Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From mystuff.22 Sat Nov 1 09:12:37 1997
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Article: 10516 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 1 Nov 1997 07:12:24 -0500
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cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>I realize that to say, "The only counter-revolutionary stance is
>Christian" sounds offensive, but it is true.
An interesting point for discussion.
It seems that the revolutionary stance has to do with the abolition of
dualisms through their denial or the victory of one side or another.
Spirit is to be shown to be an epiphenomenon of matter, God a
projection of human wishes and fears, hierarchy and social distinctions
dissolved in equality, gender abolished, etc. Or if you're another
kind of revolutionary maybe you abolish the dualism the other way and
set up a theocracy or Nazi state that abolishes humanity in favor of
God, equality in favor of race, whatever.
Christianity in contrast insists dualisms are real and both sides are
good and important even if not necessarily equal. That's what the
doctrines of Creation and Incarnation say - God created the world as
something separate from himself and called it good, and when he
eventually became man and joined the human and divine natures he did so
without confusing them.
Christianity therefore seems uniquely well suited to oppose the
Revolution. It doesn't simply oppose the side of the dualism the
revolutionaries favor with the opposite side but takes a higher ground
that recognizes both. This line of thought of course implies rejection
of the claim characteristic of the European New Right that Christianity
like all monotheism is a necessarily totalizing view.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From mystuff.22 Sat Nov 1 09:12:37 1997
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 1 07:27:10 EST 1997
Article: 10517 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 1 Nov 1997 07:16:02 -0500
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vtnetSPAM@xs4all.nl (vtnet) writes:
>But the fact remains that individuals will only internalize the values
>and interests of the community from their own free will if they feel
>this is in their (long term) interest.
This seems to assume that individuals are complete and have a complete
set of interests before they are members of any community, in other
words that man is not a social animal.
Also, no society can last if there is no one willing to give his life
for it. I'm not sure how that fits into your analysis of long-term
interests.
>My point is that there is no way to coerce or cheat large populations
>into compliance with a social order, and then compete with other
>societies to which the members freely subscribed for reasons that are
>compelling even after closer examination.
"Coerce or cheat" suggests that the goals of the social order are
adverse to the interests of the population, in other words that the
social order is not a community of which the population are members,
since a distinguishing feature of community is that the goals of the
community are part of what constitutes the interests of the members.
I agree that if a little questioning makes people view the goals of the
social order as foreign to their own interests things are going to be
unstable. That's why social order necessarily has a religious basis, by
the way. (The thing that tells us what we most fundamentally are and
therefore our ultimate goals is our religion.)
A "society to which the members freely subscribed for reasons that are
compelling even after closer examination" sounds like one people hear
about somewhere, look into, and then join. Most of the societies I can
think of that this description fits are small religious groups. Such
things are rare -- the great majority of us are born into a particular
society and never leave. Certainly when people ask questions about
their society they must feel there are satisfactory answers, but a
satisfactory answer can include "this is what we are and and what I am
and there's more to it than I'll ever understand but I trust it."
>(The lack of compelling reasons is after all the prime weapon of any
>opposition, especially if there is a de facto free flow of information
>which today is hard to control without major side-effects.)
I don't think it's free flow of information that is having the effect
today. The free flow of Western pop culture and consumerism is having
an effect but that's not information and the discontent and social
changes to which it gives rise don't result from close scrutiny of the
reasons for allegiance to one order of things or another. When the
Wall came down the East Germans didn't go to libraries they went to
shopping malls.
> things this makes the broad dissemination of general knowledge
>essential for the long-term survival of a society in a competitive
>environment, since it facilitates broad social control.
>
>It is obvious, I trust, that the 'freedom of information' need not
>apply to pornography, certain forms of 'art' and protests that have
>little to do with either culture or serious discourse.
It seems to me that the free flow of communication that is having an
effect today has more in common with the latter than the former. It's
less a matter of information than of images.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Nov 2 07:29:20 EST 1997
Article: 10527 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Political Religion
Date: 2 Nov 1997 06:42:51 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>Ought a Christian to say instead that a person is a means, an
>instrument to the unknowable ends that God intends?
A Christian would say it seems to me that Christ's redemptive suffering
was not a matter of fixing an instrument. God made the world and
called it good. The world -- including man -- is therefore not merely
a means but is itself good.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Nov 2 07:29:21 EST 1997
Article: 10528 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 2 Nov 1997 07:01:04 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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vtnetSPAM@xs4all.nl (vtnet) writes:
>From a ecological perspective men, as all species, are primarily in a
>quest to transmit their genes to later generations, so there is no
>reason why he should not give (and indeed have often given) his life in
>this quest.
But sacrifice for the sake of society is not the same as transmitting
genes. Men with families are notoriously less ready than single men to
expose themselves to risks in wartime. Men who father lots of children
by lots of different women are usually rather antisocial.
>I don't understand your ideas of what seems to be restrictive
>aristocracy, which (apart from content) will probably not wash down
>well in a consumer society.
I'm not sure to what you are referring. Our discussion seems to be at
cross purposes.
My point has been that people live better if there is social cohesion
and social cohesion will be impossible to maintain in a consumer
society with limitless choice, unlimited ability to switch from
relationship with one person to another, and unlimited amusements and
diversions from Gregorian chant to drug-enhanced virtual reality
renditions of Sade's _120 Days of Sodom_ instantly available to anyone
in the privacy of his room at the touch of a button. It follows that
the successful groups in the long run will be those that manage somehow
to limit individual participation in the universal web. The
limitations have no necessary connection with aristocracy or access to
information. Strictly orthodox Jews might be a model for what will be
needed.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Nov 2 15:20:15 EST 1997
Article: 10532 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 2 Nov 1997 15:20:06 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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vtnetSPAM@xs4all.nl (vtnet) writes:
>Indeed, the case could presumably be made that the real success of
>Christianity was only secured with the 'City of God' of Augustines, in
>which the idea of a division of the spiritual and temporal powers was
>laid out clearly.
The division was clear before that. "Render unto Caesar the things that
are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." We are talking
after all about a religion that was illegal during its formative
centuries before Augustine came on the scene.
>Christianity, however, does claims to be the only true faith, even if
>it did typically not attempted to force itself upon others as many
>other religions did: Where the Jew claims to have a special relation
>with the single God which gives him special rights over others, the
>Christian claims to be equal to all man under the same single god. And
>the new right probably holds that this is an essential part of
>Christianity which in the current world is no longer tenable. The
>conflicts of interests between peoples are today very real, and
>therefore so must be the differences between their religions --under
>any name name.
But the European New Right seems to favor equality for all peoples.
Hence their anti-imperialism. But that means that regardless of their
advocacy of particularism they in fact believe in an impartial
universal moral order.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Nov 2 15:22:55 EST 1997
Article: 10533 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 2 Nov 1997 15:22:45 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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vtnetSPAM@xs4all.nl (vtnet) writes:
>what homeostasis is in a single body, is religion in a society: a
>'spirit' that make the elements comply with the interests of the
>community of which the 'cells' and their offspring are dependent for
>their well-being over a longer period.
You derive morality and religion from evolutionary biology. If you
start with a commitment to scientific materialism it is natural to do
so. The issue is whether that commitment is necessary, and whether it
leads to a plausible understanding of the world. It seems to me the
answer to both questions is "no."
>>Strictly orthodox Jews might be a model for what will be needed.
>
>Well, if you hope to give all children an rigorous religious education
>or expected citizens to live according to such standards, your ideas
>are sterile indeed. The only way to instill a sense of societal duty
>without restricting asses to information, seems to me to be propaganda
>at the popular level.
The "you" who gives the education and enforces standards can't be a
centralized authority. It has to be something that touches people very
close to home, which may be what you mean by "popular" but seems to
shut out anything that could reasonably be called "propaganda." The
only thing I can think of that would work is a system of religious law
that emphasizes separation from others and family and local communal
life. Hence the reference to strictly orthodox Jews.
The foregoing is not a policy proposal, by the way. Such arrangements
can not be established by policy. Whatever external manipulation can do
it can undo, and the net is very good at delivering every conceivable
manipulator to every living room. Like the libertarians say, it makes
central control very difficult. The foregoing is also not a description
of what I like. It's intended rather as a prediction of what will work
and prevail. Since man is a social animal, whatever changing conditions
make necessary for communal and cultural cohesion is what men will end
accepting.
>Thus seen, at least at the practial level, strictly orthodox Jews, who
>don't care about the society that feed them as long as it does so, is
>probably the last thing we need today. (But then you are probably more
>referring to their remarkable resistance to influences form the
>outside.)
I was referring to the latter. It is true of course that a society of
the sort I describe would lack public spirit and would presumably be
ruled by weak and unstable despotisms. However, such societies have
existed in the Middle East and South Asia for thousands of years so
they are stable even though their governments are not. It's the
natural form for a radically multiracial and multicultural society to
take, and that seems to be the direction in which we are heading. Even
if immigrants are kept out the rest of the world will be virtually
present through improved transportation and communications so the
result will be the same.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Nov 3 05:59:23 EST 1997
Article: 10540 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Political Religion
Date: 2 Nov 1997 20:25:06 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>> It seems that the revolutionary stance has to do with the abolition
>> of dualisms through their denial or the victory of one side or
>> another.
>
>Thomas Molnar makes this very point in his work, "God and the
>Knowledge of Reality."
I'm sure I got it from him although not from that book.
>*All* (I hope that is pretty emphatic! ) non-Christian religion,
>except for Judaism, finds its unity in imminence, denying God's
>transcendence, denying that God can be "other", and still enter
>history, and move it inexorably to his own purpose.
I think this is false as to Islam. Allah is radically transcendent, but
he also does things in this world, for example speak to Mohammed through
Gabriel and give to man the Koran, his Uncreated Word. It does seem
that God's presence in this world is thinner in the Islamic than the
Christian view. The Sufis try to close the gap.
>> Christianity in contrast insists dualisms are real and both sides
>> are good and important even if not necessarily equal.
>
>If by "dualism" you mean that God is transcendent as opposed to being
>immanent
I meant chiefly the contrast of God and the world but also other things,
for example body and soul.
>I think to speak this way (re: "Christianity therefore seems uniquely
>well suited to oppose the Revolution.") can be dangerous.
Sure. It's looking at the higher from the standpoint of the lower in an
age that wants to reduce the higher to the lower. On the other hand,
it's also keeping within the presumptions of a conversation about
politics and social organization that neither presumes nor argues the
truth of Christianity. Such conversations can be useful; you can't do
everything at once. We can't invent knowledge for ourselves, and most
knowledge is organized and expressed in accordance with the basic
presumptions of the day. In conversation among art historians one might
discuss the proposition "the doctrine of the Incarnation did good things
for the visual arts" without feeling called upon to argue the truth of
that doctrine. Politics can be approached in a similarly abstract
fashion.
>He argues that once one's "tradition" comes to the fore of
>consciousness so that it can be dispassionately dissected and examined
>under a microscope, one has placed oneself "outside" that tradition so
>that one cannot speak of it, tradition, "truly" any more.
If men are outside a tradition it must be spoken of from outside. If
the tradition is a unique embodiment of truth then all roads will lead
to it.
>When you say, Martin, "Strictly orthodox Jews might be a model for
>what will be needed," it sounds to me like you speak from the vantage
>point of a designer, or an engineer.
Those were my words. This is a political discussion in the West in
1997, so the convention is to presume means/ends rationality as the
basis of discussion. The question today is always what the authorities
or political activists should do to bring about some end thought
desirable. You will note however that the analysis immediately moved
away from the presumption; Martin said I was a chowderhead if I thought
that having the government cram religion down people's throats was going
to work, and I said that propaganda and other forms of manipulation
weren't going to work either, since the principles whatever they were
had to touch people very close to home.
>To speak this way, IMO, is to be infected by the spirit of the age.
To speak with and to the age it helps to speak in the manner of the age.
>But if we are looking for Truth, and if we find it in Christ, in the
>Mosaic Law, in some other creed, we do not especially care if people
>agree with us or not, or if our Obedience is "effective" in preserving
>the American Republic, European Distinctives, Western Civilization,
>etc.
"[D]o not especially care" is too strong. Death is bitter even if it
must be accepted as the door to new life.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Nov 3 14:07:23 EST 1997
Article: 10545 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Which America?
Date: 3 Nov 1997 08:25:28 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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"T.O. Minnix" writes:
>it's not obvious to me that these changes don't require a major
>presence for big business in the economy.
Quite likely. The question is the effect on either Mr. Hilty's First
America, the Founders' America of independent individual farmers,
merchants and artisans, or Mr. Buchanan's America, one in which local,
ethnic and religious particularity retains an important and legitimate
role. All I would argue is that the changes are consistent with
Buchanan's America and with an America in which family enterprises have
an important role.
>I should also think the lack of significant standardization resulting
>from the absence of several huge, 'market-setting' enterprises would
>also imply that such large-scale technological change would occur more
>slowly, if at all.
In markets in which there are many small players standardization often
comes about through agreement. It makes things easier for everyone.
Think of standard sizing in the clothing industry, standard threading
for nuts and bolts, etc.
>> The agricultural revolution means there will be fewer farmers but
>> not that the family farm won't be predominant.
>
>How can this be, if fewer farmers are needed?
Family farms become larger. That's what has happened, by and large.
There are corporate processors and marketing cooperatives, but family
farms are still the mainstay.
>only those operating with a certain economy of scale will survive.
>Since corporate agriculture is naturally suited to this environment, it
>seems reasonable to assume that family farmers will decline to the
>extent that any agricultural revolution succeeds.
Corporate farming is suitable for situations in which things can be
predicted and scheduled and work spread out enough to keep employees
busy but not too busy. The problem is that on farms what has to be done
has to be done when it has to be done, it takes as long as it takes, and
prediction can be difficult. The cows might all get sick or the weather
might get weird and all of a sudden you're in a hole you couldn't have
foreseen and you have to work day and night to get out. The only way to
deal is with the labor of the owner and his family. There are some
settings in which corporate farming works but not I think most.
>> The situation seems different in different countries and depends on
>> the local way of doing things -- the Japanese like big business, the
>> Chinese like family enterprises for example.
>
>In fact, most *private* enterprises in China probably are mom-and-
>pop(and kids) type operations. China has large businesses all right,
>but they are usually owned and operated by the State.
Actually, I had places like Taiwan and Hong Kong in mind. It seems to
me they better represent the Chinese way of doing things. Certainly
they've been far more successful economically. My point was that
although in Japan there are small businesses and in Greater China big
private businesses the orientation is different.
>> In any case the overall economic importance of activities like car
>> manufacturing seems to be declining.
>
>To be replaced at the top of the corporate world by small firms like
>Microsoft.
Microsoft is a lot smaller than GM or IBM and doesn't seem likely to
grow to the same size.
>If it's possible for a small company to grow big, it generally will -
>successful enterprises rise up from the corner to becoming players in
>their home towns, states, and eventually nation- and worldwide for the
>same reason given once by a mountaineer for climbing Everest - "because
>it's there".
