Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 1 12:09:30 EST 1994
Article: 52996 of comp.sys.atari.st
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Who sells STs?
Date: 1 Mar 1994 12:08:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Do any of the mail order suppliers sell new or used STs or STEs these
days? If so, who?
Thanks.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 1 20:34:36 EST 1994
Article: 1363 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 1 Mar 1994 20:14:18 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>If charity is good, then you should be able to say why it is so, if
>only because you feel better when you do it.
Charity is willing the good of other people. If you think that we
should will what is good, it's hard to see why the circumstance that a
particular good happens to be the good of another person derogates from
our obligation to will it, as long as you think of "good" as something
that's universally valid. Therefore, charity is obligatory unless it's
false either that we should will the good or that "good" refers to
something universally valid. Both possibilities contradict normal ways
of speaking, and I don't see how we can avoid speaking in the normal
manner in this connection.
>Whether a bachelor is married or not is determined by definition, not
>normative. By definition, a bachelor is an unmarried man.
For you, it seems that "the highest good is the well-being of White
people" is a statement for which no argument can be presented. You
accept it, but apparently believe that there is no particular reason
why anyone else should. So it sounds like you have simply decided to
define the phrase "the highest good" in an idiosyncratic way. Maybe by
"highest good" you mean "my overriding purpose". If so, it would be
clearer and more consistent with the usual meaning of words to use
"purpose" language instead of moral language.
>> Therefore, the meaning of moral statements is not exhausted by
>> their utility in fulfilling a goal that we have but might just as
>> well not have had.
>
>I think they are. All human actions (and action of all living things
>short of involuntary actions) are goal-directed.
Sure, but the distinguishing characteristic of moral goals is that they
are not simply goals that we might equally well have or not have. They
are obligatory goals.
>what is "a good?" It is an ideal or goal. Quoting Aristotle, "What then
>is the good of each? Surely that for whose sake everything else is
>done. In medicine it is health, in strategy victory, in architecture a
>house, in any other sphere something else and in every action and
>pursuit, the end; for it is for the sake of this that all men do
>whatever else they do." [Aristotle, _Nichomachean_Ethics_]
Aristotle was able to write an _Ethics_ instead of just a _Technics_
because he thought there were goals that man as man necessarily had.
The _Nichomachean Ethics_ is not a treatise on how to go about getting
whatever it is that you happen to want.
>> What was the end to which the civilizations of
>> Greece or Israel were subordinate.
>
>To be Greek or Israeli (as they understood such things).
The Greek philosophers tried to discover truths that were valid for men
as such. The Prophets were constantly denouncing what they viewed as
Jewish national characteristics. Both thought there was something very
special about their own people, but the thing that made them special
was not simply attentiveness to themselves and whatever characteristics
they happened to have, but attentiveness to something that transcended
their ethnicity. Ethnicity is important but it's not all-important or
self-sufficient.
>For example, I think that you don't like certain aspects of my
>viewpoint because they are, as you have said, "unAmerican."
You are mistaking me for someone else, possibly with Mr. Sessman. He
and I agree on almost nothing. I have never said such a thing.
>> Bringing" is too active a verb, though. It makes
>> it sound as if someone could intentionally create a civilization, which
>> is not the case.
>
>What do you think laws are? You WILL give your property to this end.
>You WILL abide by our laws. You WILL sacrifice your interests for the
>nation's. Laws are enforced morality. Now, the degree to which that
>morality is an integral part of everyone's own morality or the other
>way around (i.e. the degree to which that law reflects the morals of
>the people ) determines how "legitimate" that order is and how free the
>people feel.
Are you agreeing or disagreeing? In the latter part of the quoted
language you seem to recognize that an authority can't simply decide to
create a living social order of the sort he likes by establishing a code
of laws and so on.
>To me, the real issue is what end should we Whites aspire to?
How can you ask this question? I thought your view was that people have
whatever purposes they have, and it makes no sense for someone to step
back from his actual purposes and ask whether he "should" have those
purposes.
>It appears that both you and the other great Western Civilization
>advocate, Mr. Bralick, are advocating that whites should engage in a
>multi-ethnic/multi-racial state.
How am I more a Western Civilization advocate than a European ethnicity
advocate? My position in this discussion has been that both are good
things that are worthy of survival and loyalty, but neither is eternal,
monolithic, or an ultimate value. As to the multi-ethnic/multi-racial
state, I've proposed restricting immigration, reducing the functions of
the state, and recognizing the legitimacy of ethnic loyalty and
separatism. It seems to me that would permit ethnic ways of life to
develop their potentialies without imposing a fixed pattern (like White
vs. nonWhite) on what is in America a very confused ethnic picture and
without creating the kind of bloody mess that partition tends to lead
to.
I should add that an advantage of trying for moral objectivity is that
it makes it more likely you will get the cooperation of other parties,
which is usually an advantage whatever your goals happen to be.
>you seem to be saying that my opinions should stay out of a discussion
>of "politics from a general perspective,"
No, only that "this just happens to be what I want and it's beyond
discussion" is something of a conversation-stopper. Most opinions
aren't of that kind.
>others most often attempt to couch what they want by manipulating
>"objective" discussions to become what they want.
People often do that, of course. The view that moral objectivity is an
empty fantasy is also a conversation-stopper, though.
Maybe this conversation should just stop. How likely is it that it
will go anywhere?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 1 20:34:38 EST 1994
Article: 1364 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 1 Mar 1994 20:15:39 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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jabowery@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) writes:
>Separatism with a pioneering ethos is the one that will allow us to
>achieve our destiny and in so doing, fulfill the deepest longings of
>the entire planet.
I missed this, for which I apologize. What kind of pioneering do you
have in mind? Antarctica? The ocean floor? Mars?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Mar 2 05:42:46 EST 1994
Article: 1365 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Ponzi scheme ...
Date: 1 Mar 1994 20:36:11 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <1994Feb28.134451.22557@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <2kt5s6$nov@panix.com> <1994Mar1.211803.12810@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
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deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Paleoconservative, or at least anti-neoconservative articles have been
>appearing in NR of late
I was startled to see them publish an article by [whatshisname -- a
Swede who moved to the United States] arguing that equality of
opportunity is a bad thing because it undermines the class system on
which high culture and public spirit depend.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Mar 2 17:02:10 EST 1994
Article: 1367 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re:
Date: 2 Mar 1994 09:00:56 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>> If so, it would be clearer and more consistent with the usual meaning
>> of words to use "purpose" language instead of moral language.
>
>What's the difference?
To say "X is good" is to say everyone has a reason to support it, while
to say "X serves a purpose" is to say that those who share the purpose
have a reason to support it. The two are different if the purpose is
one that someone might just as well not have.
>could you please outline your understanding of ethics/morality as you
>understand it objectively and subjectively? By objectively, I mean the
>processes and parts without reference to particular ends/morals and by
>subjectively I mean with reference to particular beliefs/ideals/morals
>you have.
Objective ethics are binding on all human beings, maybe on all rational
beings. They include everything that can't be rejected consistent with
the moral language and conceptions that we can't avoid using. For
example, we can't avoid using words like "good" and "should" in a way
that shows we think those words indicate goals or obligations that are
valid for everyone regardless of individual peculiarities or subjective
preferences. Therefore, whatever is implied by the existence of a
system of goals and obligations that is valid for all men (or all
rational beings) is part of objective ethics. Charity is an example of
such a thing; I gave you an argument in my last post.
Ethics start conceptually with universal principles, but they don't
stay there because their application depends on circumstances. For
example, man happens to be a social animal, meaning that his good is
attainable in full only through relations with particular other people
and participation in a particular way of life. Therefore, the general
ethical requirement that man's good be promoted requires (because of
his particular nature) that each man attach himself to particular
people and participate in and develop a particular shared way of life
with those people. Loyalty and compliance with the requirements of a
particular way of life thus become ethical requirements that apply in
general terms to every man but differ in content from man to man
depending on attachments.
So much for extreme abstraction. I can't give you a complete list of
my specific ethical views and commitments. I suppose the one most
relevant to this thread is that I identify with European Christian
society as it has developed in America. I think there are very major
problems with that society, but it's mine, so its problems are my
problems. Any solutions to those problems will have to be step by step
and involve contributions from a lot of sources. They can't be fixed
in advance, especially since it's been impossible to discuss the
problems freely for a long time. The first step I would propose is to
get people to recognize that it is legitimate for the people who
identify with the society I mentioned to view themselves as a people
distinct from "America", as "America" is understood by People for the
American Way and by the Clintons, with a right to work out a way of
life for themselves that need not be equally open to everyone. Once
that step has been taken the discussions that have been suppressed can
begin and further steps become possible.
>> Aristotle was able to write an _Ethics_ instead of just a _Technics_
>> because he thought there were goals that man as man necessarily had.
>
>As do I. I think his underlying assumption is that people pursue pleasure.
I have the unfair advantage of having the _Nicomachean Ethics_ on disk.
A quick word search tells me that his view is that while "the general
run of men . . . think [happiness] some plain and obvious thing, like
pleasure, wealth or honor", and "men of the most vulgar type . . .
identify the good, or happiness, with pleasure, which is the reason they
love the life of enjoyment", happiness in truth is "an activity of the
soul in accordance with perfect virtue" and perfect happiness is "a
contemplative activity".
>Yes, but to what degree can we actually say that the work of Greece's
>philosophers actually represent the totality of Greek society?
Philosophy didn't start off as a special profession concerned with its
own issues. Also, Greeks other than the philosophers (the poets and
historians, for example) may have thought Greeks were special but
nonetheless were much more interested in what man and the cosmos were
like than in what Greeks were like.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Mar 2 21:28:08 EST 1994
Article: 1372 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 2 Mar 1994 18:31:11 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 66
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References: <1994Feb26.015825.28604@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <2knjib$208@panix.com> <1994Mar2.194144.9589@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
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deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>It is simply nonsense to imply that forced integration has not caused
>any problems. It may not have caused the problems that Mr. Bralick is
>concerned about, but it has caused problems.
Even if there had been no forced integration we'd still have pretty much
the same problems. Forced integration is a result of the rejection of
the traditional and informal means of defining and maintaining a social
order. It is those means, and the beliefs, attitudes and customs
associated with them, that define culture and therefore ethnicity. If
you think that the only things that are legitimate are the desires of
particular individuals and the universal public order that provides for
the equal satisfaction of those desires, then you will believe ethnicity
has to go. Forced integration is one means of promoting its abolition,
but in places in which there aren't any minorities handy other means can
be used (ancestral faiths and accepted customs can be debunked by the
schools and other public channels of communication, people whose way of
life deprives them of the acceptance and support of the community can be
officially treated as victims and given various forms of support, etc).
The point of the foregoing is that it's a mistake to overemphasize
forced integration as a key problem. Even if it were abolished we'd
have the same problems. Also, it tends to turn the issues into issues
of white vs. black, which is unnecessary -- after all, under the post-
'60s regime the lives of blacks have become crummier faster even than
those of whites. I think it was that tendency that most disturbed Mr.
Bralick.
>As for the rest of it, blaming our problems on the "please yourself"
>mentality of the 60's is simplistic in the extreme. Multiracialism and
>hedonism are linked.
Individualistic hedonism is the more fundamental problem, though.
Obviously it didn't begin in the '60s, but that was when it succeeded in
liquidating all serious public opposition.
>>I had hoped that if I ignored him then he would just leave ...
>
>You are not the police of this group, Mr. Bralick.
Could I express the pious hope that everyone will kiss and make up?
>I think I should speak up for liberalism, since it is unlikely anyone
>else will do so here. The liberal agenda is _not_ "pride, covetousness,
>lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth". This is simply shallow
>moralism.
Is it so shallow to think the seven deadly sins are a list of the
fundamental ways in which people go wrong, and to incorporate them into
one's procedure for analysing and evaluating the tendencies of
particular social and moral outlooks?
The liberal agenda, presumably, is setting the individual free to pursue
and satisfy his desires, whatever those desires happen to be. It
doesn't seem crazy or shallow to find that agenda objectionable to the
extent it sets the individual free to satisfy his bad desires -- that
is, to the extent it constitutes an agenda to unshackle p., c., l., a.,
g., e., and s. There might be other ways to characterize the liberal
agenda that might be better for some purposes, of course, but why not
let 100 flowers bloom?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Mar 3 06:20:05 EST 1994
Article: 1375 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 2 Mar 1994 21:32:42 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <1994Feb25.052143.1@clstac> <1994Feb27.042541.3399@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <1994Mar2.211726.11119@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
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deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Western Civilization is a civilization unto itself. It draws on Greek
>and Hebrew sources, but it reinterprets these according to its own way
>of viewing the world [ . . . ] Ideas are transfered between cultures,
>but in so doing these have to be translated, and misinterpreted/changed
>in the process.
