Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Sat Dec 30 03:09:37 2000
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From: "Jim Kalb"
To: lo
Subject: Thank you
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 03:10:32 -0500
Status: OR
Thanks for your note, it's always good to see how things seem to other
people.
It helps to understand human life if you think of it as a complicated
affair that has to take lots of different things into account to be at all
tolerable let alone good. It seems to me feminism, like modern thought
generally, doesn't do that and the normal result of the failure is eventual
political catastrophe. Your point seems to be that all sorts of problems
and catastrophes are possible. Perfectly true.
Good luck, keep trying your best, keep thinking, and keep observing.
jk
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Jan 2 06:24:52 2001
Date: 02 Jan 2001 06:22:03 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Coats Dumped From Defense Over Gays and Women
To: la
Status: O
--- You wrote:
Bush recoiled, eager to avoid the fractious struggles over military policy that
plagued the opening days of President Clinton's administration.
The lack of big thinkers -- and big mouths -- among Bush's nominees has not
gone unnoticed
--- end of quote ---
This *does* seem absolutely characteristic, doesn't it? The conservative after
all can only appeal to what's settled, to what is accepted all round as common
sense.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Jan 2 12:38:06 2001
Date: 02 Jan 2001 12:35:13 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Nazi liberals
To: ma
Status: OR
I just don't think there's an established surname that includes liberalism,
nazism and bolshevism. The three are the possibilities within the modern
world, and those who accept that world think of them as ultimately opposing
forces. Since they don't recognize a common category taking one of the
possibilities and using it for all three seems to me an abandonment of any
attempt to communicate. I don't see the necessity.
Ls, Ns and Bs think of inclusiveness and rationality, blood and will, class and
dialectic as *ultimate* loyalties. L, N and B states are therefore
*essentially* at war with each other. Their views may not be the final truth,
but the opposition among them is not an illusion. Those who adhere to one or
the other of the views don't switch to one of the others merely on account of
circumstances any more than Christians, Jews and Muslims trade places casually.
Would it be sensible to call Christianity and Islam "Judaism" because Judaism
came first and much of it is carried forward in the other two? What good would
that do?
--- end of quote ---
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jan 5 05:51:21 2001
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Modern Age Essay
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
I do try to be thorough, and then I try to save effort by only dealing with
basics. As to the optimism, it's abstract, along the lines of "what goes up
must come down." It's impossible to predict when a crash will come, what will
happen in the meantime, or where the next point of stability will be. One
point in our favor is that the NWO is intrinsically corrupt because if the
ultimate standard is rational individual hedonism officials have no reason to
prefer the public interest to their own. Look at the EU, the UN, and the
Clinton administration. That's likely to undercut the effectiveness of plans
to root out nonconformity.
I agree though that it's hard to have much hope for European civilization.
Partly that's because European civilization unlike say Middle Eastern
civilization is territorial - it depends on a relation between peoples and
homelands where there's enough ethnic and religious cohesion to have a forum
instead of a bazaar. And even if immigration, antidiscrimination legislation
etc. were all reversed there'd still be the problem of the abolition of the
significance of physical distance through jet travel, the internet etc.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sat Jan 6 11:19:03 2001
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Date: 06 Jan 2001 13:07:17 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: your article in Modern Age
To: MW
Status: RO
Read your essay. We do share many of the same concerns. Some
comments, though - you'll have to judge whether they're more inspired by your
essay or by things I'm struggling with that I project everywhere:
You seem to visualize some sort of movement struggling to build a new world.
Maybe trying to imagine what such a movement would be like and what it would
have to do is a good way to get people thinking. The problem though is that a
fundamental crisis can't be planned out of. Planning requires a trustworthy
setting within which problems can be isolated and means chosen and brought to
bear. At present though there's no trustworthy setting.
What's needed is a global solution, but attempts at global solutions proceed by
setting up global authorities that destroy local and particular arrangements in
the interests of what is thought to be the solution and so only make the crisis
worse.
The whole idea of thinking through and carrying out a solution to a fundamental
crisis suggests that the thinker and actor somehow precede and stand apart from
the crisis, and so the crisis is not really fundamental. In the alternative it
suggests the notion of the unfettered unconditioned ego choosing what it will
be and its most fundamental goals and the means of realizing them, and so
inevitably reproduces the fundamental error of liberalism in a more advanced
form.
You want to put meaning, community, even magic back in the world. The problem
is that those things precede the self that chooses and acts. How could they be
the goals of a movement? The problem with Rousseau's three gardens is that the
third garden, which is tended to be artfully wild and exuberent, needs a
gardener outside itself. Emile had a tutor, and Rousseau I think in The Social
Contract talks about the problem of the founder of a state. Will the movement
for a new world ultimately take the form of an elite that confers on itself the
godlike status required of a founder? That's been tried, and hasn't worked
well.
So what to do? Certainly try to understand the present situation and lead an
upright private life. Publicly one can confront lies and destructive myths, and
look for ways to throw grit in the works of the huge machine we've fallen into
so it won't grind things quite so fine. On the latter point I think our
greatest hope is the inevitable corruption of an order that makes individual
gratification the ultimate standard. The Clinton administration and the
scandals in the EU are only the beginning.
Beyond that we need something better, something concrete to live for, but we
can't create such a thing by making a list of desiderata. We must prepare
ourselves for it and wait. Modernity is the belief that we can make the world
in accordance with our desires. The solution to modernity must therefore
involve the recognition that the solution is not altogether in our hands.
(It should be obvious I haven't said everything that could be said about your
essay, or talked about the points on which we agree. I've just talked about one
issue that's of concern to me.)
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sat Jan 6 10:14:12 2001
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Date: 06 Jan 2001 12:02:17 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: [Upstream] The free market speaks...(it must be right, huh?)
To: upstream-list@cycad.com
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
In framing the title of this thread, Mr. Gleiser's
unmistakable implication is that the expanding sales of the
trashier genres of the music business are caused by people
buying stuff they really don't want, that the buyers are
simply dupes being lead to purchase music that does not
produce a satisfaction or fill a need for them.
--- end of quote ---
I don't think that's the necessary implication. Obviously if people buy
something it produces a satisfaction.
"What satisfies" though isn't something that the basic laws of nature or human
biology determine directly. It's a result of education broadly construed. I
think one effect of efficient modern markets, economies, etc. is to shorten the
distance between impulse and satisfaction, and as a result tastes remain cruder
than they would be if more effort were involved, for example if the way you got
to listen to music were to learn to make it yourself.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mon Jan 8 07:42:30 2001
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Date: 08 Jan 2001 09:30:34 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Question
To: k
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
I would appreciate any additional information you
could provide detailing what exactly distinguishes a paleocon from a
paleolibertarian.
--- end of quote ---
Mostly it's intellectual background. The paleoLs tend to take Austrian
economics as their ultimate standard while the paleoCs put more emphasis on
history (the pre-1861 republic), culture and religion. Partly it's
personalities. The paleoCs are one group of people, the paleoLs another.
I'm not sure there are particular issues that are litmus tests for separating
one group from another. Cs and Ls of course have disputes about the role of
government but the lines get blurry because the pre-1861 republic didn't have a
lot of government and the practicalities of approximating a libertarian regime
force various compromises. Hans-Hermann Hoppe for example is a paleoL disciple
of Murray Rothbard who has written rather good articles on why immigration
controls and even monarchy are good things from a realistic libertarian
perspective.
I should mention that 2-3 years ago there was some big dispute between the Cs
and the Ls at a paleo meeting - someone at the time told me what it was about
but I now forget and I'm too much out of the politics of it all to know about
how it all sorted out.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Jan 9 07:56:33 2001
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Message-id: <1125206@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 09 Jan 2001 09:44:30 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: [Upstream] The free market speaks...(it must be right, huh?)
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- Ron Marks wrote:
And I think it is biology speaking when an ever larger
fraction of our population, themselves products of
irresponsible impulses, act impulsively in buying music
which itself celebrates, yes, impulsiveness. So, I don't
think that the direct effects of biology are out of the
picture here.
[It's believable that biological differences affect tastes. Still, tastes vary
quite radically independent of biology. As do moral and other habits - hence
generational conflicts. The difference between popular music of say the 30s and
40s and pop music today isn't mostly racial. It sounds to me like partly a
matter of who the music is aimed at (teenagers or grownups) and partly a matter
of the general way of life, whether there's a background of accepted restraints
or not. Emotional habits are different.]
Efficient markets produce more wealth
making the average decision in purchasing less critical and
therefore more spontaneous. If the prosperity causing this
can't be tolerated, a general nuclear war would certainly
solve this little problem. Then we (the survivors) could all
be poor and desperate.
The effects of greater impulsiveness are cumulative. And it's not uncommon for
rich people to become stupid and irresponsible, and for stupidity and
irresponsibility eventually to catch up with them. Nothing lasts for ever.]
No, I don't see any chance of making any worthwhile changes
to the market system to save our culture.
[I don't either, really. Culture can't be administered and regulated except in
secondary ways. Still it's nice to think through what's going on even if no
solution jumps to mind.]
My respects to the memories of the great Nat King Cole and
to beloved Marian Andersen, negro singer and maybe the best
voice the world has ever heard. Their voices will live far
beyond the cacophony of this age.
[How does that fit in with the biological theory of the arts? Massive dysgenic
trends within the black population? I would have thought regression to the mean
would have slowed down the changes.]
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Jan 9 07:56:03 2001
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Date: 09 Jan 2001 09:44:02 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Sexuality and Crime
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
You claim
crime and broken marriages have increased since the beginning of the sexual
revolution. While it has been postulated (or proven. I am not sure which
one) that the breakdown of family increases crime rate, I have to ask a
couple questions. What kinds of crime have been increased? In which age
groups? Did the war on drugs have anything to do with increased crime rate?
Are the marriages that last happier than the ones that lasted a half century
ago?
--- end of quote ---
It's hard to prove causality in the social sciences because things change
together. The sexual morality faq discusses several lines of thought on the
matter. Do you have questions on the specifics of what I say there? I don't
want simply to repeat myself. The basic line of thought is that people
especially children need stable families and loose sexual morals mean family
instability and lots and lots of consequent problems including but not at all
limited to more criminality.
Both property and violent crime have increased, and that radically. As to the
details on categories and ages you'll have to look yourself - it's been about 5
yrs since I wrote the thing and they're not reliably at my (mental) fingertips.
