Author: Bill Vallicella

Civil War in Britain? Notes on a Talk by David J. Betz, King’s College, London

The following could be called ‘interpretive notes.’ I will stay close to what Betz says, but sometimes put things my own way, and insert comments and examples he might not endorse.

Professor Betz sees Britain headed for civil war.  Early on in his talk, he mentions Karl Popper’s observation that unlimited toleration leads to the destruction of toleration. It’s true and I’ve said it myself many times. Betz then states that Britain today is the condition Samuel Francis referred to as “anarcho-tyranny.”  And what might that be? Francis explains:

. . . “anarcho-tyranny,” is essentially a kind of Hegelian synthesis of what appear to be dialectical opposites: the combination of oppressive government power against the innocent and the law-abiding and, simultaneously, a grotesque paralysis of the ability or the will to use that power to carry out basic public duties such as protection or public safety. And, it is characteristic of anarcho-tyranny that it not only fails to punish criminals and enforce legitimate order but also criminalizes the innocent.

There are plenty of recent state-side examples of this anarcho-tyranny that I needn’t rehearse if you follow current events.  (Exercise for the reader: mention some of them in the comments below.)

Back to Britain. it’s “broken,” Betz notes, because of ‘factionalization,’ a condition of society in which the titular group (nation, tribe, etc.) splits into subgroups that battle one another and work to advance their own interests to the detriment of the common good. Betz proposes a spectrum of factionalization.  I see it like this, using his terms.

Normal politics –> contentious politics –> issue factionalism –> polar factionalism –> militancy –> civil war.

Normal politics is the state in which the government in power is recognized as legitimate.  USA politics is not normal by this criterion: Hillary Clinton, among others,  has questioned the legitimacy of the Trump administration. Continuing with the USA as an example, we are well beyond normalcy (broadly recognized legitimacy of the government in power) and deeply embroiled  in bitter contention over particular issues (Second Amendment rights, abortion, death penalty, etc.) — this is issue factionalism — and involved as well in polar factionalism. The latter takes the form, in Betz’s words, of “symbolic identity cleavages.” This is what I have referred to as tribalism and identity politics: whites versus blacks; Muslims versus Jews; etc. Militancy too has reared its ugly head here and in Britain.  Assassinations would be booked under this head.

Next stop civil war.

According to Betz, Britain is at the polar stage.  Many of ‘the people,’ as opposed to the elites, accept the Great Replacement theory, according to which elites aim to replace the white population with ‘persons of color.’   The British people’s grievances are mainly two: two-tiered justice and media bias. We too complain about those two. Responses include a peasant revolt against the elites, increasing ethnic Balkanization, and white flight.

If civil war erupts, it will lead to a siege of ethnically Balkanized urban areas in the form of attacks by paramilitary forces on the infrastructure in non-native enclaves. The political object would be to compel the non-natives to leave. The strategy would be to make make conditions intolerable for the non-natives. The tactics would involve the use of simple tools such as angle grinders, sledge hammers, and acetylene torches. The central premise: the instability of modern urban conditions.

Targets would include fuel distribution systems. Gas stations, for example, being flammable,  are easy to attack and destroy  and difficult to rebuild, especially since in a state of civil war insurance funds would not be available. What’s more, an attack on fuel distribution is also an attack on food distribution.  Cutting off the enemy’s food supply is traditional siege craft.

Britain is a powder keg waiting to explode.  Either Britain will, thanks to ever-increasing Balkanization, cease to exist as “a coherent cultural entity” but continue to limp along; or it will succumb to hot civil war.  The three main belligerents are the armed forces, the elite-run government, and the people. When push comes to shove, and shove comes to shoot, will the military stick with the government or side with the people?  If the armed forces support the elite-run government, then the elites prevail over the people. If, on the other hand, the military sides with street over the elite, then the elite go to Madame Guillotine.

A third possibility is that the military remain neutral as between the elite and the street.

Betz rightly points out that  Balkanization, made inevitable by wide-open immigration,  was an elite choice, a very unwise one that went against the will of the people. Re: immigration, the elite beat the street into the dirt.

We here in the States have a good chance of evading Britain’s fate because of one man, and one man only: Donald J. Trump.

