Category: Culture Matters

Why Typos Don’t Matter Much and the Musical Watershed of the ‘Fifties

This is a re-post from 21 September 2011. I dust it off in dedication to my friend Dr. Vito Caiati, historian and old-school scholar who is excessively worried about typographical errors in his missives to me. He is not alone; he has recently been joined by long-time blogger buddy Tony Flood who shares Vito's worry. I forebear to mention still others. We scholarly types are punctilious, and rightly so; but this here's a blog, and a dedicated blogger maintains a pace that allows for stumbles and falls.

Don't get me wrong: love and respect for our alma mater,  our dear mother, the English language, mistress and muse, enabler of our thoughts, demands that we try to avoid errors typographical and otherwise. But let's not obsess over them.

Transmission of sense is the name of the game, and if that has occurred, then communication has taken place.

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An old friend from college, who has a Masters in English, regularly sends me stuff like this which I have no trouble understanding:

 

Continue reading “Why Typos Don’t Matter Much and the Musical Watershed of the ‘Fifties”

As We Slide into the Abyss . . .

. . . the thought that demonic agents are at work behind the scenes becomes ever more credible. Or do you think that the depth of human depravity has an adequate naturalistic explanation? 

Our moral trajectory is decidedly downward. Anyone who is not morally obtuse can see that.  Rod Dreher is a good source of lively commentary on the Decline of the West. Here is one of his latest on the demon question. 

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Vito Caiati comments:

I appreciated yesterday’s brief post which affirms that “As We Slide into the Abyss” . . . “the thought that demonic agents are at work behind the scenes becomes ever more credible.” If you recall, we discussed this horrific possibility last May (Does the Demonic Play a Role in the Politics of the Day?), and I find that each day reinforces my conviction that something of this nature lies behind the depraved words and acts, now celebrated rather than condemned, that increasingly define our time. To better understand what is going on, I have turned to the writings and comments of several Roman Catholic exorcists, who, while noting the extraordinary powers of the Evil One, such as infestation, vexation, obsession, and possession, affirm that these are “far less to be feared. . . than in the underground influence he exerts in souls that are not sufficiently instructed or well-tempered.” It is this latter ordinary activity, the ceaseless implanting of temptation into human minds, so many of which have now abandoned the protections offered by faith in and worship of God that provides a vast open field of opportunity for Satan. In this regard, I recommend this short essay by the exorcist Fr. Vincent Lambert, The Devil's Lies are Subtle, which speaks suggestively of the means and ultimate ends of this assault on human reason and morality.

Half-Way Cultural Appropriation

You appropriate our science and technology, why not then appropriate the values, virtues, attitudes, and behaviors that led to the science and technology? Here are some of them: hard work, self-control, self-knowledge, deferral of gratification, focus, protracted study, objectivity, rational thinking, coherent speech, respect for legitimate authorities, respect for elders, and punctuality.
 
Why the half-way cultural appropriation? Go all the way, and you will benefit yourself enormously.
 
There is nothing 'white' about the above values and virtues, attitudes and behaviors. After all, Asians implement them as well as Caucasians, if not better. The values and virtues, attitudes and behaviors, are normatively universal and good for everyone. No race or ethnicity owns them. They are common goods. 

Moral Progress in the West and its Benchmarks

A London correspondent writes,

A question for you: is there a set of verifiable practices that would act as a benchmark for the Western Enlightenment? I can think of (i) widespread (but not universal) respect for science (ii) separation of church and state (iii) end of judicial torture (iv) abolition of slavery, etc.

1) I will assume that moral progress, both individually and collectively, is possible, both in moral theory and in moral practice. This is not obvious inasmuch as one might insist that while there has been moral change, there has been  no moral progress. Progress, by definition, is change for the better, and a moral/cultural relativist will claim that there is no better or worse with respect moral beliefs and practices.  

2) If moral progress is possible, is it also actual? I would say so.  Holding as I do that slavery is a grave moral evil, I also hold that we in the West have made progress in this regard.  The same goes for penal practices. We in the West no longer punish in the barbaric ways still employed in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.  Example are easily multiplied.

