Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Jul 2 11:16:00 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <994089201.3b4098f163692@secure.law.upenn.edu> (jcarney2@alumni.law.upenn.edu)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Hernando de Soto and Saving the Third World
References: <9hb0qv+mitj@eGroups.com> <994089201.3b4098f163692@secure.law.upenn.edu>
Status: RO
"But what about culture? I asked again. The expatriate Chinese seem
to rise wherever they go. So do Jews. Doesn't that matter as much as
getting property law right? De Soto smiled. "It's a little bit like
saying, 'You can say whatever you want, but guys that are taller than
six feet have a better chance of playing on the basketball team,"' he
said. "This culture thing makes for good reading. But what do you do
with it?"
I haven't read the book or the rest of the review, but by itself this
doesn't seem so bad. On the face of it he's saying that being Chinese is
like being tall, and being Malayan or Javanese or whatever is like being
short - unquestionably important for success in basketball, but if
you're asking what government can do to help people be more successful
basketball players not that relevant.
That's good actually. He doesn't say "let's set up a ministry of
cultural re-education so that underclass Brits or whoever will have a
job culture instead of a yob culture." He says "let's establish legal
institutions like clear property rights that let people make use of
whatever innate and cultural strengths they may have. The latter aren't
things government can do much about."
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Jul 17 12:06:01 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: frissell@panix.com
CC: lawrence.auster@att.net, GJRussello@aol.com, Carol.Iannone@att.net,
carneyaway@hotmail.com, woodst@sunysuffolk.edu, jgary@lehman.com,
nimbus@panix.com
In-reply-to: <5.1.0.14.2.20010716092644.051447e0@brillig.panix.com> (message from Duncan Frissell on Mon, 16 Jul 2001 17:29:11 -0400)
Subject: Re: Responsibility
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20010716092644.051447e0@brillig.panix.com>
Status: RO
One issue is whether a libertarian polity of the type Duncan proposes
can exist.
There have no doubt existed radically multicultural, multiethnic,
multireligious etc. codes of commercial law, based on the growth of
customary practices that work for the participants and on customary
non-state sanctions. If someone told me something of the sort existed
throughout the Mediterranean in the year 1000 I would believe him.
Can such a thing be writ large, though, so that there is no state - no
legitimate noncontractual authority backed by force - anywhere?
It seems unlikely, at least outside special circumstances. Property
rights, with non-dealing as the usual sanction for violation and rights
of self-defense and retaliation in response to acts of physical
aggression, may work among buyers and sellers in a market that lasts a
few days. It may work in small isolated societies with simple economies
and a unified culture. I doubt that it can work elsewhere.
In early medieval Iceland there was no state, but that was a mainly
subsistence society of 6000 scattered farmsteads and no towns hundreds
of miles from anyplace else. It was monoreligious and monoethnic (apart
from Irish slaves and wives). When Christianity came, and some but not
all became adherents, civil war was avoided only by appointing an
arbitrator to decide which religion should be recognized by all
Icelanders.
Pre-royal Israel may have been more or less stateless but it wasn't
libertarian. It had a non-consensual code of law based on divine
revelation and backed in principle and sporadically in practice by
force.
If people live cheek by jowl and have complicated dealings over long
periods that extend to all aspects of life not everything can be
expressed in contracts. A lot of the problems could be mitigated by
voluntary self-segregation. Communal separatism seems to be the way a
radically libertarian polity would deal with the limitations of
contract.
But once the communities all separate, you would have in effect a
traditional middle eastern society composed of closed inward-turning
ethno-cultural-religious communities living by their own law and dealing
with each other only in the bazaar. Why wouldn't the usual middle
eastern political form, dynastic despotism, develop in such a society?
If it didn't, why wouldn't the mafia or robber barons or foreign
imperialists or whoever take over? Also, why should the communities be
libertarian internally? What would force them to recognize a right of
exit?
I also wonder about the cultural consequences of communal separatism. It
seems to me it would involve the abandonment of the notion of objective
rational public truth, and therefore of philosophy and eventually
science. Since libertarian political philosophy seems to depend on such
notions I wonder if it could last in the world libertarianism would create.
