Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From jk Thu Mar 14 20:57:15 1996
Subject: Re: Your mail
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 20:57:15 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Liz R Robinson" at Mar 14, 96 06:59:31 pm
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> > No such thing, Liz, as a "righteous infidel." John Lofton.
> >
> OK everybody. Listen up. See how easy it is under fundamentalism to
> dehumanize the "other"?
> Here we see the "enabling" of religiocide in the name of religion. John
> would have made such a great Crusader! No conscience!
Is there such a thing as a righteous fundamentalist?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Bombard a drab mob.
From jk Thu Mar 14 21:03:44 1996
Subject: Re: Socrates' Impiety
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 21:03:44 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Liz R Robinson" at Mar 14, 96 07:01:48 pm
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> But nothing here excludes this from happening from within the realm of
> religion i.e. in the "name" of religion.
Remember that this "secular humanism can lead to megadeaths" stuff
started as a response to a suggestion that rejection of the current
interpretation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment can
lead to executions as in Iran. It does seem to me though that if
political catastrophes are what you're worried about rejection of a
transcendental standard should worry you more than acceptance of one.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Bombard a drab mob.
From jk Sat Jan 13 13:20:16 1996
Subject: Re: Let me try a re-entry
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 13:20:16 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <199601131540.KAA04244@ctc.swva.net> from "Seth Williamson" at Jan 13, 96 10:39:30 am
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> I know a few men who went there, and it's my understanding that they
> eventually had to accept female ordinands, not to mention having to concede,
> at least implicitly, that people like Morse and Spong had a right to be
> bishops in their church. In fact, I seem to remember seeing a photograph of
> a tiny class at Nashotah House that included a few women. I thought I heard
> that Nashotah House either went under or was in serious financial
> difficulties. Don't have any new information on them.
I gathered from the discussions on ANGLICAN that they accept woman
students on the theory that anyone might want to study theology and the
like, but they don't recognize female priests as priests. After they
decided they didn't like the idea of female priests half the faculty
left and they have far fewer students than formerly. They're still
around, though -- while I was a subscriber one of the posters on
ANGLICAN, a token traditionalist, was heading off there to study (this
was last year).
While I was on ANGLICAN someone posted a recent speech by Spong (why
does that remind me of Cheech and Chong?) in which he complained that
after he was allowed to speak at an Episcopal seminary students and
faculty put on some sort of ceremony of exorcism, purification, or
whatever. I don't know if it was Nashotah, but it does show that there
are seminaries that have reservations about the man.
> I used to be on the ANGLICAN list. Briefly. It was my impression
> there aren't any really orthodox people left in ECUSA, but I could be wrong.
My impression that discussions on ANGLICAN, like most public
discussions carried on by Episcopalians, tend to be from the viewpoint
of comfortable and well-placed people who want to stay up-to-date and
in good taste, however those things defined by comfortable and
well-placed people. On the other hand, ECUSA has its marginal types
like everyone else, and in 1996 those include the orthodox. A refugee
from ANGLICAN who is determined to remain within ECUSA has set up a
counter-list for traditionalists, Common-Prayer. It's not particularly
active, though.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Murder for a jar of red rum!
From jk Sat Jan 13 20:04:53 1996
Subject: Re: Let me try a re-entry
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 20:04:53 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <199601131918.OAA04553@ctc.swva.net> from "Seth Williamson" at Jan 13, 96 02:16:54 pm
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> But surely they must know that the females they get nowadays are going
> to be ordained somewhere, n'est-ce pas?
That sounds reasonable, but I don't know how it works. I remember one
of the lesbians on ANGLICAN complaining about how Nashotah House kicked
women in the teeth, but that might have been because they wouldn't let
female priests lead services in their chapel. I don't know where that
will go given the current lopsided majority among the bishops who want
to make recognition of female priests mandatory.
> Do you have the address? I would like to check it out.
Send the message "Subscribe Common-Prayer" to
common-prayer-request@covert.enet.dec.com
John Covert runs the list by hand and distributes messages in packets
when he thinks there are enough. It'll probably be a while (it could
be weeks) before you get one. The discussions have been slow lately.
In the past he was reluctant to distribute "let's all leave ECUSA"
messages but he seems to be loosening up on that point.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Murder for a jar of red rum!
From jk Fri Mar 15 15:00:32 1996
Subject: Re: A Common Moral Basis?
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 15:00:32 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3149AF94@mailgate.brooklyn.cuny.edu> from "Edward Kent" at Mar 15, 96 12:59:00 pm
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> In the second we have Paul defending the very worst abuses of political
> authority -- that of a pagan Roman emperor in his own time -- as being
> instituted by G-D????
What abuses is he defending? Is it your point that Paul thought it was
impossible for Caesar to command something that was wrong or that it
could never be his duty to disobey Caesar, for example if commanded to
burn incense to Caesar's image?
The Roman Empire as such was not a colossal political abuse. Paul
wrote his letters to guide ordinary Christians and churches in their
ordinary day-to-day life, and his point as I understand it is that as
an ordinary thing the laws of the state are morally obligatory. If all
moral obligation is from God then that must mean the state in some
sense gets its power to command from God. I really don't see the
conflict with what Jesus said. In order for there to be things that
are Caesar's, Caesar must somehow hold those things in accordance with
the moral order created by God.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Bombard a drab mob.
From jk Fri Mar 15 17:23:34 1996
Subject: Re: A Common Moral Basis?
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 17:23:34 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3149D0E6@mailgate.brooklyn.cuny.edu> from "Edward Kent" at Mar 15, 96 03:19:00 pm
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> Jim, Take a closer look at the Roman Empire and its practices -- slavery,
> genocide, sacrilege, torture, human blood sport entertainment, etc.?
Is it your point that its laws should not have been recognized as
binding in ordinary affairs?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Bombard a drab mob.
From jk Fri Mar 15 17:36:08 1996
Subject: Re: Socrates' Impiety
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 17:36:08 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Liz R Robinson" at Mar 15, 96 04:50:34 pm
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> I would be delighted with acceptance of transcendental standards, but if
> they were John's I'm afraid I woudln't be allowed to survive...
I see no reason from reading John's posts and yours to think that he
would be more likely to exterminate the infidels than you would be
to exterminate the fundamentalists.
we
> somehow have to find transcendental standards which do not, by
> definition enable the extinguishing of those with which we disagree.
>
> May I suggest that we're getting awfully close to "human" rights here?
I don't know what you mean by "'human' rights". Would you classify
everyone who doesn't favor exterminating the infidels as a proponent of
human rights?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Bombard a drab mob.
From jk Sun Mar 17 18:49:45 1996
Subject: Re: Socrates' Impiety
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 18:49:45 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Liz R Robinson" at Mar 17, 96 12:43:25 pm
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>So, as a transcendental standard, the state power of execution would
>have to go.
The line of thought seems odd to me. You want to get rid of capital
punishment because then one extreme form of political catastrophe
couldn't occur. But the catastrophe wouldn't occur in any event unless
some faction convinced of the necessity of extreme measures were in
control. I don't see why such a faction would care about an earlier
agreement to abolish capital punishment that was evidently based on an
understanding of things very different from its own. Also, the reason
you give for getting rid of capital punishment is one of prudence, to
prevent something from happening that doesn't look likely in any case.
I don't see how prudential reasoning regarding remote contingencies can
give rise to transcendental standards.
>Secondly, I think we ought to agree that I need to be compelled to
>acknowlege the essential humanness of my interlocutor, and to
>acknowledge his/her essential difference.
I'm not sure what this means. "Essential humanness" sounds like "we
share the same nature so we're equally part of a common moral world."
"Essential difference" sounds like "we don't share the same nature so we
necessarily live in different moral worlds." Possibly the idea is that
different communities are to follow their own way of life subject to
something like international law, so that one part of Canada could
organize itself as a Calvinist theocracy, another as a whites-only
state, another as a MCWS. Is that right?
>The focus is on behavioir, not on the individual, and the question to
>be answered is to what extent the behavior, or a part of the behavior
>harms others [ ... ] The Court has defined the public expression of
>anti-Semitism as one such behavior.
How about public expression of dislike of agribusiness? In this century
dislike of agribusiness has led to the murder of more innocent people
(kulaks, landowners, rich peasants, etc.) than anti-Semitism. By this
standard, expression of all radical political views should probably be
banned because such views have often been immensely destructive. Or
maybe the court should ban public expressions of dislike for religions
other than Judaism, fundamentalist Christianity for example. Look at
all the believers atheist regimes have murdered. I suppose blasphemy
expresses dislike for religion and contempt for religious people, so
very likely the court should ban that as well.
>I have at least attempted to provide some ideas for tanscendental
>standards for the civic religion you propose. Do you have any?
I haven't proposed a civic religion. If I wanted to start a new
religion I suppose I'd get myself executed and then rise from the dead
like everyone else. Why not imitate success?
The problem I've had with civil religion as something to be instituted
because it is useful is that religion isn't something you propose for
ends other than its own. Your religion is what *precedes* all your
choices and goals.
.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Bombard a drab mob.
From jk Mon Mar 18 04:59:03 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 04:59:03 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <314CF019.6581@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 17, 96 11:09:45 pm
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> From the colonial era through the age of
> Jackson (as Tocqueville shows) to the middle part of this century, the moral
> and ethical norms of Judeo-Christianity guided the national debate, through
> loose, informal mechanisms. Still could one honestly say that this made
> Judeo-Christianity the "civil religion" of America. Only in a very imprecise
> sense of the term, I think.
What is Judeo-Christianity and what was the connection with Jews or
Judaism? There were very few Jews in America at the time. I would
have thought "nondoctrinal Protestantism" or something of the sort
would be a better term.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Bombard a drab mob.
From jk Mon Mar 18 08:09:28 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:09:28 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Mar 18, 96 11:34:51 am
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> I read somewhere that the term 'Judaeo - Christian' was invented in
> the 1980s, to describe a more or less artificial construct created
> by conservative Jews and Christians joining forces.
I can understand the term "Judeo-Christian tradition". The claim that
a religion called "Judeo-Christianity" was at one point the publicly
accepted religion in America is more novel and harder to understand.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Mon Mar 18 08:20:02 1996
Subject: Re: academic brainwashing
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:20:02 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Mar 18, 96 12:03:22 pm
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> A teacher or lecturer
> can only influence students who are already on
> a similar wavelength, or very close and ready
> to move. I would geuss that Liberal profs
> already have a audience of very largely
> liberal students.
I think what's called "brainwashing" has to do with immersion in an
environment in which doctrines and attitudes are institutionalized and
deviation is treated as unquestionably wrong, when from the spectator's
point of view the doctrines and attitudes are false and pernicious. It
doesn't have much to do with the ability of a particular lecturer to
change his pupils' minds about things universally accepted as debatable
in principle.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Mon Mar 18 08:32:01 1996
Subject: Re: Socrates' Impiety
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:32:01 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Mar 18, 96 12:27:15 pm
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> You make the idea sound funny but is it not actually close to
> what conservativism is about? Plurality within unity?
So what's wrong with a good-humored attempt to find common ground?
> Doesn't civil religion happen naturally? It is not contrived
> into existence.