The ultimate of this line of thought is W.V.O. Quine's theses of the
indeterminacy of translation and the inscrutability of reference. I
think the pomos have picked up on the notion too. The idea is that no
one can tell what anyone else is saying, and therefore (if you think
about it) no one knows what he is saying himself.
Spengler & Co. wouldn't take things quite so far. They would say that
within a civilization people can understand each other, but between
civilizations they can't. Others say that people who speak Indo-
European languages can understand each other and Aristotle, but they
can't understand (say) Tibetans. Gender studies types sometimes assert
women can understand women but men can't. Ditto (sort of) for black
studies types. One theory is that the exploited and oppressed can
understand each other and their exploiters and oppressors, but the e's
and o's can't understand anything.
For my own part, I'm not sure it's more difficult for me to understand
Chuang-tse or Plato than Nietzsche, but I think I can understand what is
most important in all three. Differences of culture and civilization
are important, but I don't see them as absolute barriers. If they were,
how could the cultural achievments of civilizations that preceded that
of modern Europe and America matter so much to us? And in any case
there are differences in culture between me and every writer and artist
I consider important.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Mar 3 11:21:17 EST 1994
Article: 1382 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 3 Mar 1994 08:03:01 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 76
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References: <1994Feb15.221332.1@clstac> <1994Feb24.035824.6241@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <94061.173656U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
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Terry Rephann writes:
>It would also help if some specific instances of societal collapse were
>provided. Maybe these things can be treated with specific
>institutional remedies rather than wholistic or totalitarian solutions.
>Our basic societal infrastructure may only need some patchwork and
>lane-widening here and there.
It's not clear what patching up could do for fundamental problems like
individual self-seeking and the lack of social cohesion that lie behind
our more specific problems (high crime rates, drug use, homelessness,
decline in family life, political deadlock, decline in well-being of
young people and other marginal groups, increase in demand for social
services and in costs of delivery). The point on which Messrs. Bralick
and LeBouthillier are as one is that the spirit and overall direction of
a society is more important than specific institutional mechanics. I
think that point is well taken.
>"social democracy," which appears to be a system to measure social
>costs and utilities using state-of-the-art multiattribute decision
>methods. When it is functioning properly (meaning all of the
>"externalities" have been "internalized" as economists put it), it
>should provide ample room for each of us to pursue our ethnic and
>religious projects. Why concede logical public administration to the
>Left?
Logical public administration can't be the basis of social order.
People are impossible to manage by means short of terror and brutality
unless they are already inclined to get with the program. As a result,
people's fundamental values and loyalties -- I think that's what is
meant by "ethnic and religious projects" -- can't be viewed as purely
private affairs.
Particular problems of the "public administration" approach to social
order are that it gives no way of weighing conflicting values and
requires the making of impossibly accurate determinations. Presumably
the notion is that each individual and social formation should
internalize the costs of its particular way of doing things. What
constitutes a cost, though? Is someone who goes around with a boom box
playing rap giving his fellow man the gift of music, performing a
valuable educational service for the multiculturally unaware, or just
being a nuisance? If I bring up my children to be hard-working God-
fearing straight arrows have I done them and the world an inestimable
service or have I ruined their lives and planted the seeds of fascism
and repression? And how can costs be determined and apportioned in a
particular case? If someone comes in with a hard luck story and wants
a handout, do you just believe him or do you investigate? People with
several children know the difficulty of determining who did what and
just how bad it was even in their own homes. The job doesn't become
easier with total strangers.
Also, who will the administrators be? Will they be independent of the
people at large? If so, how will they be subjected to social control?
Suppose they have their own personal ethnic and religious projects? If
they don't, what theory will motivate and guide their actions?
The point of the above is that society can't get by without a common
morality and accepted way of life. The ideal of a disinterested
administrative system that accommodates equally whatever ethnic and
religious projects individuals happen to have is a chimera.
>My conclusion: If the C-R is to ever make a come-back, it's agenda
>should be tempered by science and reason. Narrow appeals to tribalism
>(Mr. LeBoutillier), murky mysticism (Mr. Bralick), and post-modernistic
>alienation (Mr. Sessman) won't hack it.
Tempered, yes. But science and reason, at least as understood today,
can't be the basis of social order. Perhaps that's what post-
modernistic alienation shows. For human beings, blood is thicker than
water and the most fundamental things can't quite be stated. Some sort
of appeal to tribalism and murky mysticism is therefore a necessity.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Mar 5 07:34:41 EST 1994
Article: 1396 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 4 Mar 1994 13:01:25 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Terry Rephann writes:
>The problems you mention could be treated without abandoning a basic
>framework that almost everyone agrees is reasonable.
Does "basic framework" mean "basic institutional framework as described
in the Constitution"? If so, I think both B and LeB could be satisfied
or nearly so with relatively minor changes, although LeB may be angry
with me for saying so. The concern each has is with fundamental social
purposes that could be expressed in any of a variety of frameworks,
including frameworks very close to our present one. But if "basic
framework of social expectations" is what you mean by "basic framework"
then I'm not sure almost everyone *does* agree that what we have is
reasonable.
>For instance, a lack of social cohesion might be ameliorated by more
>federalistic political structures and face-to-face localized democratic
>decision-making.
I think such arrangements would work only if local social cohesion
already existed on some other ground. Power devolved by a higher
authority always remains subject to the supervision of the higher
authority and will be reclaimed if it is misused. In the absence of
local public spirit a grant of power will be seized by some faction and
used for its own purposes. The response of those injured will be to
appeal to the higher authority for protection, which will be granted.
Such events don't build community. A specific example of what I'm
talking about is the attempt in New York City to give power to local
school boards. The major discernible result of that attempt has been to
give local politicos a way to get more goodies for themselves, their
families and their mistresses.
>High crime rates and drug use might be attacked by limited
>decriminalization and taxation of drugs.
I doubt that taxation would reduce drug use. If it were high enough to
do so it would also be high enough to cause people to turn to crime to
support their habits and to create a black market in untaxed drugs. If
drugs were cheap and legal, crime would immediately drop but more people
would use more drugs. Whether the net long-term effect would be good I
don't know.
>The revenue thus generated could be used to improve local counseling or
>to give tax rebates to functional families.
Somehow I have a hard time believing that having the government take on
responsibility for the supervision and support of particular families is
a good way of to promote family authority and cohesion.
>Homelessness might be reduced by reinstitutionalization of the insane.
No doubt, and also by reducing government controls on the housing
market. I can't help but think it would remain a growing problem,
though, as long as there are increasing numbers of marginal people whose
ties to family and friends are too weak to keep them sheltered.
Homelessness is a growing problem in Europe as well, where I don't think
deinstitutionalization has been a factor. Again, I think of lack of
social cohesion as the basic problem.
>Increased demand for social services and increased costs of delivery
>would be addressed with higher retirement ages and privatization of
>service delivery (again, perhaps giving rebates to families who care
>for their own elderly parents).
One basic and very expensive social service is education, and the costs
of private schools have been rising along with those of public schools.
There's no limit to how much you can spend on something if people don't
agree on what the point is and if everyone wants to be sure of getting
his piece of the pie.
>The American Right has done a terrible job recently of laying out the
>alternatives.
I agree the American Right hasn't been doing well and in general I
approve of your suggestions. I think something is also needed that is
not of a mechanical nature to make the suggestions work and to do what
they can't do even if they do work.
>It needs to make a concerted effort to define and solve the problems
>within a logical framework before it throws up its hands or clutches at
>the rosary beads.
I don't see why clutching at the rosary beads can't be part of a logical
framework for understanding and dealing with the world, including the
political and social world. Any overall framework has to include
elements that can't be fully articulated, understood and justified.
That's life.
>_The Authoritarian Personality_ thesis contrived by the Frankfurt
>School isn't even taken seriously be leftists any more.
I'll call up the _Village Voice_ and inform them.
>If the costs of handouts and monitoring become too high, informal
>networks may offer improved efficiencies. I think that this is one of
>the benefits of the Switzerland and Mormon welfare programs described in
>_The Vermont Papers_.. That's why public services are often better
>provided by local networks.
Sure, but as you know local informal networks depend on particular
things about the locality and the people who live there, like their
loyalty to a particular ethnic or religious way of life. People in such
networks have to be willing to sacrifice their immediate short-term
interests to the greater good of the community. Messrs. B and LeB are
both concerned with establishing something that can motivate such
sacrifices and provide a common understanding of the greater good. That
seems to me an important concern.
>Maybe science really can provide a common morality.
How can science motivate people to give up what they want immediately
for some greater good that they won't experience personally and probably
don't fully understand?
(I should say, by the way, that I didn't comment on the points you made
with which I agreed.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Mar 5 21:04:14 EST 1994
Article: 1403 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Mr. Deane's Responses
Date: 5 Mar 1994 21:04:08 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <2lbdmo$l9s@panix.com>
References: <16F6BA279.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <1994Mar5.211006.16285@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1994Mar5.212450.16547@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>"Anti-racist" campaigns implicitly acknowledge that there are "whites",
>by claiming that whites are especially prone to be racists.
There was an article in the _New York Times_ this past week discussing
survey findings that minorities in the U.S. don't like each other any
more than they like whites. The article recounted the researchers'
shock at this discovery and the general feeling that something must be
done. Oddly, there seemed to be no sense that minority prejudices
against whites are in any way to be categorized with their prejudices
against each other. The unquestioned assumption appeared to be that the
former are justified and a matter of course, the latter a violation of
everything decent people hold dear and a profound threat to society.
What a bunch of Martians.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Mar 5 21:05:20 EST 1994
Article: 1404 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 5 Mar 1994 21:05:06 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <2lbdoi$lge@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar2.211726.11119@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2l3i8a$foi@panix.com> <1994Mar5.220322.17132@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Lawrence Brown's book "The Might of the West", is interesting because
>the author provides startling examples of how fundamentally different
>Greek science (and also Arabic science) is from our own Western science
>- a difference in mentality, a difference in the kinds of questions
>that science asks, etc. Those who think that Western science is
>universal, and not rooted to a particular culture, should examine this
>book.
On the other hand, modern natural science works amazingly well, which
argues a superiority that is not culture-bound. When it became clear to
the Arabs, the Chinese and so on what you can do with Western science,
they didn't say "ho hum, it answers questions we don't care about in
ways we find interesting." That might have been their response at
first, but it didn't last.
There seems to be a process whereby political organization, economics
and science become disconnected from particular cultures. I suppose
understanding that process, what it means, and what to do about it is
one of the basic problems for CRs.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Mar 7 05:22:01 EST 1994
Article: 1410 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it ... 2 of 2
Date: 6 Mar 1994 11:42:50 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <2ld16a$p1s@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb27.042541.3399@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <1994Mar2.223552.12567@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1994Mar6.051237.14127@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>But, gee, if I didn't believe my own religion then why should I be a
>member of it? For _cultural_ reasons? But that strips religion of its
>meaning, doesn't it?
One possible way to deal with this difficulty without falling into Mr.
Deane's dreaded universalism is to view religious truth as capable of a
variety of expressions through social forms and institutions, and to
view loyalty to the forms and institutions of one's own community as
presumptively obligatory. It would be consistent with such a view to
see the ways of one's own community as both objectively obligatory for
oneself and decisively superior on the whole to the ways of certain
other communities, but nonetheless see the survival and prosperity of at
least some such other communities as a good thing. One might believe,
for example, that ways of other communities are generally best for their
own members, or that since truth is not perfectly realized in the ways
of one's own community other communities have something to add to the
world by being as they are.
(The foregoing should be mushy enough for anyone to make anything he
wants to out of it!)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Mar 7 06:04:29 EST 1994
Article: 1415 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: On Travel
Date: 7 Mar 1994 06:04:23 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <2lf1nn$d6o@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken) writes:
> To what extent has the modern American highway hastened the
>demise of the centrality of regional over "national" culture? When
>traveling on the Interstate highway, one experiences no local color,
I would have said that the decline of regionalism has less to do with
the attitude of people passing through places than that of the people
living there. Maybe there's more to it than that, though. After all,
the people in each place are interstate users too, and they participate
in a national culture that grows out of the experiences of interstate
users.