Libertarians and Drug Legalization

Stack topper

With a look back at Ron Paul, the father of Rand Paul.  Concluding paragraph:

As for Ron Paul, he blew his 2012 presidential chances with his remarks on heroin. It’s too bad. The country needs to move in the libertarian direction after decades and decades of socialist drift. But the American people do not cotton to fanatics and the doctrinaire. A sound conservatism includes the best of libertarianism. The best includes limited government, free markets, private property, and individual liberty. But it does not include open borders and legalization of all drugs. Legalized marijuana use has in recent years proved a bane not a boon. The fundamental error of libertarians is to suppose that people know their own best long-term interests. That is a species of optimism refuted by experience. It is an error opposite to that of socialists who think that government knows best. Neither political theory is grounded in an understanding of human nature.

Ralph McInerny on Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Political Activism

From The Catholic Thing, Vice and Verse:

Why is it that so many whose personal lives are a shambles are drawn to political activism? Since the agitation is usually for liberal and morally destructive causes, this is perhaps not too puzzling. Millay, Dorothy Parker too, and of course Simone de Beauvoir set out to change the world when they couldn’t get their own house in order.

A few years ago, Paul Johnson wrote a book about the disastrous personal lives of so many who have wanted to prescribe for mankind. He was chided for this. Didn’t he know that personal immorality has nothing to do with public policy? Did he, poor benighted devil, think with Plato that the good ruler must first be a good man?

The notion that vice is the prerequisite for verse, for art generally, is akin to that, I suppose, but do not ask me to lay it out analytically. It is a Romantic notion that the artist is exempt from ordinary moral rules. However tragic his personal life, however depraved his morals, the art that results is taken to be the justification of vice.

Tell it to Dante. Tell it to Browning or Wordsworth. Tell it to the Marines.

Tribalism and Diversity

Substack latest.  First two paragraphs with a Study Guide I’ve just now appended.

Tribalism is on the rise while classical liberalism is on the wane. Given this fact, does it make sense to admit into one’s country ever more different tribes? A piety oft-intoned by leftists is that diversity is our strength. An Orwellianism, that, if tribal diversity is at issue.* For that would amount to the absurdity that the more domestic strife, the stronger we become. It is plain, after all, that different tribes do not like each other, and do not see themselves in the other. Tribal identification is other-exclusive. There is no comity without commonality.

I am against tribal identification. I realize, however, that I am sawing against the grain of the crooked timber of humanity. People will continue to identify themselves as members of groups. Classically liberal ideals such as toleration are no match for the ingrained tendency to revert to the tribal. So the realist in me says that immigration policy must favor those who are assimilable to our values and principles and must exclude those who aren’t.

You should be able to explain each of these terms:  tribalism, classical liberalism, Orwellianism, comity, toleration.

Who am I alluding to with the phrase “crooked timber of humanity”?

Life’s Path: Some Trail Notes

Google AI summarizes my book:

Life’s Path: Some Trail Notes is a collection of philosophical reflections by William F. Vallicella (also known as the “Maverick Philosopher”). Published as a departure from his technical academic work, the book presents a “life-philosophy” aimed at navigating the complexities of human existence. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Key Themes and Structure

The book is structured as a series of aphorisms, observations, maxims, and mini-essays. Rather than building a singular technical theory, it offers “trail notes” to guide readers through practical and existential dilemmas. [2, 5]
Key topics include:
  • Human Stages: Reflections on youth, old age, and the transition between them.
  • Desires and Values: Exploration of happiness, ambition, love, lust, and the proper use of money.
  • Metaphysical Concerns: Insights into the relationship between the body and soul, as well as “the last things” (death and what may follow).
  • Ethics and Society: Commentary on manners, morals, and contemporary cultural “decadence”. [2, 5, 6, 7]

Core Philosophy

Vallicella advocates for a critical attitude and a non-dogmatic spirit. His writing in this volume focuses on: [2]
  • Existential Realism: Moving away from “ivory tower” abstractions to address the “edge” of real life.
  • The Soul’s Journey: He often argues that while our consciousness is currently impacted by bodily states (like sleep or drunkenness), it does not prove that consciousness is identical to the body or that it ceases upon death.
  • Objective Standards: He maintains that the standards by which we judge our lives cannot be merely subjective; they must be objectively binding to have true meaning. [1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11]
Would you like to explore a specific aphorism or topic from Vallicella’s collection in more detail? If you do, bang on the first link at the tippy-top of this post.

