Redstate

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.

I should say that the generality of some of our statements ought to constitute no obstacle to their application to concrete circumstances. To observe, for example, that government is the self-organization of the community for its preservation and the perpetuation of its way of life, is to positively exclude the possibility of a polity legitimized by the recognition of 'rights' and privileges without respect of the specificity of the traditions observed by the subjects of those rights. The immigration and Islam questions come readily to mind in this connection. And to observe, further, that economic science is merely a tool, subservient to the legitimate goods of existence, is to condemn the manner in which considerations of efficiency, profit, and utility are routinely employed to run roughshod over either those transcendent goods, or the conditions more propitious to their realization. The applications of this observation are practically infinite.

Perhaps this is not the level of specificity requisite to a catechism, in which case I freely concede that 'manifesto' would have been more appropriate. But sometimes generality and aspiration, as a form of understatement which requires the reader to extrude the logical implications of what he has read, is the only mode of expression remaining when many people who profess the same political philosophy manifestly do not see certain things; or when the reality of those things is made manifest by a thousand proofs, still profess not to see; or having seen them, immediately begin to temporize and obsfuscate - or, what is still worse, to withdraw in horror, reciting the incantations of the doctrines which precipitated the emergence of the ignored realities. In other words, there come times when reasoned discourse fails, and all that has any hope of availing is a bald statement of fact.

My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.

Some of the most ruinous aspects of Liberalism now go by the name "conservative."

Conservatives like Burke and Reagan have been quite reactionary, in the sense expounded by P. E. More.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Relabeling ourselves "reactionaries" and ceding the "conservative" tag to the liberals is not wise. Why not "paleoconservative"? {kidding}

Some of the most ruinous aspects of Liberalism now go by the name "conservative."

I understand the point you are getting at, but the proper solution here is to make clear the distinction between liberals and conservatives in the GOP, not to go along with the redefinition of conservatism.

Liberalism (by which I think we both mean classical liberalism) is founded on a conception of human nature every bit as faulty as that employed by communism. I take this essay as being aimed at enunciating that point more clearly. If so, then, with all respect to you and Maximos, I don't think it quite pulls it off. But I like the project.

This is emphatically not an exercise in "relabeling." It is at attempt at clarifying differences. If all those who call themselves conservative are prepared to assent to this catechism/manifesto, then it certainly helps no one to use the term reactionary. But I think you'll agree that alot of soi-disant conservatives will have trouble with much that is here. Thus, the need for an effort at distinction.

I won't deny, moreover, that part of my purpose is to provoke. As much of our political discourse goes, most of what men have long recognized as conservative principles do indeed appear to be reactionary.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

but find very little to disagree with in your manifesto. Maybe a genuine catechism (ie Q and A) would have been more effective at drawing the distinction you seek?

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Dean Nation is now Nation-Building: Purple politics, muscular liberalism, principled pragmatism

That Catechism went by the wayside before you ever attended that heretical school. A catechism need not be in question:answer format. The modern one isn't.

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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.

I was really just going off your definition upthread :) Cant remember a single thing the nuns ever taught me, really. Except that if you need to restroom, don't wait for permission. Just go. (to the restroom).

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Dean Nation is now Nation-Building: Purple politics, muscular liberalism, principled pragmatism

as being a cultural conservative who happens to be in the Democratic party, rather than a liberal in the sense that I believe Paul is using the term.

I strongly trend towards social conservatism in my personal life. However I am pro-Roe, pro-civil unions, pro-stem cell research, pro-gun control in urban settings, and highly Wilsonian/Atcheson-ian in my foreign policy. So I won't be eligible for a GOP card anytime soon.

I actually think of my liberalism as an extension of conservatism. That is, I believe in economic as well as state oppression.

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Dean Nation is now Nation-Building: Purple politics, muscular liberalism, principled pragmatism

it seems that you do in fact find much to disagree with in what Paul wrote.

I believe in economic as well as state oppression.

I believe that such a thing is possible in theory. I don't believe it is a problem in America today or in the foreseeable future. Do you?

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Dean Nation is now Nation-Building: Purple politics, muscular liberalism, principled pragmatism

I take it that you see economic oppression as a pressing problem in America today. I'm curious as to what specifically you are getting at.

i guess saying "I largely agree" is pointless. Heres a point of contention. I find the axiom,

"There no presumption of protection for political discourse ranging over questions of the violent replacement of the Constitution, as the latter not a suicide pact. Sedition is a crime and ought to remain one."

to be in serious potential tension with

"The right of a community to maintain its identity, autonomy, and independence is among the first principles of a free polity."

because of my agreement with the following:

"¶ A government may become destructive of these ends, calling forth resistance from the community. Revolt, like war, should be analyzed through the two-tier method of traditional Just War doctrine: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. A just cause for revolt may be dishonored by its conduct; and even an unjust cause may be conducted honorably."

which leads me to unequivocally dissent from:

"There is a presumption in favor of Free Speech, but it is hardly absolute. Few clauses of the Philadelphia Constitution have been more abused, and twisted from their original meaning, than the First Amendment."

and in fact also ties into my disagreement with

"Indiscriminate blending of cultures is thus undesirable, and more often than not an at least implicit act of aggression against the existing majority culture."

(hope that wasnt too hard to follow :)

I'd summarize my disagreement with a statement of my own. That is,

"Ideas and values have rightness and wrongness - there is an absolute truth. Only by allowing ideas and values toc ome into active conflict can the strong (true) ones prevail over the weak (false). Hencem freedom of speech and multi-culturalism are essential and absolute axioms for the promulgation of superior ideas and values."

I'd also comment that any Constitution that cannot survive sedition is one that is too weak to be worth defending. The solution to bad speech - even sedition - is more speech. To suggest that the Founders intended otherwise is a gross misreading of the Federalist Papers. I find it very strange to see one of your bullet points in your Manifesto praise the American experiment, yet see another seemingly echo Chief Justice Holt circa 1704.

At any rate the Union is worth defending because it is a Union, ie something that transcends Faction (see Federalist #10). You seem to argue that Faction should be limited by reducing the number of Factions. A Union of One (or Few) is however far weaker than one of many.

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Dean Nation is now Nation-Building: Purple politics, muscular liberalism, principled pragmatism

it looks as though I needn't have posted my comment "Liberalism," below, because in fact our disgreement is pretty firm: we know that much.

I think one of the solutions to certain kinds of "bad speech" is legal proscription of said speech. I decisively reject the "marketplace of ideas" formulation, where "the strong (true) ones [will] prevail over the weak (false)" ones, because I think we have abundant evidence, in the 20th century alone, of the triumph, and ensuing catastrophe, of false ideas. The truth will out, in the end; but there is no guarantee that, before it does, falsehood will pull down many great and precious things.

No one said the Constitution can't survive sedition. It has generally survived it quite well: usually by allowing (as our Liberal interpreters will not) laws to repress sedition. Jacobins, Copperheads, polygamists, anarchists, Nazis and Commies have all felt the coercive force of the state act upon their sedition in our history.

As for the Federalist: its primary teaching on bills of rights is against such documents. There is even a repeated phrase used to deride them: "parchment barriers."

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

The truth will out, in the end; but there is no guarantee that, before it does, falsehood will pull down many great and precious things.

That's well and good to say, but it elides the point. The marketplace of ideas is not a utopia and was never sold as such. It is simply the best of the available options. I, for one, prefer the marketplace of ideas -- imperfect that it is -- to reimplementing the fairness doctrine for the airwaves; or to what has been labeled "campaign finance reform."

For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.

this

I, for one, prefer the marketplace of ideas -- imperfect that it is -- to reimplementing the fairness doctrine for the airwaves; or to what has been labeled "campaign finance reform."

is hardly what Paul and I have in mind. Suppression of seditious ideas, most of which now seem to emanate from certain corners of the Islamic world - yes. And pace the idea that the Open Society is merely the best of all possible options, our own history is replete with suppressions plainly analogous to that which some of us now contemplate, and the notion that the America of those days was somehow a society writhing 'neath the jackboot verges on the risible.

My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.

is hardly what Paul and I have in mind. Suppression of seditious ideas, most of which now seem to emanate from certain corners of the Islamic world - yes.

First, that wasn't what Paul stated and, second, you're misusing the term "sedition" if you think that sedition is emanating from the Islamic world.

Sedition is a crime against the state by its citizens and should remain a crime -- although limited to its historical scope* (which seems quite a bit narrower than what you or Paul had in mind).

von

*The Alien and Sedition Acts of early Congress(es) were not its historical scope but rather a departure therefrom, as was noted when they passed.

For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.

Sedition is emanating from Muslims in America and the West.

I deny that the Sedition Act of 1798 was a departure in the sense that most people argue. See the late Leonard Levy's book The Legacy of Suppression for a glimpse of how Jefferson handled the matter as President.

Jefferson and Madison opposed the Sedition Act fiercely -- on states' rights grounds. Their Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions laid the groundwork for the doctrine of Nullification. I think that era in constitutional history is altogether distorted, if not outright falsified, by the lens of a simplistic morality play, through which it is usually viewed.

We need only look across the Atlantic to see what mischief and massacre the Jacobins were capable of. That America was spared such strife cannot, of course, but credited to the Sedition Act alone; but it surely deserves some part of the credit.

The suppression of disloyal movements has a long (and in my view proud) history in this country. There is little to be ashamed of in our "legacy of suppression." We were by and large right to bring the coercive force of law against Jacobin, Copperhead, polygamist, anarchist, Nazi, and Communist. We would be very right to do so again against the Jihadist.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

has a growing presence within the border of the United States; and much of the teaching in certain quarters of that diaspora is manifestly seditious.

As regards sedition in a broader sense, I am afraid that we simply will have to disagree. Past suppressions of certain forms of political speech, such as that of communists, while they may not always have fallen under statutes pertaining to sedition, hardly rendered America a jackboot society. I suspect that you have circumscribed your historical scope too narrowly.

My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.

"we have abundant evidence, in the 20th century alone, of the triumph, and ensuing catastrophe, of false ideas"

no. Those were evidence of how bad ideas thrive in places where there isnt enough speech. Not examples of bad speech triumphing over good speech in an open marketplace.

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Dean Nation is now Nation-Building: Purple politics, muscular liberalism, principled pragmatism

The Weimar Republic was liberal and democratic. Spain before her Civil War was also liberal. People were free to talk as they wished -- and they talked themselves right into civil war. Louis XVI was rapidly liberalizing France when that terrible Revolution erupted.

The whole J. S. Mill doctrine of the Open Society rests on a huge contradiction. It posits that "all questions shall be open questions," but even here in this founding act, a question is closed: the question of whether, indeed, all questions should be open.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

may be twisted to nondemocratic and illiberal ways by force of personality; witness that Hitler's rise to power was entirely on the basis of allocating more power to himself by fiat and supine legislature. Thats a lesson for separation of power and checks and balances. The same process inexorably creeps on in Venezuela.

its too simplistic - and in fact quite wrong - to say that the people talked themselves into civl war. The talk was a symptom, not a cause. The underlying forces were again ones that were unaccountable and self-interested and who therefore exhorted the people to their ends; the problem essentially again amounted to lack of enough countering speech.

