from sacred Scripture.<span style="color: red;"> [So Vatican II went <i>sola scriptura</i>?]</span> <br />
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This is reflected in our new translations.<br />
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And this is deliberate. This is what the Vatican intended in <i>Liturgiam Authenticam,</i> the important statement of translation principles that it issued back in 2001.<br />
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I think what I like about this Vatican statement is its realism. No matter what the fads in liturgy or catechesis, the Vatican is determined to keep us “real.” <span style="color: red;">[Whatever]</span> <br />
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Liturgiam Authenticam says: “The words of the Sacred Scriptures, as well as the other words spoken in liturgical celebrations … are not intended primarily to be a sort of mirror of the interior dispositions of the faithful; rather, they express truths that transcend the limits of time and space.” <br />
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And when it comes to translating the Latin texts of the liturgy, Liturgiam Authenticam also invokes the same principles of realism. <br />
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We will be blessed, as a Church, that in this new edition of the Missal, the translators took these principles to heart.<br />
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This is important. Because the liturgy is not only an aesthetic event. It is not only about praying beautiful words. The Scriptures are the inspired Word of God. They are the Word of God in the words of human language.<br />
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In the liturgy, we are praying to God in the very words of God. And God’s Word is power. God’s Word is living and active. That means that the words we pray in the liturgy are “performative.” They are not words alone, but words that have the power to do great deeds. They are words that can accomplish what they speak of.<br />
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As priests, when we speak Christ’s words in the Eucharist — or in any of the sacraments — these words possess divine power to change and transfigure. “This is my Body … This is the chalice of my Blood.” When we speak these words by the power of the Spirit, bread and wine are marvelously changed.<br />
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The words of the liturgy are able to create “a universe brimming with spiritual life.” By these words we are summoned into the stream of salvation history. By these words we are able to offer ourselves in sacrifice to the Father, in union with Christ’s own offering of his Body and Blood. By these words we are being transformed, along with the bread and the wine on the altar. <span style="color: red;">[You’ve got to be kidding me! Here’s a new trend in Catholic theology: the transubstantiation of the congregation.]</span> We are becoming more and more changed into Christ, more and more assimilated to his life.<br />
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That’s why it is so important that we implement this new translation with a profound Eucharistic catechesis and mystagogy.<span style="color: red;"> [Catechesis again? I thought that was supposed to be out.]</span> <br />
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Through this new translation, we need to invite our brothers and sisters to know the liturgy as a mystery to be lived. As Pope Benedict has said, our Eucharistic mystagogy must inspire “an awareness that one’s life is being progressively transformed by the holy mysteries being celebrated.” <br />
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That is the great promise of this new translation and new edition of the Missal. The promise of a people nourished and transformed by the sacred mysteries they celebrate. The promise of a people who are able to offer themselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. <span style="color: red;">[This is a rather confusing conflation of the Eucharistic liturgy with Paul’s admonition concerning mortification of the flesh.]</span> A people who experience Christ living in them, as they are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. <br />
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I want to leave you with one last image. I hope it will inspire you to always celebrate the sacred liturgy with passionate intensity<span style="color: red;"> [gettin’ jiggy with it] </span>and a keen awareness of the liturgy of heaven.<br />
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One of his altar servers left us this description of how St. Josemaría Escrivá used to pray the Mass.<br />
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For [St. Josemaría], the liturgy was not a formal act but a transcendent one. Each word held a profound meaning and was uttered in a heartfelt tone of voice. He savored the concepts. … Josemaría seemed detached from his human surrounding and, as it were, tied by invisible cords to the divine. This phenomenon peaked at the moment of consecration. … Josemaría seemed to be disconnected from the physical things around him … and to be catching sight of mysterious and remote heavenly horizons.<br />
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Thank you for your attention this evening. I look forward to our conversation.<br />
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************<br />
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<br />
<b>Concluding Remarks</b><br />
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Well dear reader, I hope you did not experience as much tedium in reading that as I did in writing it. Bishop Con-job is repetitive, illogical, self-contradictory, and condescending—in short, he is a typical representative of the Novus Ordo and its entire attitude towards God and his people. Truly a more thorough refutation of his points is in order, but I hope I have managed with my pithy quips to convey some sense of the towering absurdity in which he engages. Evelyn Waugh was evidently killed of by the New Mass, but does Bishop Conley draw the moral? Waugh can no longer experience suffering, for he is in Paradise with the rest of the real Catholics. But we on earth can relate to his sensation of having the guts knocked out of him. I feel it every time I go to Mass.<br />
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Bishop Conley tells us that blaming the vernacular is too “facile,” and then proceeds himself to blame the vernacular. He tells us that the Mass is not supposed to be about catechesis, and then he tells us that it is. He tells us that we must preserve the ancient rites of the Church in the very course of justifying a new translation of the Mass. He argues by apposing baldly contradictory sentences (the common use of this technique amongst postconciliar churchmen deserves a post of its own). In short, I find his speech to be both insulting and ridiculous. <br />
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These problems would not exist if we had stuck with the Latin Mass, the Mass set down for all time in “<a href="http://www.blogger.com/”" http:="" p5quopri.htm”="" pius05="" www.papalencyclicals.net="">Quo Primum.</a> Why is modern man the only generation so stupid as to require his Mass to be explained to him in the vernacular? Why did the “organic development” of the liturgy choose to take a 1500 year vacation before springing forth with the delightful Novus Ordo, which even Bishop Con-job admits is “theologically defective?” Why did the Holy Spirit inspire a Mass so badly translated that it now requires further amendment, 50 years later. Obviously these questions have no answer, because the entire thing is a fraud. This is being done only to mask the growing awareness that the Second Vatican Council was an infidel synod which was convened to introduce destructive elements into the Church. The sooner it is forgotten about, the better. We need to support the traditional Latin Mass and traditional Catholic theology. Henceforth, that shall be the mission and purpose of this blog.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-6593227167049469262011-05-13T16:48:00.001-06:002011-05-13T16:49:10.452-06:00Google Blogger SucksAttention "Man of the West" readers (both of you -- you know who you are)!<br />
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As we all know by now, Google Blogger has been out of commission for the last day or so. This caused my two most recent posts to temporarily disappear. They have now reappeared on the blog but the 'labels' beneath each post were incorrectly displayed. When I edited the posts to fix the labels, the posts reappeared on the blog in the opposite order that I wrote them in.<br />
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I hope this hasn't caused too much confusion. Since my <i>content</i> at least is back on the blog, I'm not going to mess around editing them anymore. I hope that Google has resolved these issues, and that there will not be any more problems with additional posts. A new essay is on its way -- will be here either tonight or sometime this weekend.<br />
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Thanks,<br />
-MattMatt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-58678378980508519412011-05-13T16:34:00.000-06:002011-05-13T16:34:20.524-06:00Getting back to normalcy: How do we do that?A helpful reader, commenting anonymously, left <a href="http://manofthewest2000.blogspot.com/2011/04/problem-is-with-democracy-not-with.html#comments">this response</a> in reference to my <a href="http://manofthewest2000.blogspot.com/2011/05/with-osama-dead-911-memoir.html">9/11 Memoir</a> post. I thought his comments and questions merited more than just a quick combox response, so I beg his leave to quote them here and answer them in a new post. To wit:<br />
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<blockquote>Matt-<br />
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Great post. Years ago at BC I praised your sensibilities and eloquence when other were browbeating you and encouraged you to keep on in that direction. I'm glad you did, the results are evident.<br />
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I read with especial interest the part about the obsession with authority with regard to the Truther movement.<br />
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Your analysis is spot on with regards to the left and its dysfunctional attitude towards authority. I've always thought that nearly all of those people who put on bumper sitckers reading "Question Authority" really mean "disrespect authority". A few opportunistic, faux conservatives have made these mistakes too, albeit far fewer. However, I would have to point out that this approach is not limited to leftists on the political spectrum. A disturbing number of doctrinaire, capital "L" libertarians also share this dysfunction. <br />
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At the time of the 9/11 attacks I was a pretty out-there libertarian. The libertarians had coopted much of the neocon language about the end of history, and it seemed that the age of anarcho-capitalism was upon us and that it would be a good thing. It seemed that the left was on the ropes and that we would enter a new age, a return to the decency and normalcy you reference elsewhere in your essay. I would guess that a lot of folks with libertarian, conservative tendencies were traipsing this way - it sure seemed like it at the time.<br />
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The 9/11 attacks changed that forever for me. While I still buy into much of what libertarians tout - "bill of rights" type negative liberties, free enterprise, and limited government - I also have come to realize that the world is a dangerous, nasty place, and that some level of authority must exist in order to deal with the nastiness. And my fellow traveler libertarians were so wrapped up in their avoidance of obeying authority that they couldn't or wouldn't understand what was going on. I discovered what I should have known all along - that they were, like leftists, more interested in power and more interested in winning some imagined debate than they were in doing the right thing. It was then that I reconnected with a more true form of conservatism, and, not so surprisingly, became interested in philosophers and theologians who decried those folks more interested in what they CAN do than what they SHOULD do (in other words, doctrinaire liberals and libertarians).<br />
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My conservatism will always be laced with strong libertarian sensibilities. I guess that's just how I'm built. But the straight line stuff no longer has a hold on me.<br />
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OK, then, the question is now this. The American public, wanting a return to normalcy after 75 years of Gramscian and overt leftism, modernism, and postmodernism, is simply voting for "something different" every six or eight years in the hopes of acheiving said return (almost as if by magic), but failing each time. How do we break this cycle and get to that return? </blockquote><br />
<b>Dear Anonymous,</b><br />
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First of all, thank you very much for your kindness and encouragement. I, too, remember the days before 9/11 as a great heyday for the more philistine sorts of libertarianism. Those were the days when the tech bubble was roaring along and it seemed like the stock market could only go up. The Internet was still a relatively new phenomenon then, but it was growing by leaps and bounds. With new technological breakthroughs seemingly happening every day and a slew of popular writers touting our techno-libertarian future to the skies, it was easy to go along with the idea that humanity was turning a corner. Plus, the Greenspan Put had flooded the world with easy money; and the millennium which was then fast dawning upon us had everybody already disposed to think grand, unbridled thoughts of transcendence and progress. It felt like a time to cut loose, and people did. (Now you’ve got me thinking of writing another memoir! But not here, not yet.)<br />
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The question before us is, How do we disentangle ourselves from Gramscian Leftist agitprop and get back to normalcy? I think the answer must come in two parts. First, we ought to address what “normalcy” is. <i>What sort of background exists in the minds and attitudes of men who desire normalcy and live in normalcy?</i> That will be the first step towards a complete answer. The second step will involve outlining the sort of work that needs to be done on a daily and hourly basis in order to affect the changes we would like to see in society. It’s all connected, of course, but some explication might help to make the matter clearer.<br />
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As for what normalcy is, I would answer by saying that the idea of normalcy has an unmistakable root which can be described as either “perennial philosophy” or “real metaphysical religion.” These terms are crucial to understanding what a “normal” person wants and desires, what a “normal” government should aspire to, and so forth. Let’s take them one at a time.<br />
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<i>Perennial Philosophy:</i> By this I mean the notion that the nature of things is essentially unchangeable. All things have a nature; even “nature” has a nature; and so do human beings. The nature that a thing has defines what it is good for and what is good for it. Since our human nature does not change, the same things that were good and noble for us to do yesterday are still good and noble today. No innovation can change that which constitutes basic morality and virtue. Furthermore, the forms in which human beings live virtuously or to which they apply their virtues—families, realms, guilds, the Church—are meant to last forever. The betrayal of them is universally recognized as a failing, a sin. The perennial philosophy recommends to us how to live harmoniously with natural and supernatural nature. This is the golden quality that we recognize at once in the world’s greatest thinkers, men like Homer, Aristotle, Seneca, and Confucius. It is brought to perfection in Christ.<br />
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<i>Real Metaphysical Religion:</i> The modern world treats religion as if it were a subjective psychological phenomenon, as if its only purpose was to promote social adjustment, cooperation, politeness, and community. This is merely a modern notion, and it is both false and shallow. Religion makes no sense unless the gods are <i>real</i>. According to the traditional understanding, we worship God or gods because they are mighty beings who command both obedience and respect. They have the power to make our prayers and sacrifices efficacious. They have the power to save us or damn us. They have handed down certain rites to us by which they prefer to be worshipped, and so forth. The perennial philosophy reaches its conclusion by teaching us that the highest end of man is “contemplation,” i.e. the divine life, living and abiding in the same reality which is God Himself. All real religion aims at this goal and is worthy of respect; but we who have received the benefit of Revelation know that the goal is reached only through Christ, who is the Word made Flesh.<br />
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So the “normal” man is one who lives virtuously, who honors God through a proper attitude of worship, who is loyal to lord and kin, who preserves intact the lands and wisdom of his ancestors, and who absorbs and reflects the permanence of permanent things. This is the eternal man, the man who fulfills the end of man in accordance with man’s unchangeable nature. Obviously, he is not the modern man. The modern man recognizes no end, no God, no measure by which to judge himself except his own fickle impulses. Modern man is a gangrel creature who is throwing away his dignity and his lordship over the earth, and heaping a shame upon his head which will echo for generations down the road. But in the background of the normal man stands God, who created the man to tend His garden. This is what gives the normal man his tincture of divinity.<br />
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The second part of our question now becomes, What should the normal man “do” now that modern man has taken over the planet? How can he go back to living his normal life again in permanence and peace?<br />
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I will not attempt to offer you glib solutions, for certainly this will be a long and grueling battle which will rise to world-historical proportions and will cost many men their lives before it’s over. But that doesn’t mean that the answer isn’t straightforward—it is. We first have to win the battle for our own minds by embracing perennial philosophy and real metaphysical religion. Then we simply have to fight Gramsci inch for inch in the larger culture. This is done by setting our faces steadfast against the Left and never accepting their premises. We have to call them out, expose their lies, and let everyone see that truth and logic are on the side of perennial conservatism not Leftist innovation. We must fight them materially at the ballot box, the school board meeting, the internet comboxs and call-in radio shows. We have to stop paying attention to television, preferably by turning it off. We have to drain life away from the education establishment by sending our children to private schools, or home-schooling them. We have to elect candidates (not the candidates proffered by the existing party structure, but members of our own circle) who will bring down the welfare state and simplify the tax code. Indeed in most cases we already know what we should do, but we need to gird up our loins and do it. We will build a virtuous society by living virtuously, for the key to acquiring any skill is to begin to do those things which we will have to do once we’ve acquired it, as Aristotle says. A strong person is one who can lift a heavy weight. How can I become stronger? By lifting heavy weights.<br />
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And at this juncture, I think what we have to do most is <i>get intellectual.</i> We must endeavor to explain perennial conservatism with as much philosophical depth, poetry, and inward force of expression as we can attain. The life of a political essayist and cultural critic is always one of showing your heart to the world, of displaying for all and sundry just who you are and what you would do if you were in charge. Well, this is what we need to do. It will not only get events moving in the right direction but it will help us develop strength for when we really are in charge.<br />
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I call my blog “Man of the West” in part because I believe the Tolkienian <i>legendarium</i> provides an excellent basis for talking about tradition (another one is Frank Herbert’s <i>Dune</i>.) It is sad that the only place where you can find real virtues today is in works of fiction. But we have an excellent opportunity to take those stories and explain why they’re important, to inspire others to live up to a higher standard. I touched upon the matter in <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/03/15/what-could-go-wrong/">another Belmont Club post called “What could go wrong.”</a> If you’ll permit me to close with this, it explains somewhat passionately what we have to do:<br />
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***************<br />
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Here is my metaphorical take on the bureaucratic problem.<br />
