Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jan 1 13:02:03 EST 1997
Article: 8814 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Diversity is a fact of life; get used to it
Date: 31 Dec 1996 16:49:35 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In le@put.com (Louis Epstein) writes:
>Diversity has caused every war there ever was.We need to see it as a
>challenge to be overcome!
This is obscure.
War results from differences. More specifically, though, doesn't it
result from A treating the differences of other people as a challenge
to be overcome? To the extent the differences are simply permitted to
exist it seems there is no war.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Jan 2 07:30:45 EST 1997
Article: 8833 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: naive Christians and public schools
Date: 2 Jan 1997 07:25:56 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <5afb33$otm@sjx-ixn7.ix.netcom.com> Daniel Benson writes:
>The anti-Christ philosophy of those who founded the public education
>system in America is readily apparant to all who will take the trouble
>to investigate a little.
Do facts about the views of Horace Mann or whoever deserve this much
emphasis? To say "the founders of public education didn't like
Christianity and public schools are in fact anti-Christian" leaves out
a lot needed to make the situation comprehensible. Millions upon
millions of people have been involved in public education since the
1840s -- why has the net effect of all their efforts been what we have
today?
It would help I think to be analytical as well as historical -- to
point to basic features of politics, large public bureaucracies,
professional organizations and so on in America that mean that public
education necessarily tends to have a secularizing effect and promote
central administrative control rather than self-rule.
>Conversly, the true role of public education is to condition children to
>accept their manipulation by the state.
Consider the package of moral attitudes that are emphasized --
self-expression, tolerance and acceptance of change. Basically they're
being taught to concentrate on short-term individual satisfactions and
compliance with what's been decided for them by others.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From neocon-request@abdn.ac.uk Thu Jan 2 16:36:15 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199701022128.QAA05276@panix.com>
Subject: Re: Flags In Churches
To: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 16:28:44 -0500 (EST)
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> >>> >Is it not simply Clearer to ask whether Neuhaus is becoming
> >>> >UTOPIAN in his political thinking?
> Perhaps the most interesting thing about this dispute is that it is
> happening in the pages of First Things at all. Neuhaus has been such
> a major figure among neoconservatives as a religious apologist for
> liberalism, capitalism, and democracy that it is shocking to see him
> openly questioning the legitimacy of the American regime.
The problem arises as it does I think because Neuhaus etc. are liberals
and believe that popular consent is the reason a government is
legitimate. So if the government authoritatively proclaims part of its
essence to be things like the right to abortion to which he believes no
one can legitimately consent it becomes very hard for him to view it as
legitimate.
Another aspect of the problem is that the government is thought to be
an agent of the people, of which we are part, so we become responsible
for whatever the government does or doesn't do. Presumably if Neuhaus
were a subject of an absolute monarch who didn't do anything about
dueling or infant exposure he wouldn't feel called upon to try to
overthrow the government even if the king thought what he was doing was
a matter of principle. As a liberal, democrat and patriot Neuhaus has
a hard time thinking of the U.S. government that way though.
> >I think there is a genuine danger that the 'religious conservatives'
> >will be infected by the same controlling political moralism which
> >drives or drove socialism.
No doubt. When the government is thought to have a general power and
obligation to reorder social life I don't see how controlling political
moralism is to be avoided. How do you convince people such things are
not the role of government? After all, once it has been accepted that
it is, the proposal to restrict the role of government will be
interpreted often correctly as a proposal to reorder social life to the
advantage of those benefit from laissez-faire.
As long as the social order is not viewed as somehow providential it's
going to be very hard to get the genie back in the bottle. And I'm not
sure how that view of the social order is going to reassert itself. If
that's right, then the issue becomes whose controlling political
moralism determines policy. At present there is the c.p.m. of the
Left, and there are moderates who don't like c.p.m. but like social
peace and muddling through so they accommodate it. The arrangement
doesn't work if the Right comes in with its own c.p.m.; hence the
convention that everyone to the right of Bob Dole is to be treated as
an extremist with no legitimate role in political life.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Jan 3 07:00:27 EST 1997
Article: 8837 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Conrservatism Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Date: 2 Jan 1997 20:43:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <32CC46D0.6A12@zxzxz.net> Mike Lepore writes:
>> 4.2 Why don't conservatives care about what happens to the poor, weak,
>> discouraged, and outcast?
>>
>> Conservatives do care about what happens to such people. That's
>> why they oppose government programs that they believe multiply
>> the poor, weak, discouraged, and outcast by undermining and
>> disrupting the network of habits and social relations that
>> enable people to carry on their lives without the aid of
>> government bureaucracy. Moral community declines when people
>> rely on government to solve their problems rather than on
>> themselves and those they live with.
>Okay. Then you would have no objection if the working class were to
>form a revolutionary industrial union, declare the property rights of
>the ruling class null and void, and implement workers' control of the
>means of production. I guess you and I agree that the solution to our
>problems isn't in the actions of government. The working class will
>have to overthrow capitalism (the cause of all social problems)
>without any help from the government.
A revolutionary industrial union that declares property rights null and
void and implements workers' (as a practical matter, its own) control
would have to have enormous centralized power vested in a small number
of men responsible to no one. Existing law, convention and social
relations would be abolished; nothing could fill the gap and provide
social order except force wielded by an omnipotent bureaucracy under
the absolute control of some small group guided by their own ideology.
A stupendous number of decisions would have to be made with no ability
to rely on settled practice or the market to coordinate them.
Coordination, it appears, would require the supremacy of a single
central will backed by force. Sounds like a bad idea.
Or perhaps I'm being unfair. Perhaps we should look at history and see
if some group with this kind of goal has ever come to power ...
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From bit.listserv.christia Sat Jan 4 07:40:31 1997
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~Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 09:11:47 -0500
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Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
~Subject: Re: For a young, confused mind: a clarification, please!
In <13677.851840408@copland.rowan.edu> "Dr Nancy's Sweetie"
writes:
>So far as I can make out, the real problem is that some people just
>don't like their brothers and sisters in Christ, and so make up some
>way to exclude the people they dislike. If someone doesn't agree with
>JoeBlow, and isn't prepared to disagree agreeably, then he's got to
>find a way to redefine Christianity so that JoeBlow doesn't fit.
Pascal said that it was difficult to speak chastely of chastity, or
humbly of humility. The same applies to tolerance, I think.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From bit.listserv.christia Sat Jan 4 07:40:31 1997
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~Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 10:02:46 -0500
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~From: Jim Kalb
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
~Subject: Re: For David Coomler: A Simple Question
In Tim Ikeda
writes:
>I had been going under the assumption that "theory of everything" was
>a literal description about having an all-encompassing theory or
>explanation of everything. Clearly we don't know of any.
I had probably been using the phrase unclearly and in more than one
sense, to include both the sum total of our actual beliefs and what you
say above, which in my second post I refer to as "absolute omniscience"
and attribute to God. The implicit thought I suppose had been that the
latter somehow motivates the former, and that we implicitly but
necessarily make sense of the former by reference to the latter, so if
our understanding of things treats the latter as nonsense we have a
problem.
Another way of making the point of the previous sentence: thought like
life is impossible without ideals such as "truth", "reality", and
"goodness". Ideals don't work though if we think of them as things we
make up ourselves. Therefore belief in transcendent realities is
necessary for ordinary life. It seems difficult however to dissociate
the ideals of "truth" and "reality" from the concept of absolute
omniscience. Otherwise there would be truths that could not be known,
a strange notion. So to the extent we should believe in the things
that best order and make sense of our experience we should believe in
absolute omniscience, that is in the existence of an absolutely
omniscient being.
>I think the problem is that one can be (should be?) just as leery
>of top->bottom (metaphysical/religious) explanations as of bottom->top
>(analytical/scientific) ones at least with regard to providing a
>coherent and complete picture of "it all". I don't think we've yet
>found where the "stalactites and stalagmites of explanation" touch.
We do the best we can. We are in no position to base our thoughts and
actions solely on particular truths that can be rigorously
demonstrated. We orient ourselves by reference to the whole of which
we are part, so religious beliefs -- beliefs about that whole -- are
necessary to us. Such beliefs may not be rigorously demonstrable but
they are not simply arbitrary either.
>> The obvious inference seems to be that absolute omniscience --
>> possession of a completed theory of everything, known to be true
>> -- would require a non-discursive mind that knows things immediately
>> rather than by chains of reasoning from axioms.
>Hmmm... How would that work? I'm not suggesting that would be
>impossible, but would such an ability be completely outside our
>limited comprehension to understand?
We can make sense of it abstractly and by analogy, I think. We
understand with what it is to know something (a color for example)
immediately rather than by chains of reasoning. We also make sense of
theoretical notions like the ones above that are distant from everyday
life by the role they play in our overall understanding of things,
rather as we understand what subatomic particles are by reference to
the role they play in physical theory.
>But, we do evaluate incoming information locally, and mostly in our
>brains. I think that to the extent that our brains function similarly
>(thanks to a common biology and perhaps culture), we can communicate
>our impressions about our "local" experiences. Where I think things
>break down in terms of hard and fast common understanding are in
>questions about "what came before the universe", "did the universe
>require an uncaused cause or an infinity of causes", and "what is the
>ultimate purpose of 'x', 'y' or 'z'". While we are marginally capable
>of understanding local (proximal) phenomena, we really have a pretty
>poor handle on understanding distant (distal) causes. There is
>anything but solid footing at the edges. I think this was the point
>of Dan'l's original post. There are interesting topics at the "edge",
>sure; but more likely decided by faith rather than reason. [This is
>not meant to slight the importance of faith but to suggest that
>"reason" might not be as influential as some think.]
Life is difficult, but we do the best we can. It seems to me that in
all judgements we make both faith and reason play a role. So reason
has an important role in religious faith. How far people will succeed
in finding common ground in such things can not be known in advance.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Sat Jan 4 10:22:22 1997
Subject: Re: Flags In Churches -Reply
To: BillR54619@AOL.COM
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 10:22:22 -0500 (EST)
Cc: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
In-Reply-To: <970104042639_1491482118@emout17.mail.aol.com> from "BillR54619@AOL.COM" at Jan 4, 97 04:26:39 am
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> > Samuel Rushdoony.
R(ousas) J(ohn) Rushdoony? Or maybe there are mobs of Rushdoonys out
there ...
> It is odd to reflect what might happen if the Christian Coalition
> really "won" the culture wars. What would their governing platform be
> ? In _The Road To Holocaust_, Lindsay stated quite explicitly that
> politics is none of the Church's beeswax, and that the mission of the
> Church, its only mission, is evangelism.
Presumably, most CC supporters would agree, as long as they don't see
the government as anti-Christian in its very nature (for example as
that nature is authoritatively expounded by the Supreme Court). Until
the past couple of decades they didn't, and they indeed stayed out of
politics.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Sat Jan 4 10:28:36 1997
Subject: Re: Flags In Churches
To: BillR54619@AOL.COM
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 10:28:36 -0500 (EST)
Cc: neocon@abdn.ac.uk
In-Reply-To: <970104051227_1324484914@emout09.mail.aol.com> from "BillR54619@AOL.COM" at Jan 4, 97 05:12:29 am
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> I think that Jim and I agree on the notion that civil society exists
> prior to the state.
