Pearl Harbor Day
The Pearl Harbor anniversary passed a few days ago. I remembered my father’s account of his walking downtown that Sunday morning in 1941 with the six-months-old Yours Truly in a stroller, when people began yelling and running.
Grandmother always pointed out that I and my cousins were not “war babies.” We were born before Pearl Harbor and therefore not products of some perhaps ill-considered and hasty wartime liaison.
I spent most of the war with Grandmother and followed the news with her daily. Some time late in the war, I must have been about four, I am told that I woke up every morning to ask whether I was yet big enough to go and kill Japs. I was precocious even then. Father and every one of the numerous uncles on both sides were somewhere at sea or overseas in the battle, and there was a large O.R.D. (Overseas Reserve Depot) adjacent to our property. The coloured officers visited and chewed the fat and drank RC Cola with Grandfather in his country store next door.
Of course I did not fully understand what the war meant, but it was an unavoidable presence. Grandmother and I were alone in the house when the telegram came announcing that Uncle Paul had been killed moving with Patton to plug the Bulge. I remember vividly her collapse.
I doubt if anyone under 60 even has a hint of what it was like in those days, or even in the Cold War days that followed, when we were taught to hide under our desks in case of an atomic bomb attack, which indeed we would not have been surprised by at any time.
Change is a constant in the life of men and nations, and old geezers going on about how it used to be are tedious. But our change in America has been, it seems to me, abnormally large and fast, excessive to the point that most of the population is literally cut off from the past. It may be argued that America has always been the land of change, but that is a half truth. The other truth is that Americans have through most of their history, until recently, sought stability. Pioneers moved west for opportunity—opportunity to recreate on new and richer land the communities from which they had come.
Some time in the late 90s, in trying to convey to college freshmen and sophomores some information and understanding about their country, I realised that a gulf had been passed with the result that most were quite unable to make any imaginative connection with their past, or indeed with any past. The written word no longer conveyed anything to them, it could no longer evoke any real response—words were just abstractions to be memorised. This was not ignorance—it was the absence of a capacity to grasp anything beyond a limited presentistic consciousness. This is as true of the Bible and great literature as it is of history, I think. We are a post-literate nation. Of course, the students' failures were not helped by endemic laziness. No effort had ever been required of them, apparently. By the time I retired, freshmen students were not capable of doing one third of the work that was normally expected when I began teaching in the early 1970s.
The young of today have grown up in unprecedented wealthy and security. Not only have they never suffered any want, any postponement of wants, being sequestered in the suburbs they have never even seen any poverty. No wonder they are gravely shocked and impatient of any situation or condition that does not meet the standards of a uniformly conformist, cushioned, and prosperous world. Their reality is virtual, fast-moving, colourful, and controllable. Young men no longer enjoy the freedom of risk and roaming and its accompanying scrapes, mental and physical, with the harsh reality and fragile contingency of human life. Young women have never even been told of the benefits of chastity nor of the downside of its absence.
Much of this flows from the dislocations of the war, which removed millions of fathers from the home, sent women to work, accelerated divorce, uprooted families to new and remote regions. The suburnanisation, the segregation of the growing affluent classes from unstructured reality that followed the war was perhaps even worse. The explosion of television and ever more sophisticated electronic devices have contributed to this. I doubt of most of today’s college students can even imagine what life would be like without cellphones.
Of course, and perhaps worst of all, has been the deliberate destruction of education and its replacement by collectivist utilitarianism and conformity. A college freshman can hardly be blamed for lack of information and energy if his experience of the previous twelve years has been regurgitating politically correct slogans. Or perhaps the worst is the government's ongoing campaign to replace the traditional American population with foreigners, mostly from the Third World. This is destroying the possibility of community and of any renewed connection with the legacy of Western civilisation.
This goes a long way toward explaining the dreamlike, virtual-reality course and outcome of the recent Presidential election, so I am inclined to think.
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You are right. My parents still say the same things (if less eloquently or well-structured). But what do you think would happen if hard times came again? Would whites as a community rediscover their ancient strengths, or would they simply wilt? And if the latter, then what? I think the strong ones would endure (and even thrive, after a fashion), while the weaker ones would simply disappear from history. Along with most of the country, of course.
An excellent post and right on the money. I always get a kick out of people who talk about how we "won" the Cold War. Then, I look around and see the kinds of things we are doing in this country (banning prayer from school, no Christmas displays on public property unless accompanied by displays of every kind of idiocy in the name of "religion", people losing jobs because of their political correctness, etc.) and I think: "Isn't this what we supposedly were against when the bad old communists were doing it? I remember when right wingers published things like "goals of the communists" and the left would ridicule it. How many of those goals have in fact been realized or are in the process of realization. I think we have to come to grips with the fact that we never really were fighting against leftism; we were only disagreeing with what type of leftism should be enforced and who should lead the charge. Dr. Wilson, you are correct about the dislocations brought about by the war, but I don't believe those would have been so critical if our elites had not determined to systematically destroy any concept of history or tradition and replace it with lies and propaganda. The real history and traditions of countries are always twisted and subverted by totalitarians whether they call themselves communists or capitalists, liberals or progressives. Of course, the great Puritan New England myth (styled American history) has been shoved down our throats forever, so it isn't all that surprising that we have come to the point that young people can't even correctly name the decade in which the Vietnam War was fought in, much less anything else about American history. What am I thinking? Forget Vietnam. Many probably don't know when the first Gulf War happened.
A wise post. I do think there are remnants of decent education here and there, just as there are remnants of community and faith.
I remember when my daughters found something and asked, "What are these, Daddy?" They were LPs.
Since we have forgotten our past, are we then doomed to repeat it?
If anyone is curious, I have given a number of examples of how bad things have become in modern education in my essay "Just Another Racket, Folks" in the latest on-line issue of The Pennsylvania Review. It's accessible at http://pennreview.com/
Having parents who were a generation older than the boomers made me aware of things that other people my age weren't as well aware of. I had a better understanding of how things were during the depression and the war, and the fifties. Seeing the twenty somethings living in complete absence of any real past is something worrisome, and I think the gulf between my generation and theirs is far bigger than any alleged generation gap (mostly propaganda hype) that existed between the WWII generation and the 60's generation.