Just so. It can't be intended; the most one can do is argue against
things (e.g., U.S. Supreme Court doctrine on the Establishment Clause)
that destroy it.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Mon Mar 18 08:43:32 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:43:32 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Mar 18, 96 01:40:03 pm
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> Yup, but what would you call, eg, in the religion of Brooklyn in
> 1890? The population must have been 50 percent Italian Catholic
> and 50 percent Jewish.
Did Brooklyn have a religion at the time? One that was likely to last?
A lot of people no doubt promoted humanitarianism and understanding,
and very likely that did some good. Also, the notion of "America" as a
place where people could have a better life than in the old country if
they worked hard had a lot of appeal. It's not for nothing, though,
that ethnic neighborhoods and institutions were strong, politics was a
matter of who got what, and New York became notoriously a city of cold
and aggressive public manners.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Mon Mar 18 09:25:39 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 09:25:39 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Mar 18, 96 02:06:37 pm
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> Are you a Southerner perhaps.
A Brooklynite, for the past 15 years anyway. I should admit that my
parents were from Kentucky and rather preferred the South, and that my
wife is descended from one of John C. Calhoun's cousins.
> Did you ever read Peter Berger's
> New York City 1978: A Sign of Transcendence. It is in 'Facing
> up to Modernity'. Berger argues that the comic mixture of different
> creeds and cultures in New York is a signpost to heaven.
I haven't read it and know nothing about it, and so feel free to abuse
it on general principles.
At least since Emerson and Walt Whitman (another Brooklynite) a common
American response to social chaos and atomization has been to say it's
wonderful because it doesn't exclude anything and is therefore an image
of God. As another American said, "Therefore I rejoice, having to
construct something upon which to rejoice." It's not surprising that a
man who in 1978 was a liberal Protestant and a fledgling neocon should
join that American tradition. It's right up there with the common
neocon identification of Western Civilization with democratic
universalism.
I should add that New Yorkers have always been active in trumpeting the
virtues of the city to which they've gone to seek fame and fortune or
from which they come and feel they have to explain away. Therefore all
the mythology about rough diamonds, hard exteriors but hearts of gold,
salt-of-the-earth cabdrivers with endearing accents, etc. All
nonsense.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Mon Mar 18 16:27:45 1996
Subject: Re: academic brainwashing
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 16:27:45 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Mar 18, 96 07:11:37 pm
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> I believe that knowledge of the wisdom of
> God is known in a mediated way.
Is that the same as saying that man's own powers are sufficient for
knowledge of truth? If so, what is the point of revelation?
> One reason why I think so is that it makes it less easy to
> confuse our own minds with the mind of God.
Presumably any notion that there are truths attainable by us creates
the danger of such a confusion. If it's true, then it must be what God
thinks, and if God thinks it and we think it, then our minds must be
_pro tanto_ identical. Or so one is inclined to think. I don't see
why emphasizing our dependence on God for attaining truth makes things
worse.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Mon Mar 18 16:36:18 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 16:36:18 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <314DB4D6.67EA@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 18, 96 01:09:10 pm
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> We are, then, in agreement that America has NO civil religion, which must, by
> my definition, be enforced by law. The question remains does America need a
> civil religion to innoculate our religiously pluralistic nation against
> liberal relativism? I think this is the questions the neocons would ask. No?
I'm not quite sure what's meant here. Suppose Calvinism had the same
status in America that liberal relativism does now, so that what the
government and other authoritative social institutions did and said was
consistent with Calvinism, and the Supreme Court stepped in whenever
(for example) public institutions put on ceremonies that expressed some
inconsistent viewpoint. On the other hand, anyone could make speeches
and write books against Calvinism, send his kids to non-Calvinistic
schools if he was willing and able to pay the tuition, and so on.
Would you then say that America had a civil religion?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Mon Mar 18 16:38:39 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 16:38:39 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <314DB6D9.4AF5@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 18, 96 01:17:45 pm
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> But wouldn't the Establishment Clause deal with the non-establishment of a
> single church? It would not prevent the addition of a civil religion, that
> is, certain truths placed beyond debate.
As interpreted, the Establishment Clause prohibits placing truths
traditionally characterized as religious beyond debate.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Mon Mar 18 16:42:12 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 16:42:12 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <314DBB88.1A32@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 18, 96 01:37:44 pm
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> > For
> > example, a papal encyclical of the 19th century states
> > that pagans have no rights (it is helpful to bring this
> > up in discussions of Animal rights);
As phrased it sounds as if the encyclical said pagans could be hunted
for sport or used as raw material for a fertilizer factory. I can't
believe that's what you mean.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Mon Mar 18 16:48:51 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 16:48:51 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <314DBF76.1EF0@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 18, 96 01:54:30 pm
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> A liberal society (or more precisely government) is silent on the question of
> the substantive good. The only good of liberal politics is the procedural
> good of liberty, which will allow individuals to pursue their own conceptions
> of the substantive good.
People say this and write books about it, but isn't it clear that
contemporary liberalism *does* define the substantive good, as maximum
equal satisfaction of preferences? I don't see anything procedural
about "try to give 'em all whatever they want." We now have the welfare
state, so it's not just noncoercion any more. Government action to
promote prosperity is bedrock in contemporary liberal societies.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age!
From jk Thu Mar 21 05:57:39 1996
Subject: Re: Socrates' Impiety
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 05:57:39 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <960320073638_172833715@emout10.mail.aol.com> from "Bill Riggs" at Mar 20, 96 07:36:38 am
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> Feudalism as a paleoconservative prototype ? It does
> have a certain resonance, doesn't it ? Sort of a "Give me your freedom and
> I'll be your local robber baron for life" deal. That's about as paleo as I
> can imagine.
I don't think Hoppe has feudalism in mind, any more than people who
like a more centralized system have Pharaonic Egypt in mind. Feudalism
as we know it was based on kingship and resulted from the need for
strong local defensive forces due to invasions from Vikings, Magyars,
Saracens and the like. That's why I mentioned medieval Iceland, the
only polity in which pre-medieval European (non-Mediterranean)
political institutions were able to develop in a reasonably stable
setting as a possible model for what he has in mind.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Thu Mar 21 06:09:50 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 06:09:50 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3150FFD9.7447@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 21, 96 01:06:01 am
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> > I'm not quite sure what's meant here. Suppose Calvinism had the same
> > status in America that liberal relativism does now, so that what the
> > government and other authoritative social institutions did and said was
> > consistent with Calvinism, and the Supreme Court stepped in whenever
> > (for example) public institutions put on ceremonies that expressed some
> > inconsistent viewpoint. On the other hand, anyone could make speeches
> > and write books against Calvinism, send his kids to non-Calvinistic
> > schools if he was willing and able to pay the tuition, and so on.
> > Would you then say that America had a civil religion?
>
> Calvinism cannot properly function as a civil religion, as I understand the
> term.
Actually, I meant it as a question about civil religion rather than
about Calvinism. I think you said something like "The United States
never had a civil religion even in Tocqueville's time because a civil
religion is something legally enforced and placed beyond question."
That seemed an extraordinarily strong definition and I wasn't sure why
you were insisting on it, so I described a situation in which something
everyone would agree to call a religion held the position that our
current ruling ideology holds. I wanted to know whether in that case
you would say the U.S. had a civil religion and if not, what was so
crucially important about what was lacking.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Thu Mar 21 06:26:52 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 06:26:52 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3151036F.1B0A@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 21, 96 01:21:19 am
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> As I see it, "giving them all whatever they want" could be interpreted two
> ways, negatively or positively.
>
> If negatively, this phrase would secure the right of the individual to do
> anything he wants as long as he doesn't interfere with the equal right of
> others. This is a purely procedural conception of the good. The good for that
> society is liberty which is a means (procedure) to an end (substance), not an
> end in itself.
>
> If positively, the phrase seems to approximate the Marxian "...to each
> according to his need." I don't think this is liberalism. To the extent that
> contemporary society works toward this end, it is socialist, not liberal in
> any philosophical meaning of the term.
But interference with the equal right of others can be and is taken to
include permitting a social system to exist that fails to give to each
according to his need or whatever the standard is. The idea is that a
society that denies some people access to decent housing and medical
care or excludes them from equal participation in activities interferes
with their equal rights.
I suppose the issue is whether there are natural and therefore
prepolitical rules of property. If there aren't then I don't think the
distinction you mention can be maintained. If there's a legitimate
philosophical argument that there aren't then contemporary liberalism
is philosophically legitimate as a development of classical liberalism.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Thu Mar 21 06:36:45 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 06:36:45 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <315108E8.1CEF@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 21, 96 01:44:40 am
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> I believe that
> liberalism is spiritually bankrupt; I do not know exactly how to remedy this.
There aren't any remedies, any more than there is a remedy for a
shipwreck. Liberal society is the End of History, but unfortunately it
doesn't work. Nonetheless, life must go on. Therefore the
Robinson/Kalb proposal for separatism+international law, a sort of
minimal federalism.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Thu Mar 21 09:30:38 1996
Subject: Re: Collectivism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 09:30:38 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19960320223929.0070e9f8@swva.net> from "seth williamson" at Mar 20, 96 05:39:29 pm
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> I am still unclear what Paul means by the matter of
>"externalization," though. I sense that he has in mind some
>special failing of catholics, but I don't am not clear on what it
>is.
Catholics emphasize the Church and its hierarchy more than protestants.
The Church is strong, wise, holy and beneficent in spiritual things;
individually we are less so. Such thoughts might suggest to some a
division of labor: the Church (identified with its hierarchy) takes
care of the spiritual stuff it's good at and the rest of us take care
of the not- particularly-spiritual personal concerns that we are expert
in. We get the benefits of what the Church does by participation in
the sacraments, by the prayers of the saints for us, and in general by
acceptance of Church authority in its special province. Maybe
something of the sort is what Paul means by externalization. If it is,
it *does* seem a failing to which catholics would be more prone than
protestants. (I don't mean that catholics must have that failing or
that protestants don't have that and other failings.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Thu Mar 21 14:54:26 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 14:54:26 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3151A488.6E6E@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 21, 96 12:48:40 pm
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> Specifically, in the your example, "that anyone could make speeches or write
> books against [the civil religion]" would seem to undermine the principle.
> The purpose of the civil religion is to secure a minimum dogma so that debate
> can take place; it provides a moral consensus wherein discussions of morality
> have sense--as they do not in any meaningful way in contemporary liberal
> society.
But there *are* discussions of morality in liberal society based on a
consensus as to the nature of the Good, that it consists in maximum
equal fulfillment of preferences, to be realized by social policy. For
example, economic conservatives say that there should be a little more
fulfillment and a little less equality, while economic progressives say
the contrary. That's an argument within the consensus that can be
carried on with each side understanding the other while disagreeing.
The neocons by and large tried to stay within the consensus, justifying
for example a few nods in the direction of religion and family values
on the grounds that those thing are needed in the long run to maximize
the consensus common good.
Difficulties of the sort your conception of civil religion is intended
to address arise when someone proposes something altogether outside the
consensus, like getting rid of the managerial national state or making
abortion illegal or restricting immigration for the purpose of
furthering cultural coherence. The solution is not legal but social
-- to treat such people as outsiders who have nothing legitimate to
say, to call them bigots and hatemongers, etc. In general, I think the
solution has worked, and if it stops working its failure won't result
from failure to illegalize the religious right and so on but rather
from the inability of the consensus understanding of the Good to serve
as the basis of a tolerable society.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Thu Mar 21 15:22:34 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 15:22:34 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3151B17B.7C9F@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 21, 96 01:43:55 pm
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> However, this "End of History" nonsense has no
> relation to reality. In the real world, history continues whether or not
> intellectuals have declared its end. We are caught within history. We have no
> perspective outside it, no Archimedian point, from which to determine its
> End.