We agree, but American law no longer agrees.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Sat Jan 4 21:46:30 1997
Subject: Re: Flags In Churches
To: div093@abdn.ac.uk
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 21:46:30 -0500 (EST)
Cc: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
In-Reply-To: from "div093@abdn.ac.uk" at Jan 4, 97 06:07:42 pm
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>> > I think that Jim and I agree on the notion that civil society exists
>> > prior to the state.
>>
>> We agree, but American law no longer agrees.
>
>Could you give one or two examples?
I take "civil society exists prior to the state" to mean something like
"the state must recognize the legitimacy of the social institutions
independent of it by reference to which people organize and have always
organized their lives, and of the moral conceptions at the base of those
institutions." The law doesn't do that now, though -- to say something
is a "deeply rooted social stereotype" is to debunk it, especially if it
has to do in some way with power inequalities other than those
established by the state, which independent social institutions always
do.
Almost everything the Supreme Court has had to say in relation to sex
and the sexes would serve as an example. I suppose the decisions on
religion would be another example. Sex roles, standards of sexual
conduct and religious views all enter into the construction of civil
society but the law denies them public validity.
The law does still recognize the presumptive validity of contractual and
property rights, but even there takings law is a real mess and there is
I think a trend in determining rights and obligations away from contract
and toward status (but as established by law rather than autonomously
developed social tradition). Employment law would be an example of
that, for example the steady decline of employment-at-will and the
growth of antidiscrimination law and other protective legislation.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Sat Jan 4 21:47:37 1997
Subject: Re: Flags In Churches
To: div093@abdn.ac.uk
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 21:47:37 -0500 (EST)
Cc: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
In-Reply-To: from "div093@abdn.ac.uk" at Jan 4, 97 06:07:42 pm
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>Its unconservative, I think, to imagine that societies can have NO
>taboos, no unspeakables or undepictables. 1990s PC replaces a whole lot
>of earlier 'pc's. It is disengenious for conservatives to pretend
>otherwise - for example, by the use of the word 'pc'.
1990s PC in line with the times stikes me as more formalized. I don't
think Bowdler inspired a raft of committees issuing guidelines on the
reform of language, but Bowdlerizing I think was nonetheless considered
an unusually obtrusive form of PC. "More formalized" suggests less in
line with common understandings and therefore more tyrannical.
Also -- what's wrong with demanding that people comply with their stated
principles and permit free expression if free expression is still one of
their big causes? You don't have to believe in a social order to feel
entitled to claim the benefits of the principles it sticks *you* with.
Anyway, I thought neocons believed in free speech, democracy, etc.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Sat Jan 4 21:52:22 1997
Subject: Re: Flags In Churches
To: div093@abdn.ac.uk
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 21:52:22 -0500 (EST)
Cc: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
In-Reply-To: from "div093@abdn.ac.uk" at Jan 4, 97 07:14:24 pm
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> long long before the Hittengers and Arkes and society as a whole
> manage legally to limit abortion (I would place bets on the year
> 2050, the 50s always being that sort of decade), people (moral
> individuals) will have to sort out the roles of 'father' & 'mother'.
I think it's obviously right that the abortion issue has to do with
what men and women are. That's what the Supreme Court says and they're
the experts. So how it gets resolved depends on a whole complex of
things about sex and sex roles. My one reservation on what you say is
that I'm not sure that by 2050 there's going to be a "society as a
whole" that sorts things out.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Sun Jan 5 15:08:12 1997
Subject: Re: Flags In Churches
To: div093@abdn.ac.uk
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 15:08:12 -0500 (EST)
Cc: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
In-Reply-To: from "div093@abdn.ac.uk" at Jan 5, 97 03:07:56 pm
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> > My one reservation on what you say is that I'm not sure that by
> > 2050 there's going to be a "society as a whole" that sorts things
> > out.
> Do you believe there is such a thing as 'human nature'? If yes, does
> it create implicit bonds between people? If yes, can the sort of
> social anarchy of which you speak be a real possibility?
Yes.
Yes.
Our knowledge of human nature doesn't tell us all that much. There are
lots of different ways of concretizing it, so all living systems of law
and ethics are particular. For example, it's good for people to
recognize some standard other than whatever outlook they happen to have
individually, and for the standard they recognize to somehow reflect
accumulated experience of society at large. The Chinese might think
the way to do that is to teach the young to defer to the old and the
Anglo-Saxons might think the way is to teach all to defer to law. Both
systems have something to be said for them and both serve similar needs
of human nature. They aren't consistent with each other though, so
taken together they don't give rise to a "society as a whole" capable
of "sorting things out."
I presume in the year 2050 there are going to be both Chinese and A-Ss,
not to mention Muslims, Rushdoonyites, Social Democrats and what have
you, all nanoseconds away from each other via the hyperinternet, and
none is going to convert all the others. I also assume that no
consumer society combination of all the above is going to give people a
way of life they find tolerable. None of that necessarily implies
utter chaos of course -- it may be possible to agree on a sort of _ius
gentium_ that permits various ways of life to coexist.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Sun Jan 5 15:25:15 1997
Subject: Re: Flags In Churches
To: div093@abdn.ac.uk
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 15:25:15 -0500 (EST)
Cc: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
In-Reply-To: from "div093@abdn.ac.uk" at Jan 5, 97 03:12:03 pm
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> Below the political level, isn't there a lot of social/self
> censorship going on?
Sure. There must be some reason though why people feel it has to be
formalized. For one thing, regime affects culture. For example, the
civil rights laws require everyone in a responsible position to have
some motives and not others. You have to really try to bring about
diversity, and make sure everyone who works for you does the same and
understands how good and valuable a goal it is. Otherwise there are
going to be legal problems. If personal devotion to diversity is not
optional for those with ambitions then social/self censorship will
result.
> You gotta get this 1975 model of neocon out of your head.
I like making digs though.
Basically, though, I agree with you and Bill there's a problem adopting
rhetoric you don't really believe in. If you think something is
objectionable in the long run you're probably better off saying why you
really think it's objectionable.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Sun Jan 5 15:34:46 1997
Subject: Re: Joe on 1996
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 15:34:46 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19970105131152.006d1c78@swva.net> from "Seth Williamson" at Jan 5, 97 01:11:56 pm
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> I face the end of this disgusting year with a strange feeling: I've
> never been so ashamed to be an American.
Still, there's been a decline in serious crime for 5 years running.
Abortion and divorce are down somewhat too. What does that show?
Better police methods? No-one's married so there aren't any divorces
and everyone's using contraceptives? That if enough young punks kill
each other off or get tossed in the slammer crime goes down? That
after initial growing pains the post-60s moral order is establishing
its own stability and so represents change rather than decline? Or
that below the radar screens of popular perception something new is
happening?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jan 6 07:01:41 EST 1997
Article: 8866 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: public schools and crime
Date: 5 Jan 1997 14:44:10 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
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In <19970105121401.HAA19951@ladder01.news.aol.com> talsl@aol.com (TALSL) writes:
>It is not necessarily public schools in particular, but more likely
>the American regime. Dr. Donald Livingston (Southern League and
>Professor of Philosophy at Emory) talks of the modern unitary state on
>the one hand (present day America) and the federative polity on the
>other.
But what if anything could have kept things from taking this turn?
Could a clearly-recognized right of succession for example have
prevented consolidation? Or is the notion of political society as a
rationally-designed instrument for promoting peace and prosperity and
securing universal human rights radically inconsistent with the more
organic conception behind Dr. Livingston's federative polity?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Mon Jan 6 14:17:41 1997
Subject: Re: Flags In Churches
To: div093@abdn.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 14:17:41 -0500 (EST)
Cc: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
In-Reply-To: from "div093@abdn.ac.uk" at Jan 6, 97 03:12:57 pm
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> > I also assume that no consumer society combination of all the above
> > is going to give people a way of life they find tolerable.
> You forgot the 'ius McDonald'.
No. See above. The issue as I see it is whether the _ius McDonald_
will be sufficient for things like the socialization of children into a
stable way of life they find worth supporting. Plato didn't think so,
see bks. viii and ix of the _Republic_.
> Perhaps the chairman of McD will decide that the family is good for
> business. That is the only practical hope I can see for Arkes & Co,
The complaint about neoconservatism of course is that it boils down to
this.
> unless they take Hauwerwas's advice and live in an Ark.
Except on the margins of Eurasia, where multiculturalism has been far
less of an issue, most of civilized humanity has lived in arks of one
sort or another.
Your view I take it is that the _ius McDonald_ will lead to society
generally sorting out the relations of the sexes and abortion and no
doubt many other things by the year 2050 or thereabouts?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From jk Mon Jan 6 14:36:34 1997
Subject: Re: Joe on 1996
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 14:36:34 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Mark Cameron" at Jan 6, 97 11:24:17 am
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Mark Cameron:
> I think the positive indicators you point to are primarily a product
> of two things: an aging population and a powerful and intrusive law
> enforcement and criminal justice system.
Maybe so. Or maybe decline like progess is two steps forward and one
back so there are always false dawns if you're looking for them.
> Meanwhile, the cultural rot Sobran refers to continues unabated.
> [Horrible example.]
It does seem to be getting worse. I stopped by a music store this
Christmas^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H holiday season and looked at the pop music
and felt like crying. Do they really have to have a group called the
"Butthole Surfers" do music for the current film version of Romeo and
Juliet?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From jk Mon Jan 6 20:57:04 1997
Subject: Re: Putting the Civil Back Into Society
To: MCAMERON@pco.gc.ca (Mark Cameron)
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1997 20:57:04 -0500 (EST)
Cc: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
In-Reply-To: from "Mark Cameron" at Jan 6, 97 04:11:32 pm
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> One aspect of the campaign to renew civil society is the plea for
> public "civility."
I thought a lot of this was a campaign to tell moderate and
conservative people they should go along with what's coming down when
the Left is in control. When Tip O'Neill said it was "a sin" for a man
like Reagan to be in the White House, or when the _New York Times_
frontpaged Gary Sick's allegations or Kitty Kelly's claims of lengthy
private sessions between Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra, I don't recall
complaints about lack of civility. Come to think of it, comments about
the GOP war on the poor or on women don't seem to violate civility
either. Nor do comparisons of Pat Buchanan with the Nazis.
The beneficiaries of civility in politics include only those people,
ideas etc. that are legitimate. That leaves out everything to the
right of Bob Dole when he's trying especially hard to be soft and
cuddly.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jan 7 15:29:11 EST 1997
Article: 8884 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: public schools and crime
Date: 6 Jan 1997 14:45:35 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
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In <19970106080929168626@deepblue4.salamander.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>> If certain groups did not like certain things, they could
>> "secede" and create their own community more to their likings.
>I wonder if societies require "pulling together" forces as well as
>"pulling apart" forces? If so, how would that be accomplished, and how
>balanced?
