Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Sep 30 08:22:49 EDT 1996
Article: 69521 of alt.society.conservatism
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,alt.sex,alt.politics.sex,soc.men,soc.women,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Sexual morality FAQ
Date: 30 Sep 1996 05:58:47 -0400
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zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>the relationship between public profession and private pursuits is one
>of tortuous accomodation rather than sincere compliance.
Agreed, it's complex. It is sufficient for the former to have a
function.
>Hypocrisy has been characteristic of bourgeois institutions in a way
>that it never characterized either their feudal predecessors, who had
>no need of affecting appearances in their heyday, or to their would-be
>communist successors, who went to great pains in articulating sui
>generis public notions of "democratic centralism" and "proletarian
>justice", whereupon their practice could be considered in compliance
>with their institutional ideals.
The accounts I've read of communist societies suggest an extraordinarily
large gap between practice and public profession. There were medieval
ideals and medieval satirists; hence medieval hypocrisy.
>It seems to me that your proposal to link libertarian precepts with
>intrusive sexual morality that cannot fail to undermine them,
>exemplifies bourgeois hypocrisy at its finest.
This would be puzzling if it weren't boring. "I don't think this will
work" and "you are a hypocrite" are not usually treated as synonyms.
Also, I don't see anything peculiarly intrusive about the sexual
morality I suggest. You speak as if it were unusual for a society to
have shared public standards on such things.
>If that is the case, libertarianism is bound to fail for similar
>reasons. Sounds quite plausible to me.
It's hard for me to see how it could be stable long-term. It's common
enough of course for a political regime to undermine the conditions for
its own existence.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Sep 30 08:22:49 EDT 1996
Article: 69522 of alt.society.conservatism
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,alt.sex,alt.politics.sex,soc.men,soc.women,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Sexual morality FAQ
Date: 30 Sep 1996 06:04:32 -0400
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zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
> To be properly obedient is the way of wives
> and concubines." (3b:2)
>
>Does this sound as advocacy of monogamy.
It's recognition of the existence of concubinage and acceptance of its
legitimacy, so that those faced with it have to deal with it. An
additional point the quotation suggests is the difficulty of combining
social acceptance of polygamy or concubinage with high status for
women.
>As regards Genesis 2:24, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
>mother; and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh"
>says nothing about monogamy; the "one flesh" reference is canonically
>interpreted as a command to engender and bring forth children.
Genesis 2:23: "And Adam said, This is now Bone of my bones, and flesh
of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of
Man." Sounds like a statement of extraodinarily close union as the norm
that fits awkwardly with polygyny and concubinage.
>You are equivocating on the living together part. It has not been
>demonstrated that public social order intimately depends on legal
>regulation of private family values.
You become ever more boring. My actual claim has been that a
libertarian legal regime would result in reinforced social standards on
sexual matters because such standards would become more necessary.
I've discussed the relation between a public sexual order and public
and private well-being in the FAQ and the thread.
>As regards Tocqueville, his argument is that democracy conduces to
>strict sexual mores, rather than vice versa (DiA II: iii.xi -- the sum
>total of his evidence for this claim is relative scarcity of American
>literary depictions of female licentiousness.)
This is stupid. He says in the previous paragraph "Although the
travelers who have visited North America differ on many points, they all
agree in remarking that morals are far more strict there than
elsewhere."
>The question of whether polygyny is "the most common form of household
>organization" among the societies in question is a red herring -- and
>you know it.
You've assured me that its status as such in most societies recognizing
polygyny is demonstrated in any introductory sociology or anthropology
textbook.
>Since the miniscule proportion of homosexual households suffices to
>raise your conservative hackles, a comparable number of traditionally
>validated polygynous households should suffice to make them acceptable
>by your lights.
Why suppose that all violations of the norm of permanent monogamous
marriage are equally important?
>As you have in effect argued in the beginning of this thread, every
>state depends for its legitimacy on a shared code of public morality.
>The right to privacy is fundamental to a libertarian state, which must
>therefore cultivate a public morality compatible therewith. So where
>is the self-contradiction?
Its claim to superiority is that it separates law and particular
morality and therefore grants moral freedom.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Sep 30 22:37:49 EDT 1996
Article: 69583 of alt.society.conservatism
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,alt.sex,alt.politics.sex,soc.men,soc.women,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Sexual morality FAQ
Date: 30 Sep 1996 22:32:56 -0400
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zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>From reading your Traditionalist Conservatism manifesto, it seems to
>me that libertarianism is at odds with your position anyway.
Your version of moral libertarianism is, but a libertarian legal regime
is not. The competence of the state can be far more limited than the
concerns of society at large for reasons that have little to do with
moral libertarianism. Aesthetic standards for example are social, but
not necessarily legislated or administered even in a state in which no-
one cares about libertarianism as a moral philosophy. Ditto for
essential aspects of all moral standards. Also, in societies in which
people disagree about lots of things what the state does may be very
limited, with the law approching something like the _ius gentium_ even
if no-one is a moral libertarian.
>So why invoke it at all in support of your preferences in sexual
>morality?
A restricted state is necessary for conservatism. Given the nature of
the modern state, conservative goals will never be realized if the role
of the state in society is not radically reduced.
Tradition as opposed to more explicitly rational modes of decisionmaking
is characteristically decentralized and favors decentralization. The
point of "family values," for example, is to enable the business of life
to be carried on by autonomous institutions and arrangements that do not
owe their being to the state. To favor tradition is therefore to want
to limit the state.
>In the Confucian corpora, identifying a social practice by X as "the
>way of X" is prescriptive rather than merely descriptive.
Sure. But to prescribe conduct in a situation is not to say that
situation is fundamental to the social order. A Confucian might
prescribe the behavior of a general without believing that political
power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
>And I would have thought that your advocacy of patriarchal households
>has inured you to the difficulties of combining the sort of
>institutions you favor with high status for women.
Compared to what other institutions? Unstable families don't do much
for the status of women. People claim that there's going to be a new
nonsexist family that women will be able to rely on. Utter novelty is
always possible, I suppose.
>There is more than one bone in Adam's body.
Meaning that he'll be "one flesh" with multiple wives? Sounds a bit too
complicated to work as a metaphor. As it happens, he didn't have
multiple wives; that's significant since Adam and Eve display the
fundamental pattern of human life.
>Since polygamy is actually prescribed at Genesis 38
How? Tamar was the sole wife of each husband in the series. Why do you
think it was part of the story that Judah's wife died before Tamar hit
on him?
>in so far as your moral precepts would conduce to destabilization of a
>libertarian regime, it remains a mystery to me why you would invoke the
>alleged inevitability of the latter in support of the former.
A libertarian regime is hard to stabilize in any event. I doubt that
one of the kind you visualize even makes sense because its fundamental
moral principle is too much at odds with how people feel about things.