Sometimes it's possible to get something through. When once mentioning Laurel and Hardy to a twenty year old, who then promptly asked who they were, I responded with an annoyed but humourous tone that they were comedians. He, no doubt unaware that these comedians were far older than my own generation, began to respond with the standard 'I'm not supposed to know that because it's not of my own generation' routine and said that I was older and he was.....I cut him off there and, borrowing a term that Dr Fleming has used on this site, said 'you're post-civilisational'.
From a certain fleeting look that appeared in his eye as his mind recognised the import of what I had said, I realised that in some small way, something got through to him in that moment.
There is a lot to chew on in this post.
I think the major change resulting in much of the decline has been the entry of the vast majority of women into the workforce, something Dr. Wilson only mentioned in passing in the post.
The radical change in the life of North American women has had dire effects on family, community, education and public life.
Dual-income family's home life is one of doing chores when not at work, leaving little time for the familial social activities of the past. Without a wife at home organizing family social life, meals and visits with grandparents, cousins, etc., become relegated to holidays. This leaves little opportunity to transfer family stories from generation to generation, or create new stories for the future.
When you have whole communities of dual income families, they are ghost towns in the daytime. Kids eat lunch at school and go to structured activities in the evenings. Without free play time with their buddies they lose the shared experiences of growing up in a neighborhood, making it difficult for them to form the life-long friendships those of older generations seem to all have. Without women at home to organize community events, neighbors hardly know each other.
The school system then finds itself trying meet all these unmet family and community functions, and education suffers. In my house this has led to the perverse situation where I send my kids to school in the daytime to raised by people I share little in common with, and in the evenings my wife and I educate them because the school is failing in its primary function.
Other kids in our neighborhood, however, aren't fortunate to have parents with enough education to ensure they can function in a complex, always changing world. And these, I'm afraid, are the vast majority of our future citizens.
That's why I have little hope for any reversal of the current decline anytime soon.
"I realised that a gulf had been passed with the result that most were quite unable to make any imaginative connection with their past, or indeed with any past. The written word no longer conveyed anything to them..."
Indeed, it took the movie Gods and Generals to awaken this young man to the possibility that the past might not have been filled with cruel, stupid men who had body odor and bad teeth, and that perhaps there were heroes to be found. Discovering Jeb Stuart and Jesse James as a twenty year old is better than nothing, I suppose. Would that I admired Robert E. Lee and the Cowboy throughout my childhood rather than the cardboard cutout Disney characters who triumph through teamwork, positive thinking, and wildly improbable chance. Such movies and television shows produce sentimental, weak, and naïve males who in Dr. Wilson’s observation elsewhere don’t have the courage to do what is right even if they want to.
“No effort has been required of them, apparently.”
This is a true assessment. We have grown up receiving “A pluses” for effort regardless of the quality of the end product.
"The young of today have grown up in unprecedented wealthy and security. Not only have they never suffered any want, any postponement of wants, being sequestered in the suburbs they have never even seen any poverty. No wonder they are gravely shocked and impatient of any situation or condition that does not meet the standards of a uniformly conformist, cushioned, and prosperous world."
I'm a young'un, and I'd agree that we're a bunch of spoiled brats. Our temper tantrums manifest themselves in a variety of ways including these school shootings that pop up from time to time. Simply violent temper tantrums.
I would only add that this phenomena has spread to a lot of older folks too.
It bears noting that, while the things Prof. Wilson points out are factual, the electronic medium has given the present generation phenomenal access to history and ideas from the past. I was subjected to public school indoctrination like most; the truth I now know about subjects like central banking (Hamilton), Lincoln & the WBTS, and the writings of Richard Weaver to name but a few, all came through investigation via the Internet which pointed me to primary sources.
People choose to remain ignorant of the past. A spirit of inquisitiveness and a determination to question political orthodoxy are attributes that I'm not certain can be taught.
"This goes a long way toward explaining the dreamlike, virtual-reality course and outcome of the recent Presidential election, so I am inclined to think."
Damn straight Clyde,
I swear to God almighty in the heavens above, that I would be a liar if I denied that for a few moments here and there and there and here and here and there, I thought it was all a dream.
Whether that means me a better or worse man than you are, I honestly do not know...
Mr. Salemi,
Are you aware of any good studies on the subject of Dewey's influence? I mean, of course, studies that challenge or criticize his effect on American education.
Dr. Wilson,
Thanks for this thoughtful reflection. There is a difference between doing and being. Kids today endure more damaging influences and less talented teachers than a generatioon ago. Many grow up in the poor soil of "quality time" with one parent instead of the richer soil of monotonous time with both. They lack imagination in real things but have exaggerated experiences of artificial things. They like to order worlds acording to their desires without ever having experienced the small sacrifices necessary for the maintenance of small worlds such as a bedroom. They want to start wars without ever having battled, and want to belittle and whip their enemies without ever understanding them. But most of all they want to love without suffering, which is like wanting to get soaked in a rainstorm while wearing a waterproof jacket.
The solutions are in the past but they are told to look always to the future. I don't blame them at all but I wonder how long they can last. I was encouraged recently to see how even a little man of Mr. Frums caliber is still capable of shame as when he recently admitted that he had been disgraced by the reality of events and promised to quit his post On the Corner of National Review. So I still have hope although it is only a glimmer.
