From jk Sat Mar 27 04:56:22 1999
Subject: Re: Serbian bombing again
To: d
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 04:56:22 -0500 (EST)
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> This comes as a great disappointment. In light of your usual support
> of particularism and the right to self-determination, I find your
> position against independence for the Kosovo Albanians to be highly
> paradoxical. Surely you must know what kind of a savage Slobodan
> Milosevic is. Every now and then, Clinton gets something right, and
> this is one of those times.
I don't like Milosevic and am not opposed to independence for the
Albanians. Actually on the latter I don't have much of a position
because I know too little. My opposition is to the NATO action. I
wouldn't support intervention to maintain the territorial integrity of
Serbia either.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis. (St. Augustine)
From jk Sun Mar 28 13:31:51 1999
Subject: Re: Clinton
To: r
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 13:31:51 -0500 (EST)
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If a country is having a civil war because the southern part wants to
secede, and a couple thousand people die, and the union forces commit
outrages like setting people's houses on fire, *of course* the
international community should declare war on the union. I don't see
how anyone could have a problem with that.
Jim
From jk Mon Mar 29 08:45:27 1999
Subject: Re: On "The Greaseman"
To: D
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 08:45:27 -0500 (EST)
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This sort of thing is depressing. If you decide you did something you
shouldn't have an apology is right, and if it's not accepted it's too
bad but at some point it becomes more the problem of the person you
offended than your problem. A campaign of self-abasement is the last
thing to restore good relations based on mutual respect.
I don't object to radio announcers getting fired now and then for
something they say -- it helps maintain the balance of the situation.
Something horrible happens, and it's used as a club and cover for a lot
of questionable things. At what point is it OK for the court jester to
say something outrageous? To me the Jasper killing was too recent and
horrible to joke about, certainly in public. The response to the
comment ought to show more thought than the comment itself though.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis. (St. Augustine)
From jk Wed Mar 31 05:47:57 1999
Subject: Re: Heritage Foundation
To: e
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 05:47:57 -0500 (EST)
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> Heritage Foundation-type conservatives are just as hopeless as
> Clinton liberals in believing in "salvation by society" [Peter
> Drucker's phrase].
Still, it's hard to get things turned around overnight. If national
policy is big intrusive things that are destructive and don't make
sense, then proposals for things that still don't make sense but are
smaller and less intrusive point in the right direction.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis. (St. Augustine)
From jk Thu Apr 1 09:46:33 1999
Subject: Re: On color and culture
To: R
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 09:46:33 -0500 (EST)
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> Well, I hope I don't discover that I'm a radical individualist.
So far as I can tell, all Americans are basically ri's. When they
recognize the problem those with the courage to change become ri's in
recovery, reach out, join adult survivor groups, 12-step programs, etc.
It's a whole way of life -- you should try it!
> Had the development of constitutional law already done away with Jim
> Crow? Even if this is the case, isn't that development suspect on the
> grounds of original intent? Even if it is not suspect on these
> grounds, isn't it vulnerable to the same arguments you bring against
> the CRL?
In 1964 Jim Crow was legally dead. I agree original intent makes that
result suspect, but that wasn't the topic of discussion. It seems to
me there is an important difference between doing away with legal
imposition of racial classifications (aka Jim Crow) and demanding that
things become equal in all settings for black and white ("civil rights"
laws). "Freedom of association" is one way of drawing the distinction.
> I concur with the arguments for freedom of association. But, I'm not
> sure what to do within a community that curtails such a freedom on
> its own, as Jim Crow did for the South.
It seems to me those within the community can argue and fight for f. of
a. or maybe leave it if they find the local situation too offensive.
In fact Jim Crow was doomed anyway. One odd feature of all this is
that equal opportunity laws don't get passed and enforced unless
there's a strong and widespread feeling that racial discrimination is a
bad thing, and racial discrimination can't have much effect in a free
society unless it is all but universal. I see no reason to think such
feelings would have stayed out of the South.
> The more I think about the introduction of black slavery in this
> country, the more it seems a no-win situation. On the other hand, the
> development of this country would have been inconcievably different
> without the institution. So much so that it wouldn't be close to the
> same country.
The development of the North, Midwest, West didn't depend on slavery or
to any noteable extent on blacks. The South undoubtedly would have
been very different. It's interesting to speculate on how the Federal
system would have developed.
> I guess one approach is to lay the largest blame at Lincoln's feet.
> Perhaps the South's defeat destroyed any chance for blacks and whites
> in this country to arrive at some measure of mutual accomodation,
> with all of the voluntary concessions such an accomodation requires.
> It led blacks to look to Leviathan for the solution to their woes and
> alienated Southern whites from all but a threatened stance toward
> them.
I don't know -- slavery really was a glaring contradiction to the
principles of the American public order and economic and other
tendencies meant it wasn't going to last. I suppose it's conceivable
that it could have died out without extremism and hatred but not I
think in a fundamentally liberal order that necessarily views it and
anything like it as not merely a bad arrangement but as a monstrosity.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis. (St. Augustine)
From jk Thu Apr 1 13:59:19 1999
Subject: Re: On color and culture
To: R
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 13:59:19 -0500 (EST)
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> If we have a local law that imposes racial classification, how do we
> 'do away' with the law without imposing something like the CRL? That
> is, the CRL as originally intended, without subsequent judicial
> expansion into affirmative action.
You can push for it locally and leave town if you don't succeed and
can't live with that. That's what "self-government" means. Or if you
want more central control you can forbid local governments to make
racial classifications. That was the basic legal position before the 64
crl. It was far less intrusive than the broader nondiscrimination
requirement applicable to public and private agencies alike under the
crl.
> 'Segregation forever' is a pretty strong statement.
So is "Apple II forever". Why put so much stock in slogans and public
excitement? Most of the general cultural influences that have changed
the world so much since 1964 would have been there anyway.
> Consider the fact that the colonies only achieved prominence due to
> economic growth. They were a trading engine, driven by slave-based
> agriculture, that all regions, from the West Indies to New England,
> participated in.
Lots of land and natural resources together with free institutions
would have told. As they did in New England and the Mid-Atlantic and
later the Midwest. Tobacco and cotton aren't what the US was built on.
> I agree it wouldn't have lasted indefinitely. It's hard to say how it
> might have gone.
Slavery eventually wouldn't have paid economically. Free labor is more
productive and as the productivity of labor rises overall the
discrepancy would have increased. As the institution became less
advantageous public support and protection for it would have declined
and slaveowners would have cared less.
Also, why not simple arbitrage between two markets (slave and free
labor)? As the market price of slaves declined and the value of free
labor rose they could have all bought their own freedom. A small down
payment and then a sale secured by a mortgage on the (now more
productive) former slave.
> But I'm not sure its so contradictory to the historic principles of
> American order. I've probably read too much Bradford. His arguments
> are trenchent and his prose commanding. Have you ever read him?
Haven't read him. My own views on American order are at
http://freenet.buffalo.edu/~cd431/american_tradition.html
Basically, I think it's been a compromise between incompatibles that's
now fallen apart, so I suppose anything at all could be considered
consistent with its principles
> One more question: How close, do you think, is this racial conflict
> in this country to the case of religious conflict in England, say
> between Henry VIII and 1688?
A difficulty is that the world more and more demands uniformity and
gets upset when it isn't there, and racial differences don't become
unimportant to the extent confessional differences do when people get
interested in something else, like money. For one thing, it seems
clear to me that racial differences in average intelligence and no
doubt other behavioral tendencies are real and very durable. So I
don't think the strategy of making everyone a culture-free
production/consumption unit is going to work. It will just make people
stupider and more brutal so the eventual conflicts will get worse.
> I'll have to read some Emerson. Do you have a suggestion on where to
> begin?
Most of the things he wrote are like most of the other things he wrote.
Get an anthology and start anywhere. My own favorite essays include
Experience and Circles.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis. (St. Augustine)
From jk Fri Apr 2 21:12:28 1999
Subject: Re: On color and culture
To: R
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 21:12:28 -0500 (EST)
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> If the colonies hadn't become the mercantilist jewels that the
> British fancied, I think things would have been quite different.
Would they have never united? Stayed British colonies? Not expanded?
Founded a consolidated rather than federal government?
> I liked the essay. But, I have some reservations about it. I'm not
> sure that Jefferson is that typical of the founders. Also, what would
> Rawls have agreed to in Locke's plan for Carolina?
Jefferson pointed the way forward. His distinctiveness was the
distinctiveness of American political life, in purified form. America
was founded in principle as a liberal society. It takes time for an
ideology to permeate and fully transform a political society.
The point of my essay was that the endurance of liberalism is measured
by the slowness of that process. Locke was an intelligent man. He was
therefore far more radical as a theoretician than as an (attempted)
practitioner of politics. His importance though was his importance as
a theoretician.
> He has convinced me of the strength of a political culture indigenous
> to the colonies and at odds with modern liberalism. A tradition very
> faint by now, but solidly rooted, albeit ignored, in our history.
I don't doubt he is right. The tendency of things is everything
though. If it's established that liberal principles always win then it
becomes less important what other principles are present or how much of
actual social life they govern. Certainly it's less important in the
long run.
> I can't get past the idea that racial differences are really cultural
> differences, that culture is dynamic rather than static, that if
> blacks had listened to BT Washington instead of WB DuBois, things
> would be a lot better, and that, somehow, its not too late.
A lot of the differences are cultural. Most of what makes a people
what it is is culture rather than race as such. Still I think the
purely racial differences are big enough to make group differences
impossible to ignore regardless of how much there is in common
culturally. Even small average differences mean big differences at the
extremes, for example in number of criminals and number of
intellectually gifted persons. It's the extremes that give a group its
reputation etc.
My view on this changed 6 or 8 years ago, when I read Ibn Khaldun's
comments on sub-Saharan blacks in his _Muqaddimah_. He was a 14th
century Tunisian and his views were pretty much the same as unreformed
American stereotypes. So it seemed that something was at work other
than arbitrary local cultural prepossessions and special relations
among particular groups. I'm sure reading him was one thing of many
but as it happened it was a turning point.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis. (St. Augustine)
From jk Sun Apr 4 12:55:41 1999
Subject: Re: happy easter
To: c
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 12:55:41 -0400 (EDT)
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Happy Easter!
I think the war is mindless. Clinton and his gang don't understand the
substance of policy because they've never turned their minds that way.
They can't understand that there are real things that happen that you
can't talk your way out of.
We can not and should not try to establish a universal empire, which is
what taking general responsibilty for what the locals do to each other
everywhere in the world amounts to. No doubt there can always be
special situations, but a civil war with 2000 dead over the course of a
year does not constitute a humanitarian catastrophe. We may be
creating one of course. And even if there is a special situation you
have to ask what in fact you can do about it and not let wishes
displace analysis.
There's also the question of what kind of government is capable of
ruling the world. Not a democratic one, that's for sure.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Sun Apr 4 22:40:17 1999
Subject: Re: C R Y P T O N O M I C O N
To: d
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 22:40:17 -0400 (EDT)
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> Much of it will not interest most of you, but there is a section
> towards the middle which deals with multiculturalism, globalism,
> "tolerance" and the like which is very interesting and eye-opening
> albeit it comes from a viewpoint which is sympathetic to the "New
> World Order" elitism.
Thanks for the reference. I ended up spending more time reading it
than I intended to. His discussion of those points wasn't bad. Oddly,
I found the stuff on operating systems interesting as well for reasons
I am sure would bore everyone
> The author, in spite of disclaiming his Baby Boomerhood, is a classic
> example of his generation and its mentality.
Pfffft. Gen-X resentment.
Moving on -- Stephenson has a talent for analysis of what he can't
transcend. He accurately describes whole areas of social life and
botches the overall perspective. He's good at medium but not long
distances. He notices that rule by intellectuals and their notions
instead of evolved habits, attitudes etc. works out horribly and then
claims that rule by techie book-reading Morlocks over people they've
reduced to mindless Eloi is going to rid the world of heavy-duty bad
things. Apparently rule by intellectuals leads to disaster only when
they aren't people just like him.
