I've been a tad harsh on the French in these pages over the years. But they seem to be showing some backbone in resisting Islamization and such destructive items on the leftist agenda as same-sex marriage. More than the PC-whipped Germans to be sure. In any case here is the story:
After the passage of same-sex marriage legislation in France, one mayor is refusing to comply. Jean-Michel Colo of Arcangues rejected an application for marriage from a gay couple in his village. Guy Martineau-Espel and Jean-Michel Martin tried to compromise with the major, taking vows outside the traditional marriage hall. Nevertheless, the Arcangues mayor still refused. “When people close the door at home, they do what they want. For me, marriage is for a woman and man to have children. I am not discriminating as a same-sex couple is sterile. It’s a parody of equality, it’s a big lie,” he reasoned.
Another way to respond to the same-sexers is to concede discrimination but then point out the obvious: not all types of discrimination are bad. The following is a non sequitur: 'Opposition to X is discriminatory' ergo 'Opposition to X is morally unacceptable.' We don't allow the under 16 to drive or the under 18 to vote. That is discriminatory. But for a good reason. There are under 16s and under 18s qualified for the respective activities, but most aren't. The law can't cater to individual cases. Further examples can be multiplied ad libitum. We all discriminate all the time and with perfect justification. Not all discrimination is illegimate.
I lay out part of my case against same-sex 'marriage' in detail in the entries cited below.
'Same-sex' can be added to our list of alienans adjectives when it is used to modify 'marriage.' Same-sex marriage is no more marraige than a decoy duck is a duck, faux marble is marble, or derivative intentionality is intentionality.
Here lies Professor X. As he is buried here, his name is buried in the scholarly apparatus of the enduring, though rarely consulted, annals of scholarship. Indeed, he has already become a forgotten footnote to a debate itself teetering on the brink of oblivion. And yet it can be said that he made a contribution, however minor, to the transmission of high culture during a time of decline. More importantly, he had the wisdom to appreciate that his playing of this role was enough.
Home-schooling is illegal in Germany. So, "In 2008, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike left Germany with their five children and came to the United States asking for refugee status as an oppressed minority."
So they left Germany to seek asylum in Left-Fascist Amerika. There is a touch of irony here. Well, we are not as far gone as the "land of poets and thinkers." (Heinrich Heine) Not yet, leastways.
The reason for the disallowance of home schooling is that the powers that be don't want the formation of "parallel societies" (Parallelgesellschaften). That's a real knee-slapper given the green light to Muslim immigration and the Islamization of Germany. No "parallel societies" unless they are politically correct parallel societies.
The Pee Cee, you see, are 'inclusive.' Even unto their own extermination. The Germans seem especially PC-whipped.
It is perhaps not irrelevant that the Romeikes are Christians. Nor that ". . . one of the oldest universities in Germany inaugurated the country's first taxpayer-funded department of Islamic theology. The Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Tübingen is the first of four planned Islamic university centers in Germany." (Ibid.)
Read about the Romeikes here. It turns out that their request for asylum was denied.
Victor Davis Hanson writes yet another report on the Decline of the West. This owl of Minerva catalogs and explains from the comfort and security of his Hoover Institution perch, but I would like to hear some suggestions from him as to what can be done to stop or slow down the slide. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps all we have are the pleasures of scribbling and understanding. Hanson and I are now old men who have it made. Twilight time is not so bad as long as health and eyesight hold out, as long as one's faculties permit the enjoyment of the vita contemplativa. The life of otium liberale is delicious indeed. It ain't dark yet, and we have a few years left. We can hope to be dead before unbearable night.
But what about the young? What can they do, Victor? And how can we help them?
Here. Hardly a day goes by without a half-dozen new examples of willful liberal stupidity. It has to be willful: nobody could be this inherently devoid of common sense.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, Book I, sec. 95:
Historical refutation as the definitive refutation. — In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God — today one indicates how the belief that there is a God could arise and how this belief acquired its weight and importance: a counter-proof that there is no God thereby becomes superfluous. — When in former times one had refuted the 'proofs of the existence of God' put forward, there always remained the doubt whether better proofs might not be adduced than those just refuted: in those days atheists did not know how to make a clean sweep.
This passage, which is entirely characteristic of Nietzsche's way of thinking, strikes me as a text-book example of the genetic fallacy.
