What Is History? Part 22
No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith: The old is better. —Luke 5:39
Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. —Paul Craig Roberts
Consistency is the touchstone of truth. —Ilana Mercer
If you have ten thousands of regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. —Winston Churchill
The more corrupt the government, the more numerous the laws. —Tacitus (amateur translation)
. . . in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is hated. —William Lind
A country can prosper without dukes, while a strike by the plumbers would be disastrous. —Fred Reed
OK, on the plane. Now. —James P. Coyne on Iraq "exit strategy"
Countries continually repeat each other's mistakes with a time lag. What one people has already endured, appraised, and rejected suddenly emerges among another people as the very latest word. —Solzhenitsyn
After several generations, American foreign policy is determined by its own momentum. —Chilton Williamson
Cops are basically historians who come to a crime scene after the fact. —Bill Buppert
. . . a national civilisation which rots the life of a people to the core . . . the goal to which our process in civilisation is guiding us. —R.E. Lee on post-1865 America
Money loses its value when it becomes too abundant. —Copernicus
. . . we cannot reasonably apply the moral codes and values of today to the past. To attempt to do so involves one in the unhistorical practice of "presentism"—the assumption that current standards are absolutely right and all others are wrong. This sitting in judgment prevents the student of history from understanding the people of the past, since the past is condemned out of hand for not being the present. All earlier people are deemed to be wrong because they are not us. —Michael R. Bradley
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"The more corrupt the government, the more numerous the laws. —Tacitus (amateur translation)"
When the great virtues -capital, cardinal and theological - are not written on the hearts of a people and are not lived out by them in their relationships with God, their families, the Church and their most intimate commonwealths, then in futility and in vain do they reach for edicts - legislative statutes, executive orders, judicial decrees and "democratic" referenda -to stop the inexorable decay. Such is, I hold, the day in which we live.
Countries continually repeat each other’s mistakes with a time lag. What one people has already endured, appraised, and rejected suddenly emerges among another people as the very latest word. —Solzhenitsyn
Yes, quite! Memory eternal Mr Solzhenitsyn.
And the new definition for insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting the result to be different. For example; Mr. Obama's stimulus package. They didn't work for Napoleon, Hoover, Roosevelt (Rosenfeld), et al., and they won't work now. It's time to read about 35,000 bureaucrats getting laid off.
"If you have ten thousands of regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. —Winston Churchill
So true. In matters of law, once the divine origen is destroyed, then comes the hydra headed beast of the ten thousands of regulations, with companion oligarchs and plutocrats to interpret them. Washington and Jefferson studied Greek and Latin, Lincoln read law, G.W. Bush studied business while Bill Clinton discovered "it was the economy, stupid!"
"Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. —Paul Craig Roberts"
I will obviously defer to Dr. Fleming on this, but if I recall my Latin etmology correctly, has its root at "lig" or "ligare" which carry the meaning of "to bind, to tie or to unit."
If that is true, then it would follow that "religion" is that which binds a given commonwealth or society to the deity which gives that society its life and which binds the components of that commonwealth, families, etc., to one another. This is the essence of what Christ says when He admonishes to love God (bind oneself to Him) and to love one's neighbor (bind oneself to him).
When, therefore, one attempts to privatize religion, i.e. secularize Power (government) and banish religion from the public sphere, one produces an anti-religion or that which is not religion. One destroys the cohesion or the unity of a society. Where there is no cohesion or unity, there is no religion. Under such conditions, that which continues to be labeled "religion" is to actual religion what mastrabation or erotic encounters of persons of the same gender (erroniously labeled "homosexuality") is to marital intimacy. Such are the days in which we live.
"Countries continually repeat each other’s mistakes with a time lag. What one people has already endured, appraised, and rejected suddenly emerges among another people as the very latest word. —Solzhenitsyn"
Nobody in the Obama administration seems to realize that nationalization and public works didn't cut it in post-WWII Britain either.
Legislation: Creating problems to sell solutions.
--Érico Veríssimo
"When the modern Western States were created,the following principle was proclaimed:governments are meant to serve man,and man lives to be free to pursue happiness.(See.for example the American Declaration).Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations:the welfare state."Alexander Solzhenitsyn,The Harvard Address,June8,1978.
It is interesting in considering the quote by Paul Craig Roberts and comment by Mr. Peters that on the Arts and Letters Daily site there is a link to a Chronicles of Higher Education article by a sociologist reporting that the two countries that adhere most highly to those moral values we link to Christianity and religious faith are the two least religious in the West: Denmark and Sweden. The author, Phil Zuckerman, does not claim this proves religion harmful. He does say that it disproves the thesis that religion is necessary to a successful, moral society. Any comments?
