Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Jan 1 09:34:29 EST 1998
Article: 10940 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 1 Jan 1998 08:52:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
>-It does seem to me that a civilization based on that of Greece and
>-Rome needs Christianity to survive.
>
>Perhaps this is true, but the question is or should be what sort of
>Christianity should the civilization adopt.
Can that be quite the question? It is hard to view adopting a
fundamental understanding and way of dealing with the world as a policy
issue. One can of course inquire as to the differing consequences of
one form of religion or another. If your point is that different forms
of Christianity have different cultural consequences I agree. My
impression for example is that Western Catholicism is friendlier to
classical culture than either Eastern Orthodoxy or Reform.
>When I hear excerpts like the above, I hear faint echoes of the mullahs
>in the 14th century who thought that the religion that should be
>adopted by all of civilization should be that of Islam.
How did those mullahs differ from mullahs or for that matter Muslims
generally of the 7th - 13th centuries? Islam didn't spread in response
to popular demand among the inhabitants of the Dar ul-Harb. Also, I
think it was the belief of 14th c. mullahs and has been the general
Muslim belief that not merely all civilization but all men should accept
Islam.
>A natural progression, they thought, from the Greek, Roman and
>Christian to the Islamic faith.
What did Greek and Roman religion have to do with it? Islam I thought
emphasizes particular revelation as the source of valid religion and so
the radical gulf between those who accept the revelations of the
prophets and those who like the pagan Greeks and Romans don't.
>-... Left to itself, this side of the civilization of the West aspires
>-to create a sterile frozen universal despotism or World Culture; in
>-practice, its end result is the reign of anarchy, brutality and lies,
>-the war of all against all.
>
>If one takes a quasi-Hobbesian view, then, yes, you would be quite
>accurate. But be careful before assuming that it necessarily would
>produce an all against all. Even Hobbes knew that anarchy didn't
>necessarily mean that all out war.
It is of course difficult for an idea to reach its perfect flowering.
--
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 Jan 2 07:56:09 EST 1998
Article: 10953 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Reformability of constitutions
Date: 2 Jan 1998 07:42:40 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
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rafael cardenas writes:
>It struck me today that one of the great strengths of the U.S.
>constitution (both the Constitution, and the constitution in a larger
>sense) is that it is in practice unreformable
I don't see this. The basic distribution of power, authority, and
governmental responsibility, the roles of institutions etc., have
changed enormously. I take it those are the things that make up the
constitution broadly stated.
I suppose one could say the English constitution is the same now as
hundreds of years ago - you still have the king (at present queen)
running the show, establishing the law in Parliament and executing law
and policy through his ministers, the C of E is still established and
consecrates the monarch, Parliament still represents the commons and
the lords spiritual and temporal, etc., etc., 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 Fri Jan 2 07:56:10 EST 1998
Article: 10954 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: 2 Jan 1998 07:50:05 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
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rafael cardenas writes:
>Not even in the domestic architecture of Istanbul?
>Are you suggesting that the Roman principate did not have slave
>officials?
The domestic architecture of Istanbul and influence of the Imperial
household were not distinguishing features of classical civilization.
>Surely the Caliph is the successor of the prophet and the commander of
>the faithful. The pope is the successor of Peter. Nothing like?
The Pope succeeded to the apostolic office while the Caliph did not
succeed to the prophetic office. The Caliph did not head a religious
hierarchy. Doctrine, religious law and their application were
basically matters for the ulema and not the Caliph. Commanding armies
and executing justice, basic functions of the caliphate, were basically
matters for the Emperor and not the Pope. The jobs weren't similar.
--
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 Jan 2 12:47:51 EST 1998
Article: 10956 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on libertarianism
Date: 2 Jan 1998 08:58:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>the growth in authority of those institutions would result in limits on
>Libertarian "lack of limits". Would not then the Libertarian have to
>become, if he's a thorough-going Libertine, a Leninist, or a Stalinist,
>and use the power of the Central State to keep society atomized? This
>is because his ideology does not allow him to recognize "Human
>Community" and the Authority which is an aspect of it as an aspect of
>Human Life.
We seem to be talking about different people. There are no doubt lots
of people on the net with infantile fantasies of unconditioned freedom,
tons of money, and no obligations. Intelligent libertarians aren't like
that. I don't think most people attracted to libertarianism are
attracted by that side of it. _The Freeman_ is I believe the oldest
libertarian publication, it publishes lots of people who seem well-
established and well-respected in libertarian intellectual circles, and
it has no fondness for libertinism or for that matter radical social
atomism. They publish articles claiming libertarianism promotes
community, high moral standards, etc., which they wouldn't do if their
orientation were as you suggest. They do put in a lot of rhetoric about
"the individual" and "choice" but it's used as a club to beat the state
rather than an absolute demand against the universe at large. A very
popular book among libertarians and libertarianish conservatives a few
years back was Charles Murray's _In Pursuit of Happiness_ which presents
similar arguments. Murray Rothbard invented the modern libertarian
movement and he was a paleolibertarian who detested libertinism. Hayek
seems to be the patron saint of libertarian-leaning intellectuals and
one of his points is that traditional moral disciplines are necessary
for a libertarian legal and economic order.
Libertarianism seems to me complex and ambiguous. It's a reaction
rather than a complete outlook, and a big question is what the reaction
is aimed at and where it will ultimately lead. A lot of people lean
toward it because they think government gets stupid, oppressive and
destructive very quickly when it goes beyond a few well-defined
functions and tries to administer large areas of social life. If you
think tradition should play a bigger role you're going to have problems
with extensive state administration of social life as well. Others are
attracted to libertarianism because they feel that absorption of
responsibility by large-scale organizations destroys individual agency
and integrity. That view is fine with me too.
By adopting their views libertarians are bucking the trend toward the
dissolution of human personality. In hindsight it appears that
classical liberalism led to more advanced liberalism. It's not clear to
me current libertarians are headed in the same direction. The most
important issue is the objective effect concrete libertarian goals would
have. It seems to me a radically smaller state would be a very good
thing.
--
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 Jan 2 12:47:51 EST 1998
Article: 10957 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 Tradition
Date: 2 Jan 1998 08:59:26 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>> >Even Hobbes knew that anarchy didn't necessarily mean that all out
>> >war.
>>
>> It is of course difficult for an idea to reach its perfect flowering.
>
>Hmm...an "idea"? Is this how one from World Culture would look from
>the Outside at a living system of Truth?
Not sure I see the point of the question. The "idea" of course is World
Culture and the "perfect flowering" is the war of all against 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
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Christmas with Anne Roche Muggeridge
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <002101bd1792$f58a7d80$daf463ce@seth-williamson> from "Seth
Williamson" at Jan 2, 98 10:27:34 am
Status: RO
> On this whole matter of whether a materialistic universe can be
> "poetic,"
Is atheism the same as materialism? "Materialism" suggests that we
have a pretty good idea of what the world is like, that it fits neatly
into our categories of thought. It seems to me more natural for an
atheist to think that the world is simply incomprehensible, that
there's our immediate experience and our habitual ways of responding to
it but it doesn't even make sense to believe in anything beyond that.
Think David Hume or Samuel Beckett.
--
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 Jan 3 07:02:38 EST 1998
Article: 10976 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on libertarianism
Date: 3 Jan 1998 07:02:06 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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John Hilty writes:
>> The word "want" was to be interpreted by reference to the objection
>> under discussion, that libertarianism leads to mass starvation.
>
>Which, of course, is exactly what happened during the Irish Potato
>Famine of the 1840's, while the "free markets" exported the grain and
>meat that was produced in Ireland to customers in other countries that
>had more money . . . .
Your point I take it is that the mere failure of the potato crop several
years running would not have caused mass starvation in Ireland if there
had been no export of other foods. I'm in no position to discuss the
matter.
The problem is my lack of knowledge of Irish history, especially
compared with your exact understanding. For example, the Irish remember
British rule as oppressive. I hadn't known the oppression consisted in
establishing a government that limited itself to enforcing contract and
suppressing force and frauds within a system of freely alienable private
property. I thus hadn't known that the situation of Ireland under
British rule was an example of the consequences of libertarianism.
--
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 Jan 3 07:09:09 EST 1998
Article: 10977 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: 3 Jan 1998 07:09:00 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
rafael cardenas writes:
In article <68inpt$9eg@panix.com> jk@panix.com "Jim Kalb" writes:
>Any examples of Caliphs commanding armies in the Ottoman period? (There
>may well be some; this isn't intended as a trick question).
None that I know of, any more than I know of much active involvement by
the last Merovingian kings or the Tokugawa emperors in the active
business of governing.
--
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 Jan 3 07:11:33 EST 1998
Article: 10979 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Reformability of constitutions
Date: 3 Jan 1998 07:10:32 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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rafael cardenas writes:
>> I don't see this. The basic distribution of power, authority, and
>> governmental responsibility, the roles of institutions etc., have
>> changed enormously.
>
>Yes, but how much of that change is the result of a deliberate
>programme of reform on anyone's part?
It's mostly been a consequence of the pursuit of particular substantive
goals rather than institutional reform planned as such. I suppose the
Supreme Court's reconstitution of the legislatures of (I believe) all 50
states might qualify as deliberate institutional reform but even that
was justified on an individual rights (one man one vote) rather than
institutional theory.
>> I suppose one could say the English constitution is the same now as
>> hundreds of years ago -
>
>Not really: it's part of a larger unitary state which has only existed
>in its present constitutional form since 1922, despite all the
>flummery.
That's why I said "English" rather than "British." The thought was that
increase in size did not change constitutional fundamentals.
>I don't think Clinton or Gingrich could embark with any hope of success
>on, say, a legislative programme giving vastly increased self-
>government to Hawaii and Alaska compared with other states.
Quite true, there are distinctions between the two systems that can
sometimes be important.
--
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 Jan 3 12:50:19 EST 1998
Article: 10982 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Reformability of constitutions
Date: 3 Jan 1998 12:44:54 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <34af721f.7388190@news.infoave.com> sethwill@swva.net writes:
>>It may be radical change from some people's point of view, but
>>clearly it does not threaten the position of the power elite.
>Precisely. In America, at least, most of the elite's agenda has been
>unconstitutional by any reading of the document that ordinary people
>would understand. Hence, the "living document" nonsense, necessary as
>a cover.
It's worth adding that the constitutional changes Seth is talking about
have been part of the rise to power of new elites.
--
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 Jan 3 12:50:20 EST 1998
Article: 10983 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The World Culture versus Traditionalism
Date: 3 Jan 1998 12:47:45 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 45
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tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
>When I hear excerpts like the above, I hear faint echoes of the
>mullahs in the 14th century who thought that the religion that should
>be adopted by all of civilization should be that of Islam.
Some more thoughts:
The fundamental divide in modern politics is between those who believe
the good for man can be reduced without remainder to the satisfaction
of desire and impulse, and those who reject that view. The former are,
in American terms, the liberals. Each of us chooses his own values,
and the legitimate purpose of social order is to facilitate the maximum
equal realization of the values so chosen.
The most satisfactory alternative view, it seems to me, is the view
that the good for man is transcendent; it can not be reduced to desire
or impulse, nor as a practical matter can it be fully known and made
explicit. We come to have a practical grasp of it through experience,
in the same way as for other realities that can be known but not with
scientific completeness and clarity. In the case of something as
comprehensive and far-reaching as the good for man, the necessary
experience is not that of one man or generation but that of many - that
is, the tradition of a community. This view therefore leads to
traditionalist conservatism.
Other views are of course possible. One might believe the good is
something fundamentally different from desire and impulse but can be
fully known at least for practical purposes. In that case one would
presumably favor the dictatorship of those who know. Examples would be
Plato's ideal republic and fundamentalist theocracy. Or one might
believe with Plato's timocratic man or Nietzsche that the good neither
transcends actual human life nor consists in satisfaction of desire and
impulse generally, but rather is action in accordance with preferred
impulses, those having to do with struggle and mastery for example.
>From the liberal point of view, all these other perspectives are
nothing but tyrannical efforts by stronger A to force his values on
weaker B. Hence I believe the references to 14th century mullahs. The
other perspectives of course consider the liberal point of view on this
as other issues a manifestation of a grossly defective theory of 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 Sat Jan 3 18:10:00 EST 1998
Article: 10991 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Reformability of constitutions
Date: 3 Jan 1998 17:49:21 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
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In <19980103194201.OAA24758@ladder01.news.aol.com> sanotholt@aol.com (SANotholt) writes:
>But, like the US constitution, the weakness is in the *interpretation*
>by the ruling establishment. True, we in the UK have all the above
>mentioned. Our parliament, laws, institutions, etc, are, however, all
>now subordinate (by an Act of Parliament!) to the European Union. Our
>leaders apparently see no constitutional problem with this...