I intended "End of History" simply as a hyperbolic way of saying
"civilizational crisis". It means that a line of development has come
to an end and there is nowhere else to go. I thought you and Francesca
had some sympathy for that view.
> Separatism + international law sounds like to ethnic war + oppressive world
> empire.
I dunno. Europe lasted for centuries as a great civilization composed
of many independent states that recognized international law to some
degree. You are right however that nonterritorial separatism tends to
mean despotic government, as in the traditional Middle East. Maybe
there is something about modern conditions, like the greater
productivity of free economies, that will help us avoid despotism even
in the absence of a coherent people to hold government to account.
Again, I dunno.
If I had any suggestions for how to set up utopia I'd be sure to let
everyone know. It seems to me though that in the long run separatism
is going to seem more tolerable to people than liberalism, and that the
neocon project of saving the public order is going to fail because
Irving Kristol would have to establish a new religion that everyone
would accept for it to succeed, and that's not going to happen.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From mystuff.new Sat Mar 23 22:12:58 1996
From jk Sat Mar 23 06:49:38 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 06:49:38 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <31531757.438@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 22, 96 03:10:47 pm
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>> But there *are* discussions of morality in liberal society based on a
>> consensus as to the nature of the Good, that it consists in maximum
>> equal fulfillment of preferences, to be realized by social policy.
>
>But here is the difference. "Equal fulfillment of individual preferences" is
>a conception in which "goods" are defined by individual humans; the nature of
>the Good, what is right by nature, derives from the nature of man. The
>former exalts liberty as the procedural means to individual attainment of
>these goods; the latter penetrates to the substance of man as a being
>dependent upon a higher power.
I'm still not sure what procedure has to do with it. Presumably "equal
fulfillment of individual preferences" as the Good is based on a view of
the nature of man, that man is the source of value in a world in which
there is no God. In such a world, to be valued by man is to be
valuable, just as in a world in which God exists to be valued by God is
to be valuable. In the former world the social order exalts procedural
means to individual preferences, in the latter procedural means to the
beatific vision. In both worlds there is a good and means to that good,
with government concerned mostly with means.
>The former consists of myriad goods with no Highest Good
Sure there's a Highest Good for liberalism, it's having one's own way.
Socially speaking, it's a system of things in which as much as possible
all men have their own way.
>The former is particular and potentially
>different with every human being; the latter is universal because it
>transcends the merely human and receives its authority from eternity.
Why shouldn't the beatific vision be very different for different
people, depending on their varying qualities and capacities? In
contrast, "I want to have my own way" is the same for all of us.
>Do discussions of the
>"good" take place in liberal society? Of course, for as Aristotle said, all
>men seek what appears to be good. Do these discussions reach a point where
>they could become meaningful for authentic human order? Rarely. And when they
>do, it is in spite of the liberal hegemony, not because of it.
"Meaningful for authentic human order" sounds like you're asking whether
the liberal understanding of the Good is a satisfactory one. That's a
good question, but it's different from the one with which we started,
whether liberalism is specifically procedural, or in other words whether
it is really based on the precedence of the right to the good and so is
uniquely qualified to arbitrate among competing conceptions of the Good.
I don't think it is; like other moral systems it's based on a particular
conception of the Good. That doesn't mean I think the liberal
understanding of the Good is right.
>Yet they agree that man is fundamentally a material
>being who must have his physical needs met first
I'm not sure this is so. Most consensus thinkers would sacrifice bodily
welfare for the sake of freedom, equality, autonomy, nondiscrimination,
etc. Mainstream conservatives for example don't like laws against
smoking not because smoking is such a physical pleasure but because it's
something some people happen to feel like doing.
Established moral thought takes seriously spiritual needs like the
importance of getting your own way just because it's your way, not
having to recognize anyone as better than you, not getting dissed, etc.
The emphasis on physical well-being and comfort arises less I think from
a high theoretical value placed on those things than from the fact that
people do in fact like them and they're easier to promote for all than
spiritual desires such as superior social position.
>You seem to be
>saying that there is no right order other than the consensus that exists in a
>particular society at a particular time.
No, all I am saying is that liberalism is a moral order and as such it
has structural resemblances to other moral orders. It's based on a
conception of the Good that has both universal and individualized
aspects, it recognizes man as both a physical and a spiritual being
with needs in both spheres, it attempts to maintain its status as
social orthodoxy by keeping dissenters out of the conversation, etc.
The point matters because liberalism claims to be in a different
logical category from all other moral views so that it's somehow
neutral whereas (for example) Islam is not. Therefore establishing
liberalism is supposed to be more principled and disinterested
establishing a particular religion. That claim seems to me false.
Instead of being permitted to claim a position of neutral superiority,
liberalism has to be evaluated as a moral order on a par with other
possible moral orders.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From mystuff.new Sat Mar 23 22:12:59 1996
From jk Sat Mar 23 21:52:00 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 21:52:00 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <315473F0.64D2@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 23, 96 03:58:08 pm
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Neal Fuller writes:
>> I'm still not sure what procedure has to do with it.
>
>Liberalism's "good," then, is procedural because it values liberty, the
>means to true human ends, rather than those ends themselves.
When people speak of liberty they always have something specific in mind
connected to their conception of the Good. Otherwise, why care about
it? Some people think that it is in the service of God that perfect
freedom is found. If such people are neither liberals nor liars, it
must be the choice of goods rather than the love of freedom that defines
liberalism.
The liberty contemplated by liberalism used to be liberty to accumulate
property, because that was understood to be the Good, and now it is
liberty to follow impulse and feeling because satisfaction of those
things has become recognized as the Good. In both cases the content of
liberty is dictated by the nature of the Good. Freedom of economic
contract used to be essential to liberty but now sexual freedom is. The
change has nothing to do with procedure.
(As an aside, it's interesting that "liberty" has become a term used
mostly by right-wing extremists, as in Liberty Lobby, Liberty
University, etc. Contemporary liberalism prefers "liberation.")
>When I say liberalism, I think of a purist libertarian position that
>would leave it to the individual, not government, to "fulfill" any
>preferences (again, the distiction between negative and positive
>liberty); I do not think of any form of government that would
>redistribute wealth or otherwise level the playing field for all
>members of society (this is socialism).
We've discussed this, so we'll just have to disagree. What you describe
is not what people today believe who in good faith call themselves
liberals. Maybe what we disagree on is whether what is now called
liberalism in America is a legitimate development of classical
liberalism. I think it is. What's the import of liberal social
contract theory if not that human will is the basis of obligation and
value? It seems to me that contemporary liberalism carries out that
basic principle more perfectly than classical liberalism did.
>Also, this "view of the nature of man" that you describe is a perverted
>view of man's nature.
That doesn't mean it's not a view of the nature of man or that it's not
the basis of liberalism. Maybe in the long run it doesn't work; if it
doesn't, the same is true of liberalism.
>The view that you describe is not necessarily associated with
>liberalism.
I don't consider liberalism all that different from other views on the
Left.
>All can agree that having "their own way" is "good" under a liberal
>regime because the substance of what they *actually do* is never
>touched. At the level of the substantive good, disagreement will
>necessarily arise.
The substantive good in liberalism is simply having one's own way.
There are no further goods that add anything to the force of that good.
You are right that the substantive good recognized by liberalism, like
the substantive good recognized by heroic society, leads to conflict.
The conflict might be handled by formal procedures like the rules for
settling disputes over property. That was the approach taken by
classical liberalism. The current approach is for social planners to
come up with rules that maximize equal satisfaction of preferences, an
approach that has nothing much to do with procedure. It doesn't matter
whether it's politicians, bureaucrats, judges or the U.N. who does it so
long as it gets done correctly. The current approach does give rise to
the difficulty we discussed earlier, that there is no obvious way to
decide whether to favor equality or efficiency, but I don't think that
difficulty bears on the points we are discussing.
I have the impression you find my approach frustrating. The reasons I
take it are:
1. People fundamentally don't care about procedures, they care about
goods, and liberals are people. Therefore concentrating on the liberal
conception of the Good gives us a better idea of what's really going on.
2. It's easier to compare liberalism with other moral views if you
analyze it in a similar fashion.
3. The analysis I present accounts better for contemporary liberalism,
and for the sense liberals have that it is a legitimate and even
necessary continuation of the liberal tradition.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From mystuff.new Sat Mar 23 22:12:59 1996
From jk Sat Mar 23 07:21:33 1996
Subject: Re: Posting Guidelines
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 07:21:33 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Christopher Lodge Stamper" at Mar 22, 96 10:22:42 pm
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> __ This is the NEOCON-L List. It exists to discuss neocons and
> neoconservatism. Hence the name. Please take discussions that aren't about
> those two things to e-mail.
>
> __ This is not a politics list or a general politics list or even a
> general conservatism list. Nor is this a place to drag over subjects
> that were beaten to death on another list or newsgroup.
How can you discuss neoconservatism intelligently without discussing
the political and spiritual crisis of liberalism and dealing with other
possible responses?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Sun Mar 24 21:09:19 1996
Subject: Re: American Civil Religion
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 21:09:19 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3155D2D7.3557@premier.net> from "Neal Fuller" at Mar 24, 96 04:55:19 pm
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>I am speaking of liberalism as an organizing principle of a government, a
>regime. Yes, the citizens of such a regime will have a conception of what is
>good. Some of these people may believe that their conception is only valid
>for them (in which case they would be true believers in liberal government);
I would have thought that a "conception of the good" understood by the
person holding it as valid only to the extent it is actually held would
not be a conception of the good. What is the distinction between
viewing conceptions of the good as valid but only for those who hold
them and equating the good to the satisfaction of personal preference?
>I want to find what is essential, the same, in all liberal regimes. How
>can you rationally apply a word to movements that you recognize to be
>so very different.
They differ as the bud and the blossom. Liberal social contract theory
means that no good or other evaluative quality transcends actual human
wills. Therefore the best regime is the one that gives men's wills
maximum free play. At first the best way to promote that end is to
limit state power to the extent possible by substituting uniform
abstract rules of property for government decisions that supervene on
individual wills, and bringing government decisions as much as possible
into line with men's actual wills through representative government.
Later the conception of government as facilitator of the satisfaction of
private desire develops, and welfare state liberalism replaces classical
liberalism without the fundamental goal changing. The later development
brings to fruition what was implicit in liberalism all along, even
though government as facilitator of satisfaction has nothing to do with
procedure and everything to do with what is thought to be good.
>I know people use the term "liberalism" to describe all kinds of views,
>just as most on the Left call anyone they disagree with "fascists." I
>want to leave the world of epithet for the world of rational
>discussion.
When intelligent and scholarly welfare-state liberals including renowned
philosophers like John Rawls describe themselves as liberals the word is
not being used as an epithet. The usage is in good faith and all but
universal, and an adequate theory of liberalism must explain why that is
so.
>Individuals do not care about procedures like rights? All we hear about today
>are the assaults upon individual rights to do this or that.
