Social and Political Philosophy – Page 9

Which Side Are You On?

A snatch of dialog in illustration of the aporetics of our political predicament:

A. It's a war! Don't say anything bad about our guys! Which side are you on? Don't preface your defense of Trump by conceding that he has these and these negative qualities. Don't give ammo to the enemy! In a gunfight against a home invader would you allow your enemy time to re-load, in the interests of a fair fight? Hell no! He is in the wrong and you are in the right. He is out to kill you. You must stop him, and if that ends up killing him, so be it.

B. But then truth and objectivity go out the window. Onesidedness and blind partisanship rule. Oppositions intensify. Polarization increases. Polarization issues in demonization. We need to come together and work together. Trump is deeply flawed. How can you blind yourself to his flaws?

A. This is a war, not a gentlemanly discussion, or an attempt at an objective personality assessment. You cannot be objective and conciliatory in a war. You must defeat the enemy before he defeats you. Trump is all we have. Can't you see that? Your attempt to be fair and conciliatory and reasonable and 'moral' will be taken as a sign of weakness and will only embolden our enemies on the Left. We cannot 'come together' with them because there is no common ground on which to do so. They do not share out values. The enemy is committed to our destruction.

B. So you are OK with any and all means sufficient to destroy the enemy? Do the ends justify the means? Were the Allied atrocities during World War II justified by the good outcome?

A. I don't like saying yes, yes, and yes, but I fear that I have to. This is the problem of dirty hands. The buck stopped with President Harry Truman. Would you not have ordered the use of nuclear weapons against Japanese population centers? Or, comfortable in your ivory tower, would you have taken the position of Elizabeth Anscombe possibly sacrificing civilization itself to a just war THEORY? Which is better known, the premises on which Just War doctrine depends, or the consequences of Allied defeat and Axis victory?

B. This is scary stuff. Isn't there some alternative to war?

A. And what might that be? I see only three alternatives to war, none of them good. One can attempt to WITHDRAW from the fight. Head for the hills. Build alternative communities and hope to be left alone. Unfortunately, the totalitarians, being totalitarians, won't leave us alone. That's not 'who they are.'

Or one can accept POLITICAL DHIMMITUDE.

Finally, one can attempt the POLITICAL EQUIVALENT OF DIVORCE, whether through secession, partition, a return to federalism, or something else.

B. Those are the only options?

A. As far as I can see.

Is Disunion in Our Future?

David French, Donald Trump, Christianity, and Politics

David French maintains that Christians cannot, if they are to remain true to Christian teachings, support Donald Trump:

The proper way for Christians to engage in politics is a rich subject . . . but there are some rather simple foundational principles that apply before the questions get complex. For example, all but a tiny few believers would agree that a Christian should not violate the Ten Commandments or any other clear, biblical command while pursuing or exercising political power.

But of course we see such behavior all the time from hardcore Christian Trump supporters. They’ll echo Trump’s lies. They’ll defend Trump’s lies. They’ll adopt many of his same rhetorical tactics, including engaging in mocking and insulting behavior as a matter of course.

Farther down:

I fully recognize what I’m saying. I fully recognize that refusing to hire a hater and refusing to hire a liar carries costs. If we see politics through worldly eyes, it makes no sense at all. Why would you adopt moral standards that put you at a disadvantage in an existential political struggle? If we don’t stand by Trump we will lose, and losing is unacceptable. (Emphasis added.)

French has just touched upon the deepest issue in this debate. He is right that it makes no sense for conservative Christians not to support Trump if politics is seen through worldly eyes. The question, however, is whether one can avoid doing so. Can one see politics and pursue it through unworldly eyes? Can one participate in politics at any level, and especially at the higher levels, while adhering strictly and unwaveringly to Christian principles and precepts and while practicing Christian virtues? Can one combine contemptus mundi with political action?

I don't believe that this is possible.

Christian precepts such as "Turn the other cheek" and "Welcome the stranger" make sense and are salutary only within communities of the like-minded and morally decent; they make no sense and are positively harmful in the public sphere, and, a fortiori, in the international sphere. The monastery is not the wide world. What is conducive unto salvation in the former will get you killed in the latter. And we know what totalitarians, whether Communists or Islamists, do when they get power: they destroy the churches, synagogues, monasteries, ashrams, and zendos. And with them are destroyed the means of transmitting the dharma, the kerygma, the law and the prophets.

An important but troubling thought is conveyed in a recent NYT op-ed (emphasis added):

Machiavelli teaches that in a world where so many are not good, you must learn to be able to not be good. The virtues taught in our secular and religious schools are incompatible with the virtues one must practice to safeguard those same institutions. The power of the lion and the cleverness of the fox: These are the qualities a leader must harness to preserve the republic.

The problem referenced in the bolded sentence is very serious but may have no solution. That's the aporetician in me speaking.

