Rod Dreher on (Loss of) Faith in Institutions

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5 responses to “Rod Dreher on (Loss of) Faith in Institutions”

1. 

   Vito B. Caiati

   June 25, 2023

   While an alliance with those of the Left that reject Woke racism and totalitarianism may be hard to realize, the political utility of parallel currents of opposition should be acknowledged. In this regard, it was the Trotskyist World Socialist Web, anxious to defend a classical Marxist historical analysis, that played a leading role in exposing the outright lies and imbecility of the NYT 1619 Project. Beginning with an interview of the historian James McPherson, a leading scholar of the ante and post bellum United States, and then with the publication of a book of essays by McPherson and the prominent historians and political scientists Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, James Oakes, Richard Carwardine, Adolph Reed Jr., Dolores Janiewski, and Clayborne Carson, it was the WSW that exposed the imbecilities and overturned the falsehoods purveyed by Nikole Hannah-Jones and others of her ilk at the NYT. While the introduction of the 1619 Project into schools was not stopped, since the racist Woke have no regard for truth and no shame, the forthright assault on it by the WSW stripped it of any intellectual respectability. On this question, see: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/14/mcph-n14.html and https://mehring.com/product/the-new-york-times-1619-project-and-the-racialist-falsification-of-history/?pk_campaign=mehring-1619-project&pk_kwd=wsws-1619-inline

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2. 

   BV

   June 25, 2023

   Thanks, Vito. I am more interested in whether we can make common cause with Muslims against the wokesters, but you are right to point out that we can make common cause also with some leftists. But here’s a thought: the conservatism of you and me is aligned to some degree with the anti-libertinism of Muslims whereas lefties in my experience tend to have a pronounced libertine ‘wobble.’ Agree? I assume that you understand what I mean by ‘libertine’ and that the term is not to be confused with ‘libertarian.’
   This is worth underlining:
   >>A. The Civil War accomplished three things. First, it preserved the United States as one nation. Second, it abolished the institution of slavery. Those two were, in effect, permanent achievements. The United States is still a single nation. Slavery doesn’t exist anymore. The third thing the Civil War accomplished was a potential, and partial, transformation, in the status of the freed slaves, who with the 14th and 15th amendments achieved, on paper at least, civil and political equality. But the struggle ever since 1870, when the 15th amendment was ratified, has been how to transform this achievement on paper into real achievement in the society.
   The people you’re talking about claim that it’s never gone beyond slavery, or that something almost as bad as slavery replaced slavery. The way I see it, while the bottle is not full, it is half full. I acknowledge that it is half empty. But it’s also half full. So with the abolition of slavery you have at least the partial achievement of a substantive freedom for the freed slaves.
   Even though Jim Crow, segregation, disenfranchisement, lynching, all of these things became blots on the United States in the later 19th century, and well into the 20th, at least children couldn’t be sold apart from their parents, wives couldn’t be sold apart from their husbands, and marriage was now a legal institution for freedpeople. That’s a significant step beyond slavery as it existed before 1865. It’s the ancient question about whether the glass is half full or half empty. It’s both. And this is what the people who say the Civil War didn’t accomplish anything are missing. The Civil War did fill up half the bottle.<<

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3. 

   BV

   June 25, 2023

   Connor,
   I edited out most of your long comment. You need to start your own blog and not use my site as a data dump. Your comments are way too long and off-topic. The topic is: how do we stop the depredations of the Woke-Left? We need a broad coalition. Can we work with Muslims as Dreher suggests? Can we work with socialists as Vito suggests?
   No comments will be allowed to appear that do not address what I say or what I quote, and that do not demonstrate an understanding of what I say or what I quote.

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4. 

   Vito B. Caiati

   June 25, 2023

   I agree that this “libertine wobble” of many on old-style lefties is a potential problem, since it is reflected in their position on marriage, the family, and abortion, for example. For this and other reasons, “parallel currents of opposition” to the Woke Left by such persons is probably the most that we conservatives could hope to see.
   As for Muslims who are religious but not bound to sharia law, I am more hopeful, since the former adhere to beliefs and practices on marriage, parental rights, sexuality, and religious freedom that conform, broadly speaking, to those advocated by social and cultural conservatives. Maybe you disagree with this Bill, but is it not true that these two groups, religious Muslims and social conservatives, religious or not, often share a natural law perspective, whether conscious or not, on these matters? I was, like Dreher, very happy to see Muslim and Christian parents protesting together against sexual indoctrination in schools. However, on other matters, such as immigration and social policy, the divergence of the two groups may be quite marked. These would have to be downplayed for an alliance against the Woke monsters to come into existence and endure.
   Your analysis of the Civil War and Reconstruction seems essentially correct.

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5. 

   Malcolm Pollack

   June 25, 2023

   Churchill:
   “If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
   If your enemy is a serious enough threat, then it is rational at least to consider making an ally of the enemy of your enemy. When the threat is existential, it can be foolhardy not to.

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