What Does Populism Threaten?

Populism is a threat to a leftist internationalism that rejects national borders and denies to nations the right to preserve their cultures, the right to stop illegal immigration, and the right to select those immigrants who are most likely  to be a net asset to the host country, and most likely to assimilate. There needn’t be anything white supremacist or white nationalist about populism. (By the way, white supremacism and white nationalism are plainly different: a white nationalist needn’t be a white supremacist.) And of course there needn’t be anything racist or xenophobic or bigoted about either nationalism or populism.

Populism in the Trumpian style is not a threat to liberal democracy as the Founders envisioned it, but a threat to the leftist internationalism I have just limned, an internationalism which contemporary ‘liberals’ confuse with the liberal democracy of the Founders. It is also quite telling that these ‘liberals’ constantly use the word ‘democracy’ as if it is something wonderful indeed, but they almost never mention that the USA is not a democracy but a constitutionally-based republic that allows for significant democratic input.  Our republic has a stiff backbone of core principles and meta-principles that are not up for democratic grabs, or at least are not up for easy grabs: the Constitution can be amended but it is not easy, nor should it be.

Those who think that pure democracy democracy is a wonderful thing ought to realize that Sharia can be installed democratically. This is underway in Belgium and in other  countries. Brussels could be Muslim within 20 years. Let enough Muslims infiltrate and then they will decide who ‘the people’ are and who are not ‘the people.’ The native Belgians will then have been displaced. Ain’t democracy wonderful?

Let enough illegal aliens flood in, give them the vote, and they may decide to do away with the distinction between legal and illegal immigration as well as the one between immigration and emigration. Ever wonder why lefties like the word ‘migrant?’ It manages to elide both distinctions in one fell swoop.

There cannot be social harmony without a raft of shared assumptions and values, not to mention a shared language. There is need of “cultural coherence.” A felicitous phrase, that. Our open, tolerant, Enlightenment culture cannot cohere and survive if Sharia-supporting Muslims are allowed to immigrate. For their ultimate goal is not to assimilate to our ways, but to impose their ways on us, eventually replacing us.

Can you show me I’m wrong?

Andre Gide: Evangelical Atheist

Julian Green, Diary 1928-1957, an excerpt from the entry of 24 March 1951, p. 243:

Since my return to France in 1945, I never had an opportunity of  seeing Gide without his attempting, one way or the other, to aim a blow at my [Roman Catholic] faith. [. . .] It would be understanding him very badly to say that he played the part of Satan. Quite the contrary, his purpose was to save me. He wanted to win me over to unbelief and exerted all the zeal of a Christian trying to convince an infidel. That is what perturbed me. Any means seemed good to him in order to make me doubt, because that was the price of salvation. And what was religious in him lent a particular form to his atheism, and to his nonbelief the aspect of a religion. On the other hand, his extraordinary intuition of human beings allowed him to sense how much I was upset by our talks on Catholicism, no matter what pains I took to hide my state of mind. I sometimes eluded this trying subject; he brought me back to it, gently, firmly, with the obstinacy of a missionary.  Finally, he realized he was wasting his time (I could no more fall back than a man with a wall behind him), but he never quite gave up trying to convert me, and did so visibly for conscience’ sake and sometimes against his will.

I find Gide’s evangelically atheist attitude exceedingly strange. What was Gide trying to save Green from? Error? Being wrong? Surely not from  perdition! Perhaps Gide was trying to save Green from anxiety in this life over whether he would end up in hell in the next. But I see no evidence of this in Gide.

And what was Gide trying to convert Green to? The truth? That would make Gide a proselyte for the truth when Gide was opposed to the proselytic mentality. He didn’t like it when Paul Claudel, who presumed to be in firm possession of the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, tried to bring Gide into the Roman Catholic fold.