Successful doesn't always stay successful, and big can shrink. The mix
in size of business enterprise is a result of a number of things. One
is technology, but as discussed technology can enable small business to
compete as well as make big business possible. In addition, there are
other factors. For example it seems to me there is a real advantage to
small family business in postmodern multicultural multiracial society.
Small family business doesn't have to meet the challenge of diversity.
If that challenge is eliminated then it becomes much easier to maintain
trust, common goals, and a common understanding of how things should be
done. You get rid of a lot of bureaucracy that tells people they can't
act the way they naturally tend to act. People are happier too. Those
have to be important competitive advantages.
>if such a conservative does abandon the defense of America's founding
>ideals, with what exactly might he replace those ideals and still
>foster a culture or way of life still recognizably 'American'?
If someone gives up altogether on liberty and equality as ideals, then
he's given up on the American polity. I suppose a refounded Puritan
Commonwealth might be recognizably American. I agree it is difficult
for an American to go around with signs saying "throne and altar" or
something of the sort.
Still, cultures can be transformed. Who knows what will seem
"American" in 50 or 100 years? France is now republican and secular
but it was not always so. It was 40 kings who made France and leftists
still considered the celebration last year of the 1500th anniversary of
the baptism of Clovis a threat. Even though there have been great
changes, people still study "French history," "French literature,"
"French culture" etc. and believe they are single fields of study.
After all the revolutions continuities seem fundamental.
>Or is there nothing that he can replace them with because American
>culture is inextricably linked to these ideals, indeed is nothing more
>than an ongoing celebration of them - so that the counter-revolutionary
>in America is, to an extent unimaginable in countries like the UK or
>France, 'a man without a country'?
Life can always go on. If someone thinks what America needs is to be
ruled by His Most Catholic Excellency then he will contemplate America
and American life from that point of view and discover -- in complete
good faith -- that all that is good in it presupposes or can naturally
be interpreted consistently with the rightness of his political goals
and all that seems inconsistent with those goals is also at odds with
what has been best in America and its institutions.
If someone seriously thinks something is good he discovers that
everything in the world points toward it. Consider for example the
recent discovery by sincere and scholarly thinkers that the Bible
requires the abolition of gender, heterosexism, etc. Rather
surprising, but in a sense no surprise at all.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Nov 3 14:07:24 EST 1997
Article: 10549 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Political Religion
Date: 3 Nov 1997 14:05:20 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <19971103065553317091@deepblue8.salamander.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>> God made the world and called it good.
>Wasn't that before the Fall?
Sure, but it still didn't reduce the world or man to a means to an
alien end. It just made them stand in need of redemption, which isn't
the same a fixing a tool.
>> The world -- including man -- is therefore not merely a means but is
>> itself good.
>How then is it proper to cut trees to build houses?
Even a tree has value in itself. The fact it may rightly be used as a
means doesn't mean that its value is wholly instrumental.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Nov 3 14:07:25 EST 1997
Article: 10550 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Political Religion
Date: 3 Nov 1997 14:07:02 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 12
Message-ID: <63l7cm$7kr@panix.com>
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In <19971103082605642617@deepblue8.salamander.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>I'm uncertain what sort of reality an aggregate has: if you take away
>the crows, there is no "flock" of crows. If you take away the houses,
>where is the community?
And if you take away all the words there is no sentence. A sentence is
nonetheless more than an aggregation of words.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Nov 5 09:27:06 EST 1997
Article: 10564 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Which America?
Date: 5 Nov 1997 09:26:58 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 57
Message-ID: <63pvni$57f@panix.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
John Hilty writes:
>> Mr. Buchanan's America, one in which local, ethnic and religious
>> particularity retains an important and legitimate role. All I would
>> argue is that the changes are consistent with Buchanan's America and
>> with an America in which family enterprises have an important role.
>
>First America ... Second America ...
I should clarify my point of view in the discussion. As background it
might be worth mentioning that when I originally called Mr. Buchanan's
America "the first America" I meant only that it was the first of two
understandings of America I had just mentioned. I didn't intend a
reference to Jefferson's agrarian republic. Onward, though:
Social life in any actual society is carried on in accordance with a
variety of organizational principles that vary in prominence and public
legitimacy. The issue that matters to me is the degree to which modern
technology constrains those principles. It seems to me it leaves a
great deal of room for the continuing importance of religious and
ethnic particularism, family kinship, and so on. That view goes with
the factual claim that in America small enterprise remains important,
and its importance in increasing rather than decreasing.
Your view seems to have several aspects. One is that modern technology
makes large organizations inevitable. I don't dispute that. Another
is that such organizations inevitably dominate social and economic
life. I don't see why that should be so. It is technically possible
for most functions to be carried on by small organizations. The extent
to which they are will have a lot to do with cultural conditions that
affect the ways in which people find it easy to work together. I
instanced East Asia as a prosperous and technically advanced area where
there are wide differences resulting it seems from culture in the role
of large enterprises. I also suggested that multiculturalism and other
forms of social incoherence will give a boost to family-based business
of small or moderate size because of greater ease of establishing trust
and cooperation.
>Let's be clear by what we mean by a 'family business,' such as a
>'family farm.' A family business is a commercial enterprise that 1)
>adequately supports the family, 2) involves only family members as
>workers, 3) is not excessively dependent on subsidies or special
>protection from outside organizations, such as a government, and 4) it
>should be relatively enduring, preferably spanning more than one
>generation.
That's not what I mean though. By "family business" I mean a business
in which family ties are a basic organizational principle. There can be
lots of non-family employees and it doesn't have to be enduring. An
extended family in which the members carry on a variety of enterprises
and strongly prefer to involve other members rather than outsiders would
be engaged in family business even though few of the enterprises were
enduring.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Nov 5 09:31:00 EST 1997
Article: 10565 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 5 Nov 1997 09:29:33 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
vtnetSPAM@xs4all.nl (vtnet) writes:
>It is probably wise to put the moral and physical (extended sense)
>sciences in different dominions, which should not attempt to invade
>each other.
I don't see how that can be done. We do not live in two disjoint
worlds. If we did, what could they have to do with each other? And if
morality has nothing to do with physical reality, how can it have
implications for our dealings with that reality? In other words, how
can it ever have a bearing on practical life?
>Different and conflicting moral systems may well (but must not) be
>equally true to or for different people in different societies.
I'm not sure I understand your use of the word "true." Are the
different truths altogether disjoint, or is there some comprehensive
truth that includes all of them?
I could understand that as social beings we might all have a relative
obligation of loyalty to our society and its standards, so that we
should be reluctant to rebel against the established moral system, and
that system (which naturally differs from those established elsewhere)
would therefore become authoritative for us although not absolutely so.
The differing moral truths would then be a consequence of a common moral
principle (loyalty) applied to different settings. You seem to have
something more radical in mind, though.
>Misleading is to label as education what is in fact propaganda, and it
>is primarily in the scientific materialists view that propaganda and
>deceit can be equated since only one of conflicting alternatives can be
>truthful.
It is not only scientific materialists who believe in the final unity of
truth. Aristotle's "A or not-A" is a statement of the same belief. So
is monotheism.
>In industrial societies ... the successful society will probably be the
>one that succeed in getting all of the people at the right place. (A
>meritocracy.)
But a meritocracy doesn't require public spirit or overall planning. A
society consisting of separate ethnic/religious communities who deal
with each other through trade might have a lot of meritocracy within
the communities, and economists tell us that "comparative advantage"
would lead each community to end up doing what it does best. The
meritocracy would be far from perfect but the same is true of societies
with overall planning.
>I would rather take a (doubtless very different) St. Benedict then
>'strictly religious Jews' for a model; for the object of isolation
>should be integration. Only this can justify the formation of
>essentially parasitic societal bodies
If society consisted in a number of inward-turning ethnic/religious
groups ruled by a rather inert despotism, who would the parasites be?
You seem to judge monasteries and strictly religious Jews from the
standpoint of cultivating public life in the society as a whole. What
if there is no such thing? That seems to be the direction we are
headed.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Nov 5 09:31:02 EST 1997
Article: 10566 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 5 Nov 1997 09:30:37 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <63pvud$5ms@panix.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
vtnetSPAM@xs4all.nl (vtnet) writes:
>The 'equality of people' is no problem to Benoist since he is an
>atheist, and what he probably means is that people are equal under the
>law of nature.
If so the "law of nature" has moral content for him and even confers
rights, or so it appears.
>Combine this with 'the right to difference', which stresses the right
>of people to be among their own kind with the exclusions of others, and
>you get very close to a full fledged extermination ideology on your own
>turf.
Why exterminate when suppression and expulsion would solve the problem?
>The integrity of the new right is certainly greater than of Etzioni and
>the rest of those scheming 'low' communitarians.
My wife had the misfortune of working briefly as a researcher for
Etzioni. He'd write an article and then have college students go out
and find things to put into footnotes as support for whatever position
he had chosen to adopt.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Tue Nov 4 20:46:54 1997
Subject: Re: Political Religion
To: c
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 20:46:54 -0500 (EST)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 2248
Status: RO
>"spiritual life" vs utilitarianism...the "infection" of our age.
I think of the problem as refusal to recognize goods not reducible to
individual preferences. The word "utilitarianism" doesn't quite work
since liberal rights theory is nonutilitarian. Once it is admitted that
there are goods unaffected by preference we have the transcendent and
therefore spiritual life.
>When the notion of art becomes infected with pretensions to being
>"fine" art, it is turned in on itself, and it becomes 'inaccessible
>personal expression'.
The problem as you suggest that fine art intends to be about itself.
One result is that the means become more important than the end.
Eventually the end disappears, and the effectiveness of the means can no
longer matter, so all that remains is their novelty. Art becomes the
continuing search for new systems of notation. Another possibility is
that the disappearance of positive ends leaves destructive ones as the
only remaining basis for art.
>Voegelin's equation of Totalitarian Utilitarian Politics with
>"Gnosticism" is a stroke of genius in many ways.
It seems to me though that they want to abolish the in-between nature of
human life in different ways, Gnosticism by abolishing the material
world of sensuous experience and TUP by abolishing everything else.
>Jacques Ellul says, "Technology is Manichean." It creates a web of
>symbols which reinforces the belief that real "personhood" is in the
>Spirit, which is *in* the body like a gift in a package.
It may intend to make the spirit the only reality, since everything else
becomes plastic. The problem is that the spirit becomes the object of
technological manipulation as well. Therefore personhood disappears.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Nov 6 21:36:52 EST 1997
Article: 10583 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Which America?
Date: 6 Nov 1997 21:20:59 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <63ttub$blq@panix.com>
References: <62qjbv$gi7@panix.com> <62ut0a$ndn$1@gte1.gte.net> <639v99$ca0@panix.com> <878861302snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <878861302snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf379@bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>Which period of life in the 'Scottish Highlands' are you thinking of?
>The emphasis on freedom (economic freedom) as the highest value was
>what undermined kin ties by clearing the Highlands of most of their
>population.
Fleming really does make references to Celts and freedom and kin taking
blood vengeance and things. I don't know just what period if any he is
referring to -- I've always assumed he was referring to enduring things
that are in the blood and carry over from Scotland to the American
South and then yes to Rockford Illinois in 1997.
Presumably as you point out the whole system would break down if all
the land were owned by a few men who yanked it out from under everyone
else. For all I know Fleming would say the ability to do so was due to
the imposition of a foreign legal system. Nothing after all can be
attributed to freedom pure and simple.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Nov 6 21:36:53 EST 1997
Article: 10584 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 6 Nov 1997 21:22:46 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 11
Message-ID: <63tu1m$c2g@panix.com>
References: <63b7pi$rqf@panix.com> <19971031071611384168@deepblue3.salamander.com> <878862508snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <878862508snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf379@bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>Moreover, beyond a certain fairly low minimum, the point of ownership
>is to show off to other members of the population.
Not necessarily to _hoi polloi_ though. To the few kindred spirits who
can truly appreciate.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Nov 6 21:36:54 EST 1997
Article: 10585 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 6 Nov 1997 21:28:21 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <34625B4D.6B38@msmisp.com> cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>it is always assumed that in the analysis of "fact", a man will never
>lie about the propositions he puts forward as descriptions of "fact".
>And yet, with "cold fusion" and other scientific charletainries we've
>seen in the past few years, there seems to be one moral law which is
>consistently applied to the perpetrators of these hoaxes...that one
>shall not lie about, or misrepresent facts!!
The problem with the fact/value distinction goes deep, I think.
Natural science can't be fully formalized, so there is a necessary
element of judgement, of *evaluation*, in determining any proposition
of say physics to be true. It seems to follow that all fact rests on
value. Are the evidence and arguments *good* enough? No formulaic
answer is available.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Nov 6 21:36:56 EST 1997
Article: 10586 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 6 Nov 1997 21:33:52 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 105
Message-ID: <63tumg$dpl@panix.com>
References: <345c741d.5868571@news.xs4all.nl> <63inel$771@panix.com> <345f160b.9071632@news.xs4all.nl> <63pvsd$5gf@panix.com> <3461BC77.6DF859D@xs4all.nl>
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vtnet writes:
>the physical realm deals with the relations between objects in the
>world, while the metaphysical realm deals with men and their
>conceptualizations of that world. And while the behavior of the
>physical world is the same for all men, their conceptions of it, like
>language, are not
If A says "abortion is bad" and B says "abortion is not bad" they
disagree. They do not disagree if A says "my conception of badness
includes abortion" and B says "my conception of badness does not
include abortion." So people believe they are talking about something
different when they talk about good and bad and when they talk about
conceptions of good and bad. Do you believe they are in error?
>Obviously there's a strong interaction between these realms, but they
>should conceptually be kept apart to avoid that doctors start to kill
>their patients according to personal convictions
But if there is no difference between what a doctor should do and his
conception of what he should do, why shouldn't he kill his patients
according to personal conviction?
>What I try to establish is that law is subject to morality, and that
>conflicting moral systems cannot exist under the same laws; and that
>conflicting law cannot exist in the same (moral) society.
I agree that in order to have law in common men must have morality and
a way of life in common, at least to a large degree. Our dispute I
think is whether morality can simply be based on the common way of life
of a people or whether it needs some basis beyond that. Do you believe
that people can reasonably view their morality as only a matter of the
way of they happen to share with others?
>> It is not only scientific materialists who believe in the final
>> unity of truth. Aristotle's "A or not-A" is a statement of the same
>> belief. So is monotheism.
>
>And that is probably one of the reasons why the Greeks could never
>agree on the nature of irrational numbers such as the squire of two,
>and in many cases literally voted each other out of existents in the
>Peloponnesian wars.
You seem to believe that the Greek belief that there is one truth common
to all made it less likely they would agree and more likely they would
go to war. I don't understand that. Nietzsche didn't believe in one
truth common to all, and he liked war. The Communists and National
Socialists didn't believe in universal moral truths, and they thought
only of war and voted millions and millions of people out of existence.
