Back to the Stone Age IC
Some Themes in Palaeoconservative Thought
In subsequent chapters I will take up, one by one, some of the main principles and arguments of palaeoconservatism, but in concluding this preface I should, if only to entice readers to continue, sketch out some of the principle themes to be found in palaeoconservative writers.
1) Objective Anthropology.
Any genuine palaeoconservative has a keen eye and a hard head. He is an observer of human nature, whether he has studied the subject scientifically or not. He knows that man is a big-brained ape, and, if he is a Christian or a Platonist, he believes that man, however improbable it seems from his history, also has a soul with a knowledge of good and evil and a capacity for eternal life. He begins with the way things are and have always been, not with the way things ought to be, and when he reads Rousseau's famous sentence, "Let us begin by setting aside the facts," he is ready to throw the book away—as he ought to unless he is a student of intellectual pathology.
Don't try to tell a palaeoconservative that man is by nature good or peaceful or that he lacks an appetite for power, and don't try to convince him that men and women have identical aptitudes. His response will be Sergeant Joe Friday's signature phrase on Dragnet, "Just the facts, ma'am." He may be a pious Christian or a mystical philosopher, but the palaeoconservative takes the facts of human nature as he finds them. I spent two decades at least studying genetics, anthropology, neurophysiology, and sociobiology in order to provide scientific corroboration of what everyone knew, once upon a time, if only from proverbs and fairly tales. Molnar, reading the early chapters of my first book, grew impatient. Do you really have to have all these footnotes to prove that men and women are different? Thomas did not need such evidence, but most people today require at least the veneer of scientific evidence.
Some palaeoconservatives may fall occasionally into the trap of scientific materialism or the simplistic thinking that reduces every human phenomenon to some biological trait we share with baboons, but that is far rarer than the tendency to fall back on a traditional understanding of sex roles, human society, and the fallibilities of human nature. In general then, palaeoconservatives, faced with revolutionary claims about reinventing marriage and the family or eliminating distinctions of class and wealth, will be extremely skeptical. Whether their skepticism is derived from scientific study or from religious tradition, they are not easily taken in by the ideological rhetoric of Marxists, feminists, or Jingoists.
2 The Machiavellian Approach. One of the greatest contributions to American conservative thought was James Burnham's book The Machiavellians. It had a profound influence on Burnhams's most important student, Samuel T. Francis. Machiavelli, particularly in his Commentaries on the Decades of Titus Livius, offered significant insights into the nature of power and the difficulty of acquiring or maintaining political liberty. This method of analysis was extended and deepened by Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, the German-turned-Italian Roberto Michels, and the French Syndicalist Georges Sore--among others, including Sam Francis and Burnham himself.
What the Machiavellians have taught us to see is the significance of elite classes. According to Michels' "Iron Law of Oligarchy," there is only one form of government, namely, oligarchy. A monarch depends on an aristocracy to carry out his will and support his authority, while so-called democracies cannot be governed in any practical sense either by the people as a whole or by their elected representatives, unless the representative body is fairly small, coherent, and empowered for decades, in which case it forms an oligarchy.
Machiavellians are not necessarily cynical power-seekers; on the contrary, they typically believe in republican government and cherish political liberty, but they refuse to be taken in by surface illusions or rhetoric about democracy, equality, and human rights. While on the surface, political debates may seem like conflicts between angels and demons or an argument between two sorts of idealists, the reality is generally more sordid. Advocates of women's rights may really want to make them sexual slaves or ill-paid laborers; champions of democracy and liberty may be scheming to acquire a totalitarian power that they will claim to be based on the will of the people.
When James Henry Hammond was defending slavery in the US Senate a northern opponent boasted that in the North they had eliminated slavery. "Yes," retorted Hammond, "the name but not the thing." Hammond was, obviously, defending an economic system on which he had grown very rich, but my point is not to defend or excuse slavery but to point to a reality that my friend Eugene Genovese so brilliantly revealed in books like Roll, Jordan Roll: the World the Slaves Made, and in his subsequent investigations into the mind of antebellum slave-holders. Genovese was, in those days, a Machiavellian Marxist who viewed both sets of arguments, for and against slavery, as so much ideological posturing to defend two sets of regional class interests, those of Southern slaveholders and those of Northern capitalists and industrialists.
Inevitably, those who have looked with jaundiced eyes at the reality of minority rights movements, as Sam Francis did, have been condemned as bigots. Perhaps some of them were or are, but that is hardly the point. What is most deeply offensive in palaeoconservative thought is not the failure to celebrate the empowerment of minorities but the refusal to admire the emperor's new clothes and the insistence that while leftist politicians may have changed the names, political power still rests on the pursuit of power and the exploitation of the weak. They have learned from the ancients, from Herodotus and Aristotle, that it is the mark of a tyrant to elevate the poor and the weak as part of their project of disempowering their only real rivals, people of high social status, ability, or integrity.
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I would like to preface my comment by saying that I am not interested in a Creationism vs. Evolution debate and that I currently consider myself an agnostic on the matter.
That being the case, I still struggle with 2 main concerns when it comes to discussion of Evolution. While I do not in any way dispute the conclusions Paleoconservative thought comes to regarding Human Nature, I’ve never found myself very impressed with Evolution in and of itself. The whole project seems too absurd for me to get my head around. I will defer to Dr. Fleming, whose studies in genetics, anthropology, and neurophysiology and the like far surpass any knowledge I may have gleaned by watching the Discovery Channel when there was nothing better on TV, but the criticisms I have found most pertinent belong to Dr. David Berlinski, a mathmetician (and, for what it’s worth, an Agnostic Jew and not an evangelical Christian). The probabilities of the near-infinite number of gyrations necessary to go from A to Z are too much for me to swallow. Whether from a fish to a cow to a whale or pick whatever chain of evolution, it just seems to beg for billions of moving parts, all cooperating in good order, to achieve the end effect. It seems to me the equivalent of scoring a Yahtzee 25 million times in a row – even if you give me a billion years to do it in I have a hard time believing I’ll score the required combinations.