If Gide did not like people trying to convert him to what they took to be true for his own good, how could he, consistently with that dislike, aim to convert people like Green to what he, Gide, took to be true, namely, that there is no God, no soul, no higher purpose to human existence, no ultimate justice for the countless victims of injustice, no final succor or salvation from our earthly predicament? Claudel was sincerely concerned about Gide’s spiritual welfare.  Given what Gide believed, could he be concerned with Green’s spiritual welfare?

And how could Gide be so cocksure that he had the truth? Giben that he was skeptical of Green’s belief, why wasn’t he also skeptical of his own disbelief?

The deepest issue here, it seems to me, is the question of the value of truth.  Is it good for us to know the truth, or would it be better for us not to know the truth?  You might respond that it depends on what the truth is.  If the truth is that we will can look forward to a blissful eternity, then that is a truth it would be good to know. But if the truth is that we will shortly be worm fodder, then that is a truth it would not be good to know.

To respond in this way, however, would show a failure to understand the question.  The question is whether truth, whatever it is, is a value. Value for whom? For us. So the question is whether the truth would be good for us know.

Truth is one thing, its value another.  If you have the truth, then you are in touch with the way things are, whether partially or completely.  One way of being in touch is by knowing how things stand in reality.  Another is by believing truly how things stand in reality, where to believe truly is to have a true belief.   Knowing and believing truly are not the same but they can be subsumed under the rubric  reality-contact. Either way one is in contact with reality. But is it good for us to be in contact with the way things are? Will this contact contribute to our flourishing, our living well, our being happy on balance and in the long run? To say yes is to say that truth, or rather contact with reality whether via knowledge or belief,  is a value, a good thing.

Gide’s attitude seems to be that the truth is the supreme value whether or not it is good for us to know it. The opposite attitude is that of William James who maintained that the true is the good by way of belief.

But now we are in deep. Time to rustle up some vittles for the evening’s repast before Mark Levin comes on.  There’s more to life than philosophy. There’s politics!

Merton, Assassination, Doxastic Diligence, Suspension of Judgment, and Prudential Rationality

I take no position on whether or not Thomas Merton was assassinated by the CIA.  Some say he was.  I neither affirm nor deny. I suspend judgment on a question about which I have no need to have an opinion. To investigate the matter properly would take me too far afield, and for no good reason. This is not to say that you may not have a good reason.

On some questions the prudent course is to suspend judgment. But not on all. On matters pertaining to one’s personal welfare in this life and beyond,  it would be highly imprudent to take no position.  For in those matters we  have a stake in the outcome.

For example: Do we survive our bodily deaths as individual persons? The question is not merely theoretical. The intellectually honest answer is that no one knows.  There are arguments on both sides, good arguments that cannot be dismissed out of  hand. A good argument, as I use the phrase,  needn’t be rationally coercive or philosophically dispositive.  No one knows, but many are the beliefs. I take it for granted that belief, even reasoned belief, is not knowledge. 

Suppose you exercise doxastic due diligence and dig deep into the mass of considerations for and against personal survival of death.   Suppose the arguments cancel out, or  seem to you to cancel out after the exercise of said diligence.  Should you then suspend judgment and rest in doxastic equipoise? Not by my lights. That would be highly imprudent. It is here that “the will comes into it” as I like to say.  What does that mean?

It means that you must decide what you will believe and thus how you will live and act.  I won’t pause to explore the belief-action link except to say that what we truly believe is manifested in our actions, and that how we act shows what we truly believe.  Why must you decide? Because no one knows the answer, and because it would be imprudent not to take a position on the question, assuming you care about your future well-being.

I have made two main points.

The first is that while suspension of judgment is permissible and often advisable, it is in some cases prudentially irrational. While it would be theoretically rational to suspend judgment on the survival question should the arguments pro et contra cancel out, it would not be prudentially  rational.  We are not disembodied transcendental spectators but ‘seated in life’ possessing as we do a Sitz im Leben in Wilhelm Dilthey’s phrase.  Hence the rationality appropriate to our situated predicament cannot be mere theoretical rationality.

The second point follows from the first. Given that there are situations in which the reasons for and against cancel out,  it would be prudentially irrational to suspend judgment.

The Passing Scene: Notes Political and Martial

If our geo-political adversaries were isolationist, we could be too. But they are not. Ergo, etc.  Or is this the fallacy of Denying the Antecedent?