Rights are no longer primarily procedural. Abortion, self-expression
and equal dignity are not procedural matters. The contemporary liberal
view is that any procedure (e.g., majority rule or freedom of contract)
that denies them is _pro tanto_ invalid no matter how good a procedure
it is.
>I think you see liberalism as a worldview concerning individual action;
>I see liberalism as a political theory, as an option for regime
>formation.
Man is a social animal, so the regime under which we live sinks into our
souls. Is there any substantial number of people who favor liberal
political theory even though they don't like it personally?
>You look at political symbols on the level of phenomena (opinions) and
>gather together similar characteristics of these opinions, much like a
>biologist would develop a taxonomy by looking at the appearance of
>various animals, and seeing similar phenomenal characteristics, would
>create classifications.
I think it's good for a theory to preserve the phenomena. I also think
that if A turns into B and everyone involved in B, including many
intelligent and thoughtful people, think the change was natural, then
chances are A and B have something important in common. I agree that
it's a biologist's approach. Aristotle thought that's an OK way to
study politics.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Mon Mar 25 12:55:13 1996
Subject: Re: Triage: Our Dying Children
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 12:55:13 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <3156A789@mailgate.brooklyn.cuny.edu> from "Edward Kent" at Mar 23, 96 10:46:00 am
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Edward Kent writes:
>One of the reasons that I do not disfavor abortion is my horror at the
>fate of unwanted children.
Which is better, if the attitude toward children is that every child is
valuable no matter what, or that children have a right to exist as long
as they fit into someone's plans? It seems to me permissive abortion
expresses a move from the former to the latter position.
You mention China, where there is a long tradition of infanticide and
where coerced abortion is said to be common, and the United States,
where the right to abortion has been authoritatively recognized as part
of our fundamental law, and where after recognition of abortion as a
fundamental right the well-being of children declined in spite of rising
educational levels, smaller families, increased per capita income, and
more public money spent on children. So I'm not sure your examples help
your argument.
>The upshot of this is that here in the United States we seem now
>embarked on a program of abandonment of our neediest children -- but
>triage in a prosperous nation is far more questionable than one barely
>able to provide economic necessities to a massive population.
>
>My appeal for a civil morality, I guess, begins with my sense that we
>(Americans) need to get our act together so as to make a place for the
>least of us.
It sounds as if you believe that if children are suffering the problem
is that America is not doing something about it, with a possible
implication that the appropriate way for America to act is through
government social programs that make each sufferer the direct object of
the care of the country as a whole.
If that is the implication, it seems to me a mistaken way of looking at
things. Childcare can't be arranged and administered by the government
because on the whole it won't be done tolerably unless the child is
taken care of by particular adults living in a stable setting each of
whom feels a necessary responsibility for the child. As a practical
matter that means that on the whole there's no substitute for the
permanent two-parent biological family. Neither the government,
"America", nor "society" can create families by administrative means.
So the single most important things society at large can do is to
establish social standards that favor the family, and get rid of things
that tend to undermine it. The former include traditional standards of
personal responsibility and sexual morality, and the latter include
government programs that tend to transfer responsibility and authority
away from parents. So if you're worried about children, it seems to me
the civil morality you favor should be a lot like that of the Christian
Right.
=>As to NEOCONS, Norman Podhoretz mentions in his elegy for
NEOCONSERVATISM that the NEOCONS originally distinguished themselves
from the Old Right by their acceptance of the New Deal, and only wanted
to fine-tune the welfare state so that its benefits would be greater
than the damage inflicted on traditional social structures. Since then
they're thrown in the towel and turned anti-welfare just like the Old
Right.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Mon Mar 25 18:42:14 1996
Subject: Re: Triage: Our Dying Children
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1996 18:42:14 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <31571D88@mailgate.brooklyn.cuny.edu> from "Edward Kent" at Mar 25, 96 05:27:00 pm
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Status: RO
> Probably the
> solution to this problem is multiple and complicated. Private organizations,
> (e.g. Covenant House) are able to cope with about 1 out of ten run away
> adolescents, I understand. We probably need to bring together all sorts of
> resources: moral, economic, educational, non-governmental and governmental
> working together to deal with the problem which seems to be worsening.
I suggested what I thought the most important response should be, and
expressed skepticism about the ability of government programs or
overall social policy to do much good, largely because such things tend
to undercut the most important response.
> I thought that this is what
> neo-conservativism is about (the "end of ideology") -- mobilizing and
> applying the best of our traditional values?
"[B]ring[ing] together all sorts of resources ... working together to
deal with the problem" and "mobilizing and applying the best of our
traditional values" suggest to me a technological attitude toward
social issues which is that of modern liberalism and which I think is
hopeless. The story of neoconservatism is the story of a few
intellectuals and journalists and their step-by-step break with that
attitude.
I could say more about what I
> understand to be the sources of neo-conservatism which I don't find clearly
> expressed here.
That would please our esteemed listowner who will otherwise no doubt
shut us down no matter how many times I put NEOCONSERVATIVE in all
caps.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From jk Tue Mar 26 05:39:16 1996
Subject: Re: Evangelism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 05:39:16 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Christopher Lodge Stamper" at Mar 25, 96 10:49:56 pm
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> You guys want to bait them on family values so
> you can give them sacerdotalism.
I really don't understand this. Most evangelistic approaches I know of
start with finding a common concern described in language immediately
understandable to the person addressed. Then a conversation begins
that permits broader and deeper issues to be addressed. Do you:
1. Dislike the whole approach, so that instead of the kind of ad the
original poster used you'd buy enough space to include the whole of
_The Institutes of the Christian Religion_,
2. Think the general approach is OK but starting the conversation by
mentioning "traditional values" is bad because Bill Bennett could start
a conversation the same way, or
3. Think the approach is OK and mentioning traditional values is OK
but consider it fraudulent to do so on behalf of the ACC because it's
clear that no one should join the ACC so it's part of a deceitful
attempt to induce people to do something against their own best
interest?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Mar 30 22:40:24 EST 1996
Article: 7387 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: The sixties
Date: 30 Mar 1996 17:27:37 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <4jkcgp$k6l@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Does anybody have comments on the following account of what happened in
the 60s and their aftermath? I know some on a.r.c. might think Newt
Gingrichy worries about the 60s are _infra dig_ when there are vast
Spenglerian cycles to contemplate, but it's been dull. If no one
comments I'll start posting ads about meeting oriental babes or making
$$$$$ in your spare time. You've been warned.
The 60s were marked by the rejection of degraded forms of tradition
and reason in favor of direct experience. More specifically, they
saw the collapse of an unstable compound of adherence to
traditional norms and worship of technology that in practice meant
idolization of inoffensiveness, comfort, security, and small
pleasures. The way of life that compound created was fundamentally
hedonistic, so it lacked principles to justify the limitations that
defined it and made it safe and reliable. The only thing backing
those limitations was conformity to the expectations of others.
People grew tired of living with limitations that seemed arbitrary.
TV freed people from their immediate surroundings and created
dreams of immediate and effortless gratification. The baselessness
of existing standards led to a weariness with distinctions, with
striving, and with the human world generally. The consequences
included evironmentalism, egalitarianism, pantheism, and a
preference for experience in the form that is least conceptual and
most readily available, that is, pure sensation. In addition, the
triviality of American life created a renewed thirst for the
transcendent. That thirst, however, combined with a tendency to
look for the transcendent in overwhelmingly intense experience
rather than in something beyond experience, a tendency reflecting
the existing treatment of sensory experience as the supreme
reality.
Since the 60s nothing decisive has happened. Disappointments have
caused interest in the transcendent to recede and led to a desire
in respectable circles to eliminate that interest to the extent
possible. Egalitarianism with respect to non-economic matters has
become more radical and more fully institutionalized. Many people
now think that a more tolerant and egalitarian form of the 50s
would be a good idea without being able to say clearly what such a
thing would look like. Some few want desperately to keep faith
with the 60s, but the prospects seem bleak. Others just avoid
large-scale thinking to the extent possible and pride themselves on
seeking particular solutions to particular questions. In the mean
time intellectual and social decline continues.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: A new order began, a more Roman age bred Rowena.
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Apr 1 17:30:42 EST 1996
Article: 7393 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Upbeat, inclusive Buchananism?
Date: 1 Apr 1996 08:50:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 33
Message-ID: <4jomv3$n05@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
The _New York Times_ had an article yesterday (Sunday) purporting to
show that the extreme right has limited influence among Republican
voters. The only issues discussed, which apparently define the
"extreme right" so far as the _Times_ is concerned, were outlawing
abortion, restricting immigration, and whether the country's problems
are primarily moral or economic.
What I get out of the article is that established mainstream opinion,
which I suppose the _Times_ must represent, has no use for the concerns
of the majority of Americans who favor reducing immigration and making
most abortions illegal, and are deeply troubled by issues of social
morality. That impression is confirmed by an offhand reference
elsewhere, in an ordinary news story, to the support of "most
Americans" for affirmative action.
Under the circumstances, the question that comes to my mind is whether
the Right should position itself as the party of inclusion, reaching
out to the alienated and disenfranchised (such as religious
conservatives and NRA members), denouncing the divisiveness of transfer
payments, the legal privileges conferred by the civil rights laws, and
the national establishment by the Supreme Court of a contested vision
of the good society, and holding out hope for a society of true
diversity and mutual respect (otherwise known as federalism). Pat
Buchanan has spoken of inclusiveness, but he's a very combative man and
rhetorical habits seem to die hard. Why not speak of "returning to
America" instead of "taking back America", for example? It seems to me
that some such presentation is the one most likely to be successful
among the American people at large.
Any thoughts?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: A new order began, a more Roman age bred Rowena.
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Apr 1 17:30:48 EST 1996
Article: 49694 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Conservatism Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Date: 1 Apr 1996 13:35:40 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <4jp7ls$fos@panix.com>
References: <4joevm$87g@panix.com>
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In mcculloch@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch) writes:
>"FAQ" means "frequently asked questions." Nobody frequently asks these
>questions. This is more like a catechism. Why don't you call it that?
As the preamble states, it's intended to summarize the common questions
and objections regarding conservatism and answer them. I think it does
that, but then I drafted it and my experience may be very different
>from yours. Which items do you think no one cares about? What
questions and objections should be included but aren't?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: A new order began, a more Roman age bred Rowena.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Apr 5 05:39:26 EST 1996
Article: 7397 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Upbeat, inclusive Buchananism?
Date: 2 Apr 1996 06:26:20 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <4jr2ss$45r@panix.com>
References: <4jomv3$n05@panix.com>
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In Thomas Woods writes:
>Of course, part of me recoils from a strategy that appropriates the
>language of our enemies, but another part of me knows very well that this
>approach would infuriate them.
They've developed their language because it works as propaganda.
Expressions like "inclusiveness", "access" and "reaching out" on the
one hand and "hate" on the other aren't the natural way to describe the
destruction of all local and traditional institutions in favor of
bureaucratic uniformity. One difficulty of course is that intentional
development of a language for propagandistic reasons corresponds to a
technological approach to life and therefore to modernism rather than
traditionalism.
>Also, Pat (or anyone else) should put Clinton/Dole and the whole
>Establishment on the defensive. Demand reasons why we can't have real
>self-government. I just can't imagine that too many people, when forced
>to consider the issue, would decide that they want all major political
>decisions made by an entrenched class in Washington and an imperial
>Supreme Court.