Breaking up is hard to do, as a poet/philosopher once said. Businesses
do not tend to break up into units too small for efficiency even though
there are no legal barriers to doing so. It's inconvenient to secede,
and most people most of the time go with what's convenient in
day-to-day life. So I don't think constant splits would be a big
problem.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From soc.religion.christian Wed Jan 8 20:06:24 1997
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~From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
~Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
~Subject: Re: Atheisitic Morality
~Date: 7 Jan 1997 21:03:02 -0500
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In <5asac9$27t@geneva.rutgers.edu> brown9@niehs.nih.gov (Lance A. Brown) writes:
>> For without God, how in the world can an act be "right" or "wrong?"
>> "Because it is right" becomes "because I like it." Well, what if you
>> don't like what others label "right?"
>I disagree, strongly. One does not need an external force to define
>what is "right" and "wrong" in order to live a moral life. Personal
>morality can be built upon societal norms, for example, or something
>as simple as the Golden Rule. Neither of these require a deity
>figure.
If someone made a practice of following societal norms simply because
they were societal norms, would that be an instance of personal
morality? I wouldn't have thought so. Why would that be personal
morality more than the practice of flipping a coin or trying to
maximize one's bank balance?
I think the line of thought is that (1) the way people use "right,"
"wrong" and other such words don't make sense unless there is an
objective moral order that doesn't depend on societal norms, individual
beliefs or anything else about human habits or states of mind, and (2)
it's difficult to justify (1) without reference to God. Also, the
thought is that God is not wholly an external force; he made us and not
we ourselves, and in him we live and move and have our being.
>from personal experience of knowing several extremely moral atheists.
The claim isn't that such people don't exist but that their outlook on
the world is incoherent; they accept principles that exclude each
other. Self-contradiction is not uncommon.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From soc.religion.christian Wed Jan 8 20:06:24 1997
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~From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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In <5ascg3$2s6@geneva.rutgers.edu> lehnerer@phish.nether.net (The Mighty Timm) writes:
>Perhaps a better definition of moral behavior (without theistic
>references) would be along the lines of "what is most benificial or
>least harmful to the greatest number of people".
Is that definition correct, or is it simply one you're asserting
because you feel like doing so? If the former, what is it about the
world that makes it correct? If the latter, why should anyone care
about it?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jan 8 20:06:40 EST 1997
Article: 8893 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: bork book
Date: 7 Jan 1997 20:20:20 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <19970101211500.QAA21164@ladder01.news.aol.com> ddavis8570@aol.com (DDavis8570) writes:
>from reading this weeks american spectator i understand robert borks
>book slouching to gomorrah was panned in the previos issue.
What were the complaints, or could you tell?
I looked through it. It struck me as mostly a summary of a lot of
things a lot of people have been saying. I suppose it might be
considered radical by current establishment conservative standards
because he says it would be a good idea to have a legislative check on
the Supreme Court, censoring porno would be OK, freedom and equality
aren't unqualified goods, and our current difficulties result from very
long-term trends in Western Civ. Nothing exciting, although it shows
some definite steps in the right direction by an establishment sort of
guy.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jan 8 20:06:41 EST 1997
Article: 8896 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The Guarantee
Date: 8 Jan 1997 15:34:59 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References:
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In James Cobb writes:
> A federal court in NJ ruled that a property interest
> --here: the patent-- "may trigger the 14th Amendment,
> and through it the Fifth Amendment's protections, thus
> abrogating any claimed state immunity."
>
> A NY patent lawyer sums up:
>
> "The case says states, by ratifying the 14th Amend-
> ment, have impliedly consented to waiving their 11th
> Amendment rights when property exists."
I'm not sure what the limitations on this principle would be, since
whenever you sue a state for money I suppose you have a property
interest in your right to recover.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From jk Wed Jan 8 17:56:41 1997
Subject: Re: the first things flap
To: leo-strauss@freelance.com
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 17:56:41 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <35c.2592.124@freelance.com> from "Abram Shulsky" at Jan 8, 97 11:54:31 am
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Abram Shulsky writes:
> I guess the point is that in a democracy, if one disagrees with the
> law, one can attempt to convince one's fellow citizens to change it.
> Thus (I'm still speculating) I imagine that Neuhaus (the editor of
> First Things who wrote the introduction to the symposium which caused
> the flap) would say that if there were a democratically-passed law
> allowing abortion, then Christians should try to convince their
> fellow citizens to repeal it. However, since the matter has been
> decided by the Supreme Court, this path isn't open. Hence, (still my
> reading of Neuhaus) one must simply withdraw one's support for the
> regime.
>
> Teti noted that, in 1857, following the Dred Scott decision, things
> must have looked similarly bleak for the anti-slavery cause
I think part of the difficulty for Neuhaus et al. is that for the past
25 years almost the Supreme Court has been saying that abortion rights
are intrinsic to the American regime. The written Constitution doesn't
mention them, but apparently it goes without saying that they are part
of our fundamental law simply from consideration of our fundamental
moral commitments as a polity. So either the Supreme Court's
authoritative interpretation of the constitution, which is supported by
a consensus of respectable institutions, about the legal status of
abortion is simply wrong and (given likely developments regarding
euthenasia) getting more wrong all the time, or our regime is
intrinsically evil from Neuhaus's point of view. The same problem
would not exist I think if the legalization of abortion had been a
legislative matter.
The analogy to Dred Scott would be more persuasive if there had been no
Civil War, if as a result of the decision and its progeny slavery had
spread not only to the territories but to the free states as well even
though substantial majorities wanted to limit it in some way, and in
1880 the Court was still affirming the decision and telling opponents
to shut up because to do otherwise would call in question the American
constitutional system.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From bit.listserv.christia Thu Jan 9 19:25:36 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Muslims' beliefs
In-Reply-To: <199701081458.JAA22378@mh004.infi.net> from "Judith H. Taylor" at
Jan 8, 97 09:55:44 am
Lines: 84
Judith H. Taylor writes:
> > What's the point of saying that the one the Muslims worship is not
> > really God?
>
> The Muslims call Allah god and they say Mohammed is his prophet, yet
> Mohammed received his revelation from an *angel* out in a cave in the
> desert and ....
>
> The apostle Paul tells us "if we or an angel from heaven preach any
> other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be
> accursed" [Gal 1:8], so I guess that takes care of Mohammed since his
> is *another gospel*
It probably doesn't take care of Mohammed since he wasn't perverting
the Gospel of Christ. They were Arab polytheists in Mecca and Medina,
except for a few Jews.
I didn't say Mohammed was right, just that by "Allah" Muslims mean
"God" and that's who they intend to worship. Even if someone believes
many false things about God it can still be God he believes in. If
someone says "I believe in a being who is infinitely wise and powerful,
who made all things out of nothing, who is the source of all good,
obedience to whom is our supreme duty and knowledge of whom our supreme
happiness, whose judgment decides our eternal destiny, and who revealed
himself to Adam, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus," I would say that
person is speaking of God even though he has important beliefs about
God that are false.
> Look at the fruit of this worship of Allah. in middle eastern
> countries where church and state are one. Look at the way women are
> treated, they are chattels and young girls must endure the painful
> humiliation of female circumcision. Look at the human rights
> violations and the injustice there. I see no love at all in that
> system only legalism, avarice, and lust. This is not a picture of
> Jesus, who said "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father"
Horrendous things have happened and still happen in Christian countries
as well. You might as well say that partial-birth abortion shows how
bad Christianity is since it is the Western country in which church
attendance is highest that just upheld its legality. Some Christian
leaders praised the President, an ostentatiously church-going
Christian, for doing so.
It's not true that church and state are one in Muslim countries. The
religious authorities do not as such have political power. Treatment
of women as chattels and female circumcision are not commands of Islam.
Almsgiving on the other hand is a basic principle of the faith, one of
five. Saying Islam is only legalism, avarice and lust is about as fair
as saying the same thing about Christian fundamentalism or the Roman
Catholic Church, which people do say.
Again, though, I'm not saying Muslims are right on the points that
divide them from Christians, only that the one whom they worship is
God.
> > When Saint Paul visited the Athenians he didn't say
> > "all these poets and altars you think so highly of are just a lot of
> > garbage." He tried to find the truth they already had and build on
> > it. Why not do the same?
>
> Paul didn't validate their error. He pointed out that one of their
> altars was to the *unknown* god and he then went on to tell them that
> they could *know God*. He preached Jesus to the Athenians.
I'm not suggesting validating errors, just finding common ground where
there is common ground. Paul reminded the Athenians that some of their
poets had said that in God we live, and move, and have our being. Even
though they were pagans Paul thought when they talked about God they
meant God. Why isn't that true of the Muslims? Is paganism so much
better than Islam?
> I'd like to see someone go to the town square in the middle of Terhan
> or Mecca, in Saudi Arabia and try to do the same .... It would of a
> surety be his last message. Why the conflict if we are all
> worshipping the same God?
He'd be in trouble. There have been times in Christendom when someone
could have gotten into the same kind of trouble. Would you agree that
Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Anabaptists (the Amish, for example)
worship the same God?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From jk Thu Jan 9 16:11:05 1997
Subject: Re: the first things flap
To: leo-strauss@freelance.com
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 16:11:05 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <35c.2598.124@freelance.com> from "Leslie Goldstein" at Jan 9, 97 11:23:01 am
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> why wouldn't the regime be even more immoral if it had passed
> legislatively?
Because then it would be easier to say that the bad law wasn't
necessitated by the very nature of the regime (the basic political
arrangements, including the moral understandings on which they rest),
which the relevant authorities say is the case with respect to the
right to abortion in the United States.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From jk Fri Jan 10 06:43:28 1997
Subject: Re: the first things flap
To: leo-strauss@freelance.com
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 06:43:28 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <35c.2600.124@freelance.com> from "Leslie Goldstein" at Jan 9, 97 11:35:22 am
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> for the sake of avoiding misinformation in this file, I note that
> (a)there is no state in the U.S. where it is legal toabort a viable
> fetus without the justification that a continued pregnancy endangers
> the health or life of the mother. (honesty requires that I add that
> "health" in this context always includes mental as well as physical
> and it is by this logic that a fetus with severe abnormalities can
> get aborted even tho it is technically viable)
More information: in Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade, the
Court had the following comments on a legal requirement that an
abortion be performed only when necessary, in accordance with the
physicians' best clinical judgement:
"We agree with the District Court, 319 F. Supp., at 1058, that the
medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors --
physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age --
relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate
to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to
make his best medical judgment. And it is room that operates for the
benefit, not the disadvantage, of the pregnant woman."
The language has usually been thought to make it impossible to enforce
any significant restrictions on third-term abortions, and my impression
is that no state attempts to do so. (If anyone had successfully been
prosecuted post-Roe for performing a third-term abortion surely we
would have heard about it.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From jk Fri Jan 10 10:00:15 1997
Subject: Emerson embraces Laffer curve!