>But I do not understand your claim relating to monotheism unless it is
>universalistic monotheism. Can different monotheist systems not exist
>side by side on different sovereign territories?
Is there non-universalistic monotheism? Jews for example now say that
their system or at least most of it is just for Jews and not for anyone
else, but it does include laws (the Noachide laws) considered binding on
everyone and they view their God as the true and only God of the
Universe.
>Also I think that "comparative advantage" theory is fundamentally
>flawed since baseline-dependent bargaining theory suggests that the
>stronger party will take the greater part of the cooperative surplus
I don't see how that means that each would not tend to end up doing what
he does best.
>The inert despot would not remain inert for very long and turn into an
>ever expanding bureaucracy while exploiting the conflicts of interests
>between the ethnic/religious groups that would for the most part not
>remain 'inward-turned' for very long in the quest for scarce recourses
Why would the bureaucracy bother doing anything? It's easier just to
collect taxes, repress gross internal disorder that might be a threat or
interfere with tax collection, and otherwise let the people look after
themselves through their own efforts and institutions. Government
repression of gross disorder would mean that quest for resources would
take place mostly through trade. One can be institutionally and
culturally inward-turning and nonetheless engage in trade.
>> You seem to judge monasteries and strictly religious Jews from the
>> standpoint of cultivating public life in the society as a whole.
>> What if there is no such thing? That seems to be the direction we
>> are headed.
>
>If there is no such thing the system will fall apart as it is currently
>doing.
But life always goes on. After the current system falls apart because
public life (a common social morality and so on) vanishes what will the
world look like? That is the question I am concerned to answer.
>Radical positivism that rejects most if not all notions of morality
>that cannot be shown to useful under prevailing circumstances, becomes
>very malleable under a strong form of government.
I agree radical positivism applied to morality can lead to very strange
results. I'm not sure you can avoid such results with your apparent
equation of morality with conceptualizations of morality. To say the
two are the same is to say that whatever is thought to be good really is
good.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 8 05:58:38 EST 1997
Article: 10591 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 7 Nov 1997 15:44:04 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 16
Message-ID: <63vuik$gmr@panix.com>
References: <345b75b6.3723640@news.xs4all.nl> <63hq20$2fe@panix.com> <345c741d.5868571@news.xs4all.nl> <63inel$771@panix.com> <345f160b.9071632@news.xs4all.nl> <878864554snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <878864554snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf379@bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>In fact 'accountability' is perhaps one of the worst modern cancers:
>like motherhood and apple pie, no-one can be against it, but it vastly
>increases transaction costs, distorts behaviour, and destroys honesty
>and trust.
Seems like the other side of the rights revolution: because no common
good is recognized or even conceivable the obligations and immunities
of relationships must be fully articulated and enforcement mechanisms
put in place. Everything is at arm's length with no presumption of
good faith.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 8 10:46:11 EST 1997
Article: 10597 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 8 Nov 1997 07:01:53 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 79
Message-ID: <641kbh$4t0@panix.com>
References: <3461BC77.6DF859D@xs4all.nl> <63tumg$dpl@panix.com> <3463C1E8.BB947362@xs4all.nl>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
vtnet writes:
>> If A says "abortion is bad" and B says "abortion is not bad" they
>> disagree. They do not disagree if A says "my conception of badness
>> includes abortion" and B says "my conception of badness does not
>> include abortion."
>
>In the first case the parties make a positive statement, and in the
>second they seem to be prepared to discuss their reasons and try to
>find a common position. They are however mistaken to believe that
>their is a real difference.
Neither "abortion is bad but I will discuss the matter with you in
hopes of finding a common position" nor "my conception of badness
includes abortion and I will kill all abortionists" contains a
contradiction.
Do you think there is a real difference between "Elvis is dead" and "I
believe that Elvis is dead"? It seems to me there is -- the first is
about Elvis and the second about my beliefs, and there is no necessary
connection between the two. "Elvis was dead" and "I believed that
Elvis was dead" are clearly quite different. I don't see why the
change in tense eliminates the difference.
>> Do you believe that people can reasonably view their morality as
>> only a matter of the way of they happen to share with others?
>
>No. You can't take the company-culture of a commercial enterprise and
>upgrade it to a moral code. I'd rather see a nation as a living
>organism.
My real question was how those who accept a moral system view it. It
seems to me that it's not going to survive much stress if men don't
view its truth as something more than their or their society's
acceptance of it. The point of the discussion above about abortion and
Elvis is that the way people speak about moral issues reflects their
demand for objectivity. Moral language makes the same distinction
between belief and reality as language about visible things.
>The communist (Marxists) in my opinion did believe in a positivist
>kind of universal moral truths which, however, became very malleable
>under the enormous pressures that their system was under.
The standard Marxist view I thought was that there was no morality
beyond the moral outlook of particular classes determined by material
class interests.
>Inspired leaders dream of glory and would do more than just repress.
>And uninspired leaders who are just in it for the money, would be a
>flaring example to the lower echelons, so the system would go down in
>an orgy of corruption and crime.
Corrupt and inefficient states have lasted a very long time. It
depends on the competition. Global culture means that to the extent
the public culture makes for corruption and inefficiency there won't be
any honest and efficient political competitors to worry about.
>Furthermore, since repression and not cooperation would be the prime
>force in such a state, the economy, especially the part that need
>large infrastructures, would be hopelessly inefficient.
Repression would be what the state does, so economic life would have
little to do with the state. The degree to which large publicly-
provided infrastructures are necessary to economic life is I agree an
important one. It seems to me technology will decrease that necessity
because it increases the number of ways things can be done.
>People will increasingly contract into small communities which,
>however, will not be stable and strong enough to offer durable
>protection to its members. And then there will be bodies of instructed
>men who will try to congregate these insecure communities into larger
>bodies by searching for common treats communities
Defensive alliance can be a basis for further integration only if other
conditions favor the dissolution of boundaries between communities.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Nov 9 09:12:44 EST 1997
Article: 10605 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 9 Nov 1997 09:12:30 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 125
Message-ID: <644gce$8r4@panix.com>
References: <3461BC77.6DF859D@xs4all.nl> <63tumg$dpl@panix.com> <3463C1E8.BB947362@xs4all.nl> <641kbh$4t0@panix.com> <3464c14e.11234278@news.xs4all.nl>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
vtnet@xs4all.nl (vtnet) writes:
>I my (non-English) interpretation of terminology it seems illogical to
>make a positive statement ("abortion is bad"), only to proceed with
>discussing the mater further ("but I will discuss the matter") after
>your counterpart has also made a positive statement that is
>irreconcilable ("abortion is good") with your own position.
I don't think it's self-contradictory. It's common enough for A to say
"abortion is bad," B to say "no it isn't" and then for the two to
discuss the matter without any implication that either has changed his
mind. It would also be normal for a right-to-life philosophy professor
to say "abortion is bad but I will discuss the matter" in explaining to
an interviewer how he deals with opponents of his position. I agree
that it would an odd statement to make to a person with whom a
discussion is about to be carried on because in those circumstances it
would look like an effort to incorporate the point at issue into the
agreed basis of discussion.
The issue is the distinction between "abortion is bad" and "I view
abortion as bad." You've drawn attention to a distinction in their use
in personal interchanges, that the second invites discussion more. My
point is that the distinction in use arises from a distinction in
meaning: the first is about abortion and the second about my state of
mind. Since we expect the argument to be about abortion the second
statement seems to leave the topic more open. That need not be so,
however. Suppose two right-to-lifers are talking and one said to the
other "you don't really think abortion is bad, you're just trying to
get political support." The two could then proceed to have an argument
in which "I view abortion as bad" would be intended to foreclose
further discussion and "abortion is bad" would be a statement that is
relevant but leaves the ultimate issue wide open.
>People should not be certain, since, as modern physics shows, you
>cannot even be certain of the nature of space and time beyond of what
>you assume about them. Nevertheless, people can be quite certain about
>the *reality* of things. And so it is with morality and community: one
>should be convinced of the reality of it.
You seem to distinguish being sure of the nature of something and being
sure of its reality. That's OK up to a point, but I don't understand
how I can be sure a thing exists without knowing *something* of its
nature. If I am convinced of the reality of morality but don't know
whether it is a man or a horse I don't see what good my conviction does
me.
>if you convince him that such and such a mode of conduct will lead to
>a better life for him and his children, and back this claim up with
>religious symbolism based on communal traditions, you may build a
>community that cannot be easily dismantled by someone that is a better
>liar than yourself, since tradition as a means to persuasion can be
>only used from within.
It seems to me the man will have to believe that the things that make
the conduct lead to a better life and also the superiority of the life
to which it leads are not a matter of ideological assertion or social
convention, but are real whether he or you or anyone recognizes them or
not.
>>Moral language makes the same distinction between belief and reality
>>as language about visible things.
>
>I can' understand this I sentence because I don't see any difference
>between 'moral' and other language. Morals only descents to the level
>of language once they are condensed in law tables. But there they
>become a part of the reality; that is backed up by visible things such
>as the cross or the electric chair.
I agree moral and other language are quite similar. Both presume an
absolutely fundamental distinction between the way the world is
(physically or morally) and the way peoply think about it or want it to
be. For me that is evidence that we will not find a way of dealing
with the world coherently that does not presume such a distinction in
both physics and ethics. Language is not all there is to morality but
it puts our understanding of things in concrete form that makes it
easier to see what it is and discuss it.
>I don't think that there will be a tendency toward a kind of a 'world
>government', no more than that nature has inclined toward a uniform
>species over the course of evolution.
I don't expect world government. Strong government depends on a very
extensive system of loyalty and cooperation and so on a well-ordered
public culture. The latter will be chaotic for a long time I think. So
I expect weak and unstable although despotic government.
>first came around the first word war (then advertised as 'the war to
>end all wars') and the communist. And when they still didn't get the
>picture, and started the League of Nations, Hitler came around to kick
>some ass -- as the army proverb goes.
In this century we have had gross tyrannies that have attempted to
substitute ideology backed by terror for a decaying public culture. The
tyrannies turned out to be unstable since force and fraud even when
taken to unprecedented extremes are not a sufficient basis for social
order. The issue is whether movements capable of establishing such
tyrannies will continue to arise or whether it was a temporary phase. I
suspect the latter.
>But the complexity of structures will keep on growing, and so will be
>the opportunities for sabotage.
Another important point. My guess is that if the attempt to establish
an overall order is given up and social order becomes a matter of inward
turning communities dealing suspiciously with each other sabotage will
become less of an issue. Some complex structures such as the internet
resist sabotage quite well.
>a monolithic world state with great income differentials such as you
>seen to envisage
"Public chaos" might I suppose be viewed as a monolithic world state of
affairs, but a monolithic world state is hardly what I envisage.
>some social body will overcome the resistance of all the others and
>form the basis for a new nation -- at least this is more or less the
>scenario that Nietzsche foresaw
Nietzsche seemed to have a bootstraps theory of order -- general chaos
leads to strong and striking personalities who godlike call new worlds
into being or whatever. Who believes it?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Nov 10 06:13:12 EST 1997
Article: 10607 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 9 Nov 1997 21:03:40 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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vtnet writes:
>To me, the good life equates to victory, and the bad life to
>subjection. The real question is what victory and subjection are, and
>if they are the same to all men. How to achieve victory or avoid
>subjection, however, is contingent to circumstances.
To me it does not seem illuminating to refer the the good for man as
"victory." Victory usually means getting what one wants. It is
possible to choose the wrong thing though, so victory -- getting what
you want -- can be bad for you.
>But when god is dead, as he proclaimed him to be, social structures will
>start to dissolve and the risk-takers will in a general state of
>societal anomie (Durkheim), start to assert themselves while the
>followers will gather around them.
Will it come to anything though? "God is dead" means no moral order
within which action takes place. In the absence of such an order
assertion is just mindless pushing that leads to no new structures.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Nov 10 06:13:12 EST 1997
Article: 10610 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Which America?
Date: 10 Nov 1997 06:11:21 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 73
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References: <63job9$cki$1@gte1.gte.net> <63kjc8$lqq@panix.com> <345EAB66.7D4999D9@net66.com> <63pvni$57f@panix.com> <3466B9D4.A695C9C5@net66.com>
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In <3466B9D4.A695C9C5@net66.com> John Hilty writes:
>I don't share your opinion that small enterprises have become more
>important -- haven't you ever heard of the Multi-National Corporation,
>or Wal-Mart?
There's also Downsizing and Outsourcing. Buzzwords aside, expansion of
employment in small business has accounted for most new jobs in the 80s
and 90s, or so I'm told. I've also heard that manufacturing accounts
for much less than half of economic activity and its share is
declining.
>The impact of scientific and technological advances on the
>particularism of culture in regard to ethnic identity, religion,
>family structure, etc., is a difficult topic. It seems to me,
>however, that these advances have assisted in the establishment of
>large institutions and a World Culture.
That's the obvious tendency. The question is how things will sort out
in the long run, which depends less on extrapolation of existing trends
than on some combination of technical possibilities and human nature.
Large institutions and a World Culture are extremely adverse to
particularism and so on. In the long run that might mean either the
end of particularism etc. or major problems for large institutions and
World C. Can man live by markets, bureaucracy, lifestyle options and
therapy alone? Put in Darwinian terms, will groups based on those
things last longer and grow more than other kinds of group? Those seem
to be the decisive questions for the future.
>It possible to adopt the ethnic lifestyle and religion of an Orthodox
>Jew or a Hari Krishna in the middle of New York City, for example, if
>you wish. It is unclear to me, however, if these archaic lifestyles
>are really thriving or are dying remnants of the past -- I am inclined
>to think the latter.
I know next to nothing about the Hari Krishnas. Why do you think
Orthodox Judaism is dying? That's certainly not the impression I get
living in Brooklyn -- "thriving and expanding mightily" comes closer.
They have lots of kids, most of whom stick with it. Their way of life
has internal attractions and barriers against the outside world
sufficient to maintain its integrity. They have no problem at all
supporting themselves economically. Where do you think the problem is?
>These clustered special interest groups, however, don't conform very
>well to conventional ideas about religion, ethnic identity, and family
>values.
Sure. The question is whether they or something closer to the
conventional ideas will turn out more durable and self-sustaining in
the long run.
>> It is technically possible for most functions to be carried on by
>> small organizations.
>That's definitely not the case with industrial production and
>infra-structure technologies -- capital investments are too large in order
>to compete on a national or international scale.
Lots of industrial production is carried on by small firms and better
communications has made it easier for smaller enterprises to
participate in world trade.
>you're ignoring the predatory nature of big business or big government
The world is full of tough guys. The Soviet Union was big government
*and* big business and it was plenty tough and predatory. The issue
though is whether and under what circumstances big business and big
government work better than other types of organization. In the long
run cultural matters will I think turn out to be decisive.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Orthodoxy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19971109192409.007f91e0@swva.net> from "Seth
Williamson" at Nov 9, 97 07:24:09 pm
Status: RO
> >An enormous amount of intellectual energy has gone into reaching
> >this 'trans-modern' synthesis.