I think ignoring Digital, Atari, Commodore, the legal issues in
antitrust etc. is a consequence of the fact he's a pop novelist
although to be fair a talented one. He cuts corners and cheats on the
overall picture to turn things into attractive stories without a lot of
heavy lifting. His novel _Diamond Age_ has interesting stuff in it,
the basic idea is a future social order composed of nonterritorial
ethnoreligious tribes, but his idea of transcendence is sex and
violence and perhaps mildly Nietzschean social engineering. He has
another novel _Snow Crash_ that I haven't read but liked the name and
it was somewhat interesting to learn from the essay what it meant.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Sun Apr 4 22:44:25 1999
Subject: Re: A note from John Calvin Errickson II
To: p
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 22:44:25 -0400 (EDT)
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"John Calvin Errickson" writes:
> Why do many conservatives talk about the "dumbing down" or America
> yet call anyone who listens to the music of Beethoven or Mozart(or
> only "classical" music) as snobs or elitists? In my view, this whole
> idea of being folksy by listening to country music is just plain
> dumb! Who wants to be ordinary anyway? Opera, oratorios and choral
> music are around to show us the complexity of the great masters.
Are there people who literally say both things? I don't know of any,
but it's certainly possible, just as it's possible for someone calling
himself "pinhead" to talk about "the complexity of the great masters."
The point of view you describe is imaginable I suppose. American
conservatism tends to be populist and anti-intellectual because
national ruling elites and the principles that get institutionalized
and so dominate intellectual life tend to be liberal. For an essay
that deals with the subject see
http://freenet.buffalo.edu/~cd431/american_tradition.html
In fact, conservatism doesn't like mindlessness because it arises out
of concern for ideal factors implicit on life as actually lived. The
basic situation, as I see it, is a contradiction within liberalism.
Since conservatism is mostly rejection of liberalism, contradictions
within liberalism tend to reappear as contradictions within
conservativism.
If people generally had intelligence and responsibility for things they
would apply those things in different ways, contrary to the liberal
goal of equality. As an egalitarian and universalistic philosophy,
liberalism therefore tries to put all the intelligence and morality in
the system as a whole, and thus in the elites who run it, rather than
distributing it among the people. The people are to be weak and
mindless and thus readily equalized.
Conservatives take the opposite tack. They think the people should be
responsible and moral, which requires cutting elites down to size. The
cutting down to size can get overly enthusiatic since it's hard to
maintain a moderate and coherent theory of things without an
intellectual elite, and in America it's been hard for an intellectual
elite other than the liberal one to maintain itself as anything but a
collection of individual eccentrics.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Sun Apr 4 22:57:00 1999
Subject: Re: tfan@optonline.net
To: ej
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 22:57:00 -0400 (EDT)
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>
> What are patriarchy and misogyny? Examples of each in our society and
> other societies.
>
The words are used very broadly. Patriarchy means "men rule", which is
more or less the case in all societies. "Misogyny" means not liking
women. I suppose it's usually on a par with not liking life, or the
world, or the human race. With most people I think it's an occasional
mood or feeling like the other things, occasionally it can become
pathological.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Tue Apr 6 08:25:20 1999
Subject: Re: C R Y P T O N O M I C O N
To: dm
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 08:25:20 -0400 (EDT)
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I think the only antileftists who are into technology are the
libertarians. Chronicles has only just now gotten on line.
Actually though I think all this techie stuff can be turned in a
rightwing direction. Stephenson's piece goes a bit of the way, maybe
back to the Old Republic and basic respect for things that grow up
instead of being planned. He doesn't go the next step though and see
that if comprehensive planning doesn't work then acceptance of
transcendence is what you're left with. You're either in the saddle or
you're not. These things will all become clear to the world if Modern
Age finally publishes that review of _Out of Control_.
I liked Stephenson's eventual recognition that the Mac world is just
yuppie consumerist self-indulgence. I used to be an ST man myself, but
since it died I've gone for the command line. It's a lot easier to get
things set up exactly as you want them if you put some effort into
figuring out how it works and there are fewer weird glitches, crashes
and thumbtwiddling while bloatware loads. Also you can use free
programs and equipment that you pick up for nothing, which makes you
feel like you're being clever and getting away with something.
I'm mindlessly tempted to try Linux. I hope it blows over because I
have other things to do. On the other hand it's been a couple years
since I did any playing with computers and I already know a little unix
since that what I use at my ISP. We'll see.
Hope all is well with you.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Tue Apr 6 20:23:29 1999
Subject: Re: [Paleo] Re: Imperial Wizardry
To: paleo@egroups.com
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 20:23:29 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <4f743808.243bd63b@aol.com> from "CraigPreus@aol.com" at Apr 6, 99 05:27:23 pm
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CraigPreus@aol.com writes:
> Is this move to "empire" necessary now because of global instability?
Hard to see why. A reasonable degree of order doesn't necessarily
require an overlord, and for an overlord to establish and enforce order
in a difficult situation requires more realism and coherence of policy
than modern politics seems capable of, certainly in foreign and
especially military affairs. So an empire may not be necessary, and if
it is necessary an adequate empire isn't in the cards.
> Can the old republic be restored?
Doubtful, but can you suggest a better ideal to guide conduct?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Tue Apr 6 20:28:17 1999
Subject: Re: Confucius: inquiry from a highschool student
To: confucius@lists.gnacademy.org
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 20:28:17 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <199904052244.AAA22076@darc.TOXIKOLOGIE.UNI-MAINZ.DE> from "tct@shinbiro.com" at Apr 6, 99 00:44:41 am
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tct@shinbiro.com writes:
> >I am having trouble locating information on Confucius' view about
> >"Whether and how we can 'know' things", and "The nature of reality:
> >ourselves in relation to the universe."
As to the first question, it seems to me C. lived in a commonsensical
world and didn't much worry about epistemological issues. If
challenged by Chuangtse, who was puzzled how to distinguish dream and
reality etc., I suppose he would have appealed to man as a social
animal who lives through his connections to other men and nature, which
he must therefore be able to discern and deal with.
As to the second, C.'s interests were moral and it's that side of
reality he mostly comments on. Aspects of the world (spirits and it
seems to me cosmology and metaphysics) that don't much relate to human
concerns and duties he's willing to let be whatever they are. He
doesn't want to spend time on them although he doesn't claim they are
meaningless or whatever.
As to moral reality, his big concern, it had both social aspects and
transcendent aspects in that it didn't simply reduce to social concerns
and practicalities. The Good was in concept prior to the social. We
don't know it or pursue it independently of social relations and
traditions but on the other hand it's something more than those things.
Sometimes the social authorities can be wrong and part of the point of
C.'s activities was to develop the ability to see when that is so.
His approach however is not particularly analytic -- he believes in
principle but doesn't much try to find a purified essence of the Good
that can be talked about in abstraction from particular good things.
Also, it seems to me that the conception of Heaven as somewhat of an
agent who personalizes the Good to some degree was necessary for him.
People say that later Confucianists were often atheists but that
doesn't seem to me true of C. himself.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Wed Apr 7 07:24:11 1999
Subject: Re: C R Y P T O N O M I C O N
To: dm
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 07:24:11 -0400 (EDT)
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> To a smaller degree, Atari ST, TT and other TOS compatibles are still
> out there, mostly in Europe where it still hangs on, but it was never
> as advanced as the Amiga and no one is going to rescue the Atari
> ST/TT/Falcon line of computers.
Last I heard (only 8 months ago or so when I finally sold my STe) there
was someone I think in France manufacturing a Falcon clone, and also
some emulators enabling you to run TOS on a DOS system.
> I've been debating going on to some kind of computer or internet tech
> career (my employer will pay for classes) or going back to the history
> PhD.
It's a difficult situation. My son's about to start college and it was
horribly depressing to go with him on a tour of the New England liberal
arts schools. They all have tons of money and spend it looking pretty,
they're the big market for groovy modern architecture for example, on
being PC and respectable, and on various aspects of marketing. They're
all just the same although they try to differentiate their position in
product space slightly. My old school, Dartmouth, has literally a
whole building devoted to PR. Judging by the posters for events there
is no serious intellectual life, everything is either consumerist pop
culture, school-funded PC, or purely professionional interest.
> It was not always that way; earlier this century fascists and
> nationalists were quite protech to cite a notorious example.
Quite true. One reason to classify them as modernists if that's a
classification that means anything to you.
> You don't use Linux but you've gone to the command line? So what
> computer and operating system do you use? Apart from your ISP's UNIX
> server?
DOS 6.22, which came on the laptop 386 I bought for $200 last summer.
That plus a few unix commands ported to DOS. I hate MS windows. It's
like fighting your way through piles of trash getting anywhere with it
and there are constant crashes at least with the particular setup we
have on the other machine, the one I got for my kids and wife with junk
like AOL on it.
> As to Stephenson: at least he had the ability to actually see what is
> going on rather than parroting the party line about "diversity" and
> "pluralism".
He can see what's going on right in front of him and he writes well.
Also he's intellectually contemptuous so he says what he thinks.
Techies are allowed to do that as you point out. He won't follow a
train of thought beyond where he can make it part of the story he wants
to tell and he has a pop artist's taste in stories. High class junk
really.
> without any cultural depth to fall back on, they will probably be
> more dangerous and more destructive then the nationalists and
> religious fundamentalists and political extremists that so worry
> Stephenson.
Agreed.
> what alternatives are left?
To my mind, the traditional middle eastern solution of a chaotic
vacuous multicultural multiethnic public sphere dominated by crude
force that luckily is also corrupt and unimaginative and so not very
effectual, and inward turning ethnoreligious communities within which
the real life of the people is carried on. Darwinian factors strongly
support the evolution of the latter as it seems to me. A basic problem
with liberalism is that it can't deal with the relations between
parents and children and so a fully developed liberal society will tend
to self-destruct in the persons of those families with nothing else to
live by.
> That is to say, we can chose to accept destiny and achieve the
> difficult but not impossible in our present situation, or we can
> chose to chase after hopeless romanticism and accomplish nothing or
> worse then nothing.
Another side of things is that concrete political ideals like The Old
Republic or whatever can focus effort and encourage tendencies even if
not literally practicable.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Apr 7 07:50:57 EDT 1999
Article: 13660 of alt.revolution.counter
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Subject: Re: Test
Date: 5 Apr 1999 20:22:19 -0400
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In <37094F02.9B026450@virginia.edu> Babak writes:
>Just added arc to the UVA newsserver.
Ba alt.enqelaab.moqaabel khosh aamadid.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Apr 7 09:07:02 EDT 1999
Article: 13664 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Forms of Democracy
Date: 7 Apr 1999 09:06:57 -0400
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Alan Stewart writes:
> emphasizing a balance of powers as in the U.S., or proportional
> representational forms of democracy, or local powers resistant to
> central direction, have the merit of seeming to help maintain local
> non-liberal traditions and folkways. But isn't this latter point a
> conservative, and not revolutionary argument? Should not true
> counterrevolutionaries be supporting the historic British doctrine of
> parliamentary soverieignty at all opportunities?
Counterrevolution can not be just a matter of formal politics though.
The idea that seizing the center of power is the key to desirable
political and social change, because after all if you do that you can
use state power to get your way in everything, is technological and
therefore I think anticounterrevolutionary.
Also, a system that lets you do it to them also lets them do it to you.
Which system is better or whether it makes a difference depends on any
number of things. If the counterrevolution is on the defensive, as it
has been for a long time, then a less centralized system can help keep
it from being wiped out altogether.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Apr 7 11:04:22 EDT 1999
Article: 13665 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Fascism
Date: 7 Apr 1999 09:08:31 -0400
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Babak writes:
> Your thoughts on Fascism. Was it traditinal, anti-traditional, or
> both?
I would say anti-traditional. Authoritarian mysticism is not
traditionalism.
In the view of traditionalists tradition is not about itself. It is
about something that transcends it that we need tradition to know. The
Fascist view, as I understand it, is that the thing that transcends all
else and which tradition manifests is a sort of collective personality,
the personality of the State. The State however is a concrete this-
worldly existent that promulgates directives and enforces them
physically. So given the State you don't really need tradition any
more.
By the way, what is the source of the 13-point exposition of Fascism?
It's very good. A comment on it: the Fascist State sounds like a large
Nietzschean individual, and I don't see what is gained by size. If
there are problems with the autonomous individual it seems to me there
would be problems regardless of how big the individual is.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From paleo-return-180-jk=panix.com@returns.egroups.com Wed Apr 7 12:21:23 1999
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In-Reply-To: <4f743808.243bd63b@aol.com> from "CraigPreus@aol.com" at Apr 6, 99 05:27:23 pm
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CraigPreus@aol.com writes:
> Is this move to "empire" necessary now because of global instability?