My other objections, usually based on necessary cause and design and whatnot, apply only to strictly materialist/atheist views of evolution which I assume are outside the pale of Paleoconservative thought.
But, my second main concern, and this is the greater of the two, is theological. I know I’m not a priest or theologian and that I am not the most studied man when it comes to this question, but I have not been able to satisfactorily reconcile the Doctrine of Original Sin with the Theory of Evolution. Original Sin, as I understand it, involves a historical link to an actual Adam & Eve whose First Sin is actually passed down to every member of the Human Race sans 2. So many other doctrines depend on this understanding. The Doctrines concerning Mary (Immaculate Conception, Assumption), the Doctrines on Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, and even basic understanding of the Atonement of Christ, the necessity of Baptism, the Justice of God, Limbo . . . .etc. The Church has even gone so far as to specifically condemn the idea of Polygenism, that is the interpretive understanding of “groups” of primitive men & women standing in for “Adam” and “Eve”. How can this be squared with the idea of Evolution? I have no problem with saying that apes evolved to a point where God then “infused” a soul into them, but I cannot understand how God is not then an unjust tyrant for condemning the human race to such prolonged misery. It’s one thing for a being of free will to knowingly offend God and bring about the forwarned consequences, but if we are to posit that the Original Sin part of Human Nature is the leftover ape bits from the earliest little Man Ape, doesn’t this put the cause of this misery on God the Creator who apparently left the job half-baked?
Perhaps I’ve made a mountain of a primordial mole hill, but I thought it an opportune time to ask. If the Science is conclusive (and as I said in my first concern I have my doubts on this), then obviously the Church needs to go back to the drawing board and really figure out how all of this works theologically. But I’m okay with the Church moving slowly on this matter, especially given the undulating nature of Scientific Conclusions over that last 50 to 75 years. Actually, there already seems to be a correlation between the rise of the acceptance of Evolution and the waning of many of the doctrines I've mentioned above (barely any Catholics understand the necessity of Limbo and many even suggest it be abolished). As a Catholic, this plays havok with my understanding of the Infallibility of the Church regarding teachings on Faith & Morals.
One other minor quibble I have is that there is a profound difference between the idea of Man as God’s creation ruined and in necessity of restoral and the idea of Man as the highest level of achievement in the evolution of primitive beasts. One is certainly more conducive to promoting humility. However, I don’t know if this is a quibble worth discussing at this time.
Good and important questions. Some beginnings of a response:
1) Mathematicians typically know nothing about biology--or anything else that matters except math. They typically make terrible mistakes when they try to apply math to life-forms. One current notion of evolution is that it is anti-entropic. Chew on that one. A great many critics of evolutionary theory are actually attacking Darwin, who did not have the advantage of knowing genetics. The so-called Neo-Darwinist synthesis is a much better, more explanatory model. Researchers working within that paradigm have discovered an amazing amount. If there are any anti-evolutionary biologists, they have discovered nothing. All science is an evolving paradigm. No one version can be frozen and represented as "truth," all are merely stages of development. Everything we really needed to know about the human race was understood by Aristotle and St. Paul, but sociobiology helps to explain the how of it and gives us very useful weapons.
2) The Old Testament is not a work of science or history. We are to accept it as revealed, but we should remember that it was revealed to people who believed the world was flat and square and that the value of pi is an even 3. We must accept the profound wisdom of the story of Adam and Eve, but whether it is literally true or true only in an ideal or mythical sense, is a subject of much speculation and debate. At the heart of Christianity is a series of interlocking mysteries: Why there is something that came out of nothing, why there is life that came out of non-life (in other words, death), why there is human consciousness within or that came out of a brute body, why that consciousness brings with it an original sin that we have inherited--we do not know and perhaps are not met to know.
3) At the very least, no one disputes the adaptation of species to their environment or the evolution of subspecies. What we can learn by studying human behavior, its physiological basis, adaptive significance, in comparison with the nearest species--chimpanzees are 99% genetically the same as humans--confirms the ancient pagan/Christian view of man.
4) One must distinguish clearly the biological study of evolution from the silly philosophy of evolutionism as taught by people like Richard Dawkins. Evolutionism is to evolutionary theory is as scientology is to science.
A couple observations:
Those who insist on believing that people and human nature are basically 'good' tend to be the least 'good' people. That's because admitting that mankind is not basically good would force them to look at themselves, and consider the possibility that they themselves are not really 'good' either, as they wish to believe themselves to be (false identity), and they really dont want to do that. In short, they begin with self delusion about themselves, and then create ideologies based on more delusion, and implement those ideas out in the world where they can harm others. When their schemes dont pan out, they take their frustration, and sometimes their rage, out on those same others who have already been forced to endure their schemes, or who may resist in self-defence, and the devil laughs.
This begs some questions which these schemers should have to answer: Now, what was that nonsense about people being basically 'good'? Look at yourself and what you have done! And if human nature is so good, then why do you need to fix the world with your schemes? Why is the world not already a Utopia? If people are so good, then why are they not all happy already? Why do you have to dream up schemes to fix the world and force your version of happiness on everyone else? And why are you such a miserable person? Look within! Are you really all that good?
Paleoconservatives, whether they are conversant with principles of logic or not, generally try to see their own self-delusions first, as much as can be done with the limited human intellect, and thus can see why the grand schemes some people come up with are doomed to failure. Thus, their conservatism. Further, If they are not that good as individuals, or have personalities that are not that good, they can see this about themselves and thus they have the possibility of changing their ways (forgive me God, for I have sinned...). Those who can't or wont do that are trapped in their bad character by their own willfulness (see first paragraph).