Every (occurrent) belief has an origin: it comes to be held by a person or a group of persons due to certain causes. Thus I came to believe that there are nine planets by reading it in a book as a child. Is Nietzsche suggesting that every belief is false just in virtue of its having an origin? That would be absurd. Is he suggesting instead that only false beliefs have origins? That too would be absurd. My belief that our solar system consists of nine planets, counting Pluto, orbiting one mediocre star is true despite its having an origin.
Given that both true and false beliefs have origins, it follows that one cannot refute a belief, i.e., show it to be false, by tracing its origins. To think otherwise is to commit the genetic fallacy.
People who commit this fallacy fail to appreciate that questions as to the truth or falsity of a belief and as to the reasons for its truth or falsity are logically independent of questions as to the origin (genesis) of the belief in question. Herr Nietzsche is therefore quite mistaken in thinking that accounting for the genesis of a belief renders "superfluous" (ueberfluessig) the question of its truth or falsity.
Far from being the definitive refutation, historical refutation is no refutation at all. A belief's loss of widespread acceptance and existential importance says nothing about its truth.
Nietzsche was subjectively certain of the nonexistence of God. But this was merely a fact about his psyche, a fact consistent both with the existence and the nonexistence of God. Similarly, the "death of God" — in plain English: the waning of widespread belief in God among educated people — is merely a cultural fact, if it is a fact. As such, it is consistent both with the existence and the nonexistence of God.
What Nietzsche and his followers do is presuppose that there is a way things are: There is no God, no moral world-order; truth is a matter of perspective, a "vital lie"; the world at bottom is the will to power; and so on. Armed with these unargued presuppositions, they set out to debunk countervailing positions. What they seem not to appreciate is that debunkers can be debunked and psychologizers psychologized; bullshitters of the decadent French form can themselves be bullshat. Deny truth and you presuppose truth. Turn everything into flux, and you flux yourself up as well. The river into which you can step only once turns out to be a river into which you cannot step at all. Logic, rendered super-fluous, gets its revenge in the end.
I dedicate this post to Peter L. and Mike V. with whom some of the following ideas were hashed out over Sunday breakfast at a Mesa hash house.
Sam Harris reports on the curious views of one Scott Atran, anthropologist:
According to Atran, people who decapitate journalists, filmmakers, and aid workers to cries of “Alahu akbar!” or blow themselves up in crowds of innocents are led to misbehave this way not because of their deeply held beliefs about jihad and martyrdom but because of their experience of male bonding in soccer clubs and barbershops. (Really.) So I asked Atran directly:
“Are you saying that no Muslim suicide bomber has ever blown himself up with the expectation of getting into Paradise?”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s what I’m saying. No one believes in Paradise.”
This post assumes that Harris has fairly and accurately reported Atran's view. If you think he hasn't then substitute 'Atran*' for 'Atran' below. Atran* holds by definition the view I will be criticizing.
If we are to be as charitable to Atran as possible, we would have to say that he holds his strange view because he himself does not believe in the Muslim paradise and he cannot imagine anyone else really believing in it either. So Muslims who profess to believe in Paradise with its black-eyed virgins, etc. are merely mouthing phrases. What makes this preposterous is that Atran ignores the best evidence one could have as to what a person believes, namely, the person's overt behavior taken in the context of his verbal avowals. Belief is linked to action. If I believe I have a flat tire, I will pull over and investigate. If I say 'We have a flat tire" but keep on driving, then you know that I don't really believe that we have a flat tire.
Same with the Muslim terrorist. If he invokes the greatness of his god while decapitating someone, then that is the best possible evidence that he believes in the existence of his god and what that god guarantees to the faithful, namely, an endless supply of post-mortem carnal delights. This is particularly clear in the case of jihadis such as suicide bombers. The verbal avowals indicate the content of the belief while the action indicates that the content is believed.
Now compare this very strong evidence with the evidence Atran has for the proposition that "No one believes in Paradise." His only evidence is astonishingly flimsy: that he and his ilk cannot imagine anyone believing what Muslims believe. But that involves both a failure of imagination and a projection into the Other of one's own attitudes.
The problem here is a general one.
"I don't believe that, and you don't either!"
"But I do!"
"No you don't, you merely think you believe it or are feigning belief."