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The films <i>Blazing Saddles</i> and <i>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</i> each make use of an ironic ending which unmakes all that came before it. Instead of bringing closure, the movie spills out into the real world and the wild cast of characters is either hauled away by police or comically juxtaposed against contemporary mores. It is perhaps the most dissatisfying type of ending a movie could have, as it mocks the transcendent possibilities of life and art. It is more like the uncomfortable <i>experience</i> of having to leave the theater than it is like the <i>cause</i> of one’s leaving the theater, as the end of a movie must be in any case. Who does not recall, as a child, being utterly uplifted by some movie which depicted acts of heroism and freedom and natural beauty; and then, with the magic of the film still suffusing your mind like an incense, being rudely deflated by the trauma of emerging from the cool dark of the cinemaplex and out into the world, where there was nothing to greet you but the noonday sun glinting of a thousand windshields, and your loud-mouth friends who couldn’t give a damn that you were just briefly in the company of God? Awakening from the sweet dream and finding that nothing has changed on <i>this</i> side of the wardrobe, you begin to resent that the parking-lot world offers so little in the way of transcendence. When that kind of ending is brought into the movie itself, you feel like your very aspiration to transcendence has been rendered ridiculous, that it was silly to ever hope for anything in the first place.<br />
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It is the task of every modern bureaucracy to always bring about the ironic ending. “They” are the bobbies who lock up the crusading heroes, the boom-and-mike intruders who trample into the picture and poison the dream. As long as the bulk of mankind still cherishes a transcendent ideal, society moves along unconsciously and the sublime things that we all know to be true are left relatively unmolested. The highest aspirations that burn in the hearts of men—aspirations for love, victory, and permanence—can find adequate expression. Certainly such a society does not turn all its inhabitants into saints, for there is much unbelief and selfishness in every era. But the <i>norms</i> are there, the paths of virtue are clearly marked out; and a man finds that whenever he desires to do good, he is <i>able</i> to do good. <br />
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Not so in the bureaucratic state. The vulgar-souled apparatchiks live entirely in the world of glass and concrete. They have never been to Neverland, and they don’t know how to fly. You cannot do good in a bureaucracy because, for the bureaucrats, the term has an entirely artificial meaning. Authentic charity is replaced by brittle utopian solidarity for the procurement of “rights.” Faith, family, property, country, and everything most dear to the heart, is proscribed or brutally repressed. This is the end of genuine humanity. We do not often see it under this terrifying aspect because we live too close to it, are too painfully involved in it. But it is now fully possible to sketch out just what a horrible price we have paid for the false hopes of modernity. Why have we made war against the family? Abortion and no-fault divorce have ruined more lives than a thousand tsunamis. When beholding the ruin of Japan, let no one lift up his eyes to the heavens and say “God, why did this happen?” For then God will show us the faces of 50 million babies and say, <i>“Why did THIS happen?”</i> The bigger catastrophe is the one we’ve inflicted on ourselves. And why, for what?<br />
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Now it occurs to us that we need to fight back, only that isn’t so simple to do. Your every attempt to act like a hero will be met with stony repression. Nothing authentic can be permitted in the parking-lot; heroism lives on only inside the theater. It is okay to cheer for the Greeks at Thermopylae—<i>in the theater. </i>Don’t you dare try to act like that in real life, or it’s hemlock and exile for you. Or perhaps you’ve just seen <i>The Sound of Music</i> and you’re inspired to throw some pebbles at your girlfriend’s window. Forget about it—the neighbors will call the cops. If you want to get her pregnant in the Taco Bell crapper you can have a state-sponsored abortion, but don’t try being romantic. It’s politically incorrect.<br />
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So what can a defender of truth do when the enemy is <i>inside</i> the fortress; and not only inside the fortress, <i>but sitting on the throne?</i> At this point the most effective measure is the Heideggerian concept of “releasement,” otherwise known as the Puddleglum Solution. Do not listen to the lies any longer; give them no place in your being; stomp out the bewitching fire and say, “I look around me and I see no trace of Narnia. In my despair I cannot recall that Narnia ever existed. But I would rather live as if Narnia existed than put up with you anymore. <i>I am not going to live in the parking-lot!”</i> This will at least create a bastion behind which others can get to work. The first step in the struggle is necessarily spiritual. It is a matter of conscience and resolve.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-68488825836704358062011-05-13T16:33:00.000-06:002011-05-13T16:33:34.795-06:00The Age of the Blogger(Cross-posted from Belmont Club, <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/05/11/the-ten-thousand/">The Ten Thousand</a>)<br />
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The Age of the Blogger has certainly transformed the way a lot of us work, and think, and relate. It has been an impressive movement in modern history that has brought us many good feelings, many moments of success. Heck, bloggers have even changed the world. In the ramifying ranks of the blogosphere there were roads to travel and lessons to learn; but perhaps the last lesson of that Age is now beginning to take shape before our eyes: namely, that it <i>was</i> just age, a temporary way of “being in the moment” that came, but came to pass.<br />
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For the Internet Age involved a lot more than just the spreading of new technology. It was also a fashion and a social phenomenon. Not a passing phase which is here today and gone tomorrow, but one of those deep transformations which lends its color and shape to an entire generation. Nevertheless, those movements, too, are transitory. Of flappers and bobbysoxers there are now none to be found; greasers and socs rumble no more. Even the mighty hippies, whose sheer mass once warped the social space about them like a tie-dyed shirt, have largely slipped into memory. Here and there one meets with a few bedraggled specimens who’ve outstayed their day and now linger on as living museum pieces; but the real substance of the movement, the <i>spirit</i> of the age, is gone.<br />
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So it will be too with the Blogger. Does not the very word sound <i>timeful</i>—a bit of slang destined to break the surface for a season before slipping through the nets of language, coming to rest on the sandy bottom with other pieces of perished time? Certainly we can expect that the internet itself will continue to exist in one form or another; and as long as it exists, there will always be people who write upon it. But it will not always be “cool” to do so. Bloggers will not forever grasp the levers that move the world. It may very well become a reliable, plodding profession like accountancy: predictably gainful, predictably dull. Then the masses of casual bloggers will exit the scene, and the aspect of the internet will be forever altered. We cannot see exactly what sort of world we’ll be left with when that happens, but it may perhaps be helpful to bear a couple of things in mind.<br />
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<b>1.</b> Computing, coding, writing—it’s not for everybody. It never should have been made to be about everybody. When computers went from the bus-sized difference engines of the past to the palm-sized smart phones of today, and graphic interfaces took the place of punch-cards, the skill level necessary to operate a computer plummeted while its value as a consumer status symbol rocketed skyward. This allowed great waves of people who possessed no fundamental understanding of how computers worked, to use them to perform all sorts of mundane tasks, like publish blogs. The idea may sound strange in our ears, but we must entertain the possibility that this metastable situation will not always obtain. More importantly, however, is the fact that <i>writing</i> has always been the province of the very few. At any given time, the number of people in the world who make their livings as professional writers amounts to no more than a relative handful. The popularity of blogs has not changed this essential fact; it has only obscured it by distorting the underlying culture.<br />
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I think of it like this: In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary became the first person (that we know of) to ascend to the summit of Mount Everest. It was indeed a noteworthy accomplishment, but it was not intrinsically rare. Indeed, the sheer multitude of climbers who have stormed the summit of Everest since that date leads us to believe that the mere ability to climb Everest is somewhat broadly distributed throughout the human population, especially if they train hard for it and spend a lot of money on gear. So why do we celebrate Hillary for doing something that so many others could do, even if he was the first?<br />
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I think the answer (at least in part) is because Hillary had that rare kind of life which afforded him the opportunity not only to climb mountains, but to keep his honor at the same time. Anybody can do whatever they want, but very few can do what they want <i>with honor</i>. Most of us could only devote the time and money necessary to climb the Himalayas if we neglected other duties which were more important. Would the world celebrate us for that? <i>Should</i> the world celebrate us for that? I don’t think so. That’s why we don’t bother trying.<br />
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The same thing holds in other areas of celebrity accomplishment. I think there are a lot of people who <i>could</i> have played in the NFL, but few whose circumstances allowed them to devote all of their time to football. There are a lot of people who <i>might</i> have been concert pianists, but not many whose parents spent thousands of dollars on music teachers and made them practice 14 hours a day. Similarly, the artificial publishing ease created by the blogosphere removed all barriers that held back the would-be writer. When the internet made writing accessible to all, many people showed that they <i>could</i> do it, but it never really became a part of who they were. It was a hothouse atmosphere that spawned many a prize orchid, but for most it was only a temporary dream come true. Rare is the man who is <i>destined</i> to write; rare is he for whom it becomes his real calling and his real work, in rain or in shine, in sickness or in health. Writing is a very unusual business and few there are who are born to it.<br />
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<b>2.</b> We must realize that we can’t get something for nothing; or what amounts to the same thing, that we will only get what we pay for. The few outstanding bloggers out there have accustomed us to getting great news and analysis for free, but that is almost certainly short-lived. If we want to get really <i>really</i> good news, good essays, and good editorializing (on a regular basis, that is), then we must be prepared to pay. We can’t depend on internet cavaliers to always do the legwork for us at their own expense. Many bloggers have put forth excellent material while getting SFA for their efforts; but they have families and mortgages like everybody else, and how long do you think they can keep that up?<br />
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When blogging goes out of fashion and into arrears, then we’ll see how much we really want it and need it. Then we’ll see who and what we’re willing to pay for. The “wild West” phase of any activity cannot last forever. Eventually it must weave itself into the fabric of normal life or it must be abandoned. Perhaps what we’re seeing here is the beginning of the first large-scale readjustment.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-59773653149246316722011-05-05T21:40:00.003-06:002011-05-27T01:39:31.665-06:00With Osama Dead, a 9/11 MemoirI wish I could do my fellow Americans the courtesy of rejoicing with them over the news that, at long last—and nearly 10 years after perpetrating the terrorist attacks that made him the most wanted man on earth—Osama Bin Laden is now well and truly dead. But I’m having difficulty working up the necessary emotions, and I’m far too exhausted to go around faking it anymore. It’s not that the news isn’t good, it’s just that it no longer seems to pertain to me. The cares of 9/11 and all the reactions that followed in its wake belong to a world that I departed from a long time ago. I cannot get close to that world or feel myself to be a living member of it ever again. I can only watch it as through a pane of glass, and make such observations as seem to me supported by the facts. My personal history differs from the greater mass of men; a wrenching private struggle that I did not choose stamped me with a different set of priorities at the time when others were experiencing the horrors of 9/11. As a result, an unbridgeable chasm has grown between me and the larger world, a distance that only seems to broaden and harden with the passing years. It was already very great when that fateful Tuesday morning dawned hot and clear, those many years ago.<br />
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What follows is my 9/11 story. Perhaps it is not the most dramatic or the most profound, but it does seem to bear upon the events in a nontrivial way—a way that may find an echo in the experience of others. In any case, it is personal, it is truthful, and it is <i>mine.</i> I hope it will be of some value, for it is the only tale I have to tell.<br />
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<i>“Do you remember where you were when the first plane hit?,”</i> goes the question that will ever be asked of the generations who were alive on 09/11/2001. Indeed we are never supposed to forget it, and indeed I never have. I was on a city bus, just east of 92nd and Sheridan, in Westminster, Colorado. I overheard the bus driver mumbling something to one of his regulars, seated just behind him. “A plane crashed into the World Trade Center,” he said. “They think it’s an accident. But now 30 floors of the World Trade Center are on fire.” Thus the day’s news began to trickle in.<br />
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I recall that I felt an immediate increase in my general level of bemusement; for in those days, dear reader, I walked around in a cloud of bemusement thick enough to chew. Please forgive me if I say that I felt no pain, or at least not any <i>additional</i> pain. I already had all the pain I could stand, and at that point in time we still had no idea what was really going on.<br />
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I was 20 years old at the time, and it’s safe to say that my life had never been worse. Not that it had ever been much good to begin with. The neighborhood I grew up in was poor and blighted; my family had been the very picture of alcoholism, physical abuse, and dysfunction. I spent my teenage years embroiled in drugs and vandalism, got into a few fights, and even dropped out of high school in my junior year. These events precipitated my first complete nervous breakdown—at the age of 16. Nevertheless (and by the grace of God), I somehow managed to avoid serious brushes with the law, and I was even able to return to school and graduate with my class. Having no other plans for my life, I allowed a friend of mine to talk me into applying at a fairly selective engineering college with him; and to my everlasting astonishment, I was accepted. However, nothing in my previous life had taught me how to live independently in civil society, and going off to college was too much of a culture shock for me. While I had always been academically talented, I lacked the moral and character virtues necessary to thrive in my new surroundings. My behavior in college is best left unmentioned, and let us just say that I returned home shortly thereafter, with less glory than shame.<br />
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That’s when things really fell apart. My parents divorced, their drinking accelerated, my father became suicidal, and my mother took up with a much younger dirt-bag and moved him into the house. I wasn’t about to stand for that, but I had few legitimate means of recourse. After several months of intolerable tension and infighting, I found myself kicked out of my home (hauled away by police actually, at my mother’s behest), temporarily confined to a locked mental ward (I had committed no crime, but the police felt it necessary to dispose of me somehow—I shudder to recall the complete annihilation of civil rights and personhood that I experienced then), and unemployed and broke. I oscillated between wandering the streets and crashing at my father’s apartment, to which I returned mainly to cook for him and to make sure he was still alive. He tried to kill himself at least three times during that period, and twice he tried to kill me. I struggled to make ends meet by working day labor at a construction site, and thereafter by troubleshooting for Verizon customers at a call center. I did not starve, but there were times when I was grateful to be able to buy a box of cereal.<br />
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I eventually landed a slightly better job at a department store, and I got myself back into university, majoring in philosophy this time. As a fulltime student, with a fulltime job and no car, I spent several hours each day on the bus. That’s where I found myself when the planes began to hit, and that’s why I had but little sympathy to spare on the occasion. I was in a daze, dear reader. My personal 9/11 had begun long before.<br />
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That miserable life of mine dragged on and on. I will not assail you with all the details; I will only say that the sadness and anxiety I then experienced pushed me to the ragged edges of endurance, and sometimes beyond them. I cried in my sleep, which was a scant four hours a night. I felt a nameless and hitherto unknown fear in my dreams. It was the fear of waking up, the fear of having to “put on” consciousness once again like an iron maiden. If you have never been chronically depressed, dear reader, I shall describe the sensation for you. It is a hyperawareness that never dissipates. It is rather like being rudely awakened from a deep sleep as though by a drill sergeant, banging trashcan lids and shining a flashlight in your face. In fact, the pain of bright sunlight on eyes used to deep darkness is exactly like the pain of despondency, only it does not fade with adjustment. It becomes a permanent feature of your waking existence. It is like a hot knife in your mind; it is like the shame of public nakedness; it is like falling through swirling black clouds with no solid surface to fall upon. You are driven to strain every nerve in search of a solution, although you have no idea where a solution might be found.<br />
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I was weak and humiliated. I was nothing in the face of the world. I felt as vulnerable and helpless as a pinkie mouse, a tasty morsel for some dread creature that had fared better in the fortunes of life. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that I read philosophy obsessively. I had a taste for the modernists—especially Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Tillich—because I felt like I was recapitulating in my own being all the angst and despair of Western civilization. I developed a great love for Oswald Spengler, because I knew that the horrors metastasizing in my own life were but the side effects of a greater societal decay. I dabbled in Baudrillard and Foucault, because I sensed that the electronic media had long been weaving a cocoon of hyperreality about me which I would have to dismantle if I was ever to think clearly. This last consideration would be of immense importance later on.<br />
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It is a dangerous matter to lose everything you’ve ever known, dear reader. Such turnings have driven many men to their graves. It is only slightly less dangerous to take seriously the convolutions of modern philosophy; and using them, to attempt to rebuild one’s worldview at the most fundamental level of system architecture. To do both at the same time is sheer madness. It is to creep within the very shadow of Barad-dûr itself. Yet that is what I did. By the grace of God, I had passed through the ultimate anxiety and found a path through the Dead Marshes.<br />
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It is regrettable that I did not read Aristotle at that time, but of necessity I began to think after his manner. I needed something good and stable to stand upon, needed to know whether or not reality could be trusted. I’m not sure if very many people know what it’s like to have to do metaphysics—not just to study it, but to actually <i>do</i> it (yes, and epistemology too!)—<i>as if your life depended on it.</i> When you stop treating philosophy as a speculative exercise and demand from it bankable results, you inevitably become an Aristotelian. It was in those awful days that I first started believing in God because it was <i>reasonable</i> to do so. It was then that I started to discover, in my own rudimentary fashion, “ontological proofs” for God’s existence, and something resembling the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas. Looking back on those times, I am rather proud of myself that I was able to reinvent so sublime and noble a wheel, and under such impossible circumstances to boot. But I am also somewhat upset that nobody had ever taught me these simple truths in the first place.<br />