It looks like I failed in my intent with the above post. I was trying to comment on original sin in a psychological way and then connect it to the will to power over others in a Machiavellian sense. I left out the part where the schemers hide their true motives, their true objective, which of course is power or greed, but they often sublimate this under their self-delusions of being a basically 'good' person. It takes a true sociopath to be honest about himself to himself when deceiving others.'Physician, heal thyself!'
The paleo position on human nature is an important foundational point. Put aside the out-and-out liberals for the moment, the neocons consider much of the world population as inherently inclined toward liberal democracy, individualism, and pluralism and that it is only bad or tyrannical governments that prevent them from this ideal. Of course, what we see now in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Egypt defies this view of human nature. Once tyrannical governments were removed and democracy encouraged these societies became more violent, radical, and intolerant, not less. Certainly much of the blame can be placed on the creed of the Islamic religion which provides ample justification for religious violence and totalitarian sectarian exclusivity. Than again, how much of these is traceable to the simple fact that men are by nature more inclined to corruption, power seeking, and violence than they are toward justice, good will, and altruistic tolerance?
Furthermore, speaking for myself, I need not read the classical Greeks, Chinese, or the early Christians to understand that man is not inherently good by nature. I need merely to look at the face in the mirror.
Thomas Fleming, despite taking into account your preface on your points, I cant help but commenting on one. This is exactly the point I made to you on air once and you seemed to agree, but yet:
"We must accept the profound wisdom of the story of Adam and Eve, but whether it is literally true or true only in an ideal or mythical sense, is a subject of much speculation and debate. "
It's quite saddening to see you write that. If Adam and Eve isnt true, or even if we admit the possibility it could be a myth, than there is no point to Christianity beyond sentimentality. If Adam hadnt committed the Original Sin, we're either unfallen men, or Christianity is a farce.
When Pius IX, Leo XIII and St Pius X weighed on these questions, they werent that favorable to the Evolutionists.
Leo XIII in Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae:
"“We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep."
There are many more. Pius XII also weighed in on this topic more directly in Humani Generis:
"When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own"
It is time to make a few distinctions, which can be regarded as ground rules.
1) One has to distinguish between thinking and feeling. While it is true that there are truly offensive ideas--apologies for child molestation or infanticide--but in most debates or discussions, it is possible to make a rational argument without offending, outraging, or disappointing one of the parties. This is particularly important in a discussion of clear-headed Machiavellian politics.
2) One has to distinguish between what one knows and what one accepts on faith or authority. This can be a subtle and complicated distinction, but at the extremes it is fairly easy. For example, I accept--for reasons it is pointless to go into here and now--the truth of the Nicene Creed, the authenticity of the Gospels, and the traditions of the Church. What this or that Pope felt or thought on a particular occasion is of little interest to me. 19th century Popes knew no biology, and their opinions about biological processes is of no significance. They did, however, accept the far more important truths taught by the Church on man's nature and purpose. What they--and most anti-Darwinists--objected to is an entirely materialistic and mechanical explanation of human existence.
3) One should distinguish between the true religion of Christianity and the less true ideologies that are forever springing up to replace it, e.g., Christian Socialism, Christian Democratism, Christian monarchism, and either the Christian evolutionism of Fr. Theillard or the Christian anti-evolutionism of so many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, as well as Creationists, Flat-Earthians, Young Earthians, credulous iconodoules who worship (as opposed to respect or revere) images, and, in many cases, Fundamentalists who superstitiously worship the Bible. Many of these lesser ideologies are good for the people who believe them, but ours, we are told, is a jealous God, who may not be well-pleased by the transfer of our worship to lower things and beings. This distinction is really only an expansion of number two, because most of these ideologies develop when unreflective people believe they know something that is not or even cannot be known.
Thus, when I wrote, "We must accept the profound wisdom of the story of Adam and Eve, but whether it is literally true or true only in an ideal or mythical sense, is a subject of much speculation and debate." I meant no more than what I wrote, namely, that it is possible to be a good Christian and faithful Catholic while yet regarding the truths of Genesis as mysteries beyond our human capacity to know what is literal and what goes beyond the literal.
If the Christian faith depends on believing that Old Testament is literally inerrant in every detail, there is no point to any science, history, or rational discourse. We then have to be, more or less, like the Amish. While I should never compare myself with Socrates--with whose teachings I have certain problems--his "Delphic" skepticism is often necessary. Know thyself, as he quoted from the Temple of Apollo, namely, know that thou art merely mortal and not likely to learn much or be very wise. He was wiser than other men, simply because he knew how little he knew. A man's got to know his limitations, especially his intellectual limitations.
Dr. Fleming,
The criticism that a mathematician may not be the best guide in biological matters is well heeded. Hopefully I can be excused as, to the layman, it can be hard to pick one’s way through what is actually part of the scientific theory and what is philosophical bosh when it comes to evolution, and the mathematician was at least speaking on terms I could understand. I watched a YouTube video a while ago with Richard Dawkins explaining how he could demonstrate the evolution of the eye over a series of stages (in response to Intelligent Design critics who claimed it was irreducibly complex), and while I would not argue that what he said was not possible I cannot help laughing at anyone who would think such an outlandish series of incidents probable. And it seems, from the lay perspective, that every outlandish series of incidents has to be exponentially increased to account for the vast number of changes to go from one species to another. I hope Dr. Dawkins plays the lottery.