>
> And as an intellectual achievement it is wholly admirable, as
> it seems to me.
What are the best examples of this trans-modern sythesis? It seems to
me we're all in the middle of an enormous mess, but maybe that's just
me.
> What Donna Steichen calls the "mid-level management" of the Church
> seem to be very resistant to the full content of this synthesis
> you're talking about. It would seem that the Church's middle-level
> management is uninterested in it and not buying into it.
Any theories about mid-level church management? My general theory on
the subject, based on no specific knowledge whatever of the RC
situation but applying impressions gained elsewhere, is that
bureaucrats look at the world from a bureaucratic angle which means
that the locus of moral life is discussions of bureaucratic policy,
organization, and personnel management. So the big sins are
"systematic sin," meaning that the bureaucracy isn't doing its job
thoroughly enough or isn't organized properly or has adopted the wrong
policies, "injustice," meaning that people aren't treated in accordance
with uniform equal rules that abstract from personal qualities,
"bigotry," meaning that people are subjected to demands or standards
that aren't rational by reference to the bureaucratic structure, and so
on.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Fri Nov 7 04:33:44 1997
Subject: Re: batched a.r.c. articles
To: s
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 04:33:44 -0500 (EST)
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Status: RO
> Do you make the distiction between a liberal social order and
> statism, or do you see any distinction?
There can be illiberal statism, and in its earlier stages liberalism is
not statist. The fundamental concept of liberalism -- everyone gets
what he wants as much and as equally as possible -- is not statist but
the implementation inevitably becomes so because the concept trumps all
informal and consensual social arrangements.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Mon Nov 10 04:51:59 1997
Subject: Re: interesting
To: j
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 04:51:59 -0500 (EST)
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Status: RO
> The politics of today's mainstream "conservatives" advocate sweeping
> and sudden change. This change is based on a narrow and severed
> concept of the traditions in this country.
Any conservatism that becomes identifiable as a specific political
outlook has to be narrow and severed to some extent because if you
accept all traditions just as they actually exist what you end up with
is the existing state of affairs, no more and no less.
The most important issue in this connectiion today I think is what to
do when radicalism becomes institutionalized. Does conservatism make
sense under such circumstances? If so, what would be conservative?
The civil rights laws for example are intended to make radical changes
in social relations. Would conservatism call for keeping them or
getting rid of them? Examples could be multiplied. In the
conservatism FAQ these issues are dealt with in section 5.
> Why not rename your philosophy?
What I present is consistent on the whole with what has been called
conservatism. At the end of the FAQ I discuss connections among
various views called by that name. I suppose I could expand that
discussion. People talk about conservative communists and Toffler's
friend Gingrich counts as a conservative. I understand why people
speak that way but it does require explanation.
> FYI I came across your page while reading a long essay about the life
> and music of Keith Jarrett.
How did my page come up with the essay? Where is the essay?
> He is also arguably the greatest improvisational jazz musician in
> history. His improvisation contains no element of tradition.
If there's no element of tradition how can you tell he's a jazz
musician? New music makes sense to us by reference to our habits and
expectations which are based on a tradition. I suspect that the people
who like his music most are usually people who have listened to a lot
of jazz. If there were no element of tradition his music would appeal
equally to them and to the Hottentots.
> It is a demonstration of a beauty that cannot be reached through
> tradition.
What is reached through tradition is never reached only through
tradition.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Nov 10 18:38:02 EST 1997
Article: 10616 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The web of tradition
Date: 10 Nov 1997 18:37:23 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <34677b7c.64616@news.xs4all.nl> vtnet@xs4all.nl (vtnet) writes:
>This will generate a cry for strong government, which might then
>either result in a patchwork of small warring states, or directly to
>new larger states that will establish a new moral order and a new
>balance of power.
This seems the Hobbesian view, that it is fear of death that gives rise
to social order. Are there instances though of a new moral order
arising simply because people are tired of chaos and think it would be
nice to have one?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Orthodoxy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Nov 11, 97 09:57:34 am
Status: RO
> > So why didn't you suggest that in the first place, instead of
> > having me read _Honest to God_?
> >
> > --
> Its the crucial text! Every Anglican who has lost their faith read
> it!
That's so unbelievably depressing. Can it really have ended like that?
It's as if the Royal Shakespeare Company gave up on the theater because
they discovered The Cartoon Network.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Orthodoxy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <971111014253_-1668879279@mrin43.mail.aol.com> from "Donna
Steichen" at Nov 11, 97 01:42:53 am
Status: RO
> Not only have these ecclesial bureaucrats ceased to believe in
> anything recognizable as Christianity, but they *hate* its remnants
> and have stayed on, clogging the works, precisely
> *in order* to evangelize for their new religion of unbelief.
All very plausible. I suppose I would take my theory a step forward
and say that the new religion is faith in the transformation of the
world for chosen ends through rational organization and technology. So
it's the bureaucratic dream writ large -- everything becomes a matter
of human goals and administration. "Christianity" then becomes the
demand that the goals of each get equally respected and equally
forwarded in the new structure. So the ecclesial bureaucrats really do
think of what they favor as Christianity and what they oppose as a
horrible distortion.
So much for speculation, though. There must be reasons for the growth
of chancery etc. bureaucracies in the post-VatII period that are more
concrete than a conviction that being an ecclesial bureaucrat is the
perfect realization of the divine in human affairs. Can you suggest
any?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Orthodoxy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <971111232644_-1173705377@mrin45.mail.aol.com> from "Donna
Steichen" at Nov 11, 97 11:26:44 pm
Status: RO
Donna Steichen writes:
> For as long as possible, I resisted the charge that their aims were
> sexual liberation, but all the evidence seems to point that way.
It seems to me sexual liberation is an application of more general
principles, the application that has most relevance to their own lives.
So one can accept that what they call social justice really is their
goal.
As bureaucrats their general circumstances are those they think
everyone should have. Everyone should be a functionary in a system of
universal aspiration that intends to deal rationally with all problems,
should get a salary and broad range of benefits that are enough but not
too much, etc. That system when fully established would be the
concrete realization of "social justice."
The other side of the system and the point of its existence (apart from
formal considerations like equality and rationality) is the liberation
of private desire. Since the public rational system is to deal with
all problems people should be able to do what they want as long as they
support and comply with the system. Letting them do so is what is
meant by "respect for human dignity," since the dignity of man is
thought to lie in self-creation, his ability to make choices and so
define what he is. Sexual restrictions are the most concrete way in
which Church moral teaching denies ecclesial bureaucrats the benefit of
their ideals in their own lives and they accordingly put their greatest
energy into attacking the restrictions.
Also -- part of the function of sexual restrictions is to define and
support family life. To the extent family life exists as a way of
dealing with problems it competes and interferes with the public
rational universal system they want. Therefore it has to go.
> I could offer citations indicating that they do indeed see
> themselves as "the perfect realization of the divine in human
> affairs," an understanding they might explain as process theology.
The view seems to me to have a great deal of logical force behind it
once you get rid of revelation and the transcendent.
> What seems to have happened is that the massive loss of faith by
> religious coincided with the establishment of a church bureaucracy
> led (just as in secular society) by a "new knowledge class" that
> truly *did* see the opportunities and deliberately seize them.
> Among the opportunities was the susceptibility of "progressive"
> bishops to claims that university-educated "experts" of course
> knew more about, eg, how to teach the faith, than did the simple
> peasants.
A difficulty is that the same deference to "experts" is drilled into us
by secular society, in particular by the system of education. So to
deal with what is going on one has to go against the flow and so reject
the signs of the times as the times see them. Not so easy in a world
in which everyone in a leadership position has been trained from age 5
to his mid-twenties to do the contrary and public life and discussion
is filtered through the mass media.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Tue Nov 11 07:35:16 1997
Subject: Re: interesting
To: h
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 07:35:16 -0500 (EST)
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Status: RO
> On this point the Constitution is clear: no majority means no
> legislation. Do you think that conservatism offers a solution to
> this problem?
Conservatism depends on the existence of common or at least mutually
consistent ways of life. Lots of legislation on lots of topics means
absence of fundamental agreement and tells conservatives something has
gone wrong. That by the way is why limited government is a
conservative principle. In its absence everything is continually up
for grabs.
> To be honest, the human tendency to reject the unfarmiliar and form
> groups of similars seems to be a big drawback to accepting what we
> know from experience as the best way to do things. Do you think
> conservatism speaks on this issue?
But without similarity and consistency over time people are too much at
odds with each other to have a common mind. There can then be no
accumulation of experience over time, a.k.a. tradition.
> I think that people who appreciate his innovation do so because they
> know music and jazz very well. That is why they are able to
> appreciate his radical departure from what came before.
But I would expect what came before to be somehow virtually present in
his music and to be part of what makes it so striking.
> Einstein's theory of special relativity was based on his thought
> experiments which demonstrated the shortcomings of traditional
> Newtonian physics. His inquiry was in the tradition of scientific
> discovery. His conclusions cannot be considered traditional.
Einstein's theory is indistinguishable from Newton's in most
situations. His ability to transform it so that it could deal with
newly discovered situations for which Newton's theory was inadequate
depended on a tradition of philosophical criticism running from Kant to
Mach. If he hadn't studied previous thought, and so had only the
benefit of the thoughts he grew up with and those he invented himself,
it would have been much harder for him to sit down and say to himself
"gee, maybe I'll get rid of the notion of simultaneity."
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Nov 12 09:24:37 EST 1997
Article: 10624 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 12 Nov 1997 09:24:20 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 123
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References: <63job9$cki$1@gte1.gte.net> <63kjc8$lqq@panix.com> <345EAB66.7D4999D9@net66.com> <63pvni$57f@panix.com> <3466B9D4.A695C9C5@net66.com> <646q4p$47p@panix.com> <3468E67B.FACB8259@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
John Hilty writes:
>it seems to me that the corporate conglomerates of the World Culture
>are moving right along in assimilating everything significant within
>their path.
A proper discussion of these issues would take an enormous amount of
effort, lots of statistics, etc. The project would be worthwhile, but
it's not one I want to undertake now. My comments will accordingly be
incomplete.
In general, you seem to believe big always gets bigger, within the
limits of technical possibility. If that's so, I don't see why the
whole world wasn't organized as a unitary communist state a long time
ago. After all, very large empires and centralized bureaucratic control
of economic life have existed for thousands of years.
>As for all of those wonderful "new jobs" that these small businesses
>have provided during the 1980's and 1990's, these are generally
>hamburger flipper jobs [etc.]
I have read to the contrary, although I can't cite you to anything.
Looking at want ads tells me the new jobs aren't all or even
predominantly low-paid and low-skill.
>Furthermore, this statistic of job creation by small businesses is
>highly misleading: the turnover in jobs within the small business
>sector is very high
The important figure is the number of jobs at any one time.
>Why don't you stick your neck out and attempt to answer some of these
>questions? I would like to know how the David of the Traditionalists
>will slay the Goliath of World Culture.
I don't object to doing so once again. "World Culture" is a set of
tendencies and ways of doing things rather than anything unitary. To
the extent those ways and tendencies lead to constructive conduct and
functional institutions they will thrive, to the extent they don't
something else will replace them. In a sense one doesn't even have to
know what that other thing will be.
W.C. stands for the elimination of all particularisms, for example all
specific moral and religious traditions, as material principles of
social order, and for a social world organized by world markets, trans-
national bureaucracies, and "choice" -- hedonism, consumerism,
interest-group politics, material self-seeking. In the absence of
particular moral and religious traditions what guides conduct are the
principles that people try to get what they happen to want, and that's
OK, and that there should be social institutions that moderate and
arbitrate the resultant conflicts but avoid taking sides as to what
desires are right.
I don't believe such a social world can long exist. For one thing, it
creates very serious problems with family life because it can give no
account of or support to moral authority and no reason for self-
sacrifice. Those problems mean problems with the next generation and
worse problems with subsequent generations. There won't be enough
honest orderly civilized hard-working young people coming to maturity
to keep the show running.
For another thing, the World Culture can give no reason for civic
feeling or sacrifice. No-one will voluntarily give his life that NAFTA
may live. A political order nobody will sacrifice to defend will
become the prey of someone ruthless, the Mafia if no-one else comes
along.
So what will replace it? Presumably, something which gives more of a
role to particular moral and religious traditions, which are what tell
people to respect the moral authority of their elders, sacrifice for
their children and their society, and all the other things that don't
reduce to individual self-seeking but are necessary for the success and
continued existence of human society. I can't think of a replacement.
Modern conditions and especially modern communications obviously make it
difficult for such traditions to maintain their authority and integrity.
To see how that could be done the obvious place to look is at groups
that have managed to survive as minority cultures within an adverse
public order.
>chronic conflict. This has always been one of the major problems of
>Traditionalism -- you only have to look no farther than the Middle
>East and its chronic turmoil to see what I mean.
People say that, but I don't think it's so. Think of the stacks of
corpses piled up in the course of attempts to create one New Order or
another. Living as one is accustomed to live strikes me as a lot less
likely to cause turmoil.
>Most of these archaic social groups are already extinct, or they have
>accommodated themselves to the prevailing World Culture in some manner.
>I'm inclined to think that the same fate ultimately awaits such groups
>as the Orthodox Jews or the Amish if the World Culture continues to
>flourish
I don't see anything archaic about the Orthodox or Amish. The Orthodox
have survived radically different and usually adverse circumstances for
centuries, and it can't be blind luck and obviously isn't inability to
deal with new things. As to the Amish, they have a rather sophisticated
system for preserving their _Ordnung_ while adapting it to changing
circumstances. It's an extraordinary example of auto-social
engineering.
>If such groups as the Orthodox Jews and the Amish produce more
>offspring than everyone else, I suppose that they could eventually
>become the dominant culture: however, the end result of this process
>will be an overpopulated planet with a scarcity of resources.
>Eventually, war-like groups would emerge to grab whatever was still
>available, and the tribalistic conflicts of the past would re-emerge.
>I don't consider this a pleasant prospect for the future.
If your point is that there will always be serious problems I agree with
it.
>You're in the odd position of saying that the world of Traditionalism,
>from which the World Culture has emerged, is now suddenly going to
>reassert itself and dismantle the gigantic system that was created out
>of Traditionalism in the first place.
Empires rise and fall. Nothing lasts forever. What's odd about that?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: read_it?story1=BULLETINFROMLONDON
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Nov 13, 97 09:59:21 am
Status: RO
> Having spent some time reading the Analects, I am not surprised R.
> Scruton is taking Confucianism as his new religion.
>
> But he turned down my invitation to hold a debate on 'Godless
> Conservativism'
Not surprising, since Confucius can't stand by himself -- he needs a
tradition with its own ethical and spiritual content for him to be
conservative about. His views don't work as a bootstraps philosophy.