Vindicating that principle in day-to-day informal social relations (as
you seem to demand) would require comprehensive and petty regulation
verging on tyranny, contrary to the regime's original promise of
untrammelled freedom. Even if such a regime could be established, I
think its fundamental principle would exacerbate the existing
theoretical and practical difficulties liberalism faces with respect to
rearing the young to the extent that the next generation could not be
socialized sufficiently for the continuation of the regime.
So I don't expect the establishment of a regime rigorously based on a
coherent libertarian ideology. What I am inclined to expect is the
withdrawal of the state from more and more areas of social
responsibility, for several reasons. The thinning out of any shared
public conception of the good, which is happening, will mean that the
agreement on moral issues that is necessary for the concrete exercise of
responsibilities will be lacking. It will also mean that people feel
less responsibility for each other because their feeling of
participation in a common way of life with common goods will decline.
Increasing population diversity will have the same effect. People on
the net also point to technological trends that will make it harder for
governments to administer and tax things, which will also reduce what
the government does.
So what we will have is a government that does less. The obvious
result will be that other institutions that carry on the business of
life will become stronger, and the moral understandings that support
those other institutions -- family values, for example -- will also
grow stronger. The government will be based on some sort of theory or
set of theories intended to legitimize practice that will no doubt
wobble and change as time goes on but is likely to be tinged with both
libertarianism and moralism that expresses itself in symbolism rather
than action. In the end, as I think I once suggested, the theories may
thin out to zero and we'll have a despotism. That's looking rather far
ahead, though. Your suggestion is that conceptions of the common good
emerging from strengthened moral understandings resulting from less
government could cause the government to become less libertarian.
That's a possiblity as well; it could happen if the strengthened moral
understandings are mutually consistent (e.g., if we don't end up a
third Muslim, a third Roman Catholic and a third Mormon).
>The relative infrequency of polygynous households in sexually tolerant
>societies is as irrelevant to their degree of social valorization and
>acceptance as the relative infrequency of homosexual households in
>America to their denunciation by the sexually intolerant.
The issue I am concerned with isn't whether polygynous households are
accepted but whether they are understood as socially and morally
fundamental. The place of "home sweet home" in the public
consciousness isn't affected by the fact that rock stars have multiple
places where they hang out.
Also, I don't see the connection between polygyny and sexual tolerance.
For heterosexual men, maybe, but not for other people. Judah, you will
recall, was about to fry Tamar when she recalled him to his duty. As
for sexual intolerance, is it your point that in most times and places
homosexual households have been viewed as simply another family form, so
that reluctance to see them that way is an oddity?
>Any libertarian society arising in this country would have to arbitrate
>between these conflicting ideals.
For some reason your notion of a libertarian society seems to require
uniformity throughout. I don't understand that. Why not let the ideals
go their separate ways and let Darwin choose? Some Jews follow
Orthodoxy, some become yuppies, others follow Spinoza, Marx and Freud.
Let birds of a feather do their thing and see which ways of life wear
well, put the groceries on the table, and are able to reproduce
themselves.
Another respect in which I don't quite follow your views is that they
don't seem to take into account that most of the goods human beings care
about are social. Suppose for example someone wants to be a "husband,"
meaning by that someone who is the husband in a traditional marriage who
in doing so is satisfying moral understandings with which he grew up and
which he shares with other members of his society. It seems that's not
the kind of good a society of the sort you envision would allow someone
to choose. Whole classes of goods, including the ones people generally
find most important, are contrary to fundamental principles of the
regime. So in another respect your libertarian society can't deliver
the freedom to choose that it seems to promise.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Oct 1 05:45:08 EDT 1996
Article: 8228 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Inquiry: Libertarians and the ultra-right
Date: 1 Oct 1996 05:25:44 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <19960930132912672767@deepblue8.salamander.com> wmcclain@salamander.com (Bill McClain) writes:
>Jim Kalb's FAQ is a bit terse on these groupings. I would like to see
>a bit more text, as well as a list of authors and publications that we
>can label paleo-con and -lib.
Suggestions, anyone?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Oct 1 08:40:32 EDT 1996
Article: 8234 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Inquiry: Libertarians and the ultra-right
Date: 1 Oct 1996 08:15:05 -0400
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In <52qkh4$olj@gerry.cc.keele.ac.uk> cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (Andy Fear) writes:
>I have a horrible feeling that a palaeolibertarian of the sort
>mentioned above is simply a libertarian who has grabbed this ideology
>to justify capitalism, a great temptation in our ideologised world,
>and then recoils from the logical consequences of libertarian dogma in
>fields other than finnacial.
Be charitable! Someone might think there's clearly something wrong
with contemporary liberalism of the John Rawls or Ted Kennedy type and
fasten on libertarianism because it's something in his environment that
at least makes room for personal integrity and responsibility without
rejecting the stated public values of the current regime altogether.
Then he notices that the ordinary libertarian viewpoint applied in
straightforward and categorical way to all social relations leads to
horrors, so he takes the next step. Sort of a pilgrim's regress, work
in progress, or what have you.
As a practical matter it is useful I think to develop all the stages of
the way leading us out of our current situation. Also, a
paleolibertarian regime might be the best available although it does
tend to look two ways. Any actual comparatively good regime will I
think tend to look two ways because (as some libertarians truly say)
utopia is not an option.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Oct 2 17:35:56 EDT 1996
Article: 8244 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Inquiry: Libertarians and the ultra-right
Date: 2 Oct 1996 17:32:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <52u67t$hrm@gerry.cc.keele.ac.uk> cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (Andy Fear) writes:
>: fasten on libertarianism because it's something in his environment
>: that at least makes room for personal integrity and responsibility
>: without rejecting the stated public values of the current regime
>: altogether.
>The problem is that the basis of libertarianism makes this position
>entirely untenanble
How so? Not all libertarians treat libertarianism as a rigorous
comprehensive moral system. It's fundamentally a view on government.
>For many conservatives it is a source of worry that Socialism can
>present a 'scientific' dogma which underpins its political stance.
>Instead of attacking this approach to politics we find a search for a
>counter dogma.
People have to start somewhere. Besides, what's wrong from a CR
perspective with a _reductio_ of the technological approach to society?
"The scientifically correct way for a social technologist to act is to
do nothing."
>ps I was amused that any Libertarian holding necessarily utopian views
>of human nature should say utopia is not an option...
You don't need utopian views on human nature to be a libertarian, just
anti-utopian views on government.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From jk Wed Oct 2 16:51:44 1996
Subject: Re: students vs. education
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 16:51:44 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <18482407@prancer.Dartmouth.EDU> from "Gregory D. Wadlinger" at Oct 2, 96 02:36:05 pm
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> Poorly performing students are not going to apply en masse to college
> just because it's free.