We've got the same issue although so far it's not so immediate and
practical. Article VI, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution says
This Constitution ... and all treaties made or which shall be made,
under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law
of the land
so it appears that the president and 2/3 of the senate can in effect
change the Constitution if they put the changes in a treaty, at least
if the Supreme Court basically thinks the changes are OK which is
likely if our ruling elites support them. This problem led to the
Bricker Amendment proposals in the '50s. There's an essay on the
subject at http://www.antiwar.com/essays/bricker.html.
--
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 Jan 3 18:10:01 EST 1998
Article: 10992 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on libertarianism
Date: 3 Jan 1998 18:08:29 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
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In <883851214snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> the Irish remember British rule as oppressive. I hadn't known the
>> oppression consisted in establishing a government that limited
>> itself to enforcing contract and suppressing force and frauds within
>> a system of freely alienable private property. I thus hadn't known
>> that the situation of Ireland under British rule was an example of
>> the consequences of libertarianism.
>As far as the famine is concerned, it was
I would have thought that the magnitude of the suffering could be
attributed to the failure of the potato crop given the peculiar
economic situation of Ireland and the Irish, and that the latter had to
do at least in large part to the Penal Laws and other British measures
suppressing economic activity in Ireland.
The Penal Laws you will remember forbade the Irish Catholic among other
things to receive an education, enter a profession, engage in trade or
commerce, live in a corporate town or within five miles thereof, or
lease or purchase land. I believe many of them were repealed in the
1790s and the rest before the famine, but their effects continued as
did the effects of the suppression of Irish manufactures.
--
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 Jan 4 15:57:04 EST 1998
Article: 10998 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Reformability of constitutions
Date: 4 Jan 1998 15:47:49 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
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References: <68mf9h$gjj@panix.com> <19980104123500.HAA07109@ladder02.news.aol.com>
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In <19980104123500.HAA07109@ladder02.news.aol.com> sanotholt@aol.com (SANotholt) writes:
>The issues raised in the Bricker debate certainly find a echo in the
>situation we in Britain (and, for that matter, other European nations)
>face vis-a-vis the European Union - except that at least in 1950s
>America there *was* a debate!
That was then and this is now. The Bricker Amendment is remembered as
a piece of '50s "extremism," like Senator McCarthy and the House
UnAmerican Activities Committee. At the time it had the support of the
president of the American Bar Association and the dean of at least one
major law school (Notre Dame), and was very nearly passed by the
Senate. Today nothing remotely similar is conceivable.
--
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 Jan 4 15:57:05 EST 1998
Article: 10999 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Reformability of constitutions
Date: 4 Jan 1998 15:56:02 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
Message-ID: <68ot12$les@panix.com>
References: <34AECD73.266E@msmisp.com>
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In <34AECD73.266E@msmisp.com> cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>one could come to the point of reading the plain words of the
>Constitution, and find that they mean something very different than
>the plain English sense of the words.
But they do of course. Have you read the document recently? What it
talks about isn't anything like the actual federal government we have
in 1997.
>Seems then, that Constitutionalism is overthrown, and we have a
>"symbol" hiding the reality of something else.
The intention was to create a balanced and limited government leaving
ultimate political power to the people. The effect has been to
reconcile the reality of rule by elites with the public ideology of
popular sovereignty.
--
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 Jan 5 04:29:21 EST 1998
Article: 11006 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on libertarianism
Date: 5 Jan 1998 04:16:01 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <68q8ch$2vk@panix.com>
References: <67ohem$lfr@panix.com> <34a69352.3154679@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <68ca8b$hv9@panix.com> <34ADECA3.6CA04E7C@net66.com> <68l9bu$bk4@panix.com> <883851214snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <68mgdd$i8i@panix.com> <883954569snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <883954569snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>Full catholic emancipation dates from 1829: as you observe, aspects of
>penal statutes had been repealed earlier. But since the bulk of
>potato-dependent population growth was after the 1790s, and since the
>legislation applied to the whole country, whereas only part of it was
>subject to the kind of agriculture which failed (and, as John Hilty
>pointed out, the products of the other parts were still being exported
>during the famine), this particular aspect of oppression doesn't
>really explain the problem.
Don't understand the reasoning. The suggestion was not that the Penal
Laws and other suppression of Irish economic activity were sufficient
in themeselves to bring about the famine but that the consequences of
the failure of the potato crop would have been quite different in the
absence of the laws that long made it literally illegal for an Irish
Catholic to be anything but a landless peasant. Those laws formed the
economic situation of Ireland and the Irish, which (the thought is)
together with the crop failure led to the huge suffering. The original
claim you will recall was that the Irish Potato Famine was an example
of the consequences of libertarianism.
--
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 Jan 5 04:29:22 EST 1998
Article: 11007 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Reformability of constitutions
Date: 5 Jan 1998 04:28:14 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
Message-ID: <68q93e$3ge@panix.com>
References: <68inc0$94d@panix.com> <19980103194201.OAA24758@ladder01.news.aol.com> <68mf9h$gjj@panix.com> <883955378snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <883955378snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>Does that mean that NAFTA and the WTO are part of the American
>Constitution? An interesting idea!
No, just part of the "supreme law of the land," together with the
"Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in
pursuance thereof; and all treaties made or which shall be made, under
the authority of the United States." The difficulty is that the
Constitution limits federal legislative power in ways it does not limit
the treaty-making power.
>Were the tributary relations which the US entered into vis-a-vis the
>Dey of Algiers in the 1790s part of a formal treaty?
I thought they were an informal arrangement like most payoffs.
--
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 Jan 6 08:00:38 EST 1998
Article: 11016 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: 6 Jan 1998 08:00:34 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 85
Message-ID: <68t9ti$8hj@panix.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
>If the society has changed to a great extent, such that the values of
>society no longer reflect those of today, let alone those of the past,
>to what extent should the religion change?
The religion must respond to the situation that gave rise to the changed
social values but not follow the values themselves. After all, it is
the religion that is to be the master principle.
>these 14th c. mullahs also locked the interpretation of their
>Scriptures, such that innovation in the understanding of the religion
>was no longer able to take place (as it had occurred in the previous
>centuries). The Islam which they preached was the Islam that was to be
>adopted. Those who attempted to do so were treated as heretics. Books
>were burned. Art stopped. The Islamic Golden Age had ended.
Was there such a change? I don't think so. Certainly not one brought
about by orthodoxy. Islam is a religion of the Book in a very strong
and literal sense. Hence the early development of Islamic law, the
compilations of _hadith_ (traditions regarding how the Prophet or his
companions had acted on a particular occasion), and so on. So there
have always been the orthodox in Islam and they've always had a very
strong position. It's true that Muslim thinkers often tended toward
mysticism or outright heterodoxy, so it's certainly understandable that
a decline in Islamic civilization should be associated with more uniform
orthodoxy. I think the causality is the opposite of the one you suggest
though.
>In other words, Islam's reaction to the changes in the world around it
>was to become more insular--in sharp contrast with its kindred
>religion, Christianity, which became more open (and hence, its "greater
>success" in Europe).
Openness is a wonderful thing, but it's only possible within limits.
The Christians of Western Europe could be "open" partly because their
religion was different from Islam (e.g., it formed in a setting in which
it could not force itself on the world) but also because of their
extraordinary ethno-religious unity. There hadn't been invasions from
outside since the 10th century or major movements of peoples since well
before then. As a result, there was no one around but Western Catholic
Christians (by 1500 the Jews who had been ghettoized in any event were
expelled from all the countries on the Atlantic seaboard). The
occasional prosecution of a heretic or crusade against the Albigensians
was enough to maintain the religious boundaries of a Christendom that
was sufficiently unified to allow fairly widespread and fairly free
participation in intellectual and public life.
Things were of course quite different in the Levant. Eastern Orthodoxy
is the form of Christianity fitted to conditions there. It emphasizes
ethnic ties and rules on fasting and other observances that make
concrete to believers their membership in a distinct community. There
is very little interest in development of doctrine in the light of
classical philosophy, modern science, what have you. Tradition is
unchangeable. Going back to your first question, it seems to me that
social changes in the direction of multiculturalism are likely to put
Eastern Orthodoxy and similar forms at an advantage. They've learned
how to survive in such situations.
>In truth, much of the Greeks and the Roman works in the Christian West
>would not have survived had it not been for the Arabs.
I don't think this is so. The Arabs wouldn't have had much occasion to
deal with Roman (Latin) works. I think it's true that the Aristotle
St. Thomas read was a Latin translation of an Arabic translation that
reached him by way of Spain, but the best texts of the Greek works have
come down to us through the Byzantines.
>-Islam I thought emphasizes particular revelation as the source of
>-valid religion and so the radical gulf between those who accept the
>-revelations of the prophets and those who like the pagan Greeks and
>-Romans don't.
>
>the idea of revelation which you were alluding to is found only in a
>couple Islamic sub-sects (it is far more prevalent in the Far Eastern
>religions).
What valid religions not based on particular revelations do
non-sub-sect Muslims recognize? How does acceptance of such religions
square with Islamic intolerance of those who are not peoples of the
Book? And which Far Eastern religions do you have in mind?
--
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 Jan 6 08:06:51 EST 1998
Article: 11017 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on libertarianism
Date: 6 Jan 1998 08:06:36 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 144
Message-ID: <68ta8s$8ul@panix.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
>-The greater good in a liberal or libertarian system therefore tends
>-to be the maximization of some combination of economic output,
>-equality (however construed), and freedom to pursue idiosyncratic
>-tastes free of legal or social constraints.
>Professor Ted Honderich once descibed the libertarians and to some
>extent the other economic liberals as viewing the world and indeed all
>of life as being equivalent to shopping.
Which liberals favor a public order based on something fundamentally
different? Some use language like "individually chosen vision of the
good" but the effect seems the same.
The reason is that for liberals whatever you happen to want constitutes
your individually chosen vision of the good. People who can prove they
went through years of thought and struggle and agony to develop a truly
profound personal philosophy of life don't get extra points. They
can't without the state choosing among visions of the good and saying
that one's better than another. And it's hard to know what to do with
the liberal aspiration that each be enabled as much and equally as
possible to get what he wants, other than give everyone the same amount
of money (subject to Rawls' maximin principle and what have you) and
maybe forbid certain discriminations.
Liberalism of all sorts makes individual choice the ultimate standard of
socially-recognized value; if you choose something, it's treated as your
good. Morality then consists in supporting the system of institutions
that maximizes everyone's ability to choose and get what he has chosen.
There are lots and lots of choices, and it's altogether up to you which
one you go for. The world as shopping mall seems an apt metaphor.
>-There can be minimal government, at least compared to what we have
>-now, and for example an established church. Examples would include
>-Israel under the Judges, medieval Iceland, common-law England, and
>-the United States during most of its history,
>
>Incidentally of those instances in the past that you have cited a
>number of them have been challenged--most particularly D. Friedman's
>beloved medieval Iceland.
What sort of challenge? Certainly medieval Iceland depended on more
than contract and private property. Ethnic and religious homogeneity,
standards of honor, ties of friendship and family, an ideal of law, etc.
were also important. It doesn't strike me as a big government kind of
place, though. Which is part of my point, really - a government that
doesn't do much to interfere with private ordering of affairs need not
be based on libertarian ideology.
>Also, I duly note that there is a certain lack of respect, on the
>behalf of many libertarians, regarding the institutions present in
>society.
Sure. Many of them have no idea what they need for their own position
to be realized. The smarter ones are usually better. Hayek for example
(if we make him an honorary libertarian) is quite emphatic on the need
for a complex of traditions to support a free market.
>If I remember rightly, you are coming at this from an American
>neoconservative perspective (such a conservative position I don't doubt
>would have no troubles with the libertarian thought police).
I don't think of myself as a neocon.
>I on the other hand would probably be brought up in shackles and
>chains.;-)
Why do you think the thought police would cart you off in a libertarian
state?
>Also, I would submit that the idea of the minimal state is excellent in
>theory, but difficult to put one's finger on in practice.
All noble goals are difficult to achieve.
>-Go get Sean Gabb and drag him into a.r.c. and you and Raphael can
>-argue with him for our edification.
>
>Hmm...we've crossed swords once or twice before. "Old Whig" Hayekian
>and "Old Tory" Disraeli-Burkean make for a terrible combination. But
>it may be worth a try in the new year. ;-)
Worth it for me. I'd rather libertarian arguments were made by an
actual libertarian. For one thing if he's smart (as SG is) he'd
probably know a lot more of the relevant facts, figures and history.
>-Does the initial tinge matter much in the long run? The modern state
>-has neither sex nor soul, and old patriarchal ideas aren't what it runs
>-on.
>
>Interesting question. In theory, perhaps--but I think that you would
>be fighting against a number of undercurrents (depending on what the
>modern society was to be built on).