Banning speech does nothing to stem the underlying sentiments; if anything it channels them into less easily countered avenues.

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Dean Nation is now Nation-Building: Purple politics, muscular liberalism, principled pragmatism

are ultimately warranted by the fact that human nature is not an instance of essentially disincarnate reason accidentally inhabiting a corporeal body, from which all nonrational factors and influences emanate. Those nonrational aspects of human nature are integral with that nature, co-equal with reason, in some respects, and in the well-formed soul, each set of faculties will assume both its proper place and its right measure.

The wound of man's being, however, his tendency towards disorder and excess, means that his passional aspect occasionally threatens to overwhelm order. And while it is certainly true that Jacobinism, for example, originated in a defect of reason - reason detached from sentiment and tradition, seeking to compass all things by its own measures - the appeal of Jacobinism, the force that motivated hordes to act in accordance with the dictates of the tribunes of reason, were most certainly nonrational. So also with communism.

The reason, therefore, for the proscription of certain ideas, doctrines, and lines of inquiry, lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of men will not entertain these questions at anything like the level of disinterested reason requisite to their resolution upon that plane. They will be motivated by many factors, some rational, some not, and some altogether verging on the inhuman, as history attests. It is in order to extinguish, or even prevent from forming, these fires in the minds of men, that we may declare certain questions closed and certain subjects forbidden. The Open Society model of the clashing of opposed ideas, that the stronger, more rational, may prevail, founders upon the fact that most men are not now, nor ever will be, philosophers. Most of them, in fact, disdain the philosopher, a fact I may rue, but cannot alter.

My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.

Unless I misunderstand Liberalism completely, it seems to me that these precepts (just to begin with) would encounter immediate opposition:

¶ A healthy polity will have a majority population and culture; contemporary orthodoxy on diversity tends towards anarchy and strife.

¶ The right of a community to maintain its identity, autonomy, and independence is among the first principles of a free polity.

¶ Tradition and custom need not constantly explain or justify themselves as practice or policy. The presumption is in their favor. To drag them before the bar of a rigid rationalism is profound impiety.

¶ The Liberal compact, by which questions of ultimate existential import are bracketed, and questions of temporal prosperity and the adjudication of rights-claims pursued, is an act of violence against human nature, a displacement that occasions the rise of messianic political doctrines.

¶ The traditional family — mother, father and children — must be privileged in law and in society; no other relationship is permitted to assert equality or parity with it.

Majority rights, a presumption in favor of tradition, privilege for the traditional family, an open repudiation of the Lockean bargain -- how can these square with Liberalism?

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

hmm. A capital letter does not a definition make, Paul. This is why we so often seem to be in disagreement when in reality you are substituting a capital for a rigorous definition that we can probably agree on.

"A healthy polity will have a majority population and culture; contemporary orthodoxy on diversity tends towards anarchy and strife."

I agree with the first part; I registered my dissent woth teh second part above.

"The right of a community to maintain its identity, autonomy, and independence is among the first principles of a free polity."

strongly agreed, see above. (or maybe below.. dunno where in teh thread I am actually)

"Tradition and custom need not constantly explain or justify themselves as practice or policy. The presumption is in their favor. To drag them before the bar of a rigid rationalism is profound impiety."

It may indeed be impious and hence I woudl also hesitate to do so. But a thing being impious doesnt neccessarily ean it must be done on occassion. I am thinking specifically of segregation and civil rights, whose status as "tradition and custom" were unassailable. I will be as impious as needed - even against tradition and custom - because there are things that are more important than either.

"The Liberal compact, by which questions of ultimate existential import are bracketed, and questions of temporal prosperity and the adjudication of rights-claims pursued, is an act of violence against human nature, a displacement that occasions the rise of messianic political doctrines."

I dont know what you mean by "Liberal Compact" so have no way of evaluating this statement.

"The traditional family — mother, father and children — must be privileged in law and in society; no other relationship is permitted to assert equality or parity with it."

I agree. but I believe that the law is not teh right venue to define it; hence I would leave the definition of marrriage completely outside the law and in the hands of personal conscience or church. I favor civil unions as a excecize in sharing assets and property rights.

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Dean Nation is now Nation-Building: Purple politics, muscular liberalism, principled pragmatism

but I believe that the law is not teh right venue to define it; hence I would leave the definition of marriage completely outside the law and in the hands of personal conscience or church. I favor civil unions as a excecize in sharing assets and property rights.

Is perfectly illustrative this:

"The Liberal compact, by which questions of ultimate existential import are bracketed, and questions of temporal prosperity and the adjudication of rights-claims pursued, is an act of violence against human nature, a displacement that occasions the rise of messianic political doctrines."

If the structures of the traditional family are essentially reduced to nothing more than private observances and affectations, then they have most assuredly been bracketed off from questions of the organization of society and the adjudications of claims of right and property. And if the only socially meaningful -in the sense of being perceived to be normative and carrying certain privileges and also, negatively, sanctions - institutions are the "I wants" (rights) and "I haves" (property), then we are left with a rather dessicated and unworthy sort of existence.

My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.

Re: If the structures of the traditional family are essentially reduced to nothing more than private observances and affectations

You say "nothing more" as if the things you dismiss are trivial. But I would suggest that tradition and the passions are in fact prior to the law (historically and ontologically both) and therefore superior to it. If "affection" and "custom" cannot sustain a family then the law certainly cannot. You might as sell be King Canute ordering the tide out when you think the law can say to spouses "Love each other". This is in fact a prime example of the very statist delusion that Paul, glancingly, touches on, the tendency of conservatives to buy into the thinking of liberals, of which the belief in the omnipotence, or at least omni-competence, of government, is one such tenet. In a truly just society there would be entire realms of human existence into which the state was not allowed to enter lest, like the proverbial bull in the china shop, it do great damage no matter how noble its intentions. Do you realy think that in the past 200 years since the state has taken over direction of marriage it has improved the institution?

If "affection" and "custom" cannot sustain a family then the law certainly cannot.

By observing that if the love an affection that members of homosexual couples presumably have for one another cannot sustain them, then legal recognition of their unions, amounting to a parody of marriage, certainly will not.

tradition and the passions are in fact prior to the law (historically and ontologically both) and therefore superior to it.

Tradition is indeed logically and ontologically prior to law, which is the effort of the community to protect and secure tradition, from which it follows that tradition - and here we refer to tradition concerning the fundamental basis of civilization, and to tradition concerning cuisine - that never achieves legal recognition is naught but an abortion. And as for the passions, which I take to be disordered appetites, or appetites indulged beyond licit measure, I'd rather they not achieve positive status in law; hence, my opposition to "marriage reform", be it same-sex unions or the "privatization" of marriage.

As for this:

You might as sell be King Canute ordering the tide out when you think the law can say to spouses "Love each other".

Of course, this is merely a red herring. No one ever claimed that the state could compel spouses to love one another. The state, however, manifestly can recognize what marriage is, ontologically, and so define it in accordance with its nature. In fact, this is really the only thing the state can do with respect to the institution without becoming that raging bull in the china shop. One either recognizes reality, or, as the old language put it, kicks against the pricks.

And as for the matter of government involvement in marriage, we can either have this, or we can have eccesiastical courts with authority over marriage customs and practices, as was the prevailing custom prior to the secularizing trend of modernity. Since this will not fly in a religiously plural society, I'm afraid we are stuck with the state. Now, that state can either recognize the nature of reality, or it can ordain that marriage shall be whatever private parties deem it to be for them, in which case it will be still be involved in marriage law, not only enforcing contracts and the like, but defining the institution as, essentially, anything and nothing at all. To invoke a right is to invoke a conception of, pardon the term, normativity.

My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.

Re: Now, that state can either recognize the nature of reality

Well, gay couples are also a part of that reality. Though far fewer in the number, what excuse is there to recognize some part of reality rather than the whole of it?
By the way, I actually wouldn't mind going back to letting churches rule their own marriage laws. What would be wrong with this? Let Catholics wed (and then not divorce!) according Roman Catholic canon law, liberal Protestants do so according to their church regulations, conservative Prortstants according to theirs, The Jews according to the Jews and so forth. Yes, I know, the secularizers would have an unholy cow over it, but I do think much good would come letting the churches have a true and important public role, at least in regards to their own congregrants, rather then treating them as mere baubles on the public tree.

The reality which the state ought to recognize is not that of brute factuality, within which there are not merely homosexuals, but pedophiles, necrophiliacs, and zoophiles, but that of the ontology of things, of the nature of things as discerned by their forms and ends, in which case homosexuality has no positive status whatsoever.

As for the question of ecclesiastical authority over marriage, you have quite missed the point, and I would counsel a re-read.

My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.

Liberalism (by which I think we both mean classical liberalism) is founded on a conception of human nature every bit as faulty as that employed by communism.

I'm comfortable being labeled a classic liberal (though I don't think it fits perfectly), so that second statement piqued my interest. I'm curious what you're getting at in that when you state that classical liberal's "conception of human nature" is "every bit as faulty as that employed by communism." Certainly, the "reactionary" of Messrs. Cella's and Maximos's conception is at odds with the classic liberal on a great many things. But I think that the comparison to communism -- something sure to get classic liberal types riled up since, if nothing else, they are invariably anti-communist -- is an overstatement at best.

Indeed, it seems to me that both the "reactionary" and the classic liberal share some common ground in diagnosing the problems. It's in the solutions where they differ most. Consider, purely for the sake of argument, my reaction to the first two points:

¶ Human nature is not elastic, but rather constant; and the corrupt aspects will always be with us.

¶ Man is indeed a reasoning being, but often he is moved by nonrational factors. These latter do not bear an intrinsic mark of censure.

My only real objection is to the italicized portion, and only becaue its written so eliptically that I'm not quite sure what it means. Surely, there are nonrational things that do not deserve "censor" and, surely, that a thing is nonrational does not mean that it is ipso facto wrong. But this is not controversial. If Messrs. Cella and 'Sos mean to say that a nonrational factor should be given support where it is shown, by reason and experience, to cause harm or inequity -- well, of course I get off the boat. But I'm not sure that Cella and 'Sos wouldn't join my disembarkment.

von

For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.

I won't presume to speak for Mr. Sandor, but I think Communism and Classical Liberalism share several things in their conception of man.

(1) Materialism. In Communism, of course, this is much more explicit; but in both there is a decisive establishment of material well-being as the purpose of political life.

(2) Both posit an aboriginal "state of nature," though from there they move on to different things. Communism takes from Rousseau the view that the first property owner was a thief, and thus that the regime of private property is illegitimate. Classical Liberalism takes from it the view that man is in essence a selfish being, driven by a desire for acquisition.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

(1) Materialism. In Communism, of course, this is much more explicit; but in both there is a decisive establishment of material well-being as the purpose of political life.

Granted that this is a similarity, but there are very few political theories in which materialism -- defined as you use it -- does not rank somewhere in the top 3. And this hardly saves Sandor's point from being a severe overstatement.

(2) Both posit an aboriginal "state of nature," though from there they move on to different things. Communism takes from Rousseau the view that the first property owner was a thief, and thus that the regime of private property is illegitimate. Classical Liberalism takes from it the view that man is in essence a selfish being, driven by a desire for acquisition.

