What is History? Part 30
. . . it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. —Patrick Henry
The world is as it is regardless of what we think. —Charley Reese
The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. —Chesterton
The idea of the knight—the Christian in arms for a good cause—is one of the great Christian ideas. —C.S. Lewis
Elites stink bad when they rot. —Nicholas Strakon
No modern government policy is so stupid that the Romans didn't think of it first. —Bill Bonner
How fast the world advances; how little man improves. —Proverbial
Nowhere in America will you find more ignorant and bigoted provincials, replete with breathtaking personal nastiness, than among Manhattan's vaunted literati. —Eugene Genovese
Not to know the difference between the public thing, the res publica, and the intimate is to surrender that delicate balance of order which alone makes the state a servant and not the people the servant of the state. —Andrew Lytle
The most obvious trouble seemed to be that my dissertation had become dust and ashes in my mouth. I began to regard it as little more than a trick performed by an idiot for the edification of fools, or vice versa. —Protagonist in Robert Penn Warren's A Place to Come To
The way to begin to understand this is to subject oneself to the evidence and not to impose preconceived opinions. —Thomas Fleming
There stands the glass.
Fill it up to the brim
Till my hearteaches all dim.
It's my first one today.
—Webb Pierce
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Excellent series of wise quotes. Dr. Wilson, how close is modern America to Rome in decline?
A Knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the tyme that he first bigan
To riden out, he loved chivalrie,
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.
Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre,
And therto hadde he riden, no man ferre,
As wel in cristendom as in hethenesse,
And evere honoured for his worthynesse;
The Canterbury Tales
How fast the world advances; how little man improves. —Proverbial
“there is progress of the faithful in the faith, but never progress of the faith in the faithful.”St. Albert the Great
“Science has remained an anti-intellectual movement based on naive faith.” Alfred North Whitehead.
The traditional position can be said to look back to a "Golden Age" when the gods and angels lived among us, while the Modern attitude necessarily looks ahead to a future and man_made Utopia. Which is why contemporary man cannot understand the giants who lived long ago or the horses that shed tears for their fallen riders.
"We have come to think of religion more as a set of rules of conduct
than as a doctrine about God; less as a doctrine about what we
should be, than one of what we ought to do; , we have come to believe that theory differs as practice must. This confusion of necessary means with transcendent ends (as if the vision of God could be earned by works) has had unfortunate results for Christianity, both at home and abroad. The
more the Church has devoted herself to “social service,” the more her influence has declined; an age that regards monasticism as an almost immoral retreat is itself unarmed. It is mainly because religion has been offered to modern men in nauseatingly sentimental terms (“Be good, sweet child, don't kick the dog but make your own decision” etc.), and no longer as an intellectual challenge,that so many have been revolted, thinking that that “is all there is to religion" AKC
Dr. Wilson,
Your quote:
"'Not to know the difference between the public thing, the res publica, and the intimate is to surrender that delicate balance of order which alone makes the state a servant and not the people the servant of the state.' —Andrew Lytle"
It is to note, that although our term "republic" is a rendering of "res pulica," a republic is itself, in its Aristotelian sense, the manifestation as polity of a social order which is organic in nature, reflecting in its confessing or living out, a function in the cosmic order, being a symbiotic relationship of various commonwealths - family, Church, local community, etc. - and thereby having unto itself unique traditions, customs and laws. Thus in a healthy society, res pulica and res familiaris are in an intricate dance with one another, if I may mix my metaphors. When the republics which formed the union of constitutionally federated republics delegated and enumerated specific rights to the general government -their creature and their agent - they reserved unto themselves all of the other rights and authorities unique to them individually. Those rights and authorities which Virginia reserved to herself were not the same as those which Rhode Island reserved for herself, for they had different components and different historical experiences, although there were, of course, enough common elements among them to bring them to the compact table.
The Hobbesian state which took power in 1865 had and continues to have absolutely no sensibility for real commonwealths, communities and republics. The Hobbesian is a man with a bulldozer - a monopoly on coercion and the ability to define the limits of his own power. He sees the landscape of the union of constitutionally federated republics as a mere patch of divergent weeds to be pushed down, drained of their essence and ultimately eradicated. On the ground which he has made barren, he will build his Utopia, which will some form of banal sameness.
The Hobbesian state can be possessed by different demons; but they all seek, as is the wont of demons, barren sameness: Stalin wanted a classless society and pursued sameness with terror and death. Hitler wased one race and pursued ssmeness with terror and death. The "fascitoid social democrats" who possess and embody our Hobbesian state also pursue sameness with the weapons of "civil rights," "equality" and "social justice." Their volent phase is yet to come.