The welfare state I think necessarily tends to look at individuals in
isolation from their history and family etc. connections - the relevant
facts are too difficult for bureaucrats to determine, too complicated
to enter on forms and too easy for clients to dummy up. It wants to
connect them to formal institutions that ensure a materially decent
standard of living without making personal demands, because it would be
too difficult to figure out whether the personal demands were being
met, whether an excuse applied, etc. The consequence is that costs go
through the roof and there's a crackdown, benefits are cut, arbitrary
requirements imposed, investigators go out and investigate, etc. So if
the system started with a patriarchal tinge it won't stay that way
because there's too little personal connection. The interests of the
two sides are mostly adverse, and their natural relation after the
initial honeymoon wears off, which is soon enough, is suspicion and
dislike.
>-Conservatism makes sense only if there are fundamental social
>-institutions not reducible either to state or market.
>
>But both Hegel and Rousseau seem to suggest that the family is
>connected to the creation of the state in the first place. And
>strangely enough, there seems to be some anthropological evidence to
>support this.
Even if a particular form of the family depends on the state it need not
be reducible to the state. A conversation depends on the physical
qualities of air and on the vocal and auditory organs of the
participants, but it is not reducible to those things.
>-It's a defense of libertarianism against objections from a welfare-
>-statist perspective. I put up the defense not because I think
>-libertarianism is wonderful but because I think the alternative is
>-worse.
>
>(Tongue in cheeck) Sounds like the old libertarian either/or trap
>has snared another victim. :-)
It's somewhat more complicated than either/or of course. All I'd say is
that extensive bureaucratic administration of social life is a very bad
thing from a traditionalist conservative standpoint. I think of
"libertarianism" as primarily a coalition of those who oppose such
administration. Unfortunately, we live in a liberal age, so the
coalition is dominated by the understanding held by philosophical
liberals of why extensive bureaucratic administration of social life is
a bad thing.
--
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 Jan 7 04:43:37 EST 1998
Article: 11025 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on libertarianism
Date: 7 Jan 1998 04:29:01 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <68vhst$hqu@panix.com>
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John Hilty writes:
>The economic situation of the Irish was that they were too poor to buy
>the cash crops (beef and wheat) that were intended for more affluent
>customers abroad, thanks to the Libertarian component of the prevailing
>economic system, namely the laws of supply and demand.
Famine is not the same as ordinary poverty. The recent instances of
peacetime famine that I can think of involve uniform mass poverty of
peasants paying rents to absentee owners, combined with some sort of
disaster. Both the Irish famine and the 20th century famines in
communist countries can I think be classified that way, treating the
state as the absentee landlord in communist countries.
If landowners are resident and the local economy is more diverse there
are more ways to make a living and most people will somehow get through
bad times, perhaps with the help of relatives, neighbors and other
connections. Beyond that, if things get very bad prominent men on the
spot usually prefer organizing relief to watching masses of their
neighbors, employees and tenants die in front of them. I don't think
that kind of relief is much of a violation of libertarian principles,
because it can be largely or wholly voluntary and in any case is
clearly an ad hoc response to a particular unusual and extreme
situation rather than something likely to become part of the permanent
organization of society.
Situations of uniform mass poverty with the money going elsewhere
aren't likely to come about or maintain themselves permanently in the
absence of government suppression of a free market in land and produce
and of other economic activity. Such suppression characterized Ireland
and of course the communist countries. The abolition of the Penal Laws
15 years before the famine didn't give enough time for land to find its
way to more efficient users than absentee landlords or for many
Irishmen to find ways other than tenant farming to make a living.
Things moved slowly in country districts 150 years ago. A feature of
contemporary conditions is that things tend to change faster. The
improved ability of markets to eat anything and turn it into cash has
drawbacks but advantages as well.
--
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 Jan 7 04:43:38 EST 1998
Article: 11026 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: 7 Jan 1998 04:40:06 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <68vihm$ib4@panix.com>
References: <34A5E05B.22EE@msmisp.com> <6866an$6i@panix.com> <34a9c39e.3140128@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <68ltk1$s5j@panix.com> <34b2e2db.2060246@news.srv.ualberta.ca>
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tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
>the liberals tend to favour the standard Millian notion of the
>"marketplace of ideas." To a certain extent, I think this can work.
>But I think that there is an obligation on the behalf of the right
>(that is, namely the conservatives and traditionalists) to provide a
>check on the constant spewing forth of ideas and notions that the
>liberals bring forth.
In contemporary liberal society that is difficult, because the liberals
have control of the discussion. That's no accident. Liberalism and
for that matter libertarianism speak the language of technology. You
decide what you want and with the available resources and know-how you
design a systematic way of getting it. That way of going about things
is anti-conservative but it's easiest to present as serious and
rational today.
Beyond that, there's the particular nature of the system liberals aim
at. The modern liberal conception of social justice calls for uniform
rational outcomes in individual cases. It therefore favors an overall
system for determining and securing such outcomes. The construction of
such a system requires a huge amount of study, discussion, legal
reform, development of institutions, political campaigning, education,
and propaganda. Efforts to construct it therefore increase the
importance of experts, scholars, journalists, media people, elite
lawyers, civil servants, politicians and educators. Such people have
an interest in supporting such efforts, and not surprisingly tend
toward liberalism. They are also, of course, the people who dominate
public discussions, and it's hard to see how that can be changed.
>Thirdly, the use of Nietzsche is interesting because really Nietzsche
>didn't fit neatly into any of the Platonic categories.
It's difficult to attribute a coherent position to him it's true.
--
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 Jan 7 08:56:35 EST 1998
Article: 11030 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Reformability of constitutions
Date: 7 Jan 1998 08:55:22 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <6901ga$f3@panix.com>
References: <68mf9h$gjj@panix.com> <19980104123500.HAA07109@ladder02.news.aol.com>
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In <19980104123500.HAA07109@ladder02.news.aol.com> sanotholt@aol.com (SANotholt) writes:
>The problem seems clear enough - governments using international
>treaty to establish the legitimacy of their political agendas without
>direct reference to domestic constitutional arrangements.
I should mention that there's been a recent favorable event, the
release by a federal magistrate in Texas of a Rwandan Hutu accused of
participation in genocide on the grounds that there was no
constitutional basis to turn him over to the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda. The Rwanda tribunal was created by a U.N.
Security Council resolution. The magistrate said that the law Congress
passed authorizing the U.S. to turn over fugitives to the international
tribunal for Rwanda was unconstitutional because the U.S. has no
extradition treaty with the tribunal.
So there is at least one person at the very lowest level of the federal
judiciary who doesn't think that action under the UN Charter trumps the
most fundamental rights of personal security under the Constitution.
The New York Times of course had a fit, calling the ruling "mistaken"
and the reasoning "faulty." We will see how the situation sorts out.
--
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 Thu Jan 1 13:02:12 1998
Subject: Re: Mobilizing the broad masses
To: rc
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 13:02:12 -0500 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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Status: RO
Happy New Year!
> Amoral power analysis has a certain instrumental value, I think. It is
> useful as a way of clearing the ground of unquestioned preconceptions.
Sure. My problem is with a view that has no idea what it is the
instrument of.
> It does seem to me that the conservative critique is simply not going
> to get anywhere without the possession of a religious vision. And
> that certainly does not come to the fore in much of the mainstream
> conservative writing I've come across. To the extent that it _does_
> come across, it does so in the form of a tub-thumping,
> extraordinarily literal reading of _nulla_salus_extra_ecclesiam_ that
> I simply can't take seriously anymore after encountering the
> Traditionalists.
I agree that the critique needs the vision. A difficulty is that
religious vision can't be manufactured, it has to be the fundamental
understanding of what the world is like. Very likely the world will
have to beat us up some more before we get cut down to size and accept
such an understanding. It'll happen.
Conservatism is not a self-contained system but a way of knowing and
holding to something fundamental that exceeds our grasp. Some sort of
principle of nulla salus extra ecclesiam is I think necessary though.
The alternative is present-tense first-person thought and experience as
a sufficient source of truth.
--
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 Thu Jan 1 16:53:54 1998
Subject: Re: Mobilizing the broad masses
To: rc
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 16:53:54 -0500 (EST)
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Status: RO
On conservative principles - it seems to me what gives Kirk's
principles unity and motivation is the concept of a transcendent good
that we can't fully grasp. Over the generations, tradition brings
understandings, attitudes and practices into sufficient coherent unity
to make that good practically available to us. Therefore
>Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules
>society as well as conscience
is the key.
Kirk's other principles have to do with the impossibility of reducing
any tolerable human society to a single transparent rational order.
That impossibility follows from the fundamental conception I suggest.
If a single transparent rational order existed the good that orders it
could be fully grasped by a rational observer. Since the human good
can not be fully grasped, it follows that utopias and societies based
on calculation are ordered by something different from and practically
opposed to the human good and are therefore essentially evil. The
demand for the abolition of race, class, gender, and private property
as principles of social order is an aspect of the demand that social
order be single, transparent and rational.
>Change is on occasion necessary, but the conservative will take pains
>to ensure that it will take place as a reform of the historical
>institutions that incarnate the principles on which he acts, and not as
>a revision that overturns them.
Loyalty to something transcendent and not fully accessible is also of
course necessary for combining piety with reform.
>Conservatives do to some extent defend capitalism, since they defend
>the rights of property, the affirmation of which is part of capitalism.
The rights of property are necessary because they diffuse independent
agency and responsibility through society. "Free enterprise" is the
economic aspect of that diffusion. Economics is not of course
everything.
>There is no prominent force in present-day society that is identifiably
>conservative, in the sense specified by the principles enumerated
>above.
That's true of present-day public life, or what passes for it, but not I
think of present-day society. If what you say were literally true
society couldn't exist at all. Family life and popular religion are
conservative. They are antitechnological and ordered by goods that
exceed what can be articulated. Ditto for ordinary individual moral
life. All such things are fundamentally at odds with the managerial
state and with all the experts. They're under attack but remain
enormously important, indeed necessary for life to go on at all.
>These two groups of managers became allies, and eventually together
>formed the new ruling class of managerial society.
The managerial revolution has gone beyond business and government to
include other functions. Thought, knowledge, public discussion, the
law, popular culture, and the education of the young are now centrally
organized and controlled. The corresponding elites (experts, media
people, judges and legal scholars, top educators) are _ex officio_
members of the ruling class. You recognize this in passing:
>the managerial class that rules in the cultural institutions of the
>universities and the mass media.
More might be made of it, though.
--
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 Jan 5 22:44:02 1998
Subject: Re: Yet Another List
To: st
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 22:44:02 -0500 (EST)
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> Christianity has itself bequeathed to us this world as ONE world, as
> opposed to the many ultimately contradictory worlds of paganism.
The pagan philosophers invented cosmopolitanism. A strength of
Christianity is that it can value particularity consistent with
recognition of one world. God made particular things, and said they
were good, and he became a particular man, and he does particular acts,
so it's not just the universal that is to be valued.
--
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 bit.listserv.catholic Thu Jan 8 20:41:24 1998
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References: <3.0.32.19980107212918.017db864@mail.airmail.net>
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From: Jim Kalb
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Subject: Re: Comments on Sola Scriptura
Comments: To: bit-listserv-catholic@moderators.uu.net
In <3.0.32.19980107212918.017db864@mail.airmail.net> John Medaille
writes:
>>It is not *meaningless* to say "This is the Canon," without including
>>an authority for that Canon.
>It is is meaningless and worse then meaningless -- it is a cop-out. If
>you can't even vouch for the table of contents, how can you possibly
>be sure of anything else?
Can this be right? At some point one must simply recognize something
or other as authoritative, rather than citing an endless chain of
validating authorities. Maybe you can support the correctness of your
recognition by offering evidence and argument, but evidence and
argument are not the same as authority. You may say for example that
the Church is authoritative. What is your authority for identifying a
particular complex of men, pronouncements, institutions etc. as the
Church? The Church itself? That would be circular.
--
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 Jan 10 22:29:28 EST 1998
Article: 11051 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on libertarianism
Date: 10 Jan 1998 22:27:43 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <68vhst$hqu@panix.com> <884467336snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <884467336snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>I don't think that a free market in land was suppressed in early 19th-
>century Ireland. A free market in land can produce concentration of
>ownership. Whatever the reason for initial concentration of ownership,
>a free market won't necessarily cure its effects.
But the Penal Laws made it illegal for the great majority of local
people to own land. Landowners had to be non-Catholics, therefore
outsiders, therefore very likely nonresident. The suggestion was that
not large holdings as such but absentee landownership combined with
absence of other economic activity creates the situation in which
famine becomes a possibility when disaster strikes. It does seem to me
that free markets encourage resident landownership since resident
landowners, who are in a position to manage their lands intelligently,
should be able to pay more for land than absentees.
>The situation in the West of Ireland was improved -- apart from the
>alleviating effects of catastrophe and continuing emigration -- only
>by government action from the 1890s (the congested districts board)
>and on a large scale from the 1970s (EEC subsidies).