I was fortunate to have some time to spend with my Great-Grandfather, probably about the same age as Dr. Wilson's parents (born in 1900). From when I was a little boy I had great-grandpa's work shop of old tools, newspaper clippings from the 1930s, family photos going back to the 1840s, and other mementos to remind me of where I came from. My family were Southerners who moved west and became some of the early settlers to farm in southern California (when it still had trees). Great-grandpa was president of the Ventura County Water Authority in the 1930s so we were better off than most folks. So, the disaffected and ignorant young persons Dr. Wilson speaks of do not apply to myself. But I admit, I am the exception. True to form, the 'acceleration of divorce' post war you speak of Dr. Wilson applies perfectly to my own grandparents - both my maternal and paternal grandfathers (both war vets - one Navy, one USAAF) had 'second families' they attempted to hide from my grandmothers, before being kicked hard to curb in what were obviously necessary divorces. I would also say the war may have had something to do with the fewer and fewer numbers of folks who go to Church. Both of my war veteran grandfathers were non-religious. The one grandfather who was in the Navy, was on the USS Saratoga on its way to Pearl Harbor on December 7th, when it was bombed by Japanese planes. He served on a gun crew during the engagement, when a Japanese plane strafed his gun, killing every member of his crew except for himself. Later, he was on the USS Yorktown when it was sunk during the Battle of Midway. After the war, he burned his uniforms and rarely spoke of the war. I am not surprised this, and similar experiences of others, disaffected so many men.
Sorry for the long post, but your piece reminded me so much of my own families experience. You nailed it on the head.
I'm what's called a Gen-X person, (30s) and learned of the war from a different perspective - America's and the enemy's. My paternal great-uncle died in the eastern front from Soviet fire; my maternal grandfather cruised the Pacific in a destroyer rounding up Japs. So let me say this much: the post-literate situation described is worse in America than Europe. And the merging with the Third World is much worse and more serious, just as the enemy's side of my family predicted. Notwithstanding the America Alone thesis, this country seems to have made a collective decision to become Third World; Europe is having Muslims imported by a ruling class that hovers above it. There is a huge difference.
Young American women have to a revolting degree adopted the manners and discourse of hip-hop: the ugly gestures and movements, the staccato arm and hand jerks, the yo-this, f*that s* that. European women - with the notable exception of the Barbaric English - remain women, even in the northern countries supposedly known for their promiscuity. Stats show the English-speaking world has degraded itself far more in all socially relevant categories. Have you met an Australian 20-something lately?
Here in NY we have a large population of Polish immigrants (thank God!), and one can tell a Polish girl from an American a mile away by the former's absence of vulgarity. They are not "prude;" they just don't have tattoos and spit. They still try. I spend time in Milan and Vienna and cannot recall the last time I saw a tattoo. The kids are propagandized, sure, but they read and many still listen to classical music (sales and festivals prove it).
There may be more FORMAL freedom of speech here, but I find dinner table conversations in Europe far more open, sophisticated and broad-ranging in a liberal arts manner than here, where, as Tocqueville predicted, the people themselves are the censors and entire subjects, especially those of race, are taboo. The double-think regarding crime and race is not as entrenched over there, which is why the governments must step in. Here, we just police each other.
Perhaps Europe will in fact follow us off the cliff. But at this moment, the situation in Europe can in principle be reversed through curbing the EU. Not here. The people's manners already show us the future. The fact that the outrages in Europe are obvious (again, except for the UK, which has voted for suicide) should not blind us to the fact that gradual, unnoticed change is far more reaching and permanent, and that America has been moving in a very dark direction since before my birth, deeper and deeper into a tyranny of stupidity. The social pressure to not be intellectual or learned here are huge. When all is said and done, this place is far more democratic in spirit and temperament that Europe, and the pull to the bottom proves irresistible.
You are right: I cannot imagine what this place looks like to someone of your generation.
Josh Cooney @ 11
Dewey has been challenged on the left by writers such as Paul Goodman, and on the right by people like Diane Ravitch and Chester Finn. In fact, the bibliography of anti-Dewey books is quite extensive, going back more than fifty years. Unfortunately, no matter how many times Deweyite notions are exploded, they just come back to life again, like Dracula.
I was personally very lucky in two respects regarding education. First, I was raised not just by my American parents, but also by my Sicilian grandparents, who were born in 1881 and 1882. They were my living links to the European past. Second, I went to the Jesuit school Fordham before the Vatican II garbage came into play.
Mr. Stonehouse @6,
I agree with you fully, and while this working women phenomena doesn't explain all the ills that are working against us right now, it is quite significant. Scott Richert brought up the point about the complimentary aspect of men and women in life and questioned the wisdom regarding the nomination of Sara Palin as VP; and Dr. Fleming has pointed out the inappropriateness of women in political life.
The utilization of women in the military today is another serious departure from the normal functions of men and women. We venture into these non-complimentary and abnormal realms for women at our peril. We must start to recognize "officially" the significant and important work a married woman does as a homemaker. This would strengthen marriage and improve family life.
We are well down the road to destroying our civilization as we continue to move away from the natural and complimentary roles of men and women. This need not mean that women shouldn't work, and there are and will always be exceptions. But it should be made clear that a woman who makes her "career" as a homemaker makes a significant contribution to our country.
As usual Dr. Wilson, in my opinion, helps us to think and he's covered a lot of interesting social and political challenges that currently confront us in this post.
@2 Tom
Too true. Now Russians are open-minded enough to explain Creationism in their schools with no complaints whatsoever from the Russian Civil Liberties Union. But here in the Land of the Free we have textbooks procaiming that the Korean War was won when Truman dropped the atom bomb.
Excellent post, and comments. Thanks.
Does Anna Terruwe's Christianized psychoanalytic claim that 'widespread post-industrial iconoclasm produces near-universal neurosis' ring any bells with any of the teachers here? As a grad-student more often impressed than disappointed by undergraduate thoughtfulness I've wondered whether this, rather than any 'principled anti-intellectualism', isn't the deeper problem. Anyway 'principled anti-intellectualism' is incoherent insofar as it implies voluntarism, which is philosophical nonsense and theological Pelagianism.
So does anyone -- speaking from experience -- think that the problem is partly that people don't know how to deal with *images*? The English poet David Jones accused modernity of denying sacramentality; he believed that anything truly poetic, but especially verbal poetry, would work against everything specifically modern. And the weird thing about sacraments is that they are really efficacious signs. (Whereas Kant, and everyone today, believes that everything works 'ex opere operantis'.)