"Look at what I do, and how I live. The evidence of my actions, which costs me something, in the context of what I say, is solid evidence that I do believe what I claim to believe."
Example. Years ago I heard Mario Cuomo say at a Democratic National Convention that the life of the politician was the noblest and best life. I was incredulous and thought to myself: Cuomo cannot possibly believe what he just said! But then I realized that he most likely does believe it and that I was making the mistake of assuming that others share my values and assumptions and attitudes.
It is a bad mistake to project one's own values, beliefs, attitudes , assumptions and whatnot into others.
Most of the definitions of psychological projection I have read imply that it is only undesirable attitudes, beliefs and the like that are the contents of acts of projection. But it seems to me that the notion of projection should be widened to include desirable ones as well. The desire for peace and social harmony, for example, is obviously good. But it too can be the content of an act of psychological projection. A pacifist, for example, may assume that others deep down are really like he is: peace-loving to such an extent as to avoid war at all costs. A pacifist might reason as follows: since everyone deep down wants peace, and abhors war, if I throw down my weapon, my adversary will do likewise. By unilaterally disarming, I show my good will, and he will reciprocate. But if you throw down your weapon before Hitler, he will take that precisely as justification for killing you: since might makes right on his neo-Thrasymachian scheme, you have shown by your pacific deed that you are unfit for the struggle for existence and therefore deserve to die, and indeed must die to keep from polluting the gene pool.
Projection in cases like these can be dangerous. One oftens hears the sentiment expressed that we human beings are at bottom all the same and all want the same things. Not so! You and I may want "harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding" but others have belligerence and bellicosity as it were hard-wired into them. They like fighting and dominating and they only come alive when they are bashing your skull in either literally or figuratively. People are not the same and it is a big mistake to think otherwise and project your decency into them.
I said that the psychologists classify projection as a defense mechanism. But how could the projection of good traits count as a defense mechanism? Well, I suppose that by engaging in such projections one defends oneself against the painful realization that the people in the world are much worse than one would have liked to believe. Many of us have a strong psychological need to see good in other people, and that can give rise to illusions. There is good and evil in each person, and one must train oneself to accurately discern how much of each is present in each person one encounters.
God is self-existent. The universe is not. As Hugh McCann puts it, unexceptionably, "the universe is directly dependent on God for its entire being, as far as time extends." (Creation and the Sovereignty of God, Indiana UP, 2012, p. 27.) God is a sustaining causa prima active at every moment of the universe's existence, not a mere cosmic starter-upper. Now if God is self-existent or a se, while the universe depends for its entire being (existence, reality) at each instant of its career on the self-existent creator, then I say that God and the universe cannot be equally real. God is more real, indeed supremely real. The universe is less real because derivatively real. The one has its being from itself, the other from another. I say that there is a difference in their mode of existence: both exist but they exist in different ways. McCann, however, will have none of this:
Existence does not admit of degrees. A world sustained by God is . . . as real as it could [would] be if it sustained itself. (Ibid.)
Let's see if we can sort this out.
0. To keep this short, I will not now worry about the difference, if any, between modes of existence and degrees of existence.
1. The underlying question is whether it is intelligible to posit modes of existence or modes of being. I maintain that it is intelligible and that it is simply a dogma of (most) analytic philosophers to deny the intelligibility of talk of modes of existence. See my "Existence: Two Dogmas of Analysis" in Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics, eds. Novotny and Novak, Routledge Studies in Metaphysics, forthcoming. But not only is it intelligible to posit modes of existence, in several areas of philosophy it is mandatory. The present subject is one of them.
2. One thing McCann and I will agree on is that there is a sense of 'exist(s)' according to which God and the universe exist in exactly the same way. This is the quantifier sense. Let 'g' be an individual constant denoting God and 'u' an individual constant denoting our universe. We can then write
For some x, x = g
and
For some x, x = u.
Removing the individual constants and replacing them with a free variable yields the predicate expression 'for some x, x = y.' I grant that this predicate is univocal in sense regardless of the value of 'y.' In plain English the predicate is 'Something is identical to ___.' So in the quantifier sense of 'exist(s),' God and the universe exist in the same way, or rather in no way: they just exist. In the quantifier sense of 'exist(s),' it makes no sense to speak of modes of existence or degrees of existence. Is-identical-with-something-or-other does not admit of degrees. So in the quantifier sense of 'exist(s),' It makes no sense to say that God is more real or more existent than the universe.