Wait a second: Does not "Reactionarism" -- as is being debated here -- also posit an "aboriginal 'state of nature,'"? Is not your very first point "¶ Human nature is not elastic, but rather constant; and the corrupt aspects will always be with us"? (Emphasis added.) And why not recognize in one's political philosophy that one such aspect of human -- whether corrupt or otherwise -- is that humans almost always pursue their self interest above all else?

In other words, I do not think that second point proves what you mean it to prove.

For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.

there are very few political theories in which materialism ... does not rank somewhere in the top 3.

The only place that matters is the top place. Both Liberalism and Communism posit materialism as their starting point for their picture of man as a political being.

Does not "Reactionarism" -- as is being debated here -- also posit an "aboriginal 'state of nature,'"?

No, it does not:

The institution of the State emanates from the nature of man, who is a political animal, organizing collectively to shelter his tradition and community.

Man always expresses the sociality of his nature; the only differences are those of degree. Pure “state-of-nature” individualism is an illusion or a willed act of renunciation.

And why not recognize in one's political philosophy that one such aspect of human -- whether corrupt or otherwise -- is that humans almost always pursue their self interest above all else?

We do not deny the power of selfishness. The problem lies in your phrase "above all else." In the Muslim world, for instance, it seems that there are more powerful forces that mere self-interest.

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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Re: In the Muslim world, for instance, it seems that there are more powerful forces that mere self-interest.

I'm not sure that's true. The 9-11 hijackers do seem to have sincerely believed that Paradise awauted them for their deed. Were they not therefore following their self-interest? And certainly the horde of thugs and theocrats who run the place are following their own self-interest in amassing wealth and power, like all tyrants.

when classical liberalism is talking about economics (and related political matters) it is indeed talking about things that are by nature material. Just as a professor of geology giving a lecture on his topic is talking about things that a terrestial and not native to some distant galaxy. The difference between the Marxist and the classical liberal is that the former would go on to say that Matter is all that exists while I doubt either either Mr Locke or Mr Jefferson would have affirmed that dogma.

For some reason, this happened to make me think of Mike Griffin's speech about "Acceptable Reasons" and "Real Reasons" for going to space, which touches on this in some sense.

than either would care to admit.

Paul already touched on this, but since you asked me I'll respond. Marx drew heavily on contemporary liberal thought, and his ideas have deep roots in classical liberalism. Specifically, the idea of the fundamental equality of all people, and the belief that economic thinking is the main prism through which to examine the world, are common to both Marx and to classical liberalism.

They also have very similar end points in mind. The Marxist withering away of the state sounds a lot like the goal of what has been called "millennial capitalism", in which everyone in the world will peacefully coexist and trade with one another, and freely move about the world, in the pursuit of their mutual and peaceful economic advantage.

I’d say that Marxists disagree(d) with liberals about how to get from point A to point B, but not that the points existed and that point B was a worthy destination.

The classical liberal conception of human nature is that man is a rational economic actor who will behave in certain rational and predictable ways in the pursuit of paticular ends which classical liberalism regards as in everyone’s best interests. That has never been an accurate description of human behavior and it’s unlikely that it ever will be. A society that attempts to build itself on this erroneous view of human nature will not survive.

The classical liberal conception of human nature is that man is a rational economic actor who will behave in certain rational and predictable ways in the pursuit of paticular ends which classical liberalism regards as in everyone’s best interests.

I don't think that ever was classical liberalism's conception of human nature; it seems instead to try to sum up the assumptions present in certain economic models (which themselves recognized their imperfections, ergo, model). Classical liberalism holds that, more often than not, individuals are better at running their own lives. It does not assert (or require) that they will behave predicably -- although they frequently do, as the Western canon will teach you (as will other traditions, but best stick with the familiar). It also does not posit a stateless society or dream of a utopia: to the contrary, it quite specifically requires the state to take an active role in defense, mediating disputes, and ensuring that the rules are upheld. Indeed, it's downright weird to seem Adam Smith and David Ricardo assumed to be utopians (as Marx and Engels were) -- much less to take the position that Friedman, Hayek, or Mills (!) were utopian thinkers.

You are correct that Marx and Mills share a view that humans are driven by self-want, although Marx limits his view to economic self-want while Mills is far broader in his concerns. I don't think that's all that controversial a point. Indeed, markets are so successful at allocating goods and services -- as compared to other forms of direction -- particularly because people look out for their own interests. This, in itself, is good evidence that the central insight of classical liberalism should be respected. (Note, of course, that classical liberalism neither assumes nor requires that individuals be solely guided by their self-interest or that its predictions always be right and correct; only that self interest is a better guide than the available alternatives.)

Finally, someone always brings up Islamist radicalism here, and argues that this somehow proves that individuals are not inclined toward self-interest. They do so because they fail to recognize that, to the extent that Islamic radicalism (and other forms of radicalism) are exceptions, they are exceptions that prove the rule. We find Islamic radicalism so perplexing and frightening precisely because they do not fit our predictions regarding how individuals behave -- predictions that have served us so well with in so many other situations and with so many other peoples (including the vast majority of Moslems).

von

For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.

Was this in reply to me or to someone else?

I made no mention of Smith, Ricardo, Mill, or utopia. You asked me what similarites I saw between Marxism and classical liberalism, and I told you. I don't see this as being controversial. The Declaration of Independance is a summation of classical liberalism and it it comes flat out and states that all men are created equal. The economic roots of liberal thought go all the way back to Locke and the value he places on property. If you disagree, tell me where.

Properly understood, I think classical liberalism is not hostile to the idea of the nation state, and I don't believe people like Adam Smith understood it in that fashion. Nor did Hayek, who was open to the idea that freedom and free markets were an idea impossible to transplant outside the West, or even the Anglo-Saxon world.

I don't think that I'm revealing classified information in pointing out that there are a great many people these days, who call themselves classical liberals, libertarians, and capitalists, who do envisage the end of the nation state and some sort of free market utopia to follow. There are people out there who think that Smith and Hayek were old-fashioned statists.

Let's call these people "utopian-capitalists", to distinguish them from the traditional classical liberal. However, they usually claim to be followers of classical liberalism who are seeking to extend its teachings both worldwide and into all aspects of life in America. It's these people to whom I believe Paul is throwing down the gauntlet.

someone always brings up Islamist radicalism here, and argues that this somehow proves that individuals are not inclined toward self-interest.

It can be argued that no matter they do, people are always acting in their own self-interest; that they would not do whatever it is if it were not in their self-interest. In this sense a soldier storming a machine-gun nest is still acting in his self-interest. However, lets not go there.

I'm arguing that one of the key ideas behind classical liberalism is that of fostering coperation based on the idea of mutual economic advantage. And I'm saying this idea is of limited value. It's true, to some limited extent, but it breaks down very quickly if there are other interests at work.

We find Islamic radicalism so perplexing and frightening precisely because they do not fit our predictions regarding how individuals behave

No need to look so far afield. Liberals (Dems) are perplexed also. "What's the matter with Kansas?", they cry, confused that the good people of that state do not behave in accordance with liberal theory. And the people of New York are no better. They vote in droves for politicians who promise to raise their taxes.

There are whole libraries of research out there on human behavior, and it overwhelmingly suggests that all people place things like culture, ideology, race, ethnicity, and religion ahead of what liberalism sees as their rational and economic self-interest.

Was this in reply to me or to someone else? ....

[snip]

Let's call these people "utopian-capitalists", to distinguish them from the traditional classical liberal.

I probably misread you. If we're in agreement that there's a difference between a classical liberal (or classic liberal, as I prefer) and what passes for the modern Libertarian party, then our differences on this point are not so great.

I'm arguing that one of the key ideas behind classical liberalism is that of fostering coperation based on the idea of mutual economic advantage. And I'm saying this idea is of limited value. It's true, to some limited extent, but it breaks down very quickly if there are other interests at work.

Strike the word "economic" from that statement, and I think you're closer to the mark, i.e., "one of the key ideas behind classical liberalism is that of fostering coperation based on the idea of mutual advantage." The advantages need not be economic (though they frequently are).

Moving out of the realm of classic liberalism and into the realm of economics, I think that you overstate the claim made regarding the advantages of economic trade. The argument is not that trade fosters cooperation. The argument is that trade is ultimately to the advantage of everyone involved (put very roughly, via the mechanism of comparative advantage), and that, as a result, parties that trade together are less likely to go to war with one another, or to take provokative action against one another. I think that's a pretty noncontroversial point: A big reason why China does not simply crush Taiwan -- which it easily could, for it fears no effective military response from us -- is because it would jeopardize its trade relationships with us, Japan, and the EU. The cessation of trade presents a cost that restrains violence and, if an embargo is not a regime-defeating tool, it certainly is a regime-weakening one. It fosters peace. But it does not necessarily lead to cooperation.

No need to look so far afield. Liberals (Dems) are perplexed also. "What's the matter with Kansas?", they cry, confused that the good people of that state do not behave in accordance with liberal theory. And the people of New York are no better. They vote in droves for politicians who promise to raise their taxes.

Because they believe that the taxes provide them an advantage in creating a society that they enjoy.

There are whole libraries of research out there on human behavior, and it overwhelmingly suggests that all people place things like culture, ideology, race, ethnicity, and religion ahead of what liberalism sees as their rational and economic self-interest.

Culture, perhaps. Ideology, I suspect not as much. Race and ethnicity? Nil -- and, yes, I've looked at some of that stuff and, yes, I think it total and utter crap, so let's not ruin a polite conversation with a needless digression. Religion? Somewhat, perhaps.

The bottom line, however, is that markets work for a reason: whatever factors influence decision making, self interest (rational or otherwise) does as well.

For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.

Agreed, its a subject for another time. Mainly because this thread is already getting unwieldy, rather than being off topic. A description of human nature has to underlie any system of political thought, and the sociological data has much to say on that topic.

If you are still following this, you can find an illustration of what I'm speaking of in the discussion thread here. There are more than a few people who consider the proper application of capitalism as requiring the obliteration of national boundaries and the dissolution of the people of the world into a single labor pool.

it would seem to follow that, if human nature is constant, it will manifest itself similarly in all human beings

No, I don't think this follows. Notice the several statements relating to variety. Some core characteristics are common to man, but there working out in societies, traditions, etc. vary so wildly as to preclude the sort of "sameness" you posit here.

_____________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

I think that any of your statements regarding variety would have the same problem. The wildly varying "working out" of core humanity in various societies, etc., necessarily implies elasticity. You can say that this elasticity attaches to something other than human nature, but the more significant you find such variation, the more fundamental the thing to which such elasticity attaches must be. And it seems to me that something cannot be called fundamental without touching significantly on questions of human nature and speaking to its content. "Tension" might be a better word than "contradiction" for what I'm asserting on this point. There are some distinctions one might make to resolve this, but I am not comfortable with any of those that occur to me.

My own view, for what it's worth, it that the variation between cultures (and change over time within cultures)is usually not as significant as it seems, that seeming differences often either mask underlying similarities, or else they are merely driven by contingencies and are therefore unsustainable. I would guess that we end up mostly in the same places on particular issues, just arriving by different roads. For instance, you might oppose "celebrating diversity" because it is corrosive of society, whereas I oppose it because I think it's trivial and distracts us from more important matters.

Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less.

The wildly varying "working out" of core humanity in various societies, etc., necessarily implies elasticity.

Actually, the instantiation of a common human nature in a diversity of concrete cultural expressions implies, not elasticity, but finitude: the inability of any man, or society of men, to manifest simultaneously, or even historically, the manifold ways in which men may strive to realize the good of their nature. To state that those wildly varying workings out of core humanity imply an elasticity of nature would be analogous to stating that, say, the wildly varying expression of the human species in different races implies an elasticity which calls into question the unity of the genome.

My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.

I largely agree with what you say immediately above. But doesn't a strong, or any, conception of human nature (as opposed to such things being postmodern "constructs") imply limits on the possible variation of human societies? And the stronger such a conception, the stricter these limits?

For instance, if it is somehow written in our nature that murder is wrong and must be answered, it would be impossible for there to exist a society in which murder would be condoned and go unanswered. Indeed, there is no reliable report of such a society throughout history--unsurprisingly, as its members would die off rather quickly. There is some variety in precisely how murder is defined, as there is in how it is to be answered, from the medieval Icelandic feud system to our modern courts. I would emphasize, however, that all such systems lead to largely the same place: People know that murder is wrong, and failing that, they know that if they commit murder, they will likely be punished. In the end, the vast majority of murders that might place do not take place. Why, just today I failed to commit at least a dozen murders. (And despite the violence of the Norse sagas--the Law & Order of their day--most medieval Icelanders died natural deaths.)

The more such universals you pile upon to your conception of human nature, the more limits you place on the possible variation of human society. (If music is a human universal, then all societies will have music.) I happen to think that there are very many such universals, and so that there are very strict limits on the possible forms of human society. For every human society must possess a large number of such characteristics. However, if you think that human societies vary wildly and do not possess very many such characteristics, then you are consequently limited in the number of human universals you can posit, thus weakening your conception of human nature. In other words, I am positing an inverse relationship between the strength of one's conception of human nature and the amount of societal variation one may consistently assert.

If one's conception of human nature is so weakened, there might still be constancy in what remains, but the nature of individual humans must be "elastic" in the many aspects of their existence that human nature cannot now touch upon. So human nature, under this scheme, may be constant but must be trivial.

Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less.

I'm going to have to go with that. Culture, in my view, is much more significant than human nature in determining how people behave. It's practically the definition of culture that it does override human nature.

it would be impossible for there to exist a society in which murder would be condoned and go unanswered. Indeed, there is no reliable report of such a society throughout history

It is all in the definition, as you go on to say. The members of a society cannot condone murder within their group, or there will not be a society. They can of course be downright exuberant about murder outside the group. For example, the Spartans and their helots, or the Romans and their slaves.

But I think this is the key issue. Classical liberals tend to believe in a single universal human nature, while conservatives do not. Johne and I have had some interesting exchanges on this very topic.

human nature is paramount, as it produces cultures. The best essay on what is being discussed here is a chapter in CS Lewis's "Mere Christianity", which addresses all of the seeming departures of culture being discussed here:

The Law of Human Nature
From Mere Christianity by C S Lewis

Every one has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like this: 'How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?' - 'That's my seat, I was there first' - 'Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm' - 'Why should you shove in first?' - 'Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine' - 'Come on, you promised.' People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.

Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: 'To hell with your standard.' Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.

Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the 'laws of nature' we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong 'the Law of Nature', they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation, and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law - with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it.

We may put this in another way. Each man is at every moment subjected to several different sets of law but there is only one of these which he is free to disobey As a body, he is subjected to gravitation and cannot disobey it; if you leave him unsupported in mid-air, he has no more choice about falling than a stone has. As an organism, he is subjected to various biological laws which he cannot disobey any more than an animal can. That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he chooses.

This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behaviour was obvious to every one. And I believe they were right. If they were not, then all the things we said about the war were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practised. If they had had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the colour of their hair.

I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behaviour known to all men is unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities.

But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man; but for our present purpose I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean. Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to - whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or every one. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.

But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson. A nation may say treaties don't matter; but then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties do not matter, and if there is no such thing as Right and Wrong - in other words, if there is no Law of Nature - what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one? Have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?

It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. Now if we are agreed about that, I go on to my next point, which is this. None of us are really keeping the Law of Nature. If there are any exceptions among you, I apologise to them. They had much better read some other book, for nothing I am going to say concerns them. And now, turning to the ordinary human beings who are left:

I hope you will not misunderstand what I am going to say. I am not preaching, and Heaven knows I do not pretend to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. That time you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money - the one you have almost forgotten - came when you were very hard-up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never done - well, you never would have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be. And as for your behaviour to your wife (or husband) or sister (or brother) if I knew how irritating they could be, I would not wonder at it - and who the dickens am I, anyway? I am just the same. That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently. The truth is, we believe in decency so much - we feel the Rule of Law pressing on us so - that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behaviour that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.

These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.

"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
Race 4 2008

I've read Lewis. A link would have been enough.

Sorry, Dixie, I'm a stickin' to my guns on this. I guess I'm going to have to blog on it to really explain why. But in that whole nature/nurture thing, I come down with nurture.

That is an amazing passage. I am utterly irreligious, but I intend to buy that book tomorrow. Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention.

Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less.

Re: Classical liberals tend to believe in a single universal human nature

I don't think that is true at all. It is a tenet of conservatism that human nature is immutable, at least in regard to historical time. Therefore (given a common origin for humanity) it would impossible for plural human natures to exist.

Certainly it is true for many, though not all. It's true for Locke, for instance. And while Hobbes is not a liberal, it is most certainly true for Hobbes. (See Bk 1 of Leviathan.) It is a thread running through the Federalist Papers, Adam Smith, and many others.

It is not true for totalitarians--Marx, Rousseau, Plato, and Neitzche and their disciples.

The people of my state have consented to a very socialistic, centralized system of governance and economics that is anathematic to many, most, of you. Alaska is profoundly secular and profoundly small - L libertarian.

Classical liberals and libertarians never seem to be aware of just how easily individualism leads to collectivism. The two rise and fall together.

has rarely and only relatively recently transcended economics and moved into individual conduct. That seems to be the bargain most want; if the government leaves them alone, they leave the government alone. A very powerful governor and a small legislature distribute billions each year through various governmental programs with little citizen interest or involvement. In many ways, Alaska is the ultimate welfare state in that the state government does most of what is done at a county or local level in most other states; the airports get run, the roads get built and plowed, the ferries run, the welfare and unemployment checks go out all by a faceless, nameless bureaucracy that is almost wholly out of touch with and untouched by the citizenry. Education is primarily state funded, but the more urban areas do use property taxes to provide some of the cost of education, so there you get some, but only some, citizen interest. Likewise, the more urban areas do support some of their local government with property and sales taxes, though not ANC or FBX on the latter, so, again, some, but not a lot of interest in how the cities spend money. Interestingly, the cities are largely Democrat controlled though city government is technically non-partisan. At the city government level, we have had some nanny-state activity mostly driven by national agendae such as draconian DUI laws and anti-smoking laws. A decade or so ago if someone had told me that ANC would be the first city on the West Coast to be conquered by the anti-smoking nazis, I'd have told them they were out of their mind. Even the Peoples' Republic of Juneau has held out longer.

Alaska has been solidly Red at the State level for over twenty years, and the basic bargain that the Republican Party has made with the people is that we will try to behave reasonably with regard to ethical issues and we will leave them alone. We, too, got caught up a bit in the culture of corruption meme from the Ds over the last year or so, but this too will surely pass and everything will be OK as long as the airports are open, the roads are plowed, and the Permanent Fund Dividend is over $1000.

In Vino Veritas

only relatively recently transcended economics and moved into individual conduct.

For "collectivism" read "concentration of power in governments hands", not "nationalize the means of production".

The state has been regulating individual conduct at a finer and finer level for a very long time now. What is it when the state tells a private business owner who he can can hire and fire, or that he must make his business open to everyone? Or takes it on itself to forcibly integrate different neighborhoods? The legal pretext is often economic but it has always been obvious that controling individual conduct is what is being aimed at. A lot of people have accepted the idea that a technocratic elite should exist and should control their lives. All that is left is to argue about the details.

in terms of political theory and general practice. I was only referring to local experience here. The central government here has power undreamed of in most states and has been relatively restrained in using it to regulate individual conduct.

In Vino Veritas

What you're describing sounds like a "Butler State" rather than a "Nanny State": sweep the floors, procure the groceries, organize the cupboards... but essentially refrain from telling the owners what to do with themselves. Of course that's a simplistic way of putting it... I'm sure for the analogy to hold true, the butler would have to be extraordinairily well paid - in fact, he assuredly sets his own (high) rate, and is the only Butler available to the household.

Perhaps it doesn't sound bad by more than half - on the other hand, it only sounds no more than half good. Give us liberty for the people (fire the Nanny), but also constraint on the government (downsize the Butler) - then let us sleep in the bed we make for ourselves.

apt description. Many here would accept your proposition that the Butler should be downsized if they could figure out how to put the toothpaste back in the tube. The Constitution and the whole governmental structure was predicated on a small population, a vast land area, and no likelihood of supporting even minimal governmental services by the means traditional in the older states. Consequently, all natural resource wealth is commonly held. Were you to strike oil in your back yard, the State would simply say thank you; it would be the State's oil.

As far as socialism goes, it has been a pretty good experiment, but it does have its strains and even dysfunctions. The real test will be ten years or so from now if there is no new oil development. Prudhoe Bay and the TAPS will be at the end of their economic life and the only thing available to "pay the Butler" will be that precious Permanent Fund. It will be interesting to see what the people will be willing to give up in order to keep that annual mad money. I won't be here to find out. Better half retires next year and I'm going someplace warm. 35 years is enough.
In Vino Veritas

was vastly more effective in power than out of it. Perhaps you mean that the rhetoric is purer when one is not encumbered with the messy business of actually governing. Yes, true enough. But it is only by governing that anythinhg actually gets done.

when we controlled the Congress and the Presidency to periods when we had one or the other but not both. Out of power was perhaps a bad choice of words.

In Vino Veritas

The Lockean bargain is refers to what we might call the "functional atheism" of philosophical Liberalism. Man is posited, at least for political purposes, as driven primarily by his love of power (Machiavelli), of wealth (Locke) or status (Hobbes). He is through and through a material being. Thus politics becomes an enterpise of peace-making in the midst of what would otherwise be a ruthless pursuit of these things. The peace-maker is accepted by all in their emergence from the state-of-nature. In the darker visions, where a solid sense of the Fall endures, the State becomes Leviathan. In the brighter versions, it becomes a mere adjudicator of competing rights-claims. But in all versions, the permanent questions of God and Man are, indeed, bracketed and removed to the private realm.

I don't know that there is a language of partition here. There may perhaps be some tendency toward overstatement, because in my experience it is much more likely, even in Conservative circles, that the nonrational part of man will be unjustly denigrated, than that reason will be.