The original post observes that present-day 'post-literacy' is harmful not because of anything about the written word as such, but rather because of the implied failure of imagination. Words are meaningless to moderns *because* they have nothing to do with *imaginata*. The psychoanalytic take on iconoclasm's effects on the growing mind does a better job of accounting for the 'fog of isolation', I think, that very frighteningly grips the majority my undergrads -- many of whom would love to escape, and do have the intellectual strength to do so, but for some reason don't know what to put their intellects to work on.
Popular (most egregiously cinematic) narratives of Pearl Harbor manage to make the things that happened quite meaningless in themselves -- made meaningful only by some random 'human interest' (i.e., a positivist value, like 'sappiness' or 'security' or 'liberty') purely incidental to the things that happened. If the posit is the value, and the posit is 'human interest' related only per accidens to the event, then isn't the modern youth merely *correct* to find the grandfather's war-stories uninformative and dull -- because the things experienced, even if communicated in words, are meaningful not in themselves, but only to the actual participants?
But then these real things can be meaningful only when reality is sacramental. And the sacramentality of the world is just the (sometimes explicit) flip-side of iconodule theology.
Joseph Salemi @ 15:
The inevitable image of Bela Lugosi playing JDewey is hilarious. We owe you considerable gratitude for this; I beg pardon in advance for extending the image-map below.
Dewey is a fourth(sixth?)-rate thinker -- his philosophy of education was dead before it was born, from dessicated metaphysics (and for that matter physics). So why is he, in particular, still undead? Recurrent Marxism is intelligible insofar as Marx was a genius: Dewey is not a genius (some over-tired Medieval scribe might call him a 'suineg'), and not even original. I always thought Dewey merely put his finger squarely on the long-throbbing bloodless pulse of this country's philosophy of education (Tocqueville is indeed relevant here, but the mid/late-19th-century even more immediately so). But is this true, or am I missing some meat hidden amidst the otherwise drained veins of thought?
Chuck Hicks: One good thing about the Internet is that it is text-based (mainly - obviously we have Youtube and sites of that type coming into increasing importance). I prefer e-mails to telephone calls; I find I am often forced to put more thought into e-mails because of their written nature. I never use IM or text message; that probably does not apply there.
I don't expect that in my lifetime we will ever have a society that is "post-literate" in the sense that large numbers of people in the upper or middle echelons genuinely do not know how to read or write. Dr. Wilson comes close to diagnosing the problem more correctly, although I would quibble a bit with his exact wording. Many (not all) of us in the younger generation view words only as a means to an end, not a source of pleasure or imagination. I admit that I have enjoyed movies and even TV shows in my time and regard some of them as good art, but they killed off the better art of reading for pleasure in most precincts.
@2Tom Flinn
I think its called Frankfurt school Cultural Marxism which is more insidious than in your face Communist ideology and disguised under Human Rights, Civil Liberties and multi-culturalism that took root in Universities in the US during the 60's.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236&ei=sHJASajvA4-MiQKv1fikDA&q=history+of+political+correctness&hl=en
The documentary doesn’t mention the ethnic composition of those involved but I think you can guess who they are.
@17Etienne Gervaise
Russia has an advantage over the US that it can say that the Russia state was founded on Christian theology by Prince Vladimir unlike the US which had a separation between church and state although its leaders were western/Christian orientated.
How did the Korean War start?
The US got involved in WW1 with the sinking of the Lusatania, WW2 with Pearl Harbour and Vietnam with the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
What was catalyst for the Korean War?
I remember my 3rd year history course in history in high school where we studied the African slave trade in the US being in Scotland what that has to do with us I don’t know (I guess its to highlight racism or something) and the Blitz on London although they never mentioned that we bombed Germany first or Dresden giving the impression that Germany blitzed London simply because Germany was bad and Britain was good.
Actually these think tanks and policy institutes are the ones shaping society with influence in media and universities.
Most people can’t fathom the concept that a group of people can influence society for there political and economical advantage.
The best recent example is this global warming fraud which is used as a cover for Malthusian depopulation theory.
JE @ 19
Dewey still lives because he made education American. As I said in my essay, he took the ethos of the New England town meeting and put it in the classroom. Arguing, debating, democratic contestation, truth-as-compromise, constant maneuvering and negotiating... Dewey took all this very American stuff and decided to base an educational theory on it. Add to this a rather shallow idea of "practicality" and "relevance," and you have the Deweyite program. It's catnip to a certain kind of "no-nonsense" American.
#17 Etienne: How silly. Everyone knows the Korean War ended when Truman dropped the atom bomb on Berlin after the Germans had attacked Pearl Harbor.
#21 George: Yes, you are right. It is more insidious than out-in-the-open propaganda. I remember a book written years ago called "You Can Trust the Communists (to be communists)." I forget who wrote it, but the point was that they meant what they said about destroying the West, religion, etc. Our own propaganda is so dangerous because it is couched in "American" and innocuous sounding terms like "freedom," "rights," "choice," "democracy," and all that. How could anyone be against all those wonderful things? If you are, well, you must be a Nazi.
JE@18 asked, "Does Anna Terruwe’s Christianized psychoanalytic claim that ‘widespread post-industrial iconoclasm produces near-universal neurosis’ ring any bells with any of the teachers here?"
I am not a teacher but the work of Conrad Baars and Anna Terruwe has helped me in my work with Juveniles. The principle of their work is the observation of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas that "reality is the proper nourishment for a man's soul." There is a great fear after Skinner and the behaviorist to impose one's own ideas and habits on another. Terruwe and Baars knew that love drives fear away and thus they understand disciplining the disordered soul out of admiration. But I must add that former patients of Baars have told me that it was his person more than his technique that helped them the most. Of course Socrates, Christ and most of the twelve Apostles did not write much either. The primary ground of communication is not the written word but "being" which is what Aristotle must have meant when he said that the character of the speaker and understanding the character of ones audience is of the most importance for rhetoric. Sometimes, such as our times, silence is more fruitful. That is why I am inspired by the re-invigoration of the contemplative orders and the restoration of the Traditional Mass in Catholic circles. Thanks as always for your comments.