Liberal control of the media means that it is possible to avoid awkward
questions endlessly. The advantage of a political campaign emphasizing
principle is that it brings other views to people's attention with less
media filtering and prepackaging.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Apr 5 05:39:27 EST 1996
Article: 7399 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Upbeat, inclusive Buchananism?
Date: 2 Apr 1996 21:40:03 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <4jsoe3$4ps@panix.com>
References: <4jomv3$n05@panix.com> <4jr2ss$45r@panix.com>
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In Thomas Woods writes:
>have you ever read Robert Nisbet's book,
>_The Quest for Community_?
No, I'll look for it.
>What are your feelings on Pat running on a third-party ticket?
I dunno. The top Republicans don't think he's one of them, and maybe
they're right. On the other hand, I don't think splitting the
Republican party would be a good idea unless the party formally rejects
its right wing, which isn't likely. I suppose what I'd like best is a
small third party that isn't big enough to give elections to the
Democrats but can articulate its positions convincingly and get enough
votes to draw attention. Presumably the existence of such a party
would bolster Pat's position in the Republican Party.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Apr 5 05:39:28 EST 1996
Article: 7402 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Signs Your Political System Has Collapsed
Date: 3 Apr 1996 17:11:54 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <4jut3a$nek@panix.com>
References: <4jsn7i$796@arther.castle.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <4jsn7i$796@arther.castle.net> drotov@mail.castle.net (dimitri rotov) writes:
>Ten warning signs your political system has collapsed
>(with apologies to pop culture):
This deserves to be circulated further, but first shouldn't it be put
into the customary reverse order?
>2. He is the unopposed choice of his party for
> a second term.
>3. He is the overwhelming choice of poll
>respondents.
>5. The insurmountable social and economic
>problems of his predecessors have mysteriously
>disappeared from news reports.
>6. His opposition considers itself "extreme."
>7. After a 40-year wait, his opposition takes
>control of a branch of government, then runs out
>of things to do after 6 months.
Signs no one in the political establishment has any idea what to do,
and are terrified someone might start asking questions because if that
happens it will be the end of the world.
>4. His wife has announced her co-presidency.
>10. Bands of armed men gather in the countryside.
Sounds like the end of a Chinese dynasty. Earthquakes and floods will
be a sure sign of the loss of the Mandate.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Apr 5 05:39:29 EST 1996
Article: 7408 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Upbeat, inclusive Buchananism?
Date: 4 Apr 1996 18:46:53 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <4k1n1d$bfj@panix.com>
References: <4jr2ss$45r@panix.com> <4jomv3$n05@panix.com> <19648523wnr@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <19648523wnr@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> One difficulty of course is that intentional
>> development of a language for propagandistic reasons corresponds to a
>> technological approach to life and therefore to modernism rather than
>> traditionalism.
>Could one say that of Virgil, I wonder?
It's an interesting issue. Maybe if I knew enough I could come up with
a theory about the relationship between language and
post-constitutional government. Early Confucian worries about the
rectification of names suggest that related issues also came up in
China during the Warring States Period, after the decline of feudal and
ritualistic Chou and during the rise of Legalist Ch'in.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Apr 5 05:39:30 EST 1996
Article: 7409 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The sixties
Date: 4 Apr 1996 18:56:52 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <4k1nk4$d0p@panix.com>
References: <4jkcgp$k6l@panix.com> <4jpb4t$rit@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> <4jpofq$d0p@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In tsar@linex.com (W$) writes:
>>>: Since the 60s nothing decisive has happened.
>How about the fall of Communism?
I was speaking about domestic U.S. politics and culture. It seems to
me that the main effect of the fall of Communism here has been to let
existing tendencies follow their own laws more freely.
>How about the militia movement?
They may indicate what will happen in the future, but so far there has
been nothing decisive.
Your other examples didn't seem to me to have the revolutionary
significance of the events of the 60s.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From jk Wed Mar 27 21:33:53 1996
Subject: Re: One Last Neocon Article
To: NEOCON-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 21:33:53 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: from "Chris Stamper" at Mar 27, 96 07:45:53 pm
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> The confusion of our times has led us to the
> point of what Professor Glazer calls the "crippling
> ambiguity" of not knowing whether we want to
> celebrate great events or mourn them. And if so, how
> to do so. This has powerfully effected our ability to
> build monuments.
It's interesting that the Korean War and Vietnam War monuments here in
NYC are populist structures that look like and probably were designed
and financed by ex-GIs rather than the authorities. Not a good sign.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: A new order began, a more Roman age bred Rowena.
From jk Fri Apr 5 14:22:20 1996
Subject: Re: PoliticsUSA.com
To: southernleague@polaris.net
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 14:22:20 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <9604051421.AA19961@saturn.med.pitt.edu> from "Steven Latulippe" at Apr 5, 96 09:21:05 am
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> The fact is: this guy is a looney toon, left wing, ultra-liberal
> hateful terrorist who has killed and maimed dozens of people because
> he thinks that the human race is polluting the environment.
Is he really a liberal? In his manifesto he said very harsh things
about liberals and the left. He's wholly opposed to the modern
managerial state, without which liberalism is unthinkable. His
comments on conservatives were much milder, he just thinks they're
stupid and don't see how deep the problems of modern society go.
You're right, of course, that the media have a soft spot for
environmentalist terrorism and would never come down hard on academia,
least of all Harvard and Berkeley, or the 60s.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From jk Fri Apr 5 17:39:33 1996
Subject: Re: PoliticsUSA.com
To: southernleague@polaris.net
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 17:39:33 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <9604052000.AA17980@earth.med.pitt.edu> from "Steven Latulippe" at Apr 5, 96 03:00:19 pm
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Status: RO
> Is the unabomber liberal? Although he had harsh things to say about
> liberalism in his "manifesto", I still think that it is undeniable that
> he is a creature of the political left. He is a radical environmentalist,
> hates industrial capitalism, and was spawned in the hard-core leftism
> of U. Cal Berk and Harvard.
I agree that he is a non-conservative radical whose thought features
themes and reasoning often found on the left, and that makes it
difficult for the media to attack his thought as they attack that of
right-wing radicals and people they think of as right-wing radicals.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Apr 6 12:59:23 EST 1996
Article: 7413 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The sixties
Date: 5 Apr 1996 15:01:29 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <4k3u6p$df3@panix.com>
References: <4jkcgp$k6l@panix.com> <4jpb4t$rit@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> <4jpofq$d0p@panix.com> <4k1nk4$d0p@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In tsar@linex.com (W$) writes:
>The fall of Communism has removed the "Boogy Man" from defense considerations
>after some 90 years. It has already caused major effects in the economy, and
>will continue to cause major restructuring for a long long time. For one thing
>it will give the U.S. govt. the ability to turn control inward ... instead of
>outward.
Foreign enemies usually make domestic discipline and control easier to
maintain. That was what I meant when I said that the major domestic
effect of the fall of communism was to make it easier for existing
(disintegrative) trends to follow their own laws. As to major economic
effects, they are always with us from one source or another. I don't
see anything special about the ones to which you refer.
>No? Some 50,000 card carrying members, and some millions of supporters? Tell
>me of some comparable level of armed resistors to the use of Federal Power
>from the 60's.
The militias aren't engaging in material armed resistence to anything,
and I don't think it's likely they will any time soon. Riots and
draftdodging during the 60s involved far more resistence to government
than anything they've undertaken.
>You don't think it's revolutionary to allow collapse of the American banking
>system in order to allow a small group of people to skim fortunes from foreign
>"investments" that are little more than frauds. Not to mention the attendent
>loss of jobs in this country, to create jobs in others?
>How does this compare to a bunch of hippies rolling in the mud and screaming
>at the sky in upstate New York?
The single most important thing in politics, I think, is the
assumptions people have about what's important in life, what people owe
each other and society at large, the purpose of politics, what people
accept as authority, and so on. Those things have been transformed
since the 60s by trends set in motion by rolling and screaming hippies,
among others.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Apr 6 12:59:24 EST 1996
Article: 7417 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter,
Subject: Re: Upbeat, inclusive Buchananism?
Date: 6 Apr 1996 06:37:43 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <4k5l27$r0v@panix.com>
References: <4jomv3$n05@panix.com> <4k55fo$rn0@pipe12.nyc.pipeline.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <4k55fo$rn0@pipe12.nyc.pipeline.com> jfcarney@nyc.pipeline.com (John F. Carney) writes:
>it should not be our business to
>compromise our principles, to silence our complaints, or to abandon our
>point of view to 'bring us together.'
>Is it inclusiveness? Perhaps, if by
>"inclusive" we mean something like what Richard Weaver meant when he
>claimed that all acts of inclusion were, by neccessity, acts of exclusion,
>as well.
Inclusiveness is of course the ultimate in exclusion, because it takes
the position that your opponents fundamentally don't exist or anyway
need not be taken into account. The relation between liberal
inclusiveness and the groups I mentioned, conservative Christians, the
NRA, and people worried about abortion, immigration or moral chaos, is
rather clearly evidenced by the _New York Times_ articles that started
off this thread.
One way to succeed is to act as if fundamentally you've already done
so. Presumably conservatives believe that their principles are the
principles that can and by rights should "bring us together", and today
they are in a position to assert plausibly that the Left has already
lost even though some people don't yet realize what's happened with
sufficient clarity. So really my suggestion is that we speak and act
more as if that were the case, as if our views were the central ones
and our opponents the extremists. In addressing the country at large,
that would mean emphasizing a vision of a self-governing people living
together in free communities rather than battles along the way with
those who support libertinism and rule by a centralized managerial
bureaucracy. We need more "I have a dream" speeches. Or so it seems
to me.
Happy Easter, and TNT on Tuesday if you're still around.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Apr 6 12:59:25 EST 1996
Article: 7418 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Revised freedom of association FAQ
Date: 6 Apr 1996 11:22:23 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 688
Message-ID: <4k65nv$imn@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
I used to call this the inclusiveness FAQ or some such thing. It's
long, but I would appreciate comments. Read it if you wish.
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION FAQ
March 31, 1996 Draft
Antidiscrimination laws and other social policies promoting
inclusiveness have great moral prestige and enjoy powerful political
support; nonetheless, some people oppose them. This FAQ is intended to
respond to questions regarding such opposition in a way that is less
abstract than the usual libertarian arguments against coerced
association. Accordingly, the responses concentrate on the social and
cultural consequences of efforts to implement inclusiveness ideology; to
keep the discussion within bounds they deal mostly with the pure
antidiscrimination norm established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964
rather than subsequent developments such as affirmative action.
The current version of this FAQ is always available at
http://www.panix.com/~jk/inclus.faq. Comments are welcome and should be
directed to Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com).
QUESTIONS
1. What is inclusiveness?
2. What objection can there be to inclusiveness?
3. Isn't the sort of equality referred to as "inclusiveness" a rather
limited one?
4. Why is state action a necessary part of "inclusiveness?"
5. How could discrimination on grounds forbidden by civil rights laws
possibly be rational?
6. What is the connection between discrimination and community?
7. Shouldn't communities that define themselves by reference to
ethnicity, religion, lifestyle and so on broaden themselves to reflect a
fuller appreciation of the richness of humanity?