The problem is that so often the application of reason, especially in light of the authority of the "Liberal pact" mentioned above, has discredited itself. The kind of reason I can respect, indeed love and cherish, is the one that operates in a world disentralled from this Liberal pact, where reason is fruitful precisely because it is under authority.

As to your last paragraph, we did not set ourselves decisively against the concept of progress. We declared ourselves agonstics on the matter, and urged caution. The Reactionary Republic would certainly have no binding orthodoxy on progress; reason would have full compass over that question. That question would be emphatically left open.

___________________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

I'm not sure where your Machiavelli comes from, but it didn't come from reading The Discourse. Machiavelli's theory is one of patriotism.

Locke's political philosophy is far richer than simply an account of man driven primarily by a desire for wealth. Locke and Hobbes both recognized that men are driven by love of their souls, and recognized the danger of that--a danger with which we are all too familiar in the post 9-11 world.

Locke did much to revive Thomist natural law theory as well--he maintains a distinction between liberty and license. Though he is a materialist of sorts, the theory depends on the existance of a providential God for its coherence.

Hobbes's theory may do what you want for your criticism of liberalism, but Hobbes is not a liberal, since he sees individual liberty as a destructive force that needs strict limitation.

It would seem we pick up here at points where we last (wearily) left off.

“…where reason is fruitful precisely because it is under authority.” Authority can be ascribed in many ways, some of which could make certain groups quite privileged; and such a status for authority being placed quite preeminent to reason would leave some --imagine we in the Western tradition wherever Islamists have their way -- quite disparaged. I hope and think you must mean something akin to: under the authority of the integrated (non-partitioned, to use a keyword you taught me) man; or alternatively expressed: under prudence; or for description by the inapposite: as opposed to “instrumental reason”^ engaged to serve antisocial or corrupt motives rather than the comprehension of the good.

Do you all intend that the manifesto disclaims, as unbecomingly esoteric and exclusionary, political claims to special and privileged access to the use of reason or application of knowledge, hinged on access to special and privileged authority, arrived at by unaccountable mechanisms? Or to strain the point to collapse (again?), that your reactionary conservative can and does rely on our common nature and natural faculties (may I keyword in Natural Rights?) for pursuits in the civil (gov.) order, not on some special and privileged (thus exclusive) beliefs and authorities. He does not rely on or seek an ensconced Authority -- perhaps State religion or Tradition -- as the ruler of men’s reason in the quest for sound government. He grants presumption to tradition without demanding holy pious awe. So I hope and think you must mean and I wish you would clarify that your reactionary places reason under the authority of the integrated man, comporting with prudence. And that the questions of God and Man, though not contingencies for the political sphere, are certainly public topics that the broader culture has an interest in working out because of the opportunity for personal virtue which might be made available (as choice) to the many.

Shall we mark the time and place, the source of that innovation which bracketed and removed from the political system the permanent questions of God in relation to Man? I would have to posit that American tradition contains essential innovations (how can we be agnostic?) -- religious liberty, no State religion, no religious test for office – which are American applications, in some form, of this Liberal Compact; to walk these back would not be conservative of American tradition but revolutionary or perhaps retro-lutionary. Seems to me that the early American tradition (marking from the constitutional convention) made an application (perhaps not in whole cloth) of the Lockean bargain which treats man as a natural creature with natural rights and civil (governmental) order as a natural, not divine function. The anti-federalist republicanism of that period was not well satisfied. On the other hand, modern thought has so idealized liberty as to even throw off man’s nature as the source of natural rights, finding in such a view unacceptable constraints on adventurous liberty, donning instead “openness” and “tolerance” as a the new guide; but tradition, the descent to absurdity, and the reassertion of science is constraining this tack. I would hazard that this topic explores what could be considered to be some aspect of the boundaries of “Americaness.”

Agnosticism on the question of progress, and hence a theory of the production of culture, is a severe deficiency, a hindrance to serious reception of your project. Agnosticism is not achieved or achievable by your project. First, many rigorous constraints must be put on your claims in order to remain consistent with a declaration of agnosticism. No claim about a preferred state for society can be made by one who is consistently agnostic regarding the beneficence of changes to conform to such states; but you alls manifesto does indeed make such claims. Second, common sense applies the category of goodness and so examination of culture cannot escape from considerations of progress and commensurability. Such questions are enduring and inescapable. Theories on the subject are highly influential/determinative of individual thought. So such agnosticism should require rigorous justification. Else why should I -- who cannot see a rationale justifying this agnosticism – take your claims seriously ;>)? The point being that I know you all are indeed after making a robust claim about conservatism vs. liberalism that must be taken seriously. Agnosticism strikes at the vitality of belief, the heart of relevant claims and without vigorous justification is as copout. Third, there is a prima fascia inconsistency, for even to argue that liberal practices ought to be abandoned in favor of conservative ones implies that such a change would be progress: an improved comprehension of the good.

How can you claim to be agnostic on progress and decline to conceive any theory on the production of culture and then say “to shelter [traditional life’s] natural limits [is] one of the basic duties of the state;” or “Indiscriminate (as if selective or planned is swell?) blending of cultures is thus [because they vary widely] undesirable, and more often than not an at least implicit act of aggression against the existing majority culture?” There is an implicit theory, not agnosticism, hiding behind these claims.

^genuflection to Maximos for the phrase.
John E.

I hope and think you must mean something akin to: [reason must be] under the authority of the integrated man; or alternatively expressed: under prudence ...

Certainly reason must stand under that authority. But what I was getting at was the man's reason is not the measure of all things, because man himself is not the measure of all things. Thus reason should stand under the authority of things outside of man. A living tradition. The church. The universal natural law as embodied in the particular.

And that the questions of God and Man ... are certainly public topics that the broader culture has an interest in working out because of the opportunity for personal virtue which might be made available (as choice) to the many.

This sounds suspiciously like a reformulation of the dread Liberal pact. There is no dependence on the cultivation of personal virtues to justify the higher questions. These questions are public topics because they concern the nature and destiny of man. They are not instrumentally good because they produce civic virtues; they are good because truth is good. "The good presupposes the true," in the Thomist formulation.

I would have to posit that American tradition contains essential innovations ... which are American applications, in some form, of this Liberal Compact.

There is certainly something to this; but my reading of the American tradition is that this aspect of it has been overstated, at times rather dramatically. The Federal Constitution prohibited religious tests; many of the state constitutions did not, but retained them until well into the 19th century.* Every single state constitution in the country contains an invocation (whether explicitly Christian or more Deist in character) of divine guidance. In short, the federalist principle, while repudiating a national established church, definitely countenanced state churches.

On your last point, I guess I'm just having trouble following your argument that a man must believe in some doctrine of progress in order to believe in judgment. Why is progress the only inoculation against relativism? We are certainly not agonstics about change or variety; we are agnostics over whether change over time has a discernible direction; and whether, even if there is direction, this direction is one of improvement.

___________
* Some samples:

South Carolina, Article XXXVIII: That all persons and religious societies who acknowledge that there is one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, and that God is publicly to be worshipped, shall be freely tolerated. The Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State. That all denominations of Christian Protestants in this State, demeaning themselves peaceably and faithfully, shall enjoy equal religious and civil privileges.

Massachusetts, Article II: It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. Chapter VI, Article I (oath of office): I _______, do declare that I believe the Christian religion, and have a firm persuasion of its truth. [this oath remained in force until 1822; and the establishment of religion in Massachusetts until 1833]

North Carolina, Article XIX: That all men have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. Article XXXII: That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State. [these provisions remained in force until 1876]

_______________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

I could ask more questions, but no… I am interpreting you in the context of the points you challenged and the points you declined to endorse.

Thus reason should stand under the authority of things outside of man. A living tradition. The church….. * Some samples:

So your reactionary receives religious tests for office as normative rather retrograde. He courts the claim of special and privileged access to knowledge which makes him a priori superior to those citizens who have not submitted themselves to it as he has. To whatever extent of his locale, he does wish to walk back the innovations of religious liberty and put the state and the citizen under the authority of the Church and or Tradition; his church, his tradition. The implications for other locales are not addressed since he expects he happens to be in the majority.

I thought those who feared theocrats on the Right were foolishly mistaken, but this reactionary teaches me my mistake. He teaches me that we believe the answers to the questions of God and Man are essential to the polity, for they are the authority that we believe men’s reason must answer to. And since they are beyond reason we offer no mechanism (other than our inheritance by place) by which to substantiate to non-subscribers the claims of this authority. That conception of religious liberty and natural man operating the natural civil order by natural law is an overblown account creating a false impression of a foundational “American” liberal compact. That compact is the inevitably flawed product of mind misinformed by godlessness. Our enlightened knowledge informs us to instruct our men that our social order and our reason must be made subject to our tradition and our church. And we shall not concern ourselves with the “other.”

I am reeling from this Paul. Born in another family your reactionary as conceived above is an Islamist. Your reactionary is wielding his scalpel on the heart of my “Americaness” no less than the Islamist, even though your man is cloaked in familiarity. Yes, there is a compact on the valuation of liberty in my “Americaness” and your reactionary is breaking it. He also defies my comprehension of Christ.

I see your agnosticism as a cheap diversion from critical thought that couples a concession to the modern claim that ethnocentrism is inescapable with a defiant endorsement of our own ethnocentrism; it is defiant in reaction to the more typical response of openness. You believe that cultures are grappling with a common human nature. You believe that this grapple involves change. You “believe in judgment.” But yet you claim ignorance as to whether that change can be judged by the measure of its successfulness in grappling with that common human nature. Think man. How can I possibly consider this as any kind of serious defense of your claims? Behind this agnosticism, this promotion of ignorance, this reactionary seeks to shield and raise the authority of Church and Tradition over judgment, as if Tradition magically appeared one day as that talisman which gives us our proper and true guidance and is beyond the judgment of men for it is the proper and necessary authority over them; as if God one day ordained for us the Church as the true guide to civil order and civic virtue and men could and should subject their reason and judgment to its eternal and unchanging revelations; as if any society with any customs in any place and time is in an indeterminable state with respect to another in time and place in terms of progress toward comprehending the good. This reactionary counsels ignorance on the ancient question of ethnocentrism, a convenience which allows him to demand that his men ought to pledge allegiance to his tradition and religion as if others were of no consequence to him. He imposes his ways without admitting he is doing so. To me he is a harbinger of tyranny. He is as seditious as the one who seeks to impose an Islamic polity. Ironically, and in mirror image of this Islamist, his judgment over such an Islamist relies on his own ethnocentric view which is sustained by his agnosticism, his deliberate ode to ignorance. My argument against the Khilafah-seeking Islamist condemns this reactionary as well.

My guts are in torment over portents that we may soon be viciously denouncing each other. I am appalled by the above characterization of your reactionary. You know I have made wearying effort to offer an alternative which accounts for progress, grasps an American version of the liberal bargain and gives great weight to tradition and revelation without taking these retrograde steps. So am I to be a miscreant liberal to you and you a retrograde conservative to me? Are we going to undercut and smash each others arguments and claims? Your attack on the social compact which values liberty certainly undercuts the argument I make against that Islamist and consistency demands I turn this very argument upon a reactionary who makes the call to revive a rigid and domineering ethnocentrism and to reassert the authority of his religion over our polity. So do you think we are as far apart as my interpretative characterizations imply? So far that we are liable to start hurling our beers at one another?