Why not? It's a way of appearing to be doing something while putting
off anything serious.
> And even if they do, they will be rejected en masse by admissions
> departments overwhelmed with the applications of low-income yet
> ambitious students.
Build more classrooms and hire more teachers and adminstrators! If the
government is willing to pay for something called "college education"
there will be suppliers.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From jk Wed Oct 2 17:15:32 1996
Subject: Re: students vs. education
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 17:15:32 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <199610022043.AA03520@aplo1.spd.dsccc.com> from "Tom George" at Oct 2, 96 03:43:58 pm
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> I believe he said that, besides the funding, he was going to make
> 2yrs of college a basic right.
Some obvious advantages:
1. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, so Federal control of
colleges and therefore intellectual life would be established yet more
firmly.
2. Another middle-class entitlement would solidify the immediate
reliance of ordinary people on the Federal government in the ordinary
affairs of life. When the Federal government shut down briefly last
year people said "so what"? That kind of reaction has to be made
unimaginable.
3. More generally, the enormous expansion and centralization of formal
education since WW II hasn't made people smarter, wiser, happier,
better or more capable. It has however been of fundamental importance
to the construction of a homogenous centralized society conceived on a
technological model. In such a society people can't have their own
knowledge -- it has to be organized and administered bureaucratically.
This proposal would integrate more people more thoroughly into that
system and therefore should be supported.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From jk Thu Oct 3 10:01:38 1996
Subject: Re: students vs. education
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 10:01:39 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <18511417@prancer.Dartmouth.EDU> from "Gregory D. Wadlinger" at Oct 3, 96 06:43:55 am
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> I don't think even the most desperate of colleges/universities can
> afford to risk the negative impact admitting such students would have
> on their reputations, the willingness of educated women and men to
> teach them, and the willingness of good to excellent students to be
> the classmates of academic neanderthals.
So you have colleges with bad reputations and dispirited faculties that
good students avoid. So what, if the money's coming in?
The way they handled open admissions in the City University here in New
York was to set up a two-tier system, community colleges for the
dummies and the existing four-year institutions for those with more
talent and dedication.
> Besides, who would staff the essential fast food institutions? Who
> would bag the groceries?
Why would anyone hire a burger-flipper who hadn't even bothered to get
his B.A.?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From jk Thu Oct 3 15:01:23 1996
Subject: Re: students vs. education
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 15:01:23 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy" at Oct 3, 96 04:53:34 pm
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> But it seems to me that the whole ethos of treating students as
> consumers of a product - on the basis that one can never lose money
> underestimating people's intelligence - effects even the first tier
> schools.
There's some similarity to the homosexual "marriage" issue. One
function of words like "marriage" and "college" is to coordinate
efforts by standing for a particular ideal to which the efforts relate.
If the words are applied to too many very different things, with the
intention of saying that the things are really of the same kind, they
can no longer serve the function.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Oct 5 19:14:25 EDT 1996
Article: 70067 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,alt.sex,alt.politics.sex,soc.men,soc.women,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Sexual morality FAQ
Date: 5 Oct 1996 19:09:26 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>But the same reasoning that compels me to regard homosexual intercourse
>and abortion as morally repugnant, also rules out legal proscription of
>consensual depravity. For any government mandated to infringe upon the
>privacy of its constituents would thereby curtail their autonomy and
>diminish their rational capacity for moral judgment.
The reasoning doesn't seem fully persuasive. Either actions chosen for
one by others affect rational capacity for moral judgment or not. If
they do, it seems that training in good actions could develop the
ability to make correct moral judgments. If they don't, then coercion
could not diminish the capacity.
I'm unclear whether your reasoning rules out social condemnation of
depravity. You seem to argue that such condemnation can not be
separated from legal proscription, at least as a practical matter and in
the long run. Also, it might be thought to infringe on autonomy and
therefore to constitute a wrong. If social condemnation is forbidden,
though, it seems that what we end up with is the reign of political
correctness, surely an unattractive way to realize autonomy.
Also -- government actions can recognize that depravity is depraved
without forbidding it, for example by taking its moral quality into
account in choosing when and how to confer benefits and protection. One
example that comes to mind is the choice of the relationships to
recognize as "marriages". Since government action has comprehensive
effects I'm not sure how it can avoid at least implicitly making
judgments on the goodness of forms of life, relatively advancing some
and thwarting others when it might have done the reverse.
>So it is interesting that you should invoke ius gentium, the unwritten
>common law.
Common law in the sense of being common to all peoples. The thought was
that in the absence of a substantive common ethical understanding among
those ruled, and given a certain balance of power, law would come to
have the content of unwritten international law, that is, practices
common to all the peoples whose practices matter at the time and place,
or if there's not enough overlap then a set of protocols would (I
suppose) evolve to minimize physical conflict and facilitate cooperation
for immediate material purposes (a.k.a. trade).
>I take it that you are advocating the Roman model
Not specifically. The _ius gentium_ was not Roman domestic law and is
obviously (to me if not to some) insufficient for man as a social being.
>Varro makes an important point relating mores to a theoretical
>consensus: "a custom is the common consent of everyone in a community:
>when it becomes fixed it makes a common law (consuetudo)." No such
>consensus is either available or forthcoming in present-day American
>society. So your paleoconservative principle is bound to lead to a
>society fragmented along the lines of dissenting traditions.
"Everyone in the community" is of course an exaggeration. What's needed
is enough consensus that the truth of the judgment expressed by the
custom becomes for social purposes a fact, rather as the judgment "civil
rights laws are good" is now treated for purposes of public political
discussion in America as a fact. The Romans were correct by the way in
believing _mores_ come before _leges_, so to the extent consensus is
lacking there's a problem anyway.
It's true that the paleoconservative principle doesn't lead to perfect
unity. It's not clear to me, though, where the balance of centrifugal
and centripetal forces would end up. Private property, federalism and
local control can accommodate quite a lot of differences. Also, some
ways of life, for example those that have no good way of knitting the
ties between the sexes and the generations, would decline radically in
importance if transfer payments (such as public education and social
security) were abolished. And the point of ways of life based to some
degree on rebelliousness (e.g., ghetto and homosexual culture) would
decline at least to that degree in a more decentralized system.
>And since it is characteristic of state institutions to arrogate as
>much power as they can, similarly all enclaves of your traditionalist
>utopia will suffer a constant pressure to legislate their mutually
>incompatible moral teachings.
It's harder for an enclave to legislate than for a universal empire to
do so. For one thing, people can leave.
>The Crips and La Cosa Nostra are at least as solidly grounded in
>tradition immediate and immemorial, as the chamber of commerce and the
>country club.