I don't recall offhand any studies that try to compare how happy say couples
that had been married 25 years were 50 years ago and today.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Jan 9 07:55:39 2001
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Date: 09 Jan 2001 09:43:36 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: On Conservatism
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
I really enjoyed reading your Conservatism FAQ. Being a grade 11 student in
Edmonton Alberta, I was looking for some info on Klein. I sort of got side
tracked, but discovered your site. I found it very entertaining and VERY
educational. Thank you for writing this.
My e-mail is
@hotmail.com just in case you would like to drop I few lines. I am
interested in the practice of conservatism
--- end of quote ---
Thanks for your note, and glad you found the page helpful.
Conservatism is tied I think to respect for traditional standards. So to my
mind the practice of conservatism would mostly involve leading an upright life
generally, telling the truth, treating other people right, helping out in your
community and so on. Naturally there's also a more political side. There I
think a lot of what has to be done is making people aware of possibilities and
lines of thought that somehow the newspapers, TV, various experts, leaders and
educators etc. somehow don't get around to mentioning. Which is what I try to
do on my pages, but others find other ways.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Thu Jan 11 09:15:55 2001
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Message-id: <1157271@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 11 Jan 2001 11:03:33 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: your article in Modern Age
To: MW
Status: O
--- You wrote:
It might be argued that it is the ethics of late modernity (what could be
called the assault on the noble and aristocratic), rather than its
epistemology of "radical willfullness" -- that is more problematic.
While I am not a full-blown Nietzschean, it must certainly be recognized
that in Nietzsche's thought there exists a combination of the exaltation of
the noble and aristocratic, and an epistemology of radical willfullness.
Admittedly, while some have considered Nietzsche the most consistently
ANTI-modern thinker, others have seen him as the capstone of modernity.
There is certainly a conservative argument to be made for "letting things
unfold gradually" (which some might equate with the ancient Chinese
principle of "wu-wei".)
At the same time, however, one must feel a huge degree of trepidation at
simply letting things unfold "naturally" today.
The great danger might be that -- despite our own belief in a human nature
that will almost always "flip back" to traditional forms -- that the extent
of unnatural conditioning today might well carry us -- before we even know
it -- into a society akin to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
I would say that persons in opposition to the current-day regime must try
to exert every possible ounce of energy in active struggle against the
regime.
--- end of quote ---
Oh, I agree there are lots of things to be done and it's good to do them. I try
to do a few of them myself. I just think it's also good to understand the
situation. You're less likely to waste effort or make things worse that way.
It seems to me for example that local and ethnic loyalties and sex roles are
good things. They're not something that can be made government policy though.
Government policy can cooperate with them, limited government can leave them
room to function, but government can't define in advance what they should be
and crack down on people who get out of line.
The whole point of such things is to provide non-bureaucratic and non-market
elements of social organization. They have to grow out of people's experience
of life and feelings as to what's appropriate in this situation or that. And
they do in fact grow out of such things unless there's something that
suppresses them. So what's mostly needed is debunking the idea that suppressing
them is a moral obligation - superobligation is more the current view - and
throwing grit in the the works of the institutions that do the suppressing.
As to Nietzsche he's a brilliant critic and writer, I wish I could write
English the way he writes German, but his positive recommendations to the
extent he has any are incoherent fantasy. So is wu-wei is when taken literally
as a proposal. It's very valuable as poetry though, it reminds us of something
absolutely essential to human life and action, our inability in the end to
control things or even understand them altogether. Lack of that realization is
what leads to totalitarian tyranny.
I would say Nietzsche is an ultramodern who can't stand modernity. That's why
he is incoherent and why you can call him modern or antimodern as you wish. I
don't take his aristocratic ethos seriously, I don't even think it's
aristocratic. If he's so aristocratic why is he so influential in the academy
today? An aristocrat does not in principle reject the principle of
subordination in his own case. It's the rebellious slave who does.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Wed Jan 10 06:12:41 2001
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Date: 10 Jan 2001 08:00:33 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Taliban
To: to
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
Just in the interests of seeing if you acknowledge that there is such a
thing as taking tradition too far, I must ask: What do you think of the
Taliban?
--- end of quote ---
I'll say I don't like the Taliban if people who want to invent a social order
and put it in effect will say they don't like Pol Pot and people who think
personal preference is the guide will say Sade isn't so cool.
Traditions can obviously be mistaken. The question to my mind is whether some
other authority is so much better that it trumps tradition, say social science
or popular vote or what seems to me a good idea right now.
Hope all is well with you, by the way.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sat Jan 13 16:05:41 2001
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Date: 13 Jan 2001 17:52:25 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Radical Individualism essay
To: el
Status: RO
One comment on an essay that in general seems to me intelligent and
well-written - you touch on the fact that *denial* of the right of voluntary
affiliation is absolutely fundamental to the liberal view of race relations and
in fact to the present American regime, but most of your essay goes on as if
the right were respected. I think there are some deeper waters there that must
be gone into.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sat Jan 13 08:00:17 2001
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Message-id: <1183526@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 13 Jan 2001 09:47:49 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: The Tyranny of Liberalism
To: Jo
Status: RO
Hello!
Thanks for your note. I agree with a lot of what you say. For example it is
important to use our own language and not the language of our enemies. Don't
concede anything. There'll be plenty of battles and fighters are needed.
One concern I have is that direct battles between ideologies fought with the
weapons of the left always seem to lead to more centralization, to the view
that the way to make things better is to define what you want, organize, and go
after it with force. So the risk is that we turn into what we're fighting. So
one thing I'd emphasize is learning to live better ourselves - turn off the TV,
keep our marriages together, take charge of bringing our own kids up, etc. In
the long run what matters is having a way of life that's better and then
defending it.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sat Jan 13 07:47:09 2001
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Date: 13 Jan 2001 09:34:41 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: The Tyranny of Liberalism
To: TO
Status: RO
Thanks for your note. For what it's worth it seems to me that Locke goes too
far in saying the sole concern of govt is protecting property.
I don't mind saying that as a practical matter protecting property should be
almost the whole of what government does but human life doesn't divide up so
neatly. If you say that in principle the only thing govt can concern itself
with is property - that is, with men's pursuit of their material interests as
they define them - then eventually pursuit of self-defined interests will come
to be viewed as the whole of human life and you'll get all of liberalism as it
stands today.
Magna Carta to Clinton does sound like a worthwhile study. Good luck on the
project.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jan 12 06:23:51 2001
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Message-id: <1170202@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 12 Jan 2001 08:11:30 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: your article in Modern Age
To: MW
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
M.W.: Some might argue that a whole panoply of coercive and normative controls
have always
been present to steer people in "the right" direction. While we would probably
perceive
pre-modern societies as "organic" and "organically-developing" -- to a typical
leftist they
might appear as coercive as the Soviet Union.
[There have always been lots of coercive and normative controls of course. It's
important though how much knowledge they reflect and how they fit in to the
rest of life.
[An advantage of tradition is that it accumulates and makes concrete and
useable more knowledge than other possibilities, at least regarding some
aspects of life, and that the knowledge and the controls take more the form of
social practices and understandings people grow up with. The latter makes it
more likely that the controls won't be manipulative, that it won't be a matter
of "who whom," that those applying them will think of them as by nature
applicable to themselves as well as others. Leftists of course think of
*everything* as essentially manipulative. That's one reason their views can't
possibly make sense.]
Conservatives often believe in something which Russell Kirk called
"serendipidity".
It is the unexpected occurences that often can change things unexpectedly.
[One point - luck happens to those who are prepared for it. It will only help
for something to open up if you're pointed in the right direction to begin
with.]
M.W.: I believe Nietzsche recognized that some aristocrats could be subordinate
to even
greater and nobler aristocrats?
[I was thinking of his comment that if God existed we'd have to do away with
him because we couldn't stand for him to be greater. That strikes me as the
attitude of a rebellious slave rather than an aristocrat. Also I'm not sure
where he would get the universal standards that could enable an aristocrat to
recognize a greater and nobler one.]
M.W.: I believe the current-day academy loves Nietzsche's epistemology of
"radical willfullness"...
which they interpret as total reconstruction of self and identity impeded by
NOTHING... however,
while Nietzsche says "everything is will to power" he CELEBRATES the exaltation
of the truly noble and powerful...
when the post-modernists say "everything is will to power" they view it as an
evil situation,
and hope for a society supposedly without rank-orderings and inequality -- they
want to TEAR DOWN the truly
noble and powerful... I have a feeling that the ethics of left-liberalism --
its slave-morality (i.e., the
exaltation of "designated groups") is more salient than the post-modern
epistemology... one can find
modern or Christian bases for the profession of this inverted ethos...
[But the truly noble can't possibly be the same as the will to power. That's
what's incoherent about Nietzsche's view. He thinks he's stuck with the truly
self-seeking as the only reality, because he's a modern, but he can't stand it,
so he fantasizes about a superman who would turn it into the truly noble.
It seems to me by the way that ethics and epistemology follow ontology. The way
the world is determines what our knowledge can be and how we should act. So I
wouldn't distinguish so strongly between modern ethics and the rest of the
modern point of view. The fact/value distinction seems to me in fact just a
restatement of the modern point of view, that values are arbitrarily posited
because after all there are only atoms and the void.]
--- end of quote ---
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mon Jan 15 19:44:18 2001
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Message-id: <1201848@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 15 Jan 2001 21:31:26 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: RE:Traditionalism and the American Order
To: TO
Status: O
--- You wrote:
The
Liberalism of today has nothing to do with classic Liberalism.
[It seems to me the liberal turn is to recognize no public summum bonum other
than the rational reconciliation and satisfaction of actual human desires. Once
that turn is made, and it was made in the seventeenth century, the reduction of
natural law to a technical system for equally maximizing satisfactions procedes
by stages that lead from classic to contemporary liberalism. Or that's the way
it seems to me.]
In order to achieve the goal of centralized power, religion, true
liberalism, and the family have to be marginalized.
[But centralized power is also a consequence of a certain conception of the
good, the just, and the rational. Liberalism is powerful because it's not
simply a matter of the self-interest of elites. There's a philosophical view
behind it as well. If the good is maximization of satisfactions, and the just
is equality, then goodness and justice require abolition of religion and the
family (which limit maximization of actual satisfactions) and centralization of
power (needed to define and enforce standards of equality).]
So traditionalism for its own sake is just as hollow for a so called
conservative or liberal. Behavior comes from core beliefs. If the core
belief is hedonism ( and I'll add paganism ), the society will self
destruct.