He himself believed in a divine principle (Heaven) that had purposes
and from time to time actually did things like send divine sages. I
think that was necessary.
Naturalistic/atheistic Confucianism doesn't work well except maybe to
an extent and in a special setting. Hsun Tzu was the foremost thinker
taking that point of view during the Warring States Period. He was
basically a social scientist and a very smart man. His two most
prominent students were Han Fei Tzu, who became the greatest Legalist
philosopher and as such a theoretician of despotism with no purpose
outside itself, and Li Ssu, who became the tyrant First Emperor's prime
minister and on account of jealousy contrived Han Fei Tzu's death. Not
a satisfactory outcome.
Otherwise, I think of naturalistic Confucianism as an outlook of
bureaucrats serving an imperial despot. It can't be the motive force
for anything, but if there are cultivated people who for other reasons
are in a reasonably secure position of wealth and power it can make
them more high-minded and conscious of responsibilities. An outlook
for neocons maybe.
Legalists like Han Fei Tzu and Lord Shang are worth reading, by the
way. It's always good when people get to the point.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Confucianism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Nov 13, 97 02:19:19 pm
Status: RO
> I didn't think 'Heaven' was very important - it seemed very much in
> the background in comparison with, for example, Yahweh in the Old
> Testament.
In the background, but not I think therefore unimportant. One's view
of ethics and society is deeply affected by the larger setting in which
those things exist even if that larger setting is not the thing he
talks most about.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Orthodoxy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19971112184827.00869470@swva.net> from "Seth
Williamson" at Nov 12, 97 06:48:27 pm
Status: RO
> First and foremost, and mainly because I've been thinking of it
> lately, is the Roman understanding of the consequences of artificial
> birth control.
It does seem a watershed issue. People are convinced they can do what
they want, and engineer the consequences.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Orthodoxy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19971112184827.00869470@swva.net> from "Seth
Williamson" at Nov 12, 97 06:48:27 pm
Status: RO
> First and foremost, and mainly because I've been thinking of it
> lately, is the Roman understanding of the consequences of artificial
> birth control.
It does seem a watershed issue. People are convinced they can do what
they want, and engineer the consequences.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Confucianism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Nov 13, 97 02:19:19 pm
Status: RO
> I didn't think 'Heaven' was very important - it seemed very much in
> the background in comparison with, for example, Yahweh in the Old
> Testament.
In the background, but not I think therefore unimportant. One's view
of ethics and society is deeply affected by the larger setting in which
those things exist even if that larger setting is not the thing he
talks most about.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Confucianism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Nov 13, 97 09:33:42 pm
Status: RO
> Confucius' main question is not 'what is Heaven'.
True.
> He wouldn't be a secular aesthete conservative if it were.
"Secular aesthete" seems wrong. Part of it maybe is that those terms
suggest distinctions he does not make. The objective efficacy of
ritual is necessary to his view of things. Is that outlook consistent
with serious secular aestheticism?
"Secularism" to me suggests a primary concern with pragmatic
consequences, and "aestheticism" (is that a word?) suggests a primary
concern with a particular sort of nonmoral subjective response.
Neither is characteristic of Confucius.
> His question seems to be how to be good, in practical terms (answer:
> by being a human vase).
That is his question, although I don't quite understand your statement
of his answer. "How to be good" in practical or any other terms
depends of course on what kind of world one is in. I should say that
my point with regard to Roger Scruton is that a godless Westerner in
1997 lives in a world in which Confucianism can't amount to much. The
place Heaven held in the world of Confucius (the world of Confucius was
ordered for example by particular divine providence) is only part of
that.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Confucianism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Nov 13, 97 09:35:10 pm
Status: RO
> Or, to put it another way, do you disagree with Voegelin's claim that
> Confucianism is essentially a cosmological religion which does not
> take the 'differentiating' step toward a transcendent God?
Interesting question. Confucius' loyalty was to the Good rather than
to Heaven, so Heaven wasn't quite God. Still, the Good is conceived as
transcendent. Confucius wouldn't apply the term to any particular
person or thing, even a hypothetical person who was able to bring about
the salvation of the state. And then there was Yen Huei's comment:
You look up to it and it seems so high. You try to drill through
it and it seems so hard. You seem to see it in front of you, and
all of a sudden it appears behind you. The Master is very good at
gently leading a man along and teaching him. He taught me to
broaden myself by the reading of literature and then to control
myself by the observance of proper conduct. I just felt being
carried along, but after I have done my very best, or developed
what was in me, there still remains something austerely standing
apart, uncatchable. Do what I could to reach his position, I
can't find the way.
It's also interesting that Confucius thought of Goodness as a pursuit
for particular individuals, and that there was next to no one with a
serious interest in undertaking it. I don't know much about
undifferentiated cosmological religions, but it doesn't seem they
should be like that. Confucius developed his thought in an age of
disorder. Is that characteristic of u.c.r.'s?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Confucianism
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Nov 14, 97 11:37:49 am
Status: RO
> aestheticism is a word, at least in the English of these islands
I have no idea why it looked so very odd when I wrote it last night.
The effect of the wine at dinner maybe? A mistaken attempt to puzzle
over the various conceivable meanings the word might have?
> I think I call that cosmological religion.
It's an odd case. Confucius was primarily an educator, he seems to
have invented "education" as a separate activity in China, he wandered
around with disciples, and his goal was to develop the capacity and
habit of independent moral judgement and striving. That sounds
"differentiated." On the other hand his ideal seems to have been the
sacred king sitting on his throne with his face to the south and
keeping all under heaven in order purely by ritual. So his Kingdom of
[the Son of] Heaven was cosmological.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: More Confucian proof texts
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Status: RO
The following seem helpful to me in understanding Confucius' on the
relation between culture and other aspects of character:
Tzu-hsia asked, saying, what is the meaning of
Oh the sweet smile dimpling,
The lovely eyes so black and white!
Plain silk that you would take for coloured stuff.
The Master said, The painting comes after the plain groundwork.
Tzu-hsia said, Then ritual comes afterwards? The Master said,
Shang [i.e., Tzu-hsia] it is who bears me up. A last I have
someone with whom I can discuss the Songs! [Analects iii, 8]
and
The Master said, If I cannot get men who steer a middle course to
associate with, I would far rather have the impetuous and hasty.
For the impetuous at any rate assert themselves; and the hasty
have this at least to be said for them, that there are things they
leave undone. [Analects xiii, 21]
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 15 06:31:50 EST 1997
Article: 10629 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Counterrevolution and the arts
Date: 14 Nov 1997 17:32:53 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 49
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NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Yet another old agenda for a meeting I thought I would edit somewhat
and then recycle. Any comment on the issues?
The topic will be "counterrevolution and the arts." It's a broad
topic; some possibilities:
1. Counterrevolution and particular contemporary arts, e.g., pop
music, the movies, TV, the serious or elite arts. For what are they
the vehicle? As social phenomena, to what extent do they help or
hinder us? Why? What if anything can be done about it?
2. Are there particular artists or arts counterrevolutionaries should
favor or oppose? Who, what, how and on what grounds? Right-wing
highbrows often like T. S. Eliot, most of us don't like Mapplethorpe.
How about Beethoven? The Beatles? Classicism, Romanticism or
Modernism? Is there good pop music or TV? If so, what?
3. Counterrevolution and artistic classics, e.g. Bach, Shakespeare,
Michelangelo, the Greek drama. Neocons make a fuss about canonical
artistic classics. Is the point that the classics are part and symbol
of what we should defend and restore, and in times of struggle the
lines of battle must be clarified? Perhaps, but making a list and
checking it twice doesn't seem a traditionalist approach. Also, the
classics are typically not conservative or counterrevolutionary in any
straightforward way -- the House of Atreus was no model of family
values, for example.
4. Relation of various forms of conservatism and counterrevolution to
the arts. Popular conservatism in America is reputedly Philistine.
Russell Kirk and others have thought the arts were important, but most
don't have much to say about the matter except there's a lot of pop
culture they don't like. Why is that?
5. What understandings of the arts are consistent with
counterrevolution? Presumably not the artist as rebel, creator, or
producer of consumer goods. What then? Voice of the soul of the
people? Imitator of divine things? Aid to the understanding of human
life in a time in which to have a clue about human life is to be
counterrevolutionary?
6. What do *you* like? Do your tastes bear out your theories? If
not, what does that show?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 15 08:25:24 EST 1997
Article: 10631 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 15 Nov 1997 08:22:00 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 175
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References: <3468E67B.FACB8259@net66.com> <64ce6k$b31@panix.com> <346D321A.AB4EFB16@net66.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
John Hilty writes:
>"Big" organizations have a tendency to become bigger, otherwise they
>wouldn't be "big" in the first place.
Big organizations must also have a tendency to fall apart, otherwise
the descendents of Sargon I would still be running the show today. You
can't predict the future through straight-line extrapolation. There
are limits to the ability of an organization however big to determine
its own environment and internal functioning, and the amount of bigness
that works depends on any number of things.
>The solution to these threats are also non-trivial: 1) the problem
>with genetic retrogressive tendencies could be addressed through
>techniques of gene therapy to better adapt human nature to the
>requirements of World Culture
Your fundamental answer to all my objections, I think, is to assert the
ability of big organization to create a new human nature and the other
conditions of its success and permanence. My basic response is to say
it won't happen. No matter how complicated and well-coordinated our
strategy the world is more complicated and will defeat attempts to
create an enduring self-contained system. Hasn't it been shown that in
principle we can't predict and therefore can't control the weather? It
seems to me that human phenomena are no less complicated.
>The World Culture doesn't eliminate all particularisms, it merely
>transforms them from tradition-based customs into special interest
>groups. There's something for everybody in the World Culture -- don't
>underestimate it.
"Merely" is the wrong word. The important distinction is that
tradition-based customs precede the individual while special interest
groups are a matter of choice. The former are therefore capable of
motivating moral authority and self-sacrifice while the latter are not
to any serious and widespread degree.
>Couldn't a more mature and altruistic World Culture evolve out of the
>old one? Why is traditionalism the ONLY other alternative?
If you reject tradition then "evolve" seems to refer to the development
of formal organization and of technology. Can technology create
seriously and reliably altruistic human beings? Again, the issue seems
to be whether human nature can be changed to make the world the way
those in power want it to be.
>Your comments imply either a "rational choice" or "utilitarian" model
>for the survival of cultures: whatever culture produces the most
>constructive behavior and the greatest benefits will ultimately win the
>competition of social evolution.
I had a Darwinian model in mind. Things that multiply and thrive tend
to become more common. People tend to join and stick with them. Social
arrangements that undermine the spirit of loyalty tend to stop
functioning, so people stop participating in them and they disappear.
>the World Culture: it possesses an extraordinary capacity to
>assimilate and neutralise other cultures through its business
>activities, or even destroy them with its superior military power
>should they stand in the way.
"Business activities" refers I suppose to the penetration of market
relations into all aspects of life. That is why I say that the groups
that will survive, thrive and prevail in the situation that is shaping
up will be groups with an ability to set boundaries between their
internal life and the outside world and hold their trading partners at
arm's length.
It's not obvious to me why the World Culture will try to wipe out say
Hasidic Jews with military power. The self-image of the World Culture
is one of tolerance so there will be some internal resistance to doing
so. If it were efficient and lasted forever no doubt it would at some
point, but I don't expect either efficiency or durability.
Actually, all my argument needs is for the World Culture eventually to
lose efficiency and go into long-term decline so that the few remaining
Hasids and similar groups can make a comeback, and other such groups
can spring up. Again, your argument seems to depend on the possibility
of a comprehensive social technology that will preserve the World
Culture at a high level of efficiency into the indefinite future.
>Oddly, many Traditionalists seem to champion free enterprise, free
>trade, and the destruction of social welfare, even though these
>objectives will only serve to further undermine traditional families in
>the context of World Culture by destabilizing family income.
Champion in opposition to what? Traditionalists don't champion free
enterprise in opposition to laws against pornography and weird drugs,
for example. The things you mention undermine family life less than
making individual well-being directly dependent on the state. Unstable
family income means that families link up with something larger than
themselves. That's not anti-traditional as long as the thing they link
up with isn't the welfare bureaucracy.
Traditionalists tend not to favor free trade, by the way. Remember that
all this started with a discussion of the Buchanan campaign.
>You have emphasized the undermining of the moral authority of the
>traditional family. However, as I have shown above, the assault against
>the traditional family by World Culture is more profound and
>multifaceted than what you seem to be assuming.
The argument is that World Culture won't work among other reasons
because of its inconsistency with stable family life. The more
profound and multifaceted that inconsistency the more fundamental the
rejection will have to be for life to go forward. My response to such
considerations is to look around for models of inconsistent forms of
life that seem capable of surviving.
>I wouldn't be so sure about citizens not risking their lives for NAFTA.
>The war in the Gulf against Saddam Hussein was essentially to insure
>the continuation of cheap oil
A basic principle of our current imperial adventures is that we can't
lose more than half a dozen soldiers in any of them. And without
residual U.S. patriotism we wouldn't be willing to accept even that.
The World Culture survives by eating its preconditions such as
patriotism. That can't last forever.
>And besides, it is always possible to hire mercenaries to do the dirty
>work if no one else will.
No doubt. But what happens when the mercenaries realize they are in a
position to seize power and run things to their own advantage? Will
that have an effect on the invincible efficiency of World Culture? The
other half of my prediction, remember, is that these inward-turning
traditionalist communities will be ruled by weak despotisms rather like
the dynastic states that have existed east of Europe and west of China.
Seizure of power by mercenaries is an obvious way for such despotisms
to be established.
>Traditionalism, in particular, leads to tribal warfare and famine under
>conditions of overpopulation and resource scarcity.
Compared to what? It is the New Orders that have created the vast wars
and famines of our own times. You seem to believe in promises of
perfect rational order. The promises have never been fulfilled in the
past, but this time for sure.
>While the social norms of within-group cooperation tend to be higher,
>there is greater hostility and suspiciousness toward out-groups. Thus,
>traditionalism accentuates the ingroup-outgroup effect, producing the
>familiar forms of prejudice, rascism, xenophobia, shunning, etc., while
>the judgement of authorities within the in-group tend to be accepted
>without question.
Again, you seem to accept the self-image of World Culture. Do you
think that multiculturalism is without bigotry, that "political
correctness" is a right-wing myth, and that "racism" and the like are
not terms of abuse directed at those who are out of sympathy with the
established order? The less the moral content of a social order the
more it survives by hatred of outsiders. World Culture has minimal
moral content so we have lots of officially-sponsored hatred to look
forward to. Weren't you the one who predicted military action to
destroy traditionalists?
>If people are inclined to question the judgement of people in power
>because of their multicultural special interests, then I say so much
>the better!
The effect of multiculturalism is to make it unnecessary for those in
power to answer to the people. How can they, when there is no "people"
coherent enough to call them to account? Extensive multicultural
states are therefore despotic.