8. Why try to bring back the past?
9. What specific problems have antidiscrimination rules caused?
10. Weren't civil rights measures necessary to redress evils caused by
discrimination?
11. Isn't discrimination based on fear and hatred of "the other"?
12. Doesn't opposition to inclusiveness indicate an inability to deal
with difference?
13. Isn't discrimination based on overbroad stereotypes that it would
be more intelligent to avoid?
14. How would you like to be discriminated against?
15. What happens to those excluded in a non-inclusive society?
16. Whatever errors or excesses it may sometimes lead to, isn't the
ideal of inclusiveness a generous one?
17. If exclusion is morally OK, why are so many conscientious people so
very troubled by it?
18. What is the overall political effect of antidiscrimination laws?
19. Isn't it divisive to oppose measures designed to promote
inclusiveness?
20. What about Bosnia, the Wars of Religion, and other communal
conflicts?
21. Would more discrimination and exclusion really make the world a
better place?
ANSWERS
1. What is inclusiveness?
"Inclusiveness", like "equity" and "access", is a way of talking
about equality. Liberals believe as a matter of principle that the
benefits of society should be equally available to all, and a basic
task of government is to help make them so. As liberalism has
developed so have the specific demands of that principle; today it
has come to require that persons of every race, ethnicity,
religious background, sex, disability status and sexual orientation
be able to participate equally in major social activities, with
roughly equal receipt of status and rewards the test for equal
ability to participate. This requirement of equal participation is
referred to as "inclusiveness".
2. What objection can there be to inclusiveness?
The demand for inclusiveness is in the end a demand for
comprehensive social, political and economic equality brought about
by force of law. The objections to it are the usual objections to
bureaucratic egalitarianism, that it destroys civil society and
crushes the human spirit. After long struggle and enormous
destruction the legitimacy of these objections has been conceded in
the case of state socialism, but the spirit that gave us state
socialism keeps reappearing in new forms. As a result, the
destruction and the struggle will continue.
3. Isn't the sort of equality referred to as "inclusiveness" a rather
limited one?
Not in the long run, since the list of forbidden grounds of
exclusion tends to lengthen. Any substantial and durable
inequality could easily be held to violate inclusiveness, for
example on grounds that it is "classist." Also, the inequalities
targeted by measures such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are
stubborn, and any serious attempt to eradicate them quickly turns
radical. This FAQ, however, will concentrate on objections to
comparatively limited and universally-praised measures to promote
inclusiveness, such as the rules against race and sex
discrimination in employment, and on defense of some of the conduct
such measures forbid.
4. Why is state action a necessary part of "inclusiveness?"
Even in the absence of state action, a particular organization may
choose inclusiveness. If left to go their own way it is not likely
that all would do so, however, certainly not to the extent
proponents of inclusiveness demand. Intentional discrimination is
often rational. Human beings differ, and they have differing
affinities for each other. While many differences are purely
individual, enough are related to characteristics such as sex and
ethnicity for free dealings to lead to a degree of social
segmentation even in the absence of intentional discrimination.
Where such segmentation arises the social expectations and
prejudices to which it gives rise accentuate it.
5. How could discrimination on grounds forbidden by civil rights laws
possibly be rational?
There are many reasons. One is that similarities of habits,
standards and attitudes make it easier for people to associate
productively with those of similar background. To take ethnicity
and employment discrimination as an example, an ethnic culture is a
collection of habits, standards and attitudes that has grown up in
a group of people who have lived and worked together for a very
long time. Since those who share such things tend to find it
easier to work together, they usually prefer to associate with each
other for that purpose. The reason diversity is recognized as a
major challenge for employers, requiring special training and
sensitivity, is that lack of ethnic cohesiveness tends to make
cooperation harder. An employer who wanted to limit the number of
challenges with which he must deal might reasonably seek out a
niche in the market for people to hire just as he might seek out a
niche in the market for goods and services to provide.
Other forbidden grounds include sex, which all societies always and
everywhere have treated as socially important. Even present-day
liberals typically recognize mixed company as different from
single-sex groups, although they tend to deny that that the mixing
can ever be anything but beneficial. Toleration for the views of
nearly the entire human race, as well as consideration of the
effects of increasingly ill-defined sex roles on family stability
and the well-being of children, suggest caution in attempts to
create a gender-blind society and willingness to recognize
differing roles of the sexes at least in family life. But if sex
roles are accepted socially, then men and women will be brought up
differently and it will be no more irrational to discriminate
between them in employment than to discriminate between candidates
whose formal educations differ.
Apart from such purely functional issues relating to organizational
success, some forbidden grounds of discrimination, such as
ethnicity, religion and lifestyle, help define the communities to
which people belong. Since community is important, things related
to its definition are a reasonable basis for decisions as to
affiliation. If a Mormon wants to earn his living working with
other Mormons, the better to participate in a distinctively Mormon
way of life, he is not acting unreasonably in choosing to do so.
6. What is the connection between discrimination and community?
Objections to exclusionary conduct have to do with a wish that the
benefits of human society be made equal for everyone. It is easier
to make such a wish than to attempt to realize it in a systematic
way, because the benefits of human society arise within concrete
ways of life carried on by specific communities rather in
accordance with an abstract scheme that can be reconfigured at will
to meet standards such as equality.
Man is a social animal. That means among other things that we all
belong to networks of personal connections and groups of "people
like us" by reference to whom we understand our lives and find them
satisfying or the contrary, and with whom we prefer to deal because
when we do we are in a world we understand and trust. Families are
the most obvious examples of such communities, but each of us
belongs to a variety of others as well. It is our connection to
such communities that enables us to form our goals, give them
stability, and find them valuable. While many people want to be
CEO, very few would bother (if it were somehow p
sible) to do the
things a CEO does in exchange for the material benefits of the
position if they were permanently marooned on a desert island and
not allowed to communicate with others about anything except purely
business matters.
The communities within which we live are never fully inclusive as
to religion or lifestyle because they are based in part on beliefs
about the world and the good life, and they are rarely so as to
ethnicity because communal ties typically include the attitudes and
habits people grow up with and a sense of common history and
destiny. To try to separate the ways in which men come to enjoy
the benefits of society from religion, lifestyle and ethnicity,
which is the goal of antidiscrimination legislation, is to try to
remove those benefits from a community setting. Such an attempt
demonstrates a failure to understand how people come to find their
lives worth living. To the extent it is successful it divorces
material success from personal loyalties and from any shared
understanding of the use to be made of success. These are things
that find their home within particular communities, and when
ambition is separated from them it becomes self-sufficient and all-
consuming.
7. Shouldn't communities that define themselves by reference to
ethnicity, religion, lifestyle and so on broaden themselves to reflect a
fuller appreciation of the richness of humanity?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Unlimited breadth is impossible
because we are finite creatures. Since no single person or society
can express the full richness of humanity, the diversity and
particularity of human life requires social diversity and
particularity. Inclusiveness denies that necessity; one social
shoe (the inclusive society) is to be designed that will fit
everyone equally well.
The Vikings, the Abbasid Caliphate and Heian Japan all achieved
splendid things, but it is unlikely that mixing them together would
have created something that manifested human capacities better than
the three did separately. Each might have profited in its own way
by learning from the others, but not by attempting to reconstruct
its institutions and usages to make them equally accessible to the
other two. In that regard the world is no different now and a
thousand years ago.
Also, in spite of its diversity mankind may have an essential
nature to which some religions and lifestyles correspond better
than others. To assert that each society is morally required to be
equally open to all religions and lifestyles is to forbid social
recognition of such a possibility, and therefore (among other
things) to deny the possibility that society can progress morally.
Without a notion of moral progress, however, it is hard to make
sense of liberalism itself.
8. Why try to bring back the past?
Why indeed? The way people live develops in accordance with
current conditions and understandings. The argument is not that
segregation should be reimposed or that all women should be kept in
the kitchen, but rather that association should be based on mutual
choice. For the foreseeable future, ethnicity, expectations as to
gender and similar prejudices will retain a legitimate and
necessary social role, so government efforts to eradicate them by
denying freedom of association are ill-conceived and destructive.
Just what that role will be will be determined by what people find
appropriate and satisfying. To the extent such things no longer
serve a function people will come to ignore them; there is no need
to assume that bureaucrats and judges the matter better than people
do in their own lives.
9. What specific problems have antidiscrimination rules caused?
It is difficult to separate the effects of antidiscrimination rules
from those resulting from other changes since the early '60s in
public policy and accepted public morality. Nonetheless, certain
changes for the worse will be impossible to avoid if comprehensive
antidiscrimination rules are taken seriously. Liberals often
respond to nostalgia for the 50s by pointing out that at that time
discrimination was legal and widely practiced. They have a point:
a. Since antidiscrimination rules make community more
difficult to achieve they result in alienation and the loss
of the goods achieved through community. In particular, they
make it harder to achieve the compatibility and cohesion
needed for a happy and productive workforce and so have the
effect of making people poorer and less happy.
b. Antidiscrimination rules mean that private organizations
are oriented more single-mindedly toward private gain than in
the past; people who complain about the Decade of Greed and
also favor energetic civil rights enforcement haven't thought
things through. Public spirit does not exist in a vacuum,
but in a setting of shared goals, understandings and
expectations that grow up over time in particular
communities. It therefore varies by community: WASP
organizations are public-spirited in a WASP style, Jewish
organizations in a Jewish style, and so on. If networks of
shared understandings weaken within private organizations, as
they will if they do not choose their members more from some
communities than others, trust will dwindle and public spirit
dissipate.
c. The abandonment of definite duties within the family
implicit in the rejection of stereotypical sex roles results
in a less functional family and therefore in problems raising
children. The difficulties are compounded by official
rejection of the view that birth into a group with shared
moral standards (typically, an ethnic or religious group) is
fundamental to what one is and creates obligations to which
he should submit. Because of that rejection schools and the
broader society today necessarily teach children to throw off
parental standards and authority; those things are almost
always based on ethnic or religious standards that under
antidiscrimination ideology cannot be authoritative.
d. If the relevance of membership in a particular community
to social or economic well-being is an evil to be extirpated
there can be no room for traditional systems of mutual
assistance based on kinship, community and religion, or for
expectations of self-help based on the moral code of a
particular community. By definition, such systems tie well-
being to the things on which they are based. Also, the
traditional expectation that men should support their
families and marry the mothers of the children they father
places burdens on men that are not identical with those
placed on women and therefore fits awkwardly with
antidiscrimination principles. Such principles accordingly
lead to an increase in the demand for public assistance.
10. Weren't civil rights measures necessary to redress evils caused by
discrimination?
Many evils have been attributed to discrimination, and it is
difficult to discuss them all in a FAQ. Since the position of
black people is usually thought to present the strongest case for
government intervention, commenting on it may serve as a partial
answer.
Black people indeed have problems, but statistics suggest that
civil rights measures do not do much to solve them. To begin with
economics: in 1959 55.1 of blacks and 18.1 of whites were in
poverty. By 1966 those percentages had fallen to 41.8 and 11.3 and
by 1969 to 32.2 and 9.5. Since then they have not changed much; in
1992 they were 33.3 and 11.6. Thus, in 1992 as in 1959 blacks were
about 3 times as likely as whites to be poor; a third of a century
of antidiscrimination legislation and huge changes in public
attitudes had done nothing to reduce the gap. (Source:
_Statistical Abstract of the United States_.)