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU (Newman discussion list)
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 10:00:15 -0500 (EST)
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I haven't been able to come up with the source of the quotation on the
terrors hidden within reform, but it does turn out that R.W. Emerson
was an early proponent of the Laffer curve:
If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing.
"Compensation", _Essays: First Series_.
Somewhat more seriously -- he's well worth reading. He writes
beautifully, in a aphoristic style that makes very abstract points with
very concrete images. He had read and digested in his own way the
European thought of the preceding 50 years. As promised, he is in many
ways a prophet of modern American liberalism, but that's OK -- read
things in the original, I say. Why bother with current theoreticians
when you can read Nietzsche?
His comments on the C of E in English Traits are interesting and
somewhat relevant to earlier discussions -- no-one at base believes in
it, not as part of their living understanding of the world, but they
keep it up out of pigheaded national feeling. Not that he isn't very
much aware of the advantages of pigheaded national feeling, but he
thinks it makes for boring conversation on certain issues.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From jk Fri Jan 10 10:13:14 1997
Subject: More on _First Things_ theocrats
To: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 10:13:14 -0500 (EST)
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I looked briefly at the January issue of _First Things_, which
continues the discussion of judicial usurpation and the legitimacy of
our laws and government in the November issue that caused such a fuss.
The reason for the fuss isn't immediately obvious. The dominant view
on both sides seems to be "something is very wrong with procedures and
outcomes in our actual current system of government, the things that
are wrong are closely connected (as both cause and effect) with strong
cultural trends, if there aren't fundamental changes things may get
very bad indeed, and while it's clear what we can try to do it's very
doubtful we'll get anywhere." It seems that the objection was to
talking about what the "very bad indeed" might involve.
The most substantive argument seems to be that such references would
make "right-wing extremism" the issue the symposium raised in the eyes
of most (non right-wing) people. Some concern does seem ethnically
based -- Jews have generally done better when the king is firmly in
control, and get alarmed when people start saying that maybe the king
should be disobeyed because he's a usurper who has set himself against
the law of God. The experience of the 60s also seems to have
continuing effects.
The "theocon" label does seem an odd one to me, though. So far as I
can tell, the idea is that a theocrat is anyone who thinks that there
are binding moral obligations such that one can not consent to a
political regime an essential purpose of which is to deny them. The
label sticks even when recognition of the obligations has no unique
connection to any particular religion or even to religion as such, as
opposed to nonreligious understandings of natural law.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jan 11 02:29:49 EST 1997
Article: 8903 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Revision - First Alert From the Revolutionary Right - Part 1 of 3
Date: 10 Jan 1997 20:36:56 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <5b6kss$7hk@camel5.mindspring.com> jimric@stpete.mindspring.com (Kirk Brothers) writes:
> a) the Social Security Act, in its entirety, comprises a coercive
>contract within the meaning of UNITED STATES V BUTLER, 297 U.S. 1,
>(1935);
> b) by definition of terms, enforcement of a coercive contract
>comprises the crime of extortion;
>
> c) therefore enforcement of the Social Security Act comprises, in
>effect, the crime of extortion by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),
>and deprives every taxpayer of money (a form of property) without due
>process of law, in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the
>Constitution of the United States.
Why isn't it enough just to say that the SS tax isn't an authorized tax
and so is unconstitutional? Once that's been shown then it would be up
to someone defending the system to say it's contractual. That would be
extremely unpersuasive though. Putting the emphasis on refuting such
an argument may make it seem you don't have a good argument on the main
point, the validity of the SS tax as a tax. So I would suggest
expanding the space devoted to the argument it's not a good tax and
radically shrinking the space for the contractual argument.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jan 11 10:47:54 EST 1997
Article: 8905 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Revision - First Alert From the Revolutionary Right - Part 3 of 3
Date: 11 Jan 1997 02:27:58 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Thought the following, which someone sent me recently, was relevant to
the line of thought:
Good news. I read an interesting law review article recently that
concludes no president since Zachary Taylor has constitutionally
held the office, including William Jefferson Clinton. The
Eligibility Clause of Article II, section I of the Constitution
restricts presidential eligibility to those persons who were
"natural born Citizen[s], or a Citizen of the United States, AT
THE TIME OF THE ADOPTION OF THIS CONSTITUTION." The article cites
some interesting documentation surrounding the Constitutional
Convention that indicates this language was specifically adopted
in accordance with the idea that a social compact could only bind
those living at the time of its adoption, and the Jeffersonian
idea that the tree of liberty must be watered with blood by each
new generation. See 74 Texas Law Review 237; see also 46 Stanford
Law Review 907.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jan 11 10:47:55 EST 1997
Article: 8906 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Revision - First Alert From the Revolutionary Right - Part 3 of 3
Date: 11 Jan 1997 02:22:04 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <5b6kt8$7hk@camel5.mindspring.com>
In <5b6kt8$7hk@camel5.mindspring.com> jimric@stpete.mindspring.com (Kirk Brothers) writes:
>Athens was a city-state, and a true democracy. It was a center for
>the arts, a model of education in philosophy (Socrates, Aristotle
>and Plato come to mind)--yet they had slaves. Aesop, whose fables
>are still read by children (and adults for sophisticated reasons)
>was a slave. The majority of Athenians wanted to own slaves, so
>that's the kind of laws they passed.
>In short, in a democracy, the power of government is virtually
>unlimited, and any numerical majority may impose any kind of
>oppressive laws against any minority.
The example seems a bad one. Athens had slavery before it became a
democracy. All republics (not to mention monarchies, oligarchies and
tyrannies) did in classical antiquity. Also, it seems that American
government was more republican before the 1861-1865 war than afterwards
but there was slavery in the former period and not the latter.
>DEATH CANCELS ALL CONTRACTS.
Why can't someone adopt a contract by course of conduct? If I get on
the bus and ride, when the ticket taker comes around I have to pay
because I made a contract. Since (as you say) only majority adherence
is necessary in the case of a constitution it seems that the
Constitution would still be valid if in each generation the majority
accepted it as such and signified that acceptance by voting, accepting
benefits from the government, etc.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From jk Sat Jan 11 15:50:40 1997
Subject: More on _First Things_ theocrats
To: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 1997 15:50:40 -0500 (EST)
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> I think that the First Things symposiasts gained the reproach of
> advocating 2, and were thus called 'theo-cons', not so much because
> of the content of what they said as because of the emotional tone of
> the introductory editorial and of eg Colson's piece.
Some random thoughts, not necessarily a good response to what you say:
The symposium shows I think that the Right is becoming more aware of its
situation.
It's a difficult one. The goals of the Left and the interests of
influential elites have converged. If more demand for social services,
for formal education, training and indoctrination, and for legal,
social science and managerial expertise makes you more important you
will tend to think that liberation from traditional restraints is not
such a bad thing. From a business standpoint there are definite
advantages if traditional bonds are broken so that all human capacities
become equally raw material for production, to be used in accordance
with purely technical considerations.
Further, at least since the '60s the Left has had no qualms about
irrationality and fanaticism, and has demonstrated that it is quite
willing to use illegal and violent means. As a result, social peace is
now based on an agreement between those responsible for order and
prosperity and those who threaten those things from the Left that
traditional principles of order like family, religion, and local or
ethnic community are to be deprived of public validity and replaced by
some combination of the market and the state bureaucracy. To propose
any significant role for such things as religion or traditional views
on sexual matters in public life is therefore an attack on the social
contract that virtually constitutes a declaration of civil war. You
can talk about "community" and so on if you don't mind Steven Holmes
calling you a cryptofascist, but you have to keep it rhetorical and
vague -- the bottom line is that everything has to be optional except
central control guided by the principles of contemporary liberalism.
Further, national elites have far more influence on political
discussion and decisions than in the past. Since government is more
centralized and makes more decisions the public can influence it less.
Developments in constitutional law mean that if the public does
organize to make a decision on a fundamental political matter, and the
decision is seriously at odds with the views of national elites, it
will be denied effect. The enormous influence of TV and other national
media means that access to the public forum is controlled by
comparatively few gatekeepers. Even if they intend to be fair to a
variety of viewpoints ("advocacy journalism" is not an unknown ideal)
the fact that it's a rather small class that decides what is
significant and responsible and so worth covering stacks the deck. For
example, since a centralized activist government makes the national
media more important, the national media will tend to view it as a good
thing. There are other built-in biases as well.
So the "regime" -- the actual system of government with the moral
understandings that motivate it -- is unable to treat the concerns and
goals of the Right as legitimate and it is very difficult for the Right
to do anything about it. It seems to me that under the circumstances
any straightforward discussion of our current situation from a point of
view that for example views something like traditional sexual morality
as a necessary coordinating principle for social life will be attacked
as divisive, bigoted, theocratic, whatever. If you say "this would be
nice" people will say you're just being nostalgic, unrealistic,
whatever. If you say "no it's necessary" they'll ask why, and if you
describe bad things that will happen and what has to be done at a
minimum to avoid them you're being apocalyptic and you're aiming at a
moral tyranny.
So I suppose I'd agree with the earlier comment (regarding PC) that
it's better to speak freely of the things one finds of concern rather
than force them into the mold of established views. If you have
fundamental disagreements with the regime there's no way you can
develop and communicate your thoughts and act on them and still remain
respectable. I also agree though that the offhand references to
"morally justified revolution" and so on in the introduction to the
symposium were silly. The biggest single problem I think is organizing
people to oppose the regime or even live in a way contrary to its moral
understandings in an atomized mass society of continental size that
still believes in its own democratic legitimacy and still has a
well-organized and self-confident governing class. If there was or
foreseeably could be an opposition that was well enough organized to
make a revolution the situation would be so different as to be
unrecognizable.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
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Article: 89981 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Atheisitic Morality
Date: 12 Jan 1997 23:27:06 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <5b1p4c$24i@geneva.rutgers.edu> wiegand@woodcock.cig.mot.com (Robert Wiegand) writes:
>2) Absolute right and wrong don't exist
>Personally, I go with answer 2.
The issue it seems to me is whether answer 2 in the long run enables
you to make sense of your moral experience. I'm not sure though what
you mean by non-absolute right and wrong. Something like conformity to
the rules of a game that could just as well have been chosen
differently?
>>>from personal experience of knowing several extremely moral atheists.
>There is no contradiction if they don't claim that absolute right and
>wrong exist.
Again, the issue is how to make sense of non-absolute right and wrong.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
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Article: 89997 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Atheisitic Morality
Date: 12 Jan 1997 23:30:11 -0500
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In <5b1p4e$24j@geneva.rutgers.edu> mandtbac@josie.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka) writes:
>>If someone made a practice of following societal norms simply because
>>they were societal norms, would that be an instance of personal
>>morality? I wouldn't have thought so.
>i wouldn't think so, either. what if they practiced following societal
>norms because doing so made sense, in some sense or other?
What kind of sense? If moral sense, then it seems the way it would
make sense is by reference to moral standards that precede and
therefore transcend societal norms. It would follow that talking about
societal norms doesn't explain morality. If some other sense I'm still
not clear what would be moral about the conduct. A statement of moral
principles might for example make metrical sense if it were cast in
_terza rima_, but so what?