In the quantifier sense of 'exist(s),' then, existence does not admit of degrees and no distinction of mode or degree can be made between a universe sustained by God and a self-sustaining universe. If this is what McCann is saying, then I agree.
But please note that the quantifier sense presupposes a first-level sense. It is trivially true (if we are not Meinongians) that Socrates exists iff something is identical to Socrates. This presupposes, however, the singular existence of the individual that is identical to Socrates. Now while there cannot be modes of quantifier or general existence, there can very well be modes of singular existence. (The arguments aginst this are all unsound as I argue in my Routledge article.) God and Socrates are both singular and both exist. But they exist in different ways. The same goes for God and the created universe as a whole
That was but an assertion. Now for an argument.
3. McCann tells us that the universe U has the same reality whether it is self-existent or entirely dependent on God for its existence. But then what would be the difference between U as self-existent and U as non-self-existent? The things in it and their properties would be the same, and so would the laws of nature. Perhaps I will be told that in the one case U has the property aseity while in the other case it does not. But what is aseity? Aseity is just the property of being self-existent. Existence, however, is not a quidditative property, and neither is self-existence: they do not pertain to what a thing is. U is what it is whether it exists from itself or from another. It follows that aseity is not a quidditative property. The conclusion to draw is that aseity is a way of existing or a mode of existence.
In sum: there is a difference between U as self-existent and U as non-self-existent (dependent on God). This difference is not a quidditative difference. The nature of U is the same whether it self-exists or not. Nor is it a difference in general or quantifier existence: both are something. The difference is a difference in mode of singular existence. God and the universe exist in different ways or modes. These three questions need to be distinguished: What is it? Is it? How is it?
4. Could one say that the difference between U as self-existent and U as non-self-existent is that in the one case U is related to God but in the other case U is not? This cannot be right since God confers existence upon U. (McCann very plausibly argues that secondary or natural causation is not existence-conferring; primary or divine causation is and must be, as McCann of course maintains.) U is nothing apart from divine existence-conferral. It is not as if God exists and U exists, both in the sdame way, and they are tied by a relation of creation. Creation cannot be a relation logically subsequent to the existence of G and U: U has no existence apart from this relation. It is siply nothing apart from God. But this amounts to saying that U exists is a different way than G. U exists-dependently while G exists-independently. One can abstract from this difference and say that both exist in the general or quantifier sense, but that is a mere abstraction. U and G in their concrete singularity exist in different ways.
5. God is not a being among beings, but Being itself. This is a consequence of the divine simplicity affirmed by McCann in his final chapter. God is self-existent in virtue of being Existence itself. McCann's commitment to the divine simplicity is logically inconsistent with his claim that "A world sustained by God is . . . as real as it could [would] be if it sustained itself."
In his excellent book McCann resurrects and defends certain Thomist themes without realizing that some of these themes are inconsistent with key tenets of analytic orthodoxy, chiefly, the dogma that there are no modes of existence.
"As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron." – – H. L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920 (Via Bill Keezer, via Keith Burgess-Jackson)
The great and glorious day is come, my friends, and we finally have the president we deserve. God help us.
According to Snopes, the above quotation is not verbatim, but it is accurate in the main. See Snopes for context.
Just minutes before ambling by your place and seeing your link to Brooks, I had run across this riposte. It's worth a look, I think.
This administration has aggressively sought to hollow out all the mediating layers of civil society that stand between the atomized citizen and the Leviathan (those civil associations having been discussed by Tocqueville as by far the most important part of American life). I think Brooks is right that the "solitary naked individual" can easily feel himself alone against the "gigantic and menacing State", but it can go the other way too: the radically atomized individual – for whom the traditional embedding in civil society, with its web of mutually supportive associations and obligations, no longer exists – is left with only the State as friend, protector, and provider. This was creepily evident in, e.g., the Obama campaign's horrifying Life of Julia slideshow, in which a faceless female goes from childhood to dotage with, apparently, no human interactions whatsoever, and subsisting entirely upon the blessings that flow from the federal behemoth.