Thank you also for calling up the distinction between sub-species evolution and cross-species evolution (I have no idea if I’m using the correct terms). I don’t think I’ve run across anyone who doubts sub-species evolution, but I have heard it suggested that it is a game of diminishing returns, the idea being that variants can be made from a purer genetic species (i.e. species of dogs can come from the genetic material of a wolf), but the variants will not go beyond the genetic boundaries of the originator. And there do seem to be boundaries of some sort – one can breed a Zebra with Donkey, but the result will not be a new species but a zebroid unable to spawn. I guess this is somewhat along the lines of the “evolution is anti-entropy” type argument. Knowing so little about genetics, I suspect parts of this might fall into the bosh category, but from the lay person perspective it does have appeal.
It still stretches my credulity when I think of a fish eventually becoming a cow which eventually became a whale, and I wonder if the genetic evidence, which I do not dispute nor question the results achieved by application of the Neo-Darwinist theory to the field of genetics, actually indicates causal relationships between different species or a very deep, genetic relationship from a merely material perspective. I know that I am not being very clear, and this is what happens when I try to talk science. I guess I’m asking if the genetic evidence really does indicate that one species is derived from another, or does it indicate that the source material shares a lot more in common than anyone previously suspected? Just because they can find some genetic coding that I happen to share with a Trilobite could mean that I originally came from a Trilobite or that the genetic material we’re both made of happens to share these traits. Let me double-down with what is likely a shoddy comparison. The current theory on Dark Matter posits that Dark Matter exists because of various results from various experiments & observations. I understand that other theories have been built on this idea and have given promising results. However, since we have been completely unable to actually detect Dark Matter, it could turn out that there is not and never was any Dark Matter. It could be that the promising results owe their cause to something which scientists either have not yet considered or have not encountered (I even heard, at one point, that the idea of the Aether might be coming back into vogue). Causality seems to be much more elusive in scientific theory than appears at first glance, and proven results may wind up resting upon something other than the currently proposed foundation. It’s why I don’t get overly worked up over this stuff.
My barely lucid ramblings aside, are there any resources you can recommend to gain a working knowledge of evolution? I ask not so much out of personal interest, although I would like to come closer to understanding the truth even if it requires me slogging through a science book or two, but mostly out of a desire to know enough so that when I eventually have to teach my children they will end up less confused that I am at present. I don’t intend to over emphasize science in our curriculum, but who knows, I may even wind up with a budding biologist in my midst (Heaven help me!).
I still stand by my original thought that all of this is important and fun, but my chief concern remains how to understand Catholic Doctrine in this light. It seems that many of the theologians have either taken the idea of evolution and run far too far with it (ala Teilhard de Chardin) or just thrown up their hands and said it doesn’t really make any difference at all let’s just call it all symbolic. Without disputing at all what you’ve said regarding the mysteries at the heart of the Christian creed or making any attempt to “know” more than I possibly could, it has always seemed to me that the entire Christian system is anchored on two historical realities – the original Fall and Christ’s atonement. If either of these two historical events were somehow “disproven” I don’t know how the system stands (I’m not saying it doesn’t stand, just that I don’t understand how it stands). I’m not demanding literal interpretation of all Scripture (7 days, 7 billion years – I don’t have a preference), nor do I deny that most if not all passages in the Good Book are polyvalent, but whether Noah endured a global flood or just a regional flood, whether Jonah did or didn’t sit in the whale’s belly for 3 days, or whether Daniel did or didn’t square off against a dragon - the foundations of numerous Catholic Doctrine are not rocked by these answers. Adam and Eve, appropriately enough, do have such an impact. I appreciate the distinction between the Why and the How, but it seems that these two rare moments in the history of mankind are where those parallel lines intersect. If there is a Redemption, there must first have been, somewhere by someone, a Fall. If there was no Fall, then I don’t see how we escape M. de Chardin’s conclusions that Christ is the evolutionary apex of man. Whether the first Man & Woman were made from mud or monkeys does not seem as consequential to me as that these first parents were in a State of Grace and knowingly and willfully rejected that State of Grace. Perhaps this, and not actual biology, was the point that Pius XII was trying to emphasize?
I guess I’ve said all that to say that I agree; there is much room for speculation and debate.
I am not a young earth creationist nor a 'flat earther' (a favorite term of left-liberals). I said what I said in charity because I believe you are well meaning and of good will. In the race to not be seen as an unwashed 'biblical literalist' (more accurately - a biblical textualist), Catholics will unwittingly allow themselves to overthrow their whole religion.
Perhaps it didnt matter what Leo XIII said in that particular statement so far as it relates to this issue, but Humani generis is more authoritative. Surely you would agree that they do carry alot of weight? Pius XII isnt pretending to be a biologist.
I was not suggesting that anyone on this website was either a Christian Marxist or a Flat-earthian. I do not intend to go back and read what this or that Pope said about evolution. I should be very much surprised if they were making technical arguments against a scientific theory that only took coherent shape long after they were dead. Mr. Maxwell, obviously, did not read my responses in which I distinguished between philosophical Darwinism and the development of evolutionary theory in the past two or three generations. I should also point out that I have not spoken about what I may or may not believe in this matter, only about what I regard as a reasonable range of permissible thought. Fr. Theillard and the Fundamentalist anti-evolutionists make the same mistake, that is, of imposing a scientific dogma on the Faith. I have seen too many people fall into the obscurantist trap only to be enlightened by science and then surrender their faith.
I think it is pointless to read a book about evolution. The only way to learn anything is to learn the fundamentals. Otherwise, you end up taking on faith things that are not matters of faith. If you want to study the potential effects of the neo-Darwinist synthesis on moral and political philosophy, that is the subject of my first book. It is often a boring read but it gives the argument.
What is most deeply offensive in palaeoconservative thought is not the failure to celebrate the empowerment of minorities but the refusal to admire the emperor's new clothes
At the risk of being flippant, can we draw a parallel to the way the common practice of European Art House filmmakers of making it a point to showcase male anatomy is increasingly catching on in mainstream Hollywood?