>indeed, the "town" is something less concrete than it once was. Every
>"town" now has a shopping mall, its architecture designed to facilitate
>the rapid exchange of goods rather than to complement and, perhaps,
>comment upon the local architecture.
Everything is set up for the automobile. If you like networks of
highways, shopping malls and condo developments you'll like the modern
American city. LA showed the way and every other place followed.
> In _Soft City_, the travel writer Jonathan Raban describes
>London as city rich in mystery.
I imagine it was more like that before half of it got blown up. For
hundreds of years Paternoster Row, next to St. Paul's, was a street of
used book stores. It was rebuilt after the war as an entrance ramp for
an underground parking garage. The modern urban architecture and design
in England is horrible.
>"Local color" is engineered to meet the expectations that tourists have
>developed through their extensive television viewing, and the ride
>there is stripped of all unpleasant contingencies.
Did one of the Frankfurt Schoolers write an essay, or at least part of
one, on this?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"A weak people means a strong state and a strong state means a weak people.
Therefore, a country, which has the right way, is concerned with weakening
the people." (The Lord of Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Mar 7 15:53:00 EST 1994
Article: 1416 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 7 Mar 1994 06:06:18 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <2lf1ra$dbi@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar6.230954.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>Do you think that I should use the term European American?
You'd probably be able to get to the issues faster if you did.
>Anyways, my opposition against European-American lies in the use of the
>word American in the title. I will not define myself as subservient to
>any state that is hostile to my interests.
"America" is not a state, it's a place. "European American" is the name
of the new people that has grown up in America through the mixing of
various European stocks and their development of a common history and
way of life. What's wrong with taking that line?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"A weak people means a strong state and a strong state means a weak people.
Therefore, a country, which has the right way, is concerned with weakening
the people." (The Lord of Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Mar 7 20:18:29 EST 1994
Article: 1425 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Pomos & Neocons
Date: 7 Mar 1994 18:41:37 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <2lge3h$mf5@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken) writes:
> Although I am not a neo-conservative, I do believe that the
>neo-conservatives make certain valid points that are not given much
>emphasis in mainstream or paleo-conservative circles, such as the
>psychological effects of popular culture and cultural orthodoxies, e.g.
>the "painlessness" of divorce, or atomistic individualism.
People often argue best against positions they have some sympathy with
or are somehow connected with. So to the extent neo-cons are x-libs or
at least once occupied the same intellectual world as libs they have an
advantage. Also, more neocons and symps than paleos are social
scientists, so if you want social science studies to support your reac
prejudices _The Public Interest_ is a good source.
>Nevertheless, paleoconservatives can learn from the the post-
>structuralist critical methodologies. And we could then do a little
>co-opting of our own.
My only sources of knowledge of the popular French theories are
_Reader's Digest_ and the comics. I gather, though, that one of their
claims or consequences is that liberalism is out because it
overestimates our ability to think productively from no viewpoint in
particular. I note that Richard Neuhaus, surely a neocon (he writes for
_Commentary_ and there is personal bad blood between him and the
Rockford Foundation crowd), concludes therefrom that thought and action
make no sense outside a community of faith that takes spiritual
authority seriously, and therefore the Catholic moment has arrived with
John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger in the lead.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"A weak people means a strong state and a strong state means a weak people.
Therefore, a country, which has the right way, is concerned with weakening
the people." (The Lord of Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 8 06:30:55 EST 1994
Article: 1427 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 7 Mar 1994 20:20:59 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
Message-ID: <2lgjtr$al1@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar5.220322.17132@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2lbdoi$lge@panix.com> <1994Mar7.222105.27366@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>>There seems to be a process whereby political organization, economics
>>and science become disconnected from particular cultures. I suppose
>>understanding that process, what it means, and what to do about it is
>>one of the basic problems for CRs.
>
>Yes. Samuel Francis has dealt with this, regarding what he terms
>"globalism".
It's a process that is very difficult to fight. Confucius protested
against the dissociation of politics from culture, but it was the Lord
of Shang, who referred to history, music, poetry, ethical self-
cultivation and the other constituents of culture as "lice", who set
Ch'in on the course that led to the unification of China under the
First Emperor, who burned the books.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"A weak people means a strong state and a strong state means a weak people.
Therefore, a country, which has the right way, is concerned with weakening
the people." (The Lord of Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 8 17:42:10 EST 1994
Article: 1443 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 8 Mar 1994 12:54:07 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 39
Message-ID: <2lie3v$9up@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar8.072037.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>I want people to come to certain resolutions with regard to specific
>issues. That can only come from a process of conflict leading to
>resolution. Anything short of that doesn't actually change people, but
>is only an intellectual exercise.
Road to Damascus-style conversions are uncommon. Usually people come
around to a view over time. The first step is for the view to seem like
something a sane person might possibly hold. That first step is easier
if the view is expressed in language that makes it sound normal and like
other views that are thought to be sane.
>I would like to maintain solidarity with my racial brothers and sisters
>around the world who also call themselves White.
If you asked a Frenchman or a Croat what people he belongs to he
wouldn't say he was White, he would say he is French or Croat
(conceivably a Frenchman might say he was Breton, Basque or Alsatian).
A native-born European American is neither a Frenchman nor a Croat even
though his ancestors may have been those things. European American is
more specific than White, and therefore strikes me as more accurate
since ethnicity is specific. American European and American white
would also be accurate, but they sound odd and I think the whole idea
should be that E.-A. identity is something perfectly normal and just
like the identities people are willing to admit that other peoples
have.
>I think that when one identifies oneself, one should choose the highest
>ideal that identifies oneself; it should represent a positive good.
I myself don't find "White" a higher ideal than "European American". Or
if it is, because it is more comprehensive, then I suppose "human" is a
higher ideal still.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"A weak people means a strong state and a strong state means a weak people.
Therefore, a country, which has the right way, is concerned with weakening
the people." (The Lord of Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 8 18:32:12 EST 1994
Article: 1449 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Two Sketches
Date: 8 Mar 1994 18:31:22 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <2lj1sa$qu@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken) writes:
>Comments?
Both were amusing, with some nice touches. The situation was clearer in
the first (some functionary in the zeroed-out world of the future
fantasizes about the Age of Clinton, the closest he can come to the
conception of something splendid). Would it be better to say "I am told
some people even suggest ..."? That might remove an implication that
there were enough such people around that our hero had actually been
exposed to some.
I take it the second is a Walter Mitty-type story? If so, it's harder
to make it work in a brief sketch if Walter Mitty is really a high
government official and is given a name from his own fantasy world, even
if it's clear his life is a bore that he wants to escape from and he
really isn't named that.
Have you thought of making both of them longer?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"A weak people means a strong state and a strong state means a weak people.
Therefore, a country, which has the right way, is concerned with weakening
the people." (The Lord of Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Mar 9 20:12:00 EST 1994
Article: 1462 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: This Man's Army!
Date: 9 Mar 1994 20:02:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <2llrj3$lqi@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar5.224554.17706@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1994Mar9.182104.2809@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>When I see my enemy (the multicultural state) about to saw off the limb
>on which it is sitting, I feel no great obligation to warn it. Not that
>it'd listen to me in any case.
>
>If the Boer War marked the end of British Imperialism, perhaps some
>future war will spell the end, or the beginning of the end, of
>globalism.
"The worse the better" theories are OK up to a point, but I really can't
be pleased that as a result of current social trends American soldiers
are going to die. Maybe it's better in the grand scheme of things that
the American political order, as a result of what it has become, should
fail or at least run into very serious problems, but when it happens it
won't be painless or amusing.
The American state is now the liberal welfarist multicultural state, but
it is also the state that has protected you, your family and friends and
most of the things you care about for a long time. How is it possible
to feel no loyalty whatever to it, and to those who risk their lives for
it? There are sometimes considerations that can override particular
loyalties, but it's no fun when they come up.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Mar 9 20:12:01 EST 1994
Article: 1463 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 9 Mar 1994 20:11:43 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 49
Message-ID: <2lls4f$nhn@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar7.222105.27366@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2lgjtr$al1@panix.com> <1994Mar9.195604.4790@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>To be fair, though, let's not forget that it was the enemies of the
>first emperor who wrote all of the history books.
The writings of some of the thinkers upon whom he relied have been
preserved, though. They were very forceful, experienced and intelligent
men. They also lead one to think there were indeed major problems with
the political order Ch'in established when it unified China.
>Nevertheless, a good point. The trend - call it "globalism" or
>"McWorld" or "CocaColaColonization" or what have you - seems to be to
>reduce everything to the lowest common denominator, to strip all
>cultural/ethnic/religious identities of their higher/deeper meanings
>(i.e., reduce them to issues of "choice" or "lifestyle"), and so on, so
>as to make it easier for consumerism, corporate & finance capitalism,
>and egalitarianism to achieve total world domination, resulting in the
>subversion/suppression of the afforementioned "parochial" identities.
It's interesting to see how a similar process worked itself out in
ancient China. There were New Age hippies (the Taoists) who thought
culture should be done away with because it interfered with
contemplation of the All, and (more practically from the standpoint of
those who controlled the state) because it led people to make
distinctions among good and bad things and so caused dissatisfaction
and unrest. There were fans of the welfare state (the Mohists) who
believed in universal "love" and understood love to require the
comprehensive reorganization of society for the sake of the equal
satisfaction of people's need for food, clothing and shelter, the
dissolution of family and other parochial loyalties, and the abolition
of all standards of value other than the one promulgated by the state.
The various movements ended in Ch'in Shih Huang Ti's (the First
Emperor's) crowd, the Legalists, who believed in agriculture, war, a
strict and comprehensive code of punishments, and the annihilation of
the cultural heritage of the past because it enabled those who studied
it to arrive at an independent standpoint.
>Mr. Sessman's "game" or "all-star team" analogy is a good example of
>this mentality.
I think the "all-star team" analogy was originally mine. Its point was
that even if what you want to do is win a game formal qualifications
don't necessarily beat the cohesion and common habits and outlook that
arise from cooperation over time.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Mar 10 14:39:17 EST 1994
Article: 1465 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 10 Mar 1994 06:01:35 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <2lmumf$ds3@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar9.191416.3747@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken) writes:
> I have tried to get a few Southern Agrarians and a somewhat lonely
> fellow who argues rather like Paul Gottfried, to come join us, but it
> seems that this newsgroup, being part of the "alt" hierarchy, is
> not available at all sites.
Not a problem. I've set up some rn and unix scripts that enable me to
distribute a.r.c. by email nearly automatically, and people who get it
that way can post through the U of Texas mail-to-news gateway. Give me
their email addresses and I'll add them to the list.
>>for too long, conservatives have been toning down their rhetoric, or even
>>abandoning their principles, so as to make themselves "respectable" in the eyes
>>of Establishment opinion.
>
> the trick is to sneak up on them, to co-opt the style
> that the media have come to expect in "acceptable" leaders such as
> Kemp. The contemporary media are more interested in the semiotics of
> respectability than in developing an understanding of what the American
> voter actually considers to be "respectable."
This is similar to the issue we just discussed, whether Mr.
LeBouthillier should talk about "Whites", "European Americans", or
whatever. There are advantages to having a rhetorical range, so that
(for example) people who talk about Whites can be the extremists while
those who talk about European Americans can be the middle-of-the-road
party of peace. The co-opting will go the wrong way, though, unless the
"good cop" middle-of-the-roaders have a clear understanding of what
their own position is and why they hold it.
People for the American Way knows just what they mean by "the American
Way" and why they adopted that language. Maybe there should be an
organization called "Americans for Civil Liberties and Social
Responsibility" to advance a right-wing understanding of what the
liberties and obligations of the citizen should be. "Civil liberties"
might include federalism, low taxes, freedom of association (in the
anti-civil rights law sense) and other things that maintain the
independence of civil society from the centralized administrative state.
"Social responsibility" might include what are known as family values
and the cohesion of traditional and informal social groups, together
with corresponding reductions in assistance to individuals by the state
bureaucracy.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Mar 13 16:12:55 EST 1994
Article: 1478 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Keep at it, Sessman!
Date: 13 Mar 1994 12:44:48 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 63
Message-ID: <2lvjeg$bf4@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
ai433@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (John Baglow) writes:
>1) Define "lineage". (B. sees it as a collation of genetic and cultural
>factors defining what he calls a "White". Adherence to racialist ideology
>seems also to be a requirement for membership. But a clear definition is
>lacking.)
You and Mr. Sessman seem to want crystal clear definitions. Why?
