Mea Culpa

I must clear my conscience of something. 

I am not very good at writing of immediate events.  Writing on historical events or various aspects of culture and liberty, these I can handle.  These have been filtered by many, allowing me to benefit from the wisdom of time and place.

I spoke too soon regarding the death of George Floyd.  This has been weighing on me for several weeks; I have finally decided to deal with it publicly.

At the time, many of you kindly suggested that I spoke to soon.  You were correct.  So, regarding the aforementioned post: apologies.  Ignore the first paragraph; I am good with the rest.

Dialogos

The term dialogue stems from the Greek διάλογος (dialogos, conversation); its roots are διά (dia: through) and λόγος (logos: speech, reason). The first extant author who uses the term is Plato, in whose works it is closely associated with the art of dialectic. Latin took over the word as dialogus.

A wonderful conversation between Jonathan Pageau and John Vervaeke.  They cover much ground, especially regarding the recent events of the reaction to the virus and the tremendous uprising of protests and riots.  I will point to what I found as highlights.  Feel free, however, to listen to the entire discussion.

Vervaeke begins by walking through his thought process while reflecting on the situation of George Floyd, the riots, racism, the riots, etc.  He comes to understand that he is once again being traumatized in the same way he was traumatized as a child in his fundamentalist church – by a puritanical form of Protestantism.  Regarding the current accusation of racism and white guilt:

7:04: “I am being told that I have an original sin, not because of any act I have committed, but because of how I was born; there is an aspect of this that is unforgiveable; whatever I do to try an overcome this makes it that much worse; I need to be contrite until some external, obscure authority pronounces me saved.”

17:06: Vervaeke asks Pageau if the version of original sin that he was brought up with – whether or not it is the right version – is what’s at play in this movement right now.  Pageau’s answer touches on the dangers of bringing this idea of original sin into biology; this has been done before, and it doesn’t end well. 

The only way out for those who are deemed guilty of today’s original sin is to self-flagellate or to scapegoat – find someone guiltier than me and yell at them (and worse).  It seems to me that even this isn’t sufficient, as it does not bring forgiveness.

22:35: Pageau offers his “alternative” way of understanding original sin.  I won’t do justice to his answer by summarizing it.  If this is of interest, take a listen.

39:10: Vervaeke has an interesting observation.  There is an exclusive focus on one virtue in this race guilt, justice (in a very truncated view of justice), at the exclusion of all of the other virtues – both the Cardinal and Theological.  “We should at least be talking about the other virtues, all seven.”  Talking about justice without talking about wisdom is oxymoronic and very dangerous.

Pageau then relates this demand for justice to another complicated term – equality.  The problem is, there is no such thing as equality.  The desire for equality is a desire for power.

46:29: Pageau discusses the focus of Christianity on the poor.  The focus is on those who have, to give; it is not for those who don’t have to take.  Why can’t they just take it?  It is a self-defeating pattern, because there is always someone with less than you.  From Pageau:

I don’t excuse the peasants for killing the king, but it is still, kind of, the king’s fault.  He didn’t take care of the peasants.

53:15: listen to the next four or five minutes from this point.  If these few minutes are of interest, just listen to the rest of the discussion.  I will just touch on highlights:

Our current events are akin to the French and Russian Revolutions; the new atheists who made fun of Jordan Peterson talking about this just need to look around: it is happening right now; a meaningful discussion of the shortcomings of reason: there is an aspect of reality that cannot be accounted for.

We call murder immoral, yet we don’t create an eradication strategy for it.  It would result in a totalitarian state.  Which is exactly what is happening with covid…and, also, the current discussion of racism.  To eradicate these will require a totalitarian state (yet, as with murder, none of these will ever be eradicated).

Covid has awakened in us the desire to eradicate; this opportunistically flowed right into the discussion of racism: the desire to eradicate thoughts and feelings.  We know where that road leads.  We will find scapegoats and have public beatings.  Pageau then brings up René Girard and a quote from him from around 2007.  Girard saw this coming, something about bringing up the machine of antichrist: infinite victimhood looking for infinite scapegoat. 

We are facing the same problem now that we faced during the twentieth century.  Pageau warns: when the Nazis came to power in Germany, they were faced with a communist revolution.  The pendulum doesn’t just swing one way.

Most Americans are more distressed of the opposite party than they are of a foreign threat.  What does that mean?

Conclusion

The burning of the forest (as is occurring right now) includes the seeds for the next growth.  Unfortunately, there is destruction.  And we have kids.