Other measures of overall economic well-being confirm the overall
failure of the civil rights laws to benefit black people
economically. For example, in 1939 earnings of black male workers
were 45% and black females 38% those of whites. By 1960 the ratio
had increased, to 67% for men and 70% for women. In 1990 the
figures were 73% and 90%; progress had not stopped after the Civil
Rights Revolution, but it had become slower. (Source: A. Hacker,
_Two Nations_, 101.) Such statistics should not be surprising.
Civil rights laws would never be enacted if bias were universal.
However, bias against blacks should not have much effect on black
incomes unless it is either universal or coerced; otherwise
employers whose greed is stronger than their bias would be able to
make extraordinary profits by hiring capable blacks and paying them
less, thus creating a bidding war among profit-motivated employers
for black services that would bring black wages up to parity or
close to it. (Note: the foregoing argument does allows the
possibility that in the mid-60s civil rights laws aided blacks in
the South by breaking up a system of segregation coerced by law and
threats of violence.)
Nor does it appear that civil rights laws and changes in racial
attitudes have done much for non-economic aspects of black people's
lives, which have grown increasingly chaotic. Between 1960 and
1993, for example, the percentage of black children living with
both parents declined from 67% to 35.6% (source: www.census.gov),
and from 1950 to 1970 the percentage of blacks among prison inmates
rose from 29.7% to 35.8%, and then to 45.3% in 1986 (source: A.
Hacker, _Two Nations_, 197). It appears that some of the lack of
progress and even retrogression can be attributed to the Civil
Rights Revolution. If blacks live in a prosperous free-market
society and are allowed ordinary liberty in economic, cultural and
religious matters, most of what their lives are like will depend on
the condition of black culture, which will in turn depend on the
state of black communities. The effect of the Civil Rights
Revolution has been to undermine community generally by making
human relations more impersonal, and to lead blacks to put their
hopes in white "society" -- practically speaking, the government --
rather than in each other and their own communities and
institutions. The deterioration of those communities and
institutions is from this perspective no surprise.
11. Isn't discrimination based on fear and hatred of "the other"?
Discrimination is simply associating by preference with people of
one sort rather than another, and so need not be based on fear and
hatred. People who hire their relatives or join clubs for
graduates of their own colleges usually do not hate and fear non-
relatives or alumni of other colleges. Liberal professionals who
seek out other liberal professionals rather than Republican used
car salesmen may have no particular negative feelings regarding the
latter. It is unclear why discrimination relating to ethnicity,
religion, sex or lifestyle should be thought so very different.
12. Doesn't opposition to inclusiveness indicate an inability to deal
with difference?
No more than favoring inclusiveness does. Those who make an
overriding principle out of either separation or inclusiveness
demonstrate an inability to deal with differences that make a
difference, the separatists by their unwillingness to deal at all
with those who differ and the proponents of inclusiveness by their
insistence on depriving difference of social consequence. An
intermediate view that accepts a diverse society that reflects
differences and the social distances to which they give rise in a
variety of ways would reject both strict separation and mandatory
inclusiveness.
13. Isn't discrimination based on overbroad stereotypes that it would
be more intelligent to avoid?
It is nondiscrimination that requires such stereotypes. Every
society assigns rights and obligations based on what has to be
done, how things will be organized, and expectations as to what
people are like. The rights, obligations and expectations with
respect to a class of persons correspond to the stereotype for
those persons. Thus, the stereotype for "U.S. citizen" is someone
who obeys the law, follows the news, votes, works for a living,
pays his taxes, believes in education, and so on, and the laws
establishing the rights and obligations of U.S. citizens are based
on some such stereotype.
The nondiscrimination principle is the principle that the same
rights, obligations and expectations, and thus the same stereotype,
should apply to everyone. It thus demands that the treatment of
persons be based on the broadest possible stereotypes. While
stereotypical thinking is unavoidable, one might reasonably ask
whether it would be more intelligent to have a single stereotype
for "adult human being" or to have (for example) separate
stereotypes for "man" and "woman". Our society has officially
decided in favor of the former, but it's hard to make the decision
stick in practice and its justification isn't clear to everyone.
14. How would you like to be discriminated against?
It might well be painful. On the other hand the current situation,
in which blacks and other members of protected classes spend their
lives working with people whom they suspect would rather have
nothing to do with them, doesn't make people happy either. (For
details, see Ellis Cose's _Rage of a Privileged Class_.) If there
were no antidiscrimination laws people who wanted to work together
would find each other; in the long run that would bring about more
happiness than current arrangements.
15. What happens to those excluded in a non-inclusive society?
Usually someone excluded from one part of society will have better
luck elsewhere. If I'm excluded by the Century Club I may be able
to join the Shriners, and a group excluded everywhere is free to
develop its own institutions. The ease of communication and
fluidity of life today makes self-organization far easier than in
the past. Self-organization implies some degree of separation,
however, so it is easier in a non-inclusive society because an
inclusive society by definition tries to establish a single social
order that applies equally to everyone. Ethnic minorities in a
non-inclusive society are often able to thrive through some
combination of adaptation and niche-finding, while in an inclusive
society religious and social conservatives, and ethnics who
consider their ethnicity important, are subjected to public
policies designed to make their (and every other) religion, ethnic
culture, and traditional moral outlook irrelevant to all matters of
serious public concern.
16. Whatever errors or excesses it may sometimes lead to, isn't the
ideal of inclusiveness a generous one?
The motives supporting any ideal that benefits some people more
than others will are never limited to generosity and disinterested
love of justice.
The intended beneficiaries of inclusiveness may support it for
reasons that have nothing to do with generosity. In addition,
inclusiveness serves powerful social interests that ostensibly are
not intended beneficiaries at all. The issue of inclusiveness
arises when society is viewed as a single actor with a single
script, and to demand inclusiveness is to demand that the script be
rewritten and a new one put into effect. Attempting to carry out
that demand requires an enormous grant of power to a small and
cohesive group. On the design side, the favored group includes
social theoreticians, legal experts and social scientists, and on
the implementation side civil servants, jurists, lawyers,
educators, journalists and media people. Not surprisingly, the
ideal of inclusiveness find most support among the people named,
whose power it does so much to increase.
In addition, inclusiveness liberates each of us from the particular
demands of the parochial social groups he belongs to because it
denies the significance of our membership in such groups. For
example, Christians who adopt inclusiveness as their standard are
thereby freed from the specific demands of Christian morality.
Some may want such liberation because it will enable them to soar
higher, others may have baser motives.
17. If exclusion is morally OK, why are so many conscientious people so
very troubled by it?
There are a variety of reasons. Forbidden grounds for
discrimination usually have to do with accidents of birth and the
like, and it is thought unjust for treatment to vary on account of
such things. Also, many idealists believe that universal love
requires relations with others that are direct and all-accepting
rather than mediated by roles and presumptions based on sex, race,
class and the like.
Such concerns may be noble, but we can't be guided wholly by them
any more than by universal forgiveness. The issue in politics is
what fosters the best in human life as a practical matter; as one
exponent of universal love has said, "By their fruits shall ye know
them." It's legitimate to treat those differently to whom we have
a particular connection, and such connections often arise from
accidents of birth. It is by an accident of birth that we have a
special obligation to the persons who happen to be our parents and
children. In most cases the rights and obligations of citizenship
and other forms of communal membership also arise from accidents of
birth. If we were trained to ignore such things we would be far
worse off than at present. As to love, people seem less connected
to each other now than they were before the Civil Rights
Revolution; it appears that the legal requirement that we ignore
traditional presumptions and roles has not on the whole improved
human relations, but by making them more artificial has rather
undermined the ways in which we actually achieve closeness to
others.
Another reason is that many people today take a technological view
of human society, and such people naturally find exclusion a moral
outrage. If "society" is a system that dispenses benefits and
detriments to passive recipients by reference to some overall
scheme, then the design of the scheme becomes the fundamental moral
issue and the machine should be designed to benefit all as much and
as equally as possible. If some in fact fare worse than others
(that is, are excluded from some benefits) reform is required, and
in a technological age it is assumed possible to redesign a system
to achieve or at least progressively approximate specifications.
Such a view, however, is false. "Society" can't be conceived as an
actor following a single script because it is composed of
irreducibly independent moral actors. Consequently, things
happening within society can't be held to uniform standards as if
they were the acts of a single responsible moral agent; to do so is
to eliminate all moral agency except the government's. People do
form communities that are unified enough to become collective moral
actors, but society as a whole acts as such a community to a far
lesser degree than families, churches and other particular groups
based on specific ties. In any case, communities are never so
tightly bound as to put an end to the independent agency of their
members. Making society the principle moral actor is therefore
simply a fallacy.
More reasons could be mentioned. People today often feel isolated
and at the mercy of large impersonal institutions, and so crave
reassurance they will be treated well. There is also a romantic
tendency to reject external rules in favor of subjective feeling;
to be excluded is to be subordinated to someone else's rules, a
terrible offense to the ego. In practice, however,
antidiscrimination laws increase the isolation of individuals, the
impersonality of institutions and the pervasiveness of bureaucratic
rules, and so feed the insecurity and alienation from which they
spring.
18. What is the overall political effect of antidiscrimination laws?
Their effect is radically to increase the power of the government
at the expense of all other social institutions. They make the
government a partner in the things that define the nature and
character of every private association, thus making each one a
quasi-branch of government. Specifically, antidiscrimination laws
require the government to supervise all procedures and decisions
regarding members of associations. To facilitate that role the
permissible nature and purposes of associations become constricted;
for example, to determine whether employment decisions are made for
"legitimate business reasons", what counts as such a reason must be
fixed and decisions must be formalized to make them susceptible to
review. The requirement that every association be as welcoming to
members of protected groups as to others requires the internal
culture of every organization to be forced into a similar mould.
One association becomes very much like another, and what each is
depends on government policy.
A free society requires a variety of institutions that are
independent of government and capable of calling it to account.
The practical restrictions on freedom of thought and inquiry in
universities and media organizations that have resulted from
antidiscrimination laws bring into question the consistency of such
laws with such a society.
19. Isn't it divisive to oppose measures designed to promote
inclusiveness?
The issue of divisiveness can not be separated from the merits.
Those who believe certain principles should be fundamental to
social order naturally view opposition as divisive. More
specifically, one could argue at least as easily that inclusiveness
is divisive. Measures to promote inclusiveness rely for their
legitimacy on a sense of grievance on the part of those they favor,
and are not likely in the long run to seem at all fair to those
they burden. They thus exacerbate and perpetuate divisions. In
addition, the first task of the movements that most favor
inclusiveness has been to raise consciousness -- that is, to use
hate-filled rhetoric to create division, to violate the law to
demonstrate contempt for and undermine established order, and so
on.
20. What about Bosnia, the Wars of Religion, and other communal
conflicts?
When attempts to create an inclusive society such as socialist
Yugoslavia or medieval catholic Christendom unravel it can be very
messy. Men are clannish by nature, so social arrangements that
harness their inclinations are likely to be more stable than
arrangements that deprive them of all legitimate expression.