["Traditionalism" is a tricky concept since all complex human practices need
tradition to exist at all. Everything whatever can be thought of as
traditional. I think it's a useful term nonetheless because core beliefs can
become adequate to reality and to human life only with the aid of tradition, of
accumulated experience that leads to understandings that can't be fully
demonstrated or formulated. The tendency today and for hundreds of years I
think has been to overemphasize the explicit. One appeal of the liberal theory
that the good is whatever particular individuals happen to want, together with
the technically rational arrangements for bringing it about, is that it makes
morality fully explicit. Remember that Descartes, who make clarity of thoughts
the test of their truth, was also a 17th c. philosopher, one of the founders of
modern philosophy.]
--- end of quote ---
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mon Jan 15 08:44:18 2001
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Message-id: <1194515@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 15 Jan 2001 10:31:35 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: RE: The Tyranny of Liberalism
To: TO
Status: O
--- You wrote:
One of the primary tenets of my book will be that our history has been
hijacked into meaningless, relativistic, feel-good nothingness. It is
appropriate that I write this to you on Martin Luther King Day.
Locke's statement on property, taken out of the context of his time,
results in a very distorted, one-dimensional view.
--- end of quote ---
Agree with both. Glad you're working on how the history proceeded. It's worth
thinking about.
On Locke - basically I agree, probably. It's a difficult issue. Voltaire calls
him the wise Locke and part of what he meant was that he thought Locke
disguised the real tendency of his thought enough to make it palatable. My
essay Traditionalism and the American Order deals with a related issue. If your
explicit principles are liberal, but the social background is traditional and
religious, do the explicit principles that public discussion has to conform to
eventually eat up the unstated limitations?
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mon Jan 15 06:36:25 2001
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Message-id: <1193629@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 15 Jan 2001 08:23:43 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: murray
To: la
Status: O
--- You wrote:
I forget if we've the phenomenon of conservative intellectuals talking about
how wonderful everything is now.
--- end of quote ---
We haven't discussed it. I suppose the idea is that if you're mainstream
conservative then what you favor is the fundamental social reality and
distribution of power whatever it happens to be. History is a court of
judgement.
Also, history is required to deliver its decisions fast enough so you can make
a career pontificating about them, and the enduring realities upon which you
base your view of things can only be the ones your audience remembers.
Otherwise you're irrelevant, you're talking about things that aren't live
issues, and who needs that? So if things settle out and 30-40 years later the
60s are still here only more so then they must have been a good thing. After
all, 30-40 years after FDR conservatives began talking about how great *he*
was.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
Posted by Jim Kalb on January 15, 19101 at 18:51:30:
In Reply to: Re: Unity Posted by William on January 14, 19101 at 13:50:02:
"I do think we need to become more unified. A journal like Chronicles
only goes so far. I am hoping this notion of starting a new mag (or
website...?) would to some extent bring the different strands together
-- paleos, traditionalists, neo-Confederates, nationalists, agrarians,
distributists, fundamentalist Protestants, orthodox Catholics,
Orthodox, etc."
What would the statement of common position or whatever look like? I
suppose everyone could agree to denounce the NWO in favor of
decentralism but that seems a little on the abstract side. Maybe the
abstractions could be fleshed out with particular struggles that might
develop into a complex of issues and causes everyone could agree on.
That complex seems still to be developed though.
One problem I think our side has in contrast to the rational
universalists is that we don't put ourselves as much in the universal
struggle. All the people you mention have something closer to their
hearts than some preplanned universal rational order of things.
Catholic traditionalists would rather talk about Pio Nono or the BVM
than a world safe for particularism in general.
One idea for beginning the movement toward unity I suppose would be
common observances, like the editor's idea of a annual public
ceremonial burning of the EU flag. Another is my own idea of
developing a revised conception of human rights, since "human rights"
seems to be the moral element in current thought about world order and
if you don't like current thought or the direction the world order is
taking a concrete alternative would be helpful.
Any other ideas?
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Jan 16 12:31:40 2001
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Message-id: <1211017@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 16 Jan 2001 14:18:49 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Useful Essay
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
Hadn't read it, and thanks for sending it to me.
It provided an interesting sidelight on a current project, rereading and maybe
this time actually writing something about John Dewey. Dewey was of course more
concerned with the social than the personal, and he recognized modern natural
science as a limitation on the worlds we construct for ourselves, but there was
the same idea that if you get rid of all those boring misconceived frozen
oppressive objective moral realities you could get on to the serious work of
developing your own living meanings. The consequences in both cases of course
are boredom, triviality, stupid obsessions, manipulation, bullying, etc. - the
reverse of the profound living meaning that was intended.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Jan 16 12:28:18 2001
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Message-id: <1210962@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 16 Jan 2001 14:15:20 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: RE: Traditionalism and the American Order
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
Liberals, in order to achieve its goal has to mask their philosophy around
traditional family and religious values in order to get majority support.
--- end of quote ---
I think that's basically what's happened. Of course the masking is usually not
fully conscious. People try to minimize conflicts in their own minds so they
reinterpret old beliefs, which they still partly accept, so they fit in with
their current goals. They don't like it when you tell them that's what they're
doing.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Thu Jan 18 11:23:39 2001
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Message-id: <1241890@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 18 Jan 2001 13:10:35 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: your article in Modern Age
To: MW
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
Perhaps the fact that we're in a world of "valuing" or "radical willing"
is a consequence of the modern development. However, such a state of affairs
seems to be
ingrained in almost every person's understanding. Perhaps the only way out is
to say
that we WILL the traditional.
Perhaps another, somewhat different response, is that one can never truly know
the ultimate
sources of one's beliefs and ideas. Some of us are more "open to Being" than
others...
--- end of quote ---
The traditional can't be willed because the traditional is recognition that to
will significantly we must already be part of a moral world. To will the
traditional is therefore to deny it. The traditional can be accepted, which I
think is something different. So I think it's right that we can never truly
know the ultimate sources of our beliefs and ideas. And also that some are more
open to Being than others. Maybe what's needed first of all is dissolution of
illusions, the illusions for example that make radical willing seem a
possibility.
To me Pascal seems as intelligent writer as any on our situation. He says we
can be neither dogmatists nor skeptics, and that the brute fact of being alive
and having to make choices of some sort forces us into faith. The rational
thing then is to live by the faith that best makes sense of our world.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Jan 16 05:46:34 2001
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Message-id: <1205272@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 16 Jan 2001 07:33:46 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: anti-feminism?!?
To: pa
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
A lot of the words you write seem to have sprung from fear: fear of loosing
your control over women, your traditional role of the man in power in society.
But remember, if you feel attacked by feminism, it's probably a counter-attack.
Women want what has been historically stolen from them, and some comply while
other robbers still desperately cling to their stolen goods.
[This looks like a rote response you learned someplace else. What can you point
to in what I wrote to support it?]
You say that, in all cultures, women have had submissive roles traditionally
and thus biology dictates that Women must be the domestic and powerless members
of society.
[Where do I say this? It's important to look at what someone actually says when
you're commenting on it.]
There are some very fundamental flaws in your argument. First of all, there
have been numerous cultures in which women were respected much more highly than
men, including native american cultures and other tribal cultures isolated from
western influence. Of course, not many are taught about these peoples, since
non-western cultures are unduly seen as primitive.
[This is fantasy. Not your private fantasy I'm sure, something you've read or
been told. You should look at the links to Steve Goldberg's work on Sheaffer's
patriarchy page which is one of the resources I list. (Try not to get
distracted by Sheaffer's manner and language. I wouldn't suggest you accept
anything on his personal authority.)]
Another flaw to this argument is the fact that slavery was inplemented by
almost all cultures. The minority group has historically been enslaved by those
in power. Does this mean that Blacks, which were historically enslaved in the
western world (including Europe), are biologically inferior to Whites? I'm sure
even a conservative like you is PC enough to say that racism is wrong, and that
the civil rights movement has brought an improvement upon our c!
ountry.
Feminism is an extention of the civil rights movement, striving to bring
social and legal equality to a large group that has only very recently begun to
have a say in society.
[Borrowing justifications from someone else isn't persuasive. And you should
read old novels, plays etc. if you think that in the past women didn't have a
say in things or their position was anything like slavery. In fact - since
you're a student I'll say this - you should read them anyway. It's very
broadening.]
There is nothing wrong with women living a domestic life, if they so choose.
But the feminist movement is what makes this choice possible. As a 19 year old
college student, I can't imagine life without an education, without the
possibility of having a carreer. I do not want to get married or have children.
I should not be made to feel guilty because of this.
[The feminist movement has mostly changed what women are trained for and
expected to do. A woman can choose a domestic life today in the same sense she
could have chosen a career 100 years ago.
The basic issue is what kind of social setup you think makes people best off.
The the social expectations etc that lead to that kind of world are what you'll
favor. If you think that a world in which everyone, men and women alike, fill
the same social slot, the cog in the vast machine of production and
consumption, and you think the only authoritative social institutions should be
bureaucracies and markets, then no doubt you'll approve of feminism. Because
that's what feminism means concretely.]
And, by the way, I love men.
-Pam
[And I love women.]
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sat Jan 20 16:25:21 2001
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Date: 20 Jan 2001 18:11:59 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: W's inauguration
To: la
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
It was all equality, compassion, feeling bad that so many are left behind, blah
blah, it was dreary and depressing.
--- end of quote ---
I wonder what decisively different vision of our national life might be made
plausible? How would it be articulated? What should Bush have said? Maybe some
rightwing periodical should put on a competition for the best
should-have-been-given speech. Things have fallen into an unbelievable hole.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jan 19 14:14:38 2001
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Message-id: <1261068@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 19 Jan 2001 15:41:44 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: [Upstream] Sex differences and tests (forwarded from James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org (James B. Kalb 69))
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- LRAnd@groupz.net wrote:
"While the country might
be more peacable, more sensitive to the needs of its citizens, and more
efficient in applying itself to the detail of good management, we might
ask if it will still be as inventive and creative? Will it still produce
penicillin and hovercraft? Or will it just produce civil servants?"
--- end of quote ---
This suggests what seems to me one of the basic tendencies behind feminism, an
ideal of universal rational control that makes these and other feminine
characteristics like responsiveness to social cues and making nice whatever
situation authority sets up what's looked for in "citizens."
What kind of society is it after all in which "resistance to change" (not doing
what you're told and liking it) is unselfconsciously treated as a psychological
defect?