Both are examples of a situation in which a people is dominated by a
public order to which it does not belong and, unable to organize itself,
ends up the prey of its own criminal class. If you do away with empire
such things don't happen, so they don't demonstrate a weak point in
paleoconservative views.
>This situation should cause some difficulties for your argument, since
>paleoconservatism explicitly repudiates all principled means of
>adjudicating between competing traditions.
Of necessity it repudiates comprehensive principles of general
applicability for such adjudication, since if such principles existed we
could all look to them rather than to any particular tradition. There's
nothing wrong with weaker universal principles, though. For example, a
paleoconservative might accept as a transcendent principle the moral
indispensibility of each person -- that is, the existence of important
irreplaceable goods (like good wills) that are unattainable without the
free cooperation of each person. If so, our paleocon would have a
principled objection for example to a social order that treated a class
of persons as raw material for making fertilizer.
It would also be possible for a paleoconservative to judge that a
tradition fails on its own terms, for example a tradition that aims at
freedom and equality but in fact has led and evidently leads
systematically to tyranny. Finally, I think it's possible for a
paleocon to judge that a tradition slights some important aspect of
human nature or the world. The last sort of judgement would be hard to
formalize so you might not be willing to accept it as principled.
Still, if you demand thoroughgoing formalization you're going to end up
with very few judgments that you'll accept as rational.
>But traditionally, the state was much stronger than it is now.
The state now has comprehensive direct responsibility for lots of
things -- public education, aid in times of need, support in old age --
in which it was much less involved formerly. Also, when it acts the
modern state rejects tradition in favor of a technocratic approach. As
a result the modern state, by its action throughout society, promotes
replacement of tradition with centralized bureaucratic rationality.
That was less true in the past.
>This suggests a question -- why focus on families to proceed
>synthetically upwards on the social scale, rather than on the state --
>to proceed analytically downwards?
I start with what seems most universal and stable as well as concrete
and specific in human nature. Sex and rearing the young, and the social
institutions most immediately related to those things, seem to fit that
bill better than affairs of state.
>But we are talking about practices and institutions that are
>countenanced and promoted by traditional social orders. I would not
>know how to begin separating them into foundation and superstructure.
In that case it's hard to say anything about them. Mencius and
Confucius were certainly interested in discerning what is fundamental in
man and society. Otherwise their philosophies would have reduced to
long lists of do's and don'ts.
>Why bring in comparative perspectives? It may well be that patriarchy
>is an inevitable consequence of sexual dimorphism -- and yet
>patriarchal families by definition depend on female deference to the
>paterfamilias.
An issue like "does the traditional Western view of sexual morality
result in a low status for women" can't be discussed at all without
comparative perspectives. My comment was simply that polygynous
patriarchal families require more female deference than monogamous ones.
>Does the name `Lilith' ring any bells?
She's not in the Bible and anyway is more a poster child for divorce
than polygyny.
>Are you suggesting that the levirate law (see below) does not come
>into effect until the widow's sister-in-law kicks the bucket?
Only that Genesis 38 doesn't suggest there was a sister-in-law. It
does suggest that the law wasn't much liked by the men who had to take
the (sometimes extra) wife, and that an existing wife was something of
an obstacle to a marriage.
>day-to-day informal social relations between followers of mutually
>incompatible traditions will tend to erode their separate allegiances
>to disjoint enclaves of civil society.
Any regime is a balance of opposing forces. They usually end up
balancing out so that people get what they need. If hanging around with
outsiders means people end up not getting what they need then somehow or
other they'll do less of it.
The view I am presenting is that man is a social animal who needs to
understand himself as part of a social order that has sufficient moral
content to order his life and bring it into satisfying and productive
relation to the lives of others. It seems to me that in a cosmopolitan
world the _ius gentium_ won't be enough to do that, so people will
develop ways of acting that result in their feeling essentially a part
of a more parochial society. Middle Eastern society demonstrates one
way that can be done -- work and socialize within your own community and
limit interactions with outsiders to formal commercial relations. If
that's what it takes that's what will happen, since groups that act that
way will flourish and others will decline.
>But difficulties in administration and taxation are prima facie just as
>likely to result in a pressure to strengthen the relevant branches of
>the government.
If the necessary controls kill the golden goose they'll be abandoned or
go unenforced.
>And the thinning out of any shared public conception of the good could
>inspire separatist movements clamoring for more, rather than less
>intrusive institutions.
"Intrusive" suggests institutions at cross purposes to how people feel
about themselves and the world. Separatist movements have to attract
people. The people who join the movements and stick with them won't
experience the institutions as intrusive.
>As before, I find territorial fragmentation accompanied by legal
>institutionalization of mores far more plausible than the prospects of
>an undivided libertarian union.
What will be needed is separation at least to a degree into separate
societies. With easy transportation and instant communication I'm not
sure mere territorial fragmentation will do the job.
>I am puzzled by your search for fundamental social structures. It
>seems to me that any methodology useful for their determination will
>tend to undermine the value of appeals to tradition, grounding
>political practice instead in principle based on some form of natural
>law, contractarian constructivisism, or eschatological utopianism.
If tradition is called in question it can't be defended by appeal to
tradition. It has to be shown to be necessary, and the particular
features of the particular tradition defended have to be shown to be
good at least in general terms, on some other basis.
It's rather as if someone said eggs should cost half as much as they do
and the government or consumer boycotts or something ought to do
something about it. Someone who favored the free market might well
provide both a general argument that prices set by the free market
ought to be respected and an argument that in the particular case the
price appropriately reflects the cost of production and distribution,
risk, etc.
Also -- tradition is not an inscrutable list of rules, each equally
absolute. Every tradition must accommodate changing circumstances and
so must incorporate a sense of what is fundamental and what is not.
>I am not sure how any kind of society could fail to interfere with
>someone's choice of being a "husband" in your sense, short of supplying
>him with spousal candidates and otherwise regulating his prospective
>matrimonial arrangements.
Sure. The point of the example was that there can't be a social order
that does not choose goods for us. A social order that
deinstitutionalizes marriage will burden the choice in question more
than one that does not. A social order that does not will burden other
choices.
>But why privilege one kind of good over the other?
As just discussed, privileging can not be avoided.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Oct 6 15:15:52 EDT 1996
Article: 70135 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,alt.sex,alt.politics.sex,soc.men,soc.women,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Sexual morality FAQ
Date: 6 Oct 1996 15:04:22 -0400
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mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) writes:
>]Tradition as opposed to more explicitly rational modes of decisionmaking
>]is characteristically decentralized and favors decentralization. The
>]point of "family values," for example, is to enable the business of life
>]to be carried on by autonomous institutions and arrangements that do not
>]owe their being to the state. To favor tradition is therefore to want
>]to limit the state.