Jim
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun Jul 8 14:03:40 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <000f01c107d5$37a25ae0$9e19f7a5@com> (mricherny@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] The BNP
References: <000f01c107d5$37a25ae0$9e19f7a5@com>
Status: RO
"Matthew Richer" writes:
I'm all for immigration reform. But if you eliminate the problem of
immigration today, how much would it reverse the decline of our
culture? Not much I suspect.
No single thing could reverse decline. Maybe nothing could. But
immigration reform could help change one set of things that makes a
somewhat coherent and functional common culture simply impossible.
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Jul 17 14:56:05 2001
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Responsibility (forwarded from James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69))
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
One basic question about strict libertarianism is why people should accept it.
It seems that everyone or at least a predominant majority in libertopia is to
accept libertarianism as the authoritative political philosophy in spite of
limitless differences in culture, religion, views of good and evil, etc.. and
in spite of its all-but-universal failure to win acceptance up till now. Why
will that happen?
The obvious reason it might is an ontologically libertarian reason - that it is
the nature of man to be free, to posit his own values, so restraint is the
ultimate evil, and furthermore the truth of that view is a universal truth of
reason that eventually will win practically universal acceptance in the same
way the Copernican hypothesis has won acceptance. That view doesn't seem
acceptable to traditionalists (among others).
I suppose one could also advance pragmatic arguments, that libertarianism
offers you and me and Shirley Maclaine or whoever the best shot at living the
way each of us thinks best, so we'll all agree on it. Pragmatic considerations
shift, though. Why should Khomeini or Hillary accept libertarianism if they
think they can bring about what they think is right more comprehensively,
quickly and directly?
The obvious way to think about politics is to start with the nature of man and
the good and then to think about the institutions that best defend and advance
those things. Those institutions will necessarily involve force. Libertarians
for example recognize force as legitimate in defense of property rights and
personal physical integrity. Why are those the only things that can be justly
vindicated by force? Why not an environment free from sexual harassment or for
that matter profane language? Or why not the honor of God?
Part of the problem is that I don't think property rights can be defined
without reference to the nature of man, the world, good and evil, etc. If I
have a tree on my land, and my Chinese neighbor complains that it's causing bad
feng shui that affects him, am I maintaining a nuisance? If he cuts down his
trees so my land no longer enjoys a verdant prospect in all directions is that
a property rights violation like cutting off my light and air?
Ditto personal injuries. I suppose if someone slanders me or exposes himself to
my young daughter he's committed a personal injury. Suppose he does something
milder? At what point can the line be drawn?
One could spin out questions indefinitely. How do we know individual property
rights with respect to physical objects exist at all when those objects are
made of materials originally taken from nature and owned by no one? How come
their ownership isn't subject to some collective human ownership of nature, the
exact demands of which are to be determined by collective authority? Etc.,
etc., etc.
It seems to me none of these questions can be answered without reference to
common standards defining a common way of life that's accepted as authoritative
for purposes of deciding duties enforceable by force without regard to its
contractual adoption.
None of this is meant to suggest that everything or even all that much ought to
be done by force or that government shouldn't be limited. It's just that the
libertarian position seems to make universal demands that are at odds with the
way people have always done things and the basis of which seems uncertain.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu Jul 5 13:09:23 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: la
Subject: Re: why whites are paralyzed about race
References: <000201c1056f$c46bea80$2f74580c@h6l3p>
Status: RO
I agree that the impossibility of saying there was anything
comprehensible or not so atrocious about recognizing and acting on
racial classifications is a big problem.
I suppose one reason for the impossibility is that integration was
forced by one section of the country on another, and then by elites on
the majority. To make that OK in a liberal democratic society the theory
has to be that the practice was glaringly and incontestably evil, and
those who engage in it have no right to freedom to the extent they might
exercise their freedom in such a way way.
Another is that it's obvious there are differences between the races, so
the principles saying the differences should make no difference have to
be super-strength. You can't even be allowed to talk about such things.
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu Jul 19 06:59:26 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: Ad
Subject: Re: The Tyranny of Liberalism
References: <1A3FF7A1F3DFD41187A80010B53987171D9D8A@ZDUBEX>
Status: RO
how do I reconcile my philosophical view to my day to day existence .
A good question. You must somehow live in a world different from the
world presented to you, which isn't easy. Some ideas:
Develop your thoughts - read, write, discuss.