Hard to see why. A reasonable degree of order doesn't necessarily
require an overlord, and for an overlord to establish and enforce order
in a difficult situation requires more realism and coherence of policy
than modern politics seems capable of, certainly in foreign and
especially military affairs. So an empire may not be necessary, and if
it is necessary an adequate empire isn't in the cards.
> Can the old republic be restored?
Doubtful, but can you suggest a better ideal to guide conduct?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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From owner-confucius@lists.gnacademy.org Wed Apr 7 21:15:52 1999
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tct@shinbiro.com writes:
> >I am having trouble locating information on Confucius' view about
> >"Whether and how we can 'know' things", and "The nature of reality:
> >ourselves in relation to the universe."
As to the first question, it seems to me C. lived in a commonsensical
world and didn't much worry about epistemological issues. If
challenged by Chuangtse, who was puzzled how to distinguish dream and
reality etc., I suppose he would have appealed to man as a social
animal who lives through his connections to other men and nature, which
he must therefore be able to discern and deal with.
As to the second, C.'s interests were moral and it's that side of
reality he mostly comments on. Aspects of the world (spirits and it
seems to me cosmology and metaphysics) that don't much relate to human
concerns and duties he's willing to let be whatever they are. He
doesn't want to spend time on them although he doesn't claim they are
meaningless or whatever.
As to moral reality, his big concern, it had both social aspects and
transcendent aspects in that it didn't simply reduce to social concerns
and practicalities. The Good was in concept prior to the social. We
don't know it or pursue it independently of social relations and
traditions but on the other hand it's something more than those things.
Sometimes the social authorities can be wrong and part of the point of
C.'s activities was to develop the ability to see when that is so.
His approach however is not particularly analytic -- he believes in
principle but doesn't much try to find a purified essence of the Good
that can be talked about in abstraction from particular good things.
Also, it seems to me that the conception of Heaven as somewhat of an
agent who personalizes the Good to some degree was necessary for him.
People say that later Confucianists were often atheists but that
doesn't seem to me true of C. himself.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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In-Reply-To: from "KOPFF E CHRISTIAN" at Apr 7, 99 00:41:15 am
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KOPFF E CHRISTIAN writes:
> One traditional sign of the move from republic to empire is the
> replacement of a citizen militia by a mercenary army.
One feature of the present situation is that the theoretical basis of
the state can't justify loyalty or self-sacrifice. Another is that the
mercenaries are in fact citizens. In fact they tend to be minorities
etc. the protection of whom is a fundamental justification of the
regime. So we have an empire with a mercenary army and one of the
basic principles is that the army can't take any casualties. Is that
going to work?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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In-Reply-To: <5e6c5f72.243ce92c@aol.com> from "Sigma429@aol.com" at Apr 7, 99 01:00:28 pm
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Sigma429@aol.com writes:
> What we are seeing now is a movement from a conventional empire
> toward a transnational regime (the New World Order) in which no
> single nation will be the dominant entity (as in conventional empire)
> but the imperial power will actually be a denationalized and
> deracinated global elite (bureaucrats, publicists, corporation
> executives, etc.) who will have no loyalty to any particular nation
> (or culture or race or class or religion or family).
If there are no solid loyalties, just careerism, abstractions and PR,
what will hold the global elite and their policies together? And can
an affirmative action elite run anything effectively? It's not so easy
to run an empire, and the style Clinton and his people favor is low
personal corruption and political posturing with no grasp of substance.
The last especially applies in things like foreign affairs that take
time to understand and usually don't affect daily life for a while. Is
this all going to work?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Apr 8 05:51:39 EDT 1999
Article: 13672 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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Subject: Re: What do you think about this?
Date: 8 Apr 1999 05:47:03 -0400
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"John Carney" writes:
> >A22. Don't marry a woman, but do fall in love with the IDEA of a
> > woman.
> This strikes me as particularly odd.
Still, Dante fell in love with the idea of a woman rather than marrying
her. He was admittedly odd though.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Apr 8 05:51:40 EDT 1999
Article: 13673 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Fascism
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Babak writes:
> In comparison with a purely _this worldly_ state - a liberal
> democratic state wherein the right to rule accompanies the collective
> will - isn't a fascist or transcendant authoritarian regime better
> able to bring mass society "up" towards Tradition?
I'm doubtful. From the standpoint of someone in a liberal democratic
society Fascism might appear a step toward tradition because it it
recognizes that the sole bases of evaluation are not technology, formal
logic, and desires simply as such. However, once you have Fascism I
don't think it leads to tradition.
It seems that the ruling principles of Fascism are the State as an
aesthetic object on the one hand and force and unity and will and
decision on the other. Both are reductionist and therefore
antitraditional. (Are the two consistent?)
Tradition does not reduce society to the State and it does not reduce
all spiritual and ethical matters to aesthetics. It certainly does not
make collective decision and unity substitute for the transcendent.
The former are utterly formal -- content-free -- while tradition points
to a substantive transcendent. In the case of Fascism it seems that
what gives collective unity and decision substance is something purely
this-worldly -- physical force.
> Perhaps what Mussolini tried can be seen as "Nietzsche for the
> masses". A fundamentally flawed theory.
It seems that way to me. On the other hand I don't think Nietzsche for
Nietzsche really works either.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Thu Apr 8 08:10:29 1999
Subject: Re: On color and culture
To: Rh
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 08:10:29 -0400 (EDT)
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> Probably they wouldn't have expanded nearly as rapidly.
Didn't the colonies and states where slavery was not a big institution
grow faster and prosper more than those where it was? I suppose
Virginia was an exception. Still, free land and free laws are quite a
draw.
> But Jefferson himself is so conflicted ... is the growth of
> liberalism the result of a contradiction inherent in Mason's language
> and thought, or have those who came after him twisted his words and
> misrepresented that thought?
Look at Locke's Letter on Toleration. It's extraordinarily radical --
takes the view that "truth" doesn't apply to religious matters.
"Orthodoxy" is nothing more than the speaker's view of things.
The basic principle you accept transforms your thought. Would a
different path have been chosen if it had been clear where it would end
up? Does the transformation change you or simply reveal what you
really were all along? You could ask that question about any number of
things.
> Our disagreement, it seems, is on how big behavioral differences
> stemming from purely racial differences are. I'm inclined to think
> they are insignificant.
I used to think so too, but that view eventually stopped seeming
reasonable to me for an accumulation of reasons. A lot of stuff has
been written on this. There are references at the Stalking the Wild
Taboo and the Upstream sites.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Thu Apr 8 08:21:56 1999
Subject: Re: C R Y P T O N O M I C O N
To: dm
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 08:21:56 -0400 (EDT)
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> the kind of puritanism one sees in Chronicles, where every kind of
> opposition to liberalism which does not meet their standards for Old
> Republicanism gets condemned with the same force and venom (if not
> more) that they direct at liberalism itself.
Strife is the source and origin of all things. Arguing clarifies
situations and it hasn't kept the Left from rising to unquestioned
supremacy. The sectarian left remains powerless but the ideas they
generate and test in their private battlefield of sectarian warfare
conquer the world.
> If the West is doomed to disappear as well I hope we would do better
> than degenerating into a mongrel horde of warring sects and ethnic
> groups.
The abolition of space means we've got the mongrel hordes anyway. I
doubt that anything effectual will be done about immigration. Which
will put us in the Middle-Eastern situation, a radically incoherent
multiracial society. I don't see why the political solution should be
that different.
China had the advantage of being on the edge of Eurasia surrounded by
mountains, deserts, etc. so invaders couldn't make that much of a
cultural and demographic difference. My article on Ibn Khaldun goes
into some of this.
> What is needed is a kind of Western Confucianism; I don't mean by
> this literally Confucianism, but a kind of Western political and
> social philosophy and a political class/caste to go along with it. A
> civil religion which would preserve our civilization, rather than
> destroy it as is currently being done under the leadership of
> liberalism.
Sounds like you're reinventing neoconservatism.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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In-Reply-To: from "KOPFF E CHRISTIAN" at Apr 8, 99 09:11:06 am
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KOPFF E CHRISTIAN writes:
> "Those men died to stop the Holocaust." As humans, we can and should
> die to preserve human rights. The New Zealand legislature recently
> voted on a declaration of PRIMATE rights, which they hope will
> eventually be adopted by the United Nations. Then we can bomb to stop
> the ethnic cleansing of the gorilla.
But in a liberal order dying is supererogatory. How do you extract it
from a contract among the self-interested? Self-sacrifice in the
noblest of causes is splendid and worthy of a movie, but you can't
build an empire on supererogation.
Somewhere in _Theory of Justice_ Rawls says explicitly that justice
can't require radical self-sacrifice, although he doesn't make as much
of the point as an opponent might. Liberalism may have evolved since
TofJ but not in the direction of a sterner sense of duty.
Bombing is different since the bombers are rather safe and those bombed
have excluded themselves from the social contract and indeed denied
their humanity by rejecting the universal liberal order. Bigots don't
count.
> From the republican perspective, the three compadres in Serbia are
> not citizens and neither are we. We are subjects of the New World
> Order, whose assembly is the United Nations, whose army is NATO and
> whose ruler is (formally) the Leader of the Free World.
OK, but military discipline and civilian control makes it possible for
the army to be the perfect society, nonracist, nonsexist in aspiration,
and soon no doubt nonhomophobic. Managing the military is a continuing
struggle to overcome the narrowness and bigotry of the past, a process
that trumps rigid conceptions of efficiency, and in that the military
has become a model for us all.
In the later Empire the role of the troops in choosing emperors was
somewhat justified by a sense that *they* were the true Republic, was
it not? At least I seem to recall that people talked that way at
times. Those on whom the state depends deserve the best, and in a
multinational society that's the army. If the best is the liberal best
though I'm not sure where that puts us. With an army that is in touch
with its needs and feelings, and accepting of change and its own
vulnerability? What sense does that make?
I suppose my basic point still is whether the current need for our men
and women in uniform to avoid all casualties is just a temporary oddity
or reflects something more fundamental.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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From jk Fri Apr 9 08:39:33 1999
Subject: Re: C R Y P T O N O M I C O N
To: dm
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 08:39:33 -0400 (EDT)
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> the right has no counterpart to the left's sense of solidarity ("no
> enemy on the left"). This comes from the right's internalization of
> leftist assumptions on important issues like race
It comes from other things as well. The Left is common movement toward
a goal, while the Right are people who resist the goal in a variety of
ways. The former has more natural cohesion. Also, the Right has less
theory and relies more on the sense of things that develops in the
ordinary course of social life. That means it has problems when the
ordinary course of social life tends more and more to be dominated by
universal abstract forms like transnational bureaucracies and world
markets and people's sense of things is derived from TV and Benetton
ads.
It's true I think that if you concede the Civil Rights Act of 1964 you
concede everything. Affirmative action, multiculturalism, the
abolition of all particular cultures and their replacement by pop
culture, therapy and manipulation, the end of civic life and rule by
cynical PC Morlocks over mindless Eloi, all become a matter of course.
> I think where I disagree with you on immigration and what you call
> the abolition of space is that your take on it makes it sound like a
> natural force, an unstoppable chain of events.
The abolition of space is a consequence of technology. It seems
difficult to reverse it or retard it much. As to immigration, if every
point on the face of the earth is equally present to every other point
because of electronics and the way things are organized -- if it's as
easy to deal with a bank or talk with a friend in Tokyo as ten miles
away -- I'm not sure how much immigration matters. And if there are
lots of trans-border movements of all kinds, because transportation has
become so cheap and easy and quick, it will take a lot of work to keep
the immigrants out. Why will people make the effort when in an age of
tele- this and that the same people are pretty much with you anyway?
> Ygg commented that what divides White Nationalists from white
> conservatives is that the Nats realize that public policy results are
> not accidental, unintended byproducts, but are deliberate and reflect
> minority self-interest and hate, whereas the cons still insist that
> the left is well-intentioned but mistaken and if only they realized
> the negative repercussions of their policies they would embrace
> conservatism.