>>I think the line of thought is that (1) the way people use "right,"
>>"wrong" and other such words don't make sense unless there is an
>>objective moral order that doesn't depend on societal norms, individual
>>beliefs or anything else about human habits or states of mind,
>"the way people use..." your argument seems to me to be about
>linguistics, not ethics. if you're saying that "right" and "wrong" are
>incorrectly defined, more power to you, but definitional arguments are
>really not very interesting.
I might have said "people use and can't avoid using." Also, by "other
such words" I meant to include whatever the moral vocabulary of the
person's language is.
>>and (2) it's difficult to justify (1) without reference to God.
>no it isn't. read Socrates.
Really? Mostly Socrates professes ignorance. Does he say anywhere
"the objective moral order is independent of God?" He does point out
somewhere as I recall that "good" (or "just" or whatever) can't mean
"dear to the gods", but the concepts of God and of the gods are quite
different. In the _Republic_ he does suggest a derivation from the
idea of the good, but the idea of the good while not conceived as
personal has enough God-like qualities to be inconsistent with the
atheism with which I'm familiar. Once again though I don't think he
says anywhere that the idea of the good and God are utterly irrelevant
to each other.
Also -- since Socrates spent a lot of time discussing the meaning of
words, I'm surprised you find him of any interest. It seems to me that
the reason what he says is of interest is that the way people use words
makes concrete their understanding of the world. So if someone for
example claims that "good" means "the advantage of the powerful"
pursuing the proposed definition leads to results that go beyond what
the correct entry would be in a dictionary.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jan 14 11:04:35 EST 1997
Article: 8932 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: WHY AND HOW AMERICA MUST COLLAPSE
Date: 14 Jan 1997 11:03:17 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <5b6ksj$7hk@camel5.mindspring.com>
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In <5b6ksj$7hk@camel5.mindspring.com> jimric@stpete.mindspring.com (Kirk Brothers) writes:
>Bad habits might be deplored, but to outlaw them is to put Mrs. Grundy
>in the driver's seat, where she is absolutely out of place. Mrs.
>Grundy wants to PROHIBIT things which many people like, simply because
>she feels superior for not liking the same things. She is stupid, and
>a bigot to boot.
There are good reasons for burdening legally or otherwise bad habits
that don't directly harm others. The reasons might or might not apply
in a particular situation, and just what makes sense depends on
circumstances, but the above is far too categorical.
It wouldn't make much sense to say "it's OK to do things that make bad
habits more difficult to carry on, but prohibiting them is stupid,
bigoted, and explicable only as an exercise in unjustified self-
assertion." The implication therefore is that it is simply stupid and
bigoted to think that as a general thing law and other public standards
should try to discourage bad moral conduct.
I don't see why that should be so. We may be concerned in the bad
habits of others because the habit changes what the person is or does,
and others are affected. Someone who drinks heavily may ram another
automobile head-on, or make bad decisions that affect others, or end up
with cirrhosis and drive up medical costs others have to pay for one way
or another, or be unable to look after his family, or (if female) end up
with a kid who's unnecessily defective. Ditto for crack or whatever,
except I don't think crack causes cirrhosis.
Also, bad acts set a bad example and if widespread become bad social
customs. For example (to pick an example with which everyone will
agree) indecent entertainment promotes sleeping around. If a lot of
people sleep around so it's viewed as something people just do, the
level of trust and commitment between men and women will be affected,
and so therefore will the stability of marriages, the frequency of
bastardy, and the way children are brought up and how they act as
adolescents and adults.
So why shouldn't the law at least try to discourage conduct that
contributes to things that injure us? There are of course limits on
how much laws can do to make people good. The goal might be OK but
sometimes the attempt causes more problems than it's worth. Usually
the law is more helpful preserving an existing system of good habits
that mostly rests on other things than creating one out of whole cloth.
But why make it a fundamental principle that discouraging bad habits
and defending morals is not an allowable purpose of the law?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From alt.revolution.counter Fri Jan 17 20:25:10 1997
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
~From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
~Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
~Subject: Re: WHY AND HOW AMERICA MUST COLLAPSE
~Date: 17 Jan 1997 20:23:28 -0500
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In "James C. Langcuster" writes:
>But alas, thanks to the Roosevelt Court's abominable incorporation
>doctrine, public virtue in the form of secular liberalism is being
>legislated not from local courthouses or even state legislatures but
>from the marble corridors of the imperial capital, Washington, D.C.
Mixing liberty and order is an art that can't be carried on
dogmatically as the Supreme Court etc. would like. Tradition is
necessary -- it's the way arts develop and are refined. Since
tradition is particular and local, federalism of some sort is needed as
well in a country the size of the United States.
There's always some form of established religion. "Man posits values,
each for himself" is a statement of faith like any other. We're
constantly being drilled in the catechism whether we like it or not.
Here is some language from the Court's opinion in _Planned Parenthood
v. Casey_ (1992). The point of the language is that when the Court
decides a contentious issue of fundamental political morality like
abortion it must stick by its decision for the sake of the stability
and therefore plausibility of the faith that makes us a society:
Like the character of an individual, the legitimacy of the Court
must be earned over time. So, indeed, must be the character of a
Nation of people who aspire to live according to the rule of law.
Their belief in themselves as such a people is not readily
separable from their understanding of the Court invested with the
authority to decide their constitutional cases and speak before
all others for their constitutional ideals. If the Court's
legitimacy should be undermined, then, so would the country be in
its very ability to see itself through its constitutional ideals.
So the Supreme Court it seems is Pope and prophet of what is
functionally our established church, the institution that articulates
and promulgates the highest authoritative doctrines. We are a people
only through our national faith, we are told, and that faith can not
exist unless divinity is present in the persons of Justices who tell us
what it requires and who like God are the same yesterday, today and
forever. Without the Pope, no Church; outside the Church, no
salvation. It seems that those principles are all the stronger in our
national faith since it denies the transcendent and its God must
therefore be a power wholly of this world.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From alt.society.conservatism Sat Jan 18 15:10:13 1997
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,talk.politics.theory,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Conrservatism Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Date: 11 Jan 1997 08:59:47 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <32D2627B.6F89@zxzxz.net> Mike Lepore writes:
>> A revolutionary industrial union that declares property rights null
>> and void and implements workers' (as a practical matter, its own)
>> control would have to have enormous centralized power vested in a
>> small number of men responsible to no one.
>I don't see how you can tell us what an organization "would"
>do, without making any references to that organization's
>constitution.
Consider the situation such a union would find itself in. Existing
law, convention and social relations would be abolished. A stupendous
number of decisions would have to be made with no ability to rely on
settled practice or the market to coordinate them. Coordination, it
appears, would require the supremacy of a single central will backed by
force, since the settled understandings and habits required for
legitimacy would be lacking. What could fill the gap and provide
social order other than force wielded by an omnipotent bureaucracy
under the absolute control of some small group guided by their own
ideology?
That's the way it seems to me, anyway, and I think my understanding is
supported by the experience of what's happened when groups with this
kind of goal have come to power. Paper constitutions are of course
nice but they don't do much when they don't correspond to the realities
of the situation.
Thanks for the references, by the way. I'll take a look.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jan 18 17:34:20 EST 1997
Article: 8951 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: That Many!
Date: 18 Jan 1997 17:33:48 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In James Cobb writes:
> 01 16 97 Reuter Information Service distributes a news-
> story headlined:
>
> RECENT ATTACKS ON U.S. ABORTION CLINICS
>
> In 1996, bombings, threats and harassment affected
> about one-third of U.S. abortion clinics.
> Last month, there were three arson attempts at the A-Z
> Women's Center in Phoenix; an armed robbery at Planned
> Parenthood of Dallas and northeastern Texas; and a doc-
> tor was stabbed at a Baton Rouge, La., abortion clinic.
I wondered what all this meant, and decided that most likely a
sympathetic reporter had simply picked up inflated figures from a press
release from NARAL or somebody. "Harassment" affecting a clinic could
mean a single telephone call asking why they were killing babies.
I never heard of armed robbery of an adversary as a political crime,
not unless your adversary is a bank. It made me wonder whether the
robbery and for that matter the stabbing was nonpolitical, and someone
had just accumulated all violent crime of any sort affecting abortion
clinics. The language in the _New York Times_ story was consistent
with that interpretation although it was not of course the one the
writer intended to give.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Sat Jan 18 20:23:13 1997
Subject: Re: That shock
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 20:23:13 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970118155006.00699a04@swva.net> from "Seth Williamson" at Jan 18, 97 03:50:06 pm
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> What struck me was how a divorced child could be regarded as as great
> a disaster as a suicide, or the unspecified scandal that the son John
> was embroiled in. I suspect the reader is also intended to believe
> that the girl who died in child birth may have had the child out of
> wedlock.
Also the suicide was after a debauch (what's that, exactly?), and the
girl who became a recluse for the love of a man was I think taking
things more seriously than people do these days.
> One thing I've noticed is that divorce is nearly as epidemic among
> putative conservatives as it is anywhere else.
Which supports the view that social standards are necessary in sexual
matters. People can say they make up their own but in the end they
probably won't behave that differently from those around them.
(Present company excepted of course.) There's a difference between
marriage as something you view as a good thing and marriage as an
objective social reality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Sat Jan 18 20:31:02 1997
Subject: Re: New book on Ango-Catholicism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 20:31:02 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970118192047.006e3adc@swva.net> from "Seth Williamson" at Jan 18, 97 07:20:47 pm
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> John Shelton Reed, the sociologist of the South who's at Chapel Hill.
In their jollier days _Chronicles_ used to publish his "Letter from the
Lower Right" every month I think. I remember piece about an effort to
promote birth control among the beavers near Chapel Hill because there
were getting to be too many of them and nobody wanted to kill or even
neuter them. Anybody know why he dropped out?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jan 19 21:45:22 EST 1997
Article: 8960 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: WHY AND HOW AMERICA MUST COLLAPSE
Date: 19 Jan 1997 21:42:03 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <32e15efa.88337231@news.infoave.net> sethwill@swva.net (Seth Williamson) writes:
>Do you happen to know if the Court, anywhere in this abominable
>decision, addressed the matter of decisions that were wrong in the
>past? Dred Scot, for example?
They didn't mention Dred Scott. If several percent of the adult
population die in battle as a result of a decision and those who like
the decision lose, it presumably grabs their attention. What they say
about overruling in general is that:
[W]hen this Court reexamines a prior holding, its judgment is
customarily informed by a series of prudential and pragmatic
considerations designed to test the consistency of overruling a
prior decision with the ideal of the rule of law, and to gauge the
respective costs of reaffirming and overruling a prior case.