3) Is overall moral progress consistent with a certain amount of moral regress? I would like to say so. Mass murder and mass enslavement in Germany 1933-1945 are recognized in the West for the moral abominations they were. The Germans have come to their moral senses.   But what about the situation in the East under communism, in particular the communism practiced in China as we speak? I am thinking of the forced labor in China's Xinjiang region.

4) We cannot overlook the moral degeneration of the West, which suggests that while we made progress in the West, it is now being undone.  The Biden administration, for example, is the most lawless in American history; as a matter of policy it aids and abets criminality and then lies about what it is doing.

5) As for the benchmarks of progress, the ones listed by my correspondent are essential.  I would also add the following: religious liberty, limited government, the rule of law, equality of all citizens before the law, due process, universal suffrage, open inquiry and academic freedom, free markets, and the right to free speech  and freedom of assembly without fear of reprisal.

Two Related Political Mistakes

1) One is the idea that we can all live together and get along despite deep differences in language, race, religion, culture, political convictions and basic values.  This, the contemporary liberal position, either is or tends towards the idea that there are no limits on productive and mutually beneficial interaction among  very different types of people.   It  either is or tends toward the conceit that a viable One can be made out of any Many. This is e pluribus unum taken to an extreme and reduced to absurdity. The Latin dictum on our coinage has a rather more moderate meaning: it means that out of  many individuals and geographical regions and states one nation can arise, provided that there are deep commonalities of language, culture, religion, and values. Whose values? Well, not the values of sharia-supporting Muslims whose values are antithetical to traditional American values which are, in the main, the values of the Enlightenment.  The Founders, for example, were anti-theocratic but not anti-religious. 

2) The other mistake is the idea is that those who have, or believe they have,  a superior worldview are justified in imposing it on others, by force if necessary, for their own good.  Forced religious conversion is one form of this. A second is the ill-starred attempt at nation building which has played a central role in the current debacle in Afghanistan.  You cannot impose upon people whose backward culture is downstream from an inferior religion a way of life that cuts against their grain and for which they lack the prerequisites. They would have had to have gone through something like our Enlightenment to to be able to benefit from our tutelage when it comes to setting up a viable system of governance.  

3) The two mistakes may seem to pull in opposite directions. The first presupposes that we are all the same, have the same values, and want the same things.  The second presupposes that some need to be 'straightened out' and taught the right way of doing things. But the mistakes share a common element, that it would be good to bring people together and that it is possible to do so. This is a failure to understand that there are irreconcilable differences. There is no way we can straighten out the Taliban and teach them how to live, especially when we are collapsing under the weight of our own decadence.  'Woke' madness and Western decadence is no cure for Islamist fanaticism any more than National Socialism is the cure for Communism.

Why Haven’t Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day Been Cancelled?

Is it because they are occasions of debauchery and drunkenness, and therefore conducive, along with legalized dope, mindless sporting spectacles, prime-time Grammy Awards pornography, infantilizing government handouts, allowance of opioid smuggling and distribution, et cetera ad nauseam,  unto the ever-deepening stupefaction of Hilary's deplorables and Obama's clingers the better to rule them?  It's worth thinking about.

There is a 'war' on Christmas but no 'war' on St. Patty's Day. Why is that?

Diversity Worth Having

Diversity worth having presupposes a principle of unity that controls the diversity. Diversity must be checked and balanced by the competing value of unity, a value with an equal claim on our respect.

Example.  One language only in the public sphere makes possible many voices to be heard and understood by all.  To communicate our differences we need a common language.  

Talking with one another is preferable to shooting at each other.  Polyglot 'cultures' are more conducive to shooting than to talking.

Guest Post: Vito Caiati on David Brooks

I asked long-time reader Dr. Vito Caiati, historian, to comment on David Brook's Atlantic article, America is Having a Moral Convulsion.  Vito responded with alacrity and acerbity, and I have thrown in my two cents. Comments enabled.