Political goals and movements are never based on definitions that would
satisfy a physicist. It's usually pretty easy to classify someone as
"white" or "nonwhite". Otherwise routine use of "white" and "nonwhite"
as statistical categories would be impossible. Also, The cases people
most often have problems with can usually be handled in a reasonably
principled way, at least as determinations relating to practical
politics go. For example, one might say that Arabs aren't white
because by "white" one means "European", and they have the wrong
ancestral culture, and that Hispanics are white if they have no evident
non-white ancestry. Not everyone would come out the same way in all
instances, and there would still be cases that couldn't be resolved
without arbitrariness, but so what? The same is true of all political
definitions. (My understanding is that the issue you and Mr. Sessman
are raising at present is not whether making ethnic distinctions is a
good idea but whether it is something that can be coherently carried
out at all.)
By "White" Mr. Bouthillier seems to mean something like "white and
favoring the maintenance and development of a separate white ethnic and
cultural identity". I don't see why such a conception is so woolly as
to be politically useless. If it is, what meaning can be given to
expressions like "racial discrimination" or "black culture"?
>2) How many "Whites" currently exist?
How many antiracist people are there? Suppose someone proposed building
an antiracist movement through the establishment of a broad coalition of
antiracist people and organizations. Would your response be to say the
proposal is meaningless?
>4) Why do those of us favouring a society which is inclusive of all human
>beings spend so much time and effort on those who want to shave off a part
>of the human race and live in the woods?
An issue all this raises is why a society that is inclusive of all human
beings is a good idea.
I suppose a world society has already arisen that includes all human
beings. However, that world society is divided up into independent
states that are the centers of most political activity. None of the
independent states grants equal rights to everyone in the world. (I
have different rights under the laws of Finland or North Korea than a
Finn or a North Korean would have.) Also, most of the independent
states have some sort of ethnic connection. For example, most of the
people in Finland are ethnic Finns, and the boundaries of Finland (like
those of other countries) have been established with the specific goal
of having members of different ethnic groups on different sides of the
line. In some countries attempts have been made to handle ethnic
differences through grants of regional autonomy and the like. I take it
you believe all that is a bad thing. Why?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Mar 14 07:22:49 EST 1994
Article: 1486 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter,alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Nobility and Traditional Analogous Elites
Date: 14 Mar 1994 07:20:49 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <2m1kr1$q04@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar14.035549.28379@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix alt.revolution.counter:1486 alt.society.conservatism:5223
wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>Here is the promised review of Professor Plinio Correa de Oliveira's
>new book: _Nobility and Traditional Analogous Elites in the Allocutions
>of Pope Pius XII_.
Sounds like a great book. My only question is what an "allocution" is.
Does he say anywhere, or will that be in volume II?
>The basic philosophical distinction upon which Prof. Correa de
>Oliveira's entire discussion is based is between the entiative
>perfection which makes us all human beings and the qualitative
>perfections which distinguish us one from another.
It seems to me that the modern insistence on equality has to do with the
denial that there is any such entiative perfection. If men
fundamentally aren't worth anything, then if A is worth more than B it
must follow (because A is fundamentally worth nothing) that B is worth
less than nothing. A denial of egalitarianism therefore leads quickly
to accusations by others of Naziism, genocide and so on. In the minds
of the accusers it's a natural transition.
It's interesting that the denial of entiative value also leads to an
all-consuming lust for power over others. Even though (in the mind of
the denier) nothing is fundamentally worth anything, power remains a
convincing demonstration of one's superiority over others and therefore
one's value. That's why denials of egalitarianism are considered
obscene. Those who consider them obscene would very much like to
assert their own superiority but realize that such an assertion would
consist simply in the humiliation of others for the sake of
aggrandizing themselves. It is natural that they project the same
outlook on those who do deny egalitarianism.
>First, it provides us with a well-documented portrayal of American
>political and social history which completely dissipates any illusions
>we mayu have had concerning the intrinsically egalitarian and
>democratic nature of the early American political and social system.
I think the usual view is that at Independence we were not in fact an
egalitarian or democratic society, but the political theories we relied
on and the social tendencies that followed from our situation naturally
led to the creation of such a society.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 15 07:06:29 EST 1994
Article: 1488 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter,alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Nobility and Traditional Analogous Elites
Date: 14 Mar 1994 18:02:05 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <2m2qdd$pb5@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar14.035549.28379@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <2m2kna$ilq@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix alt.revolution.counter:1488 alt.society.conservatism:5230
scasburn@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Steven M Casburn) writes:
>>The role of aristocracies, whether they be
>>traditional, hereditary, or natural, is a topic which has been
>>avoided for too long by thinkers, scholars, and political activists
>>whose opinions and ideological principle are to a great extent
>>determined by social pressures whcih demand, as a necessary condition
>>for entering into the political/social debate, adherence to the
>>egalitarian principles which have more or less dominated the Western
>>political scene since the French Revolution.
>
> How does this mesh with conservative criticisms of a liberal
>"cultural elite"?
In the United States we have a liberal cultural elite consisting of
people who are prominent in academia, journalism, the media,
entertainment and the arts (especially theorizing about art and
administration). Conservatives are united in rejecting that elite, and
most of them prefer the beliefs and sensibilities of ordinary people to
those of the elite we actually have.
Thereafter they part company. Some conservatives with a populist
perspective don't much like elites in general. Others think elites are
inevitable and perform necessary functions, but also think some elites
are better than others and our cultural elite just happens to be a bad
one. Prof. Plinio obviously belongs to the latter group.
Incidentally, he would very likely say that claims that we don't have a
cultural elite that is coherent enough to have an outlook that can be
specified demonstrate the truth of his point that people aren't willing
to think clearly about the nature and functions of elites.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 15 07:46:41 EST 1994
Article: 1490 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 15 Mar 1994 07:46:30 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <2m4an6$knl@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
sgrossman@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:
>What would be the nature of Christianity and the resultant culture
>without any influence from classical Greek philosophy?
It's a puzzling question. Classical Greek philosophy was the kind of
philosophy that existed in the Mediterranean world at that time, so any
religion that convinced theoretically-minded men that it held the
answers to all their questions would develop a theology heavily
influenced by classical Greek philosophy. I suppose you could ask what
Christianity would have looked like if it had appeared in China or
India. Maybe China wasn't cosmopolitan enough for Christianity to
appear. I don't know about India.
>Is the claim that Christianity started as an Oriental mystery religion
>amidst the decadence of the Roman Empire important?
What does this claim amount too? My impression is that there were
important differences between Christianity and the mystery religions.
For example, I don't recall reading of persecutions of mystery
religions, which suggests that people at the time didn't find them as
objectionable or threatening.
>It has been claimed that Kant reinforced Christianity within philosophy
>but without any essential influence from classical Greek realism and
>reason.
I suppose you could discuss Christianity from any number of philophical
standpoints. That's something that theologians occupy themselves with.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Mar 16 20:15:28 EST 1994
Article: 1494 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 16 Mar 1994 15:53:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <2m7rk4$cqd@panix.com>
References: <2m4an6$knl@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
sgrossman@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:
>We know what Greek-influenced Christianity is. But what influence will
>Christianity have without Greek philosophy? How would a Christian,
>without realism and reason, live his life?
Is realism and reason to be found only in Greek philosophy? In any
case, it's hard even to think about your question without knowing what
he would have instead of realism and reason. You seem to think we're
headed somewhere pretty definite philosophically. Where is that?
My own outlook is that the current tendency is to bounce around among
logical positivism, irrationalism, and misology. Each seems to me
inconsistent with a coherent way of life ordered by faith in
transcendent realities and therefore with Christianity. Maybe you have
in mind some kind of incoherent Christianity with no use for realities,
transcendent or otherwise, but I don't know what that would be like.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Mar 17 21:27:12 EST 1994
Article: 1500 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 17 Mar 1994 07:57:36 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <2m9k40$6tg@panix.com>
References: <2m4an6$knl@panix.com> <2m9aut$8gv@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>B.Metzger, 'Considerations of methodology in the Study of the mystery
>religions and early Christianity' Harvard Theological Review 48 (1955).
>. . Jaeger wrote a small book called something like Early Christianity
>and Greek Paideia
Thanks for the cites.
>Does anyone know if the works of the French writer M.Bardeche are still
>in print - has anyone read anything by Bardeche...
Who is Bardeche? (I suppose that's an answer of sorts!)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Mar 18 10:56:27 EST 1994
Article: 1503 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Suggested reading
Date: 17 Mar 1994 22:13:41 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <2mb695$cia@panix.com>
References: <2masmm$che@auggie.CCIT.Arizona.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
ga@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (gyorgy angeli) writes:
>fire bureaucrats and trust people;
>eliminate the school boards and the educational bureaucracy;
>run universities by faculty and students;
>
>introduce a national school curriculum;
>have a national science policy;
It's not clear how the first three and the last two could be consistent.
Presumably it would be a powerful Federal bureaucracy that would draw up
and enforce the national school curriculum and science policy.
>replace the income tax by a consumption tax;
>get rid of the IRS and the Department of Agriculture;
So who would administer and collect the consumption tax?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Mar 18 10:56:28 EST 1994
Article: 1504 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 17 Mar 1994 22:15:34 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <2mb6cm$d0n@panix.com>
References: <2m7rk4$cqd@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
sgrossman@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:
>More importantly, even enemies of Greek philosophy agree that its
>essence and overwhelming stress were those values, vastly more so than
>other eras of philosophy.
Plato thought the forms were more real than anything else, and that
knowledge of the highest truths could be apprehended only by something
like mystical illumination. Aristotle thought that in order to
understand ethics you have to start by being an ethical person, so if
you don't get it you don't get it and that's the end of the matter. Is
that the sort of thing you mean by realism and reason?
>>In any
>>case, it's hard even to think about your question without knowing what
>>he would have instead of realism and reason.
>
>This is implicitly a frightening answer, if you think about it. What happens
>when its "hard even to think" or "without knowing." This is not cleverness or
>sarcasm but a serious point.
I don't understand. You ask "what would a Christian be like if he
didn't have realism and reason". I say "well, if you tell me what kind
of mental world he would he be in I might be able to start thinking of
an answer". Why is that response frightening?
>After Kant's comprehensive rejection of realism and reason, philosophy
>narrowed and fragmented, the situation now of many people.
Kant thought there were limits to reason. I don't see why that was a
comprehensive rejection of reason.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Mar 20 14:55:30 EST 1994
Article: 1520 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 20 Mar 1994 14:55:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 98
Message-ID: <2mi9nc$mv7@panix.com>
References: <16F73A598.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <94078.144600U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Terry Rephann writes:
>>>a lack of social cohesion might be ameliorated by more
>>>federalistic political structures and face-to-face localized
>>> democratic decision-making.
>
>The necessary and sufficient conditions already exist in most parts of
>the country. However, there appear to be serious institutional barriers
>inhibiting social cohesion. They need to be reformed.
The institutional barriers are no accident, but reflect the
understanding people have been developing about the appropriate relation
between the individual and society. As I understand it, that
understanding is that the purpose of society is the satisfaction of
individual wishes, and therefore society can rightfully claim the
allegiance of individuals only if individual wishes are dealt with
equally.
It follows from this view that a social order that demands the supreme
allegiance (willingness to risk death on its behalf) can't conceivably
do so unless it treats the wishes of each person as equally worthy of
respect and arranges all matters under its control in a way that as far
as possible equally furthers the wishes of each person. Otherwise, the
social order would be asking men to face death for the right to
sacrifice their own wishes to those of others, without any reason why
they should do so.
In the United States, war is the responsibility of the Federal
government. It follows from the view I am discussing that the Federal
government must treat protecting people against oppression as its
primary domestic responsibility, where "oppression" means subjection of
one's wishes to those of other people for any reason other than the
maintenance of a system of universal equality. It seems to me that if
protection against oppression is defined that way and made a fundamental
goal of the central government, any sort of respect for federalism,
local autonomy or the integrity of self-governing institutions becomes
impossible.
The effect of the foregoing, to my mind, is that while institutional
reforms of the sort you seem to favor are necessary, they must be
accompanied with a fundamental change of ethical understanding. In the
absence of such a change your reforms won't be adopted, won't work and
won't last. (I don't deny that the change in understanding could be
mostly implicit in the concrete reforms.)
>>The response of those injured will be to
>>appeal to the higher authority for protection, which will be granted.