I see this as incongruity of thought: if you really mean to follow through on the thinking that “reason shall have full compass over that question” of what is progress, then you cannot be putting reason under the authority of tradition and church. Put it under the authority of prudence and let it be cross-checked by others who have done so. But once you cross that line, and put it under the authority of tradition and church, you banish Galileo, you imprison or execute Luther, you entirely blot out Locke, you make man the product of tradition and church while ignoring that church and tradition are the product of man. The polity is the natural product of natural man and the operation of his natural faculties. Christ did not make it his domain. There are various polities and so we cannot escape evaluation and choice; the counsel to reticent allegiance to one’s tradition is inadequate to reality and the vital task that confronts us. Men may love their tradition because it is lovable; presumption is sufficient homage to it; to demand piety is tyranny. So now we have our catechisms and our markers for heretics. How’s it hanging? Or maybe that should be Who’s it hanging?
John E.

Were the men who wrote the constitutions of the Carolinas and Massachusetts (and there were others) theocrats and tyrants?

Hammer away at me all you like; wound me with the comparison to the Jihadist because I have cited some constitutional provisions in several of the original thirteen States; draw blood with the insinuation about ethnocentrism -- but at least perceive that the Liberal bargain you offer cuts out its own tyranny, demands its own assent to orthodoxy. This is the dilemma, in the end: you cannot have a cohesive society without an orthodoxy.

Can a faithful Roman Catholic be a true citizen under the Liberal compact? A Catholic must accept his Church and Tradition as authoritative: an authority against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. This Tradition includes teachings on politics. In 1938, Pope Pius XI, horrified at the Nazi racial theory, ordered all the science departments of Catholic schools and colleges to refute it. Ordered them. They complied. It was a political move and the Nazis knew it. But he did not wait for the proceduralism of reason to run its course; he knew that the Nazi theory was false because the revelation, which it was his charge to protect, prohibited it. Reason was demonstrably under the authority of the Church, and the infallible Tradition which she shelters. Pius must be a "rigid and domineering" tyrant.

Under the Liberal compact, with its orthodoxy on church-state separation, no pre-Reformation Christian can be a real citizen. Thus 1,500 years (and more: because the Mediaeval Church sheltered the wisdom of antiquity) of our living Western tradition has no place in the American tradition.

Under the Liberal compact, all churches, all faiths, even the faith of our fathers, are mere sects -- except irreligion. The Liberal compact is an orthodoxy of negation.

The older tradition had at least this difference from Liberal: it did not think the problem solved. The tension within man -- between is loyalty to his country and his duty to his Creator, between civic loyalty and piety -- could in fact never be "solved." It was a permanent dilemma of human politics. It is no more obviously and eternally right that a Christian polity should prohibit the atheist from holding offices of trust than that it should magnanimously open them to him. It was acknowledged that there could be no real progress on this problem because it is a problem inhering in the very being of man, and cannot be solved.

Liberalism thinks it has solved this problem, and solved it by calling it unreal. There is no tension in man, because piety is an illusion.

But there is also this difference. Liberalism, in rejecting piety, or anything outside itself of an analgous nature, removes from its orthodoxy any constraints upon its logic. Thus the reactionary who rejects Liberalism, when exposed, must be crushed. His rejection is treason. What value can be called upon for clemency? None, and he shall have none.

But the older tradition had inherent brakes upon its logic. Even the most intransigent atheist is still a child of God. He is still, even in his rebellion, owed that charity which is due all men. Love your enemies. Liberalism cannot love its enemies. And certain "liberals in a hurry" understood this all too well.

__________________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

[ I wrote this response but did not post it because of concerns about “heat” and that I might ought to take it easy. But I see you have continued in a new diary. So I’ll post this here for info and try to respond to your substantial arguments over there]

You could have told me I misperceived and mischaracterized your reactionary, but you didn’t. And you could have affirmed some of that catechism I summed up with, but you didn’t. And you leave me with thrusts to fence. I hope we are not straying from our object of persuading each other. If we have placed our beliefs beyond the reach of critical and prudent thought then I suppose that effort for that object is pointless. I am taking up your challenges to show that I think my positions do have warrant. And I’d like to stress that from my point of view, those statements I ended my last post with mark out our point of stasis; and the point where as far as I am concerned your catechism walks right over the cliff. If you focus your attacks on those points you may find greater opportunity to show imbalance in my thought. Those are points to which I think your catechism should walk back to. If you are going to construct an attack against me, then show why you think it is insane to walk back to those points rather than picking out other extremes that are not endorsed by my position. Or if you think they are you will need to show how they follow on as necessary implications. I hope you are relying on our previous dialogues for your perception of my position.

Were the men who wrote the constitutions of the Carolinas and Massachusetts (and there were others) theocrats and tyrants?

They were retrogrades. We have learned that imposing religious belief is tyrannical. Forcing citizens who wish to participate in the polis to subscribe to their religious creed is a form of imposition. It was once common practice and we (in our tradition) have learned we do quite well without that. That is my individual view and I am in solidarity with those who will resist having that regressive step imposed on me, my fellows or my children. We seemed to agree with Lee Harris when he compared European impositions on religious practices to Islamic ones, noting both as tyrannical. I say that these are vestiges of that past that we have progressed away from. Shall reason have full compass over this assertion? Then let us reason together about whether religious tests are a good thing. Or shall we be agnostic about whether setting aside religious tests was progress at all? Shall we say that it was once in our tradition and it would be impious to bring that tradition before the bar of reason so we ought to accept the desirability of religious tests?

Can a faithful Roman Catholic be a true citizen under the Liberal compact?

I believe he can because I think his religion does not require him to impose his beliefs on others, nor to disregard them as godless good for nothings. His religion today does not require him to seek or impose a “Roman Catholic” polity, so he can just be a Roman Catholic citizen participating in the polity along with many other types of citizens. He can be, value and respect civic man as man.

Now if what your are saying is that our good Roman Catholic is going to run for office, say JFK, and Pope John is going to use holy authority to order his actions on policy, like you say Pius ordered scientists what their science should say, then we do have a problem. That would be a theocracy. If Roman Catholic piety demands that the Pope be received as the ultimate and final word on matters of science, civil policy and what have you, in addition to the spiritual, then our pious man must be very uncomfortable in the modern world; agnosticism about progress might be some solace. You tell me that in his world: Pius tells his Catholic scientists what science says about racism and Urban tells Galileo what to say about the planets; Leo tells Luther what to think and orders civil authorities to enforce that order; heretics, inquisitions, indulgences as pay for crusades; all because the Church shelters infallible Tradition. If this is the infallible Church of your good Roman Catholic, I expect he wants nothing to do with our modern world, but if he does, and he runs for civil office (or Church office for that matter), tyranny is just what I would expect from him, based on history.

Except that I don’t think that the Roman Catholic Church is now like this; or more particularly, that Pope Benedict is like this. From what I read of him, he very much endorses and encourages the reign of reason in the natural world. If Pius told his parishioners that Nazi racism was evil and that he believed it should not be supported, then well and good. But if he ordered them to fabricate scientific arguments against it, for political reasons, then yes indeed, he is performing like a domineering tyrant. Is that really what he did? Isn’t he the same Pope that embraced evolution because of the scientific evidence for it? Didn’t JFK say that as US President, he didn’t have to take orders from Pope John? And did Pope John reprimand that?

What do you mean by “pre-Reformation Christian?” A Roman Catholic? Well, I told you above why I think what you say about his citizenship is not so. That Church and its Popes seemed to have progressed quite a lot since Luther’s time. Will you show me where Pope Benedict condemns this version of the Liberal compact that I am defending; where he makes it clear that the orthodoxy on Church-State separation prevents his parishioners from being good American citizens? Personally, I think that the Church has rediscovered something very significant in the words and life of Christ that happen to mesh very well with Western innovations on the valuation of religious liberties.

but at least perceive that the Liberal bargain you offer cuts out its own tyranny

Is it tyranny to share a in a value system that makes our liberties a relatively high priority? To say I will defend yours as you defend mine. And to say to those who don’t wish to share in this valuation: fine you will not defend mine and so I will not defend yours; since you aim to crush me with your tyranny I will aim to crush you with my own. So yes, it cuts out its own tyranny with those who are dead set on imposing tyranny on me. This liberal compact offers a non-zero sum route to resolving our differences by the gradual increase in comprehension of the good. Its rejection offers the zero-sum conflict of competing “infallible” authorities asserting themselves over the polity and the people who don’t find sufficient cause to accept them, or perhaps even simply exercise their free will not to.

Thus 1,500 years (and more: because the Mediaeval Church sheltered the wisdom of antiquity) of our living Western tradition has no place in the American tradition

If you take it as a whole and want to make our present precisely like that past, then you have said it well; no place at all. But if you recognize Western tradition as living, growing, and changing, then the evolutionary contributions from time slices of past traditions are readily identified (and they aren’t all even from the West). And I have no reason to say that there are not lost gems to be mined in those histories; but if some gem is imposed on the polis by “authority” I will still call that tyranny.

Under the Liberal compact, all churches, all faiths, even the faith of our fathers, are mere sects -- except irreligion. The Liberal compact is an orthodoxy of negation.

All I think it says is that the jury comprising all men is still out on these matters, including irreligion. Every man needs to confront these issues of the divine for himself but there is not sufficient comprehension to settle the matter to the satisfaction of all. So we all keep working at it and get along based on our commonality as natural men. And I agree that it in some sense that it will never be solved in the way that a biology problem can be, because these matters involve a man’s free choice – as gc’s quote from C.S.Lewis explains so well. This compact I endorse is fully compatible with the “older tradition” you describe except where you start posing problems created by the notion of a “Christian polity.” I call that errant thinking. There is polity and it may have some Christian citizens. “Christian polity” is a confiscation of Christ by Caesar that began with Constantine.

Liberalism thinks it has solved this problem, and solved it by calling it unreal. There is no tension in man, because piety is an illusion.

Are you talking to me here or is this stock for that progressive liberal boogey man with whom I also quarrel. This innovation on liberty that I have received as from American tradition proposes no such thing. This original liberalism of ours is fully constrained by nature: it is constrained by the reach of man’s faculties; it is constrained by the reality it seeks to comprehend; human nature is a very real constraint for all these questions of polity. A later breed have perverted that liberalism by disconnecting it from real human nature (as Alan Bloom talks about) in order to make it an ideal of openness and tolerance. And as to love, it is a very human thing and atheistic humanists do grasp it. And every man needs to keep the counsel that good well-intentioned men may make enmity over ideas. And man’s life is filled with tension. Sign me up on that claim. And if I have somewhere said something inconsistent with that, I’ll thank you for your reproof.
John E.

This comment thread has put me in the mind of a Bob Dylan line:

We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's insane.

Anyway:

I say that [religious tests] are vestiges of that past that we have progressed away from. Shall reason have full compass over this assertion? Then let us reason together about whether religious tests are a good thing. Or shall we be agnostic about whether setting aside religious tests was progress at all?