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
_______________________________________________
Upstream-List mailing list
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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sun Jan 21 06:35:31 2001
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Message-id: <1272462@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 21 Jan 2001 08:09:37 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: W's inauguration
To: la
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
JK:
>I wonder what decisively different vision of our national life might be made
>plausible? How would it be articulated? What should Bush have said? Maybe some
>rightwing periodical should put on a competition for the best
>should-have-been-given speech. Things have fallen into an unbelievable hole.
LA:
Clinton in '92 gave a kind of triumphalist speech that our time has come and
that we can force the spring etc etc. It was leftist, but not down and guilty
and filled with how terrible it is that we're all not yet equal. Bush in '88
celebrated America's freedom like a "kite flying higher and higher." Silly,
but not guilt-ridden. There are all kinds of themes possible. I don't know
why you assume that the only available theme is breastbeating about all the
dispossessed and poor.
[JK - I don't think I "assume[d] that the only available theme is breastbeating
about all the dispossessed and poor." I wondered what the best theme would have
been, which is different. I do think public discussion has fallen into a hole,
of which one sign is Bush's speech and another is the current state of
conservatism. That means that starting things off in a different direction
calls for some judgement.
Clinton's speech didn't present a vision of our national life decisively
different from that W presented, the style was just more upbeat. On that vision
the things to which he is primarily connected come out looking good while the
things to which W is primarily connected look bad. A problem for our side is
that the vision is the one to which all authoritative institutions, moral
leaders etc. seem to be committed. GHWB's speech as you say was silly. What was
the content and purpose of his freedom to be?
It seems to me any vision worth presenting should somehow involve family, faith
and people, rejection of imperialism, including the ideological imperialism of
the bureaucratic state here at home, recognition that it is not government that
makes and remakes us, that what we are is the heritage and work of a free
people, that society is neither a contract nor a machine but involves a common
understanding of what's good and bad, that inclusiveness is fine but there has
to be something worth having to be included in, etc. A problem with presenting
that vision is that there's a lot of background work that hasn't been done.
Those aren't the themes W ran on. They aren't themes anyone much has been
articulating. They're themes that are at odds with very powerful and vocal
interests. Still something could have been done. I just asked how, since it's a
delicate matter.]
You could imagine, among many possibilities, a speech in which he does
approximately what Lincoln did in his inaugural: Lincoln was also facing
divisions and attacks on his legitimacy, but instead of acting as though those
divisions were his fault, he powerfully and clearly refuted the false beliefs
of his enemies. He showed that he had no power or intention of interfering
with the South's domestic institutions; that no one's constitutional rights had
been invaded, and he urged his attackers (not himself and his friends) to
hearken to the better angels of our nature and come back to the fold. So W.
could have shown the falsity of the charges that "the voting was stopped," that
there "were uncounted votes." He could have directly faced the left and said,
"This rhetoric is wrong, it is creating horrible resentment over imagined
grievances. My leftist and black fellow Americans, I plead with you to listen
to the better angels our nature and stop this war of hatred and character
assassination that is so dividing our nation."
[JK - Unless W represented a serious movement and had a serious purpose in
governing that would amount to saying "I won, get over it." It would also raise
the whole issue of the nature of Clintonism which he's avoided so there's the
problem again that he hasn't laid the background.]
--- end of quote ---
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jan 26 13:12:04 2001
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Message-id: <1352858@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 26 Jan 2001 14:58:00 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: your column Race in America (forwarded from James B. Kalb 69)
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
"It's the manipulation that I object to, not the content of the manipulation. I
have nothing against homosexuals, don't know what the proper roles in society
of the sexes might be, haven't decided what to do about racial relations. But I
don't want to be told by Electro-Mommy."
--- end of quote ---
Another way to put a response is that if the content is right then so is the
manipulation. Ethnic and cultural ties, a feeling that the sexes are different
and should be treated differently, the feeling that there is something about
homosexuality that fundamentally at odds with how things should be - these
attitudes are very deeply rooted, and if the Left is right that they are crimes
against humanity then it's hard to object to whatever controls are necessary to
protect people from them.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jan 26 13:09:59 2001
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Message-id: <1352813@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 26 Jan 2001 14:55:59 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: WHITE HOUSE TRASHING: BUSH ORDERS 'NO PROSECUTIONS'; DAMAGE ESTIMATES TOP $200,000 (forwarded from James B. Kalb 69)
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
How long can this turn-the-other-cheek business go on? He determination to
"change the tone in Washington" gives the Democrats license to do whatever they
will, since they know they will pay no price for it.
--- end of quote ---
I'm not sure what could be done about this one. It's not what Bush should be
putting front and center when he's just entering office. It's hard actively to
make a political issue of it since it has nothing to do with policy but instead
with the personal qualities of some of the people - not even top officials - in
a former administration. The best I think is to let it leak out and let
commentators who want to comment do so.
As a matter of justice there should be prosecutions but that brings in the
issue of how many prosecutions there should be of members of the Clinton
administration. Should Bush try to put them all in jail? No doubt that's one of
the things he should do as part of the execution of the laws but if he can't do
everything he should do what should he concentrate on?
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jan 26 13:09:20 2001
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Message-id: <1352801@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 26 Jan 2001 14:55:14 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: WHITE HOUSE TRASHING: BUSH ORDERS 'NO PROSECUTIONS'; DAMAGE ESTIMATES TOP $200,000 (forwarded from James B. Kalb 69)
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
Ok, I'm outvoted.
--- end of quote ---
Now you're making me feel bad! My basic point was that it's necessary to
concentrate on basics, to have principles and an overall strategy. Not making a
high-level issue of personal misdeeds of the Clinton people especially now that
they're no longer in office is in fact a strategy that makes some sense since
complaints about the misdeeds got nowhere much even when they were in office.
So that shouldn't be changed for something like this. As to overall strategy I
think it's important to work toward something more comprehensive and thought
through and respond to particular things the left does based on that. Reacting
to misconduct by the other side is fine but it's subordinate to knowing what
you want to do generally. It's important to take the initiative. For example
saying "X is not a racist" should be subordinate to knowing what you think
about racial issues and pursuing what you think makes sense.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jan 26 13:08:17 2001
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Message-id: <1352786@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 26 Jan 2001 14:54:20 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Colin Powell on the American mission (forwarded from James B. Kalb 69)
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
But it would have been completely diffferent if CP had talked about the belief
that every person has a place. That would have been inconceivable. It would
have made him an utter reactionary.
The problem with "destiny" is that it's something Napoleon had. Or for that
matter SciFi characters - my destiny the stars or whatever. People who make
romantic love absolute call it destiny. What's bad is that destiny overrides
normal moral considerations. It's something I pursue that no one else can
define for me and that's worth all sacrifices, including the sacrifice of other
people. So in context it seems to put a content-free idealistic spin on the
principle that individual purpose trumps all else.
--- "La" wrote:
That's good. Destiny implies something higher, a true nature. One's true
nature is one's true destiny, which is not necessarily the same as one's
desires.
-----Original Message-----
>Well, destiny implies something that comes before the individual in a way,
>and may be above him, you know, another more pagan way of saying providence,
>or God's plan. Something that would be the working out of the individuals's
>TRUE nature. Not bad, I must say, much less offensive. I agree with you on
>that.
>
>I just heard Colin Powell give his "hello" speech to the staff of State
>Department, and in the course of his remarks, he defined the creed that
>America stands for in the world. It is the belief "that every person has a
>destiny that he ought to be allowed to pursue." This is finely put--much
>better expressed than usual.
>
>What's right with it? What's wrong with it? It's less aggressively
>individualistic than other similar pronouncements, but at bottom, does it
>not imply that no collective or higher values can stand in the way of
>individual desire?
--- end of quote ---
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jan 26 13:07:44 2001
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Message-id: <1352775@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 26 Jan 2001 14:53:43 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: WHITE HOUSE TRASHING: BUSH ORDERS 'NO PROSECUTIONS'; DAMAGE ESTIMATES TOP $200,000 (forwarded from James B. Kalb 69)
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
I was thinking of, most notably, the charge that W. "stopped" the election by
"not counting votes."
--- end of quote ---
I agree that charge deserved a forceful and principled response. One problem I
suppose is that a substantive issue lurked behind it - whether it's popular
will or law that is the ultimate principle of legitimacy. Also affirmative
action type issues were lurking in the background. Were they willing to reject
the principle that standards should be changed if lots of the botched ballots
were from blacks? Still I agree you have to start somewhere.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jan 26 10:54:38 2001
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Message-id: <1350480@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 26 Jan 2001 12:40:28 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: WHITE HOUSE TRASHING: BUSH ORDERS 'NO PROSECUTIONS'; DAMAGE ESTIMATES TOP $200,000
To: la
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
Conservatives do not have any conservative position worked out that stands
apart from the reigning liberal position. That haven't, in your words, taken
the initiative in defining their own principles, so they're left always
reacting to the left and speaking in leftist terms. But still, without the
sort of standing up against leftist lies that I'm proposing, the right will
never be able to emerge from the left's shadow.
--- end of quote ---
The problem as I see it is that the lies of the Left generally dramatize some
actual issue, for example the *necessary* rejection by anyone who can
reasonably be called a conservative of the implications of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, the deification of MLK, Jr., etc. In order to respond to the lie
merely as a lie, and make the response rhetorically effective, it is necessary
to (1) emphasize how defamatory it is, which means agreeing with the assumption
that of course all decent persons embrace from the bottom of their souls all
the implications of the '64 CRA etc., and (2) assert that not only is the
assertion false but it's misleading - it couldn't possibly be true because I've
always profoundly and resolutely honored the legacy of MLK or whatever. The
rhetoric is never particularly convincing, which is why the Left lies as it
does.
I suppose you have to start somewhere, and it's better to light one candle than
curse the darkness, and being supine is worse than anything, but it does seem
to me that responding to particular actions of the Left will get us nowhere.
Once you have a position you're willing to defend and even assert it becomes
easy among other things to stand up to lies.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Feb 5 08:36:32 2001
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Message-ID: <008e01c08f88$bb74eba0$f8c2ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "La
References: <001701c08f7b$ba2f8640$6f56580c@h6l3p>
Subject: Re: Ashcroft: Who Cares? He's Useless on Immigration.