>It's odd that a traditionalist would say something like this -- if
>empires can rise and fall, and NOTHING LASTS FOREVER, then perhaps this
>means that we can keep our traditions in the museum of history and
>forget about them.
Traditions are what endure. That's how they become traditions.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Nov 17 06:08:17 EST 1997
Article: 10635 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 16 Nov 1997 20:32:38 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 53
Message-ID: <64o6rm$cqv@panix.com>
References: <63job9$cki$1@gte1.gte.net> <63kjc8$lqq@panix.com> <345EAB66.7D4999D9@net66.com> <63pvni$57f@panix.com> <3466B9D4.A695C9C5@net66.com> <646q4p$47p@panix.com> <3468E67B.FACB8259@net66.com> <879725737snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <879725737snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>it is crucial for those who wish to show that 'small business provides
>most new employment' to disaggregate the employment effects of
>genuinely new small business startups with those caused by
>outsourcing.
Why? "Outsourcing" is the opposite of acquisition of suppliers.
Vertical integration was thought an aspect of a trend toward big
business. Why can't the line of thought be reversed?
>That has given me some puzzlement in recent years: given that (i)
>capitalists are supposed to be rational actors, (ii) most small
>businesses go bust within two years, why do people start small
>businesses?
Capitalist rationality was I thought supposed to apply overall but not
necessarily in particular cases. The idea is that the net effect is as
if everyone were rational, not that everyone is in fact rational. Part
of the reason it applies overall is that those who violate it tend to
remain small and unimportant and to disappear soon.
>But what happens if the _rich_ produce more offspring than everyone
>else (as they did, contrary to myth, in many traditional societies,
>and now, on average, do in Western society. In the late 1960s, when
>the UK completed-family size was again falling towards 2, the House of
>Lords had on average five children per family)?
Are there enough lords to matter? The most important issue I would
think is where most of the next generation comes from. My impression
is that it's from a lower social and economic background than average.
>It is interesting that the book, a best-seller in France, was almost
>completely ignored in the Anglo-Saxon press, except for a rubbishing
>review in _Prospect_ almost a year after the book's publication.
A difference among countries, isn't it? The French don't like or trust
each other, and think the State should do everything, so the welfare
system is their idea of social solidarity.
>the elimination of the workless poor would only be one aspect of the
>programme ... The first stage has already been achieved in the U.S.:
>the lowest wages are definitely below the level required for a worker
>to reproduce himself in the Ricardian sense.
Why are "the lowest wages" such an important consideration? It's hard
to find people in the U.S. who also stay in the workforce who remain in
poverty after say 10 years, especially if they also stay married. And
your concern seems to be poor families.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Nov 18 09:27:48 EST 1997
Article: 10651 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Counterrevolution and the arts
Date: 18 Nov 1997 05:21:39 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <64rq7j$ce7@panix.com>
References: <64ijil$hu3@panix.com> <1czr59v.1t8rlbhk04uvvN@deepblue5.salamander.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1czr59v.1t8rlbhk04uvvN@deepblue5.salamander.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>Someone (Thomas Fleming?) suggested that a broad liberal education is
>less valuable than in-depth reading of the literature of a specific
>place and time
There's something to this. The more you concentrate on a particular
thing the more likely you'll have to deal with something you have to
take seriously that doesn't fit into the contemporary interpretation.
At least that's true if the thing is good enough. That gives freedom.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Nov 19 19:31:00 EST 1997
Article: 10657 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Counterrevolution and the arts
Date: 19 Nov 1997 07:54:19 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 72
Message-ID: <64unhr$aao@panix.com>
References: <347268DE.D8D@msmisp.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>Arts are what I call a "plausibility structure"...they are physical
>reflections in material form of our aspirations, from lowest to
>highest, and as a group of artifacts, become our "symbolic
>environment".
This makes the arts the same sort of thing as ritual. Both cause the
world of our senses to express spiritual reality. That I suppose is
why architects and city planners of the earlier part of the century
were often utopian in their thinking - by designing a new physical
environment they were going to create a new spiritual and therefore
social world.
It seems there is a distinction between making manifest to the senses
what is already and always true, bringing a new "truth" into being, and
giving something the social validity of truth. The first is religious
art, the second "creative" art, and the third propaganda. There are
also Dada and Pop Art, which deny truth, the first outright and the
second through irony. (On this scheme a 1997 rebroadcast of Ozzie and
Harriet would be an instance of Pop Art.)
>I believe Tolstoy said in "What is Art?" that Art is not self
>authenticating. It can only be judged good or bad in relation to some
>standard of spiritual/moral measurement.
It sounds like what he's talking about is propaganda in a good cause.
Art though is a way of knowing things that can't be fully grasped
discursively. As such it cannot be hierarchically subjected to explicit
standards.
>Gowans shows that in moving away from their social functions, art and
>artists turned in on themselves.
There's a lot of interest in inventing and exploring new forms of
notation. If you go to the Museum of Modern Art in New York most of the
stuff seems concerned with technical innovations in showing form or
motion, how the eye reacts to a surface with paint smeared on it in this
sort of configuration or that, etc.
>Learning to See is about how to "read" *artifact* (any human effort on
>matter) to understand dominant cultural messages embodied in the work.
A sociological version of seeing.
>But I notice in your questions that you seem again to be asking the
>questions all backwards...as if there is some "attention" we should pay
>to "artists" of various stripes in order to further an instrumental
>goal ... My thought is that "Fine Art" has killed a general
>understanding of how art functions in society, so that art performs its
>work on people unawares.
Are you altogether consistent? Here you appear (like Gowans in his
book) to speak of art sociologically and instrumentally. To the extent
it's like ritual it cannot coherently be understood that way. Not that
I object -- conversation starts where it starts.
>A general premise of all artifacts we "consume"...or that we
>energetically gravitate to (I'm groping for the proper phrase
>here...haven't got it...shall have to sleep on this...) is that Mind
>and Body are two separate wholes, and that Man can be one without the
>other.
The current understanding is that we create the world through our
choices, or we should be able to. On that understanding nothing like
ritual makes sense. As to art the resulting ideal is one of artistic
creation that calls worlds into being _ex nihilo_. The reality is that
art becomes propaganda, aggression, pornography, entertainment.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Nov 21 08:56:12 EST 1997
Article: 10667 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Counterrevolution and the arts
Date: 21 Nov 1997 08:53:45 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 80
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References: <3473A0F1.2CA1@msmisp.com>
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cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>In mischaracterizing the purpose of their activity, to "reveal
>reality" instead of performing the 4 social functions I listed in the
>previous post, they do something entirely different than art did in
>the past.
But it seems to me better to think of their function as revealing
reality than symbolizing cultural aspirations. The latter seems to
slide into advertising or propaganda.
Mostly I suppose artists pay attention to technical problems. They
also normally have a particular function in mind - they're painting a
picture of the sea to be hung in someone's living room or whatever.
Behind it though I think should be a sense they are dealing with
something real that can be expressed but not directly thought and that
doesn't depend on either themselves or their societies.
The art that seems to me best gives me that sense to the highest
degree. I am thinking of 5th c. Greek sculpture, the Discobolus or
Doryphorus say, the _Orestiad_, certain Gothic cathedrals and Southern
Sung landscapes. Whether what is expressed is Form or Nature as a
manifestation of the Tao or whatever the artist presents something
utterly fundamental that does not itself depend on individual
personality or social understanding although the manner of presentation
of course does.
>In that sense, I think, the real power exercised *by* the arts is
>happening in other media which a highbrow would label as "low" arts.
Isn't the elimination of the high/low distinction a commonplace of pomo
art criticism? Maybe the arts are carried on now in the same manner as
science and technology, with both pure and applied branches. Certainly
a lot of the stuff at MoMA looks like technical experimentation.
I agree though that there's something odd about the notion of pure art,
art for art's sake, what you maybe would call "fine art." Art can't
separate itself too much from other aspects of life and still thrive.
>But when you heard "the folks" talk about it, they were ashamed of it,
>that it cost so much money to create such an adolescent symbol of
>"rebellion" against patriarchy, grammar, and etiquette!
The big fuss here in New York a few years back was over "Tilted Arc," a
sculpture by Richard Serra consisting of a tilted arc of rusty steel
12' high and 120' long running diagonally across a small plaza next to
the Federal Building in lower Manhattan. It meant no one could walk
across or use the plaza and everyone hated it. If you sat down in the
plaza to have lunch it imprisoned you. It was eventually removed,
after some hearings in which the Official Art World demonstrated both
their internal solidarity and their intolerance and contempt for
everyone else.
Part of the problem is the class interests of the art establishment,
which goes with a self-justifying ideology. Also part I think is that
the alternative to mindless rebellion, also visible in the Columbus
area, seems to be things like endless expressways, condo developments
and shopping malls, with the occasional public building like the
Worthington Public Library, designed to be as soothing as possible and
not that different from the new Columbus Airport or a modern suburban
police station. Artists want things to have character and if there is
no character maybe it's natural to feel vandalism is better than
nothing.
>What is the distinction? If one makes manifest what is to the senses
>what is already and always true, isn't he at the same time making a
>social statement?
The distinction I wanted to make was between doing the first with the
second as a by product and doing the second without reference to the
first. The medieval cathedrals were built for the glory of God, not to
provide a meaningful worship experience or to express and promote
social cohesion. In fact they did those things but that was not their
point. On the other hand, the art of making social statements without
reference to truth that transcends society is simply the art of
propaganda.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 22 09:53:01 EST 1997
Article: 10672 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 22 Nov 1997 09:52:46 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
John Hilty writes:
>My fundamental argument has been that the revolutions in the
>agricultural, industrial, and informational technologies have made the
>rise of big organizations possible, if not inevitable, and there is no
>easy way to reverse this process.
For us to differ you need more than this. The existence of some big
organizations doesn't matter much to me.
You also seem to argue that large-scale rational bureaucracy will
increasingly predominate as a principle of social organization, so that
family, religious and ethnic particularism, nationhood and so on will
continue to decline without limit and no longer be material principles
of order. My response of course has been that it can't happen,
ultimately because there will not be a comprehensive social technology
that trumps human nature.
>Furthermore, the rise of big organizations is likely to continue during
>the next several decades because these revolutionary technologies are
>still advancing, particularly in the information sciences.
This is not clear. Revolutionary technologies have led in recent years
to privatization petty and grand (i.e., the fall of communist regimes).
On the face of it that's a decline of big organization.
>It's possible to predict human behavior using methods [etc.]
Techniques work to some degree in particular settings, it's true. It's
possible to cure many diseases. That doesn't mean death can be
abolished.
>I don't agree with your assumption that the World Culture of large
>organizations is a static self-contained system: It adheres to
>evolutionary models of adaptation, growth, self-defense, and
>development, although on a larger scale ... But the World Culture isn't
>going to lose efficiency and enter a long-term decline unless it runs
>out of natural resources to sustain itself, or succumbs to global
>thermonuclear war.
The first and second sentences don't sit well together.
You seem to think of the World Culture as if it were a computer
simulation of an evolving system. In principle the system is eternal
without decline, barring two identifiable catastrophes, because it's set
up that way, even though particular states of the system are
unpredictable. As such it strikes me as indeed a static self-contained
system in the same sense that the computer game "Civilization" is. If
it were really open-ended, how could you know it won't suffer some
secular or catastrophic decline from some source you don't foresee?
That it won't transform into something completely different? That it
won't turn out to depend on something external or internal that can't be
controlled?
My objection, of course, is that the vision is one of a World Culture
that has emancipated itself through technology from human nature and
>from the conditions under which human culture and therefore human life
develop and flourish or even manage to come up to a minimal level of
functionality. I don't think the social technology necessary for such
emancipation is possible any more than I think comprehensive control of
the weather is possible.
>All you have to do is step outside and tour the various communities of
>Brooklyn: you'll find plenty of evidence that these "inconsistent
>forms of life" are capable of thriving and surviving. It's possible
>that some of these "inconsistent forms of life" will even give you a
>bump on the head, steal your wallet, and leave you for dead, thereby
>prevailing in the Darwinian struggle for life!
I expect those particular forms of life to thrive in the World Culture.
Also for there to be a Darwinian struggle among Mafias. The Russians
currently seem to hold the lead on that score, they grew up after all in
a society that was destroying itself through excess bureaucratization
and so are well-suited to the World Culture, but who knows about the
future? Maybe Chinese tongs will turn out to be more efficient. So the
World Culture will have these problems, in addition to the difficulty of
explaining to the mercenaries, who after all are the men with the guns
and bombers, why they should be satisfied with what technocrats see fit
to give them.
>I doubt that any group of mercenaries could effectively run the
>organizations of World Culture: the CEOs of big business and the
>bureaucrats of big government are better at those tasks: the military
>would merely get in the way, wreck the economy, alienate the special
>interest groups, squabble among themselves, and be kicked out.
The issue isn't whether they could effectively do anything but increase
their own power and material well-being through the use of force. You
seem to view the efficiency of the World Culture as some sort of logical
necessity that arouses universal devotion.
>There is no way on Earth that the traditional cultures of the past can
>feed the five-and-a-half billion people that are currently living on
>this planet.
The issue is not whether the world of a thousand years ago can be
recreated but whether things like gender and ethnic and religious
particularism will be fundamental to social order in the future as in
the past. I don't see what feeding 5-1/2 billion people has to do with
the matter.
>Yes, I think that multiculturalism is without bigotry and political
>correctness is obviously a right-wing myth, while racism, sexism,
>ethnic prejudice, religious intolerance, etc., are all standard
>characteristics of the tribalism of traditionalism ... World Culture
>concerns itself about the bottom-line, not petty tribal hatreds, which,
>more often than not, have been pursued in the name of the morality of
>one type of traditionalism or another.
Your views on the sources of hatred and intolerance make the 85 - 100
million corpses piled up by the communists in their effort to organize
things rationally and without regard to traditional particularisms
somewhat puzzling, although your response illuminates somewhat the
refusal to admit the existence and significance of all the dead bodies.
For my own part I prefer petty tribal hatreds to grand world-historical
ones.
Concern with the bottom line implies concern with getting to the bottom
line. That implies concern with efficient cooperation, and therefore
with general acceptance of established principles of social order. That
in turn implies opposition to the rejection of those principles and
emnity toward those who reject them. You apparently believe, for
obscure reasons, that none of this applies to the World Culture.
My own expectation is that since the World Culture's principles of
order are unable to inspire love, and since self-interest is not
sufficient as a principle of social cohesion, our rulers will come to
rely more and more on hate. Surely you've noticed that people find
racists, sexists and homophobes rather disgusting? That it's accepted
they have nothing to say on any subject that deserves to be listened
to? You yourself attribute hellish consequences to their views. The
view that such attitudes are not bigoted depends on the evident
correctness of your overall perspective, something not obvious to
everyone.