Thus, for example, we may ask whether the rule has proved to be
intolerable simply in defying practical workability, Swift & Co.
v. Wickham, 382 U. S. 111, 116 (1965); whether the rule is subject
to a kind of reliance that would lend a special hardship to the
consequences of overruling and add inequity to the cost of
repudiation, e. g., United States v. Title Ins. & Trust Co., 265
U. S. 472, 486 (1924); whether related principles of law have so
far developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant
of abandoned doctrine, see Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491
U. S. 164, 173-174 (1989); or whether facts have so changed or
come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of
significant application or justification, e.g., Burnet, supra, at
412 (Brandeis, J., dissenting).
The foregoing basically means "we overrule when our decisions on
related issues show that we've changed our minds on the substance, or
when the decision turns out to have made the law hard for us to
administer, and we're more likely to overrule when doing so wouldn't
upset a lot of applecarts." On abortion none of these considerations
support overruling.
>Have they ever given any indication since 1963 that there is such a
>thing as a crisis of legitimacy?
There isn't any from their standpoint. All reputable institutions
stand solidly behind them. There is political opposition that they
feel must be faced down to maintain the principle of the rule of law.
As they say in the opinion, the way to assure legitimacy is for those
who don't like the abortion decisions to give up their opposition.
They say right up front:
Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. Yet 19 years
after our holding that the Constitution protects a woman's right
to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages, Roe v. Wade, 410
U. S. 113 (1973), that definition of liberty is still questioned.
So if there is a problem the fault is in the schismatic heretics
(a.k.a. divisive extremists) among the people.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!panix!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!worldnet.att.net!arclight.uoregon.edu!newsfeeds.sol.net!uwm.edu!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Wed Jan 22 09:16:50 EST 1997
Article: 90418 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: On Bishop Spong
Date: 20 Jan 1997 23:35:50 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <5bv0s6$qma@geneva.rutgers.edu> "D.L. Scott" writes:
>However, I do not place blind faith in the experience and traditions
>of other mere mortal men - whether they are living now or lived a
>thousand years ago.
>I worship God - not the opinions and traditions of mortal men.
It's a ticklish question, though, because you also don't want to
worship your own opinions. If it seems to you that one thing is true,
and it has seemed to most of those who have thought and cared deeply
about the matter and given their lives to it that the contrary is true,
which way does love of truth lead you? After all, truth is no less
independent of your views than of the views of other people.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!panix!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news-xfer.netaxs.com!newsfeeds.sol.net!uwm.edu!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Wed Jan 22 09:16:52 EST 1997
Article: 90449 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Religious conversion is wrong
Date: 20 Jan 1997 23:35:54 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In 5bms25$k72@geneva.rutgers.edu "Nora Rivkis" writes:
> I would, myself, make it a demand rather than an argument or an
> assertion: keep your religion out of my face. You don't have to agree
> with my belief system to obey that; all you need to believe is that I
> do not want your religion in my face, which is relatively easy.
> Failing that, all you have to believe is that I will do something
> gruesome to you if it doesn't happen.
It's not obvious what justifies your demands and (apparent) threat. Do
you want everyone to keep his opinions on all subjects out of your
face? To what extent should others take that desire to heart and why?
Should they do so only in your case or should they presume that
everyone justifiably feels as you do?
> Delivering them in a physical fashion that it is impossible or
> difficult for the listener to avoid constitutes failure to leave them
> alone. Posting in a newsgroup is fair game; one can always skip the
> article, at least if it's got an honest header. Ringing someone's
> doorbell, catching hold of someone's arm physically on the street,
> yelling through a bullhorn in a public square, are all imposing one's
> will by physical force on the un-consenting. That is wrong, and it
> doesn't matter what you want to say by that method.
How do you feel about political demonstrations or imposing taxes to
support public education? Both are physically obtrusive ways of
spreading opinions. Door-to-door solicitation is common enough for all
sorts of purposes. Are all equally objectionable? How about methods
of religious conversion that respect non-consent? Suppose someone
merely puts ads on TV and billboards, passes out leaflets, talks to
those who are willing to talk to him, publicizes classes for inquirers,
etc.?
Lots of questions. The basic problem as I see it is that you haven't
given a reason for thinking all attempts at religious conversion bad.
You've suggested that you personally dislike heavy-handed attempts, and
that decency imposes limits, all of which seems well and good but not
very illuminating.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jan 25 15:14:25 EST 1997
Article: 8988 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: comments on "The Last Ditch"
Date: 24 Jan 1997 20:32:34 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <199701231430271068421@deepblue7.salamander.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>Markets work (I read in Mises and Rothbard) because individuals
>discover the advantages of the division of labor. Everyone is able to
>have more if they specialize in producing what they are best at and
>then trade for other goods. But what if there are needs which are not
>alleviated by the exchange of goods, or which are aggravated by social
>interaction?
The need is for protection from violence, which I think is no less fit
for alleviation by the exchange of goods than protection against bad
weather. It's aggravated by social interaction in the same sense as
the need for protection against communicable disease, but I'm not sure
why that is a problem at least in the fundamental sense you suggest.
>Violence is not self-moderating, and countering violence does not
>always contain it. There is an entirely different dynamic in the human
>being here: the economic factors of need and advantage and estimation
>do not apply. What you will have are blood feuds and unlimited
>retaliation.
If violence is not self-moderating it's not altogether clear why state
violence would moderate it. In fact, as we all know, it does not
always do so. A classic example of a society that had institutions
that moderated violence but no state is medieval Iceland. Blood feuds
and retaliation didn't go on forever because people then as now had
other motives than revenge and victory and because social arrangements
can reflect the full range of human motives even in the absence of a
state.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!panix!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!howland.erols.net!math.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Sat Jan 25 15:14:32 EST 1997
Article: 90629 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Religious conversion is wrong
Date: 23 Jan 1997 21:59:34 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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David Butler wrote:
> "My religion is right and all others are wrong" is exactly akin to
> racism. One of the stronger evils perpetuated by people who claim to
> follow "love".
You seem to believe that your view of religion is correct and those
inconsistent with it are wrong, and that the latter sort of view is
evil and leads to evil. Such a view may show you to be a noble apostle
of tolerance. It may also explain what seems to be a tendency to
identify the belief that there are truths valid for all men with
intolerance and hatred.
It's worth noting that in this century the governments that murdered
the most innocents were guided by antireligious and internationalist
ideologies, and the government usually considered the most evil had a
strong element of relativism in its outlook, distinguishing for example
Jewish from Aryan science, and no particular fondness for traditional
forms of religion.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jan 26 09:12:09 EST 1997
Article: 8999 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: comments on "The Last Ditch"
Date: 26 Jan 1997 09:11:36 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <19970125101744768096@deepblue4.salamander.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>> The need is for protection from violence, which I think is no less fit
>> for alleviation by the exchange of goods than protection against bad
>> weather.
>I suggest that when you and I are trucking and bartering we use one
>mode of thought and behavior, but when I bash you with a cudgel an
>entirely different mode comes into play.
Sure. The claim though isn't that all human behavior is market
behavior any more than people who think the state is essential to
society claim that all behavior is law-abiding. As I understand it the
claim is that market behavior {and other behavior that arises naturally
in social life but does not essentially depend on the existence of a
state} is enough to order social life {under many circumstances}. The
stuff in "{}"s is stuff I would include but anarchocapitalists possibly
would not.
>When your clan seizes me and prepares to string me up, my clan do not
>make some sort of economic estimation of cost and benefit, nor do they
>consider the right and wrong of the matter.
Why think that the only feature a clan can have is clan solidarity?
Other principles are of course necessary to social life, and if forced
to it clans could learn them. People eventually figure out how to
handle situations that arise repeatedly without everyone in sight
getting killed. There could for example be a common law accepted by
all clans applicable to their relations to each other and treated by
each clan as part of its own law. International law among
nation-states would be an analogy. Another example would be procedures
among Gypsies for handling disputes among different groups. In the
case of the Gypsies it's admittedly helpful that they don't like to
kill each other because they don't like either ghosts or attention from
the non-Gypsy authorities.
A stateless society might also lack clans and have instead overlapping
networks of kinship and friendship. That was true of Iceland and it
was part of what made the system workable -- there were always people
in the middle of disputes who tried to work out settlements.
>> If violence is not self-moderating it's not altogether clear why state
>> violence would moderate it.
>Would you say, "If a game has become chaotic it's not altogether clear
>why rules would make it orderly"?
This touches on a basic issue. Social life requires transcendent
ordering principles. What are they to be and how are they to be
institutionalized? Modern international society for example has a
variety of institutions and principles that help keep the peace and
moderate conflict -- while we've had destructive wars in this century
most of those who have died unnatural deaths have died from the
internal violence of states against their own subjects.
Anarchocapitalists think property rights institutionalized in market
practices are sufficient. That seems unlikely to me, although maybe
there's something to techno-optimist theories about the increasing
productivity of economic activity and decreasing yields from predation
as property becomes more intangible. Actual stateless societies have
relied on other things as well. Ancient Israel before Saul added to
property rights a sense of common ethnicity wrapped up with a common
religion with a priesthood and charismatic judges. Medieval Iceland
(870 - 1262 A.D.) had common religion, common moral concepts of honor,
moderation, and loyalty to friends and kinsmen, and a common law with a
system of public assemblies and courts. (Since there was no public
method for enforcing the law, and no public officials except one man
who was recognized as the chief legal expert, Iceland I think should
still count as a stateless society in spite of the law, assemblies and
courts.)
>State violence may be acceptable where private violence is not because
>the State is impersonal and supposedly impartial; we have agreed, or
>at least recognize, that transfering our powers of retaliation to
>leviathan helps to manage violence.
That's the Hobbesian view and I don't think it works. Transcendent
principles are necessary preconditions to society. You can't dummy one
up by simple concentration of physical power. In order for the right
of retaliation to be transferred to the king there must first be a
natural law that explains why the right exists and is transferrable.
But if natural law says that much why can't it say other things as
well? If social order is in the end based on common acceptance of
transcendental principle rather than on force, though, it's not clear
why the state should be in principle essential to it. Other
institutions might be sufficient.
>I've heard the Iceland example before (some also say Ireland) but it
>sounds like a fantasy to me. Is this like Margaret Mead in Samoa?
There's lots of documentation. For one discussion, see
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Iceland/Iceland.html
Really, though, you should read the sagas for a picture of how things
worked. There are a lot of them. _Njal's Saga_ is the best and is
available in a Penguin version.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Fri Jan 24 09:32:47 1997
Subject: Re: New book on Anglo-catholicism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 09:32:47 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <199701240217.VAA05996@swva.net> from "Seth Williamson" at Jan 23, 97 09:17:18 pm
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> What, you think the Chronicles crowd aren't jolly? Just
> because their artwork is things like bats flying around the Statue of
> Liberty at dusk and pictures of heads with the brains exposed?
They used to have the regular columns by Reed and Jane Greer and now
they have Sam Francis. Not that Sam "I've got a little list" Francis
isn't well worth reading, but he does seem somehow less jolly.
> he said he hopes to pick it up again some day.
Hope he does, it was fun.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Fri Jan 24 13:54:15 1997
Subject: Re: New book on Anglo-catholicism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 13:54:15 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Jan 24, 97 04:10:37 pm
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> P J O'Rouke said that the Croatians, Serbs and Bosnians were divided
> by religions none of them believe in.