I shall indeed be agonstic about it, John. I do not think the eternal order of justice delivers a resounding yea or nay on this question. I believe that it probably cannot, because the tension it signifies -- between duty owed to God and loyalty to the state -- is inherent in man. So I do think, strictly speaking, that there can be no progress on this problem. It is insoluble by any human art. It will remain with us until the crack of doom. Perhaps some progress can be made in clarifying the issue, in really pining down the tension between the City of God and the City of Man; but not on the substance.

Now, I do think the eternal order of justice delivers a resounding nay against religious persecution. But I do not think tests for public office alone amount to persecution. In some cases (a stable, peaceful, homogenous nation) they would be unjust; in others (a declining empire on the verge of civil war) they might be necessary to prevent far greater evil. Moreover, why would only religious tests be evil? Would not any test for office, inquiring into matters of conscience, be equally so? Was it injustice to submit all citizens of the Utah Territory to a religious test that precluded polygamous Mormanism?

They were retrogrades. We have learned that imposing religious belief is tyrannical.

We're not talking here about the imposition of religious belief on private citizens. We are talking about barriers to the holding of offices of public trust. Elsewhere in our Catechism, Maximos and I said that even voting is a pivilege and not a right. And for a long time our tradition was perfectly comfortable with excluding scoffers and atheists for public office. I think it was wise to do so. I kicked up a little controversy over at a lefty blog some years ago, by answering the question, "should atheists be excluded from office?" with a forthright affirmative. And I'll note that you will be hard-pressed, even today, to discover a viable presidential candidate who does not at least comport himself as a pious Christian. The test is still in force by social pressure.

Forcing citizens who wish to participate in the polis to subscribe to their religious creed is a form of imposition.

You are imposing a religious test as well, John. Can't you see this? You are insisting that men accept the Liberal compact, with its ineradicable core of functional atheism, with its very controversial assertions about the condition and destiny of man, in order to, as you elegantly put it, "participate in the polis." You are, in Rousseau's language, forcing men to be free.

This liberal compact offers a non-zero sum route to resolving our differences by the gradual increase in comprehension of the good.

I realize that this is the claim put forth by the social contractarians. There was a undoubted plausibility to it in the wake of the wars of religion. But what if I say the social contract model is not progress but degradation? What if I believe that this breach with the past, this revolt made against it by the first philosophers of political modernity, is itself a retrograde movement which saw its final fruit in Communism? What if I utter the terrible heresy that our ancestors knew us better than we know ourselves? What if my political project consists of a revolt against the orthodoxy of Liberalism, an attempt to overthrow it as Machiavelli and Hobbes and Locke and Rousseau overthrew the older tradition? What does you compact offer me?

I am not so naive and utopian as to imagine that my revolt (if, mirable dictu, it is successful) will recover the past in some pristine state. Far from it. Some new synthesis will have to emerge -- a development or evolution, even. But I do firmly believe that the social contract theory is profoundly flawed; and I do firmly work toward its overthrow. And I do believe, if we must talk in the language of progress, that its error is so vast as to prevent any progress until it is overcome.

Now, on a more personal matter, I must say I am a little amazed that my mention of political tests for office in some state constitutions -- not, mind you, in the context of advocating them, but in the context of refuting the view of the American founding as a pure "social contractarian" event -- has sent this discussion off toward strife and tension. My latest essay further expands on my dissatisfaction with this view of the Founding. So, not only do I think the Liberal pact an error, I think it, in America, an error and usurpation, because it has been imposed -- yes, imposed -- on us.

Let me try to also answer some of your specific queries:

You say I am unfairly attacking you via "that progressive liberal boogey man with whom I also quarrel." But, as I have tried to show repeatedly, I fear greatly that you and he are one in the same -- at least on the question at issue here: the Liberal pact. The later "innovators" are only pursuing logic: the logic of eliminating everything that is not Liberalism. Now I totally understand that my attempt at persuasion on this may be quite inadequate, but I do wish it would be acknowledged.

If Pius told his parishioners that Nazi racism was evil and that he believed it should not be supported, then well and good. But if he ordered them to fabricate scientific arguments against it, for political reasons, then yes indeed, he is performing like a domineering tyrant.

He did not order "fabrication." He ordered refutation. How could he do this in good conscience? Because the revelation of the catholicity of the Cross refutes it on its face. In Christ there is no Jew or Greek. What Pius did (for our purposes here) is bring religion into the public square in a very decisive (and, I'll assume we are in agreement on this latter point) in a very brave and noble way. His faith in reason (as Benedict also espoused it) is rather touching to me. Of course science could refute Nazi racial theory, because science, an enterprise of reason, cannot, if it reasons truly, be at variance with revelation. Truth is one.

Will you show me where Pope Benedict condemns this version of the Liberal compact that I am defending?

I believe I can. I believe Lee Harris showed where he did this in the very essay you reference: "Socrates or Muhammad?"

[Benedict] spoke his mind, and he challenged his listeners and the world to ponder questions that have haunted thoughtful men from the first age of Greek philosophic inquiry. He has thrown out an immense challenge to modern reason and to the modern world. Is it really a matter of subjective choice whether men follow a religion that respects human reason and that refuses to use violence to convert others? Can even the most committed atheist be completely indifferent to the imaginary gods that the other members of his community continue to worship?

By golly, that is the Liberal pact -- that the whole political order of men be "completely indifferent to the gods." And notice Harris's language: we must again "ponder questions that have haunted thoughtful men from the first age of Greek philosophic inquiry." The Greeks know us better than we know ourselves -- precisely because they did not think, as our Liberals think, that they have solved the problem of Man's dual loyalty.

_______________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

I shall indeed be agnostic about [religious tests]

Well that’s a start. And I’ll assume that if we pursue the question further, we can use reason to work it out, or is the eternal order of justice something that is going to be a barrier to that, a keyword for something we can’t get to by dialogue but must accept on the basis of some Authority that you may present? You see, this is why I feared your caveats on reason, for I perceive how they can set up a move to declare my critical thinking impious in the face of appeals to Authorities; and this fashions a rhetorical tool to intimidate me into conformance to the desired conclusions.

We should have to discuss our notions of the relationship between the city of god and the city of man. I think it is correct to perceive those as two duties, not one. The revelation I follow does not combine them and so making the state the servant of god or deriving its authority from god, or vice versa, is a big, was a big mistake.

Where you say changes in the perception of the relationship between god and the state is not progress, I project visions of a very ugly history. Religious persecution seems very much the logical outcome of those older conceptions. The Inquisitors were not socio-paths. By their logic, they were well-intentioned; using coercion to save the eternal souls of men. What they saw as legitimate coercion we see as persecution. They were obeying their authorities; proceeding according to their perception of god and the duties he required of them. I’m not agnostic about whether the rejection of this perception of god is progress; I am most thankful for the change. I am sure someone could say this is a case of impiously holding church and tradition to bar of rigid reason, or exposing noah in his drunkenness. I will not withhold my judgment and refrain from calling such a man a dangerous fool and I’ll ask others to not refrain from making their judgment either. I haven’t signed on to any pact to refrain from judgment. That is a very specific pact which I very specifically denounce. If such a man wants my respect I shall give him a chance to earn it, but I’ll give him a steep hill to climb.

If you are a stickler about applying the word “persecution” to religious tests for office, then try “coercion.” That would have been its effect in these circumstances of our tradition which you are calling a wise application of religious tests. So are you making a distinction that religious persecution is condemned by the eternal order of justice but that eternal order declares religious coercion is wise and just? That certainly doesn’t comport with my perception of justice. And check out the Inquisitors for further dubiousness.

I can’t accept your equivalence between religious tests for office and voter’s choices. Fortunately our polity allows us to vote for whomever we want to, using our own formulation of “tests” but that is quite different from tests imposed on the polis by law. But in answer to your rhetorical questions, I can agree in principle that no moral proposition can be treated as an Ideal and applied deductively; we always need to evaluate according to the circumstances and try our best to balance the claims of our conflicting values. Is the polygamy test a test of conscience or of law-breaking? “Why only religious tests?” you ask. Religious tests are a particular topic with a particular history; I am ready with a verdict for all their very common circumstances based on their observable effects.

Regarding the tension between our duties to god and to the state, I have to say I don’t feel any. It seems to me that our present state is quite good about not demanding that I renounce my duties to my God. I hope that if I lived in a polity which did so – and there is no scarcity of them – that I would give to my God and bear the consequences from the state. Now if your duty to god requires you to impose him on the polity and the polis then I can see why you have a problem in America. If your duty to god requires you to strive for a “Christian polity” well then I suppose you want to tear down America and build something else up in her place. From her federal start she dumped the vogue concept of a national religion in favor of a novelty: religious liberty. As I understand it, that older form of republicanism that thought that religious or ethnic purity was necessary for a healthy republic lost out in the constitutional convention. We now have two hundred years of experience that has produced a nation whose accolades are so magnificent that I inadequate to the task of naming them. I am for conserving that. Judging by my experience, those fellows who decided not to follow the old style republicanism made a superior innovative choice. Did that choice cut out those who feel their duty to god involves making the polity and the polis into the city of god? I suppose it has, even those vestiges in the states have been heaved. That is fine with me. There is 1400 years of history that I can compare to these 200 and I would not choose to trade. And as for any claim that I am “bracketing” their beliefs about god and man out of the public square I answer: bring your claims about god and I’ll bring mine; let’s have the dialogue and present it to the “deliberate sense;” my comprehension of god suggests you have completely misunderstood the duty he requires of you. Shall we move on to a theological political discussion here? I have spent immensely more time reading the bible than I have reading political philosophy. But as you say yourself, that most likely will not settle anything. Now that is a tangle that needs to be unwound by those who claim that they and their sense of duty has been “bracketed.”

You are imposing a religious test as well, John. Can't you see this? You are insisting that men accept the Liberal compact, with its ineradicable core of functional atheism, with its very controversial assertions about the condition and destiny of man, in order to, as you elegantly put it, "participate in the polis." You are, in Rousseau's language, forcing men to be free.…

No I can’t see this, Paul. I think you are mistaking me with some other, I suppose that mutated, version of the Liberal pact. And no, I don’t see that that version follows forward from the older version at all. It idealizes Liberty and it changes its relation in the system of priorities that govern the relation between our values. And it discards the foundation of human nature and the efficacy of reason over questions of morality in the process. I wish I could acknowledge that you have offered to show me how it is that my construction cannot be separated from the later one. But I can’t see one place where you have offered to engage me on that. You must think me a boggle of inconsistency and incongruity, but I commit to you that in service to my reason, inconsistency will send me back to the drawing board.

My dabble into the political philosophy that influenced the constitutional convention comes by way of Forrest McDonald. As for original American liberalism, as I understand it, there is complete dependence on the nature of man and his natural faculties. Locke and others contributed to this kind of thinking in constitutional-convention times. You may find their conception of man’s nature highly controversial; but it seems there is controversy about whether you have correctly grasped their conception or even Locke’s, and at any rate any claim of sameness of conceptions is itself controversial. Perhaps you are dissatisfied that they did not use Burke’s conception at that time. I can only answer that human nature is the right foundation and that their conception whatever it was seems to have produced a polity that has worked out well. Improvements in our understanding of human nature provide the foundation for improvements in our polity. There’s a primary hook for progress for you to build your project upon, supposing you can persuade us all that you have an improvement to our conception of human nature. But we shall have to join together to discredit that more recent mutation that decoupled our liberalism from human nature.