>For better or worse, special interest groups with big bucks or big
>voting blocs tend to control government policy under the auspices of
>World Culture. Totalitarian regimes tend to alienate too many of these
>special interests, therefore we're more likely to wind up with
>democratic systems of government
Weak despotism and not anything that can reasonably be called either
democracy or totalitarianism is I think the natural form of government
for a society of special interests. "Special interests" means "no
public spirit" which means no popular self rule; it also means no
overall organization. Therefore the strongest will rule, but not very
effectively.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 22 10:09:22 EST 1997
Article: 10673 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Counterrevolution and the arts
Date: 22 Nov 1997 09:59:05 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 107
Message-ID: <656rvp$ero@panix.com>
References: <347635FA.728B@msmisp.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>I should explain the full sense of my meaning of the phrase, "reveal
>reality".
It sounds like you're using it to mean something like "create reality."
>If "technical problems" become the subject of the arts, then I'd say
>that you have the "machine age" symbolized by what these exercises in
>solving these problems produce.
I had in mind something different, that in actually producing something
technical issues are mostly what are at the forefront of consciousness.
In order for the production to be worth the effort the technique must
have a purpose however.
>To characterize the artist's task as "painting a picture of the sea to
>be hung in someone's living room" leaves out a very important social
>context.
I'd agree. Art depends on audience, certainly in the long run.
>> I am thinking of 5th c. Greek sculpture, the Discobolus or
>> Doryphorus say, the _Orestiad_, certain Gothic cathedrals and
>> Southern Sung landscapes. Whether what is expressed is Form or
>> Nature as a manifestation of the Tao
>Not quite sure what you mean there, although I see allusions to
>C.S.Lewis. Could you rephrase?
No allusion to Lewis. Actually I intended to say something fairly
concrete. I think of the Greek sculpture as expressing Form and the
Chinese landscapes as expressing the Tao in Nature. Those particular
spiritual realities are what I feel the presence of when I look at those
particular works. So I was presenting an experience rather than a
theory of things.
>How do we judge that there is such a difference in Being between two
>material works? The only objective way we have to do it is to take the
>word of the Fine Artist that this is so.
The usual way to judge the order and quality of a thing is by one's own
judgement in conjunction with that of the community of others who know
and love things of that kind. Anyone can make errors or miss or imagine
things. That's why it's hard to have good art without a good audience.
>The 'challange' of having a beloved public space so desecrated, I
>suppose, is to have one's bourgeoise pretensions revealed to oneself,
>as one sees that one can't walk across the space the old familiar way.
>Is that right?
Certainly part of the point of the sculpture was that it was at odds
with the plaza and building. Serra wanted to transform the setting by
disrupting things. Admittedly it was an ugly setting, but it was one
that people live in. The sculpture would have been OK I suppose as a
temporary installation.
>> the alternative to mindless rebellion, also visible in the Columbus
>> area, seems to be things like endless expressways [etc.]
>
>There's a particular environment of real estate law ... that PRODUCES
>the forms of "expressways, condos, and shopping centers." Is the
>production of these three things "mindless rebellion"?
>
>Or does the existence of these artifacts produce the "feelings" of
>"mindless rebellion"
The latter.
>What do you mean, artists want things to "have character"? Worthington
>"has character". The Columbus International Airport "has character".
>Police stations, of whatever design style, "have character." They just
>do not have the *kind* of character these artists want them to have ...
>Doesn't any astute person see that here is an elite, which in its heart
>of hearts, despises the banal locals who go home to their Colonial
>Tract Homes with their swing sets and their postage stamp yards?
You seem to be saying that aesthetic judgement is purely subjective, so
to say an aesthetic judgement you make is better than one someone else
makes is simply to say that you are better than he is. Would you extend
that line of thought to other evaluative judgements? Do you think it's
impossible to hate the (aesthetic) sin but love the sinner?
>And where is the justice in an architect breezing into town, and using
>public funds, extorted from these tract home dwellers, to erect public
>symbols of the Elites' view of their lives, that those lives and the
>symbols of those lives are "banal" and "without character"?
It's not just. To say the impulse to denounce or even vandalize and
smash is sometimes comprehensible is not to say it is always right.
>"Propaganda" is always wrong? Because "propaganda" by defninition, is
>Lie?
I just don't think it should be cultivated separately.
>All the effort? Isn't effort given to the bus garage always going to be
>a "low" art, as opposed to that given to the City Hall?
I have nothing against "low" art. The art of tidying up a room is I
suppose continuous with the art of building cathedrals since both
create an artificial environment but it's silly to demand as much from
it.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Tue Nov 18 07:16:11 1997
Subject: Re: your mail
To: p
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 07:16:11 -0500 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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> Heard about the new book on Kinsey that seems to finaly smash the
> myth of free sexuality?
I know there's a new book, but not much about it. I've read elsewhere
that people have been raising questions about him in recent years, like
the grossly unrepresentative nature of the people he surveyed and how
it was possible to get his results on the sexuality of young children
without committing very serious crimes.
It seems a case like the Margaret Mead book on Samoa of people
believing what they want to believe and ignoring obvious problems.
On another point -- it's interesting that so many of the non-U.S.
readers of my web pages are from Scandinavia, mostly Sweden but also
Norway and Finland. _Per capita_ I have more readers there than here.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Fri Nov 21 06:40:14 1997
Subject: Re: Counterrevolution and the arts
To: j
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 06:40:14 -0500 (EST)
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I've read some of MacIntyre and found him interesting if quirky. He's
very excitable on the subjects of feminism and Edmund Burke for
example.
Modern academia is necessarily anticonservative and antitraditional, I
think. It's the bureaucratization of thought and knowledge, and its
inhabitants naturally have a bureaucratic and technological outlook on
things. If you're in the expertise business you aren't likely to grant
authority to tradition.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Sat Nov 22 10:29:52 1997
Subject: Re: EL PAIS DIGITAL - SOCIEDAD
To: s
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 10:29:52 -0500 (EST)
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You've noticed that the dispute over the French book on communism has
been getting some play here? It was in the NY Times anyway. Their
correspondent in France, Roger Cohen or whatever his name is, presented
it as a "look at those weird French intellectuals" situation. After
all, it was an 800-odd page book about the 85-100 million innocents
murdered by the communists, the first one to deal with the matter in a
comprehensive way, and as he said isn't the natural destination of such
a book the library shelves? And here the French are making a fuss
about it!
For all I know Cohen would have said the same about the first book on
the Holocaust published in Switzerland if as recently as the early 70s
the Nazi party had gotten a quarter of the vote and was today part of
the governing coalition.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Sat Nov 22 18:30:18 1997
Subject: Re: Emerson quotation
To: s
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 18:30:18 -0500 (EST)
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> I remember my dad quoting Emerson from "Self-Reliance" when I
> was a kid. And from the Phi Beta Kappa speech. Dad didn't see the
> bad side of him. Somehow had him figured for a flinty Yankee of stern
> moral character.
He's so very very odd. Half Yankee moralist half monster. Maybe
everyone is weird if you look closely enough though. Also, I'm
inclined to make excuses for writers. You follow a line of thought and
who knows what it will become. It's hard both to produce something and
give your all to setting it forth in its integrity and to judge it
responsibly. I suppose it's the same excuse you'd make for anyone
trying his best in an ambiguous situation.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 22 19:35:03 EST 1997
Article: 10677 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Counterrevolution and the arts
Date: 22 Nov 1997 18:47:09 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <657qtt$hjb@panix.com>
References: <3473A0F1.2CA1@msmisp.com> <6543p9$hri@panix.com> <880230863snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <880230863snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> The medieval cathedrals were built for the glory of God, not to
>> provide a meaningful worship experience or to express and promote
>> social cohesion. In fact they did those things but that was not
>> their point.
>Minor demurral. Gothic is remarkable in that in the area of its origin
>(broadly, Ile-de-France and surrounding areas), and with the exception
>of St-Denis, it started as a _cathedral-building_ movement ... The
>early Gothic was thus in part a form of communal, diocesan
>self-expression or showing off ... and the geographical concentration
>of the early great cathedrals reminds us that there was a strong
>competitive element in that expression. Also a national element: it
>coincided with the ideological and political revival of the French
>monarchy, based in the same area
I dunno. Suppose Andrew Carnegie has a billion pre-WWI dollars and he
uses them to build 1000 libraries. Is it so obvious he's not doing it
for the sake of the diffusion of learning? If you wanted to decide the
point, would it make sense to consider how good the libraries were, on
the grounds that serious and talented people usually end up doing what
they intend to do? Or should the fact the libraries were built at the
same time J.P. Morgan (I believe) built The Breakers in Newport in a
somewhat similar style decide the point?
When I go into one of the great cathedrals it seems to me the building
makes present the whole Medieval cosmos. Communal self-assertion and
nationalism don't explain that to me. The commune and nation were of
course part of that cosmos but they were not what made it what it was
and gave it its value.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Nov 23 22:53:25 EST 1997
Article: 10681 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 23 Nov 1997 22:51:51 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <65atkn$gt1@panix.com>
References: <346D321A.AB4EFB16@net66.com> <64k7lo$egq@panix.com> <34763EE7.F2DA7F00@net66.com> <656rju$e9g@panix.com> <880321373snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <880321373snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> Revolutionary technologies have led in recent years to privatization
>> petty and grand (i.e., the fall of communist regimes). On the face
>> of it that's a decline of big organization.
>But the big private organizations are now in many cases larger than
>state bureaucracies.
Have private organizations been getting bigger in the past 20 years or
so? I don't think so, not on the whole. And there's no private
organization that's as big as the Soviet Union was.
>More relevant, perhaps, is the possibility of arousing the Ten
>Minutes' Hate against someone who isn't a r, s, or h, simply by
>labelling him as one in the media.
But the media label is almost always correct. Someone who disputes the
possibility or desirability of abolishing gender is therefore a sexist
and almost always a homophobe, and someone who disputes the possibility
or desirability of abolishing cultural particularity, and thus accepts
the material importance of ethnicity, is therefore a racist.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Nov 25 05:23:40 EST 1997
Article: 10685 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 24 Nov 1997 18:01:51 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <65d10v$skp@panix.com>
References: <346D321A.AB4EFB16@net66.com> <64k7lo$egq@panix.com> <34763EE7.F2DA7F00@net66.com> <656rju$e9g@panix.com> <880321373snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <65atkn$gt1@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In le@put.com (Louis Epstein) writes:
>: someone who disputes the possibility or desirability of abolishing
>: cultural particularity, and thus accepts the material importance of
>: ethnicity, is ... a racist.
>But it's those loudest against racism who also seek to play up
>"multiculturalism" and seek to turn the melting pot into a "mosaic" of
>mutually unintelligible neighbors.
There is method to their madness. Seen from above, multiculturalism is
a way of abolishing ethnicity. Every significant social institution is
required to be multicultural, which means that none can be ethnic in
character. "Ethnicity" therefore becomes something very different from
what it was. It becomes an individual hobby, Irish folk-dancing or
what have you, or the emblem of a faction (e.g., black employees of
some old-line company) with a material interest in destroying the
ethnic character of the institution within which it exists.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Nov 25 05:23:42 EST 1997
Article: 10687 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Counterrevolution and the arts
Date: 25 Nov 1997 05:23:22 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 16
Message-ID: <65e8uq$rgj@panix.com>
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In <880412888snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> The art of tidying up a room is I suppose continuous with the art of
>> building cathedrals since both create an artificial environment but
>> it's silly to demand as much from it.
>Was that an intentional echo of Herbert's verse? Just curious.
Herbert's lines (Who sweeps a room as for thy laws/makes that and th'
action fine) complicate things, so it was unintentional. I wanted an
example at the opposite pole from cathedral-building, and what I had in
mind was tidying simply to make the room a better place to be.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Nov 27 08:31:36 EST 1997
Article: 10695 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 27 Nov 1997 08:12:59 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 76
Message-ID: <65jrkr$qic@panix.com>
References: <34763EE7.F2DA7F00@net66.com> <656rju$e9g@panix.com> <347CB72B.36B7543@net66.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
John Hilty writes:
[The discussion seems to have become repetitive so my responses will be
spotty. In general, it seems to me you tend to concretize abstractions
and so think about things in an overly mechanical way. I don't expect
you to agree, of course.]
>your basic counter-argument boils down to the assertion that the World
>Culture and its large institutions are contrary to human nature, and
>therefore they will disappear on their own accord. Unfortunately, this
>argument also implies that the World Culture and its large institutions
>could never evolve in the first place
Lots of things can exist to some degree for a while but not perfectly
for ever. In my view the World Culture is such a thing.
>>Revolutionary technologies have led in recent years to privatization
>>petty and grand (i.e., the fall of communist regimes). On the face of
>>it that's a decline of big organization.
>
>Not really. The collapse of Communist regimes is a reflection of the
>dominance of global capitalism: it is the type of World Culture that
>has prevailed in the struggle for world power.
Global capitalism is not a big organization, and we were talking about
the future role of big organizations. One can of course think of global
capitalism, or the planetary ecosystem, or the relations among the
warring powers in WWII, as a "big organization." The sense of our
discussion required a more concrete meaning, though.
>> You seem to think of the World Culture as if it were a computer
>> simulation of an evolving system. In principle the system is
>> eternal without decline, barring two identifiable catastrophes,
>> because it's set up that way, even though particular states of the
>> system are unpredictable. As such it strikes me as indeed a static
>> self-contained system in the same sense that the computer game
>> "Civilization" is.
>
>If you substitute "Traditionalism" for "the World Culture" and "Conan
>the Barbarian" for "Civilization" in the above paragraph, you will
>discover that this comment applies with equal force to your ideas
>concerning the dominance of Traditionalism.
The traditionalism I propose, though, is simply acceptance that the
human characteristics and modes of behavior that have ordered society in
the past will continue to have fundamental importance in the future,
that it won't be possible to systematize the whole of life through
technological rationality. Since you believe in a far greater degree of
rational systematization the computer game analogy seems to fit your
views better than mine.
>Personal love isn't required of workers, merely their cooperative
>behavior, which is induced primarily through the reward of money: It
>simply doesn't matter if their ulterior motives are selfish or
>altruistic.
The question, of course, is how extensive, durable and efficient a
system of cooperation can be induced through money. It seems to me
social organization must deal with the whole of life, and the whole of
life is not convertible into money. The examples we've discussed
include relations between generations and defense against physical
threat.
>Under traditionalism, the organizing principle isn't money, but the
>dominance of one social group over others
Not plausible, because it doesn't take seriously the need for a
principle of cohesion so that the social groups can exist in the first
place. It's natural though that someone who accepts current political
thought would view things that way because current thought tends toward
radical individualism and takes only self-interest and conflict
seriously.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Nov 27 08:31:37 EST 1997
Article: 10696 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Taking the counterrevolution public
Date: 27 Nov 1997 08:28:54 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 75
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>From the archives, yet another set of issues for discussion:
"How do counterrevolutionaries make their case to ordinary people"?