Most men's anger about religion is as if two men should quarrel for a
lady they neither of them care for.
- George Savile, Marquis of Halifax
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Sat Jan 25 03:07:25 1997
Subject: Re: Larry Flynt's daughter
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 03:07:25 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Steve Laib" at Jan 24, 97 06:49:13 pm
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> Don't know about you guys, but I've about had it up to here
>with the trendoids gushing over the Larry Flynt movie and the smarmy
>assurances that the First Amendment's survival depends on guys like
>flourishing.
It's interesting, isn't it? I think one reason for it is that the case
of Larry Flynt enables our betters to overcome their alienation from
their own country. Flynt after all is an uneducated successful
entrepreneur from the southern parts of middle America who was even a
born-again Christian of sorts for a while. His success is based wholly
on an appeal to the people. So his fundamental spiritual kinship to
our rulers' cultural aspirations and his service to their causes must
give rise to profound and unlooked-for hope for the future.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Sat Jan 25 15:08:12 1997
Subject: Re: the first things flap
To: leo-strauss@freelance.com
Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 15:08:12 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <35c.2649.124@freelance.com> from "Leslie Goldstein" at Jan 25, 97 12:05:04 pm
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> Walter Berns has disavowed "First Things" The news did my heart good.
> Did anyone see his letter who can recount what his argument was?
His letter was extremely short and had no argument unless "I read it
and no discussion is possible so I quit" is an argument.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Mon Jan 27 04:56:52 1997
Subject: Re: Federal Courts (Was Larry Flynt's daughter)
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 04:56:52 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Steve Laib" at Jan 26, 97 08:29:35 pm
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> the fact does exist in the favor of the judges that a questioned
> right has to be brought to the attention of the courts before action
> can be taken. Thus, if people did not think that there was a need to
> question an "all male" policy, then even if the policy was
> unconstitutional 100 years ago, no one had the chance to say so.
So the courts won't act unless there is at least one person in the
country who thinks they should act. How significant a limitation is
that?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jan 27 20:10:22 EST 1997
Article: 9007 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: BEYOND THE FRINGE: 32-10
Date: 27 Jan 1997 14:05:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <32E96279.3DC7@mindspring.com> James Hedman writes:
>> What does it show that when somebody has an article on Pareto
>> written by a Roman Catholic priest it gets published in something
>> entitled _Beyond the Fringe_ and the first place it occurs to
>> someone to post it online is alt.skinheads?
>I think it shows how the acceptable breadth of political discourse is
>narrowed and constrained by PC ideology and sheep think.
The sky's the limit in some directions and in others you have to watch
it. Actually, I'm not sure that even the sky's a limit if you're on
the Left -- neither grammar, metaphysical coherence nor the laws of
physics seem to be constraints.
Enough complaints, though. Turning to Pareto, does it seem that modern
conditions have given a decisive advantage to the foxes and cut away
the ground the lions once stood on? Territorially-based national
solidarity seems hard to maintain due to improved transportation and
instant communication, and it appears that class solidarity will be
weak in a complex worldwide economy that is always changing in
uncontrollable ways. So it's not clear what the lions would defend if
they did make a comeback.
Since the foxes can't maintain the coherence of society and the lions
can't create it when it isn't already there, it seems that the outlook
is for radical social dissolution. Radical social dissolution isn't
stable either, so the further outlook would be for society to be
reconstituted on some other principle that would give the lions
something to defend and the foxes something to manipulate. I'm not
sure Pareto's system of residues tells us where to find the prophet and
lawgiver, though. I've suggested (often enough to be boring) the
solidarity of tightly-knit ethnic/religious communities as a possible
basis for future societies. Any other possibilities?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jan 28 18:18:42 EST 1997
Article: 9013 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: BEYOND THE FRINGE: 32-10
Date: 28 Jan 1997 06:39:51 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 32
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In <32ED0E34.5B40@mindspring.com> James Hedman writes:
>However, the imminence of the dissolution is suspect. Eurpoean
>civilization (including the United States) is extremely wealthy in
>terms of physical and intellectual capital. These resources will have
>to be drawn down a LOT more before radical transformation will take
>place.
I think it was Robert Walpole who said there's a lot of ruin in a
country. My own tendency though is to think of the transformation as
beginning with small-scale structures rather than overall framework.
After all, the overall framework -- the economy, the bureaucracy, and
so on -- comprise things we do well today and people consider worth
taking care of because they think those things can carry the whole
burden of social life.
The small-scale structures -- family and other face-to-face communities
-- in contrast seem to me in disarray to a degree that has no
historical precedent although they are absolutely necessary to a stable
and tolerably satisfying way of life. That disarray seems a necessary
consequence of the development of our particular public order. So what
I'd expect is for the small-scale structures to re-establish themselves
on new principles inconsistent with that order. The growth of home
schooling, home business and religious sectarianism, including in the
limit extreme separatists such as the Amish and Hasidim, as well as
gated communities, are not I think fads.
Exactly when and by what stages it all happens who can say. Things
come suddenly or not.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!panix!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.sgi.com!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Tue Jan 28 18:18:48 EST 1997
Article: 90796 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Religious conversion is wrong
Date: 27 Jan 1997 23:23:19 -0500
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In <5chl42$e7o@geneva.rutgers.edu> "Nora Rivkis" writes:
>If you are not making a specific effort to circumvent my attempts to
>ignore, move away from, or avoid hearing you, you're not in my face,
>you're just there. It's when you try to force me to listen whether I
>want to or not that you're overstepping -- badly.
The right not to hear about something one doesn't want to hear about is
an odd one. Most examples you give are things that are wrong for other
reasons -- assault, trespass, crude fraud or whatever. I've never run
into anything like most of them, but I don't doubt that everything
someone might do someone somewhere does do. I have experienced loud
bullhorns in small parks and agree they should be legally restrained,
but for reasons that don't have a lot to do with the content of what's
said. I don't see anything wrong with ringing doorbells, although if
there got to be a lot of it I might put up a "no solicitation" notice
and get annoyed if it were ignored.
Your concerns seem to have to do with content, though. In day-to-day
life it's common enough to raise issues someone doesn't want to deal
with and try to checkmate attempts to avoid them. "I don't want to
talk about that" is not necessarily dispositive although it's a
response that is often sensible to accept and rude to ignore. It seems
though that you want that response to be dispositive in matters
relating to religion in a way it is not in connection with other
topics. Why is that? Or do I just misunderstand?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!panix!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!uwm.edu!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Tue Jan 28 18:18:51 EST 1997
Article: 90836 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Religious conversion is wrong
Date: 27 Jan 1997 23:23:24 -0500
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In <5chl3d$e7g@geneva.rutgers.edu> "Nora Rivkis" writes:
>They should probably presume strangers don't want to be bothered.
You seem to be saying that it's wrong to raise an issue with someone
unless you have specific reason to believe he would be interested. I
say that because this seems an additional requirement beyond your
requirement that those who say they don't want to be bothered not be
bothered.
>Nor do I have as complete a right to be left alone in general as I do
>on the topic of religion.
What is special about religion that takes it out of public discussion
and advocacy?
>Political demonstrations should be held in places where the
>politicians, who have volunteered to listen to their constituents'
>political opinions by running for office, can hear them and so can
>anyone interested, but those who are not interested can easily avoid
>them.
Not on the Mall in Washington, then. On your view it seems all
political (and other?) parades should be done away with. I'm not sure
what public life would look like if your sensibility became the
dominant one.
I'm still trying to see what's at stake here. It seems our experiences
and sensibilities both differ radically. The basic substantive issue I
suspect is whether the most important things can be treated as
radically private.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Wed Jan 1 10:40:04 1997
Subject: Re: Christmas greetings
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 10:40:04 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19961231191041.006d2e28@swva.net> from "Seth Williamson" at Dec 31, 96 07:27:18 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
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Status: RO
> It seems that the order of nuns who've been making our bread for the
> Host for lo these many years sent him a card saying, "Happy
> Holidays." He said, from the pulpit, "This is an order of NUNS, for
> goodness sake, and they're saying 'Happy Holidays'? Give me a
> break!"
I do think there has been a shift toward greater self-consciousness
about this sort of thing in just the past couple of years. An example
of something similar but I think more extreme is the Episcopal Sunday
school curriculum, put out by Virginia Theological Seminary, which uses
"BCE" in talking about Old Testament history.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Wed Jan 1 20:51:23 1997
Subject: Re: For David Coomler: A Simple Question
To: sathre@ix.netcom.com (Tom H Sathre)
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 20:51:23 -0500 (EST)
Cc: timi@mendel.berkeley.edu
In-Reply-To: <199701012048.MAA22746@dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com> from "Tom H Sathre" at Jan 1, 97 12:48:14 pm
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Status: RO
> In 1883, Georg Cantor wrote "Foundations of a Universal Theory of
> Manifolds". His general theorem, that the number of subsets of a set
> is always greater than its "member count", is contradicted by the set
> comprised of all sets. Cantor discovered this contradiction.
What's the current view of this? Is the problem with Cantor's theory
or with the set of all sets? (I think this is irrelevant to the main
part of the discussion, but I'm curious.)
> This is self-contradictory. My best guess is that this is what Jim
> meant by an incoherent notion.
Yes.
> At the risk of being a "one-note Johnny", I'd remind both of you that
> a pretty powerful "proof" of Christianity is love in all its many
> sources and destinations. Yet love isn't axiomatizable.
Not by us in any way I can imagine. Still, it seems worth while to try
to bring the different parts of our life and thought -- love, axiomatic
systems and whatever -- into as much coherence and mutual relation as
possible. After all, they all relate to the same world God created.
> >> The obvious inference seems to be that absolute omniscience --
> >> possession of a completed theory of everything, known to be true
> >> -- would require a non-discursive mind that knows things immediately
> >> rather than by chains of reasoning from axioms. A traditional theist
> >> can live with that.
> I'm reminded of Arthur Clarke's observation, "Any sufficiently advanced
> technology is indistinguisable from magic." Are we simply talking here
> about advanced technology?
I don't think so. Technology has to do with means-end rationality and
therefore with chains of reasoning.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Lived on decaf, faced no devil.
From jk Fri Jan 10 17:57:04 1997
Subject: re: abortion and mr. pehme
To: v-jmarino@bbs2.umd.edu
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 17:57:04 -0500 (EST)
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> "Notice how easily capitalism and feminism can get along, in fact the
> feminist agenda has made labor cheaper and provided business newer
> labor saving strategies."
>
> Your remark regarding the collusion between capitalism and feminism
> (or feminism as the unwitting foil of capitalist greed?) is quite
> preposterous.
I'm puzzled by your comment. Surely the tendency of the market is to
treat all things, other than consumption goods, in accordance with
their contribution to profits. So if you're arranging production the
market gives you good reason to use all available resources, including
men's and women's labor, to produce the most at the least cost in
accordance with purely technical considerations. On the whole that
will lead you to ignore traditional sex roles, which weren't designed
to maximize enterprise profits especially under modern circumstances.