I realize that sounds a bit ridiculous and trivial, but it's not. Libertines like to laugh at our Puritanism whenever one person decries one little publicly sanctioned flashing on the street corner, but it goes beyond one incident, and they know it. All these weird little nonsensicalities (think the little girl with a mouth about as clean as a horse's end in the latest Jackson-Obama publicity spot) add up to a picture of a completely crazy culture. The ones who appear to be weird are the ones who point out that something is not normal, that a little girl is cussing like a sailor in public, that male pornography is a legitimate subject for mainstream family-feature picture shows, that the Emperor is... nude!
Daniel,
"“Science has remained an anti-intellectual movement based on naive faith”.
— Alfred North Whitehead.
This is more true today than when he wrote it. There is an excellent essay entitled Science as the Enemy of Truth that I could not find and another about the differences between modernist ideas of progress and ST. Albert the Great's dictum: “there is progress of the faithful in the faith, but never progress of the faith in the faithful”. that I cannot locate. I think the questions are all good. The best sources of information on all of this is the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. One must go to original sources in these matters and understand the various relationships between physics, chemistry, biology, microbiology, genetics and metaphysics. It is like learning latin, however, and may be too late for such endeavors. Faith and reason are quite useful and it is a damned shame to see men always lose their faith before their reason and then fall into the abyss.
Allen Wilson writes; ' I left out the part where the schemers hide their true motives, their true objective, which of course is power or greed, but they often sublimate this under their self-delusions of being a basically 'good' person."
Mr. Wilson,
Thank you for this comment. It reminded me of a happy occassion as an undergraduate when the late Hamish Fraser reminded a young liberal that he should never forget that "one reason liberals hate the death penalty so much is beause they know deep down in their own heart that they deserved it !""
I understand that paleos accept the Machiavellian reality of politics. It is less clear to me whether they are supposed to partake in it. That we should seemed to be a general theme of Sam Francis, but for the most part I think paleos are too concerned with rightness and fair play to make very good Machiavellians.
I think neoconservatives are very Machiavellian. That is how they have been able to take over every conservative institution, publication, think tank, etc. that isn't explicitedly anti-neo and even some of those, present company excepted of course. I have always been torn between whether this was something to admire or despise or some combination of both.
You know Red, Tom Fleming talks a good story about "the Machiavellian reality of politics" and at a certain level he is no doubt correct. They are a ruthless, treacherous bunch that fear neither God nor man and must be dealt with accordingly. But if I am going to live in an age where one must "hold his friends close and his enemies even closer", I want to learn this distinction from Tom Fleming because at least he knows the one from the other.
Very interesting line of description and comments. I wonder if Objective Anthropology and the Machiavellian Approach have something in common? Is there room in the paleo description for some sense of a lack of ideological fanaticism or simplicity -- the idea that life is in fact full of mysteries displayed and that such mysteries are not merely childish bubbles to be popped by someone's hyperextended adolescent imagination?
By acknowledging our own limitations, we give great credit to the beauty and wonder of the world. It is the fanatic proclaiming he is limitless who attempts to paint the world in the simplistic colors of his own imagination and in doing so destroys the things he touches around him.
This is probably not unique to paleos, however there is a focus on locality and in that understanding is an inherent sense of limitation.
I wonder if Objective Anthropology and the Machiavellian Approach have something in common?
Not much!
I think we are getting tangled up in terms. By Machiavellian, I am referring specifically and only to a tradition of political analysis that studies how elite classes gain and hold power. Machiavellians may hold quite contrasting political views--Mosca was a rightist, while Sorel was a leftist agitator and Gramsci a Communist. One false dichotomy, often made by the Straussians and those infected with their lies, is between ancient political thought that was rooted in the virtues and the Machiavellians who are interested in power. In fact, it is the nature of the commonwealth that has changed and not the terms of political analysis. The state--a word first used either by NM or in his time--is something new in the world, a political corporation owned by an elite class. I do not say this is a bad thing, only that the Tuscan and other city-states were a new form of government. Therefore, I am not talking about a cynical pursuit of power but a realistic assessment of political motives and strategy.
If I read Mr. McCabe correctly, he is asking if there is a connection between this pragmatic analysis of power and elites and an anthropology--that is, a systematic study/philosophy of human nature and behavior--that is grounded in observation of the way people actually behave politically. He was not asking if there was some connection between the cynical pursuit of power and what goes on in anthro departments in the university. If my assumption is correct, then, yes, he is perfectly right. Political philosophers use anthropology in this special sense, not in the usual sense of an academic discipline.
Neocons are only Machiavellian in the lowest sense of the term. They are more like sharks that instinctively swim towards the blood. They have no thought, they lack even strategy. They are the least effective of parasites--the kind that kill their host.
Let me leave you with a Machiavellian insight from Sorel, who asked 100 years ago: "Why is it that every revolution that begins by championing the rights of man ends up strengthening the power of the state?" Once you have this insight, you will be suspicious of movements for civil rights and human rights, because you have taken a bird's eye view of the highway system and seen where that road is leading.
Well said!, Well said!!, Dr. Fleming
to Mr. Allen Wilson:
"Those who insist on believing that people and human nature are basically 'good' tend to be the least 'good' people"
Those who insist on believing human nature is basically good may very well be the least "good" people. They certainly are miserable sinners. They also happen to be correct on that count though.
Human nature is good. It's also fallen. Great mistakes happen when men reject one or the other element.