Robert @ 24
"There is a great fear after Skinner and the behaviorists to impose one's own ideas and habits on another."
In early education, imposing habits on children is absolutely essential. If you read the Renaissance humanist treatises on educational practice, they all stress the necessity of rote memorization, constant drill, and multiple repetition of the lesson. You have to get the child into the habit of this sort of thing, and you have to establish it early. Young schoolboys in the sixteenth century got up at 6 AM, and did three hours of Latin parsing before having breakfast!
And if you couldn't do your lesson, your little pre-teen behind got a good smart whipping.
Today, the typical liberal educrat thinks that this sort of thing is nightmarishly cruel. But back in the sixteenth century, the average schoolboy at the age of twelve knew his Latin better than the Regius Professor of Classics at Oxford does today.
It's all a question of habit.
@21, George, forgive the trivia, but the U.S. didn't get involved in WWI because of the sinking of the Lusitania. That ship was sunk in May 1915. Wilson asked for a declaration of war against Germany in April 1917, after Germany had resumed (and justifiably I might add) unrestricted submarine warfare earlier in the year.
Dr. Wilson has almost outdone himself. Before his important observations become clouded over by well-meaning but occasionally misleading responses, I would like to, as it were, clean off the glass a bit. First off, it is absurd now and ever after to speak of a "white community." The fact that most of us have more in common with most members of our own race does not make whiteness the basis for a community. Indeed, an antebellum plantation formed a sort of community with rich and poor, white and black. I don't think white Frenchmen and White Germans made much of a community between 1870 and 1945, except in those places where they were neighbors, and although I live among white northern Europeans, I do not necessarily feel myself a member of their community.
Second, I don't know what degree of Latinity the current Regius Professor of Greek (not Classics) at Oxford has, but I would not be so sure about his incompetence. I know that many of his predecessors of not so long ago--Murray, Dodds, and Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones were good Hellenists, at least, and far better than the Renaissance humanists. Third, if Diane Ravitch and Checker Finn are conservatives or on the right, where does that put Russell Kirk and Thomas Molnar. I did not think that someone could praise leftwing neoconservatives on this website as rightwingers.
Let's stay away from the Frankfurt School or, if you wish, actually study their writings. There is altogether too much conspiratorial boozhwah on the Internet. Believe me, they are an indication of the problem, but the problem antedates them by many centuries. Yes, they were Jews, and like most Jewish intellectuals they did not have an original neuron in their brains but simply warmed over the arguments given them by anti-Christian gentiles. It is also probably unfair to call Paul Goodman a leftist. He was an original, despite all his lies and posing, and someone still worth reading.
Joseph @25 writes
"In early education, imposing habits on children is absolutely essential. If you read the Renaissance humanist treatises on educational practice, they all stress the necessity of rote memorization, constant drill, and multiple repetition of the lesson. You have to get the child into the habit of this sort of thing, and you have to establish it early. Young schoolboys in the sixteenth century got up at 6 AM, and did three hours of Latin parsing before having breakfast!"
Yes, and I thank you for this bit from the 16th century. It still seems to me that their goal was achievement and accomplishment instead of love of God and neighbor. I was once in the Marine Corps and have great respect for drill and what it can accomplish in terms of achievement and esteem but being a soldier is more than killing another efficieciently or perfect obedience to superiors. I am looking for a younger understanding of say the personality and charcter differences between Nathan Bedford Forest and Robert E Lee and not only noticing and respecting their differences but cultivating ones ability to admire them. I think good teachers respect what God has created and then given to them to develope and draw out --to become more of what they are when they arrive at school. It is said that Michelangelo saw his work in the raw square piece of marbel and simply freed the image he already saw in it, by chipping away the unnecessary bits and pieces of stone. We have more than enough information today. As another man has said, " Never has an age knew so much and understood so little."
TJF @ 27
Referring to "the Regius Professor of Classics at Oxford" in my post at 25 is what is known as hyperbole within a comparison, as when one says "as big as a mountain" or "as hot as hell." I never dreamt anyone would nit-pick over its constituent details.
How well any actual professor at Oxbridge knows his Greek or Latin is not the point. I neither know nor care about that. The issue is how we educate our children, and why we neglect the important pedagogical tool of habit. Valla and Poliziano and John Lyly didn't make that mistake.
Ravitch and Finn are "on the right" when considered within the context of current debates about education. Are they "leftwing neoconservatives" in respect to their political views? Maybe so. But again, this complaint strikes me as niggling and petty. And I did not "praise" them -- I simply said that in educational disputes they are universally perceived as conservative anti-Deweyites.
As for Paul Goodman, he certainly would have classified himself as "on the left," though I will grant you that in the context of the 1960s that could have meant almost anything. The terms "left" and "right' are commonly used as convenient place-markers for distinguishing persons with liberal/radical viewpoints from those who are more conservative/traditional.
Robert @ 28
"It still seems to me that their goal was achievement and accomplishment instead of love of God and neighbor."
So what? Do you think that every classroom is a damned Sunday School?
"I think good teachers respect what God has created and then given to them to develop and draw out -- to become more of what they are when they arrive at school."
This is pure, unadulterated Deweyite crap. And it confirms what I said earlier about Dewey's pedagogy being like catnip to some people, even professed conservatives.
As you say, Dr. Fleming, "whiteness" does not provide anything sufficient to live for or to die for. People can be rallied by religion, kinship, culture---they cannot be rallied by a physical characteristic. The ills of the West, as you suggest, are all in ourselves, not caused by others, though others may take advantage of them.
I do not normally read blog comments, except from sites' professional writers. I skim the threads looking for such authorial commentary. Doing that just now I noticed TJF @27, and Clyde Wilson responding to him @30. TJF makes the following observation:
"First off, it is absurd now and ever after to speak of a “white community.” The fact that most of us have more in common with most members of our own race does not make whiteness the basis for a community."
Dr. Wilson responds to this observation thusly:
"As you say, Dr. Fleming, “whiteness” does not provide anything sufficient to live for or to die for. People can be rallied by religion, kinship, culture—they cannot be rallied by a physical characteristic."