*

You may seek to withdraw from politics, but it won’t return the favor. So a certain measured engagement is unavoidable out of self-interest if for no other reason. Retreat routes include suicide, burying oneself in a monastery, and losing oneself in the private life of bourgeois self-indulgence. None of them can be recommended without reservation, but of the three the monastic route is the best. There are of course other ways of avoiding the political.

*

It is reasonable to hold that the power stations and other infrastructure of a rogue state that exports terror and credibly threatens to nuke the USA and Israel are legitimate military targets, despite their civilian use.  But then the same goes for oil refineries, sewage disposal plants, reservoirs and water delivery systems, roads, and so on.  All of these elements of infrastructure are necessary for the health and safety of the civilian population many of whom oppose the rogue regime and play no role at all in supplying them with materiel.  This fact puts serious pressure on the distinction between combatants and noncombatants, and the related judgment that it is immoral always and everywhere to target noncombatants, a judgment one would surely like to uphold.

Of course, noncombatants are humans whereas the elements of infrastructure are not. But destroy enough of that infrastructure and you seriously harm and eventually bring about the death of the majority of noncombatants.  And that amounts, albeit indirectly, to a targeting of noncombatants.  The attackers know, after all, what the likely consequences of their actions will be.

But if we re-think the natural but facile combatant-noncombatant distinction along the foregoing lines, where will that lead us?  Not to a total collapse of the distinction, but to its blurring, a blurring so messy as to make impossible any assured judgments in these matters.

One thing is clear. The current pope, Leo the XIVth,  is a simple-minded fellow as he demonstrates here.

*

Communism and Islamism have in common their expansionism  and totalitarianism. They are as little content to stay within their geographical boundaries as they are to allow a private life for those under their control.  A sane political ideology stands for the rights of segregation and self-determination.

Another thing these disastrous ideologies share is contempt for truth.

Trump versus Prevost: Crudity versus Blather

Donald J. Trump issued a disgusting tweet on Easter Sunday morning. I commented on it in Political Polarization in the Age of Trump.  But I fail to see the value of Pope Leo’s pious performative Easter Sunday response.

The pope continued with words directed at the current conflict in the Middle East: “The peace that Jesus gives us is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us!… Let those who have weapons lay them down!

If you threw down your weapons before Hitler, he would not be moved to do likewise, but kill you on the spot on the ground that you had thereby demonstrated your physiological decadence and unfitness for life in the only world there is. Something very similar holds for the Muslim thugs of Iran. It is utter folly to project into others one’s own values and attitudes, as if we are all the same ‘deep down’ or all ‘really want the same things.’ Bellicosity is hard-wired into some. Thugs, whether born that way or socialized into it, have no regard for your tender-hearted love of humanity.

The Islamo-theocrats have vowed to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization, and have proven their intent through countless horrific acts over many years.  They cannot be reached by Prevostian pieties. And there is no small hypocrisy in Leo’s decidedly unleonine mouthings. Would he not call upon the armed might of the Italian state to crush any jihadis who descended on Vatican City to destroy its people and its treasures?  Would he allow their slaughter and its destruction?

I discuss the problem in detail in Morality Private and Public. The essay concludes with some penetrating observations of Hannah Arendt  from  “Truth and Politics” in Between Past and Future, Penguin 1968, p. 245:

The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the wicked “to do as much evil as they please”), Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with “what is good for themselves” cannot very well be trusted with what is good for others, and least of all with the “common good,” the down-to-earth interests of the community.) [Arendt cites Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension between man qua philosopher or Christian and man qua citizen. As a philosopher and a Christian, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic “Better to suffer wrong than to do it” and the Christian “Resist not the evildoer.” But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare. This is true a fortiori of public officials and people in a position to influence public opinion. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his perishable body, is not applicable to me as a citizen. As a citizen, I cannot unrestrictedly “welcome the stranger” as the New Testament enjoins, the stranger who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug smuggler or a human trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I must not aid and abet his law-breaking. I must be concerned with public order and the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger’s lawbreaking, I would not be “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops and others who seek to inject a particular personal morality into the public sphere.