This makes it sound as if the economic situation in the West of Ireland
was not so different (had not improved "on a large scale") in 1840 and
in the 1960s.
--
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 bit.listserv.catholic Mon Jan 12 09:46:31 1998
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References:
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Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 19:10:11 -0500
Sender: Free Catholic Mailing List
From: Jim Kalb
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Subject: Re: Mother Angelica vs. Cardinal Mahony
Comments: To: bit-listserv-catholic@moderators.uu.net
In CFL
writes:
>> > Jesus had words about those who were concerned with outward
>> > appearances.
>> If a person is too poor to put on nice clothes to go to Church
>> that's one thing. If they are too lazy or irreverent then it's
>> another.
>Jesus is worth very much more than such superficial nonsense as
>fashion. You aren't alone in your thinking, mind you; the Pharisees,
>too, were concerned with externals.
Jesus' usual attitude I thought was that the specific concerns of the
Pharisees were good as such and in their place but that other things
were far more important. Is there reason to believe he thought it bad
to pay some attention to appearances? If so, it seems other aspects of
making worship pleasing to the senses - good music, beautiful
architecture and vestments, well-planned and striking ceremonial -
would also be intrinsically bad. After all, on the face of it would
seem that how the people dress is part of their manner of participation
in worship. So maybe for you a complaint against Cardinal Mahony might
be that his vision is insufficiently puritanical.
--
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 Jan 6 15:59:21 1998
Subject: Re: Yet Another List
To: st
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 15:59:21 -0500 (EST)
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> I don't think thinks mags are based on systematic thought; rather on
> a set of instincts.
Sure, but you have more confidence if there are people associated with
the magazine who seem to have drawn something coherent out of the
instincts. A magazine can be a set of instincts but not a serious
writer on politics.
> What all do you read?
It changes. At the moment I'm mostly reading Emerson and commentators.
--
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: Christmas with Anne Roche Muggeridge
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <00e201bd1ef8$1d0f3320$b1f463ce@seth-williamson> from "Seth
Williamson" at Jan 11, 98 08:18:30 pm
Status: RO
> the linguistic analysis school of philosophers, Bertrand Russell,
> Freddie Ayer, all that bunch, seemed to want a universe that was at
> least theoretically comprehensible, didn't they?
Don't think so - more a matter of doing away with all language that
permits questions to be asked that can not in principle be answered by
modern natural science. All we can meaningfully talk about is sense
experience and formal logic.
> >Contemplation of the particularity and otherness of the world might
> >then give rise to a sort of poetry. Is that be what Williams' poem
> >about the red wheelbarrow and white chickens is about?
>
> I've always assumed it was more or less like you said, but that it
> was poetry or art itself that was at stake: strong poetry has to take
> into account the particularity of the world.
The question then becomes perhaps whether rapt contemplation of
particularity is sufficient for poetry.
--
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 bit.listserv.catholic Tue Jan 13 07:37:20 1998
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References: <3.0.32.19980108211658.01796108@mail.airmail.net>
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From: Jim Kalb
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Subject: Re: Comments on Sola Scriptura
Comments: To: bit-listserv-catholic@moderators.uu.net
In <3.0.32.19980108211658.01796108@mail.airmail.net> John Medaille
writes:
>>>>It is not *meaningless* to say "This is the Canon," without
>>>>including an authority for that Canon.
>>
>>>It is is meaningless and worse then meaningless -- it is a cop-out.
>>>If you can't even vouch for the table of contents, how can you
>>>possibly be sure of anything else?
>>
>>At some point one must simply recognize something or other as
>>authoritative, rather than citing an endless chain of validating
>>authorities.
>Exactly. At some point you must end the chain. And you must find at
>that point that there is but one endpoint -- faith. This is the same
>whether you are diest or atheist, Catholic or Muslim, whatever. The
>chain for me ends in Jesus Christ, but the only means I have of
>knowing him are those supplied by the Church (sacraments, the Bible,
>Tradition, teaching, etc).
But in order to rely on the Church and what it supplies you have to be
able to recognize it as the Church. Someone might think the Mormons
are the Church. Why is it a worse than meaningless cop-out to rely on
some version of the Bible without previous authority to tell you you're
right but not silly to think you can do the same with the organization
now headed by the man commonly referred to as John Paul II?
--
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 Jan 13 07:37:45 EST 1998
Article: 11066 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 13 Jan 1998 07:29:53 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <68mo1g$5qa$1@mahler.rev.net> <34B31126.E398250B@net66.com> <34B32C6E.1537@gstis.net> <34B7ED21.94DE5A99@net66.com> <884645768snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <884645768snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> self-respect and discipline, and that both these qualities are
>> either decreased or absent entirely among long-term welfare
>> recipients.
>But doesn't that apply also to lifelong rentiers and to longlived
>pensioners? If not, why not?
Rents and pensions aren't based on need and so are less at odds with a
sense that we make our own lives through our efforts and resources.
They are a kind of fixed property that doesn't get bigger if we are
unsuccessful and shrink otherwise. So they don't tend to separate us
>from the consequences of our actions.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jan 13 21:29:46 EST 1998
Article: 11069 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on libertarianism
Date: 13 Jan 1998 15:37:38 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <34a69352.3154679@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <68ca8b$hv9@panix.com> <34af1529.709893@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <68ta8s$8ul@panix.com> <33769307.6164525@news.srv.ualberta.ca>
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tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
>Mike Huben has a "Critiques of Libertarianism" website which goes into
>the medieval Iceland question a little bit further (sorry, I'm
>answering this offline--and don't have the reference immediately at
>hand). But I believe that your partial point would still stand though.
I looked at Huben's page and references. In substance his objections
seem to be that the Commonwealth didn't last forever, and that there
were important institutions such as kinship that weren't reducible to
market relations. All of which is OK by me. The "partial point" that
minimal government does not imply pure libertarianism was actually all
I claimed.
>Well as you well know, it is quite possible to take just about any
>figure and use him to argue just about any ideology ... Hayek, that
>dear "Old Whig", his support for traditions are only so far as they
>preserve the market and don't interfere with its operation.
The smarter libertarians I know rely heavily on Hayek, so there's likely
some genuine connection. Hayek is interesting on tradition. He
recognizes that it has to precede rational decision, which seems to
imply that you can't really make the well-being of markets the criterion
for which traditions to accept. I don't claim fully to understand his
views though.
>(1) While I think you are correct about the welfare states basic
>assumptions, I don't think it is because the formal institutions [find
that relevant facts related to personal history, family connections,
etc.] are difficult to determine as it is a case of assuming that they
are irrelevant.
I added the bracketed words; it looked like something had been dropped.
It seems to me the reason formal bureaucratic systems treat such facts
as irrelevant is that it's hard to define and determine them clearly and
accurately enough to use in filling out forms, applying regulations in a
uniform way, etc.
>One of them, who I am discussing elsewhere, has thought that the
>absence of personal connection would be replaced by a rather unique
>sort of relationship between the bureaucrats (who tend to be a rather
>red bunch) and those who are dependent on assistance--that is, when the
>funds are cut.
I'm not sure what he has in mind - that the welfare state would lead to
a sort of personal patron-client relation between particular bureaucrats
and their impoverished hangers-on?
>Say we are talking about the nuclear family (one hubby, one wife, 2
>kids) in the old style traditional society. Quite sound, right?
>Surely, you wouldn't argue that there is no responsibility on behalf of
>the state to ensure that these forms of families stay together.
The state should recognize and support or at least not undermine the
institution. That doesn't make the institution part of the state any
more than the state's obligation to recognize and support or at least
not undermine public health makes men's bodies part of the state.
>-extensive bureaucratic administration of social life is a very bad
>-thing from a traditionalist conservative standpoint.
>
>A bad thing, indeed. But I don't think that this in itself is a
>problem, for caution can be a good trait. I do suspect however that
>the greater danger is a closedmindedness that accompanies this
>reluctance
I don't see the tendency of government to shrink as a major
contemporary problem.
>(I also note your use of the term "administration" instead of direction
>or involvement--reflective of a more negative perception of government
>participation in the community).
I think it's the appropriate term for the welfare state, and the one
that brings out the objectionable distinguishing feature of that form
of society. "Social justice" as now understood requires comprehensive
central control of individual outcomes and therefore administration of
social life rather than mere direction, involvement or participation.
--
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 Jan 15 06:30:29 EST 1998
Article: 11080 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 15 Jan 1998 06:24:16 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 41
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References: <68mo1g$5qa$1@mahler.rev.net> <34B31126.E398250B@net66.com> <34B32C6E.1537@gstis.net> <34B7ED21.94DE5A99@net66.com> <884645768snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <69fmo1$7vv@panix.com> <884822152snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <884822152snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>If I have an adequate rent or a pension, I don't _need_ to 'make my
>own life through my efforts and resources'.
You can indeed survive comfortably watching TV all day. The point
though has to do with the relation between what your life is like and
what you do if you do choose to do something. A needs-based source of
income reduces that relation because the source dries up to the extent
you increase your income through effort, intelligence, enterprise, etc.
and flows more freely to the extent you reduce your income through lack
of those things.
>I can wear purple and spit, or sit on the lawn like Stephen Tennant
>(see Naipaul, _The Enigma of Arrival_) and no-one will complain about
>my lack of self-respect and discipline. And I don't need to consider
>the consequences of such actions.
If you are satisfied with doing those things you can spend your life
doing them. You can also try to make more money, and the effects of
your efforts in that direction won't be negated by the ordinary
operations of a needs-based system. Your success or unsuccess are for
your own account. Or you can spend beyond your means or get involved
in insanely risky get-rich-quick schemes. In the case of a rentier the
consequence will be that you will lose your source of income and in the
case of a pensioner your pension will be garnished. Those things don't
happen to welfare clients. Again, the point is that someone supported
by a needs-based system does not bear or benefit from the consequences
of what he does to nearly the same extent as other people.
One could also place pensions and rents in context: you become a
pensioner by working for it, and retirees are usually somewhat set in
their ways. You usually become a rentier because someone in your
family worked for it, including entrepreneurship and risktaking as
work. Most family fortunes don't survive idle and imprudent children
and grandchildren, so the problem of worthless scions of great fortunes
is one that tends to solve itself.
--
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 Jan 15 18:00:13 EST 1998
Article: 11081 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 15 Jan 1998 08:40:25 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 71
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References: <68mo1g$5qa$1@mahler.rev.net> <34B31126.E398250B@net66.com> <34B32C6E.1537@gstis.net> <34B7ED21.94DE5A99@net66.com> <34BD90B6.7CD49A4C@net66.com>
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>And does the work of a slave impart self-respect and discipline?
I wouldn't have thought so, since the slave works to escape death and
torment rather than make a living. He's not really an agent, and
self-respect and discipline have to do with agency. Still, Hegel
thought the effects of working transcend original motivation and the
slave ultimately regains himself through his work. So maybe there's
more to it than meets the eye.
>And does the work of a wage slave impart self-respect and discipline,
>even when the work is underpaid, dull, dehumanizing, dangerous,
>worthless, or degrading?
I'm not sure just what a wage slave is, at least when there are a
variety of possible employers in competition with each other. Some
jobs are bad jobs it's true, and some ways of making a living do bad
things to people. Still, if someone says "men die in a vacuum" it's no
response to point out that air pollution kills as well. So I don't see
why "some jobs are bad" is a good response to "welfare is bad."
>What about the middle-class housewife without kids who doesn't work:
>Have they lost their self-respect and discipline?
Some of them let themselves go. Luckily they normally live with
someone who pays the bills, who knows what's going on, to whom they
have a close personal and emotional connection, and to whom they have
to justify themselves at least implicitly. They have to get someone
reasonably stable and prosperous to marry them and stay married to
them, which argues some good qualities. In addition, if they do decide
to do something more productive than reading movie magazines and eating
bon-bons (are those still activities, or have they gone out since the
'40s?) their support from others is not reduced.
>And why did the aristocratic philosophers of Ancient Greece, such as
>Plato in THE REPUBLIC, consider work and the accumulation of money
>through self-effort rather vulgar activities?
Because there are better things to do than working to get money. There
are worse things as well, as Plato in THE REPUBLIC also observes. The
issues seem to be whether the way of life welfare promotes is better or
worse than the way of life of wage-earners, and if better whether there
is nonetheless something unjust about taxing wage-earners and others to
support the welfare way of life.
>Why is a rigid standard of endless work always being applied to the
>poor, while a more lenient standard is applied to everyone else?
It's not. If a poor person gets by doing odd jobs I don't think it
bothers anyone. If my sister doesn't have any money and she moves in
with us I'll get annoyed if she doesn't have a plan and make an effort
but I won't be inclined to apply a rigid standard of endless work.