This caused me to perk up a bit, and cursorily examine the other "civilian comments". I seem to be the only person who used the words "white" and "community" in the same sentence, so assume that TJF's comment was directed to me. Interestingly, although I am an open racial nationalist, my purpose in the sentence @1 was not to argue about the merits or existence of "white community", but simply to wonder how these coddled generations of what Prof. Wilson called "the traditional American population" (and to whom is the good professor referring by that choice of phrasing - descendants of African slaves, and Amerindians on their reservations)? would respond if hard times, such as earlier generations had experienced, were to return. But as the matter has been broached ...
I suppose I must first make a minor clarification, by emphasizing the 'racial' over the 'nationalist'. There are a lot of paleocon straw men that have been built and demolished over that word 'nationalism', often irrelevantly. Most of us (but not all, of course) who are called "white nationalists" are not really classical European nationalists, let alone Nazis (the latter ideology is often implicitly imputed to us, that we might be the more easily and safely ignored or else 'discredited' without serious engagement with our ideas). We are simply men who believe 1) that whites qua whites, at least in the world at this time, have communal or collective interests which require political defense, and 2) that a politics devoted to protecting white racial group interests is more important at the present time than any other rightist politics; that is, that racial concerns are part of any legitimately 'conservative' movement, and ought to be uppermost in the overall hierarchy of the Right's agenda. Personally, I prefer the term 'racial conservative' to describe my position, but though that is technically most accurate, in discussions like this it could also be misleading.
To continue:
Indeed, what is conservatism? More precisely, what is conservatism, especially today, when the failures and hypocrisy of racial integration + ‘diversification’ through immigration are increasingly evident to intelligent whites, at least conservative ones, if not racial conservatism?
To repeat, racial conservatism is NOT the same thing as racial nationalism (though I advocate both, the former philosophically, the latter strategically), nor does racial conservatism conflict with other aspects of the broader conservative ‘mind’ or agenda. Indeed, a NON-racial conservatism is ultimately unintelligible, or perhaps is, at best, a cover for some variant of biblical fundamentalism.
For what does it mean to be conservative? Sam Francis somewhere expressed it best: Conservatism is the defense and preservation of a particular people, and its historic institutions and culture (within boundaries, I would add, of some ultimate metaphysics, which in our case is supplied by Christian natural law).
But what is the foundational aspect of particularity? It is biological differentiation. Preservation of cultural and historical particularity thus begins with maintenance of the 1) blood purity, and 2) numerical (and later political) hegemony, of (in America and the West) the white race.
That the West begins with a racial foundation does not imply that only race matters, or that some mindless white tribalism is the appropriate political strategy for conservatives. It means only this: the West is white, has a moral right to maintain itself as white, and will not survive as a civilization if whites do not first maintain the purity of their collective genome, and second, their numerical preponderance within their historic polities.
Conservatism begins with race, though no racial conservative argues that it ends with it. But we are nearing a time when the literal genomic perpetuity of our people is in doubt. Therefore, the true conservative being alive to the vagaries of history, we put first things first. We start the renewal of our civilization at the base, which means attending to race first.
Furthermore, on a broader note, it must be said here that the attempt (apparently the intention of CHRONICLES) to create some non-racialist, anti-neocon conservatism that is neither simple libertarianism, nor Christian reconstructionism, is not merely intellectually doomed to incoherence, but politically futile.
As I have been arguing for years, conservatives can rally to either Religion or Race. Those are the ‘ultimates’. Men are roused by hopes of heaven, and by the call of blood.
It is true that libertarians also oppose much of the Left’s agenda, but they have their own historically and intellectually well-developed ideology. Those self-styled conservatives who primarily oppose Big Government or wish to preserve capitalism are really libertarians (perhaps culturally conservative ones in some cases). Libertarianism is philosophically incapable of defending conservative particularities.
And so is Christian conservatism. Those conservatives who primarily oppose the Left’s hostility to pre-1960s traditional (Christian) moral and socio-sexual values are really either (Protestant) Christian reconstructionists, or else some archaic type of papal supremacists (if they are intellectually coherent that is, carrying their assumptions to their logical conclusions). The ‘moral values’ crowd has no arguments, within its own Christian ideology, against racial integration (at least if uncoerced). From a conservative perspective, the politicized Christians are at least a bit better than libertarians insofar as they do oppose Muslim immigration, if out of religious and not ethnocultural supremacism. Remember: the Church is a universal institution. It offers nothing in the way of defending cultural particularities (though, I argue, it does not disallow conservatism, either).
Unfortunately for the Christians, they are pretty much ‘maxed out’ today. Christian fundamentalist ideology (of whatever sect) appeals to certain mental types, and repulses others. While I expect such Christians to be with us always (for the indefinitely forseeable future anyway), and indeed, to grow more prominent over time, at least among whites (insofar as they are the family-centered people having the most children, and most people are not critical thinkers, but derive their core beliefs from their parents, esp when those beliefs are strong and foundational, as is the case here), there is a limit to political Christianity’s appeal. Most Americans who are convertible to theologically conservative doctrines have already made that leap.
Whether the CHRONICLES crowd likes it or not, the future of the Right will increasingly be racialist. That is where the ‘growth potential’ is. There exists an enormous gulf between the pronouncements of the occupationist regime, and the lived reality of whites. There is also an enlarging political gulf. In the recent election, EVERY minority group, including Jews, voted overwhelmingly for Obama: Asians nearly 2-1, Hispanics more than 2-1, blacks 95%. Non-Jewish whites, however, voted 57-43% for McCain. Given first, that whites are Prof. Wilson's "traditional American population", and so the least ethnocentric group, for historical as well as universal biological reasons (ie having built the country, and therefore it having been ours for so long, we are the least ‘minority conscious’ group, the insiders not outsiders); second, the charisma of Obama; third, the ineptitude and unattractivenes of McCain; fourth, the deep public dislike of Bush; and finally, fifth, the huge financial implosion in the final stretch of the campaign, it is extremely significant that a clear majority of whites STILL voted anti-Obama (I think it obvious that there was more anti-Obama than pro-McCain sentiment among GOP voters).