>
> That is manifestly nonsensical. Tradition can not be defined
> without mentioning the ways of majority. I met a few people who
> could outhink a large crowd of their peers. Show me the person
> who establishes the tradition singlehandedly and despite uniform
> opposition of those surrounding him, and I might take your words
> seriously. To recap; rational facility is the only firm
> guarantee of individual autonomy.
The bearing of what you say on tradition, decentralization and the state is
obscure. A common function of the state is to ram what the few think
better, or what has been determined to be better by some bureaucratic
procedure, down everyone's throat. Do you think that's good or bad as a
general thing?
Individual, tradition, and bureaucracy all have particular strengths.
It seems to me that it works better for things that are subtle,
complicated and fundamental to human life, like language or systems of
morality and goverment, to develop through tradition than to be
excogitated by one man or designed by a bureaucracy. One reason is that
the development of a tradition takes into account far more knowledge and
experience, of far more people, than a more explicitly rational
procedure ever could.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Oct 6 22:03:00 EDT 1996
Article: 70166 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,alt.sex,alt.politics.sex,soc.men,soc.women,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Sexual morality FAQ
Date: 6 Oct 1996 21:48:32 -0400
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zeleny@oak.math.ucla.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>This assumes that training in good actions, as distinct from moral
>education, or habituation as distinct from dialectics, is logically
>possible. But if autonomy is a necessary condition for goodness, no
>action performed by rote or because of external compulsion could be
>morally good.
It seems to depend on what one thinks is involved in autonomy. Parents
usually assume that if they train their children to tell the truth and
the like it will become habitual, and the value of the practice will
become known through doing it, so when they become adults they will do
it both because of habit and because they justifiably think it good. Do
you think parents who so act misconstrue what it is to be a morally good
person? Is action so distinct from knowledge that training in good
actions is clearly separable from moral education?
As far as moral goodness goes, are social and political institutions
even relevant? It seems they can't advance it in your view. Can they
inhibit it? If not, why introduce your conception of moral goodness
into a discussion of political and social matters?
>I am not sure that collective action could be undertaken from moral
>principles. By definition, collective action is guided by politics,
>which is intrinsically beholden to compromise, and so conflicts with
>principle, which is intrinsically inimical to compromise.
It sounds as if in your view there can be no general ethical principles
of conduct that govern both our cooperative acts with others and acts
that depend on our individual wills alone. If that is your view it
seems radically antisocial and therefore incorrect.
>But your leap from rational disapproval of a given practice to its
>legal proscription is of course blocked outright by the same reasoning
>that generated the right to privacy in the first place.
I have made no such leap.
>The point of ways of life based in rebelliousness may be factually
>grounded in disenfranchisement of marginalized minorities, be they
>sexual or ethnic. And in this regard your society of parochial virtues
>is likely to exert more rather than less pressure, compared to a more
>pluralistic arrangement.
Are there acutely rebellious subcultures among the Amish or the Satmar
Hasidim? Among the Mormons for that matter? Have such subcultures
declined in significance in America with the increasing pluralism of
society?
It seems to me that the problem of rebellion as the basis of a way of
life becomes acute when people can't find themselves in the public way
of life of their society and so define themselves in opposition to it.
A radically pluralistic society with little parochialism has no public
way of life that anyone can identify with and so (I would expect) would
have special problems in that regard. The problem would be exacerbated
if the society were sufficiently extensive that leaving did not seem an
option.
>But in order for the enclave to emancipate itself from the universal
>empire in the first place, the centripetal pressure sustained by the
>latter must yield to the forces of cultural autonomy attendant on the
>former. My argument is that it is not going to happen, unless the
>latter are organized around charismatic authority, e.g. as is the case
>amongst Bosnian Serbs. But if that comes to pass, voluntary departure
>of the constitutionally or temperamentally non-compliant would no
>longer be an option. In other words, you are putting forth a recipe
>for cultural cleansing.
You apparently visualize the opposition of two territorial principles,
one universal and one parochial. As mentioned, I don't think
territorial separation can be nearly as important in maintaining the
coherence of a way of life as in the past. The present is *radically*
different from the past in some respects. In fact, I'm not sure
territory matters much at all today, at least beyond maintenance of a
sufficient local presence so that most of one's more important face-to-
face contacts can be with people one feels to be one's own.
>You ought to be familiar with this [ethnic cleansing] option, given
>that your listing of paleoconservative traditionalist resources
>includes plenty of White separatist materials.
That's not what the list is. Read the introduction if you're
interested.
I agree the option has to be considered if only because people think
it's a major issue. It seems to me that ethnic cleansing is an attempt
to create a community based on ethnicity and territory. I expect such
attempts to fail because ethnicity doesn't have any very definite
ethical content and because the modern world has annihilated distance.
If successful I would expect ethnic cleansing to change the membership
but not the nature of the way of life of a people. In short, it's not
only bloody but useless.
>>For example, a paleoconservative might accept as a transcendent
>>principle the moral indispensibility of each person -- that is, the
>>existence of important irreplaceable goods (like good wills) that are
>>unattainable without the free cooperation of each person. If so, our
>>paleocon would have a principled objection for example to a social
>>order that treated a class of persons as raw material for making
>>fertilizer.
>
>This sounds like a recipe for contractarianism leading to some form
>of liberal or even socialist political theory. You seem to be intent
>on denying your constituents the entitlement to logical consequences
of their principles.
How so? Not all transcendent principles are principles from which all
else can be derived. It is sufficient for paleoconservatism that the
transcendent principles we know and can articulate are grossly
insufficient to determine a constitution. Since rational construction
is impossible politics is to be based on the tradition of the
particular community to which we belong; that tradition is the best
source of a common political understanding that can work and that
incorporates the experience of a great many people under very varied
circumstances.
That doesn't mean that we can't know some transcendent principles, for
example those that enable us to recognize every human being as a human
being with a value that can't be reduced to our own purposes or those of
our particular community. In most cases those principles aren't
sufficient to dictate anything very specific, though.
>Are you seriously suggesting that the contemporary bourgeois is subject
>to greater institutional control than the mediaeval burgher?
No. Reread what I wrote if you are interested.
>Naive Aristotelian reductionism is as unattractive in your
>paleoconservative theorizing as naive economic reductionism is in
>Marxist soteriology.
Not sure of the objection. You have to start somewhere. In the end of
course one wants his views to be sound however analyzed but you can't
start by viewing things from every possible perspective simultaneously.
>long lists of rules bereft of rationale are characteristic of tradition
>that denies itself recourse to moral or theoretical principle.
Not sure of the relevance. Where have I denied myself recourse to such
principles? I do deny that that we have a very firm grasp on them in
the abstract, or they can be used to construct a uniquely justified
social order.
>>My comment was simply that polygynous patriarchal families require
>>more female deference than monogamous ones.
>
>Why would that be the case?