Secularism or Religion

Heretics, Gilbert K. Chesterton (eBook)

“[Chesterton] knows, as I do, that humanity stands at a solemn parting of the ways. Towards some unknown goal it presses through the ages, impelled by an overmastering desire of happiness. …It is, apparently, deserting the path of religion and entering upon the path of secularism. Will it lose itself in quagmires of sensuality down this new path, and pant and toil through years of civic and industrial anarchy, only to learn it had lost the road, and must return to religion? Or will it find that at last it is leaving the mists and the quagmires behind it; that it is ascending the slope of the hill so long dimly discerned ahead, and making straight for the long-sought Utopia? This is the drama of our time, and every man and every woman should understand it.”

So writes one Mr. McCabe, responding to G.K Chesterton.  This got me to recall something I read in Jacques Barzun’s book, From Dawn to Decadence.  Before diving into what that is and why I recalled it, keep in mind that Chesterton wrote the essays complied in this book in 1905.  It was a tremendously transitional time in Western history.

After the Franco-Prussian War ended in 1871, Europe entered a period known as La Belle Époque – the Beautiful Era.  It was a period of peace in Europe, commerce, travel, industrialization, progress, and liberalization in as good a sense of the word as the West has ever achieved.  All of the promise of the Enlightenment was to be found in this era.

This era ended with World War One, the Great War as it was called at the time.  The promise of the Enlightenment saw perhaps forty years, at best, of success.  During this intervening period, progressivism took root in all of its glory – turning what we now call Classical Liberalism into something approaching its opposite.  And it is this that reminded me of something from Barzun’s book.

Barzun labels this “the Great Switch”: “By Great Switch I mean the reversal of Liberalism into its opposite.”  He notes that it began quietly, with Bismarck in the 1880s, enacting old-age pensions and other social programs. By the early part of the next century, Lloyd George “started England on the road to the Welfare State.”

Why the connection?  Why does the crossroads noted by McCabe remind me of Barzun’s Great Switch?  I am thinking of the time – the turn of the last century.  Socialist and communist ideas were taking root.  The Revolutions of 1848 were, perhaps the first strong manifestations; in 1864, the First International was founded in London, and seven years later, the Paris Commune.

But the ideas of Marx and Engels really began to take root in the latter part of the nineteenth century; the Second International was founded in 1889.  By 1893, the Social Democratic Party of Germany took, perhaps, one quarter of the votes.

The Fabian Society was founded in 1884.   Barzun writes that the name Fabian was chosen in honor of a Roman general: Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus.  They chose his name because they advocated his strategy:

Facing an outstanding commander with superior numbers, he pursued a then-novel strategy of targeting the enemy's supply lines, and accepting only smaller engagements on favourable ground, rather than risking his entire army on direct confrontation with Hannibal himself. As a result, he is regarded as the originator of many tactics used in guerrilla warfare.

In the United States, two of the key events were the installation of an income tax, and the establishment of the Federal Reserve. 

All of these events occurred in about a thirty-year window, at a time of peace and prosperity in both Europe and America – save against native populations in the colonies and in the American West, of course.

The Litmus Test

Clay Travis has written a piece: 66% of Twitter Voters Believe Sports Media Is Rooting Against Sports Returning.  Sports media is rooting against the return of sports for the same reason that news media is rooting against the return of life:

…. if you asked the average member of the sports media to make this choice: sports return, but Donald Trump is reelected or no sports return, but Donald Trump is defeated, I think most sports media would choose to cancel sports if it meant canceling Trump.

Sports media – like the broader media – is left- biased.  So, this is not surprising.

Sports offers a diversion; right now, a diversion is not desired.  The reason why is tied to the election and tied to the riots – which are also tied to the election.  I commented on this earlier, based on a video by Jonathan Pageau.

The best thing that can happen to raise the heat: re-start a sport, then stop it.  This is now in the air for baseball:

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred told MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark on Friday that if the sport doesn't do a better job of managing the coronavirus, it could shut down for the season….

Baseball will be somewhat irrelevant in this regard – play or not, it doesn’t generate the passion.  But the tale will be told in two sports: professional basketball and football – in the case of the latter, two leagues will matter: the National Football League, and the SEC for college. 

If some combination of these three leagues stops or cancels the season, know that we ain’t seen nothin’ yet – neither in lockdown actions or riot actions.  I say one or more of these leagues will not finish what it starts. 

At least one month before election day.