>And what will happen if we live in a completely automated society of
>machines, computers, and robots, where there will be no more work that
>is necessary for anyone, as described in THE JOBLESS FUTURE: SCI-TECH
>AND THE DOGMA OF WORK by Aronowitz and DiFazio? Will we all lose our
>self-respect, discipline, and become collectively degraded?
It's interesting to speculate what would happen if such a society were
possible. If we didn't need each other practically, and couldn't
benefit each other economically, the necessity of mutual cooperation
would be eliminated. The pure urge to dominate would then be able to
play a larger role in social life. Domination could not sensibly be
made concrete by forcing others to perform services (robots could do
them better) so perhaps people would turn to torment and murder as the
most decisive way of establishing their superiority to others. The end
result might be a sort of purified Naziism.
--
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 Jan 16 07:32:58 EST 1998
Article: 11089 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 16 Jan 1998 07:31:12 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 31
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
>some Liberals ... favor a guaranteed annual income ... whose benefits
>don't evaporate as a result of individual financial activities.
Milton Friedman's negative income tax was a proposal of this kind. A
few comments:
1. If the minimum were high enough to provide a materially decent way
of life and were payable to everyone (subject I suppose to partial
recapture by inclusion in taxable income) it would be enormously
expensive. I can't help but wonder about the effect on tax rates and
therefore overall economic activity and prosperity. Also on tax
compliance.
2. Unlike a pension you wouldn't have to work all your life to become
entitled to it. Unlike income from investments you wouldn't owe it to
anyone in particular and couldn't lose it through extravagance or
imprudence. Also, the number of persons would be much larger.
3. It would change the nature of government and private property.
Today our system is still fundamentally one of private ownership and
limited government; taxes are payments by owners of property or
recipients of income to pay for some specific government function.
It's hard to view payment of $10,000 a year to everyone in the country
in that way. It looks more like an exercise of the government's rights
as owner of everything and general decider of who gets what. Such a
change in principle would I think have pervasive and evil practical
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
From jk@panix.com Fri Jan 16 07:59:13 1998
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Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 07:59:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199801161259.HAA21226@panix.com>
To: jk@panix.com
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Talk or Walk? The Purposes of Conversation
-->From what I have observed, "conservation", basically means a
liberal bishop or rector taking his priests or laity into a room, and
talk, talk, talk, talking to death until they finally acquiese. It's
an amazingly effective tactic.
The problem I think is that liberal religion is simply the
continuation in religion of the perspectives that dominate society
generally today. Those perspectives also dominate contemporary
scholarship and public discussion. So the liberals have the advantage
of owning the language in which things are discussed and having neat
formulations supporting their views always at hand.
The answer of course is to get our own thoughts and lives in order. A
big job, but what else are we here for?
Status: RO
From jk@panix.com Fri Jan 16 07:59:35 1998
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Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 07:59:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199801161259.HAA21226@panix.com>
To: jk@panix.com
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Talk or Walk? The Purposes of Conversation
-->being honest about sexuality issues that
-->in earlier years we simply "didn't ask about".
Is there really so much honesty? People like conventional explanations
that make messy situations seem not so messy. Announcing that the
whole spectrum of sexual impulse and conduct is a gift of God, and
that such things are a matter of personal moral and spiritual
expression that others must respect, gets rid of a lot of
uncomfortable issues but strikes me as false to reality. Public
reticence is probably more conducive to honesty.
Status: RO
From jk@panix.com Fri Jan 16 08:23:56 1998
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Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 08:23:56 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199801161323.IAA22734@panix.com>
To: jk@panix.com
Subject: Re: Prayerbooks, politics and frustration
-->I'm almost sick of hearing conspiracy theories applied to the '79
BCP. Considering the Elizabethan compromise and the
open-to-2-interpretations "Lord's Supper" of Cranmer, where do these
conspiracy theories come from? Have not all our prayerbooks been
politics as usual, marked by a tendency of ambiguity with hopes for
pushing our own interpretation and opening ourselves to
interpretations the older Roman rite never would have imagined?
It sounds like you're saying "why complain about revisionist
conspiracy today when Anglicanism from Cramner on is one big
revisionist conspiracy?"
It's a point. I suppose one could distinguish based on how far the
revisions go. A church can accommodate some differences but not
presumably all possible differences. How many problems must there be
for friendship to come to an end? It's impossible to say in the
abstract, but we all end up answering such questions in the concrete.
I suppose continuing participation in a particular church is an issue
something like that.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jan 17 06:03:18 EST 1998
Article: 11094 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 17 Jan 1998 06:01:20 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 66
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References: <69krl0$pv5@panix.com> <884993113snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <884993113snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> In the case of a rentier the consequence will be that you will lose
>> your source of income and in the case of a pensioner your pension
>> will be garnished. Those things don't happen to welfare clients.
>What is your evidence for that?
Do you agree it's impossible for someone to lose his right to receive
welfare in a poker game, or at least impossible for the winner to
enforce what he's won by legal means? As to garnishment and the like,
I don't have cites at hand. There are assets and rights that can not
be executed against by judgement creditors. In New York for example
creditors can't execute against the tools of your trade or your dog.
There's also a homestead exception that protects your house as long as
it's not an expensive one. My understanding is that welfare payments
are in the same category. After all, why would it serve the purpose
the government has in making such payments to let creditors grab them?
Besides, government payments generally can't be assigned or attached,
at least in the United States, because the government finds that an
annoyance.
>Here, at least, welfare clients have to apply for +loans+ (repayable
>out of their doles) for large essentials such as a new cooker or new
>bed if the old one falls apart, and if they spend their money on
>insane get-rich-quick schemes (such as the Lottery) they don't qualify
>for loans.
Not the same as getting their dole paid to their creditors. At least
in general. I'm sure there are some people for whom it has exactly the
same effect.
>Many 'welfare clients' are middle-aged people who have worked for many
>years, paid national insurance, and can't get work because of ageism
>or sickness. Either the generalisations don't apply to them, or you
>have to explain why someone thrown out at 50 is mysteriously degraded
>by his income in a way that someone thrown out at 60 is not.
You can always define people for whom one institution has the same
effect as another. The existence of the automobile has the same effect
for some people as the death penalty for jaywalking. That doesn't mean
the two are similar.
>> You usually become a rentier because someone in your family worked
>> for it, including entrepreneurship and risktaking as work.
>yes, but _you_ don't have to have done the work, so the argument falls.
It maintains the principle that one's economic well-being is not a
general obligation of the world at large. Principle is important. It
defines the social world in which we live.
>Yes, but the idle children (like Tennant, who I mentioned earlier)
>usually have enough to last their lifetime. What then is the
>difference from the welfare client?
We've discussed that. They can fritter it all away or do something
productive with it. In either case the consequences of what they do
are for their account, unlike a needs-based system. You can of course
describe people for whom there is no difference between the two but I
can describe people for whom there is no difference between the laws of
physics and the death penalty for climbing trees.
--
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: Christmas with Anne Roche Muggeridge
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <002e01bd23a5$2f74c640$c1f463ce@seth-williamson> from "Seth
Williamson" at Jan 17, 98 07:04:18 pm
Status: RO
> Maybe I've run into more scientific than literary materialists. It
> seems to me that, in common parlance, materialism gets bandied about
> as a word roughly meaning "atheist." Someone who denies the existence
> of any type of spirit whatever.
>
> My own experience is limited, of course. Most of the hardcore
> materialists I've run into did not, as it seemed to me, relish the
> notion of a universe that was ultimately beyond the capacity of the
> human mind to understand.
All this is true. There are varieties of atheism, as of religion, and
the popular ones are philosophically crude. I think it was Cocteau
though who complained that the modern age was one in which stupidity
had learned to think.
--
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@panix.com Fri Jan 16 15:41:23 1998
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Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 15:41:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199801162041.PAA02317@panix.com>
To: jk@panix.com
Subject: Re: 3 card monty
-->> propositional truth, though an important part
-->> of tradition, isn't as biblical as experiential truth.
I do like skilled performances, so well done Bp. Griswold!
One point. There often seems this implicit concession that what the
revisionists say is experientially true, and that the traditionalists
are basing their case purely on the authority of the past, whether
they are right or wrong in so doing. It seems to me obvious that the
weakening of traditional sexual morality has been bad for the church
and the lives of people generally as a strictly pragmatic matter. That
ought to count as "experience," I would think. Also, since justice and
charity call us to live by the rules and understandings that make for
a healthy social order, violation of traditional sexual morality and
teaching that it doesn't much matter and can be ignored is it seems to
me an offence against social justice and the 4th and 5th baptismal
covenants.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jan 19 08:22:16 EST 1998
Article: 11110 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 19 Jan 1998 08:20:55 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <69vjvn$45f@panix.com>
References: <69krl0$pv5@panix.com> <884993113snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <69q320$o05@panix.com> <34C129E2.8A063A2C@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
One consideration relevant to discussions of poverty, welfare and
redistribution -- in the early '80s social scientists noticed that
welfare mothers were spending three to six times what was thought to be
their income. According to a recent book based on extensive interviews
and published by the liberal Russell Sage Foundation (_Making Ends
Meet_, Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein) the gap is filled by money from
other unreported sources, boyfriends, the children's fathers,
relatives, off-the-books activities legal and illegal.
To my mind this situation is part of a more general problem that dooms
the whole notion of social justice at least as now understood - the
government simply can't know enough about what's going on in individual
cases to deliver anything like economic justice to individuals even if
everyone could agree in principle what economic justice would be. The
more extensive the welfare rights and elaborate the system to deliver
them the more widespread the fiddles, dodges and abuses. The result is
cynicism and exploitation of the productive and the honest by their
opposites rather than the solidarity that some people consider the
basis and result of the welfare state.
--
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 Sun Jan 18 08:24:46 1998
Subject: Re: Pure madnes
To: per
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 08:24:46 -0500 (EST)
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Status: RO
There's just no escape, is there? Everything's Nazi except what the
left approves of. If you want to maintain Sweden as a particular
historical community you're a Nazi. That's ethnocentrism which is the
same as Nazism, and if you want proof that Sweden and its history is
Nazi, look at how the Swedes sold the Germans iron ore, what other
reason could they have had. So Sweden must be abolished, long live
immigration and multiculturalism.
--
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 Sun Jan 18 20:50:10 1998
Subject: Re: Pure madnes
To: per
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 20:50:10 -0500 (EST)
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Status: RO
> Yeas, but what can be done to meet their disinformation?
The problem is the use of the Nazis and the Holocaust as symbols to
which particularism and everything that resists left-liberalism is
tied. One possible response is to treat the Nazis as a symbol of
something else, postmodernism (think of Heidegger or Paul de Man) or a
New World Order maybe, and then picket Holocaust exhibitions and pass
out leaflets denouncing the regime's misuse of history. That would
take a lot of work, to develop an alternate interpretation that
opponents of the regime could agree on.
Another would be to publicize the various communist holocausts in
connection with a theory linking communism with current forms of
liberal and leftist statism and cosmopolitanism. That would take
serious intellectual work and broad agreement as well. Without such
things though the Right will go nowhere.
--
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 Sun Jan 18 16:42:31 1998
Subject: Re: getting ready for January 18 # 1
To: schmoore@shentel.net (Andrew Bard Schmookler & April Moore)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 16:42:31 -0500 (EST)
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Status: RO
Interesting discussion, as was the one Monday. I wish I could have
made my points more concretely.
I thought I'd jot down some things that came to mind in connection with
the two discussions and pass them on to you:
1. In connection with capital punishment on Monday you talked about
the possibility or duty of feeling compassion for McVeigh. I don't
have a set view on capital punishment but think that the duty of
compassion doesn't necessarily exclude it. If capital punishment is
just for someone like McVeigh then the requirement of compassion would
simply mean that we have a moral obligation to do something (feel love
for someone we're killing in cold blood) that most of us can't imagine
doing. But if love were a command we were actually able to carry out
in all cases, why bother making a religion of it? A religion is
something that tells us to believe things we can't really understand
and do things we can't really conceive of doing. Otherwise it would
lack continuity with the infinite and would simply be a commonsense
human production obviously inadequate in the long run to the
complexities of human life. It would soon become trivial and dated.
2. Today I said "you gotta be just before you're generous" and
proposed that in general the laws should be clear and objective so we
know what is expected of us and other people, but there should be some
flexibility in application. "The quality of mercy is not strained"
means among other things that mercy can't be legislated. If you want
to take all relevant individual circumstances into account there are
too many circumstances and determining which apply is too subtle a
process ever to reduce to rule.
There are a couple of consequences. First, people have to trust
whoever it is who's administering the law because he has to have a lot
of discretion. Multiculturalism, overemphasis on rights, and analysis
of social relations by reference to domination and oppression make that
kind of trust impossible. By promoting such things liberalism now
plays a destructive role. Second, the law and formal structures
generally can play only a limited role in ordering social life. Their
virtue is neither flexibility, subtlety nor responsiveness. So
informal structures based on personal ties - family and the like - have
to be fundamental. The result is that inequality must also be
fundamental; my set of personal ties can't be made to have an effect on
me similar to the the effect your set of personal ties has on you. The
ideal of social justice, which requires thorough subjection of social
relations to law so they become a rational system, is therefore not one
that can be usefully applied.