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 10:31:13 -0500
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Status: O
"Having admitted that you don't even minimally follow political issues of
the day, you then say that, for example, the women's income issue rests on
unchallengeable assumptions"
You don't need to follow day-to-day news stories regularly to be aware of
the position feminism holds in the world today. The 59 cent statistic is
not the women's income issue. As I see it the women's income issue is
whether it's OK if women tend to be financially dependent on men. Protesting
a particular way of dramatizing the general issue doesn't get you far if the
larger issue isn't understood and engaged. I don't think I've said that kind
of protest is a bad thing though.
"you instead jump to the metaphysical notion that, since it's impossible to
challenge liberalism, it's therefore impossible even to refute an obvious
misstatement of fact!"
I don't know where I suggest that.
"And further you misstate my position when you suggest that I want major
politicians to just come out of the batter's box making statements about
racial differences. I was speaking of the need for politicians to respond
to charges of racism and other lies, not of making Jared Taylor-like
pronouncements on racial differences."
This is what I was responding to:
"Take the charge of discrimination: what if, instead of accepting the
premise of discrimination and then just denying that they've discriminated
in this particlar case, Republicans challenged its factual assumptions,
showing the facts of black crime or intellectual ability and so on."
What are you looking for in this discussion? We get into these exchanges
that seem to be arguments except I'm never really sure what's at stake.
I'm not one of Bush's advisors and I don't comment on day-to-day politics
except by using particular events as examples. I haven't suggested that
nothing can or should be done, only that under present conditions popular
political leaders can't be expected to do much. I haven't asserted they
can't or should not do anything at all. I just say they aren't simply being
stupid as Francis claims but rather on the whole acting as popular political
figures are going to act in the present moral, spiritual, and intellectual
situation. That is not to say they shouldn't do better, everyone should do
better, but they're not likely to do better than their own understanding of
things would prompt. I also say that if it's the general public
understanding of things that makes progress impossible then the most
public-spirited thing people who believe there is something radically wrong
can do is to make clear to themselves and their fellow citizens, if they are
capable of doing so, just what is wrong. If people can't even articulate an
alternative progress achieving one will be very limited.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Feb 5 05:40:43 2001
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Message-ID: <004b01c08f70$26fd0880$f8c2ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "La
References: <001b01c08f2a$68fa33c0$e757580c@h6l3p>
Subject: Re: Ashcroft: Who Cares? He's Useless on Immigration.
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 07:34:42 -0500
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I'm not endorsing *anything* for major politicians, I hardly ever even read
the New York Times. I'm only saying the obvious, that a major party leader
in a two party system today is not - as you suggest - going to start talking
about black criminality, intellectual ability and so on as the explanation
for black failure. That's a view that can't even get a hearing in
theoretical academic circles. All moral leaders will tell you it's evil, in
fact just about the most evil thing possible. All experts who make public
pronouncements will tell you it's wrong. Everyone in America except maybe a
few old geezers has been trained all his life to agree. Do you really expect
any politician who hopes to govern to raise it?
The view that there aren't any real racial differences that ought to be
taken account of, that there's something wrong that ought to be fixed about
different average incomes for men and women and all the rest of it are not
anomalies that arose for some bizarre reason and could just as well be the
opposite views. They rest on a whole network of assumptions, practices,
beliefs, institutions, tendencies etc. that really do go back a long time. A
politician has to base what he does on just that kind of network. He can
influence it, occasionally bring out hidden possibilities etc. but you can't
rely on him to make one network disappear and create another.
The basic point is that if you think there's something *radically* wrong
with the current setup democratic leaders are not going to be the leading
part of the solution. If there are principles that everyone in public life
treats as absolutely fundamental and supremely important from every possible
viewpoint they aren't going to take a stand against them. You and Francis
are speaking as if these were normal polical issues that normally
intelligent leaders ought to be able to deal with properly in the normal
course of political life. They aren't.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Feb 5 05:02:49 2001
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Message-ID: <003801c08f6a$d9028420$f8c2ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: SL
References:
Subject: Re: Huh?
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 06:56:51 -0500
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"People do what they do anyway so deal with it" seems an odd approach to
social life. The view that young people simply don't respond to what's
expected of them is especially odd. It looks like a view people would favor
because it's an efficient way of getting rid of a lot of issues and saying
they're not problems.
For an article discussing the "get real" theory of sex and young people you
might look at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/family/failure.htm
I don't understand your point about statistics and knife fights. Sexual
jealosy is a common motive for brawling. In some communities people use
knives when they brawl. The point is that sex is not simply a private matter
so I gave a list of dramatic consequences of things sexual.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From jim.kalb@alum.dartmouth.org Sun Feb 4 12:52:18 2001
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Message-ID: <003901c08ee3$4dfb2940$f8c2ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "La
References: <001001c08edf$4e319f60$cd5a580c@h6l3p>
Subject: Re: Ashcroft: Who Cares? He's Useless on Immigration.
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 14:47:16 -0500
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I'm not saying nothing can be done, only that a major party in a two-party
system is not in a position radically to transform public discussion in a
direction at odds with the tendency of political thought for hundreds of
years until thinkers, writers, minor-party activists etc. etc. etc. do far
more than has yet been done to lay the groundwork. At this point it strikes
me as far more your job and mine than the republicans to change things.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From jim.kalb@alum.dartmouth.org Sun Feb 4 12:41:55 2001
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Message-ID: <002f01c08ee1$db408b80$f8c2ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: NO
References:
Subject: Re: No Subject
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 14:36:59 -0500
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Status: O
Thanks for your very civil note.
First, I should mention that the Yale and Dartmouth accounts are alumni
accounts. I don't hold an academic appointment. If it matters I have a short
c.v. at http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat/resume.php.
I don't question that black people have disadvantages that come from living
in a society in which they are greatly in a minority and in which people
expect less of them than of others. Finding that you're not much taken
account of by people you associate with happens to most of us from time to
time and is painful. I would think that such experiences are far more common
and pervasive for black people in white society than for others. The problem
as I see it is that inclusiveness programs and ideology put minorities in
even more of a minority in their day-to-day world and also institutionalize
lesser expectations for them while insisting that everyone pretend that's
not what's happening. So however bad the problems are I don't think
inclusiveness makes them better.
I think "inclusiveness" has other bad effects as well. Basically it seems to
me that it involves the abolition of the public authority of all particular
cultural standards, since no culture is universal and all such standards
therefore exclude some people. The result is that public life becomes
altogether uncultured - crude, brutal, without honor or public spirit,
dominated by money, aggression, manipulation etc. Since inclusiveness
applies to all significant public institutions the same goes for pretty much
the whole of our economic and cultural life. If you think it worthwhile to
see how that line of thought can be developed you can look at the
publications referenced in my c.v.
You naturally have a strong personal interest in these issues and you have
devoted your efforts to a view opposed to mine, so I don't expect you to
agree with me. Sometimes opposing views can help one grasp a situation
though so I offer my comments for whatever use you can make of them.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From jim.kalb@alum.dartmouth.org Sun Feb 4 06:19:42 2001
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Message-ID: <005601c08eac$8024fa40$f8c2ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "La
References: <000101c08e73$e56d4260$5679580c@h6l3p>
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_Ashcroft:_Who_Cares=3F_He's_Useless_on_Immigration.?=
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 08:15:07 -0500
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Status: O
"The obvious lesson to learn is that, because pandering doesn't help,
doesn't gain you a reputation for tolerance or sensitivity or whatever it is
the pander party wants to gain, and certainly doesn't gain you either black
or Hispanic votes or the political endorsement of their lobbying leviathans
like MALDEF and the NAACP, then maybe you should give up pandering for
good."
The difficulty is that what Francis calls pandering seems to be the minimum
required for legitimacy. It's not as if it's an optional political move. I
don't see how it's possible for a political party that is fundamentally a
coalition, that is to say one of the major parties in a two-party system, to
do something radically at odds with what authoritative institutions
generally are doing.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From jim.kalb@alum.dartmouth.org Sat Feb 3 10:43:54 2001
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Message-ID: <027a01c08e08$31bfa660$f4c1ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: tk
References: <3A774D09.C6DE319A@prodigy.net> <016d01c08d65$aca3c080$f4c1ca97@tower> <3A7B6103.4AF15FEB@prodigy.net> <024001c08de9$d43df320$f4c1ca97@tower> <3A7C2452.8B1A41FA@prodigy.net>
Subject: Re: Hello
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 12:37:59 -0500
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Status: O
Just looked at a review of the Storck book by Peter A. Kwasniewski in the
May/June 1999 Catholic Faith. From the description the book doesn't really
raise the issues I mentioned in my comments on Jeff's piece, which I think
relate to integralism in a very strong sense - one in which a completed
political science is available to us through which a Catholic social order
could be enacted and preserved through the political supremacy of the Pope.
Storck's idea of how a Catholic social order could be re-established and
preserved is not political science and the Pope but "we must renew serious
Catholic intellectual formation and cultivate a strong interior life of
faith, hope, and charity."
I'm not saying Jeff really asserts such a view but if you seem to start with
something like the Republic and layer on papal authority it raises the issue
at least in my mind. There could be very good reasons for such a
presentation of course - when you're presenting something to an audience
that's used to something completely different you can't stick in every
conceivable but and however.
Anyway, it does look like a book well worth reading and it's now on my list.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From jim.kalb@alum.dartmouth.org Sat Feb 3 07:06:18 2001
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Message-ID: <024001c08de9$d43df320$f4c1ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: tk
References: <3A774D09.C6DE319A@prodigy.net> <016d01c08d65$aca3c080$f4c1ca97@tower> <3A7B6103.4AF15FEB@prodigy.net>
Subject: Re: Hello
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 09:01:38 -0500
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Status: O
It seems so odd that people in the Catholic Church adopted the view that
Anglo-American liberalism was good just as the latter was transforming
itself into (or decisively revealing itself as) something ideological and
antihuman. People aren't rational, that's for sure.
As to religion, I attend an Episcopal church. There's no particular theory
involved. The Episcopalian Church of course is a mess, most of it is hard to
interpret as a church at all, but my parish has its points, I have personal
and family ties there, and I don't feel called to go elsewhere now.
I have heard from Jeff Bond and I commented on his politics essay. Since
you're interested I'll pass on my comments to you at the end.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
[Comments to JB:]
I looked at your lecture. It obviously has a great deal of good material
in it clearly presented. I suppose the most important issue is whether
it's effective in provoking listeners to entertain Greek, classical and
medieval thought on politics etc. as a real possibility. Here though are
some comments and questions from my own standpoint:
1. Conceivably some discussion would be helpful on the extent to which
the art of politics exists as an actual human possession. It seems to me
that in addition to fully rational art and a merely empirical knack
there would be something - a tradition maybe? - that aims at the good
but cannot give an adequate account of it and so consists of a mixture
of partial accounts and practices etc. that have proved their worth in
experience or that those who have best represented the tradition have
accepted and recommended. It seems to me politics is that sort of thing.