As the objective political (and later economic) position of whites continues to erode, while minorities in league with the regime still persecute and blame whites for their own problems, does anyone really think that white communalism/nationalism is NOT going to assume a greater prominence? White nationalism speaks to issues of real injustice, and it offers real solutions (ie, let’s organize politically to protect ourselves, our property, and our country), based on a simple but, contra Wilson, REAL, non-ideological quality (yes, skin color - come visit LA sometime, and talk to white conservatives here, or maybe just ordinary whites, about their 'identity' or sense of self and its relation to the allegedly insignificant "physical characteristic" of race).
Finally, I’ve said this for years, but I’ll say it again: we racialists are eventually going to take over the conservative movement (I hope by marginalizing the extreme Christians, those hard edged fundamentalists whose bleak, rule-bound vision of social existence is unattractive even to many conservative Christians). We will have to be cagey about it, muting the ‘white pride’ types and emphasizing the perfectly real and legitimate facts of white victimhood (as Jared Taylor has done vis a vis unnecessary neo-Nazis). But that it will get done is inevitable, as long as existing demographic and political trends continue.
@26J. Meng
Thanks for the info.
It is one of those widely held myths like Kenndy was assassinated because he wanted to demolish the Federal Reserve.
A last matter: even if whites did not historically have 'whiteness' as their primary social or cultural identity, that in no way necessarily negates the possibility that such an identity could develop in the future - or is developing now. No cultural identity is permanent (though some are extraordinarily long-lived). And modern identities grew out of earlier ones. What of it? Identity formation is always a reciprocal process, involving interactions between physical characteristics and external environments. Look at black Americans. Black America is certainly a nation, one which grew out of an amalgamation and homogenization of earlier, more disparate African tribal identifications, which were gradually eroded within the common historical crucible of slavery and the American historical experience. And there is now a growing global "black identity" (and yes, a growing white identity). Drs. Fleming and Wilson are simply empirically wrong in the statements of theirs I quoted above.
Joseph @ 29 I thank you for your response and look forward to more posts. No offense taken about me posting crap or being an unknown disciple of Dewey. Pragmatism is not a false philosophy but rather a very incomplete infatuation with behavior. It does "work" in some instances and memory and drill is a good part of education depending on the age of the student. But as the student rises from information, to knowledge, to understanding and maybe even a glimpse in old age at Wisdom, technique is insufficient. But most of us paleos are united by what we oppose and not what we support which is a kind of unity sufficient for political and practical ends as you seem to imply. That is enough for bloggers and strangers on the web. It is not enough for real friends. If I ever meet you in person, you will apologise for your ill manners, or have your ass whipped.
"No offense taken about me posting crap or being an unknown disciple of Dewey...If I ever meet you in person, you will apologise for your ill manners, or have your" butt "whipped."
Gosh, robert, I'm glad you took no offense at Mr. Salemi's post.
We needed some light heartedness in this very grave endeavor to save education and the world. You know me, Mr. Collins, always willing to help. Cheers
Robert @ 35
David Collins @ 36
As I said once before somewhere on these discussion threads, I am a Sicilian with a very short fuse. My wife -- a much more qualified Hellenist than I'll ever be -- even coined the word "machomane" to describe me. That means someone suffering from "machomania," or an insane desire to fight.
So I'll apologize now to Robert for my overly-trenchant reply. But I don't apologize for the substance of the sentiments. We need less Sunday School piety, and more ass-whipping of kids who don't learn their damned declensions.
I see that Leon T. Haller's deeply insightful comments on the future of conservatism have prompted no reply. This is hardly unusual. Very, very few people are capable of even beginning to answer a carefully stated view of the significance of race.
For so long as they can get away with it, silence--or invective--will always be the preferred tactic of the defenders of orthodoxy when orthodoxy comes under serious attack. Why come to grips publicly with opponents whom you know you cannot defeat?
The trouble for leaders of any serious conservative movement is that racial consciousness is growing steadily among their followers. Most refrain from thrusting it rudely in the faces of respected figures who prefer to pretend race does not really matter, but race counts for far too much for it to be ignored for ever.
In the meantime, I would be grateful if "Leon T. Haller" could communicate with me at JarTaylor @aol.com
Jared Taylor
To all concerned in this discussion:
There certainly IS a "white community," if only as a healthy reaction to the persistent and venomous attacks of those who hate it.
Sure, Europeans and Americans of European descent are a mixed lot, with all types of genetic strains in them. But trying to deny that there is a major and identifiable group known as "white people" is bizarre.
If the idea of "white" people is a sort of hypostatized abstraction, unconnected to a particular culture or kinship group or nation, so what? The plain fact is that we are being attacked and demonized, and in a very serious way.
A great many conservatives (and that includes many otherwise intelligent paleocons) need to wake up and smell the coffee.
Thank you, Leon T. Haller, whoever you are.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/024316.html
The LRC Blog
December 08, 2008
Infamy Indeed
Posted by Mike Tennant at December 8, 2008 01:00 PM
As a companion piece to Bob Higgs's blog on Pearl Harbor Day, you can't do much better than this one by Srdja Trifkovic, who goes into the detail that Higgs did not have room to describe in his blog. It's pretty devastating when laid out in a timeline this way. Oh, yes. He also cites Rothbard approvingly, linking to Scott Trask's review of Robert Stinnett's Day of Deceit here at LRC.
Let's not forget the decline of religion in these times. The Mainline Protestant denominations went so far left they're dying out. The rising Fundamentalists and Evangelicals are led by tacky TV preachers. Catholics dumped their solemn Latin Mass, rooted in the eternal Latin culture, for a badly translated and tone-deaf facsimile (albeit with valid consecrations) of the Mainline Protestant services. Eastern Orthodox seem to have retained most of their traditions, but are a small minority in the USA. Reformed and Conservative Jews now have lady Rabbis (although Orthodox do not).