Are We at Maximal Polarization yet?

The Democrats refuse to credit Trump for anything he does. But there is something similar on the Right, though not as extreme. Sean Hannity last night on his show found the following Trump tweet funny, and found nothing in it to criticize:

Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.

Now if you are morally sane you will grant there is no moral equivalence between the USA and any Islamo-theocratic terror state. No such state should be tolerated. What’s more, the civilized world must not tolerate any state, Islamist or not, that sponsors terrorism.  The current Iranian regime not only sponsors world-wide terrorism through its proxies, but also is (or  was) well on the way to the possession of nuclear warheads and the means to delivery them intercontinentally.  It ought to be perfectly evident that “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” are not slogans but policies, and that the threat to implement them has been proven credible by Iranian actions since 1979.

The current regime in Iran must therefore be forced to acquiesce in Trump’s demands, including the surrendering of all uranium enriched to the point where it could be used in ‘suitcase’ dirty bombs. But why can’t the president just say this in a ‘presidential’ way, the say I have just said it? The whole world knows that he is a man who will act on his word.  They know he is not a merely performative professional politician like Biden and the rest of the effete and epicene Democrats who put their private interests above the public good.

Why the unnecessary crudity, and more importantly, why the mockery of all Muslims in the final sentence? And why can’t Hannity, a reasonable fellow, bring himself to say something like what I just wrote?

What we have here, friends, is political polarization in excelsis.

Things are made worse by the “God on our side” mentality of some on the Right. Edward Feser’s take on this matter needs to be carefully thought through.

Theme music: With God on Our Side

Crossposted at Substack in a slightly improved version.

“Familiarity breeds contempt”

‘Familiarity’ is from the Latin familia, family. The pith of the well-known saying is purchased in the coin of exaggeration, since familiarity needn’t breed contempt; the exaggeration does however rightly point to the ambiguity of human relations.

Although family ties hold one in bonds of love, it is a holding which is too often a holding in contempt, whether mild, moderate, or murderous.  We know our family members too well  to respect them easily, though we ought to.

To maintain respect where there is no fear is a moral challenge. When love is present, it is easy. But true love is rare. In most situations, however, fear suffices. So that you not violate me, it suffices that you fear what I will do to you if you do violate me; whether you respect me is moot.  Hence the logic of deterrence. “An armed society is a polite society.” “Peace through strength.” Si vis pacem, para bellum. (“If you want peace, prepare for war.”)

Since respect is often fear in disguise, it is often an open question how much the respect one is being shown is really fear.

Respect requires distance.  So in every relation with anyone, inside or outside of the family circle, one ought to maintain a certain amount of distance. How much depends on the circumstances and whether one possesses good judgment (phronesis).

There is social distance and physical distance.  Social distance is maintained by the observance of conventional forms of polite behavior both verbal and non-verbal.   “Excuse me, sir” is an example of the former; knocking before entering, an example of the latter.

‘Family’ narrowly defined implies consanguinity.  Consanguinity, however, is no guarantee of spiritual affinity. Sad, but true. On the other hand,  there is no comity without commonality. One form of commonality is consanguinity.  Although consanguinity contributes to commonality, I am spiritually affine with none of the people to whom I am blood-related.  That is my experience; perhaps it is also yours. And yet it is said with some truth that “blood is thicker than water” a saying that points to our dismal rootage in the animal and the tribal.

This is why it is folly to regard the human race as one big happy family. It is not even potentially so. Social harmony is possible only among those who, at a minimum, share a common language and a common culture. Wide-open immigration is therefore a recipe for disaster. A flourishing multi-racial  society may be possible; a flourishing multi-cultural society is certainly not.    If most of our time is spent tearing each other apart, little time will be left over for ‘flourishing.’ A house divided against itself cannot stand.

The political consequences of the above are obvious.

Familiarity is a species of propinquity (social proximity) but not all propinquity is familiarity.   Spiritual affinity requires neither consanguinity nor propinquity.  There is spiritual affinity. This is a fact that, to my mind, points to our higher spiritual nature.

We humans are a hybrid ‘species’ drawn upward toward the aethereal but held fast by  blood and soil, the tribal and the animalic.  Or is that too Platonic a way of putting it?