The problem as I see it is that (i) the pacific virtues the practice of which makes life worth living within families, between friends, and in such institutions of civil society as churches and fraternal organizations are essentially private and cannot be extended outward as if we are all brothers and sisters belonging to a global community. Talk of global community is blather. The institutions of civil society can survive and flourish only if protected by warriors and statesmen whose virtues are of the manly and martial, not of the womanish and pacific, sort. And yet (ii) if no extension beyond the private of the pacific virtues is possible. then humanity would seem to be doomed in an age of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Besides, it is unsatisfactory that there be two moralities, one private, the other public.

I say that we need to face the problem honestly.

Consider the Christian virtues preached by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. They include humility, meekness, love of righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, love of peace and of reconciliation. Everyone who must live uncloistered in the world understands that these pacific and essentially womanish virtues have but limited application there. Indeed, their practice can get you killed. (I am not using 'womanish' as a derogatory qualifier.)

You may love peace, but unless you are prepared to make war upon your enemies and show them no mercy, you may not be long for this world. Turning the other cheek makes sense within a loving family, but no sense in the wider world. (Would the Pope turn the other cheek if the Vatican came under attack by Muslim terrorists or would he call upon the armed might of the Italian state?) My point is perfectly obvious in the case of states: they are in the state (condition) of nature with respect to each other. Each state secures by blood and iron a civilized space within which art and music and science and scholarship can flourish and wherein, ideally, blood does not flow; but these states and their civilizations battle each other in the state (condition) of nature red in tooth and claw. Talk of world government or United Nations is globalist blather that hides the will to power of those who would seize control of the world government. United under which umbrella of values and principles and presuppositions?

What values do we share with the Muslim world? Do they accept the Enlightenment values enshrined in our founding documents? Obviously not. Christianity has civilized us to some extent. Has Islam civilized them? Their penology is barbaric as is their attitude toward other cultures and religions.

The Allies would not have been long for this world had they not been merciless in their treatment of the Axis Powers.

Israel would have ceased to exist long ago had Israelis not been ruthless in their dealing with Muslim terrorists bent on her destruction.

This is also true of individuals once they move beyond their families and friends and genuine communities and sally forth into the wider world.

The problem is well understood by Hannah Arendt ("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 the Nicomachean Ethics,
     Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension between man qua philosopher/Christian and man qua citizen. As a philosopher raised in Christianity, 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, people like Catholic bishops many of whom are woefully ignorant of the simple points Arendt makes in the passage quoted. 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 citizen. As a citizen, I cannot "welcome 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 cannot aid and abet his law breaking. I must be concerned with public order. This order is among 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 law breaking, I would not be "rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" as the New Testament enjoins us to do.

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops and others who confuse private and public morality.

David French is such a one.

Good Societies and Good Lives: On State-Run Lotteries

Good societies are those that make it easy to live good lives. A society that erects numerous obstacles to good living, however, cannot count as a good society. By this criterion, present day American society cannot be considered good. It has too many institutionalized features that impede human flourishing. Here I discuss just one such feature, state-sponsored lotteries.

Why We Defend Donald Trump

Replying to a young friend who loathes the man, Malcolm Pollack explains why so many of us stand with President Trump despite his manifold and manifest faults:

I make no case that Donald Trump is any kind of a saint. He is enormously vain (as all presidents are, with the possible exception of Calvin Coolidge), he lacks dignity and gravitas, he calls people childish names, he can be vulgar (though surely no more so than LBJ, Clinton, and a host of others), he is a philanderer (though of course JFK and Clinton put him to shame in that department, with the latter likely being guilty of actual rape). He is, as you say, not one to show much in the way of humility (though of course he is a dwarf in that regard compared to his immediate predecessor, whom Mike Bloomberg — Mike Bloomberg! — called “the most arrogant man he’d ever met”).

He is, however, the duly elected president of the United States, elevated to office by a vast segment of the traditional American nation who rightly have felt despised and marginalized for a long time now by their globalist, “progressive” overlords — a scornful and condescending secular priesthood who occupy, by powerful means of enforcement, the commanding heights of media, academia, popular culture, and the enormous edifice of the unelected, administrative state. Donald Trump was seen by these “Deplorables” — and rightly so — as their last hope against a leftist juggernaut that sought to trample into dust all of the founding norms and traditions of the American nation, to throw open the borders, to distend and distort the Constitution into gelatinous goo, and to crush all resistance by a combination of judicial activism, executive fiat and suffocating social ostracism.

Trump’s voters understood that the First and Second Amendments, those great bulwarks of liberty, were under increasingly withering assault; they had to look no further than Canada, Britain, and Europe — where the people are forcibly disarmed, and criticism of government policy is now enough to land you in jail — to see what lay ahead if the eight -year catastrophe of the Obama administration were to be repeated by re-installing those despicable grifters the Clintons. They saw in Donald Trump, for all of his obvious flaws (and yes, they are just as obvious to me as they are to you), a man who genuinely loved the free and self-confident America of his youth, who saw the nation’s long story, though of course tainted by sin and error (as all national stories are), as a story of the triumph of the human spirit, guided by a set of transcendent principles rooted in the natural, God-given dignity of every human being, and given form by a Constitution unlike any ever seen in history: the product of the coming together at a unique moment in the development of mankind by men of genius (compared to whom, by the way, our current crop of “statesmen”, including both Trump and his predecessors, are intellectual gnats).