Liberals [I use the word in the U.S. sense, which I view as
historically coherent] dominate all mainstream institutions -- the
schools, the mainline churches, the universities, the elite bar, the
mass media. Their views determine what issues are presented and how,
the terms in which they are discussed, the meaning of words, the
considerations given prominence, and the bounds of acceptable opinion.
Since life is short and the world's a big and complicated place, on
most issues we all have to go pretty much with what we're given. So
under present circumstances most people who don't have a special
interest in politics are going to end up in a political posture that,
when push comes to shove, is consistent with liberalism and therefore
radically antiparticularistic and antitraditional.
What to do? Some possibilities:
1. Rely on the coming technofix. The net will transform the
sociology of knowledge such that no ideology will be able to dominate
discussion. In the absence of ideology traditional views and standards
will re-emerge because they express what works for people dealing with
each other in day-to-day practical life. Or so some say.
But will any of that happen? The PC is a stupefyingly flexible machine
and there are tens of millions of them out there in the hands of all
sorts of people doing all sorts of things. The PC marketplace is
loaded with inventiveness and entrepreneurial energy. It was pioneered
by off-the-wall antiestablishment dropouts. Nonetheless, Microsoft
seems to be ending up with most of the chips. Could something similar
happen in the case of political and intellectual life?
2. Find the weak points of the liberal position (affirmative action,
welfare dependency, the public educational bureaucracy, issues of
personal morality and social chaos) and hammer away at them. What's
your favorite weak point and your favorite mode of hammering?
3. Find the effective talking points for the liberal position (civil
rights, tolerance, support for the unfortunate) and hammer away at the
misconceptions and bad consequences of the liberal understanding of
them. Make the point that these things are not unrestricted goods. So
how should that pitch be made and to whom?
4. Find the fundamental conceptions, propositions, historical
accounts, and images that support the liberal view of things and call
them in question. Does it really make sense to conceive the good as
getting whatever it is you happen to want? Does "inclusiveness" make
sense as an ultimate political principle? Are parochial loyalties and
religious faith really more likely to lead to bloody chaos than their
absence? What's your favorite grand principle or heroic story that
needs to be dumped on? How to do the dumping?
5. Turning aside from the fun of attacking, we also need to make our
own pitch. Articulate the things that don't get articulated in a
public forum dominated by liberals. Get the counterrevolution out of
the ghetto. State it in language people understand. Tie it to common
experience, to ordinary memories and loyalties, and to the extent
possible to principles and authorities people already accept (social
science or whatever).
What to say? How and where to say it? Letters to the editor? Argue
with your mother-in-law? Write an article for the _New York Times_
magazine with deeply-encoded subversion and hope they'll publish it?
Promote third-party political campaigns?
Let's hear thoughts, war stories, hobby-horses, grand Gramscian
strategies, whatever.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 29 07:18:35 EST 1997
Article: 10700 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Taking the counterrevolution public
Date: 27 Nov 1997 22:10:09 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 15
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References: <65jsim$rpd@panix.com> <880670355snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <880670355snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> 3. Find the effective talking points for the liberal position
>> (civil rights, tolerance, support for the unfortunate) and hammer
>> away at the misconceptions and bad consequences of the liberal
>> understanding of them. Make the point that these things are not
>> unrestricted goods.
>Could you clarify what you mean by 'not unrestricted goods'?
That they are not unrestrictedly good.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 29 07:18:36 EST 1997
Article: 10714 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Taking the counterrevolution public
Date: 29 Nov 1997 07:02:48 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 33
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In <1d0f4eg.wfg6tw7b5jwmN@deepblue15.salamander.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>I am intrigued by the idea of counterculture. What causes people to
>follow a different star, shifting their loyalties and notions of what is
>good and true from one culture to another?
If one configuration of things doesn't work, and its symbols seem to
have lost their depth and efficacy, then people may shift to another.
A special problem is that the established order is liberal, that is to
say it is based on evaluative subjectivism -- whatever seems good and
seems to work for you really is good for you, and you are the judge.
It follows that rebellion, rejecting the established order and its
ideals and symbols because it doesn't do anything for you personally,
most likely leads only to reinvention of the established order.
That I think is the reason for the extraordinary stability of the
liberal order even when people find it deeply unsatisfying. As long as
it continues to function at all leaving it requires giving oneself
wholly to something beyond oneself. Not easy to do, especially for
someone brought up and living in a liberal environment, and not
something on which a political movement can be based.
>I am on the lookout for bohemian restorationists.
Does the appeal of that notion show that we want other people to do all
the work? Everyone else gives themselves to devotion to throne and
altar or whatever, while we sit around in cafes, have mistresses, do
what we feel like doing, etc.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Nov 29 07:18:37 EST 1997
Article: 10715 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Taking the counterrevolution public
Date: 29 Nov 1997 07:16:59 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <347f8a6e.41791977@news.applink.net> cheysull@a-vip.com writes:
>very interesting, i think moderation is the key. what do you think ?
A problem is that it's not clear what moderation calls for under
present circumstances. If the abolition of gender, ethnicity and
transcendent loyalties are fundamental goals of the political order, so
that anyone who rejects those goals is sociologically speaking an
extremist, what does moderation counsel?
I suppose one could distinguish between moderation in the sense of
letting all relevant considerations have their weight, and moderation
in the sense of going mostly with the flow. In an ideological
political order "moderation" would then have two very different
meanings.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Nov 30 18:11:19 EST 1997
Article: 10728 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 30 Nov 1997 17:10:57 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 101
Message-ID: <65so9h$p43@panix.com>
References: <347CB72B.36B7543@net66.com> <65jrkr$qic@panix.com> <3480BC31.EC59C6FF@net66.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
John Hilty writes:
>[I prefer to think of it as superior mathematical and analytical
>ability: a World Culture characteristic!]
I suggest reading Pascal on the distinction between the mathematical
and the intuitive mind. He of course was gifted with both.
>You in effect state that "Event A (Human Nature) inhibits Event B
>(World Culture), therefore Event B (World Culture) will wither away."
Neither A nor B is a single isolable event. Both are sets of related
tendencies and situations that can be a matter of degree. Each has
preconditions and consequences that require time to take effect.
Consider alcoholism and professional success. The two don't go
together. That doesn't mean that no successful professional becomes
alcoholic, or even that no one is pushed into alcoholism by
professional success. It means that if the alcoholism is severe and
constantly gets worse the professional won't be successful for long.
>Traditional worlds are probably easier to model on a computer than
>World Culture: that's because they are smaller and simpler (rather
>like simulating a small population of bugs).
Tradition is harder to model than markets and bureaucracies because it
is harder to formalize persuasively.
>In addition to not being at the center of the natural universe, we
>humans are no longer at the center of our own civilization: the
>machine is.
What reason is there to believe that? I suppose in a sense rice was at
the center of traditional Chinese civilization, but that doesn't mean
that Chinese history can be better understood if you forget men and
concentrate on the qualities of rice plants. Similarly for machines.
>This makes it possible for many of us to exist along the irrational
>periphery of this civilization, if we so choose (and in fact, many do).
>Really, the conflict between human nature and World Culture isn't
>nearly as great as you like to imagine, as this counter-argument
>reveals: there's ample space for rationality and irrationality to
>exist side by side.
You are treating "human nature" as non-social. Your World Culture is a
situation in which technological rationality does all the work of
society, and other aspects of human nature (presumably including things
like love and loyalty) are peripheral and considered irrational. A
strength of tradition is that through it those other things become
fundamental parts of the social order. The question then is whether
social order can dispense altogether with love, loyalty,
self-sacrifice, etc. My claim is that it can't.
>Because the level of cooperation of machines is substantially higher
>than people in either traditional or modern societies, it follows that
>the organizations of World Culture can function more effectively than
>those of traditional societies.
The normal relation between a jet fighter and an antiaircraft missile
is not cooperation. Machines cooperate only if they are designed and
instructed to do so.
>Outside of the workplace, other motivating factors still govern human
>behavior, such as love, lust, food, spirituality, curiosity, etc.,
>although these motives often find satisfaction in less traditional
>ways.
"Outside the workplace" apparently means outside situations in which
something of public importance has to get done. For you those other
motivating factors seem to become purely private and so irrelevant to
the social order except as interchangeable motivations to acquire money
and so participate in the system of social cooperation.
>You also seem to assume that "love" and other noble virtues dominate
>human behavior in traditional societies
No, only that noble virtues (for example, self-sacrifice for the common
good) are necessary to any social order and hence to traditional social
orders. To say something is necessary is not to say it is always or
even usually visibly dominant. To say the noble virtues are necessary
is to say however that the World Culture has insuperable problems,
because as you describe it it allows the noble virtues no public
function.
>> the need for a principle of cohesion so that the social groups can
>> exist in the first place.
>
>One way to increase in-group cooperation is to compete against, and
>eventually dominate, other out-groups for the available resources
No doubt, but the in-group must exist in the first place.
I agree of course that external conflict can enhance internal
cooperation. It follows that a social order with weak moral motives
for cooperation, such as your World Culture, will tend to depend on
hatred of outsiders. Its self-image of rationality and universality
will of course make it impossible for it to recognize its own bigotry.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Nov 30 18:11:20 EST 1997
Article: 10729 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Taking the counterrevolution public
Date: 30 Nov 1997 18:08:17 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 35
Message-ID: <65srl1$2eg@panix.com>
References: <65jsim$rpd@panix.com> <3480D232.11F08A78@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
John Hilty writes:
>Your primary assumptions that Liberalism = Anti-Traditionalism and
>Conservatism = Traditionalism are wrong.
By "liberalism" I mean a tradition in political thought articulated most
rigorously at various stages of its development by Hobbes, Locke, Kant,
J.S. Mill and today John Rawls and many others. In my view the
tendencies that define that tradition are identifying the good with the
satisfaction of individual preferences, and the search for formal
criteria for arbitrating conflicts among preferences. Since we don't
need tradition to find out what human preferences are, and since
tradition is irrelevant to the adequacy of formal criteria, liberalism
as so understood denies the authority of tradition and so is
antitraditional.
By "conservatism" I understand resistance based on accepted practice to
the continuing revolution brought by liberalism. As such its most
coherent theoretical basis is traditionalism. One could of course try
to oppose an older form of liberalism (e.g., libertarianism) to current
liberalism and call it conservatism but I'm doubtful that such attempts
offer a coherent long-term alternative to mainstream liberalism.
>A society that is liberal and humanitarian tends to emphasize altruism
>and social cooperation, whereas a conservative society emphasizes
>individual competition in war-like social, economic, or military games.
So you have another view on how the words "liberal" and "conservative"
should be used. I find mine more illuminating. The point of liberal
political theory after all is construction of a social order out of
self-seeking and formal logic.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Tue Nov 25 17:44:07 1997
Subject: Re: Against equality
To: S
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 17:44:07 -0500 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Status: RO
>I'm not sure what you mean by contemporary moral and political
>philosophy. There is < i suppose, Nozick's rather unreadable book,
>Anarchy, the Statem, adn Utopia, but I know of little else. Once
>you've refuted egaliatrainism, it stays refuted.
I'm fishing and don't know what's out there. Any number of things
*might* be, although I have the impression there's not much.
Egalitarianism may have been refuted but its moral necessity is
established social fact. My real interest I suppose is soft places in
liberal thought that with a little pushing can make it something much
less liberal. So something that takes current academic thought --
which after all is mostly egalitarian -- seriously would be of
interest. It seems to me for example that a Rawlsian social contract
approach could be made to generate almost anything by adjusting the
contractors' preferences and their understanding of the basic situation
for which they are legislating. It might even be interesting
analytically to do so -- what minimum changes in Rawls' initial
position would cause the contractors to vote for hereditary aristocracy
or whatever? I don't know whether anyone's gone to the trouble of
studying that kind of question.
I could go on and imagine lots of things that might exist but probably
don't. Ideally I would like to find things that vindicate on
fundamental moral principle the legitimacy of the things one finds in
actual functional societies but people today feel obligated to root out
as unequal -- gender distinctions, ethnic and cultural loyalties,
social hierarchy based on family, cohesiveness based on moral
principles that can't be demonstrated rationally, etc., etc. etc. I'd
prefer something fairly recent by someone who takes mainstream liberal
and egalitarian theories seriously enough to debate them somewhat
sympathetically. Nozick and Pojman I think do that but Pojman only
discusses weaknesses of egalitarianism without suggesting anything
inegalitarian, and my impression is that Nozick (I've read very little
of him) is inegalitarian only in the sense of accepting inequalities
based on wealth and contract.
As I said, I may be fantasizing about something that doesn't exist. If
anything comes to mind though do let me know.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Tue Nov 25 17:54:10 1997
Subject: Re: Men
To: c
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 17:54:10 -0500 (EST)
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Status: RO
Thanks for your note.
Sexual morality is a system that involves both sexes and I think both
have to be talked about. The difficulty I think is that if people try
to ignore the issue and only get upset when a definite problem comes up
then it is the girls they get annoyed with because they're the ones who
get pregnant and so directly create problems.
I think the answer is to view morality as part of an overall system of
life rather than something to avoid very particular problems.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From jk Sat Nov 29 18:41:10 1997
Subject: Re: Comments on antifeminist page
To: g
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 18:41:10 -0500 (EST)
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> An interesting batch of resources, but I feel somehow there is a bit
> of an equivocation, or an evasion in some of the material. (
> Obvioulsy I have not perused it all, I admit). The key question for
> me is: is it or is it not the case that women are metaphysically
> different ( inferior ) from men?
I'm sure there's lots of evasion. Part of it I think has to do with
doubts as to metaphysics. People are inclined to think that
distinctions among classes are constructed rather than found in the
world. (Some people of course think the decline of the West started
with 14th c. nominalism.)
I suppose I'd be inclined to say that men and women should be viewed as
beings of different sorts. Maybe that's equivalent to saying that a
metaphysical distinction between the sexes is socially a necessary
presumption.
I don't think that saying there's a metaphysical difference is the same
as saying women are categorically inferior to men. It seems to me that
"man is a sexual animal" means that human nature is not completely
manifested by either sex. If so, then men taken by themselves manifest
human nature defectively, only men and women together manifest human
nature fully, and it seems reasonable to conclude that men are not
categorically superior to women. Both sexes participate in human
nature and each needs the other to bring about the perfection of that
nature. That view is I think consistent with the view that rule is the
special responsibility of men.
> My point is that in order to cauterise this particular plague, the
> rule of women in present-day society, one needs to start at the
> beginning, and not tinker with bagatelles ( feminists are strident
> hell-cats and so on).
I agree that somehow we need to get to basics, and that complaining
about the personal characteristics of one's opponents doesn't do much
good. My suggestion would to start with practical issues, what would a
genderless society be like concretely, and let any necessary
metaphysics develop out of that kind of consideration.
> Hope this is not too critical.
Not at all. These are interesting issues, which means that the right
answer is not obvious.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
Do let me know if you
have comments of any
kind.
Back to my archive of posts.