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That was the beginning of my regeneration. I had much to suffer yet, and I have much to suffer still. I will not bore you, dear reader, with the details of my escape from the Dark Tower of modernism, my eventual conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, or with any of my present labors. It remains for me now to talk about how these experiences shaped my interpretation of 9/11, and the subsequent US reaction.<br />
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(It’s a story about 9/11 after all, so let’s get back to the point.)<br />
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Forsooth, it was some time yet before I had attained the peace of mind necessary to pay attention to external events. When I began to do so again, I found a world very differently constituted from the one that I had left behind. Consider: I had watched virtually no television for the previous three and a half years. In the meantime, “Reality TV” had become a hit phenomenon, the tech-stocks bubble had broken and burst, and nevertheless a sort of internet-savvy chicness, a pink-shirt-and-Starbucking insouciance, had become <i>de rigueur</i> in middleclass circles. I was not online; I didn’t even own a computer. Cultural events of the highest magnitude had passed me by unawares. I had missed Super Bowls, hit television series, the advent of Britney Spears and the boy bands, the collapse of Enron—even the Millennium itself barely registers in my memory. I found that I did not care. I had broken with the world and moved on. I lost all taste for television and never again could I stay absorbed in a mere “show.” Furthermore, I had grown up somewhat. My trials had taught me something about human psychology, and about the dark motives and deceptions that seethe in the hearts of men. Finally, my natural skepticism and my encounters with Baudrillard had taught me to deconstruct the hyperreality of the electronic media. Unwilling to get burned by the world a second time, I wanted to perceive only the reality behind all impressions and dissimulations. So there I stood, bending my mind this way and that—scrutinizing, exacting, demanding—unearthing motives and plots, reading the telltale traces of all the edits and retcons and bluffs with which men inevitably polish their accounts. Such was the mindset I brought to bear on the news when I started watching the War on Terror unfold. It was just about this time that Secretary Colin Powell gave his famous report to the United Nations.<br />
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I wasn’t all that impressed. It’s not that I didn’t believe him, it’s just that I didn’t understand what the big deal was supposed to be. A couple of white rectangles on a satellite photo which might have been trailers; trailers which might have been mobile weapons laboratories—<i>was that it?</i> And what did Saddam Hussein have to do with 9/11 anyway? The report was pretty underwhelming just where <i>I demanded to be blown away.</i> Having developed the cautious habit of overestimating the competence of authority, I was expecting the high brass to present something like a Tom Clancy novel come to life. The tiresome lecture given by Powell didn’t satisfy my desire for certainty. This initial disappointment already left me with the feeling that something was very wrong.<br />
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That feeling was confirmed by my second, much greater disappointment. It was deeply unsettling to watch the entire news media suddenly effloresce with a number of quite improbable hawks. I found the jingoistic tone at FOX News—that prim, Protestant, from-the-heartland sort of cant which is so characteristic of their reportage—to be both artificial and unwatchable. I remember when the idea of “embedded journalists” was first mooted, and my distress when such an obvious propaganda tactic did not meet with the vociferous objections it deserved. I remember reading Michael Kelly’s editorial, “Making the Moral Case for War in Iraq;” and I remember, a few weeks later, when Michael Kelly became the first embedded Iraqi war journalist to die in his emdeddedness. But most of all, I remember the massive spectator enthusiasm that the media engendered for this war, the ribbons and lapel pins and terror alerts and stupid anthems, the Cult of First Responder Worship which sprang up at about this time (my recent experience of getting railroaded into the psych ward left me none too well-disposed towards the cops), and how people who one month ago couldn’t tell you the difference between a Howitzer and Mauser rifle would now gladly inform you that the battle wagon you saw on the TV screen was a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and not, ahem, an Armored Personnel Carrier.<br />
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I couldn’t escape the impression that the whole thing was turning into a circus, but I was still willing to put up with all the media shenanigans on the theory that it was within the range of normal behavior for a people who suddenly had had war foisted upon them. However, once President Bush told me that I needed to help America in its hour of need by going shopping, I was done being generous—the romance was over for me. No longer could I maintain the belief that the captains running this war had any sense of the gravity of their actions. I remained a stalwart Republican of course, a two-time Bush voter and a (blech!) one-time McCain voter; but from that moment on, I was never quite on board with the Administration. Unlike the rabble-rousers on the Left, I always sustained that there was nothing particularly immoral or underhanded about our invasion of Iraq; however, I opposed the invasion on the rather quotidian paleoconservative grounds that it was being managed by idiots, that the objectives were unclear, that the probable benefits were slim to none, and at any rate it was much too expensive. This was the most commonsense position one could hold at the time, which is probably why it was shared by practically nobody.<br />
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That the war was largely a media creation none can now doubt. This is true for the obvious reason that relatively few American lives were directly impacted by it. If you were one of the 290 million Americans who were <i>not</i> in New York or Washington on September 11th, if your friends and relations made it through the day unharmed, and if you are not one of the several hundred thousand servicemen who have seen duty in Iraq or Afghanistan (or one of their kin), then your experience of the War on Terror has been something brought to you entirely via TV, news, and internet. Whether your personal opinion inclines toward supporting or opposing the war effort, it matters not; for in what meaningful sense can you support or oppose something that you have nothing to do with? The conclusion is that, for most Americans, the war nearly could have been forgotten (and would have been), were it not for the media’s constant reporting on it, and the manner in which it figured into the domestic policy debate. Important implications follow.<br />
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Let us take, for instance, the 9-11 “Truther” movement, execrable insult to good taste that it is. It was late in the year of 2004 when I first heard of them—on CSPAN of all places. I think I must have been flipping through television channels when I saw something that looked like an erudite policy debate. Since I happen to enjoy erudite policy debates, I tuned in for awhile. As it so happens, I caught maybe the last 10 minutes of what turned out to be some sort of blue ribbon Truther panel made up of engineers, professors, and other assorted wonks. Up until that time, it had never even crossed my mind to doubt the accepted version of the September 11th events. I’ll admit that I was intrigued, so I looked into the matter and thought about it carefully. However, I quickly decided that the entire Truther premise was ridiculous. It was so ridiculous, in fact, that one could not long hold to it without compromising one’s common sense. Why were so many “experts” in the natural sciences so willing to lend their names to something which quite clearly insisted upon the bastardization of their respective disciplines? I discounted the fringe benefits that would come from such a move, such as garnering instant popularity among a certain segment of the Left. It had to be some sort of higher-level game they were playing, or perhaps some deep psychological need that drove them onward.<br />
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Thus we come, dear reader, to the greatest catastrophe of them all: the general disengagement from reality which has marked this war from the beginning <i>on both sides of the political spectrum.</i> How could it be that tens of millions of Americans had already assumed that the US government was somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks, scarcely before the dust from the collapsing towers had cleared? How could it be that such carnage, so obviously inflicted by a foreign enemy, could so rapidly be subtilized into a paranoid accusation flung at the heads of the reigning administration? Could it be because, deep down, we all knew that the attack was no more than a fleabite, and that it wasn’t going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things? Didn’t we sense (oh, the heresy it would have been to admit it!) that a great battle had been joined, only it wasn’t the Global War on Terror (which merely occupied the visible wavelengths)? It was the battle for political capital on the domestic scene: <i>that</i> was the real object of desire. America the Hegemon herself was on the table, and the victor would control her destiny. In other words, the immediate effects of the 9/11 attacks were of so little consequence that, as soon as everybody had caught their breath, they each begin to think of how to turn the situation to their advantage; and the prize they fought for was the possession of America, the only real prize left in the world.<br />
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This will be easier to see if we examine first the case of the Truthers, and analyze their processes of belief formation. Such an analysis (admittedly barebones), would go something like this: There are many people in this country who naturally suspect the government of every sort of foul and malicious behavior. The exact etiology of these beliefs is something which we cannot go into in great detail about here, but let us just say that there is nothing especially abnormal or defective about such people. They have normal human aspirations, unfortunately cathected to the wrong objects. The basic explanation is that their beliefs feel good to them, and provide them with a narrative structure and sense of control over their lives. The essence of this sense of control is <i>freedom from responsibility.</i> Consequently, these people have a very ambiguous relationship with authority, since authority is the embodiment of responsibility. They hate submitting to it always, they will seize it for themselves when they can, and they will wield it arbitrarily when they have it. All ordinary symbols of authority, particularly the Church and the State, become their hated adversaries. The more they hate authority, the greater becomes their sense of power, and the more eager they are to appropriate authority and twist it to their own designs. They are the quintessential liberals and revolutionaries.<br />
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You will inevitably find such people gravitating toward progressivist causes, <i>all</i> progressivist causes, whether they involve ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class structure, environmentalism, or what have you. They may be under the impression that they actually believe in such causes, but in reality they are simply drawn instinctively toward any political movement calculated to oppose the ordinary power structure. The numerous contradictions in their belief system do not bother them, for it is not truth they are interested in. The secret logic of <i>power</i> knits together all their multitudinous designs. The 9/11 attacks provided them with an opportunity which was too good to lose, from their point of view. For them, it was just as if an oil tanker had broken up on a reef, which event they would have used to pillory Big Oil; or as if a child had died of secondhand smoke inhalation, which they would have used to pillory Big Tobacco. As it so happens, the Ordinary Authority dropped the ball on 9/11, so they used that event to pillory Big Government. An observation of failure quickly became an imputation of incompetence, which became neglect, which became complicity, which became malice. With these key psychological elements in place, there wasn’t much work left to do. The rest of the 9/11 Truther narrative is just <i>literature</i>, just as Marxism and Gender Studies are no more than literature at bottom, unreal in their very marrow. The only thing that matters is the power structures which such literature takes for granted, the power structures that can unite a mass of humanity in a common revolutionary purpose. These books know their own, and their own know them. There you have the anatomy of a Truther.<br />
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But we must admit that the Truther movement derived a lot of its impetus from the failure of Ordinary Authority to handle the situation properly. The Neocons, too, had their dreams and their visions, and they were no less opportunistic than the Libs when it came to converting 9/11 into the MacGuffin for the rather bizarre screenplay that followed. The trailer for that movie would have gone something like this: <i>Imagine a realm of marvelous technological wonder and achievement, where Kantian Republics bloom in what once was hostile desert. Where a law called the Bush Doctrine brought peace to a troubled planet, and men from every corner of the earth raised purple fingers skyward in pledges of endless brotherhood. On the day when the towers fell, a nation arose from its slumber; a nation that would become a religion, a religion that would transform a universe!</i><br />
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Such is a peek into the mindset of our Neocon brethren, who with Francis Fukuyama and Leo Strauss were already contemplating the End of History when the smoke alarms started going off in the Pentagon. “This calls for an end of history,” they said; and they found in themselves men admirably suited to play the role of the Ender. Some time they had had to look forward to this, and they had not been idle. Thus it was that they were able to roll out the PATRIOT Act in no time at all, and the preparations were already in place for the invasion of at least two countries. The Department of Homeland Security they established, ostensibly for securing the homeland; and the TSA they did also establish, to secure everybody’s underpants. Flag pins they wore on their swollen chests, and duct tape they gave for our windows. A coalition of think-tankers and hick balladeers was assembled to give the movement some much-needed cultural cachet; and the End of History, a World Federation under the auspices of American democracy, was ever twinkling in their eyes.<br />
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If you’ll forgive me for waxing lyrical, dear reader, what I’m trying to say is that the Neoconservative Establishment’s immediate response to the 9/11 attacks was not to bring the terrorists to justice as efficiently as possible, but to implement an orchestrated program of world-improvement for which 9/11 was simply the convenient excuse. To this end they massively expanded the federal bureaucracy, spinning off new departments and offices at a breakneck pace. They appropriated to themselves new powers to surveil and detain the civilian population. And when it came time to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, to the military objectives of the campaigns was added the program of “nation building,” the deliberate attempt to remake the cultural aspect of whole regions of the globe. It was a farfetched notion at best: the sort of “Teach the savages to speak Americano”-type idealism that one often associates with tired colonial powers whose leading men have gone soft in the guts. Not only was this spectacle draining to watch, but it placed in an awkward position those of us who thought that America’s defense was still worth fighting for, and who felt obliged to defend the Administration’s prerogatives on that account.<br />
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So we see that while the Truthers and the Neocons opposed each other in rhetoric, in style and in substance they were really quite similar. They each had a dream they were trying to sell, and within that dream was cloaked the desire to control America’s future. They each offered up some rather flimsy justifications for the changes they were wont to inflict on American life; and they each showed, by the bungle which they made of affairs when the desired power fell at last into their hands, that a true grasp of the situation eluded their comprehension, and exceeded their capacities. The Neocons, be it said, were much closer to the truth, while the ironically-named Truthers were far away from it. But the tactics employed by the Neocons opened up a chance for the Truthers to play their gambit. If there were ever any <i>solid and believable</i> reasons for expanding the government and invading Iraq, the Neocons never presented them. What they offered instead was a <i>sentiment</i>, and the Truthers’ sure instinct for power sensed that behind that sentiment lay a bid for domestic supremacy. The Truthers, not to be outdone, countered with an alternative version of reality, saying, in effect, “You have your sentiments, and we have ours.” While the Neocons had some inkling of the truth, they never justified it: They offered <i>unjustified true beliefs.</i> The Truthers responded with <i>unjustified false beliefs.</i> And if the Neocons openly accused the Truthers of having ulterior motives, the Truthers would just stare back at them across the table, knowing that the Establishment had ulterior motives of its own, and that they would never willingly throw down their own cards. Thus was a situation created which was tailor-made to prevent any facts from coming to light. The War on Terror became kabuki theater in the battle for domestic sentiments. For where there are no facts, dear reader, sentiment rules.<br />
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And so the long middle years of the Iraqi invasion rolled on…2004…2005…2006. These were the years when the news media really came into its own as the decisive factor in shaping the national mood. It was an era of <i>exposé</i> books and hit pieces in the major periodicals (think <i>Fiasco</i> and Seymour Hersh). It was the setting for a fierce, protracted duel between Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly, and the networks they represented. And above all it was the Age of the Blogger, the advent of the independent world-improver. For now a new contender appeared in the lists of battle to add to the confusion and the noise. Across the crackling channels of cyberspace there arose a mighty din, an endless stream of commentary and criticism which inflated the 24-hour news cycle to thunderhead proportions. Long had this mass been kept silent. Before the internet came, they had lain in smoldering resentment; for, unable to breech the corridors of official publication, they had had to content themselves with firing off the occasional letter to the editor. But now, empowered by easy access to data and at least a theoretical audience, they woke up and felt that they were strong. Wielding Excel charts and Google Earth pics, they charged into the fray with all the gusto of their long-repressed emotion. And for once, high up in their unassailable battlements, the powers of the mainstream media were shaken. Pressing, clamoring, and inexorable, the Peanut Gallery was on the march.<br />
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I’ll admit that I was seduced, dear reader. There was so much going on in this Brave New World that I, too, wanted to be a part of it. Persons who had hitherto labored in obscurity were out there making names for themselves, and I thought, “Why not me?” After all I had read a little history and philosophy, and I had thought long and hard about these subjects. I could turn a phrase reasonably well when the proper mood struck me, and in the past my essays had met with some attention in some not too inconsiderable venues. I began to think I had a future in policy analysis. I wanted to make some meaningful contribution to society and thereby resurrect my life from the doldrums to which fate had consigned it; I wanted to be where the action was; and above all, I wanted to exercise my dearly-bought Baudrillardian skepticism and <i>get to the bottom of things.</i> Surely there would be an appetite for that?<br />
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So when the Great Host of the Peanut Gallery (shall we call them the Pea-orns?) went marching by, I eventually joined with the assembly. But I needed more information, needed to stay abreast of things, so it was unavoidable that I started watching the news again. This I did with an enthusiasm fit to balance the scales against my previous media fast. Every day I tracked the financial markets, meditating deeply on the foreign exchange rates and the spot price of commodities (though I don’t have a penny invested in anything). The foreign news, too, I watched, <i>Deutsche Welle</i> and the BBC. I stayed glued to CNN, MSNBC, and even to Charlie Rose (an interruptive blabbermouth he is, but he seems to get all the good guests). And I worked over everything I saw with the highest degree of philosophical exactitude I could muster.<br />