>
>The task for counter-revolutionaries should be to remove the 'higher
>authority' from excessive involvement.
A big task. Higher authority always wants control, and there will
always be strong immediate reasons for having higher authority step in
when someone thinks things may have gone awry at the local level. The
task would be easier to achieve if local communities felt they shared
something very important that needed a certain degree of separation to
flourish. Religion and ethnicity, as proposed by Messrs. B. and LeB.,
would fit that bill.
>Taxes would be about double or triple the tax on tobacco products (that
>should be low enough not to induce a large underground market). I
>suspect that recreational use would increase significantly for the more
>harmless drugs. I don't think that this type of use would contribute
>much to greater public disorder though.
I know too little to comment. When crack became available a lot of
young women started using it because it was cheaper and easier and more
pleasant to use than other hard drugs. That caused problems when those
women became mothers. I worry about things like that in connection with
proposals that would make drugs more cheaply and readily available.
>Let's advocate tax rebates for beneficial types of social cohesion.
I have no objection. My basic concern, though, is to move
responsibilities for things away from the administrative state. So my
attitude toward tax rebates would depend on the overall system of which
they were part.
>The great advantage of managed federalism is that we wouldn't even have
>to agree what the point is.
That is indeed an advantage of federalism. I'm inclined to think,
though, that either localities are responsible for something or they're
not. If they're not, it's not federalism. If they are, it's federalism
but no-one's managing it.
>I think that mechanical programs can be used cleverly to advance the CR
>agenda. We already have the vision. All we need is a coherent
>program.
To my mind, part of the vision is that the development, implementation
and fine-tuning of programs by the centralized administrative state is
not the way a good society develops.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Mar 20 18:26:40 EST 1994
Article: 1521 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 20 Mar 1994 14:57:46 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <2mi9rq$ou5@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
sgrossman@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:
>Nazism is the Jewish/Christian morality of sacrifice and nihilism.
>Earlier, Greek influenced religions were advocacies of sacrifice were
>aimed at heaven. Kantian nihilism, however, in ending intellectual
>respectability to realism and reason, produced duty, or sacrifice for
>the sake of sacrifice,the destruction of all values, of values in
>principle, of values as such.
Kant thought people should sacrifice their inclinations for the sake of
acting in conformity with principles that everyone could will. That
seems rather different from Naziism.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Mar 21 12:50:07 EST 1994
Article: 1527 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Anthony Ludovici anyone?
Date: 21 Mar 1994 12:47:49 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <2mkmk5$q5s@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar16.075210.1@clstac> <94078.152504U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> <2mk57d$9ra@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>One question he seems to broach at the end is what sort of elite ought
>we to have in a society. After all is not one problem with 'traditional
>elites' that they often ossify into a parody of their initial selves.
It would be hard for an elite to be the bearer of a certain sort or
certain aspects of culture if it weren't possible to be born into it.
After all, a man's culture is by and large what he knew at home. On
the other hand, ossification can be a problem if an elite is closed to
new members or separates itself too much from developments in society.
The right balance between tradition and innovation can no doubt be hard
to specify or realize.
The problem today doesn't seem to be one of ossified traditional elites
but rather of an elite defined in a mostly functional way that
strengthens its already commanding position through the destruction of
informal and traditional social arrangements and the channelling of
social functions through the administrative state and the market. A
counterelite of a more traditional nature, if one should arise, isn't
likely to be in a position to ossify for quite some time.
>Which brings me to a general question what do people think of
>Carlyle...
Denunciation was his long suit. He didn't seem to have any very clear
positive ideas. Maybe the idea was that from time to time a Great Man
arrived who just Knew what had to be done.
Possibly I'm being unfair -- it's been a while since I've read him.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Mar 21 17:13:13 EST 1994
Article: 1528 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 21 Mar 1994 13:20:12 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <2mkogs$61t@panix.com>
References: <2mi9rq$ou5@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
sgrossman@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:
>"principles that everyone could will" is one of Kants non-essential
>concerns, deriving from his basic moral context, sacrificial faith in
>an unknowable duty. Since, of course, he held that this was universal
>to human nature, it follows that he derived from this, as you say,
>"principles that everyone could will."
Kant thought duty was determinable because it didn't follow from
empirical facts about human nature or the world, but only from the
concept of rational action (action in accordance with universally valid
principles).
>Nazis thought "people should sacrifice their inclinations for the sake
>of acting in conformity with principles that everyone (in their
>subjectively preferred group) could will.
Did the subjectively preferred group include all rational beings? If
not, the Nazis were not Kantians.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Mar 21 21:08:48 EST 1994
Article: 1531 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Bardeche
Date: 21 Mar 1994 21:08:40 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <2mljv8$m32@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar21.211852.28377@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@mothra.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>They way you guys keep naming books and authors . . . my library card
>is getting a good workout.
Let me know when you finish reading absolutely every book in the
resource lists and I'll administer the a.r.c. quiz ("Give the dates of
the Spanish crusade" ...)
>Bait: Turkey, Armenia, x-soviet, freemason, parry, grep, kibo
Is the bait often effective? It's always nice to get new participants,
but one worries that Messrs. Mutlu (or whatever he's calling himself
these days) and Kibo might share all too many of their views with us.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 22 06:39:36 EST 1994
Article: 1532 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 21 Mar 1994 21:10:02 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <2mlk1q$mc9@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar20.025106.12233@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <1994Mar21.230004.9244@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>We should not assume that other civilizations have not had their own
>forms of nihilism, either.
An interesting question. Was the Shangster a nihilist? How about the
Buddha? What is nirvana anyway?
>Driving religion/christianity out of society can be seen as nihilistic
>if one assumes that _nothing_ can replace religion/christianity,
>whereas the EEOC would presumably argue that either religious/christian
>meaning is sufficient within the individual alone (but not in the state
>or society), or that some other meaning can replace religous/christian
>meaning, and that therefore secularism presents no problems and does
>not imply nihilism.
EEOC-symps present a couple of lines of thought:
1. Religion is *of course* important, how could anyone ever think
otherwise? In fact it's so important that any hint of coercion is out
of line, and since social environment is coercive (it affects us, and we
can't do anything about it) the social environment must be kept
religion-free.
2. The freedom and dignity of the human person is the ultimate source
of value. Human freedom realizes itself through the choice of values,
and human dignity requires respecting the exercise of human freedom,
that is, treating whatever choice of values anyone happens to make as no
less valid than the choices other people make.
The idea in both cases seems to be that it is the act of valuing that is
the source of values, and therefore concern for values requires treating
all evaluations with equal respect. The idea in other words seems to be
that if we take values seriously we conclude that nothing is better than
anything else. Since that brings us right back to nihilism, it's pretty
clear that there is something wrong with the line of thought.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Therefore, in the state of the enlightened ruler there are no books written
on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on
the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers." (Han Fei)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 22 08:08:37 EST 1994
Article: 1534 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Bardeche
Date: 22 Mar 1994 08:08:23 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <2mmqk7$lbd@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar21.211852.28377@newstand.syr.edu> <2mljv8$m32@panix.com> <1994Mar22.071744.7777@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@rodan.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>The stuff you *don't* mention is also interesting, especially in FAQ.
>Where's L. Brent Bozell? The Wanderer? James Burnham? R. L. Dabney?
Blank spots don't mean much. Burnham should go in there somewhere, I
agree. Could you say something about the other three? I've never read
any of them.
>But wouldn't Mutlu be a good RCR (racial CR)?
Mutlu transcends all possible political movements. Speaking of Mutlu,
why does the name of your site cycle through famous Japanese movie
monsters?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 22 17:53:54 EST 1994
Article: 1537 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 22 Mar 1994 14:50:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 54
Message-ID: <2mni60$ek4@panix.com>
References: <2mkogs$61t@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
sgrossman@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:
>Kant turned philosophy away from reality and reason and toward faith in
>an unknowable dimension. "I have limited knowledge therefore, to make
>room for faith."
He nonetheless thought some things could be rationally known, including
moral obligation. The reason moral obligation could be known, in spite
of limitations on knowledge and varations of perspective, is that it is
based on a purely formal criterion, the universalizability of principles
of action. That being the case, it is hard for me to view him as a
moral subjectivist or fideist or to view moral universalism as a non-
essential feature of his outlook.
>The essential point for Kant, folowing from his subjectivism, was faith
>in an unknowable and inexplicable duty.
He thought duty was knowable and rationally determinable.
>Yes, Kantian subjectivism was universal. BUT, subjectivism permits
>anything (except objectivity!) so, given subjectivism as context, the
>way was open for particular subjectivisms: Hegel's historical ideas,
>Marx's economic classes, Nietzche's will, existentialist choices (in
>the void), structuralism, analytic language games or ideal languages,
>positivist meanings, and the postmodernist claim that knowledge and
>reality are culturally relative.
As you point out, the view that the world we experience is partly
constructed by the manner in which we experience it can lead to a
variety of things. Kant avoided the slide into utter subjectivism
because he thought that enough of the manner in which we experience the
world was fixed, at least for human beings, to permit the development of
physical science and morality that would be valid for everyone.
>Nazism is merely a NON-ESSENTIAL variation, accepting subjectivism but
>focusing on race. Given Kant, thats a valid variation. Given
>Kant,there's no objective rebuttal to Nazism.
I don't see why not, but then I may not understand what you mean by
"objective". It seems to me Kant could have said, for example, "The
claim that the will of the Fuehrer is the highest law is in conflict
with the concept of moral law as a body of principles independent of the
arbitrary will of any particular person. Therefore it does not state a
true moral principle."
One could also no doubt present a justification of Naziism based on the
views of Aristotle. For example, one might say that Jews just happen to
have features that interfere with the happiness of the Aryan community,
that Slavs just happen to be slaves by nature, and so on.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Mar 22 21:07:15 EST 1994
Article: 1542 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Bardeche
Date: 22 Mar 1994 20:36:18 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <2mo6ei$p5o@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar22.071744.7777@newstand.syr.edu> <2mmqk7$lbd@panix.com> <1994Mar22.220033.16208@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@mothra.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>Burham's classic book is "The Suicide of the West" which is a study on
>20th Century liberalism.
His other one is _The Managerial Revolution_, that inspired Orwell's
_1984_ as well as some of Sam Francis' views.
>L. Brent Bozell's is Bill Buckley's more conservative brother in law.
He was with _National Review_ at one time, but I think Buckley broke
with him. I seem to recall that at one time he had a group called "Sons
of Thunder" that wore distinctive dress (all black with wooden crosses
around their necks?) and used to pay uninvited visits to abortion
clinics and the like.
>I know of a bunch of religious CR-type books, authors and
>organizations. Though they would *definitely* not go along with the
>racial stuff seen here or the Nazi-type Noontide Press/Spotlight stuff
>(nor would I).
Why not send me the stuff you think someone using the resource lists
should know about? If you look at the lists they concentrate more on
Christian CR than on ethnic separatists or Nazis, who are off segregated
in their own special section.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Mar 23 07:01:12 EST 1994
Article: 1543 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 22 Mar 1994 21:08:44 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <2mo8bc$1cv@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar21.230004.9244@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2mlk1q$mc9@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
sgrossman@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:
>You might consider Rand's radical claim that values are based in the
>fact of life (as a real fact, not as a subjective experience). Ie,
>living organism exist, face the constant alternative of life and death,
>and must value their lives (in the proper manner, based on the kinds of
>life they are) to continue living.
I'm not sure how to apply that claim. It might mean that the basic
principle of my morality should be to maximize the total duration of my
life, or of my genes' continuance, or of white middleclass American
life, or of human life, or of vertebrate life. I'm not sure which
Rand's principle points to, and I'm not sure it makes sense to treat any
of them as the basic principle of morality. Why, for example, should I
try to maximize the total duration of human life rather than the total
number of human individuals or the total mass of human protoplasm? And
why should I try to maximize length of life rather than (say) pleasure
or glory? Also, if the goal is to preserve the kind of life I exemplify
would it defeat that goal if I changed my way of life (I stopped
spending all my time watching _Donohue_ and started reading Objectivist
philosophy, for example).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Mar 23 17:04:55 EST 1994
Article: 1551 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christian Counter-Revolution
Date: 23 Mar 1994 17:04:47 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 62
Message-ID: <2mqedv$prm@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar22.220033.16208@newstand.syr.edu> <2mo6ei$p5o@panix.com> <1994Mar23.164055.29091@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@mothra.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>I know about it, but never read it. Didn't R.E. Tyrell take a shot or
>two at him in the "Conservative Crackup?"