Donald Trump clearly, if only intuitively, understood the existential horror of this century-long acceleration of consolidating, totalizing statism, the effect of which is to reduce men to children, and to crush from existence the essential mediating layer of “civil society” — the great web of voluntary and independent association that forms the sinews and ligaments of healthy, organic societies — replacing it with an atomizing, vertical order in which every man and woman depends first and foremost upon the great State above, from which all blessings — and all guidance — must flow.

The conservative commentariat does not pay sufficient attention to the Left's assault on civil society. So I am pleased that Mr Pollack has reminded us of this "great web of voluntary and independent association" that stands between the naked individual and Leviathan.

For more on civil society see my

Subsidiarity as Bulwark Against the Left's Assault on Civil Society

and

Obama's Assault on the Institutions of Civil Society

American Conservatism

My brand of conservatism could be called American. It aims to preserve and where necessary restore the values and principles codified by the founders. Incorporating as it does elements of classical liberalism and libertarianism, American conservatism is far from throne-and-altar reaction. While anti-theocratic, it is not anti-religious. It stands for individual liberty and its necessary supports, private property, free markets, and limited government. It is liberal in its stress on liberties, but conservative in its sober view of human nature, a nature easily corrupted by power and in need of restraint. It avoids the reactionary and radical extremes. It incorporates the values of the Enlightenment. American conservatism presupposes the existence of “unalienable rights” which come from nature or from “nature's God.” First among the liberties mentioned in the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution is religious liberty which includes the liberty to exercise no religion. It is first in the order of exposition and (arguably) first also in the order of importance. The second liberty mentioned is free speech. Both of these classically American values are under assault from the utopian Left which has taken over the Democrat party in the USA.

As against certain factions of the alternative Right, American conservatism insists that the United States is a proposition nation: the propositions are in the founding documents. I don't see how that could be reasonably denied. These propositions define the American identity and provide a bulwark against the identity politics shared by the cultural Marxists and their alt-right opponents. But I also don't see how it could be reasonably denied that the discovery and articulation of classically American principles and values was achieved by people belonging to a certain tradition and will be preserved, if it is preserved, only by people in that tradition or who can be assimilated into it. This has consequences for immigration policy.

To allude to e pluribus unum, a One cannot be made out of just any Many. Some groups are unassimilable. I take it to be axiomatic that immigration must be to the benefit of the host country, a benefit not to be defined in merely economic terms. And so I ask a politically incorrect but perfectly reasonable question: Is there any net benefit to Muslim immigration? Immigrants bring their culture with them. Muslims, for example, bring with them a Sharia-based, hybrid religious-political ideology that is antithetical to American values. We are under no obligation to allow the immigration of subversive elements. The founding propositions are universally true; they are not the property of whites even though whites discovered them. But such propositions, while true for all humans and in this sense true universally, are not recognized by all humans, and not presently capable of being recognized or put into practice by all humans. The attempt to impart these propositions to some groups will be futile, especially if it involves force, or can be interpreted by the group in question as a cover for an attempt to dominate or control them for ulterior motives. The implication for foreign policy is that the USA must adopt an enlightened nationalism and not attempt to teach the presently unteachable.

Subsidiarity as Bulwark against the Left’s Assault on Civil Society

David A. Bosnich, The Principle of Subsidiarity:

One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.

The principle of subsidiarity strikes a reasonable balance between statism and collectivism as represented by the manifest left-ward drift of Democrat administrations such as President Obama's, on the one hand, and the libertarianism of those who would take privatization to an extreme, on the other. The Left is totalitarian by its very nature, and as the Democrat party drifts ever left-ward, it becomes ever more totalitarian and socialist and ever more a threat to individual liberty and the private property that is its foundation.

Subsidiarity also fits well with federalism, a return to which is a prime desideratum and one more reason not to vote for Democrat candidates. 'Federalism' is another one of those words that does not wear its meaning on its sleeve, and is likely to mislead. Federalism is not the view that all powers should be vested in the Federal or central government; it is the principle enshrined in the 10th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Whether or not you are Catholic, if you accept the principle of subsidiarity, then you have yet another reason to oppose the Left. The argument is this:

1) The Left encroaches upon civil society, weakening it and limiting it, and correspondingly expanding the power and the reach of the state. (For example, the closure of Catholic Charities in Illinois because of an Obama administration adoption rule.)

2) Subsidiarity helps maintain civil society as a buffer zone and intermediate sector between the purely private (the individual and the familial) and the state.

Therefore

3) If you value the autonomy and robustness of civil society, then you ought to oppose Obama and the Left.

The truth of the second premise is self-evident. If you wonder whether the Left does in fact encroach upon civil society, then see my post Obama's Assault on the Institutions of Civil Society.