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1.  The essay is entirely descriptive rather than analytical in that it presents various economic and sociological findings and trends, but nowhere does it offer an explanation for them. Like [Rod] Dreher, Brooks is content to offer merely the symptoms of a deep crisis rather than to explore its causes, which to me seemed inexorably bound up with the nature and motions of contemporary American capitalism.  Thus, he rattles on about the decline in social trust, linking this phenomenon to the upsurge in financial, emotional, identity, and social insecurity among broad sectors of the American population, especially the young and the lower middle class and working class poor; however, all these trends, destructive of social unity and trust, float on thin air, their emergence requiring [Brooks thinks] no elucidation.

To analyze them would require him to delve into the corrosive force that contemporary capitalism, which by its very nature is deleterious to the survival of traditional forms of the family, community, and polity in America.  One has merely, for example, to reflect on the acceleration of social time (technological and social, including rapid social change and the dizzying pace of life), the contraction and distortion of social space (the former expressed in the gutting of small and medium commerce and the export of entire industrial sectors, with the accompanying hollowing out of established modes of life and the latter expressed in the hyper development in privileged geographical enclaves and underdevelopment elsewhere), and the hyper-commodification of sexuality (disastrous for traditional familial and conjugal relations and Judaeo-Christian moral precepts) that are generated by the process of capitalist accumulation today.

In other words, one cannot shy away from a critical examination of what American capital, global in its reach and interests, has done and is doing to our national civic and political institutions.  I have to do a lot more reading in this area, but I am convinced that it is crucial that conservatives abandon their nostalgic romance with capitalism, since the object of their affection, an earlier moment in the history of capital, competitive or at least largely national, has long since passed and has been replaced with something far different in kind and inimical to their interests and values.

BV: This is a very important point: global, 'woke' capitalism is a very different animal from the capitalism celebrated by old-time economic conservatives and libertarians.

I follow your lead and read everything; if some Western Marxists, such as David Harvey or Hartmut Rosa, have something to say on this question that is of value, I take what is valuable and discard the rest.  I admit a critical examination of capitalism today involves all sorts of philosophical and ideological conundrums for us on the Right, but if we wish to defend certain modes of life and thought, I do not see how we can avoid it. The big global corporations and the Leftist elites that own and control them are not our friends, nor are the host of apologists that cover for them.

2.  Brooks implicitly denies the conscious role of human agency in the acute crisis of the last half year, that is, he covers up for the Left, which has purposely pursued the assault on the Constitution, our history, and our basic rights. All his spleen is saved for the usual target of these bien pensant types, Trump, while he nowhere denounces the lies, plots, and violence of the Left, which exploited the health emergency and the isolated death of one man to destabilize the nation. I cannot take seriously a man who writes,

Donald Trump is in the process of shredding every norm of decent behavior and wrecking every institution he touches. Unable to behave responsibly, unable to protect himself from COVID-19, unable to even tell the country the truth about his own medical condition, he undermines the basic credibility of the government and arouses the suspicion that every word and act that surrounds him is a lie and a fraud. Finally, he threatens to undermine the legitimacy of our democracy in November and incite a vicious national conflagration that would leave us a charred and shattered nation.

I sure that you noticed that here Brooks takes all the evident nefarious intentions and acts of the Left and projects them onto the President. Here, we see him happily paying the price to remain among those with respectable opinions.

BV:  I too cannot take Brooks and his political projection seriously. He seems to have degenerated badly. But he always was a pseudo-conservative, a member of the yap-and-scribble bow-tie brigade, along with Bill Kristol, George Will, Mona Charen, Max Boot, and the rest. These types love to write and talk, but when it comes time to act and support a man who has already done so much in the face of vicious opposition to implement conservative policies, they clutch their pearls, straighten their ties, and chicken out.  Like Vito, I get the distinct impression that their main political goal is to remain among the respectable so as to preserve their privileges, perquisites, and invitations to the high-toned soirees of the bien pensant.  They seem to fear nothing more than becoming a persona non grata in the manner of Alan Dershowitz. Accepting something like political dhimmitude, Brooks and the cruise-ship conservative cohort are content to play the role assigned to them by the Left, talk quietly about taxes and such, and allow the Left's culturally Marxist juggernaut to roll on.