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I tell you this because I am now slightly chagrined by it. When I look back at my writings from that period, I am heartened by my occasional flashes of brilliance; but I am also unnerved by the overwrought thinkiness of it all: World-historical implications attributed to events of transitory significance, a trifling federal interest rate fluctuation parsed in Heideggerian terminology—and all of it couched in a tone that not infrequently exhibited signs of an underlying mental disturbance. I suppose I could be forgiven for that, though. I was effectively fatherless; I had no real life and no prospects; I was desperate for recognition and very insecure about ever being taken seriously, so I poured all my energy into every little post and comment. Needless to say, I took disagreement quite personally. I wanted to stand as a beacon in the storm, to acquire prudence and to become a man. In the end it appears that I was not entirely unsuccessful, although my success came in a manner that I never expected. For throughout the long middle years of the invasion, I could never repress the intuition that I was wasting my time “getting to the bottom of it.” Amid all the media smoke and noise, all the policy and theory and analysis that so delighted my intellect, I was missing out on what was really important. The key to understanding any war is not to be found in the annals of strategy and correspondence; it is found in knowing where you stand and what you are fighting for—and I didn’t. Home and hearth, family and friends, God and grace—<i>those</i> should have been my concerns. Although I greatly wished to be relevant to the times, all the events and decisions were taking place far beyond my reach (by design), and I had no means to influence them. By this time my impression of the War on Terror was one of pageantry repeated <i>ad nauseum.</i> The talking heads had chattered their teeth down to the nubs, and the trumpets had blared too long. I didn’t want another drink of this draught, thank you. I was getting queasy, and I was sobering up. It was time for me to go home, dear reader. I’d had enough.<br />
<br />
Apparently the country, too, had had enough. The 2006 Congressional Elections swept into office a wave of Democrats, and nobody could have honestly said they were surprised by the result. The tide had turned, and the opposition was starting to win the battle for US sentiment. It is interesting to note that the sort of wedge issues which traditionally serve as a proxy for registering increases in liberal attitudes—the legalization of gay marriage, for instance—went down in ignominious defeat at the very moment when the party long associated with liberalism was garnering its biggest electoral victory in decades. But the American people were not voting for liberalism; they were voting for a return to normalcy. What transpired in the interim was, I think, a nation-sized version of my personal transmigration from initial enthusiasm to toleration to disgust. For by now it had dawned, even among those directly engaged in fighting the war, that the matter had become solipsistic, completely captured by the exigencies of domestic party politics. The American people felt like they were not being heard, and they were tired of needlessly shedding blood and treasure on a campaign for which they were offered no clear exit strategy, but every convenient excuse. What’s more, the time had long expired when the average person could see how his contributions to the war effort were making any difference. Under such circumstances, it was inevitable that support for the endeavor waned. And it will not do to say, as so many Neocons at the time were wont to say, that the only reason why so many unpatriotic Americans were able to criticize the war effort in peace and comfort, was because valiant men were defending them on distant fields of battle, spilling their blood for the country that they (at least) still loved, un-thanked and unappreciated. The truth is only a few cranks ever dared to disparage the efforts of our soldiers. Indeed not since World War II had American servicemen been lauded with so much genuine fanfare. It was the American <i>people</i> who were unappreciated, dismissed, and lied to. It was they who had seen their freedoms confiscated and their national deficits balloon. And it was then, in the long middle years, that the realization set in, grim and irrevocable, that the American people were just an object, a source of votes and revenues for the bureaucratic coterie in Washington, who managed the affairs of the world with an eye toward their own preservation, and took but little notice of the restiveness brooding throughout the land. So it came to pass that in November of 2006, the American people, without much ado, and admirable in their restraint, turned up in astonishing numbers for a midterm election, and voted to go home.<br />
<br />
Finally, it was no coincidence that the long middle years saw attention to the Iraqi campaign increase out of all proportion to its importance in the actual War on Terror, at least as far as the domestic policy battle was concerned. <i>Iraq:</i> the word will forever remain synonymous with the War on Terror, even though the only proper theater of combat, if combat there must be, was arguably in Afghanistan. Thus it was that Iraq became the real bone of contention in the ideological conflict which ensued, the target of the most blistering criticisms as well as the object of the most pompous defenses. Depending on the ferocity of the particular attacker, the Administration’s motives for embarking on the Iraqi campaign were adjudged to be either imprudent or base; and these attacks naturally elicited rebuttals from the Establishment which sounded more like obfuscatory rhetoric than reasoned explanations. The acrimony that was engendered by this is what drove the entire debate, and much that should have been done or explained was left to fall through the cracks. It was only rarely, and almost as an afterthought to the intense media focus on the Iraqi theater, that somebody would moot the fatal question, “Hey, whatever happened to that Bin Laden guy?” Perhaps that was why many of us just assumed he was already dead.<br />
<br />
Looking back, it is easy to see how the Tide of 2006 adumbrated the political reversals of 2008; and here we must pay heed to something we overlook only at our peril. The Republican Establishment bears the blame for the sole American <i>defeat</i> ever suffered in the War on Terror: the election of Barack Hussein Obama, the greatest “man caused disaster” ever to befall the country, greater by far than 9/11 itself. I said openly at the time that it was “love” that caused his election; but it wasn’t the love of him, still less the love of the liberal policies he represented. It was love for the America we once knew, love of home and peace and normalcy. The Republicans, with their endless prevarications, their bluster and bravado and ham-fisted insouciance, had practically assured the election of a Democrat in 2008; and beyond that, they assured the primary election of the most liberal, most exotic, most machine-oiled Democrat the country could find. Here we are left to ponder the irony of the fact that a man whose mindset stands closer to America’s enemies than to America’s, had the fortune to be leading the country on the day when America’s War on Terror finally swept to its conclusion.<br />
<br />
So it was that on Sunday, May 1st, in the year 2011, the third in the reign of King Hussein I, the country rejoiced to learn that Osama Bin Laden had been found and destroyed. Almost immediately, though, there was cause for misgiving. The initial reports were much varied and contradictory; the body was ceremoniously dumped in an unknown sea; and after some initial waffling, we were informed that no pictures of the corpse would ever be made public. “Don’t you worry,” our government reassured us. “We have the DNA evidence. We got him.” Yet many people have remained stubbornly un-reassured. I’ll admit that I, too, succumbed to some temporary Obama Derangement Syndrome. After all, he certainly doesn’t <i>deserve</i> to go down in history as the president who felled America’s Most Wanted. From what we know about his character, we cannot put it past him to lie about such an event, or at least to distort the facts beyond recognition in order to enhance his own popularity. But whatever the true events were, it appears to me upon reflection that at least the kernel of the story must be accepted as fact. Bin Laden was either killed last week or he was already dead. I doubt very much that he is still alive.<br />
<br />
One thing, though, I do not doubt: the American people deserve better than this. Here at the conclusion of this long and nasty conflict, we deserve better than an Obama photo-op and a breezy assertation that all is well, and never mind the lack of evidence. Haven’t we had enough of that attitude already? Isn’t this, in fact, more of the very same attitude that needlessly prolonged this war, and caused so much heartsickness and division here at home? It is good that Osama Bin Laden is dead, but it did not need to take 10 years. It did not need to come at the cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. It did not need to involve such draconian changes to American society as we have had to endure. And it did not require us to sell out to the Pakistanis, as so many marginalized voices long warned us we were doing. Let us take stock of all that has transpired since 9/11, and ask what changes we can now demand of our government, now that the man who started it all has finally met his demise. Don’t we now have a good enough reason for pulling out of Afghanistan? I think we have at minimum a good enough reason for getting rid of the TSA. Surely we can expect some of these changes to take place. If they do not, it is proof that the war was never about Bin Laden. It was always about domestic policy, about Washington and who would control its wealth-absorbing power; and that is a pretty sad commentary on the state of affairs. I think, after all is said and done, that the American people are at least entitled to <i>closure.</i> Closure and freedom.<br />
<br />
So you see, dear reader, for me this war has ended pretty much as it began, in a collage of media reports that cannot be absorbed or assimilated, in an overweening government that permits no one to peer into its mysterious doings. And if I may be permitted to append a personal request at the conclusion of this overlong remembrance, let it be a request that all Americans now strive to retake the freedom and dignity which we let slip away in the terror of darker days. Let not Bin Laden’s legacy be an America sickened and spavined and reduced to groveling at the table of nations, but stronger, freer, and self-reliant. Let all those things that once were good and cherished, be so again. And if war should ever menace our shores anew, let us not forget who we are, and what we’re fighting for.<br />
<br />
The long war is over, my brothers. Let’s go home.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-11312829616274653472011-04-28T23:31:00.002-06:002011-04-29T12:12:56.472-06:00Obama's next move: The LaDouchebag Organization (from Belmont Club)(<a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/04/28/born-to-be-mild/">Cross-posted from "Born to be Mild"</a>)<br />
<br />
It brings me no joy to say it, but I had the same thoughts about a month ago regarding Obama’s propensity for “leading from behind.” Writing on another Belmont Club post, I <a href="http://manofthewest2000.blogspot.com/2011/03/libya-part-one-from-belmont-club.html">expressed</a> similar thoughts about Obama’s leadership style, especialy in this paragraph:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>1) The Obama Administration, despite the distance which Obama tried to put between his own position and the Bush Doctrine in last night’s speech, has succeeded not only in recapitulating that doctrine but even in magnifying its errors. Where Bush refused to try Saddam himself, Obama refuses even to fight Khadaffi himself. Where Bush handed Saddam over to his rebellious factions to be hung, Obama hands Khadaffi’s rebellious factions the rope. Where Bush led a loose but internationally recognized coalition of the willing, Obama trails an internationally tendentious consortium of the desperate. And while the Left in this country bemoaned Bush’s lack of an exit strategy, when it came their turn to fight they fecklessly refused to propound even an entrance strategy. The actions of the present Administration evince no clear goal beyond justifying the President’s existence in the White House.</blockquote><br />
Having gone right on the previous assessment, I shall now venture another. Again, it brings me no joy to say it, and I wish I had some better news to foretell; but for better or for worse, here is what my searching mind tells me.<br />
<br />
With his foreign policy being shown to be a failure and a worsening economic situation at home, one last offensive will yet issue forth from the Obama administration in time to kick off the 2012 campaign season in earnest. What the specifics of this initiative will be cannot yet be told, but its broad outlines are easy enough to guess: Obama will call for a populist uprising.<br />
<br />
In terms of its scope and extraconstitutionality, it will effectively be “Obamacare 2.0″ , but its content will be very different. We can expect it to display a marked emphasis on environmentalism, especially with regard to mandating carbon reduction and efficiency (read: austerity) measures. We can expect it to involve a youth volunteer corps of immense proportions, which will simultaneously serve as a sort of para-political farm team and psi-ops apparatus, with a strong personal loyalty to Obama (i.e. something like a cross between the SS and the LaRouche organization, but fashioned for the final implemetation of ’60s radicalism). We can expect it to be managed through social networking sites and largely outside the channels of the official bureaucracy. And finally, we can expect it to be a spoils system that will previde educational funding and academic posts only to those with the preferred ideological makeup.<br />
<br />
Since all of this will be done unofficially and voluntarily—”in the spirit of the times,” you might say—these legions will answer only to Obama’s personal charism. Being thus formless and unaccountable, they will be all the more dangerous. Obama will empower them with his presence, will empower every Leftist huckster and race-card dealer and community organizer in the land, and they will feel their oats, and will rise up and demand change. But Obama will have to be ever before them, on the Youtube channels and social media, doing his song and dance. He will appear ridiculous to serious folk, but it will matter no longer; for this is his last best shot.<br />
<br />
In short, his ability for real political leadership in tatters, Obama will go into full-blown Ceaușescu mode, nightly marionette dances and all. He will drum an army of willing Leftists out of the soil to serve as his great host. For this next battle we must now prepare.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-8189588138082290482011-04-27T16:49:00.002-06:002011-04-27T16:52:31.129-06:00The problem is with democracy, not with the birth certificate (from Belmont Club)It is difficult for me to make such comments as must be made [about the revelation of Barack Obama's birth certificate] without sounding A) off-topic and B) reactionary; but since Wretchard quite properly <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/04/27/the-birth-certificate/">brought up</a> the subject of trust, all indications point to the fact that this discussion has now “gone meta,” to use the <i>au courant</i> terminology. We are no longer really talking about the birth certificate itself, but about the ontological wellsprings of power and the highly symbolic act of vesting authority. <br />
<br />
Here is the situation as I see it. What sort of man Barack Obama is should have been obvious from the very beginning. It is revealed in his character, his actions, his speech, his physiognomy, his relations, and in all the other modes which we typically use to “size up” a person. Prudent people knew from their first glimpse of him that he was a dangerous manipulator, and that was enough to determine them against his candidacy. Since the danger rests in <i>who he is</i> not <i>where he was born,</i> there was no need to wait for a resolution to the birther controversy. The content of his character, as per MLK’s famous dream, had already disqualified him in the minds of the sober.<br />
<br />
The angst of the birthers (I hate the unfortunate term—I am using it only for brevity’s sake) therefore cannot reasonably be attributed to a simple concern about the constitutionality of his election. In seems to stem instead from something like the following reasoning: “Barack Obama is <i>just the sort of man</i> who could mesmerize large numbers of the young, the unwary, the foolish, and the wicked; besides which, he has the entire PC, race-baiting, transnational Marxist machinery at his beck and call. We know exactly what he will do if in power, and the vision is horrible to contemplate; yet a crooked fate makes <i>us</i> look like the bad guys if we say so openly. Such conundrums are the inevitable crosses of trying to live like true conservatives in the modern world. Therefore it is necessary to expose him by some innocuous method. He has given us reasonable grounds to suppose that he does not meet the constitutional criteria to be elected president, and his character suggests that a lie on this score is not altogether out of the question. Let us press the point!” Of course, I am not suggesting that these words accurately reflect anybody’s conscious deliberations on the matter. Rather, this is what the birthers’ prudential decision-making would look like if it were translated into prose.<br />
<br />
I’m going to go out on a limb here and submit that it may have been the wrong decision to make. The constitutionality of Obama’s election is not really as important as they’ve made it out to be. “Aha,” they might say, “You don’t think it is important that we might have been able, on constitutional grounds, to block this destructive individual from ever wielding one iota of presidential power for the bane of America? And to expose his aspirations, and those of the entire Leftist movement of which he stands at the head, as an edifice built on lies and deceit?”<br />
<br />
No, I don’t. For everybody already knows such things about the Left, and the Left goes on anyway. <i>In this particular case</i> it might have made a difference, to the disgrace of one lone individual; but the Left is full of disgraced individuals, and the Left goes on anyway (as often as not, the disgraced individuals, too, go on anyway).<br />
<br />
The crucial point was raised above, when we described Obama as “just the sort of man.” The sort of man to do what, exactly? Well, the sort of man that the preexisting Leftist machinery could use for its old familiar purposes. You see, Barack Obama is a type of Nazgûl, a creature hollow and fell. What he is in his own nature doesn’t matter so much. He wanted power and was ensnared by it long ago. Everything he is, and everything he does, can be referred to his principal, the Dark Lord whom he serves.<br />
<br />
The real problem is not that a man like Obama became president, with or without a birth certificate (for the Leftist machinery could ever generate another candidate, and the defenestration of Barack Hussein Obama, even had we been able to arrange it, would not have done it any lasting harm). The problem is that we live in a world where creatures like Barack Obama are even thinkable in the first place. In order to be rid of them for good and all, we must destroy the One Ring from whence his power issues, the power of the Left itself, i.e. the power of modernity.<br />
<br />
How did we end up with an Obama in charge? Certainly decades of Leftist agitprop and institutional reverse racism had something to do with it; but behind them lurks the darker spectre of democracy itself, that pernicious doctrine which holds that people who could not name the last five presidents should have a hand in choosing the next one. Yet the Overton Window slams shut on the tongue of anyone who dares suggest that democracy itself should be reevaluated, hence the difficulty and absurdity of being a conservative in the modern world. Apparently, even conservatives must hold to the maxim that the Enlightenment was just fine and dandy up until about 1920, or even 1933—it was only <i>after</i> that that things got out of hand. But as a matter of fact, politics in the Western world have not been “conservative” since at least 1789, and the adumbrations of that upheaval go back all the way to the 1650s.<br />
<br />
Thus, I am not overly concerned about the constitutionality of Obama’s election. Being a Monarchist, I do not feel quite bound by the canons of the US Constitution anyway, since the document itself is irredeemably revolutionary. Whatever the means by which Obama rose to power, the <i>fact</i> that he rose to power is a verdict on the state of American democracy, and the verdict is one of rigor mortis. The task before us is to create by living example, and by the hard work of real-world politics (as opposed to the electoral variety), the kind of world in which just and free men can live in. We can only do that by recognizing that there can never be any rapprochement between freedom and modernity. The modern state is nothing but bureaucratic tyranny, be it in communist, socialist, or republican forms. Throughout human history there have been any number of tolerably contented subjects. There has never been a democracy that lasted much longer than two centuries. You do the math.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-34052407878149152752011-04-26T09:52:00.002-06:002011-04-26T09:55:42.016-06:00The comment that Catholic News Agency refuses to publish.You know, I'm getting pretty sick and tired of having my comments on other sites continuously trashed and deleted by some stick-up-the-ass moderator. Here is the latest deletion, which appeared beneath an article at Catholic News Agency, in which George Weigel (<a href="http://manofthewest2000.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-on-weigel-and-bottum.html">that idiot</a>) saw fit to "slam" those who criticize Pope John Paul II's fast track to sainthood. <a href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/george-weigel-slams-critics-of-john-paul-iis-fast-track-to-sainthood/">Read the article first,</a> then my comment below will make more sense.<br />