Pax Christi
Father Seraphim Rose, an Orthodox Christian monk, wrote well against Darwinian evolution. His writings were collected by Hieromonk Damascene and published as _Genesis, Creation, and Early Man_. He set forth the Patristic teaching that man was not frail and mortal as he is now, truly fallen even in a physical sense. It is both nonsense and pernicious to the Faith to claim that only the New Testament is truly trustworthy and that the old is but an interesting collection of fables. One does not need to be a Protestant Fundamentalist to hold to that view, and neither did the Church Fathers. To say that God despises a high view of scripture is likewise absurd. Gertrude Himmelfarb's biography of Darwin is superb, and hers is a skeptical view of the man and his theory. To reject Christian Tradition is to reject key elements of the Faith. To believe that only the spiritual matters is to hold something close to ancient gnostic dualism.
Where to begin with this muddled comment? First, Fr. Seraphim Rose did not know beans about science. One cannot turn to the Fathers for scientific arguments but for moral and spiritual truths. The good father, by the way, believed that space aliens lived among us. I think we can safely dispense with his scientific theories. Of course the Fathers--and Seraphim Rose--are right on the nature of man in a profound way that scientists do not even aspire to.
No one is saying that the Old Testament is dispensable or consists of fables. If anyone wants to claim that is what I said, then I must tell him that he lies and lies knowingly. What I wrote is that the truths of the OT are not in the realm of science and need not be taken literally in every passage. If you want to be a Fundamentalist, then you must accept 3 as the value of pi, believe in a flat square earth, and accept also sorts of muddled dating that is contradicted not just by historians and archaeologists but by simply rational people. In the ancient world, the anti-Christian Platonist Porphyry debunked some of the historical errors of the OT and the traditional dating of books (e.g., Daniel), simply by using the sort of rational methods later used by Valla in debunking The Donation of Constantine.
And, while there is a good deal of soundness in la Himmelfarb's biography of Darwin, she knows far less biology than I do. I am willing to praise her book to the skies--as I have done more than once to her and to her son Bill--but let us not pretend that it offers us any understanding of the neo-Darwinist synthesis that took shape in the 20th century. I don't think she would make such a claim.
I have no problem with irrational people who wish to believe what they have been told. What I reject is their presumption in entering into any discussion where fact, truth, and reason are regarded. Permit me to quote a great Liberal: "If anyone in a discussion with us is not concerned with adjusting himself to truth, if he has no wish to find the truth, he is intellectually a barbarian."
I actually like barbarians, but they should stay in their place, content to "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!" Thus saith Conan, apparently quoting Genghis Khan.
A correction: Father Seraphim never claimed, as you say he did, that "space aliens lived among us." Nor do you understand his writings, which are about what the CHURCH FATHERS believed. If this makes me a barbarian, then make the most of it.
From a Nobel Laureate in biology and physiology ( I have no idea of his particular faith but he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Science and not an idiot like most Neo -Darwinists who write today.)
"For the remaining time of my intervention, allow me to make some personal remarks on the interphase between our actual scientific knowledge with some contents of biblical scripts. As we know, philosophy and natural sciences have common roots. What I can perceive in reading the Old Testament must reflect aspects of the orientational knowledge of people who lived about 3000 years ago. I call this traditional wisdom. Some of the statements are directly relevant to cosmic and to biological evolution. According to Genesis 1, creation was a stepwise process with an evolutionary sequence of events: creation of our planet, building up of living conditions and only then, appearance of living organisms. Since the authors could not perceive microorganisms, they reported that plants were created first. These could later provide feed for animals, and human beings were introduced lastly. Today’s scientific knowledge principally agrees with this narration of creation. This clearly corresponds to an evolutionary process, although the details, of course, do not correspond precisely to today’s scientific knowledge on cosmic and biological evolution. An attentive reading of the chapters on the genealogy of biblical key persons reveals many differences in their characters and their behavior. These descendants of Adam and Eve are, by far, not identical, they are not clones. From today’s scientific point of view, this testifies that genetic variation must have contributed, at least to some extent, to the observed and described differences between individual persons. I am fully aware that conventional interpretations of biblical texts may differ from my conclusions. However, as a scientist, I am accustomed to know that more than one interpretation of experimental data is sometimes possible and also meaningful. More than one meaning may also be hidden in texts of traditional wisdom. Under this assumption, I can guess some possible references to creation and evolution behind two of the Ten Commandments in the Exodus. We are reminded to work for six days and to take a rest on the seventh day as God did after creating the inanimate and the living worlds. This can remind us to honour creation and evolution. Another reminder to honour evolution as a basis for permanent creation may be found in the commandment in which we are told to honour our parents, with the promise of a long, wealthy life in the land that God intends to give to us. If our parents represent the long series of our ancestors and the promised land future living conditions, we can interpret this commandment also as a reminder to honour biological evolution: We owe our own lives to past evolution, and we can count on the future evolutionary process that will offer to our descendants possibilities to adapt to changing living conditions. Please take these remarks as a reflection on possible impacts that the archaic scientific knowledge might have had in antiquity for building up orientating knowledge. This source of information must have influenced the biblical reports on the history of our planet and of the various forms of life, i.e., the narration on cosmic and biological evolution. I consider it as an urgent need that scientists and religious believers strengthen their efforts to harmonize their views and knowledge on fundamental questions concerning life and the world in which we live. I hope that my reflections on scientific knowledge and its possible consistency with biblical scripts can contribute to the requested harmonization."
What I have read from Fr. Seraphim Rose, though it is not a great deal, was mostly rather good. I only looked briefly at the space alien stuff and that was years ago. To be fair, I recall that he argued that the abduction tales were true but the aliens are demonic creatures of some sort. A number of other Orthodox writers have expanded on this. My very obvious point is that the good father displays both credulity and an indifference to the ordinary rules of rational proof that do not encourage one to put any trust in his treatment of any scientific question. What he thinks the Fathers would say about evolution is irrelevant to any rational argument.