A pair can approach equal partnership more closely than a trio of whom
two are in competition with each other.
>>Any regime is a balance of opposing forces. They usually end up
>>balancing out so that people get what they need. If hanging around with
>>outsiders means people end up not getting what they need then somehow or
>>other they'll do less of it.
>
>This assumes that human needs are linearly orderable.
It assumes that some needs are linearly orderable.
>The Middle Eastern model emerged long before the development of modern
>communications technology and mass media, and remains profoundly
>inimical to their pervasive moral influence. So mere parochialism will
>not suffice.
The Middle Eastern model seems relevant because it shows how different
ways of life can maintain their coherence cheek-by-jowl with other ways
of life. Physical propinquity is the nearest historical analogy I can
think of to modern communications, and is identical with the foreseeable
consequences of modern ease of travel.
The form of society would of course have to evolve beyond what existed
in the past since our circumstances are novel. One obvious point would
be for each group to disconnect itself or otherwise limit its
participation in the universal net. My understanding is that Hasidic
Jews don't own TVs, and the Amish go much farther. I expect to see more
of that.
>Then again, the Unabomber Manifesto is also on your reading list.
>From what I have read (I haven't read the whole thing) it describes
real problems that must somehow be faced.
>>If the necessary controls kill the golden goose they'll be abandoned or
>>go unenforced.
>
>I am unfamiliar with any precedent of spontaneous institutional
>withering-away. Presumably, the assorted Marxists in our audience
>would be very grateful to see a counterexample.
Your land of birth comes to mind, although that might not be an example
they like.
>>"Intrusive" suggests institutions at cross purposes to how people feel
>>about themselves and the world. Separatist movements have to attract
>>people. The people who join the movements and stick with them won't
>>experience the institutions as intrusive.
>
>Of course not. But their inside experience will not suffice to tell
>the whole story. Why not ask the outsiders censured, ostracized, or
>purged by such social institutions to contribute their countervailing
>perspective?
The force of your comment seems to depend on a territorial
basis for the separatism.
>>With easy transportation and instant communication I'm not sure mere
>>territorial fragmentation will do the job.
>
>Such separation has worked out fabulously in the former Yugoslavia,
>hasn't it?
We can agree there are a variety of problems with territorial
fragmentation as a supposed means of social coherence.
>And the American scenario is likely to improve on the Balkan one, what
>with racial and ethnic differences acting on top of the religious
>distinctions.
Actually, I would suppose that multiplication of lines of division
would reduce the likelihood of civil war. Also, existing institutions
of federalism, private property and local control, which let people
redo their relationships gradually as new concerns become more
pressing, seem more likely to avoid extremes of anarchy and conflict
than decades of tyranny followed by collapse.
Why is Yugoslavia the model, by the way, rather than Switzerland, which
is divided into cantons on ethnic/linguistic and religious lines? And
why is separation (Yugoslavia today) supposed to be so much less
peaceful by nature than unification (Spain in 1492)? I would think
that in the long run whatever best suits human nature will also be most
peaceful, at least as a general rule.
>This burden can be mitigated by minimizing the institutional
>entrenchment of social arrangements that are not indispensable to
>perpetuation and improvement of the commonwealth.
That's supposed to be neutral among goods? The point of the "husband"
example is that without institutionalization some goods that are very
important to people, because man is a social animal, can't exist and
therefore can't be chosen.
>>As just discussed, privileging can not be avoided.
>
>Nor can it be prioritized consistently with unprincipled tradition.
What's the issue you see? And why consider moral tradition less
principled than (say) natural language?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Oct 9 19:21:33 EDT 1996
Article: 70502 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,alt.sex,alt.politics.sex,soc.men,soc.women,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Sexual morality FAQ
Date: 9 Oct 1996 16:49:10 -0400
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In <539abm$dm4@lynx.dac.neu.edu> mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) writes:
> Pronounced success of American system of government, rationally
> designed in contrast to European traditionalist states, is the
> counterexample destroying your thesis.
I don't think so. The American system was built on English common law
and parliamentary experience, and on the further evolution of those
things here during colonial days. The federal government until not so
long ago did very little, which meant that most social governance was
carried on through institutions that were much more local and tended to
be based on customary practice and informal understandings rather than
any overall design. In continental Europe the state bureaucracy tended
to play a larger role, and attempts were made to design states on novel
principles (revolutionary France, the communist and fascist states).
> Tradition is just as likely to represent the lowest common
> denominator as sum of experience.
Why think so? Things that work out badly tend not to become
traditions. Also, if (as your remark suggests) men are not angels,
what's the superior alternative?
> By the way, I find it interesting that no conservative is able to
> build his system without badmouthing the reason in process.
If observing that reason can't demonstrate solutions to all the
questions we must deal with is badmouthing reason then I suppose you're
right.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Oct 11 17:38:34 EDT 1996
Article: 8271 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Inquiry: Libertarians and the ultra-right
Date: 11 Oct 1996 16:21:25 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Andy Fear (cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk) wrote:
: A libertarian view about government is a natural product of being a
: libertarian but is hardly the foundations of this dogma which is
: centred in the worship of a utopian positing of humanity as composed
: of entirely autonomous and rational individuals.
In America though a libertarian view of government is far less
dependent on dogmatic libertarianism than it seems to be in England.
It does make a difference that American government has been almost
wholly utilitarian/rational rather than religious/expressive. "Big
government conservatism" is simply an impossibility here.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Oct 11 17:38:36 EDT 1996
Article: 70756 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,alt.sex,alt.politics.sex,soc.men,soc.women,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Sexual morality FAQ
Date: 11 Oct 1996 17:36:36 -0400
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mkagalen@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) writes:
>]The American system was built on English common law and parliamentary
>]experience, and on the further evolution of those things here during
>]colonial days.
>
> I am speaking about US federal government, which was rationally
> designed by the "Founding Fathers" based on the lessons learned from
> French.
So was I. What do you mean by the French -- Montesquieu? The Founders
read him, but he was an admirer of the English constitution and common
law and drew heavily from them. Also, the Founders certainly didn't use
him as a design handbook. They were experienced politicians who in the
states and the British Parliament had models improved through trial and
error that actually worked. They did supplement their experience with
historical examples and philosophical reflections from all sources to
help them adopt the models offered by their political tradition to novel
circumstances.
> Thus, you concede that ratinally designed (federal) state delivered
> stability and self-checks and balances as intended by design.
It worked wonderfully well for a designed constitution, which calls for
an explanation other than the fact that it was designed. Why has it
been so much more stable than so many other written constitutions?
> US state was design based on the French model.
Which French model? The 1787 French state?
> Based on the historical experience, only the advent of enlightenment
> brought forth the unperecedented increase in personal liberty and
> abolishment of multiple barbaric practices. Many solidly entrenched
> traditions tend to be barbaric, such as mid-Eastern practice of
> genital mutilation.
