Comments on: Unce Sam’s Harem III

By: NGPM

NGPM — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:44:33 +0000

If some young person who knows French would be willing to digest a few articles a month for our website, it would be very useful. The right is very fractured these days, and it is harder to maintain contacts than it used to be–ironic, non?

Dr. Fleming, what exactly would you need? I'm 23 and quite fluent in French... actually, I lived in Paris for the first six months of this year and I'm moving back pretty soon for work. You know where to reach me, right?

By: Kirt Higdon

Kirt Higdon — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:39:01 +0000

Before this thread disappears from the front page, my thanks to Dr. Fleming and all the commentators for this entire series. It has definitely been a learning experience for me.

By: TJF

TJF — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:01:28 +0000

The Nouvelle Droite is a big subject, and I am no intellectual historian. I know some of the people and am even technically an advisor to the most highbrow ND publication, the Nouvelle Ecole, but that is largely because of my relations with Alain de Benoist whom I see in Paris from time to time. At its best, the ND is a principled intellectual movement to save the West from tyranny, democracy, vulgarity, Islam, and the American Way of Life. It is anti-Christian because they see Christianity as an Oriental obsession with unity that disrupted the peaceful and tolerant world of polytheism. I tell them, every chance I get, that they might as well turn Catholic, since we have more saints and angels than the Romans had household godlets. It is a sad thing that the ND is the most important conservative movement in the West, but the fact is they fill a vacuum. I don't agree with much of what they teach, but there are aspects to Benoist's thought that converges with ours--his contempt for the unitary state and unitary sovereignty, for example, and his celebration of provincial cultures. There are several interesting non-ND French journals these days, though I rarely have time to read them. I should mention Catholica, edited by my friend Bernard Dumont, to which Claude Polin contributes, and Actualites francaises which has the participation of Christophe Reveillard. There are several others I don't receive regularly but from which I get articles from friends. If some young person who knows French would be willing to digest a few articles a month for our website, it would be very useful. The right is very fractured these days, and it is harder to maintain contacts than it used to be--ironic, non?

By: NGPM

NGPM — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:35:09 +0000

@17: Fundamentalist Calvinism tends to do that wherever it goes. Look at the havoc it wrecked on England and France. I used to think Southern Conservatives were too narrow-minded in their round condemnation of all things "Yankee" until I realised that whereas Calvinism merely corrupted England and France, it WAS the very essence of "Yankee" society.

By: NGPM

NGPM — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:22:56 +0000

By the way, Dr. Fleming, about your question: I've enjoyed reading you on any subject since I was about 19, but since Mr. Wilson mentioned the "assorted fruits and nuts" who have appeared in these discussions, at some point could we maybe hear something from you or another Chronicles writer on the neo-Pagan « Nouvelle Droite » (which I conflated with neoconservatism until I learned it was an expression of the so-called "Traditionalist School")?

By: NGPM

NGPM — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:15:59 +0000

@19: Thank you! I thought that was who it was, but I wasn't sure enough to cite her. How wonderful.

By: Clyde Wilson

Clyde Wilson — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:11:23 +0000

I think the breakdown of chivalry in the U.S. has a lot to do with the predominant shallow "practicality" of the Yankee national character. That is why it has been less eroded in non-Yankees---Southerners and traditional Catholics.

By: James Kabala

James Kabala — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:05:33 +0000

NGPM: It was Margaret Thatcher! In view of the original purpose of these posts, that is certainly a humorous coincidence on which to (probably) end this thread.

By: NGPM

NGPM — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 01:27:37 +0000

@17: As I'm sure you know, technically, in Catholicism, an ecclesiastical tribunal does have the last word on the legality of a marriage, although these days the proceedings seem to be rather watered down and applied as a ceremony or, worse, a fraud. In a community with strong religious soil that would rarely be the case, and the warning of a good Confessor would usually be at least grudgingly heeded long before one would ever need to appeal to the tribunal for protection from family members (particularly if the price was excommunication and/or some other ostracisation from the community). Obviously a system of appellates and checks needs to be held in place so that an unscrupulous priest could not use his ecclesiastical authority for personal means.

But in general, Common Law and other legal systems should be flexible enough to allow for exceptions to a wide variety general rules under extraordinary circumstances, the idea being that a law exists not in itself but to promote a particular end and that a rule should not apply if it does not promote that end in a particular circumstance. This can easily touch various aspects of family law where the repercussions go beyond who lives with whom (primogeniture, agnaticism, couverture, morganaticism, etc.)

Of course you're right in that the community needs laws and courts, and not only for the protection of women. I cannot remember who said there was "no such thing as society; only individuals and families," and that will never do. Societies are expanded outgrowths of families.

By: Chesterbelloc

Chesterbelloc — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:11:31 +0000

NGPM,

I like the idea of a parish priest having some informal authority over family law, although I still think there must be some sort of formal court independent of kin. Perhaps an ecclesiastical court ? But I guess we're holding off on speculation until we've actually looked at past systems in detail.