#8 Jeff
My response would be that these countries are attempting to maintain the residue of Christian civilization. Upon what basis do they judge what is good or evil. These ideas about morality do not develop in a vacuum. They are slowly accreted through history and enshrined in tradition. This is why most of my friends consider it wrong to murder and steal and commit adultery. In fact, it is why they do not entertain the idea of being polygamous. It is not that they have come to a conclusion about whether polygamy is moral or not, rather, they simply do not consider it as a licit option because it is not part of their inherited, albeit almost destroyed, Christian tradition. Both Denmark and Sweden fall into this same boat. I would also say, though, that just as their religiosity has slowly died, so too will their moral tradition. The West is currently within a transition phase where ideas like God and the Trinity are ridiculous superstition, but we have not yet realized the philosophical connection between our theology and our morality. It will come, though. I would inquire as to what the abortion rate in both of these countries is. Perhaps this could provide us with some indicator.
Jeff, your comment at 8 might be related to the additional assertion ---"the assumption that current standards are absolutely right and all others are wrong. This sitting in judgment prevents the student of history from understanding the people of the past, since the past is condemned out of hand for not being the present. All earlier people are deemed to be wrong because they are not us."
This contemporary, sociological phenomenon is related to the loss of our understanding of the meaning of faith as a kind of knowledge. We simply cannot think in categories of understanding other than that which can be measured and sensed. Of course mere animals share this aspect of existence with us. The distinctive feature of man is not this kind of psyche but a spirit that dwells within that is almost completely ignored. Apparently the one St. Paul recognized as warring against the flesh. We from this distance can only wonder what St. Paul must have meant, not willing to endure the necessary sacrifice of our "self" to discover it. Again,"This sitting in judgment prevents the student of history from understanding the people of the past."
Robert @10: I think this would also come into play: 'judge not lest ye be judged'. They, in seeking to judge the past by their own present prejudices and bigotries (not really 'standards' at all, or if they are, they are false ones), limit themselves to the narrowness of view defined by those prejudices and bogotries, which is a self-condemnation they are too wilfully blind to see. They condemn themselves to ignorance and superstition.
#9 Edward
There is a subtlety in Prof. Zuckerman's argument that I may not have faithfully rendered: that is that in Sweden and Denmark the people (I suspect largely through government action) behave more in accordance with the tenants of the Christian faith than in countries like the US, where a vast majority claim to be Christians, believe in God, and adhere to Christian morals. The atheists practice what the believers merely preach. This does not seem to me to be easily dismissed by suggesting that the Danes and Swedes are still following tradition. Aren't we, too? So why are they doing it better while simultaneously dismissing the foundation upon which we claim the action rests?
Allen Wilson@11 "They, in seeking to judge the past by their own present prejudices and bigotries (not really ’standards’ at all, or if they are, they are false ones), limit themselves to the narrowness of view defined by those prejudices and bogotries"
Thank you. That is exactly what I was attempting to say in my meandering prose. Prejudice is literally pre-judgement. For an age that will not believe in any truth except material evidence an age that pre-judges every assertion with this requirement, is subject to the loss of previous testimony, to vital aspects of its history, to the alienation of the individual and to the ruin of its culture which can only be inherited and supplied before it can be studied like a bug.
robert @13: Exactly right, thus the importance of canonical literature, and of received histories (as opposed to, say Marxist interpretations), and of myths, legends, folk tales, fairy tales, old family stories, folk songs and sagas, etc., and of the classics. All these transmit the culture. It's also why holding on to the language and dialect of your forefathers is so important.
I dare say that the same is true of liturgy, if you belong to a demoniation that uses it, and certainly of religious hymns.
Dr Wilson, where does that Robert E. Lee quote come from? This quote, combined with his having said that America was bound to become 'despotic at home and aggressive abroad' because of the result of the war, makes me wonder if he wasn't more of a sage than most people tend to think.
@9 Edward
these countries are attempting to maintain the residue of Christian civilization ...
If that's really the case, then they are failing miserably. You can rob millions of dollars of working folks' pensions, get your commission, and be freed on chump change bail. And why not? The judge probably is a member of the same country club. A gand of project hoodlums can carjack some old lady, commute to Suburbia, murder a family and be released on bond for aggravated assault due to intimidated witnesses.
The worst crime is the old joke about impure thoughts. Racism and anti-semitism come immediately to mind. Oh yes, and not calling in the cops to do your fighting for you is likely to make the innocent into court customers, too. Our justice system has been turned on its ear due to the purging of Christianity so as not to offend minorities. To Hell with them!