My dear sir, it is not my thinking that makes you a barbarian, but your indifference to reason, fact, and truth, and a fanaticism that makes you feel yourself justified in slandering someone whose arguments you refuse to understand. You don't know what question is on the table, you know nothing of modern evolutionary theory, yet you feel compelled to enter into a rational discussion armed with no weapons except ignorance which, in your case, appears to be invincible. For all I know, you are a good Christian, an excellent husband and father, a model citizen, but for you to attempt to discuss these questions is something like if I were to try out for the NFL. There is no shame in being an ignorant barbarian, but there ought to be some shame in flaunting ignorance and bad manners.
PS Thanks to the judge for providing the quotation. Not all scientists are atheists and not all Christian evolutionists are weak-kneed liberals. Since I am going to the Great Wen, as my old friend John Reed used to call DC (borrowing from Cobbett), I'll be mostly silent for a few days. The occasion is a banquet honoring my old friend, Ambassador Faith Whittlesy who is receiving a lifetime achievement award, presented by Justice Scalia. I wouldn't ordinarily attend something like this, but Ambassador Whittlesey was one of the best of the Reaganites (ran his White House) and unlike most senior Republicans she tumbled to the problems of the neoconservative foreign policy fairly early on.
PPS That is why I am posting the next installment that I should otherwise have put off until Thursday or Friday.
Thank you , Mr Reavis. I heard that somewhere before but can't remember where. It's one of the best quotes I know of.
Not to get too far off topic, but Dan Daly is certainly right about human nature. Even so, it's the 'fallen' part of the equation that is important in my opinion, because, as we can see in this world, people aren't really all that good in practice, regardless of what their intentions may be.
It is the fallenness of man's nature that makes him bad, and that is where we must start from, not from delusions that we are 'good'. The goodness is buried so deep inside that in many people it rarely shows, and when you finally get down to it, that goodness is God's goodness, not man's. It is God that is good, not I, and the 'I' must disappear for God's goodness to express itself. In a deep spiritual sense, you cannot really be 'good' of yourself.
Also, regarding my first (failed) post in this section, I must point out that when I said that the 'schemers' ought to answer some questions, I meant that they should ask them of themselves and try to answer them, not that they should be asked these questions and forced to answer as in a interrogation. That would be counterproductive and potentially dangerous, as some people may react with violent rage.
I blame the failure of that post on the fumes from the meth lab next door, which can make you think rather unclearly at times, and can teach you some valuable lessons on human nature.
Mr Daly, I responded to your post but mistakenly put it under a response I made to Mr Reavis above.
Also, to everyone here, I was looking for a print copy of Burnham's The Machiavellians and it's not that easy to find, but you can download a djvu of the 1943 edition free from Archive.org.
Mr. Reavis,
It seems like the fellow here is pulling a Galileo. I appreciate his efforts at armchair theology (being a reformed armchair theologian myslef), but when speaking in an official capacity he would be well advised to stick to his subject. Much like Dr. Fleming can poo-poo the Popes when they speak on matters of biology, scientists risk making themselves look the fool when they dare to dabble in theology. They'd best stick with stating what they know and what they can prove (emphasis on that word) and let the Church figure out how best to incorporate those findings into the Deposit of Faith.
I say this because, after reading his comment a few times, I find his interpretation of the Commandments into statements in support of evolution extremely aggravating and completely wide of the mark. The phrase "honor evolution" is itself nonsensicle. If evolution is a process and not a thing or historical event, how does one even go about honoring it?
Again, not to attempt any sort of debate on the merits or validity of the theory of evolution itself, but its language like this that gets my dander up. I'm sure the professor who made the remarks did not intend it this way, but it comes across as elevating this theory into some sort of Divinity that requires we conform even the 10 Commandments so as to bring it honor. I would hold this example up as a counter-point to some of the clumsy langugae used by Pope St. Pius X and Pope Leo XIII.
A harmony may someday be reached, but not while either side keeps claiming ground that is not their own.
Mr. Cornell,
Thank you for your good comments. I was a petroleum engineering major for three years before trying to acquire an education. At the time it was very rare but still possible. I would not recommend it today. In fact I may go back and finish the engineering degree.
"as a scientist, I am accustomed to know that more than one interpretation of experimental data is sometimes possible and also meaningful. More than one meaning may also be hidden in texts of traditional wisdom."
I am not interested in evolution, I am interested in the traditional wisdom of the West as it has been handed down to us for thousands of years. I posted the quote to demonstrate that not all scientists are angry with religious texts. I posted it to illustrate that today science considers itself the rule by which other truths must be measured when it is really quite secondary to even its own truths of yesterday. I did not mean to offend anyone, to disparage science or to assert my own definitive understanding of Genesis. God breathed a soul into man when he created Him, man somehow through disobedience or disregard for his creator fell from this special relationship, this most pleasant repose or state of grace and this original sin has been transferred to the generations of man. This rebellious creature must now work and pray amidst his earthly wanderings, in this vail of tears, in order to return to his Father's house in heaven and recover his original integrity . This peculiar creature has been taught how to return, he has been given the golden thread, the way to follow, an arduous road home. He still resists, as is his inclination, but with the help of God's grace and by persevering unto the very end he will do just fine. Nothing I posted or nothing the great teacher of biology and physiology said inhis remarks, has disproved this tall tale or diminshed it by one iota, or my understadning of it. In fact I would not be surprised to learn that for the professor too, through his work in the marvelous complexities of moving bodies, visible and invisible, such studies have not profoundly enriched his faith in his Creator, who no man "hath yet seen and lived."