You wouldn't care about them any more than a logger would care whether
the mountain he was logging was sacred to some Indian tribe.
(I send this to you privately because it's really wandering off the
purpose of the list. You don't have to pursue the issue if you don't
want to.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: "M" lab menial slain: embalm.
From jk Tue Jan 28 10:53:00 1997
Subject: Re: Federal Courts (Was Larry Flynt's daughter)
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 10:53:00 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Steve Laib" at Jan 27, 97 08:52:05 pm
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> As far as the courts were concerned, the federal constitution limits
> any action to "cases and controversies", so an actual law suit has
> to be filed before action can be taken.
What are the limits that the "case or controversy" requirement imposes
on what can be done by a well-organized pressure group with an
intelligent litigation strategy and goals consistent with the political
and social outlook dominant among the elite of the legal profession?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Tue Jan 28 16:13:01 1997
Subject: Re: sodomy
To: leo-strauss@freelance.com
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 16:13:01 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <35c.2664.124@freelance.com> from "Charles Butterworth" at Jan 28, 97 12:19:06 pm
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> Ms. Murphy calls into question Mr. Krannawitter's claim that gender
> distinctions constitute human nature. And she points to other
> differentiae that characterize human beings, but that do not
> therefore make them generically different, e. g., being political and
> laughing.
I'm missing something. It seems to me that some of the things that
constitute human nature do not differentiate it from all non-human
nature. For example, it is essential to men to have bodies, to exist
in time, and to die. The same of course is true of kangaroos.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Wed Jan 29 16:43:48 1997
Subject: Re: sodomy
To: leo-strauss@freelance.com
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 16:43:48 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <35c.2680.124@freelance.com> from "div093@abdn.ac.uk" at Jan 29, 97 11:02:40 am
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Since some of Miss Murphy's questions are at least in form directed
toward me, I will throw out some answers in the hope of inducing
comments from those who know better.
>1) It what sense, and why, are the constitutive (as distinguished from
>distinctive) features of one's nature morally binding and obligatory?
>
>EG, you say that having a body is constituent feature of human nature.
>Does that have moral implications too?
What we should do is determined by our good, and our good depends on the
type of beings we are and therefore our constitutive features. Or, if
you want to base morality on something other than the human good, you
could say that our constitutive features provide us with a permanent
setting for our actions, and so to the extent specific moral obligations
depend on setting they determine permanent features of the moral
obligations to which we are subject. So yes, having a body has moral
implications since it makes us what we are and permanently defines our
situation.
>Is disembodied activity immoral? Is it most moral of all to work with
>one's hands, less moral to sit in front of a computer all day, not
>really moral to have no arms and legs after a car accident, and quite
>decadent to be a ghost awaiting the last judgement & resurrection of
>the body?
A pattern of life that excludes use of the body, development of its
capacities, and protection of its well-being would not be adequate to
the human good. To lose arms and legs is to suffer the loss of part of
our good, and to be a human ghost awaiting resurrection is to look
forward to the completion of that good.
"Moral" involves choice. If embodied life of a certain sort is the
human good, and the moral follows from the good, then both self-
mutilation and the choice of a disembodied life (virtually so in the
case of someone who spends all his time in front of a computer and
literally so in the case of a ghost who somehow refuses resurrection)
would be immoral. Simply being mutilated or being a ghost would not.
Both would however be evils.
>2) If moral obligations follow from 'nature', as understood as kind of
>physical teleology, why are these moral obligations only binding on
>human beings?
Moral obligation does not follow from teleology alone. A pair of
scissors would not have moral obligations even if it were directly
created by God to cut paper. There must also be the capacity to
recognize the teleology and conform one's conduct to it.
>My only question was how one obtained moral obligations from the
>(physical fact) of sexual differentiation. Unless male and female
>human beings belong to different species (something which some
>feminists seem to believe), then they must share something over and
>above the differentiation, and which constitutes the 'nature'.
You seem to assume that human nature can be fully realized in a single
human being. To say that man is social is to say that the human good
can not be so realized; human differentiation is necessary. Therefore
sexual dimorphism can be constitutive of human nature even though
neither a man nor a woman is sexually dimorphic and both are fully and
equally human.
Further, society can not be understood as a construction by individuals
who establish it to achieve purposes they already have without regard
to it; if it could it would be a device to achieve goods that were not
essentially social and man would not be essentially social. Since
society is necessary and prerational it is natural. Accepting it in
its naturalness is a precondition to the realization of the human good
and therefore morally obligatory. To the extent the connection of a
woman with her children and a man with the mother of his children are
irreplaceable relationships upon which human society naturally rests
then loyalty to those relationships and to social customs and attitudes
that support and strengthen them would also be obligatory. So far as I
can make out the customs and attitudes that by nature are necessary to
those ends include differing sex roles and restrictive sexual morality.
The morality varies somewhat from society to society but it would
invariably legitimate the use of the sexual organs for procreation
while imposing many other limitations.
Thus the difference between the sexes, which is primarily but not only
physical, gives rise to moral obligations. The foregoing isn't
particularly punchy but it's the best I can come up with. Others may
do better.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Jan 30 10:41:42 EST 1997
Article: 9024 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: BEYOND THE FRINGE: 32-10
Date: 30 Jan 1997 10:39:32 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <5c51bf$q72@gerry.cc.keele.ac.uk> <5cbmes$79r@panix.com> <32E96279.3DC7@mindspring.com> <5ciu9n$pci@panix.com> <32EF9AC5.5DAD@bellsouth.net>
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In <32EF9AC5.5DAD@bellsouth.net> John Fiegel writes:
>In his After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre came to a conclusion about
>the future similar to yours, although he looked for dark age monastic
>type communities, rather than the tribal ones your post seems to
>allude to.
Monastic commnities are good for the continuation of specialized
functions such as learning but not sufficient for life as a whole
because they can't accommodate sex or private property. Those not
called to them will also have to find some tolerable way of living, and
I think it will be less and less possible to base such a thing on the
public culture. Therefore we will see the development and spread of
private cultures, which define and draw their coherence from bonds of
ethnicity and religion. There will no doubt also be monasteries for
MacIntyre and his friends.
I agree of course with your observation that the decline of a
civilization leads to brutality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.paganism,soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Christian Pagans
Date: 29 Jan 1997 10:56:32 -0600
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In marjorie@netcom.com (Marjorie Rosen) writes:
>You cannot hold the opinion that others have the right to their own
>opinion on this matter.
If someone has an opinion on abortion or any other subject it seems
logically necessary for his opinion to be his own opinion. I'm not
sure what it means to say he does or does not has a right to it. Are
you saying that no-one can be mistaken about the morality of abortion
in her own case, so that if she thinks it's OK to have one it really is
OK for her to have one?
>This concept has shown up in several other areas. A few years ago, a
>young girl was tossed out of her Parochial school because her mother
>was employed by Planned Parenthood. The mother said she would not
>have an abortion personnally, and her daughter shared her opinion.
>However, she *worked* for a company that advocated abortions. I
>*think* (but am not sure) that the mother was at least officially
>repremanded by the local monsignor or Archbishop and may have been
>actually excommunicated.
I don't see the point you're making. The mother worked for an
organization one of the basic activities of which is to do things she
knew to be very seriously wrong. Is the point that it's OK to help
people do things that are very seriously wrong as long as they don't
think they are wrong? Why should that be? (The expulsion of the
daughter because of the mother's conduct raises other issues that don't
seem to be relevant to what we're discussing.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
========================================= MODERATOR COMMENT
MOD: Hampster
From news.panix.com!panix!news.columbia.edu!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Thu Jan 30 10:42:21 EST 1997
Article: 90938 of soc.religion.christian
Path: news.panix.com!panix!news.columbia.edu!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!christian
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: On Bishop Spong
Date: 29 Jan 1997 23:20:33 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <5cmmvs$jq2@geneva.rutgers.edu> mkluge@wizard.net (Mark D. Kluge) writes:
>It might be that churches and their people are BOTH becoming more
>liberal, but that the churches are moving faster. As a result, while
>church membership, as a whole, becomes more liberal over time, it
>becomes more concentrated in the more conservative churches.
Another way of describing this situation would be to say that the more
successful churches are the ones that resist the liberal trend. If you
add to that the observation that the influence of religion and the
churches on our national life has declined as the trend has progressed
it still remains true that concern for the wellbeing of religion and
the church is not a reason to support liberalism in our churches or our
national life.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Fri Jan 31 08:00:35 1997
Subject: Re: Federal Courts (Was Larry Flynt's daughter)
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 08:00:35 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Steve Laib" at Jan 30, 97 08:25:54 pm
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> Interpretation, especially with political underpinnings is the demise
> of a government of laws.
But you can't follow the laws without making sense of them, and you
can't make sense of them without interpretation. I'm not sure what
follows -- maybe that a government of laws is impossible if there is no
commonly accepted understanding of relevant questions of
responsibility, good and evil, etc.
> The legal argument would be that it was unconstitutional, but that
> no one had taken the time to point it out.
Why not that the legal system has guiding principles as well as
specific rules and understandings, and that the specific rules and
understandings rightly develop in response to new situations and the
deeper understanding of the guiding principles that comes with time and
experience? A new holding of unconstitutionality would then be
well-founded if based on both a developing consensus of the existing
specific rules and understandings and on the permanent guiding
principles that motivate them. On that approach the VMI ruling would
have been invalid in 1896 but was valid last year and now. At least
that is so if the guiding principle of the American legal system is an
Enlightenment conception of equal liberty under law.
> Common sense has little to do with modern legal decision making.
Common sense differs in accordance with fundamental commitments. Many
people find it a violation of common sense given modern social ideals
and practices to exclude students purely on grounds of gender. Common
sense further tells them that if someone in a position of authority is
doing something that blatently violates the guiding principles of the
regime as understood and proclaimed by all respectable public
authorities then a well-ordered legal system will somehow be able to
stop him.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
From jk Fri Jan 31 08:21:39 1997
Subject: Re: sodomy?
To: leo-strauss@freelance.com
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 08:21:39 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <35c.2720.124@freelance.com> from "ao066@osfn.rhilinet.gov" at Jan 30, 97 11:49:38 pm
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> what condems a city or a nation is not the various excesses that are
> committed within it, by this regard all human regimes fall short of
> the mark of the rightous city, but whether the guiding principle of a
> regime aims at rightousness or perversion and slavery.
To what should one look to understand the guiding principles of the
actual American regime? A great many people consider settled Supreme
Court doctrine that has the strong, uniform and continued support of an
overwhelming consensus of respectable public authorities a good
indicator. That doctrine now seems to say that abortion rights (and
perhaps soon the right to a voluntary death and to freedom from public
conduct motivated by moral disapprobation of homosexuality) are
essential to the regime, since even in the absence of specific
prohibition violations are necessarily unconstitutional. As a result,
people infer that opponents of those rights as such necessarily reject
the regime.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: O, Geronimo -- no minor ego!
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
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