I don't think there's much in _The Managerial Revolution_ that you don't
get reading Sam Francis. Burnham wrote it about 1940, when he was
coming out of his Trotskyoid phase, and I find the style of thought
still quite formulaic. To his credit, he reconfigured the formulas and
said something no-one else was saying.
I didn't read Tyrrell's book.
>Yeah, but this newgroup has lots of readers and I don't want people
>tying the Christian groups and the Nazis. Guilt by association, ya
>know.
We've had a number of Christians and no Nazis post here. The resource
lists already have a lot of Christian stuff, and they had a lot of
Christian stuff before we ever added the stuff about racial separatists
and the very few items relating to Naziism. The lists are intended to
help people explore counterrevolutionary thought. That exploration can
and should include exploring situations in which the counterrevolution
goes psychotic, if that's the explanation of Naziism. (Another CR
theory of Naziism is that it's a variant form of the Revolution.)
It's hard to know where to draw lines. The "general" section of the
lists includes Rousseau and Marx on the grounds that in order to
understand the counterrevolution you have to understand the Revolution.
Whether the Nazis are rightly classified as CRs or not, it seems clear
that they pick up some themes of CR thought such as the importance of
attachments and loyalties that are not based on reason. If you went up
to a flaming liberal and said "what should I look at so I'll have a
complete understanding of counterrevolutionary and right-wing thought"
he'd probably mention the Nazis. Why isn't that sufficient
justification for including them?
>The ethnic stuff is more controversial, and thus, gets more attention.
Ethnic issues are important, though, and they can't be discussed
honestly without breaches of convention that will upset many people.
>One of the big neo-con gripes with paleo-cons is that they are too
>lenient in dealing with the lunatic fringe, specifically, the "American
>Mercury" in the 1960s.
A paleo gripe about neos, of course, is that they worry about their
reputation among people who have no respect whatever for conservative
positions or those who hold them. Think of what happened to Judge Bork.
In order to understand issues and develop positions that make sense you
have to be willing to talk to people with a variety of views that are
rather far from your own. It makes no sense for a right-winger to
refuse to talk to people considerably to his own right for the sake of
keeping up his membership in the body of respectable people when
membership in that body is determined by institutions like _The New York
Times_.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Mar 23 17:06:35 EST 1994
Article: 1552 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Grep Me
Date: 23 Mar 1994 17:06:17 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <2mqegp$q49@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar21.211852.28377@newstand.syr.edu> <1994Mar23.170149.29656@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@mothra.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>Actually, I do scan the newsfeed from time to time to look for the
>names of certain conservative columnists.
How do you grep a newsfeed in unix? Sounds like fun.
>There was an interesting anti-Samuel Francis thread not long ago on one
>of the gay newsgroups. They now officially consider him Evil Homophobe
>#2.
So how did S.F. come to their attention? Where does his stuff appear
apart from places like the _Washington Times_, _Chronicles_, and
_Southern Partisan_.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Mar 24 17:15:39 EST 1994
Article: 1561 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christian Counter-Revolution
Date: 24 Mar 1994 14:20:42 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <2msp6a$feu@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar23.164055.29091@newstand.syr.edu> <2mqedv$prm@panix.com> <1994Mar24.055600.12547@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@rodan.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>>In order to understand issues and develop positions that make sense you
>>have to be willing to talk to people with a variety of views that are
>>rather far from your own.
>
>Bring on the multi-cultis. Shall we add Derrida and Paul De Man?
We're better off knowing what they say, why they're influential and
where we disagree with them than not. If they joined the newsgroup I'd
be happy to discuss things with them. That doesn't mean I think they're
the most important people to study or that they should be on every
freshman reading list.
>Look at LeB's positions. He's to the *left*. His right and wrong is
>different than everybody elses.
He's referred to himself as a leftist, and I agree it's not simple to
place him on a right-left spectrum. I don't see that his right and
wrong is fundamentally different from everybody else's. What would you
say the differences are? (I should mention that I don't consider the
view that racial discrimination is peculiarly reprehensible to be a
fundamental part of normal moral reasoning.)
>Does this mean that all those people at Howard University are CRs?
I suppose it's difficult to call someone a CR who isn't fond of some
ancien regime, so black nationalists probably wouldn't qualify. It's
hard to use a political expression like "counterrevolutionary" in
complete abstraction from the situations to which it has bee applied in
the past. Also, I'm not sure Mr. LeB. himself qualifies. The lines
become hard to draw at many points.
>Have you read the later era "American Mercury?" Sheesh!
I think I saw a copy once. They're the ones who talked about the
"Jewnited Nations" and so on? Didn't seem very enlightening. I agree
that if a poster did nothing but complain about blacks and Jews and
wouldn't respond intelligibly to comments he'd be pretty useless. Mr.
LeBouthillier hasn't been like that, though. It seems to me he's argued
better than most of his opponents, although there have been some 200-
line posts that I didn't read all the way through and I may have missed
something.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Mar 25 17:00:38 EST 1994
Article: 1568 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christian Counter-Revolution
Date: 25 Mar 1994 14:15:49 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <2mvd95$11e@panix.com>
References: <2mqedv$prm@panix.com> <1994Mar24.055600.12547@newstand.syr.edu> <94084.101214U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Terry Rephann writes:
>>Bring on the multi-cultis. Shall we add Derrida and Paul De Man?
>
>If you can find anyone to argue that they belong on the Right of the
>traditional political spectrum.
Actually, I seem to recall an article by a Jewish neocon-symp arguing
that prominent deconstructionalists (not just De Man) were literally
Nazis.
>There are some prominent black CRs. Maybe we ought to include them
>I'm not thinking of Affirmative Action black intellectuals like Walter
>Williams but Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Farrakhan, etc.
As far as the lists go, I believe in inclusiveness. People can always
ignore the stuff they think is not to the point, or if there gets to be
enough stuff of a particular type we can categorize it and people can
delete the whole category if they don't like it. Are there any
particular works you'd suggest?
>>Have you read the later era "American Mercury?"
>[ . . . ]
>You've convinced me that it ought to appear on the C-R resource list.
I know very little about it. Does it still exist? I remember seeing it
in the magazine room of the West Hartford (Connecticut) Public Library
in the late '60s, and being startled by articles complaining about
jewdicial decisions and so on. Oddly enough, West Hartford was a big
Jewish center. On the other hand, I just found a copy of _The
Dispossessed Majority_ in the circulating collection of the New York
Public Library, so it seems that odd things continue to happen.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Mar 25 17:38:33 EST 1994
Article: 1571 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Anthony Ludovici anyone?
Date: 25 Mar 1994 17:38:11 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <2mvp4j$75l@panix.com>
References: <94078.152504U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> <2mk57d$9ra@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <94084.133526U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Terry Rephann writes:
>>Which brings me to a general question what do people think of Carlyle...
>
>He gets lumped in with Ludovici as a first-rate bigot by the generally
>PC academic crowd. That's about all I know of him.
By "bigotry" no doubt they mean the tendency to dispose of people and
ideas with whom one differs simply by calling them names. A great
failing in someone with pretentions to intellectual integrity, but I
wouldn't have said it was Carlyle who had the problem with it.
I rather like reading Carlyle's rants. He had energy, and he did have
an eye for some of the serious problems of the modern world.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Mar 26 07:28:16 EST 1994
Article: 1579 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: A Poem
Date: 26 Mar 1994 07:26:52 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <2n19mc$55d@panix.com>
References: <16F838460.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken) writes:
>Of course the poem was written with the supremest irony (to use a
>Carlylean turn of the language) - and with the conviction, of course,
>that trees have an intrinsic value beyond the exchange of gases.
I read it as a neoconish spoof of environmentalist piety, sort of like
a "Nuke the Whales" T-shirt. On that reading it wouldn't demonstrate
anything about the writer's ultimate feelings about trees.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Mar 26 07:28:17 EST 1994
Article: 1580 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christian Counter-Revolution
Date: 26 Mar 1994 07:28:00 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <2n19og$58q@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar23.164055.29091@newstand.syr.edu> <94084.092455U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> <1994Mar25.235925.11527@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@gamera.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
> "Neither Chesterton nor Belloc were racialists. Indeed their
> whole view of history was fundamentally opposed to racialist
> and historicist conceptions.
On occasion they said harsh things about the Jews, as I recall. If they
were nonetheless fundamentally opposed to racialist conceptions, it
seems reasonable to infer that current beliefs and attitudes toward
"racism" are overly simpleminded and moralistic, and the fact that
someone qualifies as a "racist" by current standards is no reason to
make an outcast of him.
> In fact, as he made clear in an important
> interview published in the Jewish Chronicle in 1911, he supported
> the Zionist movement which was growing in the early years of the
> century and of his career."
Does it make Mr. LeBouthillier less of a racist kook in your eyes that
like Chesterton he is perfectly happy with the idea of a separate Jewish
state, and also with the idea of a separate black state?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Mar 27 12:41:08 EST 1994
Article: 1584 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christian Counter-Revolution
Date: 26 Mar 1994 19:06:06 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 63
Message-ID: <2n2ile$psk@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar25.235925.11527@newstand.syr.edu> <2n19og$58q@panix.com> <1994Mar26.213740.24207@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@mothra.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>>> "Neither Chesterton nor Belloc were racialists . . .
>>
>> If they were nonetheless fundamentally opposed to racialist conceptions,
>> it seems reasonable to infer that current beliefs and attitudes toward
>> "racism" are overly simpleminded and moralistic . . .
>
>Are you referring to current beliefs or those of Chesterton's day?
By "current" I meant current.
>How do you describe those beliefs?
It appears that people tend to believe there is a thing called "racism"
that is as evil and hateful as anything can possibly be. Racism is
thought to soil and poison irredeemably everything it taints, and to be
very difficult to eliminate. The essence of racism, it appears, is
hatred and desire to injure and destroy other people purely on grounds
of differing ethnicity. Somehow that essence is thought to carry over
to things that on the face of it seem entirely different (like a
preference for living and doing business with people of similar ethnic
background) and make those things evil.
>Are/were these beliefs monolithic?
P.C. wouldn't exist if something of the sort weren't widely accepted in
a fairly strong form among educated and intelligent people.
>Ok, then according to your standards, *what does it take* to become an
>outcast?
An outcast for what purposes? I'm not sure what would make someone an
outcast in a usenet discussion. If someone is stupid or incoherent he's
no fun to talk with. Insults eventually grow tiresome, although I have
a rather thick skin if I'm getting something out of the discussion.
It's educational to find out what someone you detest really thinks about
things.
>Chesterton was not exactly what I'd call a conservative either. He was
>for animal rights and supported a now-dead version of socialism.
>
>What do *you* think of him? Where is he right/wrong? Would *you* like
>to live in a separated State?
Chesterton or LeBouthillier? Chesterton I have a hard time reading
because his prose style is so unrelievedly bright and clever. (I hope I
haven't offended anyone!) LeBouthillier I have had recent and lengthy
disagreements with in this forum. I don't know if you read any of them,
but I'd rather not spend much time repeating myself. I think he
oversimplifies and overemphasizes ethnicity, but I agree with him that
ethnic solidarity and ethnic loyalty are legitimate. I think there are
real advantages to an ethnically cohesive state, but partitions are
difficult. My recommendations for the United States would be to
restrict immigration, reduce the role of government in society, and
eliminate anti-discrimination laws. Then people could in general
establish and develop the ways of life they find most rewarding with the
people they think most likely to make a contribution.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Mar 27 19:17:39 EST 1994
Article: 1595 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: What is Theonomy?
Date: 27 Mar 1994 17:17:49 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <2n50md$p1l@panix.com>
References: <183302Z27031994@anon.penet.fi>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
an46661@anon.penet.fi writes:
> To summarize; with regard to the law theonomists teach that that which was
> temporary has passed away, and that which is binding and eternal remains.
> How do we decide which laws were temporary and which ones are eternal?
>
> "The theonomic answer has always been: not some a priori principle
> imposed from outside the text of Scripture, but precisely painstaking
> and detailed Scriptural exegesis.