Robert,
I know we're on the same team, and, on this one, I think we're practically in the same place. I didn't mean to disparage the scientist whom you quoted, and I certainly did not intend my comments to at all reflect upon you or your position. Not knowing the fellow, I can only assume he's a good, decent scientist who is earnest in his work, and I would probably enjoy talking theology or philosophy with him over a few drinks. However, for him to use his position on the Pontifical Acadmey of Sceintists to publicly comment on his interpretation of Theology seems certainly as strange if not moreso than the Popes whose encyclicals Dr. Fleming has taken to task up above. Perhaps I felt like this ought to have been highlighted if for nothing else than to point out that the Popes aren't the only ones "overstepping their bounds." I think your one sentence about science using itself as the standard to measure everything pretty much sums up all I tried, with far too many words, to say.
I remain an agnostic on the matter as far as the actual theory of evolution goes, and by that I mean too ill informed and not smart enough to figure out whatever answer there is to be had. Fortuntately, like you, for the most part I don't think it makes a hair of difference in our understanding of human nature, our great and common struggle, God's prevailing Grace, or our ultimate end.
"I know we're on the same team, and, on this one, I think we're practically in the same place"
I hope so because if we are not, I want to quit my team and try the free agent market. . Once you seperate intelligence into a thousand pieces with all the fictional walls necessary for the maintanance of our exceptional and totally "free republic" you must continue down that road to the hellish end --- until the only thing left is "me, myself and I" doing whatever the strong want to do forever. And as the clever man once said to the strong before gouging his eye out, "Good luck with that!!. "
"At the heart of Christianity is a series of interlocking mysteries: Why there is something that came out of nothing, why there is life that came out of non-life (in other words, death), why there is human consciousness within or that came out of a brute body, why that consciousness brings with it an original sin that we have inherited--we do not know and perhaps are not met to know." (end quote)
A mystery is something we know is unknowable. We know something cannot issue from 'nothing'. The misguided notion that it can is judaic. 'Nothing' by definition, doesn't exist. So if the world was created by the Creator some original force that itself was never created but existed always, as the known laws of thermodynamics demonstrate must have been the case, then what was created issued out of that dimension of the divine and thus is at least partially divine itself if not to the same degree in the inevitable hierarchy, as the Creator is so.
That is the reason in the hierarchy human consciousness or something more divine issued out of that which is less divine or brutish and why there is no such thing as death in the ascending scale of creation since its Creator was never created. It is in fact a mystery what exactly happens when we slip our own mortal coil.
The demonstrable problem with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is that they mislable tenets in their belief systems as if a 'mystery' when in fact they are not such things. Yet those traditions do also contain from older traditions, as well as from their own many fine and true characteristics. And there will always be other in fact real mysteries that which we know are unknowables such as why is life in this world as a part of the divine knowably imperfect? I don't buy the manufactured original sin tenet as if we are all born bad, miserable, little twits to be superfically 'saved', nor on the other hand the opposite one-sided notion that we are born just as wonderful and powerful as the divinity at other levels i.e. as the gods or the supreme Creator we call, God. It stands to reason we are where we are in the divine hierarchy, and the world may be designed in such a way as to promote our growing up and developing toward that from whom we were created. Reason has its limits but that's what it stands to reason it would point toward once the limits are reached, and so thus another mystery.
However if the world was in fact created (which we know it was, we're IN it) to promote our growing up and toward the divine we also know we tend not to want to do so. And so therefore the above mentioned religions for children with their training wheels on their bicycles and their demonstrably false but perhaps more palatable 'mysteries' are designed for children since they are also inevitably the children of -God- Who Was Never Created i.e. the Creator. He meets his creation apparently in this regard where we're at.
Take the candy, but don't necessarily also get in the van? (Humor)
Note: sorry this was duplicated below, but the following reply was due here to your remarks, all of which I endorse. I personally just give no quarter to errors in tradition which otherwise I also endorse as our precious heritage, in tandem as guide with limited reason as we are rational beings.
"At the heart of Christianity is a series of interlocking mysteries: Why there is something that came out of nothing, why there is life that came out of non-life (in other words, death), why there is human consciousness within or that came out of a brute body, why that consciousness brings with it an original sin that we have inherited--we do not know and perhaps are not met to know." (end quote)
A mystery is something we know is unknowable. We know something cannot issue from 'nothing'. The misguided notion that it can is judaic. 'Nothing' by definition, doesn't exist. So if the world was created by the Creator some original force that itself was never created but existed always, as the known laws of thermodynamics demonstrate must have been the case, then what was created issued out of that dimension of the divine and thus is at least partially divine itself if not to the same degree in the inevitable hierarchy, as the Creator is so.
That is the reason in the hierarchy human consciousness or something more divine issued out of that which is less divine or brutish and why there is no such thing as death in the ascending scale of creation since its Creator was never created. It is in fact a mystery what exactly happens when we slip our own mortal coil.
The demonstrable problem with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is that they mislable tenets in their belief systems as if a 'mystery' when in fact they are not such things. Yet those traditions do also contain from older traditions, as well as from their own many fine and true characteristics. And there will always be other in fact real mysteries that which we know are unknowables such as why is life in this world as a part of the divine knowably imperfect? I don't buy the manufactured original sin tenet as if we are all born bad, miserable, little twits to be superfically 'saved', nor on the other hand the opposite one-sided notion that we are born just as wonderful and powerful as the divinity at other levels i.e. as the gods or the supreme Creator we call, God. It stands to reason we are where we are in the divine hierarchy, and the world may be designed in such a way as to promote our growing up and developing toward that from whom we were created. Reason has its limits but that's what it stands to reason it would point toward once the limits are reached, and so thus another mystery.
However if the world was in fact created (which we know it was, we're IN it) to promote our growing up and toward the divine we also know we tend not to want to do so. And so therefore the above mentioned religions for children with their training wheels on their bicycles and their demonstrably false but perhaps more palatable 'mysteries' are designed for children since they are also inevitably the children of -God- Who Was Never Created i.e. the Creator. He meets his creation apparently in this regard where we're at.
Take the candy, but don't necessarily also get in the van? (Humor)