The more designed a society is the more opportunity for tyranny. After
all, "design" refers to the process whereby some people tell others what
to do in matters of fundamental importance based on some plan they've
made up themselves. Think of the communist countries. For that matter,
think of the "leader principle" and "triumph of the will" in Nazi
Germany -- hardly traditionalist notions. As to genital mutilation, I'm
not sure why it's more barbaric than partial-birth abortion. We can
agree though that no general principle of government is infallible and I
agree that bad things are sometimes justified by reference to tradition.
>] Things that work out badly tend not to become traditions.
>
> That is non-starter. Slavery worked pretty well for free-born
> Athenians ... Please explain how you can indict the institution of
> slavery in your system.
Death camps for the murder of the innocent and massacre of civilian
populations in wartime, both carried out on a colossal scale in recent
times by innovating regimes that in most cases based themselves on the
values of the Enlightenment, haven't worked out all that well. We
therefore have grounds for hope that such practices won't become
traditions. Ditto for very large-scale use of slave labor also
characteristic of some such regimes. It would have been a lot better
if such regimes had stuck to established ways of doing things, since
slavery had disappeared in at least Western Europe long before the
Enlightenment and even in the East my impression is that traditional
systems of serfdom were not nearly so bad as 20th century creations.
As a general thing, if I were a slave I'd rather be subject to a
traditional than a rationalized system of slavery.
>]If observing that reason can't demonstrate solutions to all the
>]questions we must deal with is badmouthing reason then I suppose
>]you're right.
>
> Please, name specific sacred cows that must be exempt from rational
> scrutiny.
The point is not that you can't talk about things but that you
shouldn't take the talk with unmixed seriousness. Even if someone
seems to prove by unanswerable arguments that Achilles will never
overtake the hare don't deal with important matters on the assumption
that it won't happen.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Oct 12 05:49:14 EDT 1996
Article: 70829 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism,alt.sex,alt.politics.sex,soc.men,soc.women,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Sexual morality FAQ
Date: 12 Oct 1996 05:37:06 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <53mel4$6j0@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>Even if someone seems to prove by unanswerable arguments that Achilles
>will never overtake the hare don't deal with important matters on the
>assumption that it won't happen.
That should be "tortoise" instead of "hare."
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Oct 12 20:29:31 EDT 1996
Article: 70889 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.jollyroger,alt.society.generation-x,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.society.conservatism,alt.politics.usa.republican
Subject: Re: www.jollysnogger.com NOY JITAT CONSERVATIVES! THREE TALL MASTS FLEEING FROM THE POSTMODERN LIGHT TO SMEG YE UP.
Date: 12 Oct 1996 17:08:57 -0400
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In <53ogsh$s58@bermuda.io.com> zedd@io.com (Austin Loomis) writes:
>"amoral, adj. 1. Not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; neither
> moral nor immoral. 2. Lacking moral sensibility; not caring about right
> and wrong. -- amoralism, amorality n. -- amorally adv."
>"liberal, adj. 1.a. Not limited to or by traditional, orthodox or
> authoritarian attitudes or dogmas; *free from bigotry.*" (Emphasis
> mine.)
Are these supposed to exclude each other? It seems that soomeone who
made no moral distinctions at all would satisfy both.
>"bigot, n. One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion,
> race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. [Fr. < OFr.]"
Still don't see the contradiction, at least up to the "free from
bigotry" part of the definition for liberal. McGucken's point, I take
it, is that the people commonly referred to as "liberals" do not
typically satisfy that final phrase. Consider an enthusiastic adherent
of a group that accepts the untraditional, unorthodox and
antiauthoritarian doctrine that all moral distinctions are invalid who
is abusive toward people who are not members of the group.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Oct 13 13:47:41 EDT 1996
Article: 8282 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: On Rand
Date: 13 Oct 1996 13:46:42 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <53quvq$5rc@nadine.teleport.com> cfaatz@teleport.com (Chris Faatz) writes:
>it's possible to be non-Christian--and even virulently atheistic--and
>still be a genuine conservative/c.r. Mencken leaps immediately to
>mind. Irving Babbit does as well, with his emphasis on the ethical
>doctrines of the non-theistic Eastern religions. So, as a matter of
>fact, does Jim's reliance on Confucius.
I don't think Confucius can stand by himself -- he needs a tradition
with its own ethical and spiritual content for him to be conservative
about. He himself was basically theistic in his outlook, I think -- he
believed in a divine principle (Heaven) that had purposes and from time
to time actually did things.
I don't think naturalistic/atheistic Confucianism works well except
maybe to an extent and in a special setting. Hsun Tzu was the foremost
thinker taking that point of view during the Warring States Period. He
was a very smart man, but his two most prominent students were Han Fei
Tzu, who became the greatest Legalist philosopher and as such a
theoretician of despotism with no purpose outside itself, and Li Si,
who became the tyrant First Emperor's prime minister and on account of
jealousy contrived Han Fei Tzu's death. Not a satisfactory outcome.
Otherwise, I think of naturalistic Confucianism as an outlook of
bureaucrats serving an imperial despot. It can't be the motive force
for anything, but if there are cultivated people who for other reasons
are in a reasonably secure position of wealth and power it can make
them more high-minded and conscious of responsibilities. An outlook
for neocons maybe.
Roger Scruton had an article in a recent _City Journal_ on
non-religious conservatism. I posted it here and it's probably still
available through Deja News.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Yo Bob, mug a gumbo boy!
From jk Wed Oct 9 06:27:37 1996
Subject: Re: evolution and redemption
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 06:27:37 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <961009024921_76032.3101_JHC3-3@CompuServe.COM> from "Patrick E. Iachetta" at Oct 8, 96 10:49:21 pm
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> Where is it stated that one who believes in evolution does not
> believe in a "Creator God"? I believe both in evolution AND a
> Creator God. The two are not mutually exclusive. If, as was pointed
> out in some of Seth's entries here, there are plausible, provable
> theories that counter or dispute evolution, I am open to discussion
> and consideration of such.
I think the objection is that fully mechanistic accounts of evolution
such as neo-Darwinism (which postulates that random variations and
natural selection -- differential death rates -- are the whole
explanation for the origin of species) have difficulty explaining the
actual fossil record, the sort of things Behe points to, the high
information content of genes, and other things. Therefore the reason
for accepting such accounts as factual is not the weight of evidence
but rather a prior metaphysical commitment to a fully mechanistic
account of everything. It seems however that a fully mechanistic
account of everything would exclude any God but a deistic one.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From jk Sat Oct 12 18:48:19 1996
Subject: Re: Reading Mill and Respondents
To: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 18:48:19 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <325FE37F@mailgate.brooklyn.cuny.edu> from "Edward Kent" at Oct 12, 96 02:27:00 pm
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> The Republican attack on 'liberals' is a bit ironic in that Mill lays
> out the neo-conservative agenda (or at least the libertarian one) --
> maximum freedom of conscience, thought, association and the use of
> government to defend these freedoms and one's right not to be harmed
> by others, but support for governmental defense _only_ of these
> rights, down with bureauracies, etc.