Proposals for social changes as radical as the eradication of
sexism and ethnocentrism raise questions as to the degree of force
needed to establish and maintain the proposed new form of society,
and whether any amount of coercion can ultimately be successful or
whether it will destroying existing structures without being able
to replace them. In this century attempts to eradicate economic
self-interest as a motive have led to colossal oppression and
suffering, and the national socialist attempt to achieve a society
without divisions also led to catastrophe. It is not clear why
efforts against racism, sexism and so on, if carried on with equal
determination and equal willingness to destroy whatever stands in
the way, should turn out better.
To the extent clannishness is a destructive force it would be best
for it to diffuse itself among a variety of affiliations, so that
loyalties could be based on family, religion, ethnicity, locality,
occupation, class, and so on, without any one becoming politically
overriding and therefore divisive. The effect of civil rights laws
is to create legal entitlements based on a very few affiliations,
primarily race, and thus to heighten divisions and make race-based
politics inevitable and permanent. From the standpoint of social
peace it would be better to let people discriminate as they wish,
so that things such as race will have only a degree of importance
corresponding to actual attitudes that in the long run are likely
to be based on practicality and daily experience.
21. Would more discrimination and exclusion really make the world a
better place?
Their effect depends on circumstances. Like economic inequality,
prisons, police and armies their destructive side is easily
visible. They are nonetheless necessary for the existence of the
cohesive communities with common standards that are needed to give
people a place on which they can build, so attempts to extirpate
them soon become destructive. There are of course many
institutions today that tend to destroy community, including the
mass media, the welfare state, and the modern educational system,
so in itself the repeal of the civil rights laws might do very
little good. Like many reforms, repeal of those laws is needed
although not sufficient. However, other institutions already have
many critics, while there has been very little criticism in
principle of civil rights legislation and of the outlook behind it.
The purpose of this FAQ is thus to contribute to public discussion
by setting forth the criticisms that can and should be made.
Related reading:
Brimelow, Peter and Spencer, Leslie: "When Quotas Replace Merit,
Everybody Suffers", _Forbes_, Feb. 15, 1993, p. 80. A brief survey of
the almost nonexistent work by economists on aggregate economic costs of
affirmative action programs, followed by an analysis and estimate of
such costs.
Epstein, Richard A.: _Forbidden Grounds: the Case against Employment
Discrimination Laws_ (Harvard University Press, 1992). A discussion of
antidiscrimination laws by a University of Chicago law professor that
concludes that they are economically and socially destructive.
Levin, Michael: _Feminism and Freedom_ (Transaction Books, 1987). A
clearly-written and comprehensive discussion of the claims of feminism
and their political implications by a New York City University
philosophy professor.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From jk Sat Apr 6 11:16:06 1996
Subject: Re: Common Prayer Volume 2 Issue 8
To: common-prayer@covert.ENET.dec.com (Common Prayer Mailing List)
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 11:16:06 -0500 (EST)
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Harriet Baber's article prodded me to mull over the notion of atonement.
Like her, I don't understand it very well, although again like her I
find the crucifixion integral to God's incarnation.
Possibly the modern difficulty with atonement (which I share) springs
from a loss of the sense that the world as created by God is very good
but has been thoroughly corrupted by man's misuse of his freedom. If
that is how things are, then in order perfectly to enter the world as it
now is God must subject himself to the consequences of man's evil, and
thus at least in a manner of speaking must pay the price for man's sins.
On that view, notions of atonement start to seem more plausible. In
contrast, the tendency of modern thought is to hold that the world,
which is most truly described by physics, is morally neutral, that
freedom and therefore sin are in the end illusory, and that the things
most relevant to action are satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and
technology. On the latter view, the basic moral goal becomes setting up
a system that by its design will reliably bring about the greatest
satisfaction for the greatest number, or something of the sort, and
"atonement" becomes incomprehensible. It also becomes hard to
understand why God doesn't set up the desired system himself, which may
explain modern tendencies to identify God with progressive social
evolution.
Another thought -- if it were arranged that man would not sin, or that
his sins would have no serious effects, he would lose the great but
hazardous dignity of freedom, and a part of the goodness of God's
creation that is necessarily very dear to us would disappear. So if we
choose what destroys us, as we do when we sin, there seems to be some
sense in thinking that God could not, consistent with the greatness he
conferred on us when he made us beings capable of effectually choosing
evil, simply make our evil choice of no effect, but to save us from
ourselves could only take the evil on himself.
As I said, though, I don't really understand this stuff, so all comments
would be welcome.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From jk Tue Apr 9 14:28:32 1996
Subject: Re: Universalism (was Re: ANGLICAN Digest - 4 Apr 1996 )d
To: ANGLICAN@AMERICAN.EDU
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 14:28:32 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <3169EDBD@SmtpOut.em.cdc.gov> from "Handsfield, James H." at Apr 9, 96 07:57:00 am
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Jim Handsfield writes:
>Karl Barth puts it this way: until we know all there is to know about
>God and heaven, we will not have the complete freedom to make the
>choice. When God is fully self revealed, it is inconceivable that
>anyone would choose other than to be with God.
What in Christian tradition does Barth point to that supports his view?
Socrates made knowledge precede virtue, and he was a logical man so it's
a logical view, but it seems to me anomalous in Christianity. Some
considerations that come to mind:
1. Where we are told that the truth will set us free (John 8:32) we
are also told that we know the truth by being Jesus' disciples and
holding to his teaching.
2. Saint Paul emphasizes our failure and incapacity to do what we
know to be right, whether we know by natural reasoning or by revelation
(Romans 1 and 7). Going back farther, the fall of man didn't occur
because Adam was ignorant but because he chose to do what he knew to be
against God's will.
3. It has always been thought so far as I know that angels sometimes
fall in spite of accurate knowledge of God. St. James for example says
the devils believe, and tremble.
4. "Credo ut intelligam" (Anselm and before him Augustine) sounds
like it means that we can know God only because we first trust and
believe in him. More recent treatments of the same point, which
emphasize the impossibility of doing, thinking or believing anything
without prior moral commitments and assumptions about the world, can be
found in Pascal's _Pensees_ and in an article entitled "We can't get
along" or something of the sort in _First Things_ a couple of months
ago. (The latter is by Stanley Fish, admittedly not known as a
Christian.)
5. Part of the issue is how God made us. We are told he made us in
his image. It seems that the closest a finite creature that can't
create things out of nothing could come to Godlike power is to have the
power of turning God down and thereby placing an eternal mark on the
fundamental nature of things that is unmistakeably his own. I think
something of the sort is one of the basic motivations for human
distructiveness. So one objection to universalism is that a creature
capable of being damned is nobler than one not so capable, and there is
no guarantee that none of us will achieve what we are all capable of
and many of us are fond of toying with in one way or another.
Arguments to the contrary sound to me a lot like arguments against the
existence of evil.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From jk Wed Apr 10 10:25:47 1996
Subject: Re: Universalism (was Re: ANGLICAN Digest - 4 Apr 1996 )d
To: ANGLICAN@AMERICAN.EDU
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 10:25:47 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: from "Chris W. Moore or Bill Dilworth" at Apr 9, 96 09:09:01 pm
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Bill Dilworth writes:
>I am not a universalist because of what I believe about humanity, but
>because of what I believe about God. A creature capable of damnation
>may be more noble than another kind, but a Creator who tortures his
>creatures is, IMNSHO, not noble at all.
What about a Creator who makes creatures so like himself as to be
capable of finally choosing to make themselves the center of their own
world? Would it have been better for him to create only creatures that
lack that capacity?
>I also fail to see how a denial of God the Eternal Torturer is an
>argument against the reality of evil.
God made us and the world in accordance with his will, he governs the
world, and we are sometimes tortured. Since past events are
unchangeable, it is an eternal truth that innocent children have on many
occasions been tortured to death. That's still happening now and I
don't doubt it will continue to happen in the future. If it's eternally
true that people have been tortured I suppose we already know enough to
confer on God the title you mention, if that's the right way to look at
things.
I don't understand any of this either, although I can say things like
"evil is a consequence of man's sin and therefore of his dignity" or "in
the end we will see, if we are willing to see, how it was all for the
best." A problem I have with universalism is that it seems to claim to
understand too much in an area in which we have very little
understanding, and so far as I can tell it fits awkwardly with Christian
tradition.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From jk Wed Apr 10 10:27:11 1996
Subject: Re: Back to the Future Shock
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 10:27:11 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Apr 10, 96 11:24:04 am
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Respondet Francesca:
>Yes, postmodernism allows a space for religion, but it does so
>on the grounds that religion makes no absolute claims, and on
>the ground that NOTHING can be shown make a rational claim
>on human beings as such.
But you're allowed to talk about whatever you want, with the only
restriction one that is visibly incoherent because it is itself a
totalizing metanarrative. Sounds like there are possibilities.
>A second plank of postmodernism is the claim that what it
>calls PRESENCE cannot be represented or described. Presence
>is the thingliness and character of objects.
This sounds interesting. Haven't there been theories (Aquinas?) that
matter is the individuating principle that permits the existence of
several things with the same essence? If so, "presence" sounds rather
like "matter." What's the function of saying presence cannot be
represented or described? (I presume it can be referred to, or is that
impossible as well?)
>Postmodernism also has other rather deleterious
>aspects, like the denial of the existence of the
>self - it claims that we all have many
>selves, each with its own narrative.
This sounds somewhat at odds with the view that "presence" cannot be
represented or described. The latter view seems to suggest that things
have a reality that cannot be made explicit in language.
Sorry to inflict vague and uninformed questions and comments on you --
if you're busy or it's a bore please feel free to be short with me.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From jk Wed Apr 10 10:52:47 1996
Subject: Re: Universalism (was Re: ANGLICAN Digest - 4 Apr 1996 )d
To: ANGLICAN@AMERICAN.EDU
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 10:52:47 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <316B3B03@SmtpOut.em.cdc.gov> from "Handsfield, James H." at Apr 10, 96 07:39:00 am
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Jim Handfield writes:
> How does this inform us about those who do not believe?
I dunno. I thought the issue was whether we know, or at least should
believe, that everyone will be saved in the end. I doubt we should
adopt that as a belief although we should hope it's true. Presumably
it would be possible for example for someone not to believe because
because he interprets divine love as an appalling attack on what he
most wants to be, the center of his own world, and therefore as
horrible torture inflicted by a demon.
> The best aphorism I've heard
> about God's relationship with Creation is: Mercy is not receiving what we
> deserve. Grace is receiving what we don't deserve.
Should we think of grace as something received without consent or of
the necessary consent as something built into us in advance?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From jk Wed Apr 10 12:13:04 1996
Subject: Re: Back to the Future Shock
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 12:13:04 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Apr 10, 96 04:04:41 pm
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Francesca promises:
> I will get back to you at the weekend.
As convenient.
> Postmodernism
> can't be made to seem rational.
All the better, since from a contradiction you can prove anything at
all, including one's own views.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
From jk Wed Apr 10 12:26:10 1996
Subject: Re: Back to the Future Shock
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 12:26:10 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Apr 10, 96 05:11:08 pm
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> > >A second plank of postmodernism is the claim that what it
> > >calls PRESENCE cannot be represented or described. Presence
> > >is the thingliness and character of objects.
> the whole point is the failure of reference to touch
> or make contact with objects.
A point that can nonetheless be talked about, it appears. Maybe it
would be best if I just looked at the reading list you provided.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Age, irony, Noriega.
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.