--
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 Jan 20 21:02:37 EST 1998
Article: 11121 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 20 Jan 1998 21:02:33 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 84
Message-ID: <6a3kvp$cm5@panix.com>
References: <34C129E2.8A063A2C@net66.com> <69vjvn$45f@panix.com>
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X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
DJ Hartley writes:
>What happens to the individuals who are dependent upon the welfare
>state? It may be true that some receive financial aid from other
>sources, legitimate or not. However, many individuals are incapable of
>production within society due to some form of incapacitation, either
>social, mental or physical, and are forced to rely upon the legitimate
>state welfare pay-outs as their only source of income for survival.
Your view seems to be that in the absence of a state welfare system many
people would die, since they would lose what you say is "their only
source of income for survival." That seems unlikely.
First, if there were no government welfare, many fewer people would
assert incapacity. At least that's the impression one gets from the
extraordinary number of policemen and firemen here in New York who
become disabled shortly before retirement age and thus qualify for
disability rather than normal retirement, and from the remarkable
growth in the SSI rolls since the system was started in the early '70s
(SSI is a U.S. federal program providing income support for disabled
people). If SSI served mostly people who simply couldn't get by
without it, it should have grown immediately to pretty much its present
size. There wouldn't have been 1.6 million recipients in 1973 and 4.5
million in 1993, with most of the growth since 1983. Nor would SSDI (a
similar program for persons with a work history) have grown from 1.3
million in 1968 to 3.7 million in 1993. (Source: _City Journal_,
Winter 1995, p. 26.) From these and other statistics, it seems clear
that what the welfare system basically does is not providing income to
those who could not get by without it, and it's misleading to discuss
it as if that were what it basically did.
Of those who really are disabled and unable to support themselves, most
have family who could support them. I would expect radical reduction
of public welfare spending to increase the strength and reliability of
family and community ties, since there would be many more situations in
which they would be of great practical importance, and social standards
change in response to practical needs.
I wouldn't expect the remainder to starve either, those who really are
disabled, who couldn't work to save their lives, and who don't have
anyone to support them and wouldn't even if the abolition of the
welfare system heightened people's sense of obligation to family,
neighbors and so on. If there were people literally starving in your
town, and it seemed clear they couldn't do anything for themselves,
wouldn't you contribute something to feed them? If so, do you think
you're so different from other people?
The question to my mind is what laws make for the best way of life in
the long run. No system is going to deliver justice in all cases. No
system is even going to keep everyone from suffering unjustifiably.
The advantage of a system not based on a legal right to support is that
those who can't help themselves mostly end up being looked after by
people with some personal tie to them, who are in a position to know
what is going on and won't keep on providing support if it makes no
sense to do so.
I should add that my real objection is to a comprehensive general
obligation of support. It's possible from my point of view that there
could be particular government welfare expenditures that do more good
than harm. Which those are might vary from time to time and place to
place. For all I know it would be a good thing if there were a royal
soup kitchen or dental clinic in every town in England. I have no
general theory on the subject.
>It is implicit from what you are saying that the production is the
>honest, yet many who are unable to contribute are also the honest.
Sure. It's impossible for the state to tell who's honest though. That
is why there are serious disadvantages to a general state obligation to
provide support. It is likely to promote injustice more than justice.
In the long run I doubt that it will even lessen acute suffering.
Moral order starts with immediate mutual obligation, and if the state
steps in and satisfies people's obligations to those closely connected
to them, a man's obligation to his children and their mother for
example, the consequence is moral chaos from which the weak suffer
most. Family breakdown for example, to which the welfare state
contributes, results in a lot more women getting beaten, girls getting
molested and children getting abused. People are better off if they
have real responsibilities, and there's no way to do that and also make
sure they don't suffer when it really isn't their fault.
--
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 Jan 20 21:05:21 EST 1998
Article: 11122 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Biblical Socialism and Avoidance of Famine
Date: 20 Jan 1998 21:05:14 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
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References: <34C4FB63.28E46CD@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
>The laws of supply and demand will fail to maintain adequate
>production of food because of these unexpected externalities,
>therefore periodic famines occur. This shortcoming of "free market"
>economics was recognized even during Biblical times
Actually, free market theory handles this situation wonderfully well.
Assuming the market knows what Pharaoh knew about the coming bad years,
well-capitalized speculators will buy up grain during the fat years in
the expectation of selling it during the lean years at a profit
sufficient to cover risk of loss and the time value of money. So grain
prices during the fat years, which would otherwise have collapsed, will
be supported and there will be a plentiful supply of stored grain to
moderate prices during the lean years.
>It's a pity that many Conservatives and Libertarians these days have
>departed from the wisdom of Biblical Socialism.
There is indeed economic and political wisdom in the Bible. Genesis
47:13 ff. for example describes how Joseph was able to use the
Pharoanic grain monopoly to reduce the Egyptians to serfdom. If you
don't like famines you shouldn't approve of serfdom, by the way.
--
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 Jan 20 21:06:50 EST 1998
Article: 11123 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 20 Jan 1998 21:06:46 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <6a3l7m$d9o@panix.com>
References: <34C129E2.8A063A2C@net66.com> <69vjvn$45f@panix.com> <34C5004C.2B6F26B4@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
>The transformation of the monetary system from paper money and checks
>into plastic cards that post electronic credits and debits provides
>government with the greatly increased capacity to monitor the income
>that individuals are actually receiving and spending.
Sure, for transactions involving plastic cards. That's why people who
want to do business tax-free take payment in cash.
>Middle-class and upper-class people lie about their income, gifts, and
>capital assets frequently in order to avoid paying taxes, and to
>qualify for their welfare benefits from government.
Sure. If it is disadvantageous for people to let government know how
much money they have they will hide money. Usually the task is harder
and the risk bigger if there is more money involved, but some will try
and most who try will succeed. Taxes and government subsidies tend to
be corrupting. I'm not sure why that proves big government is a good
idea.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jan 21 07:42:11 EST 1998
Article: 11127 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Biblical Socialism and Avoidance of Famine
Date: 21 Jan 1998 06:44:44 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <6a4n3c$gha@panix.com>
References: <34C4FB63.28E46CD@net66.com> <6a3l4q$cs9@panix.com> <34C58D56.4D2B62A0@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
>> Actually, free market theory handles this situation wonderfully well.
>Only if the episodic occurrences of famine-producing conditions
>are known months and even years in advance -- an unlikely event,
But that was the event proposed as an example. Pharaoh would have done
nothing without divine foreknowledge.
>Of course, now we have the liberal innovation of democratic government
>to reduce the likelihood of slavery and serfdom, don't we?
Representative government is hardly a liberal innovation, and
liberalism and popular rule aren't particularly well matched.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances." -- Emerson
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jan 21 07:42:12 EST 1998
Article: 11128 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 21 Jan 1998 06:54:52 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <6a4nmc$h27@panix.com>
References: <34C129E2.8A063A2C@net66.com> <69vjvn$45f@panix.com> <34C5004C.2B6F26B4@net66.com> <6a3l7m$d9o@panix.com> <34C59619.7B597656@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
>> people who want to do business tax-free take payment in cash.
>Again, this will end when the government makes cash and other
>papercurrency obsolete
So people won't be able to engage in transactions with each other
without the aid of an electronic bookkeeping system supervised by the
government? Seems unlikely.
>Therefore, you can't hold the poor to a higher standard than the
>middle class and the rich.
Agreed. In both cases arrangements that result in widespread contempt
for the law are a bad thing.
--
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 Jan 22 09:36:31 EST 1998
Article: 11133 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 22 Jan 1998 08:33:42 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 141
Message-ID: <6a7hrm$ljc@panix.com>
References: <34C129E2.8A063A2C@net66.com> <69vjvn$45f@panix.com> <6a3kvp$cm5@panix.com> <885416494snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rafael cardenas writes:
>> First, if there were no government welfare, many fewer people would
>> assert incapacity.
>
>In the UK measures to reduce _unemployment_ benefit resulted in an
>increase in disability benefit: people who couldn't get work (perhaps
>partly because they were unfit, or perhaps becoming unfit as a result
>of unemployment) and were disqualified from the dole by the new
>restrictions alleged disability instead.
You have described how a shift in the qualifications for payments
causes a shift in the way people describe themselves and the government
classifies them. My point exactly.
>It's necessary to stress that in English society poor relief has
>_never_ depended primarily on the family within the historic record.
Depends on how you look at it. If the benefit for people with no
assets, no income, and no earning capacity is 5 shillings a week or a
spot in the workhouse, then "poor relief" that gives something more
than that to people who can't support themselves is a family matter.
It may be true that official poor relief did not rely on the family but
that doesn't mean the family was not more important than at present in
dealing with difficult situations. For example, a young women with a
young child and without job or skills is likely to be poor unless she
gets help from somewhere. Historically in England most young women have
handled the problem by not having children and not doing things likely
to result in children until they had a husband. Practical
considerations affected what people expected to be able to do, what they
thought proper, and what they did. That's why in 1960 the illegitimacy
rate in England was around 5 percent, not far from where it had been for
hundreds of years. People avoided getting in tight spots when they
didn't have a family to rely on.
In 1955 an unmarried unemployed mother with a single child under 5 and
no source of income other than the government had to get along on less
than 22 pounds a week (all figures in 1987 purchasing power).
Thereafter the benefit grew, reaching 52 pounds in 1980. Meanwhile, in
1977, the Homeless Persons Act was passed, which provided that pregnant
women and single mothers were to get some sort of housing immediately
and go to the top of the queue for council housing if they couldn't live
with their parents and were otherwise homeless. Coincidentally,
illegitimacy rates shot up, from 10.6% in 1979, to 14.1% in 1982, 18.9%
in 1985, 25.6% in 1988 and 31.2% in 1992. Interestingly, many such
women discovered they couldn't live with mom and dad. Illegitimacy
rates also went up among people who don't get welfare, it's true, but
the increase was concentrated in the lowest economic classes. (Stats
etc. are from articles in the Spring 1990 and Winter 1995 issues of _The
Public Interest_.)
I suppose you could describe the foregoing as the story of a society in
which poor relief never relied on the family, but that description
misses something important about the changes that have taken place. I
would describe it as a society in which expanded government
responsibility for the material well-being of individuals was an
integral part of a decline in responsibility and mutual obligation among
the people. The government has been replacing the family, and it's not
a replacement that works well, especially in the long run.
Of course, it should be said that the replacement of family functions
by the state goes far beyond poor relief and what's called the welfare
system. Social Security and public education are obvious examples.
>Now that birth-rates have been low (by historic standards) for two-and-
>a-half generations and many people thus have few close relatives,
Birth rates tend to drop well below replacement in countries that have
social security, it's true. People think they're going to be supported
by other people's children. That adds another piece to the question
whether a welfare state can last long term or whether if the government
becomes responsible for individual welfare people eventually become too
self-seeking and irresponsible.
>the result of total withdrawal of welfare benefits would be a sharp
>rise in the death rate. A large proportion of the destitute on UK
>streets are people without relatives, or without relatives they can
>trust, who have fallen through the welfare net for one reason or
>another; their average life expectation is now below that of Nepalese
>peasants.
Low life expectancies have more to do with people abusing themselves
than lack of money as such. I therefore wouldn't expect the sharp rise
in death rate. Actually, I would expect abolition of welfare on the
whole and long term to mean fewer deaths because there would be less of
a subsidy to antisocial and self-destructive conduct. It would be
harder to make it a career choice. The drunks and low-lifes in my
neighborhood mostly get by on SSI and if you look at their lives as a
whole I don't think it's a benefit to them. "Total withdrawal" may be
too strong, by the way. Maybe some sort of government relief could be
continued that's less ambitious and doesn't at all profess to provide a
decent solution for all difficult situations. The problem with the
latter is that government as a general thing can't tell whether people
are in difficult situations or not.
Homelessness here seems more a matter of deterioration of small-scale
social cohesiveness than lack of living relatives. Some homeless of
course are deinstitutionalized insane people. Others are people who
were living with other people and got kicked out for one reason or
another -- a spat, something happened to the woman (usually) who was
holding the household together, shelter for the homeless is available so
it seems less important to stick together, whatever. A lot of them are
shards of fragmented families -- there used to be jokes about men who
had to put up with freeloading brothers-in-law as long-term guests.
Today those brothers-in-law are staying with their unmarried sisters
instead, and there are a lot more of them in situations that are a lot
more fragile. The crack epidemic caused a lot of homelessness for
example because many women became users and that caused problems for
their dependents.