Mr. Gervaise illustrates the traditional idea that the law was not designed to regulate and order individual human behavior. (The good life was, once upon a time, actually a consensus and something known and shared. Most people wanted to stay married, to raise their own children, drive slow in school zones, offer sacrifice to God, sing songs, write or converse about the sadness and joys of life, maybe brew a few spirits for festive occassions, maintain friendships, honor their own, etc.) It was to punish acts that endangering the common good and to preserve the common good against destruction. Today it is the obligation of government to enforce behavior, we have the war on drugs which filled our prisons with women, the war on poverty which filled our cities with destitution, forein wars for freedom which diminish our freedom at home, and the primary reason is we have lost our consensus, our culture and our religion. Humpty dumpty has fallen and all the King's horses and all the King's men cannot put Humpty together again. Collectively for the culture this is very sad, but individually for those willing to make the effort, the ancient truths about human living are as alive and present, as available today as in any other age or they would not be permanent truths.
My assertion was merely that, since one cannot consistently hold on to both dogmatic atheism and Christian morality, the current supposed moral success of these countries is explained by the fact that they have not totally abolished all remnants of Christian civilization that they may have once held. Thus, their "atheism" must be qualified because it is not taken to its logical conclusion by its Northern adherents.
Mr. Gervaise
When I said that they are attempting to maintain the residue of Christian civilization I did not mean consciously. I think it is more of a cultural process that the fruition of some rationally laid plan, although that is not to say that some of our planners have not desired this for some time.
@18 Edward
I agree, our system is, and has been for many decades, dedicated to the revolutionary process of tearing down.
Of course, whenever something smacks in the least of advancing Christianity, the unAmerican Civil Liberties Union swoops in and tattles to the big media and local judges how unconstitutional such-and-such is. You know the drill.
About the only gain in recent memory has been to charge negligent manslaughter against drunken drivers for killing a fetus. This "advance" was probably vetted as leaning pro-life, but was in effect punishing some hapless dope for depriving the state of a potential taxpayer.
If you look at the national flags of our Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland) it does give a clue as to their Christian heritage. Denmark's flag was reportedly handed down to the victorious Danes on the battlefield in the 13:th century, by God himself, no less(!). It is the oldest state flag in use in the world. Other Nordic nations followed suit to adapt the cross as their national symbol.
As for the Christian values, it is partly true. The Nordic model was one with church and state very much intertwined. Religion has influenced politics and vice versa. The welfare states we see here today are creations of both Lutheranism and Social Democracy. And as both our politics and our religion hold up selfishness and greed as the worst of sins, us Nordic folks tend to be part unselfish, part self-denying. But many traditionally Christian traits have been successfully codified, into law, as well as into the hearts and minds of the Nordic.
Also, I would not say the Nordic are atheists. People here are not very concerned with religion, but seldom hostile to it. It is an odd side-effect of a successful historic liason between church and state, that the church today is viewed as bureaucratic and stale.
#15. Mr. Wilson. The R.E. Lee quotes come from rough and unpublished draft reflections left by Lee in his later years. Some GOOD scholar needs to do something with them.
Dr. Wilson, I've become really interested in the period around John Randolph, Calhoun, the Tariff of Abominations, etc. What would you recommend as a good history of the Jackson presidency? I checked your list at Lew Rockwell and didn't see any listed.
Dr. Wilson @ 21
Last night as I paddled by pirogue through the swamps of the Internet, I happened upon the Miss Marie Lavaux thereof, namely the Grey Lady herself, the New York Times. There was an article about Obama and a group most sundry (the Washington elites of both parties) assembled at the Alfalfa Dinner.
There, Obama made this statement which was billed as a "joke."
"I know that many you are aware that this dinner began almost 100 years ago as a way to celebrate the birthday of General Robert E. Lee," Obama said, referring to the man who commanded the Confederate army during the Civil War.
"If he were here with us tonight, the general would be 202 years old. And very confused."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/01/alfalfa.obama/
One notes the victory of the anti-culture over culture. General Lee was the product of and the manifestation of culture which is a set of symbols, institutions and processes which restrain the compulsions of the individual and, in freeing him therefrom (true freedom) give him the character to fulfill his duties and obligations to God, to family, to Church and to his community.
Obama is a product of the anti-culture: not a man with character, i.e. the internalizing and the living out of the virtues, but a personality around which shriveled selves, envious of that personality, fawn.
General Lee has become a joke at a supper which, according to the article, was orginally given in his honor. Such are the days in which we have been given to live.
General Lee would, of course, not have been confused had he suddenly made an appearence there; for he well saw the coming of the corruption in which men would gather in the cult of personality.