So why should we expect secular culture to be any better? Kids these days listen to rock or rap all days on their iPods, then if they attend church at all go to a Protestant rock service. Of if Catholic, they go to a "Teen Life" Mass set -- God help us -- to rock or rap.
I won't comment on how to reform other religions. But for my Catholic Church, the answer is obvious: Junk the Novus Ordo for the Tridentine Mass. Ditch all schools that don't teach Latin, and base their whole curriculum on it. Set up new schools that teach the faith in its fullness in its setting of Latin and classical culture.
John @42 "I won’t comment on how to reform other religions. But for my Catholic Church, the answer is obvious: Junk the Novus Ordo for the Tridentine Mass. Ditch all schools that don’t teach Latin, and base their whole curriculum on it. Set up new schools that teach the faith in its fullness in its setting of Latin and classical culture."
Thanks for speaking the truth, John. Why is it that folks with the name John are always left to call out the brood of vipers and their people to repentance ? Where is Paul, Mathew, James and Martha when we really need them ?
I'll give you a couple of examples of what young people must grow up with nowadays. The examples are from funerals I have attended recently, Catholic and Protestant. You would think funerals would be a time when religions get things right, as they used to. The ministers have a captive audience, because folks usually want to send off their relative or friend the right way. People are grieving and receptive to a religious message.
Sometimes I attend the 12:10 pm daily Mass out here at the Cathedral of Orange, in Orange, Calif. About twice a week it's also a funeral Mass -- now fashioned a Mass of the Resurrection. It's a canonization of the deceased. With the dead person's remains lying before everyone in a coffin, the priest, friends, and relatives tell us how wonderful he was, what a great person, perhaps rivaling St. Francis in goodness. Sometimes there's decent organ music, but almost always it ends with that hideous song, "On Eagle's Wings."
By contrast, the old Requiem Mass was a solemn warning to the living to repent or face the wrath of God. They were reminded of the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven. Inspired by this Mass, Mozart, Verdi, and other great composers wrote Requiems that were solemn and, in the case of Verdi's Dies Irae, terrifying. There was no eulogy.
The Protestant funeral I attended was for a young U.S. Marine killed by an IED (booby trap) in Iraq. It was at one of those non-denominational mega-churches where folks insist they're not Protestants, but "Christians." Almost the whole service was a eulogy, with almost everyone he knew talking about him. Some revealed embarrassing parts of his life. The Marines were there, handing out pamphlets about him. The preacher talked about how wonderful he was and how he now was with God. A multi-media retrospective of his life played on large screens on the walls of the church. Christian rock music played. The local U.S. Congressman, a chickenhawk draft dodger and recipient of large donations from defense companies, told how the boy "died to keep us free."
Afterward, in the mega-church's courtyard, a Marine unit fired a three-volley salute, the only solemn moment of the day.
Too bad they couldn't have used the old Anglican Book of Common Prayer, which has good, solemn words, also featured in old movies. But even Anglicans have junked it, while perpetrating "out" homosexual bishops and lesbian priestesses.
Even the dead cannot rest in peace.
I translate TJF's position is that he is one who won't stand for genomic thuggery, a wise moral position. Yet this week one establishment clown Colin Powell all but promised this to our detriment. And no wonder conservatism is a mess we have Ayn Rand versus Miss Daisy and none of the establishment conservatives can make or reconcile these opposing views of society.
@44 John Seiler
You reminded me why I gave up being Anglican, and why I also rejected the evangelical-charismatic-bishopfree churches. None of them were Chrisitan enough for me. It took being turned away from communion at an Orthodox church to remind me that the True Church has standards, they are expounded in both the New and the Old Testaments.
The hyperemotionalism of the young marine's funeral made me cringe as some old memories got dredged up. I had to wonder if the congresscrook got an honorarium for his time.
I think William James puts it well in the Varieties of Religious Experience. He is a very kind man so it is good to read him.
"We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise any one who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant: the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paying our way by what we are or do and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly -- the more athletic trim, in short, the moral fighting shape. When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.
It is true that so far as wealth gives time for ideal ends and exercise to ideal energies, wealth is better than poverty and ought to be chosen. But wealth does this in only a portion of the actual cases. Elsewhere the desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption. There are thousands of conjunctures in which a wealth-bound man must be a slave, whilst a man for whom poverty has no terrors becomes a freeman. Think of the strength which personal indifference to poverty would give us if we were devoted to unpopular causes. We need no longer hold our tongues or fear to vote the revolutionary or reformatory ticket. Our stocks might fall, our hopes of promotion vanish, our salaries stop, our club doors close in our faces; yet, while we lived, we would imperturbably bear witness to the spirit, and our example would help to set free our generation. The cause would need its funds, but we its servants would be potent in proportion as we personally were contented with our poverty.
I recommend this matter to your serious pondering, for it is certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among the
educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers."
On neoconservative educationists, there is absolutely nothing conservative or rightist about their proposals. They are odious and ill-educated people themselves and have nothing useful to say about education reform. As a grant reviewer for the Department of Education, I can also say with some authority that the influence-peddling reached a peak during the Bennet years, as his cronies secured fat jobs and grants for themselves and their tools. Restoring the Deweyite status-quo of 1960 is not an objective worth spending money on, since, even in the unlikely event of success, it would only be 5 or 6 years before we were in the same mess we are in now.
PS I would like to add that Regius professors are real people, not abstractions, and if one is going to use them as strawmen in an argument, it is only fair to get their title and duties correct and to be sure they are appropriate. Britain and Europe are still producing some decently trained classical scholars, and, while standards are collapsing everywhere, there is no point in slandering decent people who are bright lights in the gathering darkness. Imagine if 10 years ago, one were to say something like, "Southern schoolboys used to know more about Calhoun than the editor of the Calhoun Papers." This would not have been true, of course, nor would it have been fair to Prof. Wilson. There is a difference between being scrupulous about facts and the reputations of serious men and women and mere nit-picking.
47gargi:
I submit, sir, that a reasonably educated man is never poor.
H.F. Wolff