2. Is politics really the art that aims at the comprehensive good for
man? It seems to me it must recognize that good to the extent it can,
and try to avoid interfering with it, but it seems to me it does not for
example *include* religion since the latter goes beyond politics and in
fact goes beyond any knowledge we can have here and now. Man is social
but some aspects of his nature go beyond his membership in earthly
society. You recognize that where you speak of a higher end that goes
beyond the political per se. You solve the problem apparently by giving
the Pope supreme political juridiction. Rule by priests seems a mistake
though. I may misinterpret - you say there's a distinction between
priestly and secular authority, without really explaining how the
distinction works. You also seem to make the latter strictly subordinate
to the former.
3. I suppose the issue I'm raising is whether for us today in this
divided world there really can exist a single master art except in
concept. If such an art could exist in fact, why the distinction between
the things of Caesar and the things of God? Man is an in-between
creature. Both Greeks and moderns sometimes talk as if he could attain
perfection in this world, although they define perfection very
differently. If he can't then the actual political art he possesses must
be understood in a way different from the way either Plato or John Locke
understood it and it must be essentially imperfect.
From jim.kalb@alum.dartmouth.org Fri Feb 2 15:20:29 2001
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Message-ID: <016d01c08d65$aca3c080$f4c1ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: tk
References: <3A774D09.C6DE319A@prodigy.net>
Subject: Re: Hello
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 17:15:37 -0500
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Status: O
Looked at your paper, and thought it made very nicely a point I also make in
my essay, that the society that makes freedom and equality ultimate will
turn out formally identical to the society that makes transcendent good
ultimate but with a stupider substantive goal. The society's
self-presentation as free and equal will accordingly be an illusion. Good to
see Plato agrees with me!
How's the philosophy dept at Catholic U, by the way? I really know very
little about it.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From jim.kalb@alum.dartmouth.org Fri Feb 2 14:45:30 2001
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From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: The Tyranny of Liberalism
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 16:40:45 -0500
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> Hello!
>
> I looked at your lecture. It obviously has a great deal of good material
> in it clearly presented. I suppose the most important issue is whether
> it's effective in provoking listeners to entertain Greek, classical and
> medieval thought on politics etc. as a real possibility. Here though are
> some comments and questions from my own standpoint:
>
> 1. Conceivably some discussion would be helpful on the extent to which
> the art of politics exists as an actual human possession. It seems to me
> that in addition to fully rational art and a merely empirical knack
> there would be something - a tradition maybe? - that aims at the good
> but cannot give an adequate account of it and so consists of a mixture
> of partial accounts and practices etc. that have proved their worth in
> experience or that those who have best represented the tradition have
> accepted and recommended. It seems to me politics is that sort of thing.
>
> 2. Is politics really the art that aims at the comprehensive good for
> man? It seems to me it must recognize that good to the extent it can,
> and try to avoid interfering with it, but it seems to me it does not for
> example *include* religion since the latter goes beyond politics and in
> fact goes beyond any knowledge we can have here and now. Man is social
> but some aspects of his nature go beyond his membership in earthly
> society. You recognize that where you speak of a higher end that goes
> beyond the political per se. You solve the problem apparently by giving
> the Pope supreme political juridiction. Rule by priests seems a mistake
> though. I may misinterpret - you say there's a distinction between
> priestly and secular authority, without really explaining how the
> distinction works. You also seem to make the latter strictly subordinate
> to the former.
>
> 3. I suppose the issue I'm raising is whether for us today in this
> divided world there really can exist a single master art except in
> concept. If such an art could exist in fact, why the distinction between
> the things of Caesar and the things of God? Man is an in-between
> creature. Both Greeks and moderns sometimes talk as if he could attain
> perfection in this world, although they define perfection very
> differently. If he can't then the actual political art he possesses must
> be understood in a way different from the way either Plato or John Locke
> understood it and it must be essentially imperfect and unable to
> eliminate all conflicts.
>
>
> Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
> http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
>
>
>
From jim.kalb@alum.dartmouth.org Wed Jan 31 06:36:18 2001
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Message-ID: <003701c08b8a$1f647980$cb91ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Je
References:
Subject: Re: The Tyranny of Liberalism
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:31:29 -0500
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Hello!
Thanks for the note and essay, which I've paged through very quickly (if
that's the right expression when it's a computer screen) and will read.
You ask where I stand to make my critique. My general approach is to try to
understand things from the inside out.
My inclination is therefore to approach political matters conservatively and
politically, to view political institutions as things that arise over time
and reflect the truth of things in the way language and common sense do,
more implicitly than explicitly and more as an outcome of experience than a
result of unified theoretical understandings.
It seems clear to me in our own society the political tendencies that have
arisen and grown up over time are ending catastrophically even by their own
standards. Freedom and equality have turned out to be tyrannical. That in
fact is the topic of my essay.
So then you ask what next. A good question but not one that I have an answer
to right now worth bothering people with. One part of the church/state issue
is obviously the degree to which in addition to the process in which the
political good emerges over time there has to be some institution outside
the process that is recognized as authoritative on fundamental issues
relating to the purpose of social life, etc. That does make sense - what
experience tells you depends on what you're fundamentally trying to do, so
experience can't be the *whole* story about how the good becomes actual in
human life, and whatever the additional component is would probably need
institutional embodiment to be socially effective.
Still, my thoughts aren't settled on the topic and if you want to do
something that's going to be useful it's a mistake to get ahead of yourself.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From jim.kalb@alum.dartmouth.org Wed Jan 31 05:42:07 2001
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Message-ID: <003201c08b82$8e502400$cb91ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: tk
References: <3A774D09.C6DE319A@prodigy.net>
Subject: Re: Hello
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 07:37:11 -0500
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Thanks for your note! I'll take a look at your paper - I'm a great admirer
of Republic viii-ix.
I can imagine a variety of relations between church and state depending on
all sorts of conditions and practicalities. It seems to me important for
there to be a distinction between the two and a considerable degree of
mutual independence. What God wants and what the government does should have
something to do with each other, that should be the goal anyway, but it's a
mistake to set things up in a way that seems to pretend the two are ever
going to be identical. The notion though that the state is disabled from
taking a position on religious truth really does make no sense. It obviously
means something other than what it literally says. Which I suppose was the
subject of my essay.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
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Message-ID: <00cd01c0910d$d98be400$c291ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Je
Subject: Re: The Tyranny of Liberalism
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 08:57:01 -0500
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Status: O
So far as I can tell any differences between us are matters of phrasing and
emphasis:
""I suppose the most important issue is whether
it's effective in provoking listeners to entertain Greek, classical and
medieval thought on politics etc. as a real possibility."
It seems to me that its "effectiveness" would depend upon whether it were
true."
Given that, it seemed to me the primary purpose of a lecture would be to
lead your audience to see there were serious issues here that they should
consider. It is very rare for a lecture to convert anyone who hasn't even
considered the issues before. The "most important" related to that primary
purpose.
"Thus, it
really isn't a question of whether it is Greek, classical, medieval, or
modern, but rather whether politics is the art whose business is the care of
souls."
Sure. It's characteristic of modern thought to reject that view, which
leaves premodern thought as the thought that characteristically accepts it.
That's all I meant by the reference.
"I think it is important to stress, however, that such a tradition
must emerge from an original founder or founders who discerned, in large
measure, the truth about man and the divine. After all, art does not emerge
spontaneously, but rather from careful reflection upon experience. We see
that kind of careful, scientific reflection in the political philosophy of
Plato and Aristotle, later perfected by Augustine and St. Thomas."
It's an interesting question how self-conscious a tradition has to be.
Linguistic tradition not to mention folk tales and so on seem able to
embody, refine and carry wisdom forward almost wholly implicitly. I agree
though that political philosophy is much more articulate and that it's very
important to study the men you mention. I probably emphasize the necessary
implicit background to thought more than you do (and more than the classics
seem to). The reason is that moderns I think grossly overemphasize that
which is explicit and therefore can be fully possessed and controlled by us
here and now. We are subject to the illegitimate rule of experts. It
therefore seems important to emphasize the limitations of expertise.
"Nonetheless,
insofar as Christ is King, the political order - in the highest and most
universal sense - does include religion, which is subordinate to Christ's
eternal reign."
In speaking of the political art we seem to be referring to something we
have or could have here and now. If that's right then the political art and
in fact all arts we have are dependent on something else, as man is
dependent on God.
"In this sense, priests must reign
supreme over kings (or the senate, or popular assemblies). This is because
man's natural good does require submission to the natural law (which is
nothing other than a rational creature's participation in the divine law)."
The issue I'm concerned with is direct political power, the power to throw
people in jail or whatever if they don't do what you say. The analogy that
comes to mind is that government officials should listen to physicists when
it's relevant because there's going to be trouble if the government tries to
do things that don't obey the laws of physics. On the other hand it seems a
mistake to give physicists as such enforceable legal authority. If those
whose sole concern should be truth are given power who will speak truth to
power? What practical institutional standard outside itself will government
have?
I agree that theocracy does not seem an immediate issue in America in 2001.
Still, it seems to me the religion of man is our established religion with
experts, supreme court justices etc. the appointed custodians of both truth
and political power. Formally at least we have the same problems as a
theocracy so it seems to me important to be clear what those problems are.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Feb 7 03:20:21 2001
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Message-ID: <006b01c090ee$e66d1aa0$c291ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: NO
References: <7f.fd233c1.27b1997c@aol.com>
Subject: Re: No Subject
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 05:15:29 -0500
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"Spiritually, I know that all
people are equal. They have different experiences through race, culture,
values, beliefs, etc. but no one is better than another. If people choose
to think that for elitist (superiority) purposes or whatever, so be it. We
have all entered this plane to work on issues by choosing our parents,
friends, lifestyles, etc. To me, life is very simple: we all experience
consequences based upon our thoughts and actions--pleasant or unpleasant."
I think life is more complicated, because we are social. It's not a question
of equality in the sense of absolute value but of non-interchangeability.