Brooks goes on about norms. But he will give either his direct or indirect support to a party that is hell-bent on destroying the norms and institutions of the Republic. The Left has become brazen about what they stand for: packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, eliminating the Electoral College, removing the Second Amendment to the Constitution, tolerating and expanding 'sanctuary' jurisdictions, eliding the distinction between citizen and non-citizen — and I am just warming up.

Like Rod Dreher, Brooks apparently believes that civility and good manners trump every other consideration: better that race-delusional Marxist thugs destroy our cities than that an alpha male punch back against the chaos and defend the American Way.  Trump is boorish, but there is nothing radical about him unlike the Orwellian 'moderate' Joe Biden who is a driverless vehicle or rudderless vessel soon to be piloted by Kamala Harris and the squadristi to hard-Left destinations.

Anyway those are my thoughts on the essay, whatever they are worth. These are really bad times; we must win in November, if only to buy some time, but I am not at all optimistic that we will be able to control either the “soft” or the more and more evident “hard” (for example, the framing of General Flynn and Cardinal Pell and the indictment of the McCloskeys) totalitarianism of the Left.

BV: The indictment of the McCloskey's is particularly troubling.  Can you believe that this is happening in the USA? Violent Marxist thugs, who pay no taxes, break down a gate and threaten the life, liberty, and property of productive, tax-paying citizens. The political authorities, supported by these taxes, take the side of the thugs, bringing no charges against them, but indict the McCloskeys. Don't forget: some of the BLMers were armed, and the McCloskeys were within the law and the Constitution.  And don't fool yourselves: BLM is an avowed Marxist outfit dedicated to the destruction of America as she was founded to be.  The BLMers 'peaceful' protests are nothing but race-baiting means to their nefarious ends.

These are dangerous times. The upcoming election will be a battle for the soul of America.  Curiously, both Trump and Biden say this, and both are right.  The Coalition of the Sane must win in November.  Do your bit — and prepare for the aftermath.  Ignore the polls. Remember 2016?

Half-Way Cultural Appropriation

You appropriate our science and technology, why not then appropriate the values, virtues, attitudes, and behaviors that led to the science and technology?  Here are some of them: hard work, self-control, self-knowledge, deferral of gratification, focus, protracted study, objectivity, rational thinking, coherent speech, respect for legitimate authorities, and so on.

Why the half-way cultural appropriation? Go all the way, and you will benefit yourself enormously.

There is nothing 'white' about the above values and virtues, attitudes and behaviors. After all, Asians implement them as well as Caucasians, if not better.   They are normatively universal and good for everyone.

‘Conservative’ Andrew Sullivan Gets the Boot

The defenestration of Andrew Sullivan by New York Magazine shows once again that for the Left one cannot be too far left. This is rich:

The latest study of Harvard University faculty, for example, finds that only 1.46 percent call themselves conservative. But that’s probably higher than the proportion of journalists who call themselves conservative at the New York Times or CNN or New York Magazine. And maybe it’s worth pointing out that “conservative” in my case means that I have passionately opposed Donald J. Trump and pioneered marriage equality, that I support legalized drugs, criminal-justice reform, more redistribution of wealth, aggressive action against climate change, police reform, a realist foreign policy, and laws to protect transgender people from discrimination. I was one of the first journalists in established media to come out. I was a major and early supporter of Barack Obama. I intend to vote for Biden in November.

My best Sully post, which attracted some very good comments: The Left Eats its Own: Andrew Sullivan.

I stand with Sully despite his mindless anti-Trumpery which is so extreme that he will, horribile dictu, vote for Biden come November! Can a puppet be a weathervane? That's creepy, sleepy, lunchbox Joe, man of the people, coal miner, and good Catholic.

Free speech! Open inquiry! Down with the Left! Long live the Republic!

We conservatives are the new classical liberals. The times they are a'changin'.