<br />
===========================<br />
<br />
Hey George,<br />
<br />
<br />
The fact that JP2's papacy "changed the history of the Church and the world" is the very reason why he shouldn't be beatified. The changes were terrible. JP2 was a modernist catastrophe of a pope. In the realm of theology, it is clear that this man never thought like a Catholic. In the realm of practical affairs, he was utterly inept. Papal success? Please. Perhaps he can be the patron the saint of false ecumenism, of Koran kissing, of statues of Buddha on top of the tabernacle, of pedophilia, and of losing 50% of Mass attendance under his watch. Passing strange reasons to beatify anybody, still more on the "fast track."<br />
<br />
The ex-drama student from Poland with his tremendous ego simply wanted to impress the Church with the marks of his own grasp. His entire papacy was one big graffiti scrawl saying, in effect, "Karol was here." His discarding of the Magisterial "we," the dithyrambic timbre of his papal writings, and his pernicious modernism pervading every aspect of his thought, his insufferable attempt to alter the Rosary, all testify that popularity was more important than orthodoxy to him. And let's not forget his constant jet-setting and glad-handing of crowds, his meetings with every pagan religion and heretical Protestant sect (it seems he met with everyone, everyone but the victims of sex abuse, that is). Well, excuse me, but I am not impressed by the spectacle of Pope Jean-Luc II flitting around the galaxy, implementing his ecumenical Prime Directive.<br />
<br />
This has got to stop. Nobody is buying your whitewash anymore, George. And if, by the unsearchable mercy of God, Karol Woytyla is in Heaven at this moment, I pray him to somehow, some way, put a stop to this beatification, so that he will not continue to destroy the Church in death as he did in life.<br />
<br />
Good day to you, sir.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-79347171839344122282011-03-31T16:43:00.001-06:002011-03-31T16:50:28.398-06:00The comment that National Catholic Register refuses to publish.Shame on them. But what did I expect?<br />
<br />
In an <a href="http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/father-john-corapi-placed-on-administrative-leave?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NCRegisterDailyBlog+%2540National+Catholic+Register%2541&utm_content=Google+Reader#When:13:15:56Z">article dicsussing the Fr. Corapi case,</a> I have appended the following comment. It has not yet appeared on the site, and perhaps it never will. But it is true, and history will bear out the import of my words.<br />
================<br />
The dominoes continue to fall. Maciel, Euteneuer, now Corapi. So passes the Novus Ordo. So passes the legacy of John Paul the "Great." Robert Barron will be the next to go, followed shortly by Scott Hahn (who will not sin publicly, but will apostatize).<br />
<br />
And while Mark Shea offers some rare words of sobriety on this occasion (certainly not his usual MO), he should know that the clock is ticking on him as well. In fact, any Novus Ordinarian with a public "media ministry" will shortly find the boom of the Almighty lowered on all his works, including the entirety of EWTN. Uncountable reams of material have been issued in the name of the Catholic Church by private individuals acting on their own initiative, or at most abetted by heretical bishops: thousands of hours of video and audio, books, blogs, articles, devotional tracts, diocesan rags, catechetical booklets -- none of it vetted by proper authorities, all of it juvenile and bereft of sound philosophy, all of it stinking of the Novus Ordo and the liberal sacrilege of Garrulous Karolus, all of it destined for the memory hole when the Church Militant recovers her senses.<br />
<br />
When Pope Benedict recently bemoaned the influence of "professional Catholics," he was referring inter alia to those who butter their bread by pretending to represent Catholic intellectual culture but who instead distort it beyond recognition. In America today, that description fits almost anybody who publicly confesses the name "Catholic." It fits the entire Novus Ordo church and its established corridors of power. That the Novus Ordo is a house built on sand is a fact that becomes more undeniable with each passing day.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-39531694422954505142011-03-30T13:38:00.001-06:002011-03-31T14:21:04.834-06:00Libya, Part Two: (From Belmont Club)<b>57. Wretchard,</b> <br />
<br />
That source you cited should silence anybody who still thinks that Peak Oil is not a problem. In fact it is <i>the</i> problem.<br />
<br />
The true nature of Peak Oil has been misunderstood by almost everybody. It has nothing to do with how much oil is left in the ground. (There will always be oil left in the ground, and it will always be available to wealthy people at a sufficient price.) It has to do with being able to get at the oil and utilize it efficiently on a civilizational scale. The real issues are geopolitical, demographic, and infrastructural, not geological.<br />
<br />
When the supply of oil tightens for any reason (i.e revolutions in the Maghreb, or what have you), the price rises, inefficient uses are trimmed back, poorer customers are priced out of the market altogether, and civilization begins to creak. The price of all basic commodities is closely tied to the price of oil, not only because of the transportation factor, but also because oil is an important raw material in industrial processes. Whenever some persistent consumer is willing to pay a premium for that last barrel of oil, the marginal price of all barrels increases by the same amount, and eventually the economy feels the pain.<br />
<br />
Because we cannot afford to consume oil as lavishly as we did before, we have to make less, do less, drive less, consume less; pay more, work more, sacrifice more, and suffer more. The total output of the economy shrinks. In such an environment, it is vain to talk of being rescued by alternative sources of energy. Where will the investment capital come from to bring those sources on line? Where will the technical expertise and labor come from? Any plausible scheme to improve the energy supply (whether by increased oil and gas exploration, nuclear power, coal gasification, renewables, or whatever), will take dozens of years and trillions of dollars to complete, while in the meantime the overall economy continues to dwindle. And "conservation" merely races the demon over the cliff. Conservation means that we do to ourselves the same thing that our nemesis is trying to do to us anyway. We will not have enough money to build the necessary infrastructure to reinflate our bubble economy. And even if we did, investment capital chases the highest rate of return, and the floundering energy sector will not be offering the highest rate of return. It will be a money pit, an eldering kept woman who no longer pulls her own weight.<br />
<br />
However, since it seems we will be unable to do without the energy, we will have to make the investment anyway, and do so at a loss. Hence it will have to be a labor of love. But the free market does not think very kindly of labors of love; Adam Smith's invisible hand wants to be <i>greased,</i> not calloused by long hours of tedium. Since market mechanisms will not of their own provide the necessary capital, the funding will have to be enforced through the tax structure, and we will all become the slaves of energy. Without realizing it, the populations of whole regions will be converted into some sort of oleaginous <i>latifundium</i> for the maintenance of the few surviving industrial conglomerates.<br />
<br />
This is the end of the West, its last desperate grasp at mere survival (its honor and dignity have long since been sold away). If this were our only problem it would be formidable enough, but remember this is all happening against the background of a much larger catastrophe. We have aging and declining populations in the US, Europe, and Japan. We have completely unsustainable pension and welfare programs about to go broke. We have a generation of young people that is less educated, less healthy, and less morally competent than their parents, and who are completely unprepared to deal with this. And we still have borders to defend against an increasingly numerous, increasingly dangerous horde of third-world malcontents. We have weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of tribal warlords who will use them just for fun if they get the chance. We have given ourselves over to greed and perversion. Our once-noble religion has been wussified by liberal progressives. We are no longer worthy of our success, and our discomfiture is beginning to tell upon us. How in the world will we survive this intact?<br />
<br />
Call me pessimistic, but I don't think it can be done. Like an old forest giant, we have run up against the physical limits of our growth. We can no longer put forth enough leaves to gather all the sunlight we need to thrive, and far below the root system cannot drink enough water to keep the remaining leaves healthy. And while we may continue to thrust suckering branches toward the sky for years to come, the true period of organic growth, the <i>saga</i>, is over.<br />
<br />
Probably the best policy for individuals now is to try to avoid contact with Empire as much as possible, neither paying nor receiving from the system, cultivating a detached indifference to matters of government. Perhaps you can hold off the external decay long enough that it does not affect the hearts and minds of your children, and your posterity will one day make landfall in a future age when organic growth is possible again. But for us here today, the tasks before us are grim and pitiless. Let us look not for happiness but for the pride of duty, and so write our names down with those who pulled the world back from the brink.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-12091775218443792982011-03-29T16:13:00.001-06:002011-03-29T16:14:12.336-06:00Libya, Part One: (From Belmont Club)Back in those contentious days immediately succeeding the execution of Saddam Hussein, I began to speculate on possible alternative courses the events might have taken. This was occasioned by the fact that, against my own wishes, I found the execution to be a strangely maudlin display. It wasn’t that Saddam did not deserve his fate; it was that we, his conquerors, did not pay him the honor of killing him ourselves, but remanded him instead to the custody of his sectarian enemies. For me, this made an end to any pretenses of nobility that clung to the Bush Doctrine. The result of Saddam’s capture and trial could not have been more to the liking of the Brussels crowd, and it <i>would have been</i> had they not already held such an irrational animus against Americans and Republicans. But in permitting it to transpire thus, Bush implicitly validated the premises on which the Transnational Left at least nominally bases its positions: international law, international peacekeeping forces, world-jurisdictional courts, and other such-like extravagancies. I suppose this was done out of some misguided attempt to engender an outcome that was both useful and politic, but in that case it miscarried badly. Politically speaking, Bush’s popularity at home could scarcely have been worse (and might have been a bit better) if he had simply flown to Iraq and personally cut Saddam’s heart out. And as for usefulness, I fear we have only sent the message to dictators around the world that, when dealing with America, <i>surrender</i> is no longer an option. Better to fight it out and die like a man than to be thrown like meat to your home-grown jackals. Saddam was “marked for death,” as it were: he could not fight, could not sue for peace, could not surrender, and could not win. He couldn’t even run away. It is an outcome that perhaps the game-theorists in the Pentagon would love, but it is anything but noble. I wondered if there was a better option. <br />
<br />
Hence my excursions into alternative history. One of the possibilities I explored (and not exactly one I endorse, by the way) was to accord Saddam the dignity proper to a conquered Head of State, and allow him to live out his days in exile in America—under guard, of course, but retaining a semblance of his former wealth and status. I could picture him placed under house-arrest in some capacious South Florida mansion, marveling over the ironies of his fate. I suspect that, once the initial novelty had passed, the American public would grow accustomed to having a Saddam in their midst, and might even come to regard with amusement some of his peculiarities, just as they have the recent antics of Charlie Sheen. How long do you think it would be before he was inking his memoirs and appearing in Pizza Hut™ commercials, or dropping in via satellite on the Sunday news shows? I cannot but think that his commentaries on the escalating events in the Middle East would be pored over with great interest.<br />
<br />
This was fantasy, of course. Notwithstanding the security difficulties of maintaining an opulently caged Saddam, it would simply be unjust to allow him to live in peace and comfort while his country was going through the agony of war and restructuring. The funny thing is, it seems like something similar actually figures to happen to Khadaffi. The lessons of the Iraq War provide us with several possible strains of analysis, some of which cross-cut and contradict each other; and I’m not sure how the final symmetries will actually shake out. In the meantime, however, I offer the following analogies as food for thought.<br />
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1) The Obama Administration, despite the distance which Obama tried to put between his own position and the Bush Doctrine in last night’s speech, has succeeded not only in recapitulating that doctrine but even in magnifying its errors. Where Bush refused to try Saddam himself, Obama refuses even to fight Khadaffi himself. Where Bush handed Saddam over to his rebellious factions to be hung, Obama hands Khadaffi’s rebellious factions the rope. Where Bush led a loose but internationally recognized coalition of the willing, Obama trails an internationally tendentious consortium of the desperate. And while the Left in this country bemoaned Bush’s lack of an exit strategy, when it came their turn to fight they fecklessly refused to propound even an entrance strategy. The actions of the present Administration evince no clear goal beyond justifying the President’s existence in the White House.<br />
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2) Even though that vituperative little maggot, Sarkozy, seems to be prosecuting the Libyan War with more than the usual French bitterness, would anybody think it at all absurd if Khadaffi simply fled to the Riviera, with a full military escort, and died a natural death there while awaiting a skillfully delayed trial at the Hague? The subsequent successes of French and Italian national corporations in Libya, with the notable cooporation of the remnants of Khadaffi’s regime, being of course entirely coincidental?<br />
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Or perhaps I’m being too cynical. Time will tell.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-66591764784753657572011-03-26T22:34:00.003-06:002011-03-26T22:41:15.516-06:00Industrial Strength BlatMy paper analyzing the effects of informality, barter, and hysteresis in Russian-Ukrainian natural gas relations. (Click on the "Full Page" Icon to read.)<br /><br /><object id="_ds_74816026" name="_ds_74816026" width="200" height="300" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://viewer.docstoc.com/"> <param name="FlashVars" value="doc_id=74816026&mem_id=12948753&doc_type=doc&fullscreen=0&showrelated=0&showotherdocs=0&showstats=0 "/> <param name="movie" value="http://viewer.docstoc.com/" /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> </object> <br /> <script type="text/javascript">var docstoc_docid="74816026";var docstoc_title="Industrial Strength Blat";var docstoc_urltitle="Industrial Strength Blat";</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://i.docstoccdn.com/js/check-flash.js"></script><font size="1"><a href="http://www.docstoc.com/docs/74816026/Industrial Strength Blat"> Industrial Strength Blat</a> - </font>Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-46400777057421740612011-03-12T22:37:00.006-07:002011-03-12T23:43:06.973-07:00Kingdoms of Blood and Spirit.In very general terms, any time you spend money on an activity that “the market will not support,” you know that the activity in question is <em>symbolic </em>and <em>totemic</em>; that is to say, it belongs to the same genre as monumental architecture, fine arts, and religious worship. All active life (i.e all animal existence) divides itself into the Kingdom of the Blood and the Kingdom of the Spirit. The blood kingdom operates entirely at a material level, concerning itself with that which is necessary for the upkeep of existence itself. This is the sphere to which economics properly belongs, the sphere in which the laws of supply and demand (which are only the laws of thermodynamics adjusted for the presence of living actors) will yield reliable results. Activity in this sphere achieves its objective when it conduces to the health, maintenance, and eventual flourishing of the individual and his estate.<br /><br />The spirit kingdom, on the other hand, concerns itself with that which is <em>true, meaningful, and significant</em>. It is the higher of the two kingdoms, for it corresponds more faithfully to the natural end of man, which is to know, love, and serve God. It is the spirit (and not the flesh) which is responsible for social order, justice, learning, virtue, and excellence of all kinds. For this end, resources are diverted from the kingdom of blood to produce those ends which the spirit of truth that is in a man, requires.<br /><br />Idealist philosophers like Kant made the mistake of assuming that if we could understand the mechanics of the pure spirit, that fact alone would be sufficient for producing a truly just society, which would necessarily include the perfectly harmonious allocation of means to ends. However, they were mistaken. Man’s spirit is corrupted and fallen, his reason darkened, and his appetites confused and misdirected. His spirit, which which was made to feed on truth for the production of virtue, now feeds on lies for the production of sin. All pride and envy, murder, lies, greed, and foolishness are also the fruits of the spirit, for they are the product of a misused will.<br /><br />Flash back to the case of NPR. We know that NPR belongs not to the kingdom of blood, for if it did it would have a natural and unforced profit associated with it. It does not have this, so therefore it belongs to the kingdom of spirit. There is nothing wrong with this <em>per se,</em> for all of mankind’s finest works belong to the spirit. However, that which is spiritual is only virtuous if it also bears witness to the truth, otherwise it belongs to the kingdom not as a citizen but as an interloper and a criminal. Does NPR bear witness to the truth? It certainly does not. It is a totem in the Church of Liberalism, the Church of Satan and his lies and pomps, bearing witness only to the wackiness and treachery by which the professional Left sets its seal.<br /><br />This is why it must not receive federal money, not because it is unprofitable without it, but because it poisons man’s spiritual existence with its black religion. You might think that the champions of the separation of church and state might apply their logic fairly and recognize that NPR is religious in nature, and deny it federal funding on those grounds alone. But of course they will not, and it is not an argument I will make either. The separation of church and state is an illusion drawn from the tumults of a previous revolutionary era; it never should have been held up as a model for enlightened society. For the entire purpose of the kingdom of blood (of which the state is the perfection) is to support the kingdom of spirit (of which the Church is the perfection). We are damned if we continue to pour out our blood in support of the Left’s insane religious imperatives as witnessed through NPR. But we are equally damned if we do not pour out our blood in support of the truth, which is Christ and His Church. It is never the case that the state does not lend its support to any church. The only choice is between supporting the true Church and supporting a false one. We have <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGFuHC75aY">chosen poorly.</a><br /><br /><em>“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,”</em> we are told to pray. What is this but an insistence that the kingdoms of earth and blood bear witness to the kingdoms of spirit and truth? That is why the separation of church and state cannot hold. But the kingdom of truth is not a Kantian Republic of purely rational laws; it is a Church whose head is Christ, whose vicar is Peter, and whose message is the Gospel. It cannot tolerate any dilution or adulteration or false ecumenism. Therefore there will eventually be a battle between the supports of Christ and the supporters of NPR. They will not abide each other and they know it. Until the case is made, until the battle is waged, until the truth is proclaimed with all vigor, we cannot hope for much improvement in our material or spiritual condition. The denizens of the Left, a destructive brood of vipers if ever there was one, misrepresent themselves as secularists and take refuge behind the dubious legal premises of free speech and other misbegotten maxims from the Spirit of ’89. Those of us who are “conservatives,” who long for an organic ordering of society and a return of the perennial philosophy, must root them out of these strongholds. Argue with them if you must; make converts of them if you can; but never forget to <em>oppose</em> them in fact and deed. This means getting rid of their funding and taking control of the organs of state which funnel it to them. To do less than this is to allow the enemy to hang around in our midst. It is to do less than we can and less than we ought.<br /><br />The world is changing; the global economy is creaking; events are lining up for a <em>fin de siècle</em> conflagration. And what with the widespread malaise over Obama, the union defeat in Wisconsin, and the revelations stacking up day by day (including this piece about NPR), it appears that the Left is ready to fall. Let us not waste the opportunity.<br /><br /><em>“He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”</em> Stand up for the truth, and put an end to NPR.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-38547914434204815632010-11-05T20:46:00.003-06:002011-03-30T14:00:17.748-06:00Epistemology and MiraclesIn this paper I will defend the claim that we are sometimes justified in believing that a miracle has occurred, and I will examine three criteria (two necessary, one sufficient) for making that determination. Since I have not the space here for a thoroughgoing exploration of the topic, certain considerations must be omitted from our discussion. I will not, for example, set forth a general theory of knowledge in the light of which miraculous claims may be included as a subset of acceptable propositions, nor will I attempt rigorously to criticize various skeptical arguments to the contrary. Instead, I will assume that there exists in all fully functioning human beings a basic process of belief-formation which, while perhaps not amenable to explicit presentation, is nonetheless intuitively solid enough to be taken as a datum. Using this as a starting point, I will simply describe the analytic conditions under which a miracle can be said to have occurred, given that the justification for belief in said miracle must ultimately rest upon the same mysterious process which justifies the rest of our more prosaic beliefs. On this account, a miracle requires no <em>special</em> epistemic warrant; it is simply a <em>type of belief,</em> and it falls to us to analyze the type of belief that it is.<br />