What we experience and what our life in society is like depends on our
setting, background, associations, habits, preconceptions, etc. Those
differ, and not only individually, because the human race is not simply an
aggregate like a pile of gravel.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun Feb 11 16:01:47 2001
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Message-ID: <000d01c0947d$f2cfc760$aec2ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: Fw: [Paleo] Methodists et al
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 17:57:01 -0500
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"Neocons are run-of-the-mill social democrats or ADAers of the early
fifties
who because of various political and ideological changes got to take over
the American Right."
>
Sounds right. The change that strikes me as important was the continued
development of liberalism and its increasing dominance in its radical
form.
The neocons decided that things were being eliminated that were needed for
social stability, common decency, etc. so they wanted to freeze the
process
somehow while retaining a this-worldly utilitarian egalitarian outlook.
That's what I had in mind by saying they were godless conservatives.
>
"It is not clear to me that they are more or less secular
than interwar American conservatives who opposed the New Deal. Nor is it
accurate to judge generic American conservatism of the early twentieth
century by the arguments of some neomedieval contributors to I'll Take My
Stand."
>
I'm sure that's right historically. The question that concerns me is
what's
available now. If the American public order decisively rejects
transcendent
religion, which seems to have happened, then the situation as to
conservatism changes and the issue of religion becomes much more important
and explicit. When the Supreme Court was still saying that our
institutions
presupposed a supreme being etc. you could be a conservative and not deal
with it. It seems to me that today you can try to stabilize how things
are,
to find some popularizable basis for piety and restraint in a world that
is
in the end godless, which is what seems to be involved in neoconservatism
and also seems to be what Scruton favors. Or you can say that something
essential to a fully human life has been given up and become
counterrevolutionary.
>
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
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Message-ID: <005001c09431$2b6ac5e0$aec2ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: Fw: [Paleo] Methodists et al
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 08:47:26 -0500
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"Isn't it now time to starting taking Roger Scruton's arguments for a
secular conservatism seriously. "
>
It always seemed to me that's what neoconservatism is. You accept the
modern
view of the basic nature of the world, the good etc. but try to retain
some
disciplines to keep things from going to pieces. You're friendly to
popular
superstitions or whatnot so long as they're under control but naturally
that
won't do for *us*.
>
I think Scruton uses stoicism as an example. He might have used
confucianism
as well. Both I think are views suitable for a ruling class in an imperial
despotism. If you don't have God then the emperor becomes the fundamental
principle of universal order. Maybe that's another link to what
neoconservatism intends.
>
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
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From: "James Kalb"
To: NO
References: <3c.72f8a32.27b42623@aol.com>
Subject: Re: No Subject
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 18:25:48 -0500
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"Everyone is different but that doesn't give any one group the "earthly
power" to decide who gets what. ... Each of us just need to take care of
ourselves and try to be the best that we can be."
Sure, but I don't see the connection to inclusiveness. Inclusiveness demands
that a group - social engineers, basically - decide who gets what.
Otherwise, if you let people go their own way, take care of themselves and
try to be the best that they can be, they're likely to associate more with
people of similar backgrounds, expectations, habits, etc., because that
makes it easier to establish productive cooperation, and that won't be
inclusive.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
Re: Nationalism: friend or foe?
Sunday, 11-Feb-01 18:02:59
151.202.194.174 writes:
The question that comes to my mind is "nationalism as opposed to what?"
I agree that a full-fledged nationalist ideology is anti-conservative.
On the other hand the meaning can be more limited. Nationalism can
mean either resistance to universalism or eradication of localism. It
seems to me that just now the former meaning is more important, so
that at least in the West national feeling is now a conservative
force.
Jim Kalb
Re: Traditional Neocons
Sunday, 11-Feb-01 08:02:32
151.202.194.174 writes:
I was struck by Hilton Kramer's intro in the Feb issue as well. The
New Criterion is one of my favorite magazines.
I don't think the paleos have ever said anything unpleasant about him
and the rest of the New Crit gang. One important point is that Kramer
and the others actually do love something other than their own
careers. That makes all the difference in the world.
As to First Things, I think there's some bad history - some years ago
Fr. Neuhaus was associated with Fleming et al. but decided they were
bigots and tried to get them defunded or some such. At least that's
the story I remember. Maybe Gottfried goes into it in the 2nd ed. of
his book on the conservative movement.
Jim Kalb
American Tradition
Tuesday, 16-Jan-01 08:33:27
151.202.143.229 writes:
What is it? How should it be understood? What do we do about it?
A lot of it seems antitraditional. People everywhere think big
business, technology and economic dynamism are specifically American.
America is protestant and republican, individualistic and democratic.
Americans emphasize know-how and getting things done. Of course there
are other elements - religiosity, localism and so on - but it seems
those things have been retreating so long retreat has become their
tradition.
Things have ended up in a mess. What do we make of it all? What do we
take as a standard? Where should we go? Back to the pre-1861 republic?
Restore Catholic Christendom? Go forward to a sort of libertarian
republic of small business and independent protestant congregations?
All of the above? Something completely different?
The floor is open!
Jim Kalb
Re: American Tradition
Sunday, 21-Jan-01 18:08:55
151.202.194.241 writes:
I might as well comment on my own questions.
Tradition can't simply be willed or even fully comprehended. So in a
way it's silly to ask as I did "what do we think about our own
tradition overall, and what do we do about it?" Nonetheless the
question has some point.
Tradition is natural and maintains itself and develops in the ordinary
course of living unless something disrupts and suppresses it. So to
speak of traditionalism is really to speak of identifying and opposing
things that degrade human life by disrupting its traditional aspects.
These include most of the usual things conservatives don't like, like
the welfare state and other aspects of bureaucratized social existence.
I think conservatives have usually been too reactive though and not
thought deeply enough about why such things are bad and what they're
aiming at in opposing them. If they do so I think it's inevitable
they'll realize that some things they've been attached to as American
traditions are in fact antitraditional to the extent they should be
opposed or radically changed. After all there must be something amiss
in American tradition - it's been the development of that tradition
that's gotten us where we are now.
So conservatism today must in a sense be radical - since liberalism is
now publicly and officially established it's liberals who want to
maintain the public and official status quo. It should remain American
and conservative though, in the sense that we must start where we are,
and in any event most of American tradition must be good since life
could not go forward at all if there were not much more good than evil
in it.
All of which is notably lacking in concreteness, but even vague
speculations can serve a function (for the speculator if no one else,
and after all it's my message board!)
Jim Kalb
Re: Re: Re: American Tradition
Monday, 29-Jan-01 03:29:23
151.202.193.160 writes:
I agree "fat and happy" is a problem although one that in the long run
is likely to solve itself. In the meantime you do the best you can.
It seems to me American tradition mostly consists of things that
aren't part of what is publicly identified and called by that name,
and that are mostly good. Otherwise life couldn't go on at all. There
would be no habits of honesty, loyalty and restraint passed down
within families, for example, and so all families would disappear.
Since opposition to the good is always parasitic, there's always
something to build on.
As to what is picked out and publicly identified as American
tradition, I agree that quite a lot of it has to be transformed.
People for the American Way after all is able to call themselves that
with a straight face. A lot can be done by changes in emphasis etc.
though. We should ask what the things are that have given us whatever
is good in our life together in America.
Jim Kalb
Re: Re: American Tradition
Monday, 29-Jan-01 03:43:26
151.202.193.160 writes:
I agree that the current theory of religious freedom and tolerance -
religious truth-claims must be excluded from public life - leads to
totalitarianism by making the secular and thus eventually the
political authorities absolute. It does seem to me though that
totalitarianism is an extreme that almost all societies have avoided
so its absence can't be identical with absolute ecclesiastical
authority over faith and morals.
Jim Kalb
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Feb 14 09:53:22 2001
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From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: Fw: The Tyranny of Liberalism
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 11:57:55 -0500
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Hello!
I looked at your lecture. It obviously has a great deal of good material
in it clearly presented. I suppose the most important issue is whether
it's effective in provoking listeners to entertain Greek, classical and
medieval thought on politics etc. as a real possibility. Here though are
some comments and questions from my own standpoint:
1. Conceivably some discussion would be helpful on the extent to which
the art of politics exists as an actual human possession. It seems to me
that in addition to fully rational art and a merely empirical knack
there would be something - a tradition maybe? - that aims at the good
but cannot give an adequate account of it and so consists of a mixture
of partial accounts and practices etc. that have proved their worth in
experience or that those who have best represented the tradition have
accepted and recommended. It seems to me politics is that sort of thing.
2. Is politics really the art that aims at the comprehensive good for
man? It seems to me it must recognize that good to the extent it can,
and try to avoid interfering with it, but it seems to me it does not for
example *include* religion since the latter goes beyond politics and in
fact goes beyond any knowledge we can have here and now. Man is social
but some aspects of his nature go beyond his membership in earthly
society. You recognize that where you speak of a higher end that goes
beyond the political per se. You solve the problem apparently by giving
the Pope supreme political juridiction. Rule by priests seems a mistake
though. I may misinterpret - you say there's a distinction between
priestly and secular authority, without really explaining how the
distinction works. You also seem to make the latter strictly subordinate
to the former.
3. I suppose the issue I'm raising is whether for us today in this
divided world there really can exist a single master art except in
concept. If such an art could exist in fact, why the distinction between
the things of Caesar and the things of God? Man is an in-between
creature. Both Greeks and moderns sometimes talk as if he could attain
perfection in this world, although they define perfection very
differently. If he can't then the actual political art he possesses must
be understood in a way different from the way either Plato or John Locke
understood it and it must be essentially imperfect and unable to
eliminate all conflicts.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
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Message-ID: <011901c096a6$243a1e20$7f90ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: Fw: [Upstream] Study: Humans Have Few Genes
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 11:49:47 -0500
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"They said their findings so far made it clear that far from being a
blueprint, the human genetic code was only a guidepost. The true
directions
for what makes a human being lie not in letters of code, but in what the
body does with that code."
>
It appears then that how a fertilized human egg develops is more a
property
of the system of a whole and less of discrete identifiable consequences of
particular components than previously thought. Presumably that means that
it
will be more difficult to control evolution, design the man of the future,
whatever. So producing a new race of behaviorally androgynous and easily
managed politically correct functionaries (or whatever goal may be chosen)
may turn out no easier than controlling the weather. Can't help but think
that a good thing if true.
>
"They have also confirmed that there is no genetic basis for what people
describe as race, and found only a few small differences set one person
apart from another."