I'm quite ignorant of all this. Do the theonomists trace their ancestry
back past Westminster? To whom? Are Jewish discussions of the Noachide
laws at all relevant? How much specific law that is binding today do
the theonomists think can be extracted from the Old Testament by their
methods? How much scope would be left for differences from one society
to another? Do differences in circumstances, beliefs and customs
between Ancient Israel and America today affect judgements regarding the
general equities that carry over from what the laws were then to what
they should be now?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Mar 27 19:22:50 EST 1994
Article: 1596 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christian Counter-Revolution
Date: 27 Mar 1994 19:22:33 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 194
Message-ID: <2n5809$a64@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar26.213740.24207@newstand.syr.edu> <2n2ile$psk@panix.com> <1994Mar27.203714.11251@newstand.syr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
clstampe@gamera.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>Would you call yourself a racist?
No. For one thing, it's a curse word; for another, it suggests ill will
that I don't feel; for another, it suggests categorical judgements that
I don't make. Also, I'm not a racist by most of the formal definitions
of the word I've seen proposed.
>Would you prefer to lose money than serve non-whatever-you-are
>customers?
I wouldn't, but that's not really the issue. There has been very little
activity under the civil rights laws regarding refusals to serve.
Nobody cares all that much, and if the law says you have to serve blacks
at your lunch counter they get served regularly enough for exceptions to
be newsworthy. Where the issues have come up has been in connection
with housing, employment and education -- situations in which people
cooperate and interact in complicated and subtle ways that can't be
reduced to things like formal qualifications, job descriptions and so
on. Similarities of culture and upbringing and feelings of solidarity
have a real effect on the success of such activities. Also, there are
cultural differences regarding what constitutes success. For that
reason, ethnicity comes to play a role, and I think the role it plays
can be legitimate. If the guys who run the coffee shop on the corner
think things are likely to run more smoothly, with fewer
misunderstandings and conflicting expectations, if they hire a fellow
Greek, why not let them? Why force them to manage the challenge of
diversity if they have other things they'd rather do?
>But PC *isn't* being accepted. When mainstream Evil Establishment
>media are making fun of it, it ain't selling. It, like Marxism, only
>lives in academia.
It's carried to the greatest extremes in academia, but it lives
elsewhere. You might take a look at the issue _National Review_
published about 3-6 months ago on P.C. in the newsroom. Or just read
_The New York Times_ regularly. (A couple of months ago the _Times_
published an editorial suggesting the term be retired, which I found
revealing.)
>No, I mean. What position does one have to take to be a kook? Is
>Louis Farakkhan a kook? Lenora Fuliani? Lyndon Larouche? Bo Gritz?
>Harold Stassen? Sessman?
I don't know enough about the views of most of the people you mention to
say. Sessman isn't a kook. Larouche's reported views certainly make
him sound like a kook. Denial that the Holocaust occurred is a kook
theory. So for that matter is denial that there are material
differences between the sexes in average behavioral tendencies. Of
course, it's possible for someone to hold a kook theory without being a
kook.
>Are there archives somewhere?
Not that I know of. I just dug out and appended to this post a mini-
essay I did on racism and ethnicity last fall.
>> I agree with him that ethnic solidarity and ethnic loyalty are
>>legitimate.
>
>But is that enough to build a state upon? Is there a system of
>government encoded in, say, Welsh blood?
No, but then genetics is only a small part of ethnicity. Ethnicity
mostly consists in a feeling of relatedness based on common origins,
history and culture. Welsh nationalists, I am sure, care much more
about Welsh language and history than about genetic coding. I think it
is advantageous for the citizens of a state to feel that kind of
relatedness.
When new states have been established over the past 150 years or so
(Italy, Germany, Norway, Finland, Poland, the states formed on the
breakup of Austria-Hungary, French Indo-China, and the communist states
of Eastern Europe) they have to the extent possible been established on
ethnic lines, with borders drawn as much as possible to separate members
of different ethnic communities. The desire for an independent state in
which an ethnic community can carry on its collective life has typically
been one of the strongest motivations for the establishment of these new
states. In your view, were the people involved in the process a bunch
of kooks?
>> My recommendations for the United States would be to restrict
>> immigration, reduce the role of government in society, and eliminate
>> anti-discrimination laws. Then people could in general establish and
>> develop the ways of life they find most rewarding with the people they
>> think most likely to make a contribution.
>
>Unfit races need not apply. eh?
I don't understand the comment. Please explain.
My mini-essay:
"Ethnic loyalty" is a feeling of kinship with people whose ethnic
heritage is similar to one's own, combined with at least occasional
action on that feeling. It appears that there is nothing essentially
wrong with it. We all feel kinship with people who are like us in some
way and frequently act on such feelings. Family ties are similarities
of blood and upbringing, and if such similarities admittedly have
practical importance when they are close it's not clear why it is wrong
to feel they still matter when the ties are more attenuated, as in the
case of common culture and ethnicity.
The usual objections to ethnic loyalty don't distinguish it from other
feelings that tie people together and sometimes divide them. Many
people speak as if it necessarily involved a kind of hatred that denies
the humanity of those who are different, but it's not clear why that
sort of reproach applies to ethnic loyalty more than loyalty to country
or to a social movement, or any other loyalty that is less broad than
loyalty to all humanity. People also sometimes claim that ethnic
loyalties are bad because they lead to conflict and ethnic conflicts are
more bitter than other conflicts. However, conflicts over economic
advantage, political and religious principle and state power appear to
be no less frequent and bitter than ethnic conflicts. Also, if ethnic
conflicts really are particularly bitter it seems to follow that ethnic
loyalties are stronger and go deeper than other loyalties, a state of
affairs that would make it pointless to assert that they are in
principle a bad thing.
Putting the usual objections aside, the fundamental argument against
ethnic loyalty seems to be that it has no substantial function and
therefore acting on it in serious matters is irrational and bad. (This
argument is usually not made explicitly, but there is a tendency to
avoid explicit discussion of matters relating to ethnicity and one must
piece together the relevant considerations as best he can.) The idea,
which is also the fundamental idea of liberal individualism, seems to be
that the goals we have as individuals can best be served by establishing
a political system that protects and advances them and supporting that
system through an ideology that validates it. Accordingly, our rational
loyalties are our loyalties to political ideology and the state, because
those are the loyalties that are rationally related to our individual
goals, and other loyalties are morally unjustifiable.
As so stated, the argument seems to be based on a view of man as an
animal that is originally non-social but establishes goals for himself
and consequently enters society in order to advance them. Such a view
seems wholly unrealistic to me. Man is an essentially social animal,
and the family and community he is born into, his upbringing and culture
of origin, and his involuntary ties to other people appear to be part of
what make him what he is, and are certainly more important than most of
the particular goals he consciously chooses. So it appears natural and
right for a man to feel ethnic loyalty and sometimes to act to preserve
or advance his group's identity and way of life, simply because that
identity and way of life are an important part of what he is.
Having said that, the question remains what kind of ethnic loyalties are
appropriate and how those loyalties should be manifested in the United
States in 1993. Any answer to such a question must be fragmentary, but
some points seem reasonably clear. It seems plainly legitimate for
members of an ethnic group to try to live together in accordance with
their own way of life if they don't place additional burdens on others.
It follows that private racial discrimination in housing, education and
employment generally is legitimate since to engage in such
discrimination is simply to deal preferentially with people of similar
ethnicity. It also seems legitimate to take ethnicity into
consideration in voting. The conduct in office of a government official
is heavily influenced by what he considers important or trivial, by his
perceptions and assumptions about politics, human nature and the world,
and by his manners and style, all of which are heavily influenced by
ethnic background. For a man to prefer to vote for someone of his own
ethnic group is therefore to prefer to vote for someone he understands
and who will understand him, which is surely justifiable.
Other matters relating to the role of ethnic loyalties in politics are
murkier. Since a government based solely on pure reason is impossible,
every government must reflect evaluations and understandings that vary
from culture to culture. When there are several cultures in a territory
ruled by a single government, some attempt at accommodating minority
viewpoints is likely but what the government does will mostly reflect
the outlook of the dominant culture. How to keep the peace among
competing cultures and what sorts of accommodations make sense are
complicated matters for which there is no general solution. In the
United States today I would propose reducing the occasions for conflict
by (i) limiting immigration, possibly by reestablishing quotas based on
national origin, to avoid multiplying conflicts and allow the groups
already here to learn how to live with each other, (ii) taking advantage
of our federal tradition to allow local variations to be reflected
politically, and (iii) emphasizing our tradition of limited government
and informal or private ordering of affairs to minimize the importance
of the political aspects of cultural differences. When such methods of
avoiding conflict don't work, all I can suggest is to let the dominant
culture have its way with whatever accommodations to minorities it feels
it can make without the sacrifice of integrity. Any other solution
would require giving the final say to some group with a viewpoint
superior to every culture, which is impossible.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Governing through good people leads to lawlessness and dismemberment;
governing through wicked people leads to order and strength." (Lord Shang)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Apr 3 07:13:54 EDT 1994
Article: 1609 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: errata
Date: 2 Apr 1994 12:54:20 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <2nkbgc$bgq@panix.com>
References: <1994Mar24.165226.3900@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2n9ji6$9u1@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <1994Apr1.202154.8067@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>each culture/civilization has its own unique way of looking at the
>world, its own religious assumptions, and its own way of organizing
>itself, and that for the Appolonian/Classical world, this was the
>_polis_ and the gods associated with said _polis_ (each of which was
>local and unique, hence the name of a single god often "covered" many
>different local "aspects" or variations), whereas for the
>Magian/Levantine, the "church" was the organizing principle, such that
>the religous dogmas were seen as universal and unchanging, so that the
>believer was "home" wherever he went, and did not need to consider
>local variations of his diety. I suspect this was a natural advantage
>in an age of uprootedness and cultural confusion, where the polyglot
>inhabitants of the imperial cities often had no connections with the
>local gods . . . Perhaps what the Spenglerians are saying is that for
>the Apollonian/Classical culture, the state was the church, and for the
>Magian/Levantine culture, the church was the state?
I sometimes lose track of what the Spenglerians have in mind. There
was something called Christianity that was a universal religion that
triumphed in the West. Its triumph seems to have had something to do
with the decline of local particularities in the Lower Empire. It gave
rise to the Roman Church, that viewed itself as the universal and
unchanging custodian of catholic truth. Now what does all this have to
do with Magian/Levantine culture? Isn't that a different part of the
world? Would it be more relevant to say that deracination,
cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism lead first to religious syncretism
and experimentation with exotica, and then, as the political order
declines into an overregulated and overtaxed universal empire, to the
acceptance of a transcendental universal religion as the focus of
people's loyalties?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Apr 3 07:13:55 EDT 1994
Article: 1610 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Christianity
Date: 2 Apr 1994 12:56:18 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 50
Message-ID: <2nkbk2$bmk@panix.com>
References: <2mi9rq$ou5@panix.com> <9404012350.AA05114@worldlink.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
inter14@WorldLink.com (David B.) writes:
>Fundamental to Kant's moral philosophy, I think, was the moral
>imperative; that is, a moral person should act in such a way that
>he/she would will that action to be universalized among all other human
>beings.
>
>The logical dilemma that Kant put himself into was that such a moral
>view is one that could be held and be *consistent with* the Nazi view
>of morality without being *identical with* it. If you accept the
>Kantian view of the moral imperative, by what basis do you say that the
>Nazis were wrong or immoral?
The Kantian view clearly won't work if the universal maxims are allowed
to include anything like a proper name. Otherwise it would be OK for me
to murder Joe Blow because I could consistently will that "murder Joe
Blow" become a universal principle of action. So I suppose the Kantians
would say that the maxim "enslave or exterminate all non-Aryans" is not
a proper universal maxim because "non-Aryan" is a proper name. They
would demand a rational account of why it is appropriate to treat Aryans
(instead of the Jews or Watusi, for example) as the master race to which
all others are sacrificed.
>I prefer instead, if one must universalize some moral imperative, to
>use--what I term--the negative Golden Rule of Alfred the Great, first
>unifying Anglo-Saxon king of England: Do not do those acts unto
>others, which you would not have them do unto you. It seems to me that
>this is an even better rule than the Golden Rule taught by Jesus of
>Nazareth. Jesus, unfortunately created the same logical dilemma as did
>Kant.
My own view is that no purely formal morality works, you need
substantive goods as well. Jesus taught both the Golden Rule and love
of neighbor (specifically including inferior types like the Samaritans)
and of the God who sends rain on both the just and the unjust. I think
that reduces the compatibility of his teaching with systems like
Naziism.
Putting that aside, I don't see how the negative Golden Rule avoids
logical dilemmas that the rule creates in its positive version. Since
it commands less, I would think it would be compatible with more.