Another possibility is that there are people pushing for all possible
things at all times and some times conditions mean success for one kind
of goal and other times for another. The Jews are an influential
minority who have advanced modernism in a variety of ways. I think
though we'd be in pretty much the same place, maybe a few years behind
the curve, if immediately after the French Revolution they had all run
off to join a Satmar neo-ghetto in Madagascar.
> Ygg would argue as well that current tech. changes make it easier to
> seperate; there is no reason any longer for more of this "diversity"
> and small, ethnically homogenous states are more effecient and
> powerful players in the world market.
Take the matter one step forward, recognize that geography is no longer
destiny, and you get my neo-levantine world. Also, in the future
superinternet world internal coherence will require extraordinary
commitment to the group's way of life and largely voluntary acceptance
of boundaries. So I don't think the principle of differentiation will
be ethnicity as such -- the groups that do well will understand their
cohesion as fundamentally religious.
I think I've managed to check my Linux impulse by looking at some
newsgroups where people moan about problems with installation etc. So
maybe I'll be able to restrict my mindless technotinkering to the
scanner and other things I already have, at least for a while.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Sun Apr 11 08:00:42 1999
Subject: Re: C R Y P T O N O M I C O N
To: dm
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 08:00:42 -0400 (EDT)
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> Your formula of the left as movement towards a goal and the right as
> resistance towards it is not so clear cut in practice. It does not
> explain those time periods when the right was united and put a halt
> to the left (primarily in the 19th century), nor does it explain
> those periods (primarily 20th century) when the right, or portions of
> it at least, had its own goal which is succeeded in moving towards in
> opposition to the left and its goals.
"Put a halt" is sucessful resistance to a goal set by someone else.
"Portions of it" I think is right, and when a portion of the Right
(e.g. fascism) has set a clear comprehensive goal other than
resistance the goal has turned out to be vacuous and in the end the
movement has failed disastrously and profoundly damaged even those
portions of the Right that never much liked it in the first place.
> My own interpretation of left and right is much looser: generally
> those two opposing groups in society which might switch roles vis a
> vis change, but which on the left support universalistic notions of
> right and wrong, usually derived from religous, or disguised
> religious, sources (though of course these are masks for
> particularist ends), whilst the right generally supports
> particularistic notions of right and wrong, either openly or (as
> currently) under guise of leftist terminoligy.
My "formula" was intended as a characterization rather than a
comprehensive definition. It doesn't fit so badly with yours.
Universalistic concepts give rise to clear goals that are the same or
at least consistent among a number of different groups in different
times and places. Those who share the goal will be clear that the main
enemy is those who oppose it, hence "no enemies to the left." If
someone makes a consciously pursued goal out of some overall tendency
he sees in historical development it's going to be through a
universalistic concept. So ideological movements are either
universalistic and therefore antiRight or confused.
The big question is why particularism? It seems to me the reason for
accepting it is a sense that the good for man is not something we
reduce to a set of propositions giving rise to clear practical goals
and a program for achieving them. Since the comprehensive good cannot
be clearly defined and constructed it must be achieved if at all only
by acceptance and retention of goods that grow up over time in
particular settings and relations with others. A system of such goods
is a cultural tradition, which is always particular. It's also
something which cannot be made the direct goal of a political movement.
There can of course be movements to oppose particular threats to
cultural tradition and thus the human good. The Left is one such
threat, so a united Right is at least a conceptual possibility. It's
much harder to achieve and maintain than a united Left though. Being
against something is not as inspirational as being for something.
> it is vital for the right to reexamine, and yes indeed, revise, their
> unexamined beliefs and assumptions about the history of that war, for
> it is the myths we accept as facts about that war which lie at the
> heart of the left's cultural hegemony and political power.
It's more the reverse, the Left's cultural hegemony that determines the
facts that get selected and the interpretation of the course of events.
I agree though that selection of facts and their interpretation and
meaning are very important issues that should be disputed vigorously.
> the logical outcome of this is not just virtual community, but the
> reestablishment of face to face communities.
Sure, but face to face communities do not include "the American
People", "White Americans", "Frenchmen," etc. "America," "France,"
etc. are old- fashioned virtual communities based on geography, which
doesn't matter as much as it used to. What fits present circumstances
is networks of face-to-face settlements linked by some principle
sufficiently substantive and commanding to determine a common way of
life and call forth ultimate loyalty. The obvious principle is
religion, likely combined to some degree with ethnicity. So we're back
to the traditional Middle East.
> I do not think it likely that these alternative communities will
> meekly submit to the New World Order, nor do I think that the New
> World Order will be tolerant enough and wise enough to avoid
> confrontation
What will save us will be the corruption of the NWO. I don't see the
principle of internal moral unity that will motivate and enable ruling
elites to run effectively their new order in which rejection of
liberalism is a form of child abuse, parents are not allowed to
homeschool, and the only permissible way of making a living is to work
for an enterprise that meets minimum labor standards like providing
employees with a work environment from which racism, sexism, homophobia
and religious intolerance have been altogether eliminated. If
government tries to do everything it's a lot of work, and if the work
doesn't get done people make their own way.
Think of the Clinton regime. Plenty intolerant, but not so good at
running things. An affirmative action elite may think it has the right
to rule the world but I doubt they'll succeed. They won't even want to
that much since its members will be too busy feathering their nests,
preying on young girls or whatever.
> I know you will say that "Jihad" will only mean groups seperate
> themselves without upsetting the globalization trends
Most likely there will be violence along the way. I'm trying to
determine overall trends. As fragmentation progresses overall
structure disappears and you have a sort of globalization. A gas is
both utterly fragmented and utterly uniform. The question is what kind
of social structures will be best suited to survive in the new
conditions. I don't think they'll be based on large geographical
areas, which means globalization of a sort.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From paleo-return-215-jk=panix.com@returns.egroups.com Sun Apr 18 12:08:44 1999
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Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 07:21:57 -0400 (EDT)
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The New York Times today included a full page (p. 28) headed "The New
York Times Wins Two 1999 Pulizer Prizes" followed by a very large face
and obverse of the medal in color and a list of the 72 Times recipients
since the prize was founded. Each person got pretty much equal billing
with the current winners -- the intent was to call attention to the
Times rather than Dowd and Gerth in particular.
The list of course included
1932 Walter Duranty, for coverage of the news from Russia
Something to think about when glancing at the next few Times articles
on someone's supposed failure sufficiently to repudiate events of more
than half a century ago.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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From paleo-return-221-jk=panix.com@returns.egroups.com Tue Apr 20 09:31:23 1999
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To: paleo@egroups.com
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 08:24:47 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: from "CraigPreus@aol.com" at Apr 19, 99 04:55:33 pm
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> So is a global empire inevitable now? Can it be rolled back?
I suppose things will be global in some sense since technology now
makes everything equally present to everything else, at least putting
aside face-to-face presence which is irrelevant to anything larger than
a city-state.
I'm not sure who the imperial ruling class is going to be though and
where they'll get the moral cohesion required to rule. It's not so
easy to run the world. The Clinton administration doesn't seem up to
it however much they may "look like America."
Maybe from day one the New Order will look like a disintegrated empire,
the Hellenistic world or China during a period of warlordism. Or like
traditional middle-eastern society -- a radically multiethnic world
ruled by military cliques etc. who set up shifting dynastic states. Or
maybe mafia rule, like the ex-SU.
> Is a paleo future possible? Is it thinkable? Or is paleo thought
> really just a dinosaur.
A restoration of the Old Republic seems unlikely, although I'd be happy
to be proved wrong. One problem is that locality no longer supports
particularity.
I expect the particularists to win though. Life has to go on somehow,
and whatever it takes will happen. Universalism tends to be content-
free. That's why liberalism can exist only in opposition and falls
apart upon final victory. That's also why liberals don't reproduce,
and in principle can't raise children. In liberalism there are no
common goods, so parent and child can't have a common good administered
by the parent. That means for a liberal the parent's power is of
necessity illegitimate.
If there's a way of life that can't sustain itself Darwin tells us that
other things will dominate the future. The winners will have to have a
better grasp of substantive goods than liberalism. To my mind that
means greater particularism.
A general prediction of the future has to be rather abstract, I think.
Was that answer abstract enough for you?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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From jk Sun Apr 18 07:41:50 1999
Subject: Pulitzer Prize Notice
To: editor@nytimes.com
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 07:41:50 -0400 (EDT)
Bcc: jkalb@metlife.com (Jennifer Kalb), rakig@eden.com (Robert Kalb)
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To the Editor:
You have published a number of articles on the difficulty various
persons and groups experience adequately coming to grips with their
involvement in evil. I notice that your list (Sunday, p. 28) of those
who have shed glory on _The New York Times_ includes Walter Duranty,
"for coverage of the news from Russia." Is there room for another
series of articles here, one that comes closer to home than (for
example) Switzerland?
Sincerely,
James Kalb
110 Saint Mark's Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11217
(718) 857-3813
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Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 07:29:06 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <199904211547.KAA13170@mail.visi.com> from "T.E. Wilder" at Apr 21, 99 10:47:55 am
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> How can these journalists be so incompetent and still get jobs? Is
> this a sign of some significant weakness of the liberal
> establishment, or does their ignorance and stupidity not make any
> difference to their power?
An interesting question. The news doesn't need to be accurate and in
fact shouldn't be because it's better if no-one knows or cares about
concrete facts and relies instead on the general impressions
propagated. On the other hand those in power live in the media world
too so their policies tend to lose connection to what's actually
happening.
It's the general problem with the liberal state -- the more perfected
it becomes the more self-contained it gets and therefore the more
difficult to criticize but at the same time the more divorced from
reality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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From jk Wed Apr 21 07:41:29 1999
Subject: Re: Fascism and liberalism
To: ma
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 07:41:29 -0400 (EDT)
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Last spring we went for a grand tour of the New England colleges and
they all seemed alike -- PC, lots of money spent on facilities and
pretty campuses, big emphasis on marketing and PR, students apparently
interested only in personal matters and careers. At Dartmouth, my old
school, they now have traffic jams and a whole building devoted to
public relations, not to mention substantive problems as to what the
point of the institution is.
On a different matter -- both Naziism and liberalism identify the
triumph of the will with the good. The difference is that liberals
believe each will should triumph equally and Nazis do not. From a
rational standpoint I suppose there's much to be said for each side.
The main point though is that the two are quite close to each other.
That's why liberals are obsessed with Nazis and believe that anyone who
deviates from them must be one.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Thu Apr 22 08:13:58 1999
Subject: Re: On color and culture
To: R
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 08:13:58 -0400 (EDT)
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> my main point is that the prosperity of the New England colonies
> (before the advent of industrialism) wouldn't have been very striking
> without the trade they maintained with the Southern and West Indian
> colonies,
Most people lived by farming and it wouldn't have much affected that.
> Near the end of the book, he argues that the Founders understood
> Locke through the lens of a natural law tradition set in a solid
> religious faith. So, one of his points seems to be that the Founder's
> Locke was not the only Locke. And maybe not even the authentic Locke,
> since they took for granted aspects of the Western tradition that
> Locke undermined. Since you probably know more of Locke than I do, I
> ask you if this makes any sense?
It certainly makes sense that people would favor all good things, and
not notice that some of them are incompatible. It also makes sense
that Locke would understand his own thought better than the Founders,
both because it was his and because he was a philosopher and they
weren't, and that a political system based on that thought would
display the innate consequences of that thought rather than the
expectations and intentions of the Founders.
> Aren't there times when the basic principle one accepts conforms to
> his thought?
An interesting question. It seems to me if a principle seems
authoritative, so that it really seems the source of all authority, it
eventually affects you profoundly even though initially it's at odds
with a lot of other things. It's hard to maintain forever the
plausibility and stability of your distortions of the principle.
Another way to make the same point is to say that religion matters, and
the American political religion is equality.
> > Would a different path have been chosen if it had been clear where
> > it would end up? Does the transformation change you or simply
> > reveal what you really were all along? You could ask that question
> > about any number of things.
>
> Well, I think its safe to say that the Southern states would not have
> ratified the Const. if they had forseen 1860, so I'm not sure what
> you're getting at here. Can you elaborate a little?
What would they have chosen if they had been perfectly clear about
things? They were as taken with individual rights as anyone else.