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Since the term “miracle” has rather a broad application in contemporary usage, most of our ensuing discussion—indeed all of it—will derive its impetus from the manner in which we choose to define it. I take it for granted that we are not interested in colloquialisms (e.g., “It will be a miracle if the Broncos make it to the Super Bowl this year.”), but in the traditional religious sense of the word, <em>viz.</em> a suspension of the natural order, carrying with it a supreme moral or revelatory significance, and seemingly emanating from the heart of reality itself, i.e. God. This definition contains explicitly all that is comprehended in the concept of miracle as such. Consequently, it contains implicitly the very criteria by which we are to judge purportedly miraculous occurrences. The remainder of this paper will focus on the three distinguishing marks of the miraculous, with commentary on the unique epistemological concerns relevant to each, and will conclude with a <em>prima facie</em> argument that any set of conditions minimally requisite for justified human belief-formation would also require the admittance of miraculous occurrences into our general picture of reality. The criteria I mean to examine, then, are these:<br />
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<strong>Condition One: Natural Insufficiency</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
A miracle is a sense-perceptible event, not a subjective interpretation of an event. By declaring them thus, we rule out the possibility that miraculous claims can be reduced to merely ordinary occurrences that happen to have a high symbolic value for people in a particular state of mind. Miracles happen “in the field of nature;” and like every other natural event, they can be objectively witnessed and subjected to various tests. The first criterion of a miracle, then, is that it is a physical occurrence that exceeds the ordinary powers of nature to produce. But this immediately raises a problem: If we do not have an exhaustive description of the laws of nature (and few would argue that we do), then how can we say of a certain event that it is beyond the capacities of nature to perform? Perhaps there are unknown laws of nature that could produce the same effect; or alternatively, perhaps there are individual laws of nature, each severally known more-or-less exhaustively, that can combine in unexpected ways, under unusual circumstances, to produce it.<br />
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However, this objection would have force only on the supposition that there are <em>no</em> known laws of nature, the violation of which would strike us as impossible in the natural course of events. On the contrary, if there are such laws, then there is something in reference to which a miracle can be defined. Therefore, if an event seems to violate the most fundamental and generally applicable physical principles that we know of, then we can conclude with certainty that it “exceeds the ordinary powers of nature to produce.”<br />
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And there <em>are</em> such principles. There exist, namely, the so-called “conservation laws” of matter and energy, and also the second law of thermodynamics, which we might call the conservation law of entropy. These laws are not so much empirical discoveries as they are <em>a priori</em> necessities of systematic physical theorizing, for any physics that failed to include them would be unreliable and worthless. If an event violates any of these, then whatever else it may be, it must certainly derive from somewhere beyond the system of nature-knowledge. The first condition is thus shown to be a <em>necessary</em> condition; for if nature herself can produce the effect, it is <em>ipso facto</em> not miraculous. Intelligent people can disagree about whether the condition is ever satisfied in practice, but we have shown it to be at least satisfiable in principle. We have thus denied a leg to those skeptics who say, following Hume, that “whatever happens is natural and the unnatural does not happen.” This statement’s first conjunct is defeasible due to the fact that hypothetical and otherwise believable events may nevertheless trespass the strict nomological relationships inherent in the concept of “nature.”<br />
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But the first condition is not <em>sufficient</em> for authenticating a miracle. There is more going on in the world than just the blind operation of physical laws: there are also intelligent beings who contend with and against these laws, and who are capable of devising many ingenious tricks of self-deception. When giving a full description of a miracle, we do not want to know merely <em>what</em> happened, but also <em>why</em> it happened. Why were the laws of nature suspended for this person, at this particular time and place, and not others? To answer that question we must discuss not only how miracles relate to the laws that govern nature, but also how they relate to the laws that govern rational creatures—and that leads us to our second condition.<br />
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<strong>Condition Two: Narrative Applicability</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
If a tree unnaturally materializes in a forest, and there’s no one around to see it, is that a miracle? And furthermore, does anybody care? The answers to these questions are, respectively, “no” and “no.” Miracles never happen outside of a personal context—they happen <em>to</em> somebody, and they happen <em>to a purpose.</em> All miraculous claims of which I am aware can be subsumed under the general headings of supernatural healings and provisions, military victories, and prophetic apparitions disclosing important information. In other words, one effect of miracles is to fulfill the moral and physical needs of human beings under conditions in which those needs would not otherwise be met. But this reading assumes that there is some sort of teleology supervening over the lives of individual humans, and over human history as a whole. A <em>story</em> is being told; and the purpose of the miracle is to impact the story at critical junctures, and to bring about the desirable ending. Thus, the second criterion of a genuine miracle is its narrative applicability.<br />
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The inclusion of this criterion is made necessary by the fact that a miracle must be received and understood as such before it can be believed. Therefore it must have some sort of cognizable structure or recognizable quality about it, despite issuing from beyond the boundary of physical law. A miracle that served no human purpose would be superfluous if not harmful, and would hardly be worthy of the name. It would be more like a local breakdown of order altogether, a fissure pouring forth chaos and mayhem into the universe. Obviously such an event could never be given a meaningful interpretation. It could not appear in human consciousness except as the sort of radical negation that is not encountered outside of explicitly philosophical speculation, and that would violate the previous stipulation that miracles be sense-perceptible.<br />
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The second criterion, then, is also seen to be necessary: any non-natural event that has no narrative applicability—an event not ordered to the fulfillment of human needs—is <em>ipso facto</em> not a miracle. Whether or not such events may nevertheless occur is, of course, a separate question; but if they did occur, they would doubtless not be called <em>miracles</em>, and that is our only concern at present. So we have reached a point where we can safely conclude that miracles, while indeed representing violations of physical law, yet conform to a higher law of reason and structure, rooted in the inmost needs of human beings. But this condition too is not sufficient, for it does not follow from it that these supposed miracles are not produced through the agency of some less-than-divine will, in which case they would not “emanate from the heart of reality.” For that we need a further condition, to which we will now turn.<br />
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<strong>Condition Three: The Holiness Criterion</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
In order to be fully convinced that our candidate miracle has a divine provenance, we must be able to ground it in some ontological precept “than which no greater can be thought,” in the words of St. Anselm. We cannot rule out the possibility that there are persons in the universe who are sensitive to hidden truths, who can consolidate powers not generally known, and who can use these powers to produce seemingly miraculous effects. I think the existence of such persons is in fact quite likely; thus we stand in need of some criterion capable of distinguishing genuine miracles from the counterfeits of a profound and clever magician. In other words, we need some way of telling miracles apart from sorcery. This would not be possible unless we accepted some version of the ontological argument for God’s existence. I do not mean to reprise that argument here, for in the present context it raises the spectre of circularity. I do not intend to argue in such a way that my conclusion becomes: “I can believe in miracles because I can believe in God.” Rather, I am assuming several things about the state of mind of the person who wishes to verify that the event he has just witnessed is in fact a miracle. First of all, I am assuming that this person is already convinced of God’s existence on quite other grounds, i.e. the ontological argument. I am also assuming that the event he’s just witnessed completely fulfills the first two conditions, thus giving him a strong warrant for believing in its miraculousness. Now just as he is about to give his assent to the proposition that “Since what I have just witnessed was a miracle, I can be sure it was God who performed it,” a skeptic comes along and poses a Kierkegaardian conundrum: How do you know your miracle was not produced by someone <em>else</em>?<br />
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This question, if unanswerable, would prove fatal for the miracle-claim, since it follows from our definition that only God can perform miracles. But we cannot take the low road of simply defining miracles into existence, so we need some independent way of showing why the definition must hold. This way is provided by the holiness criterion. In accepting the ontological argument we have also accepted its correlates—namely, that God is a necessary and perfect being who is good-itself (i.e. holy), and that God is the only such being. Therefore the quality of holiness can be predicated only of God. And since God is not a deceiver (borrowing a page from Descartes), we know that any event carrying with it the aura of holiness gives us thereby the <em>clear and distinct</em> idea that it was produced by God and only by God.<br />
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The third condition is the king-maker. It is the only truly sufficient condition for granting a warrant of miraculous occurrence, but it does not operate in isolation from the other two. The final justification for belief in miracles can now be expressed by the following complex conditional:<br />
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If an event gives me the clear and distinct impression of holiness then, provided that conditions (1) and (2) are also satisfied, I know that the event was a miracle performed by God (and not by anyone else).<br />
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Notice that the entailment does not also run the other way around—this definition does not say that everything holy is necessarily a miracle. And that is an important feature of the theory, for God’s holiness can of course find expression in other, non-miraculous ways. What the theory does do is provide an unambiguous test by which to distinguish miracles from all other possible experiences. Therefore it is an indispensable component of any further justification for belief in miracles, which was to be shown.<br />
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<strong>Conclusion</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
The claim I defended in this paper was a subjunctive conditional: “If there <em>were </em>miracles, then they <em>would be</em> thus-and-so.” I have said nothing to the effect that miracles actually <em>are.</em> I know of no proof that could be given a skeptic that would satisfy him on this account, and in fact I think it quite impossible to devise one. But I also think that the separate elements presented here collectively provide a rather strong <em>prima facie</em> argument that miracles ought to be accepted. In the first place, we have shown that natural laws are a necessity of all human thought pertaining to physical systems; but that, paradoxically, their violation is not only <em>not unthinkable,</em> but has often enough been justifiably believed. Secondly, we have shown that miraculous claims are never arbitrary with respect to human life, as they might be expected to be if the events in question did no meaningful work and were not ordered to a purpose. Finally, we have shown that the experience of holiness, which is among the more ubiquitous experiences of mankind, is sufficient for a belief in miracles when certain other conditions obtain. Search the annals of epistemology though we may, we are unlikely to find any better justification for belief-claims than the combination of possibility, empirical validation, and near-universal agreement. The miracle concept meets these standards, and skeptics should reconsider their position.<br />
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</script><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.docstoc.com/docs/75070030/Epistemology%20and%20Miracles">Epistemology and Miracles</a> - </span>Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-35069704609691906392009-09-05T13:21:00.001-06:002009-09-05T13:25:58.234-06:00They think, therefore they are not<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span>In a <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/09/yeah-but-what-was-in-it-for-mother-teresa">posthumously republished article</a> at FIRST THINGS, the late Father Richard John Neuhaus laments the spiritual bankruptcy of academic Religious Studies. He should. But he should also have taken a look at his own legacy. Here are my remarks:<br /><br />This article by Father Neuhaus is perfectly accurate. The only problem is that he himself exemplified the very faults he is decrying, as do most of the regular contributors and editorial staff here at FIRST THINGS. They are intellectuals all; masters of sophisticated gibberish, of dialectic, of the over-indulged adversary and of the never-quite-reached conclusion. Father Neuhaus, as we all know per his own self-depictions, was basically a “good liberal,” a man of the sort who thinks that the Social Revolution was not wrong, but that it didn’t go far enough. How telling is that famous picture of him standing next to Martin Luther King Jr., jaw set and eyes fixed, no doubt feeling himself very much in the right, having the good conscience at his back, ready to strike a blow for social justice, doing “the Lord’s work.” Did he know at the time that he was helping to set the standard by which all future liberalism in this country would operate, and that the standard would be one of social agitation, manufactured victimization and enforced pathology, all of it wrapped up and peddled to the lumpen-laity with pseudo-religious platitudes about “helping the poor” and “loving thy neighbor?” If not, then he certainly had ample time consider the aftermath, and it may be that he recognized the truth in the end. One of his last appearances on EWTN was for the purpose providing commentary for the papal mass in New York, which (if memory serves me right) he ridiculed as a “preening and overweening multicultural mishmash.”<br /><br />Well said. Nevertheless, his approach to confronting unpleasant cultural tendencies was marked by both extreme intellectualization and a spirit of sympathy bordering on conciliation, as is that of the magazine he founded. These methods are ineffective. The ostensible purpose of FIRST THINGS is to “advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society.” A quick glance around the society so ordered by Neuhaus & Co. shows exactly how successful that venture has been. Irony of ironies, Neuhaus was planting the seed for that mishmash mass when he decided to agitate alongside Dr. King. The rest is history.<br /><br />It is the eternal fate of intellectuals to be ever standing on the wrong side of life, doing the devil’s work with the noblest intentions. This is because the intellect is capable only of criticism, never of construction. It apprehends and judges only what is unequal; it revels in the discovery of abnormality. Not that the intellect, by its own operations, can ever normalize the defects it discovers; it can only complain, and that complaint is always in the service of power. Subtly and inexorably it strengthens the ego, birthing that adamantine chip on the shoulder which is the hallmark of all revolutionaries, drawing the sympathies of those similarly afflicted, until at last the man is ready to rob an murder in the name of a social ideal which at its bottom can be shown to be nothing but a globalized personal gripe. Short of an actual revolution, there are always the perquisites of academic tenure to consider; the thrills of being a subversive, of tapping into the raw energies behind the misgivings of youth, of becoming “hip” and aloof, living life with a permanent sneer of mockery emblazoned across one’s face. Finally, for those without the skills to hack it in academia, there is the bliss of never-ending childhood that forms the secret pleasure of all victim-complexes; the pleasure of fisted-glove piracy which the victims affect by their ever-present threat of agitation; a life without real demands upon the faculties, without anxiety, without out accomplishment; a life lived in the consoling embrace of darkness.<br /><br />We need look no further to understand why academic Religious Studies is a spiritually stunted project. That is its whole purpose. That’s what it is; that’s what it does. It was not the result of a mistake, but belongs essentially to what intellectualization is all about. What Father Neuhaus & Co. fail to realize is that the unilluminated intellect can never serve as a reliable ally in the quest for spiritual depth, and that therefore their own efforts are often similarly benighted. The intellect plays but a small and not very important part in the affairs of men. The true transformation of society will require the strength of the blood. It is imperative that the Church begin to function once again as a political organism, eschewing not the methods and tactics of temporal power. The alternative will be the complete dissolution of Christianity into a generalized system of social ethics. There are even powerful forces within the Church who desire this very end. The Great Laicization Project, marked by strong appeals to the freedom of conscience and by the ostensible-but-misguided desire to keep the purity of the Church free from state interference (its chief architect at present is George Weigel), must fail if Christianity is to succeed. In its place must needs be an aristocratic Church that can lead society in the right direction by example and command; a Church that cuts the Gordian knot of over-tense argumentation and entrenched political convenience. The current crop of intellectuals is ill-fitted to affect this transformation. They think, therefore they are not.