I have never once asked that a man leave his religion at the door to the public house. I have asked that he not use it as talisman; that he meet with all his fellow citizens on the common ground of our human faculties and with respect for religious liberty; that he join as an equal in formulating the “deliberate sense;” and that in the end he submit to that as his arbiter. I can find no way to apply your criticism above to my claims. There is no insistence on atheism from me. Ask President George W. Bush about whether there is an American Liberal pact in force which insists on his atheism. He speaks plainly about how his religious beliefs inform his decision making process. He is my man, I love him and his religion and the way it influences him in public office is not proscribed by my subscription to my liberal pact. Locke certainly seems to have had influence on Hamilton et.al but I don’t understand where those gents insisted on a “functional atheism.” Unless what you mean by that is that they did not design a theocracy; that they did not make a national religion; that they conceived of a nation with religious liberty; that they did not make religious tests for office. If that is what you mean by “functional atheism” then I will gratefully and enthusiastically defend it. But I’ll also criticize your choice of terminology for being a rhetorical trick designed to prejudice the debate in your favor.

The man who insists that our city of man must be his city of god may have cause to complain over our designated conception of the nature of the relation between our polity and religion That man who thinks that no good ideas can come from another man who does submit his thoughts to the authority of god could call this unacceptable. Those men are quite at odds with a state built on the “deliberate sense” unless they have somehow caused all that states citizens to conform to their religion. Do they accomplish this by reason? Let’s give them their hearing. Do they accomplish this by demanding that reason must be subject to the authority of their tradition? They wouldn’t do that, would they?

But what if I say the social contract model is not progress but degradation? What if I believe that this breach with the past, this revolt made against it by the first philosophers of political modernity, is itself a retrograde movement which saw its final fruit in Communism? …

If that is what you have to say, then make your arguments. But you are going to have to confront our love for the way of life that our polity has given us, not just some idealized “social contract model” political theory, because I am not even sure what that is or whether I am defending it. You are going to have to convince me and lots of others why the values we hold by way of those several hundred year old innovations are bad and the older ones are better. I have suspected that you think America in its founding departed from some better conception probably somewhere represented by Burke. Well, then you need to just admit that you think America was ill-conceived from the start and you want a new -- I suppose you conceive it as peaceful – retro-revolution. Of course, this is decidedly not agnostic about progress; so let’s drop that pretense. Like I said before, your purported agnosticism is incongruent with many of your assertions.

What does you compact offer me?

My compact – which is just a way of referencing my perception of a shared system of values which operate well because we guard them for each other -- commits to protect your opportunity to make your arguments and persuade, to sway the “deliberate sense.” If you have something better to offer, I hope you succeed in bringing it. This compact on values works because it is shared. So it looks for a reciprocal commitment. But if this mutual commitment to these values is the very thing you are looking to overthrow, so that you can substitute and impose your elitist conceptions, then let me show you the rails while I still have the capability to, because that is exactly what you are proposing to do to me if you possibly can. I hope you will not be amazed in the future when I react with vigor to signs that someone seeks to take away our liberties and impose his authorities. My IQ is a bit lower than most around here, but I can read the signs of elitism. “Revolt” and “overthrow” is strong language Paul and combined with denigration of reason, promotion of authority, challenges to religious liberty, rigid purity of the polis in adherence to traditional authority to be imposed in order to achieve the identity and virtue requisitioned by idealistic republicanism… I start seeing boogey men.

Now if all this is a misunderstanding because I did not understand that the context of your comments is refuting the “pure social contractarian” event of the founding, then I apologize with confessions of my ignorance about political theory. I did not know that was being asserted because I really don’t even know what it means. I have not studied political theory. I feel qualified to talk to you of patriotism; to talk of my perception of America and why she is lovable to me. But if terms of art and the lens’s of theory are required for our discussion then perhaps I am just shedding heat without light. We have spoken much of patriotism and I have here engaged with you with in that vein, with my heart and mind. My project has been to recouple Confidence with our patriotism. If what you are after is a purely academic discussion of ideas as possibilities, then I have indeed misunderstood. On the other hand, if indeed you are speaking as a patriot of some pre-American polity, one which would put the clamps on the liberties achieved in the American experiment, one that detests those early American innovations away from the ideas of an older form of republicanism which requisitions elitism, then there is a very real clash of the heart manifesting in our two competing patriotisms and my confidence project is a fools errand. And if we, those like me and those like you, can’t agree -- and that would involve a compact no? – to be governed by reason and the continuing verdicts of the “deliberate sense” then I think history clearly teaches what we can expect from each other. If the duties required by what you have pledged your allegiance to require replacing the arbiter in that agreement by your own authorities, in a word “imposition,” then you may well expect that your hard heart will be met with mine. I pray that is not the case. Indeed I pray that I have misunderstood.

Now maybe this is a perspective which resolves this strife between us. Maybe you are one of a modern elite -- as Madison etal were of an old elite -- waiting in the wings to resurrect us when their experiment in polity collapses; maybe you are one of an elite – comprising political theorists of all stripes, liberal and conservative – who will debate amongst each about how to restore our culture when our culture fails us or how to direct us so that it doesn’t fail. Maybe I am just one of the common folk who knows he loves what he has and wants to conserve it. Maybe it is natural for me to think that culture takes its course by the consensus comprehension of the good while it is natural for you to think that it does so by the wise planning and steering of elites. Perhaps there is a necessary interplay between such groups along with a natural and healthy distrust, and they work it out one way of another. But even this stacks prejudice against each other. I really don’t see how we get to a warm embrace without agreement on that arbiter above, the very pact I have been talking about.

And while we are on the subject of making personal notes, let me tell you that I did not make those comparisons to Khilafah Islamists because I simply want to wound you, as if for the sake of my polemic. I feel as though I love you Paul. If I must meet with you in such fashion, it will be with all the pleasure I would get from tearing out my own eye because it offends me; it will be the service commanded by my patriotism.

He did not order "fabrication."
Well if all he did was seek to condemn Nazi racism and order scientists to do science then there does not seem to be anything at all notable about this anecdote. If you want a clearer example of controversial orders, then let’s talk about Luther and Leo.

I can find nothing in the Harris quote that contradicts my conception of the Liberal pact. That our society should "ponder questions that have haunted thoughtful men from the first age of Greek philosophic inquiry” is exactly what I am after. And certainly no committed concession to agnosticism on such questions. The beliefs of all our various communities, and one certainly cannot divorce beliefs about the gods, is not a matter for indifference. It is a matter for inquiry. It is a matter that calls forth measured judgment. It is of vital concern. I am not the one who is counseling agnosticism here. I am saying that these matters, cultural and religious, need to be reasoned through and judged by our “deliberate sense” to such extent that we presently can, and their thorniness will make the judgments narrow and tentative for some time to come. And my complaint with your catechism is that you decline to put them under this authority. It counsels agnosticism, warns against reason and reserves admiration for those who put their ethnocentric Church and Tradition over our “deliberate sense.” The good Pope is making no claim to authority over the polity here. He is criticizing us for intellectual copouts that have proclaimed that reason is not up to the task, that it has no efficacy on such subjects, that fairness demands neutrality and a commitment to agnosticism. I believe he is saying compare my Church or culture to some other in time or space; make judgments about their various truth and goodness; continue to work toward reaching consensus on these matters. He is not demanding authority or ethnocentrism to decide the matter. He is looking for a reasoned consensus arising in the “deliberate sense.” We are a long way off from that, but it’s a task that cannot be sluffed off. Now which of us is cut by this Paul? This is exactly what I think the pact enables. How odd it is, this way in which we go about criticizing each other.

On a concluding personal note: Yes I can see why you feel I have put you in a vise. And perhaps you can see why I feel you have constructed one for me. I do wish we could stand down from this stare down. It seems I haven’t found a good way out, other than the hopeful possibility that I have misunderstood you, and that you have absolutely no intention or desire to lord it over me or anyone else. I do know myself though, that I can not break faith on my values and tolerance and openness have limits that can be exhausted. In my judgment, the most productive lines of dialogue that I see open to us are: a discussion of our human nature; a discussion of whether there is a duty to create a “Christian Polity;” determining why we have such different conceptions of American liberalism and the association between this liberal pact as you conceive it and as I conceive it.
John E.

I think there must be some misunderstanding at the heart of this, because I hardly recognize myself in your replies. I think the fault is mine (1) for writing too provocatively and (2) for writing to hastily.

"Then make your arguments," you say, against the Liberal pact. This is what I have been doing of course (see my latest post on why I think the pact alien from our political tradition).

I think part of the confusion derives from my comment upthread that seems to put reason under Tradition. The fault, again, lies with me. I do not mean that captal-T Tradition should have some legislative authority, but that it should operate as a check against reason in our minds. Tradition should be privileged out of humility, such that even when it looks like, according to reason, X or Y innovation should carry the day, we ought to consider why the traditions to be removed by the innovations developed in the first place. Why did our ancestors believe this necessary?

Here is a Chesterton passage that captures the principle I was getting at:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it." [...] It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease.

This is the privilege we would give tradition. If this privilege is different from the impression I gave, then I apologize.

But Chesterton's admonition might (if I read you rightly) apply to the discussion of religious tests. When we "go away and think" about religious tests for office, we will discover that the reason for them was not, as you indicate, to enforce piety. The reason was that scoffers and atheists were thought untrustworthy. It was a political not a theological reason. And given the character of our public atheists today (i.e., Richard Dawkins, a man who recently ventured the opinion that the state ought to restrict the teaching of religion to children by their parents, because such teaching of irrationalism is tantamount to child abuse), I think there is wisdom in it.

For the rest, I'll let the conversation go on in the newer thread; the thread, I would remind you gently, that I began by saying that what republics do is talk . . .

____________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Misunderstanding*... PTL

I love the Chesterton quote.

I still don't see the wisdom in it, but rather vestiges of religious subjugation. Somewhere we have read a critique of dhimmitude that points out that the same kind of subjugation used to be practiced in European societies: “religious tests” for full status that similarly coerced conformance; regardless of their motivation. I thought it was in the Harris review of Bostrom, but it is not; my mistake! If you are claiming that atheists by virtue of atheism shall be marked as untrustworthy then indeed you are in that old tradition, marking out your own infidels for dhimmi-like status. You need not ask again what point set me off.

Dawkins's agenda is on my F-list, but it is a matter for the court of public opinion, not the protective duties of the State.

A toast to talk!

Whilhemsen and Kendall was a great read.

I took a Wiki sidetrack into Historicism and Unilateral social evolution and if you are after avoiding the pigeon holes of those official "doctrines of progress" I understand why.

*Another has accused me of poor reading comprehension, so I'll take the blame too; I haven't acquired all the framework that makes one literate around here.
John E.

I think it is time that you took up a challenge I once made to you and attempt to define what you mean by "liberty" and "freedom". Until you do that you will be generating more heat than light.