Yet, despite the fact that the fall is working its way through the cosmic order, with the Hobbesian state being one manifestion thereof, there is a Cosmological Absolute, Who has in the Second Person of the Trinity, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, become our Kinsman-Redeemer through His passion, death, resurrection and ascencion and has thereby undone as the Second Adam what the First Adam, in his fall, did. We must, therefore, in faith, hope and charity, await the workingout of this process and confess through our lives these things. I firmly hold that those fleeting moments of history, when the scale is right, when republican men can be found - freeholders who acquire and live out the cardinal virtues, the capital virtues and ultimately the theological virtues, men like Cincinatus, Washington and Jefferson Davis and when folks are focused on kith and kin, then we have a foretaste, although passing and momentary, of that Restoration which is yet to come in the plan of Providence. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot: this is the cause which is never truely lost because it has, as yet, to be fully gained. In the fullness of time, so is our hope, it will be. It is our duty to nurture it, not as an abstraction, but as a reality, be it but in the relative safety of our homes, and to be ready, with courage, to showcase it, when the historical opportunity presents itself.
#1. I would not be so bold as to make any Roman analogies where Dr. Fleming is watching. #3. The Greeks, I understand, sensibly regarded history, the past, as in front of them, because it could be known, while the future was hidden behind them. Since the "Enlightenment" at least, Western man has got it backwards.
The former president's brother, Jeb Bush, often mentioned as a potential candidate in 2012, said President Obama's message of hope and change during the 2008 campaign clearly resonated with Americans.
"So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant. I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it's great, but it doesn't draw people toward your cause," Mr. Bush said.
Note: The derogatory meaning of nostalgia is often used today to signify sentimental and backward folks. Its classical meaning is a "yearning for home" and those familiar things. Odysseus was nostaglic for home, even after living in the naval of the world where Homer described it as:
"Thick, luxuriant woods grew round the cave,
alders, and black poplars, pungent cypress too,
and there, birds roosted, folding their long wings,
owls and hawks and the spread beaked ravens of the sea,
black skimmers who make their living off the waves.
And round the mouth of the cavern trailed a vine
laden with clusters, bursting with ripe grapes.
Four springs in a row, bubbling clear and cold,
running side-by-side, took channels left and right.
Soft meadows spreading round were starred with violets,
lush with beds of parsley. Why, even a deathless god
who came upon that place would gaze in wonder,
heart entranced with pleasure.
Homer, The Odyssey, V:71-82
Contemporary readers must react to this in two ways.
1)Why would he want to leave the beautiful sea nymph and her island of perfect enchantment for the things he loved back home ?
or
2)He was just nostalgic for the good old days of home. (Hint: They really were not as good as he thought.)
"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be ever so humble, there's no place like home"
Jeb Bush is almost always wrong but in the case of the Republican Reagan fetish, he is correct. The set of problems Ronald Reagan faced in the 1980s are much different than the ones of today. Think about what was on Reagan's plate. The Soviet Union. High inflation. High interest rates. High taxes. A bloated government. Cultural decay. He handled some problems well, handled others poorly and some, like the cultural decay, he ignored. Todays problems are, in many ways, more severe.
Remembering good times and heroes is fine. However, to think that the policies of a dead president offer many solutions to adifferent sets of problems is silly. Think historically. Jeffersonian Democrats dominated the post-Federalist Era. By 1830, almost no one called himself a Jeffersonian Democrat. Jacksonian Democrats were few by 1850, Lincoln Republicans were few by 1880, Roosevelt Republicans were few by 1925 and Roosevelt Democrats were few by 1960. In 2008, almost all the Republican candidates for president ran as Reagan Republicans. The American people didn't buy it.
Derek,
Thanks for the response. "to think that the policies of a dead president offer many solutions to a different sets of problems is silly." Yes, I should let the dead bury the dead. Maybe the third Bush will be the answer, but I am still heading home just in case he is not.
Jeb Bush is a perfect spokesman for the 21 per cent of the public who still consider themselves Republican. Let us hope that that evil travesty on self-government might be on the way to oblivion like the Whigs so that a genuine opposition party might arise.
Jeb Bush will not run for president in 2012 and, instead, will allow Willard "Mitt" Romney to be whipped by Barack the Magnificent. However, much like the Terminator in that movie from twenty years ago, the Bush family will rise from the dead and torment the nation, the world and conservatives everywhere in 2016 with Jeb now headman. Will someone rid the world of this treacherous family?
"Will someone rid the world of this treacherous family?"
It's true that the Bushes are a pox on this country. Maybe the fever that's coming on us all as a result of the secondary infection of Obamunism will cure us before it kills us.
We live in hope and sometimes it's a fool's paradise.