Consider the act "exterminating Jews and other subhuman bloodsuckers who
are parasites on the noble Aryan race". Would that act be permitted by
the categorical imperative and the positive Golden Rule but not the
negative Golden Rule? If so, why?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Apr 7 05:02:07 EDT 1994
Article: 1612 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: PROJECT
Date: 7 Apr 1994 04:59:24 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <2o0i1c$a2p@panix.com>
References: <1d.433.1788.0N90C485@synapse.org>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1d.433.1788.0N90C485@synapse.org> gary.mcveigh@synapse.org (Jenny Mcveigh) writes:
>Hi. I'm doing an independent study for my OAC law law class on the changes in
>former communist countries. I was wondering if anyone out there has any
>information, legal or personal, or sources for it, on this subject. It's
>something that's rather hard to research in a library so I could really use
>your help. Please send anything you can to: gary.mcveigh@synapse.org
Has anyone responded to this? For some reason, we've had next to no
discussion in this group of the counterrevolution in the former
communist countries. For that matter, there's almost nothing in the
Resource Lists on the subject (I think there's a book by Solzhenitsyn
on rebuilding Russia after socialism). Why is that?
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Apr 10 07:13:10 EDT 1994
Article: 1614 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Egalitarianism
Date: 9 Apr 1994 15:02:47 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 62
Message-ID: <2o6u4n$44k@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Since it's been rather quiet, I've decided to start dragging out (in no
special order) various notes I wrote to myself some time ago in the
hopes that something in them might be of interest to others. To begin:
The most common form of egalitarianism involves the belief that people
do not in fact differ in valuable characteristics (such as
intelligence), or if they do, such differences have no connection with
non-moral characteristics such as heredity. An apparent motive for
that belief is that to admit otherwise is to accept the unfairness of
the world.
This belief is plainly false and the attempt to maintain plainly false
beliefs leads to cynicism. For the believer, actually maintaining such
a belief is likely to require either pious fraud -- minimizing valuable
characteristics in some cases and exaggerating them in others;
relativism -- denying the possibility of a common standard of value; or
nihilism -- denying the existence or the worth of characteristics that
are generally valued. Maintenance of such a belief in a community
requires rigorous suppression of evidence and arguments to the contrary
as wicked and unthinkable. If normal standards of rationality don't
rule out contrary evidence and arguments, normal standards of
rationality are wicked too. Extreme statements in support of the belief
are compulsory because admitting the possibility of doubt is so close to
rejecting the belief.
Nihilism has consequences. In the unambitious it leads to self-
indulgence. In the ambitious it leads to the pursuit of wealth,
position and power. Everyone can pursue the last two since equality
requires rule by an omnipotent elite. Members of the lengthening list
of victimized groups can pursue all three with a good conscience
because in so doing they are promoting equality. As to relativism, the
fully developed law of civil rights and civil liberties has turned out
to be based on the view that all ways of life are of equal worth.
Also, egalitarianism has led to victim studies -- the creation of
academic specialties that explicitly view the world from the viewpoint
of groups asserting their equality, and therefore deal with matters
that cannot be judged by persons who do not belong to such groups.
One could accept that that there are valuable characteristics that are
distributed without fairness but not accept mere domination of the weak
by the strong if one were able to point to some respect in which each
person is of transcendental value. Group solidarity often serves this
function with respect to a limited group by treating group membership
as a transcendental distinction. One might also hold that every man
whatever his affiliations is of transcendental value because only he
can do what he does and suffer what he suffers, and therefore everyone
is necessary to the moral universe. This form of moral "equality"
means that every man is unique, though, not that all men are the same.
Also, without something close to a belief a loving Creator it may be
difficult to think of the actions and experience of each man as
important in themselves. Accordingly, it seems likely that secular and
cosmopolitan people who want to deny that some men can rightly be
treated as implements by other men are going to continue to have
trouble with the inequal distribution of valuable human
characteristics.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Apr 11 10:18:15 EDT 1994
Article: 1617 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: CR FUTILITY: A Musical Perspective
Date: 10 Apr 1994 08:09:21 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <2o8q9h$ptq@panix.com>
References: <16F90DDD2.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu writes:
>I would like to offer another strand of discussion: the fact that the
>"white" population (CR points of view aside) really accept & cherish
>diversity
You seem to believe there is something called "diversity" that is a good
thing and that has something to do with ethnic distinctions. If so, it
seems you believe there are real differences among ethnic groups and
that such differences are good, perhaps because they make it possible
for different groups to contribute different things to the world. Am I
right? If not, please explain where I have gone wrong.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Apr 11 10:18:18 EDT 1994
Article: 1618 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: The Revolution
Date: 10 Apr 1994 09:07:47 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 45
Message-ID: <2o8tn3$snk@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
I continue to excavate and post old notes to myself for anyone who cares
to read them:
Thoughts on the nature of the revolution of our time:
The Revolution is the triumph of the consumer's outlook -- of the day-
to-day experience of the individual as the immediate criterion for
social and political goodness. Thus, it corresponds to a change in the
basic concern of morality from the obligations of individuals to the
obligations of society to individuals. Individual impulse is now
privileged, and to be moral is to support the discharge by society of
its obligations to individuals, while to hold individuals to their
obligations is to lack compassion and thus morality.
The Revolution also means the relativization of all existing social
practices. Since only subjective desire is absolute, what had been
thought objective is relative and judged in accordance with its
instrumental value in satisfying desires. Thus, everything between
immediate sensation and the universal state is devalued. Fundamental
law is reduced to the specification of the goals of government as
establishing the freedom and equality of desires and promoting their
satisfaction. Social position or functional social role is replaced as
a determinant of identity by abstract relation to society (political
correctness, status as victim, pursuit of wealth and power) or, to some
extent, personal values and projects.
The sources of the revolution include the shift from family, church and
ethnicity to market, bureaucracy and television as fundamental social
institutions. That shift destroys the bases of individual self-
confidence and causes social status to be experienced as superficial.
The effects of television include establishment of a direct relation
between the individual and the universal, fragmentation of the world,
elimination of distinctions, undermining of cause and effect, emphasis
on what is new, striking and extraordinary, and constant vivid
presentation of problems that we can't do anything about personally.
Other sources of the Revolution include freedom and prosperity, which
make people grow lazy and forgetful, and the prestige of science, which
has devalued traditional views and made all problems seem soluble.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Apr 12 05:40:38 EDT 1994
Article: 1620 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Music and Antimusic
Date: 11 Apr 1994 11:50:53 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <2obrkt$nim@panix.com>
References: <125308Z11041994@anon.penet.fi>
an46661@anon.penet.fi writes:
> Such a musical
> education, as several of the Optina elders have said, refines
> the soul and prepares it for the reception of spiritual
> impressions."
Out of curiosity, who are the Optina elders?
>Real music has as its origin and purpose the praising of the Creator;
>the arrangements of the notes is an expression and representation of
>the harmony of the universe.
How does music differ from other things people do in this regard? Even
before the French Revolution there were folk music, _Tafelusik_, popular
songs, work songs, chants in children's games and so on. It seems to me
that not-so-serious music has a place in the world, just as pleasant
manners or pretty wallpaper do. (Of course, as pointed out, music can
also be much more than that.)
>In the twentieth century many composers have broken conclusively with
>the traditional tonal system.
Does anyone at all like to listen to that stuff? At this point it
might make more sense to speak of the disappearance than of the decline
of the art of composing serious music. But I'm no musician (apart from
playing the piano a little), so maybe I'm missing something.
>In our century a kind of music has been created for amusement, reaching
>a wide audience via electronic means.
Is all such music objectionable? I agree that a lot of it is highly
objectionable, and also that there's something troubling about basing
musical life on the centralized production and marketing of music to
passive consumers who are constantly flooded with the stuff. The key to
success is instant approval by masses of uneducated listeners who don't
pay much attention to what they're hearing. On the other hand, the
state of serious music doesn't seem to be so good either. I suppose
cultivating your own gardens makes as much sense as anything. If you
don't like the music people are making, take up an instrument and make
some yourself. Maybe becoming a hermit or wearing earplugs would help
too.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Apr 12 10:59:23 EDT 1994
Article: 1623 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Egalitarianism
Date: 12 Apr 1994 06:42:42 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 39
Message-ID: <2odtv2$fc1@panix.com>
References: <9404120336.AA21951@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
> If A is unequal to B, but A is to be equal to B, what are we to
>do? Raise B to A's level? Lower A to B's level? Split the
>difference? If there are differing opinions about whether A and B
>should be equalized, or even how A and B ought to be equalized, then
>_someone's_ idea will have to win out. To pull the standard trick,
>"Why should we follow your ideas and plans about equality instead of
>mine?" To demand equality where some do not want it is to override
>their claims (and sometimes even their rights) and to treat them
>unequally.
>
> One problem with the gospel of equality is the forced conversions.
I agree that this is a problem with egalitarianism. The idea seems to
be that the government should make the world equally favorable to
everyone, no matter what his characteristics or tastes. Therefore the
government should require the provision of readers to blind people.
promote the equal acceptance of homosexuality, and so on.
A problem is that it is practically and often logically impossible to
make the world equally favorable to everybody and everything. If your
idea of the good life is the Ozzie and Harriet lifestyle, or possession
of an independent livelihood that lets you pay your own debts and call
your own shots, or loyalty to throne, altar and sword, you aren't likely
to be very happy in the welfare/civil rights state, which is necessarily
an all-pervasive affair that can allow little room to forms of life at
odds with its own spirit.
The obvious accommodation between the conception of equality as an
absolute moral imperative and its factual and logical impossibility is
to treat things that are inconsistent with an egalitarian scheme as
matters that are illegitimate for discussion or even thought. Hence
political correctness.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Apr 14 13:31:12 EDT 1994
Article: 1630 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Egalitarianism
Date: 12 Apr 1994 21:14:35 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <2ofh1r$esr@panix.com>
References: <9404121719.AA26614@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu>
rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
>The main point I was trying to make, though, is that the people who
>become responsible for carrying out the egalitarian programme tend to
>become elites -- in contradiction to their professed ideals.
It can't be otherwise. If you take an abstract criterion like equality
seriously it's not likely you'll pay much attention to the views of John
Q. Public on the subject, any more than you'd pay much attention to his
views on formal logic. You'll look for the experts on the subject, who
will be the intelligent people who care about it and spend a lot of time
thinking about it. Very likely you'll feel like a bit of an expert
yourself, the more so the more committed to equality you are. That's
one of the several ways the ideal of equality destroys itself. You're
right that I was concentrating on a somewhat different way in which it
arrives at the same destination.
> Let me stir the pot a little and say that I think we need more
>equality in some areas, especially in moral accountability. I don't
>think that being a research scientist or being a cutting-edge
>journalist, for example, should exempt anyone from standards that apply
>to all of the rest of us. Indeed, the nature of these tasks, to my
>mind, should make research scientists and journalists answerable to a
>higher standard, if anything. But we can move this part of the
>discussion to a different subject line, if you prefer.
Certainly we all have things in common from which moral obligations
spring, and therefore we also have those moral obligations in common.
For example, each of us is a moral agent and is therefore obligated to
respect other moral agents. For example, that respect includes the
obligation to be honest. Whether honesty requires the same from each
of us I don't know. Maybe the obligation is the same for everyone but
the degree of culpability for failure to live up to the obligation is
different depending on upbringing, native gifts and so on. Or maybe
people whose honesty is socially more important, such as scientists or
journalists, do have stricter obligations.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Apr 14 13:31:13 EDT 1994
Article: 1631 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Music and Antimusic
Date: 12 Apr 1994 21:15:47 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <2ofh43$f79@panix.com>
References: <125308Z11041994@anon.penet.fi> <2obrkt$nim@panix.com> <1994Apr12.062055.14298@newstand.syr.edu>
clstampe@rodan.syr.edu (Chris Stamper) writes:
>>>Real music has as its origin and purpose the praising of the Creator;
>>>the arrangements of the notes is an expression and representation of
>>>the harmony of the universe.
>>
>> It seems to me that not-so-serious music has a place in the world, just
>> as pleasant manners or pretty wallpaper do. (Of course, as pointed
>> out, music can also be much more than that.)
>
>I don't think this is what the Australian author means. He's referring to
>the fact that music as an expression of Higher Things is essentially dead
>in the West.
Was I being picky, picky, picky? Most likely. There did seem to be a
tendency in the piece to run together music as an expression of Bad
Things and popular music. I agree that even if that tendency was there
it wasn't the most important thing about the piece.
--
Jim Kalb "Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr *ein* mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,--sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert."
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.