I think liberalism has stopped being negative and procedural and become
positive and substantive. One example is the shift from negative
freedom (Mill) to positive freedom (welfare rights). Another is the
new conception of tolerance that requires government not simply to
leave people alone but to promote social tolerance, understood as a
state of affairs in which not only all persons but all persons'
valuations and lifestyle choices are to the extent possible treated
equally in all spheres of social life. The new conception of tolerance
requires government to mold how people view and evaluate each other and
each other's conduct and therefore can be highly intolerant in the old
understanding. The disputes over "political correctness" are one
manifestation of the clash between the old and new understanding.
> In this text my old teacher Willmore Kendall comes on strong
> criticising Mill's relativism. Kendall had just moved towards a more
> 'paleo-conservative' stance at the time his critique was written,
> having converted to Catholicism and favoring protection by censorship
> of the enemies of Truth. But his critique of freedom of expression
> which mainly focuses on the 'open' society's likely disintegration is
> highly intelligent.
My own view is that if the old liberalism is a problem on this score
the new is multiply a problem.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Young Ada had a gnu. Oy!
From jk Sun Oct 13 09:18:09 1996
Subject: Back to Bp. Robinson
To: newman@listserv.vt.edu
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 09:18:09 -0400 (EDT)
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A few weeks ago I read (most of) _Honest to God_, since Francesca said
I had to, and I thought I'd note a couple of impressions before they
dissipate altogether.
The book reflects the author's peculiarities in too many ways. He and
some of his friends don't get much out of prayer, salvation is offered
to all men, therefore he concludes it can't have anything to do with an
understanding of things that would make prayer important. And so on.
He goes on and on about his personal situation, which doesn't seem
interesting enough to merit such extended attention in such a short
book -- how he's pulled this way and that, how he doesn't have to write
any of this, etc. He reminds me of PKs I've known, who went into the
church because it was the family business, and used "making sense of my
career" as their guide to interpreting what the church is.
His historical theory that an original Christian view of God as
physically "up there" was replaced by a view of God as "out there" that
is necessarily equally physical is puzzling. Putting aside what people
actually have believed, he seems to think that physical objects are the
only existents that cannot be reduced without remainder to our
subjective experience. Or something. When he gets to reconciling his
views to orthodox formulations he becomes downright incomprehensible, at
least to me.
How much do people talk about "man come of age" these days? My
impression is that the notion peaked in the early '60s and that people
then really did think they would eventually through science understand
all things and be able to make the world what they chose. To me it
seems like a period piece, but no doubt such views die hard.
Comments?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Yo Bob, mug a gumbo boy!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Oct 14 07:03:43 EDT 1996
Article: 71111 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: misc.taxes,us.taxes,us.legal,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.usa.republican,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.society.conservatism,alt.politics.economics,alt.philosophy.objectivism,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.misc,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.radical-left
Subject: Re: AMERICA!! AMERICA!!
Date: 14 Oct 1996 06:19:03 -0400
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In <53savt$2ns@tepe.tezcat.com> angutrim@tezcat.com (Angus Trimnell) writes:
>How might this work in the case of employer withholding. My filing of
>an income tax statement currently has no effect on how much the
>government gets. In fact, since I always receive a refund, my refusal
>to submit a tax statement would mean that the government would have
>more of my money.
A few years back there was a Quaker who felt responsible for the whole
human race and filed a withholding tax statement claiming 4,000,000,000
dependents and no tax to be withheld. Unfortunately, he got prosecuted
and lost.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Yo Bob, mug a gumbo boy!
From jk Mon Oct 14 11:18:38 1996
Subject: Re: Prix Nobel
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 11:18:39 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <18967111@prancer.Dartmouth.EDU> from "Gregory D. Wadlinger" at Oct 14, 96 10:02:43 am
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> You've provoked me to question just how complex and interesting (as
> potential book characters) Christians can possibly be. My first
> thought is that the unredeemed make for much better dramatic
> material.
Isn't it time someone trotted out Simone Weil?
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy,
monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good
is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. "Imaginative literature,"
therefore, is either boring or immoral or a mixture of both.
An example she gives is of someone walking on hot coals. A fictional
description of someone doing it as if he were walking across a living
room would be a bore, far more so than one of someone jumping around
and howling in agony. In real life though the former event would be a
shocker.
Are pictoral representations of miracles relevant? I always liked
Piero della Francesca's True Cross cycle in Arezzo because of the utter
calmness. The essence of a miracle after all is its inevitability,
although that's something not everyone can paint.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Yo Bob, mug a gumbo boy!
From jk Mon Oct 14 11:29:26 1996
Subject: Re: Reading Mill and Respondents
To: williamf@gusun.acc.georgetown.edu (Michael Williams)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 11:29:26 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: from "Michael Williams" at Oct 14, 96 09:30:31 am
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Michael Williams writes:
> Mill was a modern liberal, but not a modern statist. He would
> undoubtedly be disgusted at the degree to which modern social
> discourse has become "dogmatized"--eg. those opinions regarding
> "diversity," "compassion," and the similar annointed views which have
> been placed beyond question in contemporary political discussion.
To me it seems an inevitable development. Once negative liberalism
destroys the public validity of everything else liberalism alone must
bear the burden of government and to do that it must be reinterpreted
in a positive sense. The principle "people should be able to do what
they want without interference" has very different implications if it's
used to construct a social order and if it's used as a limit on a
fundamentally Christian and traditional social order.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Yo Bob, mug a gumbo boy!
From jk Mon Oct 14 11:30:44 1996
Subject: Re: Reading Mill and Respondents (fwd)
To: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 11:30:44 -0400 (EDT)
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Michael Williams writes:
> Mill was a modern liberal, but not a modern statist. He would
> undoubtedly be disgusted at the degree to which modern social
> discourse has become "dogmatized"--eg. those opinions regarding
> "diversity," "compassion," and the similar annointed views which have
> been placed beyond question in contemporary political discussion.
To me it seems an inevitable development. Once negative liberalism
destroys the public validity of everything else liberalism alone must
bear the burden of government and to do that it must be reinterpreted
in a positive sense. The principle "people should be able to do what
they want without interference" has very different implications if it's
used to construct a social order and if it's used as a limit on a
fundamentally Christian and traditional social order.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Yo Bob, mug a gumbo boy!
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.