> But, even if, for the sake of argument, we accept that there is a 15
> point gap in average IQ which is purely hereditary, how important is
> such a thing? 15 points is not much compared to the deviation from
> the mean and intelligence is not the most important quality in
> healthy communities.
A moderate difference in the means of two normal distributions will be
greatly exaggerated at the extremes. So if there's that kind of gap
between two groups then the great majority of eminent men will come
from the first and the great majority of paupers and criminals will
come from the second. That kind of thing has a big effect on attitudes
and understandings regarding a group. So it's likely the two groups
will have serious problems getting along even though most members of
the one aren't notably different from most members of the other.
That's especially true if public thought has no good way to deal with
inequality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Thu Apr 22 08:24:16 1999
Subject: Re: Fascism and liberalism
To: ma
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 08:24:16 -0400 (EDT)
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> I'd like to find a way to support The Old Republic without feeling
> complicit, but I can't even vote any more because I find democracy so
> repugnant.
It think you can support it as a specific practical historical
compromise among various principles. Even as one that still has a
claim on your loyalty, and can be a useful model for others.
> I'm not so sure that Hitler wasn't for equal rights.
It's been a while since I read any of _Mein Kampf_. Equal rights for
himself but not necessarily for others, I would have thought.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Sat Apr 24 18:47:13 1999
Subject: Re: Fascism and liberalism
To: ma
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 18:47:13 -0400 (EDT)
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> I have pretty much reached the conclusion that it is not possible to
> compromise with liberalism, though.
You'd have to distinguish the Old Republic from liberalism. Rather
like distinguishing the Rights of Englishmen from the Universal Rights
of Man. To do that you'd have to downplay some things as rhetorical
excesses etc. and play up other things as the *real* Old Republic.
Truth be told I haven't done the work to say whether it would be
possible or how believable the result would be. Some such line seems
to be what _Chronicles_ intends although they tend to accentuate
negatives rather than anything positive. Maybe there really isn't much
positive they can point to. _The Last Ditch_ which also maintains
allegiance to the Old Republic explicitly denies hope.
Have you seen my _Contextus_ essay on liberalism and tradition in
America? It does take the view that liberalism and America have been
inseparable, and that we now have a big problem as a result.
> One of the crowning achievements of liberalism is that as established
> tradition it places traditionalists in a hopelessly compromised
> position.
I agree that's a problem. The conservatism FAQ tries to get out of it
by saying that after all liberalism can exist only parasitically on
something more fundamental, and it is the latter to which allegiance is
owing. A practical difficulty with that approach is that as liberalism
progresses the thing to which allegiance is owing becomes harder to
define in separation from liberalism.
> Hitler and Drexler composed a program for the Nazi party which
> expressly required equal rights among the German people and between
> nations (see points 2 and 9 below).
Within the German nation they certainly wanted unity. See _Sieg des
Willens_, with its emphasis on dignity of labor etc. In general though
"equal rights" was a sword. If the Germans don't have something some
other people have they should get it even if others get trampled:
> 1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany on the
> basis of the right of national self-determination.
> 3. We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to
> settle the surplus population.
> 4. Only members of the nation may be citizens of the State. Only
> those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the
> nation. Accordingly, no Jew may be a member of the nation.
> I don't find those superficial differences significant enough to kick
> Hitler out of the class of liberals.
I still think they're different. There are very important
similarities, and since neither position is in the end coherent you can
argue they're the same since they have all the same implications (i.e.,
every conceivable proposition), but the Nazis and liberals themselves
are convinced they are different so why not believe them?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Mon Apr 26 06:27:25 1999
Subject: Re: Fascism and liberalism
To: ma
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 06:27:25 -0400 (EDT)
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> I'm having a difficult time thinking of an historical situation in
> which "equal rights" was anything but a sword that was used to get
> somebody something that one group had and another didn't. Sometimes
> swords can be used for good purposes, but most of the blood tainting
> the edges of "equal rights" doesn't seem to be of that nature to me.
> I'll follow up on the reference, though.
My thought was that claims of equal rights can be made with varying
degrees of idealism and cynicism. All of us I think would say that
equal rights are proper in some situations, for example your treatment
by the police shouldn't vary in accordance with whether you're willing
to offer a bribe and how big the bribe is. And there's something
admirable about some kinds of equal treatment, for example treating
everyone in daily life with respect and consideration rather than just
those we feel are somehow on our side or able to benefit us.
Recognition of the importance of common humanity and acting on it is a
good thing. The principle can be abused and misapplied but it's still
a good principle and even those who misapply it may do it more or less
innocently even though it's rarely altogether innocent and usually much
less innocent than it's made out to be.
_Sieg des Willens_ is the Leni Riefenstahl movie on a Nuremburg rally.
> I think that freedom and equality as the source of authority which
> supplants tradition, plus a significant dose of technological
> rationalism, characterizes them all
Another way of viewing the matter is to say they try to substitute
formal criteria (freedom, equality, actual preferences whatever they
happen to be) for substantive (the Good) so that morals etc. is wholly
based on the former. The importance of tradition I think is that it is
the way we come to know and grasp goods that transcend formal
rationality.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Apr 30 20:26:22 EDT 1999
Article: 13715 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: 'Racist Culture in a Digital Age'
Date: 30 Apr 1999 20:19:33 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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>*Ibn Khaldun: A Palidrome for Jim Kalb.
My real concern is that they'll realize that Ibn Kalb is Arabic for
"son of a dog".
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Apr 30 20:26:23 EDT 1999
Article: 13716 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 30 Apr 1999 20:25:28 -0400
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I suppose the basic antiliberal theory on this is that the Colorado
school massacre results from a radical weakening of human ties, and
liberalism stands for the same radical weakening. That is the very
meaning of individual autonomy after all.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sat May 1 23:06:25 EDT 1999
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 1 May 1999 16:18:47 -0400
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In gross.104@pop.service.ohio-state.edu (Jared Gross) writes:
>> I suppose the basic antiliberal theory on this is that the Colorado
>> school massacre results from a radical weakening of human ties, and
>> liberalism stands for the same radical weakening. That is the very
>> meaning of individual autonomy after all.
>I never thought liberalism to be that. The Old Left is about united
>solidarity between all.
Read liberal theoreticians from John Locke to John Stuart Mill to John
Rawls. They're the ones who have thought it all through.
The "united solidarity" of the Left is not to be confused with social
ties as they actually exist among human beings -- family, friendship,
faith, village, tribe. It's intended to destroy and replace all those
things.
As a Leftist slogan "united solidarity" etc. takes three forms, (1) the
solidarity in battle of those struggling for liberal goals (in the end,
for everyone's equal ability to do whatever he happens to want and thus
implicitly for the end of any human ties that matter), (2) united PC,
support for the redistributive state, commitment to liberal goals
generally, as needed for a liberal system to survive, and (3) a
sentimental ideal intended to satisfy the emotional need for human ties
without any of the encumbrances and inequalities actual ties
necessarily bring.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sat May 1 23:06:26 EDT 1999
Article: 13725 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 1 May 1999 23:05:09 -0400
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In <372B7504.70D0F37@infinet.com> "Tony W. Frye" writes:
>To a degree, I think individualism is a destructive force in people's
>lives, particularly the use of this notion to promote capital fluidity
>and "economic freedom."
Personally I don't see why state administration of economic and social
life to maximize equal autonomy is an advance over classical
liberalism. It seems to me to add an additional degree of destruction.
Less ambitiously comprehensive liberalism is better than more
ambitiously comprehensive liberalism.
>ideas like liberty (individualism), equality (egalitarianism), and
>fraternity (community) have to be balanced with each other
As now present in public discussion they're all peas from the same pod.
The point of both "liberty" and "equality" is that desires are what
give value and all give value equally. "Fraternity" is simply equality
and more generally the abolition of human distinctions sentimentalized.
>human ties can be as close and pre-modern as you desire, it's not
>going to necessarily prevent people from committing violence.
Sure. Avoid one catastrophe and it doesn't necessarily mean you avoid
every catastrophe. Give a man as much and as nourishing food as you
desire, it's not necessarily going to keep him alive.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sun May 2 07:34:53 EDT 1999
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 2 May 1999 06:34:53 -0400
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In gross.104@pop.service.ohio-state.edu (Jared Gross) writes:
>> liberal goals (in the end, for everyone's equal ability to do
>> whatever he happens to want
>Are you familiar with "The Ethics of Authenticity"?
As a title, of a book maybe, or as a conception?
>I have yet to meet any serious leftists who feel that everyone should
>just be able to do whatever they want.
Sure. For one thing it has to be equal, which means a system of
limitations on what people do. For another, ideology always exists in
tension with common sense, and one effect is that people try to soften,
at least rhetorically, the consequences of things like a commitment to
the view that in the end values are no more than what we posit as such.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Sun May 2 07:34:55 EDT 1999
Article: 13729 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 2 May 1999 07:03:12 -0400
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In "Tony W. Frye" writes:
>Economically, from my own readings of Smith and Locke, state
>regulation of the economy was indeed considered destructive of
>liberalism.
A trivial point ("regulation is destructive of the nonregulation for
which classical liberalism calls"), and I doubt they make it anywhere,
but who knows?
The point intended is that abolition of some restrictions by classical
liberalism may be socially destructive, but the situation is not
improved by enactment of restrictions (the laws of the multicultural
egalitarian welfare state) intended to establish equal individual
autonomy and thus of necessity to eliminate the importance of
individualized nonbureaucratic social relations.
>Classical economics, in the purely laissez faire sense of the term,
>does not take into consideration equality and fraternity
Sure. That's one respect in which contemporary liberalism is more
fully developed than classical liberalism. Although classical
liberalism does call for formal equality under the law.
>the consequence of fraternity by itself (without the balance of
>liberty and egalitarianism) is not always equality.
To the extent it's not egalitarian it's not fraternity. Fraternity is
simply equality plus mutual concern.
>This is why fraternity is often more of a signifier of exclusion than
>inclusion without some type of political balance.
Actually, it's why in universalist systems fraternity tends to drop out
of the picture except in rhetoric. Mutual concern starts with
immediate personal ties and can't play much of a role in a system like
liberalism that fundamentally thinks such ties shouldn't matter.
I agree "fraternity" is more likely to play an important role in a
system that has an in-group opposed to the rest of the world such as
Naziism, Leftist movements that emphasize class struggle, and
monasticism.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Mon May 3 11:39:03 EDT 1999
Article: 13731 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 2 May 1999 19:39:10 -0400
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"Tony W. Frye" writes:
> However, as a tool, the state is like any other utility in that it
> can be either positive or negative.
It's misleading to think of the state as a tool because barring
absolute despotism there is no user of the tool. In a generally free
society the supposed user (society, the people, the country, whatever)
is really better understood as the thing worked on.
> If you have unemployment and poverty, improved individualized non-
> bureaucratic social relations is not going to enhance your lot
> economically.
Not obvious. If you look at which social groups have lots of
unemployment and poverty, e.g. if you compare American blacks,
immigrant Chinese, etc., it appears that i.n.b.s.r.'s enhance people's
lot economically.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Mon May 3 11:39:04 EDT 1999
Article: 13733 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 3 May 1999 07:51:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In "Tony W. Frye" writes:
>people like Milton Friedman give the same exact argument for laissez
>faire
Both libertarians and conservatives dislike the omnicompetent
managerial state.
>In a democracy the people are the engines driving the means toward
>their own political ends.
This seems to me a remarkably bad description of modern political life.
Multiculturalism is thought to enhance the current political regime,
for example, but it clearly reduces the ability of the people as a
whole to deliberate and choose ends collectively. How then can popular
deliberation and choice be the principle of modern political life?
>>if you compare American blacks, immigrant Chinese, etc.
>I do not know of one time in American history improved individualized
>non-bureaucratic social relations has ever enhanced any group or
>workforce's lot economically.
How do you account for the different success of blacks and Chinese?
FELIX might say it's all in the genes, but that explanation doesn't
seem open to you. I suppose family instablilty (illegitimacy, divorce)
would be another obvious case in which people's bad individualized
non-bureaucratic social relations cause them economic problems.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Mon May 3 18:36:46 EDT 1999
Article: 13736 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 3 May 1999 15:12:32 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In "Tony W. Frye" writes:
>>Both libertarians and conservatives dislike the omnicompetent
>>managerial state.