</span></p>Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-45392877833168868142009-08-20T12:48:00.002-06:002009-08-20T13:15:28.888-06:00The Decline of Scientific Publishing Standards, and Publishing Standards in General<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span>At John Reilly’s site, <a href="http://www.johnreilly.info/Bulletin/viewtopic.php?t=108">the commenter HopefulCynic68 has an interesting post </a>about the decline of standards in the magazine publishing industry. This thread provides immense food for thought; indeed, it presses the trigger on several loaded barrels that I’ve been meaning to fire off lately, especially vis-à-vis the precipitous drop in educational standards. However, since I find that subject very difficult to discuss dispassionately, I have for the time being confined my response to those issues pertinent to scientific publications (and why I no longer read them). The line in HopefulCynic68’s post that occasioned my response was this:<br /><br /> <i>“Even the comments on the trends in the magazine world matched my own observations, such as the lefty drift of <u>Scientific American</u> (which is becoming sufficiently pronounced as to damage the credibility of the publication), and the recent improvement in <u>Popular Mechanics.</u> If that trend holds, the 'lowbrow' PM might just steal some thunder from some supposedly highbrow sources.”</i><br /><br /> I used to love reading <i>Scientific American</i> as a young teenager, circa early-to-mid nineties. As I recall, the magazine was at that time a vehicle for the best popular science writing around. Of the many attractions it offered, one could expect at least a half dozen lengthy, well-written articles per issue, mathematical puzzles by Martin Gardener, the wonderful <i>Connections</i> column by James Burke, and colorful graphics that were among the best in the business. I especially enjoyed the articles on physics and astronomy, which as a rule were included in every issue.<br /><br /><br />But by the late nineties I began to notice a serious downward trend in the quality of the scientific <i>thinking</i> behind the articles in the magazine. I had a difficult time of it, having to admit that I could no longer lie to myself about the serious methodological flaws that they allowed to slip into print. I had to question the reasoning behind many of the conclusions drawn in the articles, and I came to the uncomfortable realization that a good portion of the scientific establishment did not know when a thing was proven and when it wasn't. <br /><br /><br />I still remember the exact statement that caused me to lay the magazine aside, never to pick it up again. The year was 1999, early in the summer. I was reading a blurb about plate tectonics, in which a pair of geologists was claiming that great quantities of ocean water were being dragged down into the mantle with the subduction of oceanic plates. This much is certainly true, but the geologists proceeded from these humble beginnings to a rather flippant apocalyptic prediction. The subducting water, they said, posed no threat to the sea levels of planet earth for most of its history, because the interior of the planet was so hot that the water would be quickly converted to high-pressure steam and vented back to the surface. However, by late pre-Cambrian times the interior of earth had cooled sufficiently, such that the water was carried deep into the mantle where it was lost to chemical disassociation, and "sea levels have since dropped more than <i>2000 feet.</i>" <br /><br /><br />It would be an interesting exercise to enumerate all the errors contained in that statement, but we need not proceed further than to note that there is absolutely no geophysical evidence to support the conclusion that sea levels were ever that much higher than they are now. A 2000 ft higher sea would have inundated much of the continental landmass of the planet, and that simply hasn't happened. Whatever the geologists' speculations about the chemistry of the mantle might have told them, there is no <i>prima facie</i> case that their assertions are at all true. The known geological record is incompatible with what they have stated. <br /><br /><br />As an aside, I might also mention that I was thumbing through an issue of <i>Discover</i> magazine at a bookstore sometime in 2004, when I saw what had to be one of the most ridiculous examples of scientific illogicity ever to appear in print. To wit: New research had apparently revealed that the class of antidepressant drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors were not really at all efficacious in increasing the amount of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the synaptic cleft; a finding which, if true, would invalidate decades' worth of theorizing concerning the neurophysiology of depression. "Thus," read the byline of the article, "Scientists were under new pressure to figure out why antidepressants work." <br /><br /><br />Evidently, the idea that antidepressants <i>do not work</i> had never crossed the minds of the editors at <i>Discover;</i> the materialistic myth of the physically determined mind was too much of a non-negotiable element in their worldview. Here we have a case in which the entire theoretical justification for their understanding of the causes and cures of depression had fallen away, and yet these drugs were still somehow, mysteriously, osmotically, occultically held to "work." It ought to go without saying that a <i>selective</i> serotonin reuptake inhibitor has absolutely no attributable mechanism of action that would be profitable for relieving depression <i>if</i> low serotonin levels aren't the cause of that malady; and this becomes even more ironically and laughably true given that the substance in question does not even inhibit the reuptake of serotonin. But none of this is likely to make an impact on the so-called scientific community. I mumbled something about "cycles and epicycles" and put the magazine back on the shelf. They'll endorse the notion of <i>homeopathic</i> SSRIs before they abandon their model. <br /><br /><br />Bio-psychiatry is a large, lucrative, and harmful fraud that directly affects the lives of the untold millions of people who have been told (and sometimes forced) to take these useless and potentially dangerous substances. It is the redux of phrenology, but perpetrated with even less romance and human understanding than its forbear. It is, however, not the only such fraud to which the contemporary scientific establishment has given its <i>imprimatur</i>. At the top of the list we have the massive Anthropogenic Global Warming hoax, and the attendant possibility of serious damage to the U.S. economy if its backers succeed in implementing their agenda. Other entrenched errors of reasoning are less immediately threatening but no less egregious. The ideas of "dark matter" and "dark energy" postulated to explain the contradictions observed in the material content of the universe are naught but mere phantasms. Darwinian evolution has been utterly thrown down by the evidence, only to be revived by <i>ad hoc</i> notions of "punctuated equilibrium" and "inclusive fitness" (both oxymorons). <br /><br /><br />The list could be extended, but it is not necessary to continue. It is clear enough already that real theoretical science has been replaced by an insipid and rather unmanly appetite for pleasing visions, technological gimmickry, "signs and wonders" -- it is science according to Herod Antipas. <i>The Principia Mathematica</i> has fallen to <i>The Tao of Physics.</i> The trend will be reversed eventually; the necessity of living demands it. But when contemporary scientific fluff goes, it will take most of the philosophical presuppositions of modern society with it.</span></p>Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-6938780810028406432009-08-14T18:28:00.004-06:002009-08-14T18:43:12.719-06:00Right is Right and Left is Left...<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:arial;">…and never the twain shall meet.<br /><br />Anyway, that was Oswald Spengler's understanding of the relationship between basic political philosophies, and it's my understanding, too. However, our friend Richard Fernandez does not seem to share in that assessment. In a </span><a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/08/13/anything-i-own/"><span style="font-family:arial;">recent post</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> at The Belmont Club discussing the political Left's ability to out-woo and out-network their competitors on the Right (thus winning more and closer friends for themselves), the redoubtable Wretchard had this to say:<br /><br /><em>"The real secret to gaining on the Left isn’t to offer up a more cogent argument or to present more compelling facts. It’s to outfriend them; to open up a door that will make the undecideds out in the cold come in and feel loved. On the day conservatives sweep the Facebook groups they will sweep the world."</em><br /><br />There is a profound fallacy involved in this type of thinking. It is in the same family as that fallacy which causes many modern religious people to reduce the essence of Christianity to some ersatz "social doctrine." Such people forget that the Church's first priority is to proclaim the Gospel of Christ's love to man, and <em>therefore</em> she undertakes to love them and to better their lot. There is no sense in having the betterment without the Gospel, for the Church does not exist to be some religiously-themed Red Cross knockoff. She exists to redeem souls, to sanctify the world, and to lead us into all truth; and the truth, be it said, is larger than our material well-being as such.<br /><br />In the present context, the fallacy has consequences less eternal but no less erroneous than the secularization of Christianity. The political Right cannot seek to become more like the Left without losing its identity in the process. As a purely practical matter, we may note that this strategy has already been tried and found wanting (notice that President John McCain remains a fixture of <em>Alternative</em> History); but more importantly, once we de-sensationalize Richard's argument by removing the references to humanitarian warmth and internet technology, we see that it reduces to little more than a blatant endorsement of <em>panum et circenses</em>. The Right is here exhorted to use any means at its disposal to purchase the affections of prospective coreligionists.<br /><br />Now here are the facts as Spengler saw them, and as I think most clear-headed people see them. Tools like social networking, affection-peddling, and outcast-courting are not morally neutral techniques of which the Left has availed itself and the Right has not (but yet may, to its advantage); they are subversive practices which issue from the very heart of Leftist ideology and remain forever bound up with it. As G. K. Chesterton once observed, the morality a man really has is not the morality he discusses, but the morality he takes for granted. It is taken for granted by the Left that "numbers win the battle," and that man's greatest good is found in living a comfortable life on earth. To these ends, they assemble coalitions (mobs) to act as unwitting soldiers for them by making empty promises of material abundance and justice (the greatest good for the greatest number). They see nothing transcendent, nothing noble, nothing worthy of sacrifice, and no value in the individual or in the strugglings of great souls.<br /><br />The Right is very different. We believe first and foremost in the transcendent, and we allow it to inform our every political decision. We put the good of the soul above all earthly goods. The Right draws its strength not from numbers but from the innate superiority of its principles, the very principles that Wretchard says aren't enough to win with. Remember, there can never really be any such thing as a conservative <em>party,</em> for the whole notion of governing parties is liberal through and through. The party is basically the engine and the incarnation of liberal thought: it is mean, "democratic," supra-individualistic, and irreligious. The party's vision begins and ends entirely in the earthy plain. The Right, on the other hand, consists of free and responsible souls who will stand or fall only <em>according to their faith:</em> it is (not coincidentally) the principle of <em>right</em>eousness which triumphs over numbers, weight, and all other material factors.<br /><br />We remember that God raised up a Moses, a Gideon, a David, an Elijah, and a Daniel to fulfill His mighty purposes, against every sort of earthy odds. I have yet to read about Him raising up a collective to do anything. If the Right wishes to succeed, it must do so by having a 'Thermopylae" moment: it must stand in the breach and intercede, rooted in nothing but faith. This is the sign of its election. To resort to other means indicates a lack of faith and a dangerous dilution of principle. We must decide what we really believe. The opportunity to stand tall and prevail is even now upon us. We must hope and strive to prove worthy of it.</span></p>Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-35934271570906949842009-06-02T23:27:00.005-06:002009-06-02T23:41:36.992-06:00I guess I'll have to weigh in on TillerEdward Feser has <a href="http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2009/06/two_monsters.html">posted his thoughts</a> on the recent murder of abortion doctor George Tiller. I'm too jaded to come up with much of a response to these things, but my reply follows, for what it's worth:<br /><br /><strong>I think it's curious to see</strong> so many members of the pro-life movement going to such great lengths to condemn Tiller's murder. I am not speaking of Dr. Feser's post, but of Fr. Frank Pavone, for instance. They doth protest too much, methinks. It's almost as if they <em>expect</em> the political ramifications to backfire on them.<br /><br />The fact of the matter is that Tiller's murder will have almost zero political consequences, one way or the other. It will not change anybody's opinion about abortion, or the pro-life movement, or the laws of the land. It will not be brought up in political ads or debates. It will be completely forgotten within a week.<br /><br />This suggests to me that there is a meta-narrative going on above and beyond the talking points on both sides of the abortion debate. Most people do not seem particularly eager to see the issue resolved, nor have they given serious <em>strategic</em> consideration to the measures necessary to resolve it. Both camps focus on converting individual hearts and minds within the context of the current legislative regime. But this is no real answer; it is only a prolongation of the debate, and this dilatory tactic is <em>deliberate.</em><br /><em></em><br />I think there are great uncertainties at work deep in the bosom of our collective psyche. The pro-lifers aren't quite sure they want to live with the strictures of their own moral code, and the pro-choicers aren't quite sure that abortion isn't a grave evil. This uncertainty will ensure that the Tiller matter gets promptly buried. It's too real, too plain, and too sober a fact to confront, just like the facts of abortion itself.<br /><br />When being confronted with these facts, the great majority of people have no idea what to do. They will simply turn away and distract themselves with something else, like a child who hears that his father just lost his job. He knows there is something dreadfully wrong, but there is nothing he can do but "act childish," revert to helplessness, sink into the dark currents of unconscious being. Abortion itself is a symptom of this sinking, but most of the debate surrounding it is not much of an improvement. The catchwords are verbal palliatives designed to obscure and soften reality. Roeder lept up like a flame in this darkness, expended himself in one devastating burst, and flickered out again, of no more consequence than a firefly in the woods; and the earth turns still, untroubled.<br /><br />This is the wretchedness of mankind, the slow and pointless burn, the bitter necessities that cause him to forget and accept all manner of heinous abuses. The only cure is the breaking in of the transcendent God which elevates man to the heights of creation. This alone makes him capable of self-sacrifice and noble purpose. Blessed are those who have ears to hear Him. Pray, O pray ye all, that it may be you.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-83555768628500119482009-05-30T23:34:00.002-06:002009-05-30T23:42:45.226-06:00War and RecoveryRichard Fernandez <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/05/30/iraq-victory-or-defeat/">quotes</a> an Australian Army officer's thoughts about the future of Iraq:<br /><br /><em>The future of Iraq is unknowable,’ he said, ‘but it has started again.’ That remark didn’t answer any questions about the future of events, but it helped frame my expectations.</em><br /><em></em><br />I have responded with some cynical (but hopefully not too cynical) thoughs of my own:<br /><br /><strong>I fully agree,</strong> but the corollary of this statement is that nobody involved in Iraq policy-making can possibly know what the hell they’re doing, and at this point one strategy is pretty much as good as another.<br /><br />I think it was right around the 2006 midterm elections (USA) when I finally concluded that strategy was a moot subject in the Iraq War. It simply didn’t matter anymore. Iraq was going to recover someday (and be much better off than it had been under Saddam), but this would be due to the natural fecundity of life itself, not to any policy decisions. The survivors would pick up the pieces, cobble together a new life from the rubble, start having children, and gradually the war would fade away into the passing generations. The window of opportunity when policy decisions mattered had long since shut; a discontinuity in history had been reached, and now it was all up to nature.<br /><br />I shrugged and began to think of it like this: “One of the things that wars inevitable do is to promote cultural exchange. There wouldn’t be so many Vietnamese immigrants in America today (the child of one such couple is one of my best friends), and a Vietnamese restaurant in every shopping center, if we had not fought a war in that country. We ought to just welcome the refugees from Iraq, and I can look forward to some aromatic tobacco and good falafel.”<br /><br />What I mean to say is, it seems we could have achieved equality of result in Iraq If we had simply butchered and bolted, laid waste to the country’s economy, and dispatched a small interdictory force to watch over things while the locals rebuilt. We would have incurred the moral censure of the world, but it would have blown over in a few years (for fickle mankind is always ready to forget), and it would not have given the Left a McGuffen for 5 years’ worth of skeptical press coverage with which to beat up the Bush administration.<br /><br />We might not be looking at a President Obama today if that had happened, and the situation in Iraq would be no different. Perhaps this is the ultimate indictment of Rumsfeld’s Defense Department and of modern precision warfare in general: it turns warcraft into too dainty a matter. It’s best to just rock-and-roll and then get the hell out. It does far less damage in the long run.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-37269741878719147812009-05-28T01:58:00.005-06:002009-05-28T02:18:24.205-06:00Lab Rats: A case against Animal Experimentation<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4UwPD95aLf0/Sh5IIJoya8I/AAAAAAAAAEg/R4lwIaSjooU/s1600-h/lab+rats.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340785512971135938" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 155px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4UwPD95aLf0/Sh5IIJoya8I/AAAAAAAAAEg/R4lwIaSjooU/s200/lab+rats.bmp" border="0" /></a> A rather obvious yet novel thought occurred to me several weeks ago that actually gave me considerable pause. In fact, it’s so obvious that it’s incredibly easy to overlook it (at least I had, until now); but it’s one of those simple notions that, if proven correct, has the power to affect radical realignments in one’s worldview.<br /><br />I had never before any reason to consider myself opposed to medical experimentation on animals. While I am opposed to certain directions in biological research <em>on principle</em> (such as genetic modification), that is because I believe the research to be wrongheaded and dangerous, not because I believe it violates the rights or integrity of the animal. There are many other instances of animal testing (such as anatomical studies, clinical drug trials, and toxicology tests) to which I would raise no principled objection.<br /><br /><div></div><div>Many contemporary philosophers have spun off elaborate theories of animal rights, mostly making use of some sort of utilitarian analysis. I will not bother to refute those theories here, but suffice it to say that they produce far more heat than light and need not be taken seriously. Animals do not have rights. They do not belong by nature to the community of rational beings to which the concept of rights pertains, and therefore it is categorically impossible to transgress against them. While cruelty to animals is indicative of a coarse and wicked nature in the man who practices it, even the meanest sort of animal abuse cannot be said to constitute a crime. No argument against animal testing made on those grounds can expect to stand very long.