It seems unlikely to me that the problem of homelessness will be solved
by measures that cause further deterioration of small-scale social
cohesiveness. General government responsibility for individual well-
being has that effect though.
>And there is a vicious circle; the presence of genuine beggars
>encourages gangs of fraudulent ones, and the presence of fraudulent
>ones discourages giving to the genuine ones, whose health and life is
>thus further reduced.
Charity doesn't have to be wholly individual or wholly ignorant. Give
to Salvation Army. They put themselves on the line personally, and they
don't have to answer to courts, legislatures and pressure groups, so
what they do is likely to make sense from the standpoint of someone on
the spot who has something personal invested in the process and is in a
better position than most to know what's going on. Certainly more so
than in the case of something the government does. Or give to the guy
down the block, who you know something about. Or your cousin.
>Of course those who advocate cuts _in fact_ assume that the charity of
>the more generous will enable the pro-cutters to become free riders,
>not that the paupers will all miraculously acquire employment.
Here you express unquestioning belief in the bad faith of those who
disagree with you. Rather a conversation stopper, so let's drop the
conversation.
--
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 Jan 22 09:36:32 EST 1998
Article: 11135 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Another thought on the redistributive state
Date: 22 Jan 1998 09:35:15 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <6a7lf3$qfp@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Here's something I posted elsewhere that seemed relevant to current
discussions:
>How did the right-wing in this country ever hi-jack the issues [of
>European particularism], when in my own progressive heart, I know that
>the beauty of the European Reniassance, the European Enlightenment,
>and classical liberal virtues as we know them to be, like charity,
>courtesy, respect for one-another, derive from a cultivated
>environment?
Does the modern European welfare state promote such virtues? I wouldn't
have thought so, from their decline there in recent decades.
European civilization has been distinguished by reasonably free and
widespread participation in a public sphere of discussion and action.
In most times and places no such thing has existed. Its absence means
despotism or anarchy, and intellectual retrogression.
Such a public sphere can't exist without mutual respect and trust.
Those conditions aren't likely to be present when public life becomes
an arena for determining who takes how much from whom, or who sticks
whom with how much misery. That is what the substance of politics
becomes under a redistributive government. It follows that the modern
welfare state makes the qualities you praise in European civilization
impossible.
--
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
--
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 Jan 22 15:11:55 EST 1998
Article: 11137 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Biblical Socialism and Avoidance of Famine
Date: 22 Jan 1998 15:11:15 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <6a8953$36n@panix.com>
References: <34C4FB63.28E46CD@net66.com> <6a3l4q$cs9@panix.com> <34c640db.10922089@news.srv.ualberta.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
*tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
>Without government intervention or some sort of stopgap for the
>farmers, what you end up getting is a variant of the pork spiral (or
>food web, depending on which school of economics you subscribe to).
>The stock of wheat which you refer to will perhaps occur, and some
>profiteers will make a small bundle, but with the inevitable result of
>the farmers deriving very little profit from their produce.
Not sure what you have in mind. The well-capitalized speculators who
hire Joseph as a forecaster (if Pharaoh can do that they can too) buy
up wheat during the fat years. That makes them very fat years for the
farmers, who sell unusually large crops at unusually high prices. Then
during the lean years the farmers live on the exceptionally rich
proceeds from the fat years. Whether crops follow a fat/lean or a
steady pattern, a farmer sells 14 tons of wheat at about the same price
per ton. In the first case he sells them all or mostly in the first 7
years, in the second case spread out evenly over the 14 years. (At
least things work out that way if Joseph is the forecaster.) Why does
it matter?
>And the reduction to serfdom didn't occur through Joseph--it occurred
>long before then. (Imotahatep had instituted slavery on a large scale,
>long before Joseph appeared.
I was following the Genesis account. You're telling me it's not
literally true, but is a story told to drive home (apparently) the
lesson that government economic control is the road to serfdom. I can
live with your Higher Critical view of the matter. Cf. 1 Samuel 8,
where the Lord warns that if the people defy him and abolish their
divinely inspired libertarian society, in which every man did that
which was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25), horrors would follow,
even a 10% income tax.
--
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 Jan 23 23:13:07 EST 1998
Article: 11144 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Income Redistribution and Other Matters
Date: 23 Jan 1998 23:10:07 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <6abpiv$851@panix.com>
References: <34C129E2.8A063A2C@net66.com> <69vjvn$45f@panix.com> <34C5004C.2B6F26B4@net66.com> <6a3l7m$d9o@panix.com> <34C9571A.24E4B912@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <34C9571A.24E4B912@net66.com> John Hilty writes:
>In that case, private enterprise must not be a good thing either. You
>have asserted that "taxes and subsidies" from government promote
>deceitfulness and corruption in people, while ignoring, in typical
>libertarian fashion, these same characteristics in people who are
>intent on chasing after a fast buck in the context of 'free market'
>capitalism.
Corruption creeps in all over it's true. The advantage of commercial
transactions though from this perspective is that they require two
willing parties who can usually choose who they deal with, so it's more
likely each will get what he's looking for. If the government thinks
it's getting stiffed on taxes it can't go out and find different
taxpayers to provide services for. Also, if the nature of the
transaction encourages cheating ("if all you people tell me how much
money you have I'll take varying percentages of it and provide services
to everybody and give some of the money to those of you who I think
need more or deserve encouragement") private parties usually won't
offer it; government is more likely to do so because its goals are more
comprehensive. Also, private parties are usually more careful of their
financial interests than the government is, so they tend to police each
other better.
--
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 Jan 26 08:14:32 EST 1998
Article: 11164 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Neither fish nor fowl
Date: 26 Jan 1998 08:11:10 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 121
Message-ID: <6ai21e$r92@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
For years there have been calls for a "third way" or some such thing.
Socialism has seemed too despotic, capitalism too indifferent to the
common good and to the well-being of individuals. But what would such
a thing be?
Some have thought of the modern welfare state, a sort of mixture of
capitalism and socialism, as a "third way." However, the welfare state
has come to seem less workable with the passage of time. It appears
impossible satisfactorily to implement its basic principle, that the
state should guarantee to each person a materially decent standard of
living (and, as a politically necessary corollary, provide extensive
additional benefits for those already not poor). Attempts to make good
on such commitments have caused costs to rise with no apparent limit.
Efforts at control have done little more than reduce rates of increase
while leading to arbitrariness, suffering and ill-feeling.
Unemployment and deficit spending have become stuck at levels that seem
unsustainable and impossible to reduce without radical change. In
addition, state responsibility for individual well-being has reduced
individual, family and local responsibility, and so injured the
character of the people. The development of the modern welfare state
has been followed by radical and unprecedented increases in such things
as crime and illegitimacy. Can that be coincidental?
Nonetheless, failure to maintain the basic principle of the welfare
state strikes at the moral legitimacy of contemporary political society,
which is based on a commitment to the economic security and well-being
of each of its members. The current theory is that a man supports the
laws because the laws support him as an individual; if the laws don't do
that no reason can be given why he should respect them. Further, the
welfare state serves as a sort of religion; men today feel at home in a
comprehensible world through their personal relation to a man-made
Providence. The bitterness of the response to criticisms of the welfare
state and its presuppositions displays the depth of the problem.
So what happens now? Some possibilities:
1. The welfare state is actually a workable idea, it's just the big
bankers or whoever who say it isn't. This response seems clearly wrong.
An arrangement whereby the government leaves people free in general to
do what they want but takes 40 - 60 % of what they produce for
distribution as seems appropriate lends itself to manipulation, abuse,
clumsy and draconian countermeasures, and consequent cynicism, not to
mention endless unprincipled political struggle over who gets what from
whom. In addition, it seems absurd to base political and social
cohesion on individual material self-interest.
National socialists attempt to respond to these concerns by establishing
a dictatorship that eliminates corruption and endless political
maneuvering, and by emphasizing non-economic motives for solidarity such
as blood, soil, and history. The results of experiments in that
direction have not been enouraging. Dictatorships soon grow corrupt
themselves, and if the state administration does the work of organizing
society ties of blood have little function except to distinguish the
society from other societies. Their binding force therefore seems to
depend on constant conflict or threat of conflict with outsiders.
2. Libertarianism. Each pursues his own interests within a general
framework of private property and free contract, with possibly a
fragmentary system of social programs to deal with particular situtions
but no general commitment to secure economic security and well-being
for all. In itself, such a system would share the defect of the
welfare state, that it attempts to base social order on individual
material interest. Also, no general agreement as to abolition of
social protections and services seems likely, even if it could be shown
that it would be a good idea, and it is unclear what principled
limitations could be imposed on such things if they were admitted to
some extent. If governed by a combination of bureaucratic
functionaries and elected politicians the interests of the rulers would
likely cause a generally libertarian state to evolve into a full-blown
welfare state limited only by taxing and borrowing capacity (as has
indeed happened). Limitations imposed on the welfare state through
international trade are likely to lead only to transnational systems of
regulation and redistribution, which have already begun to take shape.
An argument in favor of libertarianism is that it tends less than
welfare-state liberalism to make the social system identical to the
legal system. Contract and private property are obviously not enough
to meet the practical contingencies of normal life, so there are
stronger motives for maintaining important social institutions
independent of the state. At least in theory a strictly libertarian
state could coexist with authorities based on kinship, religion and
ethnicity that carry on most of the work of social organization.
However, because of the pervasiveness of modern markets and
communications it seems such authorities would have to be based on
radically inward turning ethno-religious communities; strictly orthodox
Jews would be an example. Some such form of social organization may be
the ultimate outcome of current trends, but if so it will take a long
time to evolve. Also, if it came into being it is not clear why the
state would remain principled and libertarian rather than say a
dynastic kleptocracy.
3. 1. and 2. are simply socialism and capitalism, the rule of
bureaucracy and the rule of markets. The basic objection to both is
that they base the social order on too narrow a range of considerations.
Hayek has explained persuasively why bureaucracies are invariably too
ignorant and clumsy to order society comprehensively. Nor can markets
-- money -- serve as the basis of a social order; Hayek himself
recognizes they depend on something more fundamental.
It's unclear where a third possibility would come from, though. What's
needed is an economic and social order that somehow takes into account
the whole range of human experience and aspiration. In the past such
complex considerations have been put into to useable form through the
development of particularist tradition. The development of
communications, markets and organizational techniques have been
disastrous for particularist tradition. Suggestions for reducing the
autonomy of the economic, other than subjecting it to an equally
autonomous state bureaucracy, have included reducing the size and
complexity of economic units through protective tariffs, restrictions
on foreign investment, antitrust laws, and (an old recommendation)
abolition of taking interest for money. Other suggestions include
removing aspects of life considered particularly morally laden from the
free market, for example through laws against prostitution,
pornography, certain intoxicating drugs, and so on. A difficulty with
all these suggestions is that they correspond to things that have been
tried and abandoned. "Let's turn back the clock" may indeed be the best
available proposal, but it has disadvantages.
--
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 Jan 27 19:47:18 EST 1998
Article: 11173 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 Wide Web of Dove-Winged Christianity
Date: 27 Jan 1998 19:45:16 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 73
Message-ID: <6alv2s$2dk@panix.com>
References: <34C4900E.3AB4@msmisp.com> <34CD06B6.2956CAEF@net66.com> <34CD09D5.CDE6F3E0@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
dmdeane@netcom.com (David M. Deane) writes:
>There are several answers to your question which do not entail the
>"administrative" state to which you allude...one might start with the
>Distributism of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton; I believe someone
>has taken a brief summation of this I wrote on the subject and posted
>it on the web somewhere....perhaps this person is lurking...?
Deane, you swine, after all I've done for you, I've suddenly become a
"person" who "perhaps" may be "lurking."
If anyone's interested, I've got the thing posted at:
http://freenet.buffalo.edu/~cd431/distributism.html
An issue with the Chesterbelloc view, as I understand it, is that it
relies on a transformation of what is valued socially, which in turn
depends on a change in how people understand God, man and the world.
Basically it depends on everyone or at least a predominant group
adopting a C-B Catholic understanding of things. To propose it
therefore takes one out of policy, politics, and anything foreseeable.
Fundamental political reform becomes a side effect of something else
whose goodness or badness doesn't depend on anything political. In
America there is the additional problem of our non- or anti-Catholic
traditions.
Some such thing might be the only way to get us out of the hole we're
in, but it seems to me worth beating the bushes to see if there are
more limited and therefore easier and more predictable patches.
>The attempt to "prove" that the other side intends to starve people has
>got to be one of the stupidest debating points I have seen on a.r.c
>since I don't remember when...
It seems worth while to examine the extent to which one set of
principles or another is likely to lead to catastrophe. I agree though
that there isn't much point to a discussion unless the participants on
the whole observe the convention that all parties are to be treated as
sane and well-meaning. In any discussion people either say something
worthwhile or display publicly what they are. Either way I suppose
justice is served.