>Many conservatives have no problem with a police state that regulates
>personal behavior like sodomy laws, and as for economic regulation I'm
>certain there are many paleoconservatives who would be more than
>willing to enhance tariffs and fees on imports to regulate foreign
>trade, which is quite intrusive. Then there's the neo-cons and
>budding Bismarckians from the CIA who think nothing of using the state
>for policy purposes (military force) or butting into the business of
>other countries who threaten American commercial interests (such as
>the US-sponsored Pinochet military coup against the democratically
>elected Allende government in Chile).
Conservatives don't like police states. The rest of what you say is
irrelevant. Laws penalizing sodomy and the like don't constitute a
general system of regulation vesting discretionary power in government
functionaries and long precede the modern bureaucratic state. State
sex education and antidiscrimination laws applied to homosexuals,
cohabiting couples etc. are a better example of government attempts to
manage the area administratively. Most of the same sort of
consideration applies to the other examples you mention; tariffs
perhaps least but in a country with an internal market the size of
America the amount of regulation you can do with tariffs is very
limited.
>All the talk about multiculturalism is just recognizing what has
>always been there, that we are a nation of mongrels.
Hardly. In the past "diversity" was not considered a positive virtue.
It was not thought improper to give preferences to old-line
Anglo-American culture or for that matter to old-line Anglo-Americans.
Today the tendency is to consider such preferences in principle pretty
much the same thing as Naziism. The law requires preferences to be
given to people who are sociologically outsiders.
Why claim there's been no change when there's obviously been a large
change?
>Asian society is about as about as polar opposite to the U.S. as can
>be. It embodies a collective, bureaucratic spirit that would have the
>Montana Freemen screaming.
Chinese success in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the U.S. has nothing much to
do with the omnicompetent bureaucratic state and a lot to do with
culture and informal ties to family and others.
"Bureaucratic" and "social" do not have the same meaning. They
correspond to rather opposed tendencies. In modern times at any rate
the bureaucratic is intended as a substitute for the social.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue May 4 06:00:36 EDT 1999
Article: 13740 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 3 May 1999 20:01:37 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
> > Laws penalizing sodomy and the like don't constitute a general
> > system of regulation vesting discretionary power in government
> > functionaries and long precede the modern bureaucratic state.
> > State
> the House of Lords attempted to tack on clauses against sodomy to the
> Elizabethan Statute of Apprentices, which may suggest that they saw a
> connection between sexual regulation and socioeconomic regulation,
> and that the Rise of Mercantilism may thus have had some bearing on
> anti-sodomy. Likewise the laws against homosexuality which were
> modified in the 1960s were themselves surely a product of
> Late-Victorian regulation, i.e. of a period when laissez-faire was in
> retreat and a lot of other things were being regulated.
No doubt if you regulate apprenticeship you're likely to get into
things bearing on many aspects of apprentices' lives, and if government
is becoming more active generally some of its activity will bear on
sexual matters. I gave a couple of current examples, state sex ed and
certain antidiscrimination laws. I don't see how any of that tends to
show that laws having to do with sex are tied as such to the
centralized comprehensively managerial state, any more than say laws
about blasphemy. It seems to me that in general laws that say "you
shall not engage in moral outrages" are opposed to the spirit of the
c.c.m.s.
> As it happens, they vested a great deal of discretion in government
> functionaries, which was one of the most powerful arguments for
> repealing them (inequitable application of the law, political
> blackmail, etc).
Not the sort of discretion managers have. E.g., government
functionaries didn't set up committees to determine national sex goals,
decide who should perform which acts and how frequently, establish
procedures for variances, promulgate standards of performance, demand
reports on planned and actual activity, etc.
Also, blackmail is generally a private undertaking rather than a matter
of administrative discretion. I don't know what kind of inequitable
application you're talking about.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail Tue May 4 06:00:37 EDT 1999
Article: 13743 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Slaughter a symptom
Date: 4 May 1999 05:59:36 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <372E5588.40AECECD@infinet.com> "Tony W. Frye" writes:
>Insofar as laws penalizing consenting behavior not constituting a
>bureaucratic (or police) state, that's a rather unusual standard you
>have.
There can't be many times or places that don't have laws penalizing
consenting behavior. Bureaucratic (or police) states are much less
universal. So the two are far from equivalent.
In general though, if you are satisfied with your views I won't attempt
to disturb you in them. If others find them illuminating that's fine.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Wed Apr 28 06:41:41 1999
Subject: Re: your mail
To: B
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 06:41:41 -0400 (EDT)
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> the interwar period and next week's are nazism, fascism and world war
> 2. Any ideas?
That extract I sent you says what I think of the nazi/fascist right,
that it was an attempt to maintain particularism and principles that
rise above hedonism after the death of tradition and the transcendent.
Hence the importance of aesthetics in those movements, and their
explicit irrationalism. It was a hopeless attempt because life can't
be built on arbitrary assertions.
As to the interwar period, it was complex, with not only nazi/fascist
movements but various sorts of neotraditionalism.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Tue May 4 05:49:35 1999
Subject: Re: koestler
To: la
Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 05:49:36 -0400 (EDT)
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> Regarding your resource listed posted in alt.revolution.counter,
> Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe is certainly an interesting book, and
> very possible correct in its thesis; but how is it
> counterrevolutionary?
Good question. The whole section was supplied by someone else, a very
rightwing English Catholic, and I've never thought about the matter.
I suppose one could say that counterrevolutionary thought sometimes
slides into conspiracy theory, since if things are going in an
unnatural direction it must be due to wicked artifice, and if wicked
artifice is secretly in control there must be influential groups that
are not what they seem working behind the scenes. Jews are an
influential group whose disproportionate influence seems in need of
explanation, and the thesis of the Koestler book is that they aren't
what they seem, so it all hangs together in some sense. And in fact
there are people who think it important and illuminating to refer to
Jews as Khazars. I think part of it is that the children of Israel
have a religious prestige to which a central Asian tribe masquerading
as children of Israel could not lay claim.
Next question I suppose is whether it should be cut. It's hard to know
when something's too tangential to be covered. The criterion though
isn't whether a view is correct but whether it is tied into some aspect
of counterrevolutionary thought such that knowing about it helps
understanding. I'm inclined to leave it in because of the source -- I
think of it as part of a set.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Wed May 5 17:02:11 1999
Subject: Re: your mail
To: Br
Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 17:02:11 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
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The Cold War is an indication how difficult things are for
conservatism, a view that takes very seriously the understandings
implicit in social life, when the tendency of events is toward
bureaucratic collectivism. Conservatism has a hard time making itself
independent of what else is going on in the world.
Communism was the ultimate anti-conservative movement. In order to
resist it it became necessary to support anti-communism, an ideology
that promoted centralized state authority and appealed to motives
(economic well-being, the solidarity of the undifferentiated People,
freedom -- understood as the right to do simply what one pleases -- as
an ultimate good) that are characteristic of the Left. So to save
itself conservatism had to betray itself.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From jk Thu May 6 12:26:34 1999
Subject: Re:
To: ad
Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 12:26:34 -0400 (EDT)
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Status: RO
If blacks commit no more crimes than whites, then how do you explain
the vastly higher rates of crime victimization among blacks? Is it
really your view that no one cares about and doesn't investigate or
record crimes against whites, or that black neighborhoods are plagued
by mobs of white murderers, rapists, robbers and burglars who are
responsible for most of the crimes there?
From jk Fri May 7 06:10:53 1999
Subject: Re: Babylon 5: Threat to democracy?
To: He
Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 06:10:53 -0400 (EDT)
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Status: RO
It is or was a commonplace that freedom and equality, (classical)
liberalism and democracy, are rather at odds.
There's a connection between free institutions and the military spirit.
Consider the free cities of classical antiquity and the Italian
Renaissance. Or for an extreme example, read the Icelandic sagas.
One reason for the connection is that free institutions can't exist and
function properly without a principle of honor, since otherwise there
will be no limit on the ability of the strong, unscrupulous and
manipulative to dominate through coercion, payoffs, threats, whatever.
A strong principle of honor will exist only when men are called
reasonably often to put their lives on the line, that is only in a
society with an important military element.
As to your specific question, I don't know anything much about the
militias. I've never thought them a threat. It always seemed unlikely
to me that they would ever do much of anything.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
From paleo-return-266-jk=panix.com@returns.egroups.com Sat May 8 13:20:51 1999
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In-Reply-To: <5af9ea61.2464737e@aol.com> from "CraigPreus@aol.com" at May 7, 99 12:49:02 pm
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Subject: [Paleo] Re: Abortion and Dred Scott
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Status: RO
> Many paleos often go through the roof when pro-lifers compare Roe v.
> Wade to Dred Scott. Why?
The whole line of thought uses egalitarianism and inclusiveness as an
argument against abortion, and paleocons don't like e. and i.
The _Dred Scot_ decision doesn't deal with the right issue. It's a
while since I looked at it, but as I recall it said that original
intent meant that blacks were not part of the political community under
the Constitution. No-one claims that unborn children are part of the
political community, and so far as I know _Dred Scot_ didn't mean there
was something wrong with laws protecting the lives of blacks. Since
the decision isn't really apposite appealing to it has a bit of a wave-
the-bloody-shirt quality. That's fine if you accept the general
principle that non-inclusiveness is a generalized path to horrors, but
paleos don't.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest can easily
confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions,
out of all proportion to their means." (Emerson)
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From jk Mon May 10 07:37:58 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commonsn
To: la
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 07:37:58 -0400 (EDT)
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> Would that Blair were simply a jerk. No, it's part of the
> systematic, and so far unimaginably successful, campaign to tear down
> the Old Order, or rather, to tear down whatever at this late point
> still remains of the Old Order.
It's true that he's not only a jerk, that it's part of something
larger. Still, a man does what he is. Plato's tyrant is tyrannical in
his own soul as well as the city.
How has it been possible to destroy the Old Order so quickly? A lot of
it I suppose has been the centralization and bureaucratization of
intellectual life. Public life takes place on TV and can be managed by
a small class. Intellectual life is a function of the universities,
which are funded by the government, subject to "professional
standards," and required by the civil rights laws to put diversity,
inclusiveness etc. at the very heart of their mission. Children are
brought up by TV, the educational bureaucracy, pop music etc.
Hence the importance of the internet. As they say, it spreads "hate."
How successful will the New Order be, and for how long? To my mind it
has very basic problems because there's no reliable principle of moral
cohesion among the ruling class, and because it can't account for
self-sacrifice without which no order can survive. So it's a corrupt
imperial order from the beginning, rather like the Hellenistic world or
China during a period of warlordism. I suppose that means it goes on
until something else replaces it. Things seem to happen faster now
though -- it must matter that now TV etc. pipes the corruptions of the
Court into every peasant's hearth.
> Speaking of the Old Order, attached is a concise Declaration of the New
> Order by the Supreme Commander of NATO, who, if you've seen him on tv,
> you will notice has the staring inhuman eyes of an alien in a science
> fiction movie--a typical Clintonite.
Haven't seen him because I don't watch TV. His quotes always made him
sound rather robotic. I noticed the one you appended and now that you
mention it I think it deserves further attention (see below).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's
a 19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st
century, and we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states."
(General Wesley Clark, Supreme Commander, NATO)
From jk Tue May 11 17:37:03 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commonsn
To: la
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 17:37:04 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
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> I'm glad to find a reader of the Republic Book Eight and Nine, which
> apart from works of divine revelation is the greatest thing I've ever
> read.
I read them as an account what's going on now and of the last 1000
years or so of Western history. I'm always urging them on people.
> Yes, the Internet is amazing (I just bought my first PC a few months
> ago so I'm particularly appreciative of it). But can it really give
> rise to counterrevolutionary communities?
It's a piece of the puzzle. In itself the internet fragments but it
also lets the fragments establish new connections. What connections
get established and last depend on what people need to carry on human
life and what can survive under the new circumstances.
A long-term possibility that forces itself on me is a sort of
neo-Middle Eastern existence in which there is effectively no public
sphere, just rule by corrupt warlords, family dynasties, what have you,
and life carried on in inward-turning ethnic/religious face-to-face
communities that deal with outsiders in a formal arms'-length manner.
Individualized use of the internet would then be a transitional phase
on the way to a new radical particularism that would be the alternative
to the unworkable radical universalism that now seems forced on us.