In the article I linked above, the author points out that our natural embedding in civil society is a lever for the totalitarian State to use to compel obedience; Brooks, on the other hand, seems to see civil society and State as almost the same thing, and appears to argue that loyalty to the former should entail obedience to the latter. He speaks of "gently gradated authoritative structures: family, neighborhood, religious group, state, nation and world", but he makes the gradation seem very gentle indeed, if not downright flat.
Response. We agree that disaster looms if the Left gets its way and manages to eliminate the buffering elements of civil society lying between the naked individual and the State. We also agree that the State can wear the monstrous aspect of Leviathan or that of the benevolent nanny whose multiple tits are so many spigots supplying panem et circenses to the increasingly less self-reliant masses. To cite just one example, the Obama administration promotes ever-increasing food stamp dependency to citizens and illegal aliens alike under the mendacious SNAP acronym thereby disincentivizing relief and charitable efforts at the local level while further straining an already strapped Federal treasury. A trifecta of stupidity and corruption, if you will: the infantilizing of the populace who now needs federal help in feeding itself; the fiscal irresponsibilty of adding to the national debt; the assault on the institutions of civil society out of naked lust for ever more centralized power in the hands of the Dems, the left wing party. (Not that the Repubs are conservative.)
I grant that a totalitarian State could make use of familial and other local loyalties as levers to coerce individuals as is argued in the Jacobin piece. But that is not a good argument against those local loyalties and what go with them, namely, respect for well-constituted authority and a defeasible presumption in favor of traditional beliefs and practices. Besides, it is precisely the strength of the institutions of civil society that will serve as a brake on the expansion of federal power.
In general, arguments of the form 'X is ill-advised because X could be misused' are unsound due to probative overkill: they prove to much. Most anything can be misused. Blogger buddy and fellow Arizonan Victor Reppert argued against Arizona Senate Bill 1070 on the ground that cops could use it to harass Hispanics or people who look Hispanic. Here is part of my response:
A certain distrust of law enforcement is reasonable. Skepticism about government and its law enforcement agencies is integral to American conservatism and has been from the founding. But we need to make a simple distinction between a law and its enforcement. A just law can be unjustly applied or enforced, and if it is, that is no argument against the law. If the police cannot be trusted to enforce the 1070 law without abuses, then they cannot be trusted to enforce any law without abuses. Someone who thinks otherwise is probably assuming, falsely, that most cops are anti-Hispanic racists. What a scurrilous assumption!
At this point one must vigorously protest the standard leftist ploy of 'playing the race card,' i.e., the tactic of injecting race into every conceivable issue. The issue before us is illegal immigration, which has nothing to do with race. Those who oppose illegal immigration are opposed to the illegality of the immigrants, not to their race. The illegals happen to be mainly Hispanic, and among the Hispanics, mainly Mexican. But those are contingent facts. If they were mainly Persians, the objection would be the same. Again, the opposition is to the illegality of the illegals, not to their race.
You write, "Brooks, on the other hand, seems to see civil society and State as almost the same thing, and appears to argue that loyalty to the former should entail obedience to the latter." I've read Brooks' piece about four times and I don't get that out of it.
The issue underlying the Snowden case is a very difficult one and may be irresolvable. Perhaps it can be formulated as finding the correct middle position between two extremes. On the one end you have the alienated, deracinated, twentysomething cyberpunk loyal to no one and nothing except some such abstraction as the common good or the good of humanity. On the other end end you have the Blut-und-Boden type who uncritically respects and accepts every form of authority from that of his parents on up though the mediating associations of civil society to the the authority of der Fuehrer himself. At the one extreme, the hyper-autonomy of the rootless individual, full of excessive trust in his own judgment, who presumes to be justified in betraying his country. At the other extreme, the hyper-heteronomy of the nativist, racist, xenophobe who justifies his crimes against humanity by saying that he was following orders and who invokes the outrageous "My country right or wrong."
In between lie the difficult cases. The brother of the Unabomber turned him in, or 'ratted him out' depending on your point of view. I say he did right: familial loyalty is a value but it has limits. I have no firm opinion about the Snowden case or where it lies on the spectrum, but I am inclined to agree with Brooks. It's bloody difficult!
If anyone is interested in my debate with Reppert over AZ SB 1070 from three years ago, it unfolds over three posts accessible from this page.