>this essential difference is the introduction of the socialist maxin
>"from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs"
>which translated means that the productive elements of society must be
>enslaved to the nonproductive...thus the old poor relief insisted on
>making the distinction between deserving and non-deserving poor whilst
>the modern welfarist must ridicule this notion and constantly expand
>the welfare state to meet the "needs" of the "poor" regardless of the
>long term consequences.
I think that maxim has the same effect as my formulation, that each be
guaranteed a materially decent way of life, but the latter is more the
way people talk about things in non-Marxist societies.
One problem is that if those treated as unable to work automatically
get a materially decent way of life then those who work are going to
demand a reward for their efforts, a guaranteed more-than-decent way of
life, which will in turn affect what is treated as "decent" for
non-workers. The result is that costs spiral up without limit.
Another problem is that it is difficult for a government bureaucracy to
determine who is deserving and who is not, so if state welfare spending
is understood as a fundamental moral requirement the distinction
between the deserving and undeserving poor is hard to maintain. That's
one reason for simplifying things and clarifying issues by talking
about libertarianism. If someone thinks the minimal state is a moral
outrage he's probably going to be almost equally upset by anything
short of a fullblown (and unsustainable) welfare state.
--
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 Jan 28 14:14:51 EST 1998
Article: 11175 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Libertarianism
Date: 28 Jan 1998 06:12:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <6an3qo$k43@panix.com>
References: <1d3ieh5.fx6oo1qwji7eN@deepblue17.salamander.com> <19980128024700.VAA04694@ladder03.news.aol.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <19980128024700.VAA04694@ladder03.news.aol.com> ddavis8570@aol.com (DDavis8570) writes:
>note: has anyone noticed as charles colson once observed how similar
>libertarianism/economic conservatism has become to marxism?
It's true that ideological libertarians often appeal to historical
materialism -- at a particular stage of the development of the
productive forces a particular form of economic and social organization
becomes much more efficient than any other and therefore gets adopted,
along with whatever ideology is most fitted to support it, and
therefore the microchip or internet or whatever means libertarianism
will inevitably triumph.
I do think it's worth noting though that one could be opposed to the
all-pervasive administrative state for different reasons.
--
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 Jan 29 07:32:52 EST 1998
Article: 11178 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Libertarianism
Date: 28 Jan 1998 19:10:13 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 12
Message-ID: <6aohd5$7r3@panix.com>
References: <19980128024700.VAA04694@ladder03.news.aol.com> <6an3qo$k43@panix.com> <34cf6603.1848243@news.srv.ualberta.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
*tasquith@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Tom Asquith) writes:
>I think you are right on the button about the libertarian's use of
>historical materialism (but I doubt that anyone will find a marxist
>agreeing with their rather twisted interpretations).
What's specifically twisted about libertarian historical materialism as
opposed to any other historical materialism?
--
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 Jan 30 07:14:02 EST 1998
Article: 11185 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 Wide Web of Distributism
Date: 30 Jan 1998 02:18:48 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 51
Message-ID: <6aruso$69j@panix.com>
References: <34C4900E.3AB4@msmisp.com> <34CD06B6.2956CAEF@net66.com> <34CD09D5.CDE6F3E0@net66.com> <6alv2s$2dk@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
dmdeane@netcom.com (David M. Deane) writes:
>Last I heard, Mr. Monaghan was the one who wanted to post my summary of
>Distributism, until the totalitarian liberals at his university yanked
>his internet access.
Yep. It seemed to fill a gap, though, so I gave it a new home.
>Anyway I see no reason to link a particular economic theory with any
>religion in general, although of course there are links between these
>and particular forms of particular religions.
You need some sort of socially authoritative view of things that tells
you what a good life is, other than getting whatever it is you happen
to want. If the latter is thought to be the good life then the common
good will be some combination of equality and maximizing gross domestic
product and you don't get distributism or indeed anything except the
type of thing we have now. If the good life is serving the State or
the People then I suppose you get a military organization of society.
Chesterbelloc would argue I think that Catholicism has a more
full-bodied and concrete understanding of the good life than anything
else available in the West.
>Also problematic is the extent and role of state participation in this
>project, a vexing issue which they seem not to have dealt with.
Another reason CB thought a religious base was necessary. If there's a
predominant general understanding of what's good then the state doesn't
have to plan and administer every detail. It can just facilitate some
general sorts of things and suppress others and what men do based on
what looks good to them will bring about a different sort of society
>from what we have now.
>Well, I just keep waiting for someone to inquire as to the cessation of
>someone else's wife-beating habit; or the inevitable comparison to
>communism, nazism, etc.
It *is* surprising no one's brought up the Nazis yet. Still, maybe
accusations of genocide make that unnecessary.
>This is has something to do with the centralization of charity, as
>well. Centralization demands abstract rules and procedures which have
>little to do with the actual situation.
Ditto "social justice," which also requires centralization, abstract
rules and procedures, and negation _pro tanto_ of all agency except
that of the central authority.
--
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 Jan 30 08:22:12 EST 1998
Article: 11190 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Limited Government
Date: 30 Jan 1998 08:16:13 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <6asjqt$n45@panix.com>
References: <34CE68D7.833@msmisp.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
cjahnes@msmisp.com (Carl Jahnes) writes:
>I think the federalism of our Constitution could really work, if the
>States would act on the power they have. All they have to do is to
>press with determination, the envelope, and to refuse to let the
>Federal Government tread on State interests where it has no specific
>Constitutional Jurisdiction.
Everything works if everyone acts to make it work. However, the Feds
have the taxing and spending power, which as construed means they can
get the states to do anything they want by placing conditions on
grants. And if they don't want to bother using bribes they can mandate
almost anything, call it regulation of interstate commerce, and be
upheld by the courts.
So it's not just up to the states. And the states are going to have
trouble getting the support of the people in resisting central power as
long as the people either don't care about public affairs or rely on
the national media for their understanding of the issues.
How does one go about getting people to care about all this? Once they
do care, how does one keep the centralized information, discussion and
knowledge industries from defusing popular concern in the interests of
the regime with which they are aligned?
--
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 Jan 30 08:22:13 EST 1998
Article: 11191 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Older Poor Laws versus Modern Welfare Laws
Date: 30 Jan 1998 08:20:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <6ask2r$nd4@panix.com>
References: <34CFA76D.5C0DD876@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
X-Newsposter: trn 4.0-test55 (26 Feb 97)
dmdeane@netcom.com (David M. Deane) writes:
>In reality the system is intended to benefit the administrators, not
>the recipients (let alone the society as a whole).
Not consciously so, I think. If you think of the world technologically
a national welfare bureaucracy makes sense. In concept, you isolate
individuals who are short of money from everone else, you isolate their
need for cash from everything else about them, and you set up a system
to collect cash and deliver it to needs. It can seem efficient and
just, and opposition to it can seem incomprehensible. If your mind is
sordid as well as narrow and you're self-satisfied to boot it's of
course natural to take the next step and denounce opponents as evil.
--
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 Thu Jan 29 05:58:33 1998
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Event-scene 52-Void Report 1]
To: cj
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 05:58:33 -0500 (EST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 1708
Status: RO
> I was reading somewhere, maybe it was in that Netfuture thing I
> posted, that life shall be reduced to direct "inputs" via technology
> into our brains. If you read Kroker, et.al., they are very very very
> graphic, and they put the perspective on our Thoroughly PoMo
> President.
He's PoMo indeed. Meaning he's incoherent, a mass of impulses,
perceptions, rages, revulsions, lusts forming temporary configurations
simulating one human character or another depending on current
circumstances and goals. Often charming and politic even magnetic
therefore, he rearranges himself to fit or rather dominate any
interpersonal situation. A mess, in short, the transition form between
Plato's Democratic Man and Tyrannical Man.
Whose idea was it to have a country in which there's no distinction
between Geraldo and national politics?
> The future apparently has no use for the body, no use for the human
> being.
Everything's fragmented. He doesn't even like regular old-fashioned
sex, it's not self-contained enough. The body is material for
technological manipulation, just like everything else.
> Do you think Governors will dust off their constitutions, read the tenth
> amendment, and refuse to knuckle under to "government by decree" from a
> General Government which has no constitutional jurisdiction to act that
> way?
Not likely. Clinton used to be a governor. Geo. Pataki is a governor.
Electronics means corruption penetrates everywhere. Technoprosperity
means it can go very far and become the possession of 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 jk@panix.com Fri Jan 30 08:32:33 1998
Received: (from jk@localhost)
by panix.com (8.8.5/8.8.8/PanixU1.4) id IAA24759;
Fri, 30 Jan 1998 08:32:33 -0500 (EST)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 08:32:33 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199801301332.IAA24759@panix.com>
To: jk@panix.com
Subject: Re: Mantras from the ivory towers
In Reply to: Mantras from the ivory towers posted by on January 28,
1998 at 23:39:06:
>These folks have one thing in common. The common mantra of
>"tolerance." Tolerance of what? Whatever suits them and is
>fashionable.
It's more logical than that, it's simply a statement of secular
liberalism. Man creates values through his desires and purposes. Since
all desires and purposes are equally desires and purposes, all values
must be accorded equal respect. The limitation is that there has to be
an overall system reconciling conflicting personal values without
asserting the superiority of any. Whatever is consistent with that
system (e.g., any form of consensual sex) gets the benefit of
tolerance, whatever is not (e.g., any action based on a belief in
objective moral standards) does not, and is classified and cried down
as bigotry, greed, oppressiveness, whatever.
>I fear these sentiments are the ones teaching in the seminaries,
>making real reform among the clergy nearly impossible.
I think that's right. All Americans want to be accepted and liked. The
seminaries want to be academically respectable. Since the academy is
operated and paid to be an intellectual bureaucracy for the liberal
state, the only doctrines that are academically respectable are those
consistent with secular liberalism.
>The revisionist will generally be a more cohesive unit than the
>traditionalists, because despite their individual agendas, they
>share this common mantra as smarmy and ethereal as it is
They share it because it's not that ethereal. It has enormous
institutional and historical backing. It's what kids learn in school
and what all respectable social authorities present as right and
proper. They can stay consistent just by going with the flow.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Jan 30 18:59:22 EST 1998
Article: 11194 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Older Poor Laws versus Modern Welfare Laws
Date: 30 Jan 1998 13:02:40 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 12
Message-ID: <6at4k0$naf@panix.com>
References: <34C4900E.3AB4@msmisp.com> <34CD06B6.2956CAEF@net66.com> <34CD09D5.CDE6F3E0@net66.com> <34CFA76D.5C0DD876@net66.com> <34D15878.A698BAC0@net66.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <34D15878.A698BAC0@net66.com> John Hilty writes:
>sometimes they complain that people on welfare "live high on the hog"
>at the expense of "honest hardworking taxpayers" (to quote Jim Kalb)
Bill McClain drew my attention to Hilty's crossposting so I read his
latest and noticed the foregoing. The alleged quotes are of course not
quotes.
--
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 Jan 30 18:59:23 EST 1998
Article: 11199 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: The Spider Web of Right-Wing 'Christianity'
Date: 30 Jan 1998 18:50:36 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <6atp0c$59c@panix.com>
References: <34C4900E.3AB4@msmisp.com> <34CD06B6.2956CAEF@net66.com> <34CD09D5.CDE6F3E0@net66.com> <34d14ef3.8912573@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <886194540snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <886194540snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>> Bevan, a most excellent Minister of Health, introduced a
>> comprehensive health care package in the 1960s.
>Bevan was ... if I remember rightly, dead by 1960; certainly dead well
>before his party returned to power in 1964.
Mr. Asquith's point I suppose is that his subsequent activities show
how truly excellent he was as Minister of Health.
--
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 Jan 30 18:59:23 EST 1998
Article: 11200 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Libertarianism
Date: 30 Jan 1998 18:58:16 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <6atpeo$5r5@panix.com>
References: <19980128024700.VAA04694@ladder03.news.aol.com> <6an3qo$k43@panix.com> <34cf6603.1848243@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6aohd5$7r3@panix.com> <886194169snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <886194169snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>> What's specifically twisted about libertarian historical materialism
>> as opposed to any other historical materialism?
>I had the impression that libertarians were not particularly
>historically minded but, like 18th century Encycolopedists, appealed
>to an abstract, generalizing idea of human nature.
That tends to be true. There's a strain of thought though that holds
that government might have been sort of possible and to some extent
understandable in the old days but technological advances mean it will
necessarily vanish. Reasons include the increasingly intangible nature
of wealth and increasing returns to productive activity and trade as
opposed to theft when both are carried on with similar skill and
intelligence. That's at least a minimal theory of historical
development.
(I should add for the sake of keeping the point at least somewhat in
play that there are people who like small inactive government who are
not economically-oriented ideological libertarians. Taoists for
example.)
--
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.