</div><br /><div></div><div>On the other hand, the <em>use</em> of animals (as food, as raw materials, as traction, etc.) is entirely licit, for all of creation is ordered to the good of humanity. Animal experiments undertaken for the purpose of enhancing our repository of medical knowledge would seem to be included in the proper concept of use. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.” (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a7.htm#2417">Cf. CCC 2417</a>)</div><br /><div></div><div>But it occurred to me that, by framing the debate entirely in terms of animal rights (and the extent, existence, or nonexistence thereof), we are missing an important dimension of the problem. The issue is not whether animal dignity is being violated by experimentation, but whether <em>human</em> dignity is being debased by a too-ready comparison of the human body with animal flesh. In other words, the more we use lab rats as human analogs, the more we begin to see human beings as glorified lab rats.</div><br /><div></div><div>This has an important bearing on many of the divisive medical-ethical issues of our time, such as contraception, abortion, cloning, and embryonic stem cell research. More, it extends beyond these to encompass even the most mundane matters of medical practice. Let us take but a single example: Contraception (namely, the “birth control pill”). </div><br /><div></div><div>The discovery of hormones must have been a complicated and messy process, the final result of which was the understanding that minute amounts of certain chemical messengers were needed to regulate, among other things, the physiological processes of ovulation, conception, and gestation. In order to make these discoveries, many animal experiments needed to be done. Animals were surgically mutilated. Animals and their parts were ground up and put through various chemical fractioning mechanisms. The resulting fractions were injected into other animals and the results catalogued. Finally, these chemicals were synthesized and incorporated into medications, and these too were tested on animals. Is there anyone who believes that the <em>methods</em> employed here did not influence the researchers’ objectives? After realizing their capacity to manipulate animal life at a fundamental level, how could they then not turn their eye to the manipulation of human life as though it were some vast experiment?</div><br /><div></div><div>I submit that this is exactly how our culture came to embrace the techniques of hormonal contraception, true fruit of the eugenics movement and its concomitant social dysfunctions. Before one can begin to contemplate such things, the human body must be reduced to mere material, to a set of endocrinological processes considered apart from their integration into a person. From there, it is but a small step to eliminating the person entirely from the field of view, and to looking upon the processes themselves as key. With that, self-styled elites rise up who would fain manage the glandular output of humanity in accordance with “scientific” social ends. I doubt not that many a modern liberal looks upon third-worlders, inner-city minorities, and teenagers as “bundles of hormones” upon whom they would lavish contraception in the belief that it would improve their condition, or perhaps even as mere entertainment.</div><br /><div></div><div>There are some who would object to this, saying (and presuming for argument’s sake that we all believe contraception to be wrong) that the step from animal testing to human implementation is not obvious, and that there is somewhere a moral barrier that has broken down. I disagree, for metaphysics and epistemology precedes morality in the order of understanding. If we cannot define what a person is, we cannot know when we are doing right or wrong by him. Martin Heidegger once wrote that the Nazi Holocaust was the result of the application of the principles of modern agronomy to the problems of population management. Many would consider this a cop-out, but I happen to think his was one of the few analyses that actually addressed the hidden dimension of the problem. It was not only morality that failed, but method. The perfect cure requires not only a good will towards one’s neighbor, but “releasement” from the thought-forms of modernity, under the auspices of which we have no neighbor, but only social atoms.</div><br /><div></div><div>Animal testing has contributed to this epistemic catastrophe. Perhaps it therefore ought to be reconsidered. I still maintain that this is a novel approach to the question, even though the idea of human beings as pitiful lab rats is a familiar enough trope in modern social satire. Hitherto we have been using those images as mere metaphors. The novelty is the shocking understanding that <em>the metaphor has now become the literal truth.</em></div>Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-593520416078776027.post-55992441465287617192009-05-11T19:22:00.007-06:002009-05-12T18:37:54.601-06:00More on Weigel and BottumThe most recent episode of EWTN’s <em>The World Over Live</em> featured a long segment (more than half the program, actually) dedicated to the memory of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. Joseph Bottum and George Weigel, respectively the new captain and quartermaster of Neuhaus’ literary legacy, <em>First Things</em> magazine, were present as honored guests. Ostensibly the topic under consideration was <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Babylon-Notes-Christian-Exile/dp/0465013678">American Babylon,</a></em> Neuhaus’ final and posthumously publish book; but that book, being as it was a collection of previously published essays and retrospectives spanning a long career of cultural commentary, readily induces a Talmudic caste of mind in literary men already wont to offer their opinions at the slightest provocation, and under its influence the discussion eventually uncoiled into a mishmash of philosophical abstractions and rococo-maudlin bizarrerie. Central to their meandering parley was the concept of tension as experienced by one who affirms both a Christian and an American identity, out of the fiery depths of which Fr. Neuhaus believed it was possible to forge an optimal version of human existence.<br /><br />I’ll admit that over the last few days I’ve begun to think that some of my recent criticisms of Fr. Neuhaus were unduly harsh. Such a beloved figure, a man so universally admired and appreciated, and here I was, an upstart like me, daring to flaunt my misgivings about him when I’m sure I couldn’t hold a candle to his knowledge, to say nothing of his years of service! Just who did I think I was? When I heard that Fr. Neuhaus was to be the subject of the next broadcast, I made a point of watching the program with the express purpose of gathering material to refute my earlier point of view, arming myself for what I was certain must needs be a grandiloquent and publicly delivered <em>mea culpa.</em> The material never came, however. I emerged from the viewing experience with the unwelcome conviction that in essence my criticisms had been just. Neuhaus’ conception of America as an “almost chosen nation” (at least as it was presented by Weigel and Bottum) seemed like a heady idea to me, flush with the lusty rat-a-tat-tats of a Henry Steele Commager and even the sappy panegyrics of a Walt Whitman. This is all fine in the main, I suppose; but any attempt to weave together the threads of America’s self-conceived political destiny with the substance of the believer’s identity in Christ strikes me as an ill-advised compromise, for the simple reason that it tends to prevent the very thing it is trying to achieve: the right ordering of loyalties and the proper love of one’s country.<br /><br />Now, my own thinking on the matter remains, I hope, decidedly unchallenging to the plain sense of Scripture: love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength (and your neighbor as yourself), and then you will be able to love your country as you would love your mother—that is, as the concrete being who nurtured you and to whom you owe a special kind of allegiance—without getting too persnickety about the details of its interior constitution. The chimerical association of America with Christianity, implying in this case that the country founded on a strong commitment to the free expression of ideas also functions as a particularly good, if not unique, vessel for the attainment of Christian culture—in short everything implied by that alarming theme of almost chosenness—makes continuous threats to destroy my happy hamlet with its uncomfortable admixture of political desirables and religious passion; but that is not how Weigel and Bottum see things. I can almost imagine them quoting with glassy-eyed satisfaction that all too often misused line of Chesterton’s, <em>viz.</em> “America is the only nation with the soul of a church,” without mentioning that, viewed in context, Chesterton makes it quite clear that he in no wise considered this to be an unmitigated advantage. Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote more extensively on the subject, was of the same opinion. In comparison with these two great figures (and especially with the latter), as renowned as they are for their wisdom and foresight, Weigel and Bottum seem to be crippled by a very unhealthy attachment to the present moment and its transient debates. A hermeneutic of American exceptionalism and culture warriorship permeates their analysis of theological questions, creating in my mind the suspicion that, perhaps without expressly willing it, they would nevertheless see the Church and all her transcendent treasures pressed merely into the service of some more passing temporal agenda. I will have more to say below about why this occurs and how to correct it; but first I wish to sketch my impressions of the personal demeanors of these two men, for character is revealed in the physiognomy much more than in the words, and thus we will have a better indication of just who it is we’re dealing with.<br /><br />Concerning George Weigel I have spoken before. The overriding visual impression he gives is that of an oaf. Large, protruding ears frame a neotenous face topped by a tuft of thickish black hair. All in all, he reminds me of nothing so much as the textureless, milk-fed suburbanite specimens I chanced to meet during my days at engineering school. But these slight physical limitations would have been easily overcome by the presence of a winning personality; however, it is in this very respect that Weigel falls decidedly flat. His preferred style of discourse is to drone on in monotone while leaning over the desk, raising the volume of his voice in order to win out in those awkward moments when two speakers are vying for the conversational space. There is a relaxed, overly self-confident slurring and sputtering quality to his speech, as if what he had to say were so important that he need not trouble himself to form actual words; his mere telepathic prowess is sufficient to drive concepts home into the listener’s head. Weigel belongs solidly in the neoconservative wing of the Catholic lay commentariat, having always been a defender of the Iraq War, of religious liberties, and of Vatican II (and “the spirit of Vatican II,” whatever that means). In fact, he’s just the sort of person who would feel very much at home in the WASP establishment; only the Protestant “P” doesn’t apply in his case and “WASC” is not nearly so tidy an acronym. He is perhaps best known for his massive book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Hope-Biography-Pope-John/dp/0060732032/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242091605&sr=1-1">Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II</a>.</em> Such book I am tempted to deride as hagiographic, but one must puzzle over the irony of using “hagiography” as a term of derision when the subject of the book will in fact be canonized someday. The point at present is that it is an overly fawning, one-sided, and heavily processed account that alters the Pope’s views to make them conform to George Weigel’s preexistent political and theological conceptions. In writing it so, Weigel was simply following his larger pattern of presenting Catholic doctrine as if it were justification for his neoconservative outlook; and I suspect it is the latter wherein he has stored up his real treasures.<br /><br />Joseph (AKA “Jody”) Bottum is an odd sort of fellow, to say the least. A mop of wiry brown hair sits like a wig atop his beady-eyed face, lending him an uptight countenance reminiscent of the character actor <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000470/">Jeffrey Jones.</a> He speaks in long, hastily composed paragraphs that tend to wander around the topic like the incomputable geodesics of some verbal <em>n</em>-body problem. In this, he displays a tin ear for the cadences appropriate to televised conversation—in which dialogue must be kept pithy and wit is superior to exposition—which is tantamount to a lack of conversational shame: he seems unaware of the fact that the time he takes to tell a story is incommensurate with the value of the story he tells. There was a repetitious quality to his speech as well: familiar words, atavisms, and chunks of thought recycled from earlier passages kept sewing their way into his patchwork explanations, padding their length and confusing their content. In the midst of one particularly lengthy excursion, the camera could be seen cutting back to <em>World Over Live</em> host Raymond Arroyo, who was growing visibly agitated and anxious to wrest control back from the interminably verbose Mr. Bottum. To crown these interesting developments, once Bottum had satisfied himself that his lecture was over, he settled into his chair with a look of contentment and cocked his left arm back like a cobra, drawing his hand up to his shoulder in what I took to be his characteristic gesture of completion.<br /><br />The low point of their discussion occurred after a caller enquired about the wisdom of advancing a constitutional amendment proclaiming Christ the King. What the caller’s actual question was we shall never know, for he was cut off in mid-sentence by Raymond Arroyo, who was no doubt feeling very squeezed for time after already enduring several of Bottum’s bottomless disquisitions. Weigel spoke “to the issue,” saying (in paraphrase) that “Fr. Neuhaus would have been steadfastly against any such proposal. It is unadvisable to grant congress the authority to declare the kingship of Christ in even a social or a metaphorical sense, for a legislature that had such authority could also do very unsavory things with it, like proclaiming, oh, Oprah Winfrey as queen. It is best to keep the state out of the church’s business; the arrangement hit upon by America is a pretty good way of doing things, and Fr. Neuhaus was keen on preserving it.”<br /><br />What kind of men behave thus? What kind of men, when faced with the (admittedly hypothetical) opportunity of getting one of the tenants of their faith written into statutory law, respond by abrogating it in favor of some jejune concept of liberty and political minimalism? Not exactly men who have placed both body and soul in the service of their beliefs. It is one thing to understand that the church and the state have fundamentally different roles and that, for many practical purposes, they ought to stay out of one another’s way. It is quite another thing to say that liberty trumps truth in the political arena. A strong commitment to liberty becomes, in every question of gravity, simply a commitment to self-negation. If you’re going to believe in something, it is necessary to fight for it, to bring it to expression using whatever means present themselves (including political means), and to take the inevitable setbacks and tragedies as the price of doing business in a fallen world. The Oprah analogy sets up a false dichotomy: Weigel has abandoned the possibility of a concrete victory for the illusion of a security bought by keeping metaphysical questions underneath the government’s radar; but it is not enough to refuse to claim the scepter and to hope that no one else does so. If we do not fight for Christ, than Oprah may end up as queen anyway—by <em>default</em>, and unresisted. We are not far from that situation now.<br /><br />Towards the end of the program, Weigel expressed some disquietude about the manner in which the Obama administration has justified its stance on the sanctity‑of‑life issues so important for the functioning of our society, not to mention dear to the heart of God and to the hearts of His people. In effect, the administration has been saying “We understand your concerns and we respect them, but we’re going to proceed with [say, funding embryonic stem-cell research] anyway.” Weigel says that we’ve never dealt with an opponent like this before: someone who listens to our objections, but then simply dismisses them with a smile and a pat on the head. May I suggest to Mr. Weigel that this is <em>precisely</em> what comes from disregarding the use of political tactics in the service of Church ends? Obama does this because he knows he can: the only army that can stop him has decided that fighting is <em>passé.</em> The Christian of today need not wonder idly what it must have been like to join the crusades like his ancestors did of old, for there are plenty of crusades to be fought right now; but much of the Church, including the episcopacy, has foregone the use of politics to achieve what it desires, because it doesn’t fall into line with the modern day notions of religion as a matter of conscience and the church as a Community of Nice People.<br /><br />What has happened to the Church today? What does it need, really, to be revitalized? I submit that it needs fewer spokesmen like Weigel and Bottum. Religious culture is a vast topic—far to vast to tackle in a short essay—but the crux of the matter is that we moderns have lost any sense of what religion actually <em>is.</em> It has become intellectualized, bowdlerized, and most perniciously, <em>laicized</em> out of all contact with truth and reality. It is the laicizing tendency which I mean to address here. What gives Weigel and Bottum the authority to discourse as they do? Neither one of them has been ordained; neither one of them follows the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. It is inevitable that profit motives and personal hobbyhorses figure into their theological triangulations. The vulgarization of the teaching function that properly belongs to holy offices has spread the message too thin and caused it to lose coherence, such that the community of believers can no longer be said to be “of one mind.” In fact, the Church has lost its character as a church, becoming merely an umbrella organization for a hodgepodge of disconsonant verities.<br /><br />The apostolic priesthood was instituted in part to help combat this natural tendency, but as the power of the laity has increased, that of the priesthood has decreased. This is not to say that the mind of Christ, as it is communicated to us in the person of the priest, is no longer respected anymore, for that would simply be restating the ascendancy of the laity; it is to say that the priests, all too often, no longer communicate the mind of Christ. They have become excessively accommodating to a shadow Magisterium consisting mainly of laypersons—parish committees, diocesan bureaucracies, and secular intellectuals like Weigel and Bottum—who are well able to extort concessions from the Church due to the latter’s lack of political heft.<br /><br />Truly addressing this problem will require us to completely reorganize how we think about religion in the context of modern life. It is important to remember that the individual members of the priesthood have been called out of the lay state and into a higher order of being. The priesthood is an <em>estate,</em> a vocation, a metaphysical reality that brings with it graces, powers, and responsibilities that simply aren’t accessible to the layperson. The priest is a jewel that must be placed in a proper setting, treated with respect and veneration by the entire society. It is <em>they</em> who should be delivering the decisive word on all matters of truth and faith. But this requires, in turn, that they elevate themselves to the dignity that their office demands, and begin to <em>rule</em> the cultural landscape with clarity and firmness. The laity, on the other hand, is much better served by being solidly under the care of a worthy priest than by attempting to make theological determinations for itself. The priest is the hand by which the layman grasps God, and is much more dependable than the fickle mind of man, beset by worldly cares. The best way for a layperson to come close to God is to cultivate strong sacramental and devotional practices, and commit himself to work and to family life. In this way, religion begins to work its way into the bloodstream, becoming a matter of culture and habit, and a sure guide to virtue. For the laymen who is not called to a special religious status, religion is best learned in the context of the family; which, formed under the hand of a holy priesthood, becomes the seedbed of future priests. Thus the religious and lay states support each other on their pilgrimage through this world.<br /><br />It is true that certain laypeople, like St. Catherine of Sienna, have done work that none of the ordained clergy dared to do, and rose to become great doctors of the faith. But this was precisely because the Church was in a state of confusion at the time. When no priest can be found to do the work, God will raise up whomever is willing. I have described here the ordinary way of leading a religiously informed life, the sure way, the way most conducive to peace and harmony, the way that is gentlest on the human frame. It is not the way of the broadsides that so inflame contemporary discussion. It does not stand in need of commentary, and the subscription rates are decidedly cheap.Matt Beckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18243180819805009566noreply@blogger.com2