All very speculative. In the meantime, the new communication
technology does have practical effects. The earliest I noticed was
about 5 yrs. ago when Congress was going to pass legislation requiring
licensing of all teachers and the move was stopped by a flood of
protests from home schoolers alerted by talk radio and various online
communications systems. The Clinton scandals have been kept alive in
part by the internet. More generally, I think the availability of
unsupervised and unpackaged information through the internet and the
possibilities of fast and easy cooperation create a different
environment that is harder to control centrally. That creates an
opening for internal controls of various sorts including say ethnicity
and religious affiliation. Although the internet may not often make
things happen directly it affects the setting in which things happen.
> The real question is, will enough of the substance of those nations
> and peoples still be intact afterward for them to be restored?
More speculation -- I wonder what kinds of peoples will be able to
survive as peoples in the coming world? The English and the French are
the English and French partly because of political history, partly
because until very recently there hadn't been movements of peoples in
Western Europe for a thousand years, partly because each occupies a
compact geographical area of a certain size. All that meant they had
enough in common for a rich public life and what they had in common
could be taken enough for granted for that public life to be a free
one. I'm not sure whether that kind of secular territorial nationality
will be able to sustain itself anywhere in a future in which once
you're no longer dealing face-to-face it doesn't matter whether you're
50 or 5000 miles away.
Maybe the Orthodox Jews or Indian castes are a better model for what
will work, survive and prevail. I don't really like that idea, because
I like the European kind of civilization, but I think it's probably
less stable and has been less common than the weak
despot/inward-turning local community kind of setting.
Now I've inflicted on you one of my hobby-horses, though, for which I
should apologize.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's
a 19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st
century, and we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states."
(General Wesley Clark, Supreme Commander, NATO)
From jk Mon May 17 08:02:52 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commonsn
To: la
Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 08:02:52 -0400 (EDT)
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> I wonder if you have read Rabbi Schiller's talk from the 1994
> American Renaissance conference where he suggested that the only way
> whites might survive in the future would be in the manner that Jews
> have survived all these centuries--in inwardly-turned enclaves such
> as you describe.
Haven't seen it. I've written a couple of things for _The Scorpion_,
if you're familiar with the publication, one on the coming
neo-tribalism and one on Ibn Khaldun, a 14th c. Tunisian who I think is
the best theoretician of post-historical radically multiethnic society.
I wrote the former 4 years ago and it's overly optimistic as to what
the new world would look like. The latter hasn't come out yet but
should be in the next issue depending on what the editor does.
> You seem to be saying that the Internet, in and of itself, sets in
> motion forces that doom the nation.
The internet is just an one of the forces that make distance irrelevant
once you're out of immediate face-to-face contact. The telephone,
radio, TV, cheap jet transportation etc. are all part of it. You
didn't need the internet for universal pop culture.
I'm really not decided about the effect of the internet itself, insofar
as it can be separated from everything else that is going on. It
facilitates both radical fragmentation and reordering of the fragments
based on elective affinities. My guess is that the latter feature is
more significant -- it's the specific contribution the internet can
make because it facilitates 1-to-1 and small group communication.
> Maybe you're right but I hope not. William H. McNeil, in his short book
> Polyethnicity and National Unity In World History, has a similar
> thesis--that the nation state is just a blip in a world history in which
> the norm, to which he says we are now returning, is the multiethnic
> heirarchy.
Hadn't known of it. Will take a look.
The nation state requires a large geographical area in which everyone
participates in a common public life with substantive moral content.
Hard to achieve. Even in Western Europe, where there had been no
significant invasion from outside for 500 years and populations
generally had been settled for a thousand years it required ethnic
cleansing. In 1500 there were no Jews in any of the European states on
the Atlantic seaboard. Today immigration is probably unstoppable long
term because everyone's rich and transportation is easy, and even if
you abolished it and ethnically cleansed everyone you'd still have the
whole world virtually present in every living room and permeating all
public life by way of electronics.
> Perhaps in the future whites will only be able to survive in a
> similar manner, as second class people under a hopelessly inept and
> corrupt nonwhite/multicultural regime.
Not just whites. A characteristic of middle eastern society was that
there was no organic connection between rulers and ruled. Everyone
lived in an inward-turning ethno-religious community. That's why you
had odd institutions like janissaries and slave dynasties, rule by
utter outsiders.
One could speculate about how different racial groups would adapt to
the extent there are relevant differences in propensities. The Chinese
have their extended families, the Indians their castes, the Jews and
Armenians have already shown they know how to live in a middle-eastern
setting. There's not much in Western European history that looks
helpful. Presumably the history of Eastern Europe could provide some
clues.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Tue May 18 13:10:49 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commons
To: la
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 13:10:49 -0400 (EDT)
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> Yes, but no reordering of fragments based on face to face contact,
> which is what your projected neo-tribalism requires.
That's right, the internet is just a piece of it. It helps people
articulate their thoughts and find each other but it's not a vehicle for
social order. It's a catalyst.
> it had never occurred to me that the rise of modern nation states was
> conditioned on the expulsion of the Jews from Western Europe. Is
> that really true?
Don't know enough to say. It does look as if the two were connected.
Nation states developed in just the places from which Jews were
expelled. Also, if there is to be a common public life based on common
history, religion, etc. it seems awkward having a class with an
extremely important public role -- high government officials,
financiers, advisers to the king, what have you -- that doesn't share
in those things.
> The sort of society you envisage is completely inappropriate for
> Western whites. Basically what you're outlining is horrible.
There are a lot of bad things about it. Still it's at least a way to
live which pop culture and multiculturalism of the kind the Clintons
favor is not. Maybe the clannish Celts, hillbillies and Eastern
Orthodox that Chronicles is always pushing show the way.
> But this constrained existence will nevertheless be the death of much
> of what made the white West.
Agreed. "Nothing gold can stay."
> Based on all the preceding, one might say that, far from quoting
> Clark in a critical light, you are actually agreeing with him, in
> that you also look forward to thoroughly multiethnic societies.
Now you've hurt my feelings! I "look forward" to multiethnic society
in the sense of foreseeing it. I don't view it as a goal to strive
for. I'd rather be wrong. Also, multiethnic "society" won't be where
people live -- they'll withdraw one way or another, eventually into
ethno-religious cocoons since man is a social animal and society
requires goods in common.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Tue May 18 13:19:54 1999
Subject: Re: Virgins, Volcanoes, and the Amish....
To: cr
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 13:19:54 -0400 (EDT)
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> I enjoyed your essay in _The Scorpion_, to which MF Walker drew my
> attention.
I'm pleased! Also, thanks for your comments:
> "Community and autonomy can be fully combined in special situations,
> for example in a small community one could not practically leave in
> which individual ends can be attained only through cooperation."
>
> a) Individual ends can be attained only through cooperation in any
> _conceivable_ situation with the possible exception of Robinson
> Crusoe.
What about coercion? Hayek talks it down but it's certainly one method
of getting your way. Beyond that, it's an important element in every
society that has something identifiable as a state, and each of us in
fact depends on it to attain our individual ends. "Insisting on your
rights" normally involves coercion, for example, since it depends on a
system of law backed by force.
> b) Community and autonomy are combined quite nicely for most of us in
> mainstream free societies, modulo the constricting effect of the
> welfare state. That's why getting rid of as much government as
> possible is so important: to rebuild both community _and_ autonomy.
I agree that the modern managerial welfare state destroys both
community and autonomy. There's a limit to what can be done though.
Once you leave the hunter-gatherer stage private coercion becomes
profitable and some form of government and law -- organized coercion --
a necessity, if only as a defense. Also, I think government has at
least somewhat of a role beyond defense of life and property.
> "... we can create a durable voluntary community only by choosing to
> submit to some definite authority. Those who hope for a way of life
> better than that provided by a disintegrating liberal consumer
> society will have to begin by deciding which authority to recognize."
>
> I'm not sure here whether "liberal" is being used in its
> Anglo-American sense (welfare state) or its older European sense
> (libertarian), but I am at a loss in either case to understand why we
> have to pick just _one_ authority. Note that in a complex society
> there are typically many sources of authority
I meant "liberal" in the welfare-state sense. However, I view
contemporary liberalism as the legitimate development of classical
liberalism, as a more comprehensive application of its basic principle
of identifying what is desirable with what is desired. That's an
obscure formulation but if you're interested I go into more detail in
my piece on "PC and the Crisis of Liberalism" (go to my homepage and
then to "publications").
Your language suggests the liberal view of the world as an enormous
menu from which the consumer chooses. The issue to my mind is whether
that's sufficient for a tolerable life, or whether there must also be
some overarching scheme of what's good and bad guiding choices that is
neither constructed by the individual nor just another item chosen from
a menu. It seems to me that some such scheme is necessary for
community and for that matter stable personal identity, and since it is
not constructed individually or chosen arbitrarily it must have an
authoritative element. Hence the need for an overarching authority.
> The only area in which one has no choice is the area of government,
> which is why once again it is crucial to restrict government to the
> smallest possible area of life.
I didn't choose my parents, the particular persons who are my children,
my sex, my ethnicity and a lot of other things that have a lot to do
with my duties. Abolish the welfare state and such things become much
more important and the obligations to which they give rise become much
more binding. That's one reason I view contemporary and classical
liberalism as continuous.
More generally, what is good, beautiful and true does not depend on my
choice. So maximizing choice is not the ultimate standard although in
many settings choice is a very good and even necessary thing.
> "... the kibbutzim, in spite of the often avid cultural interests of
> their members, are wary of intellectuals."
>
> It is perhaps both gratuitous and ungenerous to comment, "So is
> everybody else with any sense" -- but I will do so anyway....
Intellectuals are troublesome but you can't do without them. Basic
issues are important and must be dealt with somehow, at least when a
society's understanding of basic issues is in disarray. Those who deal
with them are the intellectuals.
> "The situation alters when tribes become nonterritorial. When we
> constantly deal with people who define themselves through laws and
> standards other than our own, the ideal of a concrete and knowable
> common truth in which all participate recedes. Different truths grow
> up, a separate one for each tribe, that intersect if at all only in
> some transcendent realm that is not readily accessible."
>
> The idea of differing, non-intersecting "truths" for different
> cultures is either total nonsense, if "truth" is understood in its
> ordinary sense (the truth of a material proposition), or vacuous if
> understood in a metaphysical sense, since it follows automatically
> from your definition of "tribe"
By "truth" I meant an understanding of the world justifiably accepted
as valid and authoritative. ("Authoritative" means you have a right to
expect others to accept it.) For John Rawls I suppose it would include
both "water is H2O" and "social institutions ought to be arranged with
the benefit of the worst-off in mind." For Hayek it would be different
in important respects.
It's somewhat paradoxical and can be misleading to use the word "truth"
that way. The thought is that no man possesses a truth superior to
that. So if you use the word "truth" to refer to something we can
actually have and use rather than a transcendent ideal or something in
the mind of God that's what you're left with.
The extent to which various kinds of propositions, "material" and
"metaphysical" say, can be separated is a very difficult and
interesting question but I don't think I have to deal with it since I'm
discussing social issues, which necessarily implicate both.
I agree that each tribe has a different "truth," using the word as I do
in the essay. To say so might be vacuous in a logical sense but it
serves the function of directing attention to one aspect of what it is
to be a tribe, and what the consequences of greater tribalism would be.
"intersect if at all in some transcendent realm" was misleading. The
thought was that all truths are about the same reality, about the Good,
Beautiful, and True, each forever one and the same, but that reality in
the end exceeds our grasp. The truths we have are partial and differ
from each other, and the thing to which they relate, ultimate reality,
transcends us. It follows that the coherence of the various truths in
their relationship to transcendent reality is invisible to us.
> "The philosophical implications of modern science are unsettled "
>
> Rather, if "philosophical" is understood to mean "metaphysical", it
> _has no implications_
I don't see why this should be true, but since the essay takes the view
that cross-tribal cooperation on issues relating to modern natural
science is possible I don't have to argue the point.
> "... a diversity of tribes, each with its own rationality ..."