>
This really looks like a conscious campaign to maintain good public
relations. It's a commercial venture after all. No matter what the
investigation disclosed it was going to prove first and foremost that all
men are brothers. "All men are twins" is even better. Racism is so
super-bad
that everything has to super-prove it's super-unjustified in any form.
>
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
>
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Message-ID: <010901c096a5$efe052c0$7f90ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: Fw: Re: Another rant about liberalism etc.
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 11:48:18 -0500
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Good points. I agree there will eventually be some sort of effective
reaction, the sooner and more intelligent the better. I also agree that
there is a danger that the reaction will take an irrational and brutal
form.
And the future is certainly not predictable - you can point to tendencies,
and try to assess their strength and durability, but trying to figure just
what will happen and when is like an investor trying to predict a market
top
only much harder. So thanks again for the comments.
>
Jim
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Feb 14 05:35:39 2001
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Message-ID: <009c01c09683$195a3bc0$7f90ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Ki
References: <20010213212456.67833.qmail@web11104.mail.yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Hello, it is I
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 07:38:56 -0500
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"Well, what I'm trying to figure out is, do
you believe that men and women should be given equal
rights, such as in jobs, education, and the
government; and that women should challenge a case
that may be unfair/ sexist. It seems as though you
believe women are to remain in their place, (with
small amounts of outer movement.)"
What do you mean by equal rights? Today "equal rights" means that if an
employer considers whether someone is a man or woman in making up his mind
whether to hire, he's broken the law. That's what the Civil Rights Act of
1964 says about sex discrimination.
That seems wrong to me. If men and women are different, which I think they
are, and if some sort of sex roles are OK, and I think they are, then it
should be legal to think about whether a job applicant is male or female and
how that fits into what you think is best. If other people disagree with you
that's fine and they should be free to do otherwise. I just don't think it's
a good idea to insist by force of law that it should be one way or the
other.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Feb 13 15:37:55 2001
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From: "James Kalb"
To: "newman Discussion List"
References: <005701c09068$92de13c0$c291ca97@tower <3A898000.81E3DB9B@roanoke.edu>
Subject: Re: Re: Another rant about liberalism etc.
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 17:32:55 -0500
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Bob Benne writes:
"I guess I disagree that liberalism is as consistent and thorough as you
make it out to be. You have identified tendencies in some aspects of our
society and you have identified some liberal thinkers who actually want
liberalism to be as consistent as you argue it is. But I think our society
is a very mixed bag."
This is a very interesting and (for me anyway) difficult question. A couple
possible responses:
1. If I can identify some coherent principles that unify important
tendencies and relate a variety of things that are actually going on then
that's a contribution even if lots of other things are also going on. You
can't talk about everything at once. Also, as Emerson points out no one ever
bothers to write anything without being convinced it's much more important
than it actually is.
2. It does seem to me that human society is becoming more rationally
unified. Worldwide, traditions and particularisms are becoming weaker,
rational formal arrangements like global markets and transnational
bureaucracies more influential and omnipresent. The internet etc. turns ever
larger parts of human interaction into something handled technically -
disaggregated and then aggregated and dealt with in accordance with whatever
goals particular actors may choose. Advanced liberalism is becoming
incorporated in human rights law, which is becoming the global religion and
is itself a project of the transnational managerial class whose power it
entrenches. One of the main goals of human rights law is of course abolition
of the practical effect of various particularities - religion, ethnicity,
sex. Means of enforcement are evolving.
So I do think a particular set of formal abstract principles - on the moral
side, the principles of advanced liberalism - are becoming ever more
dominant. It seems to me particularistic opposition hasn't been effective in
the long run so the outlook is for continued movement in the same direction,
mitigated by the necessary corruption of a regime that can't provide much of
a principle of loyalty or self sacrifice. Eventually I suppose it will all
end in some sort of terminal crisis. The chief alternative I can think of is
the rise of groups like strictly orthodox Jews, the Amish etc. based on
principles able to resist the advance technical rationality. Their rise
could result from something like natural selection, like the rise of
bacterial strains that resist antibiotics. Another possibility I suppose is
genetic re-engineering, artificial intelligence, and so on.
Apocalyptic speculations are of course speculative, and tend to be wrong
because it's a big world and something else almost always happens. On the
other hand catastrophes do occur now and then. My speculations depend on the
claim that there's something very special about the progress of technical
rationality in the modern world as opposed to other trends that come and go
more fluidly. The claim is that in the modern world things ultimately become
much simpler than in earlier times. What differentiation there is becomes
part of a single system whose principles are comprehensible. We can grasp
what shoemakers in Indonesia and teenagers in Omaha are doing all at once in
accordance with a few simple principles, which wasn't the case in the past.
Since the governing principles become simpler and more comprehensive grand
theories have a better shot at working.
Anyway, thanks for the comment and excuse the ramblings!
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
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Message-ID: <001a01c0960c$648fe620$7f90ca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: paleo@yahoogroups.com
References:
Subject: Re: [Paleo] American Conservatism...
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 17:29:11 -0500
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Jim Lancuster writes:
"Do you think the American experience is a case of "improvisation gone
awry," similar to what happened with Wesley when his reform movement in
Anglicanism got away from him?
Talking about these types of things over the last few days, it occurs to me
how disastrous every "reform" movement turns out to be -- even explicitly
conservative ones. Would you agree?"
I don't think of it as improvisation gone awry exactly. When I suggested
that we had a liberal legal order layered over a implicit traditionalist
social order I was speaking in too external a way. Somehow there was
something implicit in the social and actually-existing moral and spiritual
order that gave rise to that legal order, which in turn affected and
ultimately transformed the order of things that gave rise to it.
I do think that when the Founding Fathers set up a constitutional order that
was in fact godless they did something with implications that would have
shocked them if they had understood what they were doing. On the other hand
they couldn't realistically have said "In the name of God, Father, Son and
Holy Ghost" instead of "We the People" in the preamble to the Constitution.
So secularism wasn't just a slip-up on their part.
It does seem to me there are problems with reform movements because most
things are implicit and inarticulate and so it's hard for us to grasp the
implications of what we're doing. What that tells us about what we should do
now I'm not quite sure except maybe that grand manipulative stategies don't
get you very far. Maybe though Anglicanism and Methodism have been better
for what Wesley did than they would have been otherwise.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
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Message-ID: <012b01c095de$22a6a9c0$e98fca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: paleo@yahoogroups.com
References:
Subject: Re: [Paleo] American Conservatism...
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 11:57:51 -0500
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"This shows the uselessness of notions of conservatism as standing for the
past, in a Russel Kirk sort of way. What we need is to stand for principles,
and the right principles, rather than resisting change."
The past isn't enough, and principles aren't enough. The problem with
principles simply as such is that they don't determine their own meaning or
application. They can be understood and applied only as part of a tradition,
which requires a certain piety toward the past and love of stability.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
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From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: Fw: No Subject
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 11:24:46 -0500
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"Everyone is different but that doesn't give any one group the "earthly
power" to decide who gets what. ... Each of us just need to take care of
ourselves and try to be the best that we can be."
>
Sure, but I don't see the connection to inclusiveness. Inclusiveness
demands
that a group - social engineers, basically - decide who gets what.
Otherwise, if you let people go their own way, take care of themselves and
try to be the best that they can be, they're likely to associate more with
people of similar backgrounds, expectations, habits, etc., because that
makes it easier to establish productive cooperation, and that won't be
inclusive.
>
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
>
>
>
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Message-ID: <00f201c095d9$57ca6e20$e98fca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: Fw: No Subject
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 11:23:09 -0500
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Status: O
"In general, anti-inclusiveness as a whole, equals EXCLUSION!!
Particularly
in pubic settings where my tax dollars are used, everyone should have the
same access to public offerings ... And this is certainly true in public
classrooms (which is my concern) where teachers must include all children
in
lessons and activities. no one has to decide who gets what when all
students are included no matter who they are."
>
I'm really not sure of what your position is. The anti-inclusiveness
equals
EXCLUSION line just strikes me as rhetoric, since "inclusiveness" means a
lot of things and a lot of them are pretty active. The "all students must
be
included" sounds more extreme than anyone would really want. Is it OK to
have publicly-funded calculus classes when most students will never be
able
to participate in them? Should competitive sports be out because some
don't
make the team and others get eliminated from the playoff?
>
"Inclusiveness" has a lot of particular applications. Sometimes it means
that having an advanced math class is OK so long as there aren't too many
Xs
and not enough Ys. But to remedy that you have to exclude some Xs who on
the
face of it would do better in the class and so presumably get more out of
it
than their Y replacements. And that's certainly a "someone has to decide"
situation.
>
"Obviously in social settings such as you suggested, people should be free
to choose their associates. But no tax dollars are used in these
situations. "
>
How about other non-tax dollar situations like private business?
>
>
>
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Feb 13 09:27:29 2001
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Message-ID: <00de01c095d9$2bdb2d40$e98fca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: Fw: your review of The Patriot
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 11:22:04 -0500
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Status: O
Did I sound like I liked it all that much? Maybe I did. At the beginning I
said that I wasn't going to concentrate on the movie's weaknesses because
it
was just a piece of Hollywood entertainment and you can't expect much.
>
It did seem to me the movie was able to mitigate the problem that
everything
has to be based on a very personal motive by (1) making the guy someone
who
actually *would* do things only for a personal motive, because the last
time
he had participated in great public events things had gone badly in a way
that rather discredited great public events, and (2) showing how common
life-and-death struggle, memories of what's been lost etc. lead to public
consciousness. I talk about the latter in the review, in the "nation
founded
in blood" part.
>
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
>
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Message-ID: <00ae01c095d8$9cc98160$e98fca97@tower>
From: "James Kalb"
To: "Jim Kalb"
Subject: Fw: In response to an antifeminism paper you wrote,...
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 11:18:25 -0500
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Status: O
I'm not particularly dogmatic on any of these issues. Whatever arrangements
come about will have to seem practical to people. What's practical won't
be
exactly the same in different times and places. My main point is that the
way of thinking about them that people insist on today *is* dogmatic and
ignores basic issues.
>
I do think things work better for most people when women expect to be the
ones who are mostly responsible for home and children and men for support
and protection.
>
Saying that doesn't automatically determine how that gets carried out. It
doesn't mean for example that women never do anything outside the home.
Life
is long and children get bigger and less dependent on their mothers. It
does
mean though that the rigid view that boys and girls, men and women, should
have exactly the same role in the world is wrong.
>
And yes the paper was meant seriously.
>
jk
>
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Feb 13 09:21:40 2001
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