>
> Once again, we need to be careful with terms. Modus ponens, for
> example, is not simply an invention of Europeans
Rationality includes formal logic but should not in my view be limited
to it. Is it rational for example to favor family members, fellow
Alabamans, fellow white Protestants over others? The liberal answer is
"no," because liberals tend to view the individual agent as a pure
chooser, legitimately constituted only by his own choices and bound by
universalistic moral norms. Those who think that a man's connections
to other people are part of what makes him what he is would be more
likely to say "yes."
I'll take a look at the things you cite me to.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Tue May 18 14:59:56 1999
Subject: Re: your mail
To: Br
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 14:59:56 -0400 (EDT)
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> Slowly tieing up the project and we are now into the modern period,
> but also specifically into the one in Sweden and how conservatism has
> developed here. Do you just one last time have any knowledge to share
> with me on these subjects?
Post WW II the Right had lost decisively and conservatism had trouble
retaining coherence. Some tendencies:
1. Literary and religious sentimentalism, in the manner of Russell
Kirk.
2. Anticommunism. Define what you are by reference to what you're
not.
3. Side with big business. Often a corollary of proper opposition to
overall state management of society, but often uncritical.
4. Conservative moralism. OK, but moralism in isolation is not
sufficient.
All of the foregoing resulted from lack of grasp of fundamental issues.
Conservatism went to pieces.
After the radical left went mass-market in the 60s we had further
developments:
1. Neoconservatism. Protect welfare-state liberalism against itself
by supporting traditional restraints.
2. Paleoconservatism. A realization that conservatism was hopelessly
compromised because the utter triumph of liberalism had made existing
society hopeless as a standard. A lot of churning for some more
radical alternative that does not betray the fundamental conservative
opposition to radicalism, to the notion that social and moral order can
be intentionally remade.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Thu May 20 15:42:01 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commons
To: la
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 15:42:01 -0400 (EDT)
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> The Bible doesn't get old!
True enough. It is still true that one consequence of going too far in
trying to conquer all things -- build a tower to Heaven -- is that
language loses its meaning and human cooperation therefore becomes
impossible.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Thu May 20 22:26:41 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commons
To: la
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 22:26:41 -0400 (EDT)
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> You are offering a very different interpretation, that the sort of
> human arrogance seen in the construction of Babel leads, in and of
> itself, to a debasement of language which in turn dissolves human
> society. But why would the Babel project *necessarily* lead to loss
> of language? Or are you simply equating Babel with ideology, the
> language- destroying effects of which are well known? Or perhaps
> you're not thinking of ideology, but of Voegelin's concupiscential
> urge to world empire. Would the latter necessarily destroy the
> meaning of language?
To construct a tower to Heaven is to say that nothing transcends us.
Meaning however transcends every actual existent. "Red" for example is
not reducible to the collection of all red things. If it were it could
tell us nothing about new or future things. Therefore "constructing a
tower to Heaven" -- abolishing transcendence -- saying there is nothing
beyond us -- destroys meaning and makes language impossible.
All of which may sound like gibberish, but I think there's something to
it. So I'll try again: constructing a tower to Heaven is a metaphor
for constructing all things in Heaven and earth. That is, for
technology and the view that reality is socially constructed. But if
we constructed all things, then talking about "speaking about things
correctly" would be as silly as talking about reading correctly a
newspaper I am imagining in my head. In order to speak about "truth"
there has to be a gap between knower and object known, and the gap
disappears if the object known is simply the construction of the
knower. But if "truth" becomes meaningless then language becomes
meaningless as well.
I suppose the latter way of putting it makes what I am saying very
close to "ideology destroys language." One could also say that building
a tower to Heaven is the destruction of the great dualisms
(earth/Heaven, body/soul, man/God, etc.), and destruction of dualisms
is the destruction of reason and meaning. I go into that issue in my
review of Thomas Molnar's _Return to Philosophy_ which is in the
publications part of my web page.
Thanks for asking the question by the way. It's good to be pressed on
these points.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Fri May 21 09:26:15 1999
Subject: Re: your mail
To: en
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 09:26:15 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
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> and...what are you getting at with your multi ethnic quote. Are you a
> fan of the General's? It just doesn't seem like your kind of
> quote...Please enlighten me...
I think it's utterly horrible and the point of the quote is to display
how horrible it is.
WKC and his associates are deciding what things there is and is not a
place for in the world and they're blowing up the things there is no
place for. The point of it all is that he and his buddies, "we" as he
puts it, are "transitioning" the world into the 21st century and
they've decided on some form of society as the instrument for carrying
out their plan so that's the kind of society everyone is going to have
to have. That's what the language he chose means.
The arrogance is utterly stupefying. I can't think of any historical
analogies. It's not going to end well.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Fri May 21 09:28:26 1999
Subject: Hillary
To: en
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 09:28:26 -0400 (EDT)
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On Hillary, who knows if she'll win. I don't like her. She's another
stupefyingly arrogant person. It's true she's not the psychopathic
criminal her husband is.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Wed May 19 19:26:00 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commons
To: la
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 19:26:00 -0400 (EDT)
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> I was being slightly ironic.
I had a fit of literal-mindedness, it seems. The quote does grow on me
though. Take for example "to transition" as a verb justifying blowing
people up. And of course the "we" that decides to do it with one type
of society rather than another.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Thu May 20 15:42:01 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commons
To: la
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 15:42:01 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Status: RO
> The Bible doesn't get old!
True enough. It is still true that one consequence of going too far in
trying to conquer all things -- build a tower to Heaven -- is that
language loses its meaning and human cooperation therefore becomes
impossible.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Thu May 20 22:26:41 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commons
To: la
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 22:26:41 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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Status: RO
> You are offering a very different interpretation, that the sort of
> human arrogance seen in the construction of Babel leads, in and of
> itself, to a debasement of language which in turn dissolves human
> society. But why would the Babel project *necessarily* lead to loss
> of language? Or are you simply equating Babel with ideology, the
> language- destroying effects of which are well known? Or perhaps
> you're not thinking of ideology, but of Voegelin's concupiscential
> urge to world empire. Would the latter necessarily destroy the
> meaning of language?
To construct a tower to Heaven is to say that nothing transcends us.
Meaning however transcends every actual existent. "Red" for example is
not reducible to the collection of all red things. If it were it could
tell us nothing about new or future things. Therefore "constructing a
tower to Heaven" -- abolishing transcendence -- saying there is nothing
beyond us -- destroys meaning and makes language impossible.
All of which may sound like gibberish, but I think there's something to
it. So I'll try again: constructing a tower to Heaven is a metaphor
for constructing all things in Heaven and earth. That is, for
technology and the view that reality is socially constructed. But if
we constructed all things, then talking about "speaking about things
correctly" would be as silly as talking about reading correctly a
newspaper I am imagining in my head. In order to speak about "truth"
there has to be a gap between knower and object known, and the gap
disappears if the object known is simply the construction of the
knower. But if "truth" becomes meaningless then language becomes
meaningless as well.
I suppose the latter way of putting it makes what I am saying very
close to "ideology destroys language." One could also say that building
a tower to Heaven is the destruction of the great dualisms
(earth/Heaven, body/soul, man/God, etc.), and destruction of dualisms
is the destruction of reason and meaning. I go into that issue in my
review of Thomas Molnar's _Return to Philosophy_ which is in the
publications part of my web page.
Thanks for asking the question by the way. It's good to be pressed on
these points.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Fri May 21 09:26:15 1999
Subject: Re: your mail
To: en
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 09:26:15 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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Status: RO
> and...what are you getting at with your multi ethnic quote. Are you a
> fan of the General's? It just doesn't seem like your kind of
> quote...Please enlighten me...
I think it's utterly horrible and the point of the quote is to display
how horrible it is.
WKC and his associates are deciding what things there is and is not a
place for in the world and they're blowing up the things there is no
place for. The point of it all is that he and his buddies, "we" as he
puts it, are "transitioning" the world into the 21st century and
they've decided on some form of society as the instrument for carrying
out their plan so that's the kind of society everyone is going to have
to have. That's what the language he chose means.
The arrogance is utterly stupefying. I can't think of any historical
analogies. It's not going to end well.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Fri May 21 09:28:26 1999
Subject: Hillary
To: en
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 09:28:26 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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Status: RO
On Hillary, who knows if she'll win. I don't like her. She's another
stupefyingly arrogant person. It's true she's not the psychopathic
criminal her husband is.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk Tue May 25 07:43:43 1999
Subject: Re: form of address in the House of Commons
To: la
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 07:43:43 -0400 (EDT)
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Status: RO
> If we interpret Babel, as I do, as a single world state, then God's
> dividing men's language in the parable makes sense as an expression
> of the idea that God does not want man to become all powerful. Part
> of God's plan for man is that he live in particular nations, not a
> single global nation where there will be nothing outside himself, no
> "Other." In God's plan for man, there is supposed to be the "Other,"
> in two senses of the word: Other peoples and cultures, and God as the
> transcendent Other. The whole idea of a "global borderless culture"
> is that any sense of Otherness is unenlightened and must be gotten
> rid of. So liberals seek to get rid of both types of Other, (1) by
> including all peoples in one multicultural society so there are no
> Other peoples, and (2) by making a religion of Humanity so that there
> is no transcendent God.
> Under your interpretation of Babel, however, if men's building of the
> tower symbolizes the rejection of transcendence, then what would be
> the meaning of God's dividing up their languages and sending them
> over the earth to form separate nations? In your interpretation, the
> division of languages is the bad consequence of men's self-worship
> and rejection of transcendence. In my interpretation, the division
> of languages is the God-ordained proper state of man as a limited
> being under God.
Your "Babel=world state" is I think the same as my "Babel=abolition of
transcendence." You seem to agree when you link the world state to the
religion of humanity.
The Bible says God confounded language and scattered the people, not
that he divided languages and formed nations. On my interpretation God
acted at Babel through natural law rather than miracle.
There can be no One World this side of the Kingdom in which we see God
face to face. In that Kingdom they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, and presumably the opposition of other particularities to
universality disappears as well.
For us here and now, borderless utopia is temptation rather than goal.
If we ourselves attempt to create One World then all standards
disappear other than our own will -- "nothing will be restrained from
them, which they have imagined to do." That is simple necessity, since
any unified world we build must be based on what we have fully, which
is our own wills.
An immediate consequence is that language and thought become
impossible, since they depend on appeal to standards other than our own
will. In the absence of language and thought man is reduced to radical
chaotic individuality, like molecules in a cloud of gas. Once man has
been so reduced -- "scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth" --
then fragmentary linguistic habits and perceptions of meaning can knit
things together locally and tribes and nations arise once more.
On my view God does not want man to try to be all powerful because the
attempt is a logical absurdity, a denial of the order of being that
punishes itself even in the most practical terms. He wants man to live
in separate nations because recognition of the human Other as fully
human is the way we come to recognize truth as transcendent, as
something we ourselves do not fully grasp. He therefore makes
existence of the human Other as much an intrinsic necessity to social
reality as a transcendent God is to reality generally. No special
providence is required.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a
19th-century idea, and we're trying to transition into the 21st century, and
we're going to do it with multi-ethnic states." (General Wesley K. Clark)
From jk@panix.com Tue May 25 17:00:34 1999
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Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 17:00:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199905252100.RAA06412@panix.com>
To: jk@panix.com
Subject: Havel
Status: RO
"In the next century I believe that most states will begin to change
from cultlike entities charged with emotion into far simpler and more
civilized entities, into less powerful and more rational
administrative units that will represent only one of the many complex
and multileveled ways in which our planetary society is organized."
"The practical responsibilities of the state -- its legal powers --
can only devolve in two directions, downward or upward; downward, to
the nongovernmental organizations and structures of civil society; or
upward, to regional, transnational and global organizations."
I had no idea Havel understood so little about society or human beings
generally. All of a sudden after all these years everything is
spontaneously going to get organized in a way a late-20th century
liberal administrator finds rational. Whatever.
Actually, I think it's likely he's right the nation-state will
decline. Why expect the result to be something out of a high-school
civics class or B-school organization manual though? More likely the
cultic aspects will reappear someplace else, likely in the form of
universal ideological imperialism or local ethno-religious tribalism.
As to the levels that compete with the cultic level, presumably
they'll be marked by instability and raw corruption. After all,
without some "cultic" element -- something that attracts loyalty and
justifies sacrifice -- why expect the beauty of organization charts
and job descriptions to keep men in line?
Back to my archive of posts.