Develop your own standards and live by them. In Eastern Europe they used
to call this "living in the truth."
Hook up with people who think as you do, or at least have some of the
same dissatisfactions with the way things have become. Join the anti-EU
campaign or if you're a practicing Catholic go to Latin mass and see who
you meet.
Say what you think. That can be difficult but it helps make a break with
things and forces you to develop your views. It's also a way to meet
people who agree. And to the extent the new order works by thought
control it's a direct attack on the new order. Write letters to the
editor, to politicians, to public figures etc. It's a way of striking
back at the Empire. Also, it makes them aware there are thoughtful
people who don't like the way things are going.
Look for a line of work that offers a degree of personal independence.
Think about all your major decisions - where you will live, who you will
work for, etc., with your basic view of life in mind.
All this is rather abstract, and easier said than done. Also, different
people have different personal qualities and what they can do differs.
And circumstances differ. Still, even making the effort and not giving
up is victory since it means you haven't been swallowed up by the way
things are.
And thank you very much for writing.
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Thu Jul 19 14:43:06 2001
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Date: 19 Jul 2001 16:38:13 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Carol on liberals and power
To: la
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
"People don't want power in conflict with themselves, like their husbands,
their society's traditions and customs, etc., so they keep kicking power upward
until the only power that remains is global."
--- end of quote ---
I think that's right. Somehow power has to be abolished, because the definition
of the good is what particular individuals want, and every want of every
individual is equally a want and therefore equally defines the good. So power -
forcibly subordinating one goal to another - is oppression pure and simple.
It's indistinguishable from slavery.
So what to do? Part of the response as Carol suggests is to make power into a
system that is absolutely the same everywhere. If it weren't the same
everywhere then an element of arbitrariness would be visible and it couldn't be
denied that it is a system of power.
Another part is to base the system on an ideology that makes all significant
decisions in advance so that government becomes only ministerial and its
actions do not constitute the exercise of power. Liberalism is such a system -
what it intends is a purely formal and technical system that treats all persons
and goals equally, and increases GNP and speads it around so that everyone will
be able to pursue whatever goals he chooses. Those are things that are either
matters of principle - universal human rights - to be determined by judges,
philosophers and legal scholars, or matters of technical expertise to be
decided by experts. It's simply inappropriate and abusive for traditional or
popular conceptions to play a substantive role. The function of representative
institutions is to educate the people, to align them through their
representatives in support of the system, and to some extent to voice popular
concerns, make suggestions, etc.
It's also necessary to make it impossible to say or think anything that
conflicts with the absolute worldwide system. If it were possible legitimately
to disagree with it then it would have to make substantive decisions and by
definition it doesn't. Therefore all disagreement must be illegitimate.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Jul 23 07:29:09 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: la
Subject: Re: reply to "Let's kick them out"
References: <001c01c112d6$26120120$2d57580c@h6l3p>
Status: RO
The basic probem I think is lack of intelligent political discussion and
a politic ruling class devoted to the American public interest. If you
don't have that the choice seems to be abrupt gestures like quitting the
UN without definite cause or remaining a member and being co-opted
because that's easier than maintaining a coherent independent policy. Of
course if you quit as an abrupt gesture because that's the only way
you're able to act you aren't likely to be very successful anyway.
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Jul 23 12:07:52 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: la
Subject: Re: reply to "Let's kick them out"
References: <000101c11394$ae4612c0$7c75580c@h6l3p>
Status: RO
Is this lack of discourse a symptom of your idea that in the absence of
the transcendent even language disappears?
It's related. No transcendence means no common reason so discussion
among those who don't already agree disappears. It's all just rhetoric
after all. Eventually language disappears too - why have it when there
can't be any discussion? What good is even rhetoric when it's known in
advance to be merely rhetorical?
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Jul 23 12:23:34 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: la
Subject: Re: public and private morality
References: <000201c11394$b5162720$7c75580c@h6l3p>
Status: RO
How does the Clintonian argument, now being used in relation to Condit,
that (A) only a public official's public acts matter in a moral sense,
and not his private acts, relate to the more general idea of (B) the
denial of any public moral truth?
Is (A) just a species of the liberals' usual idea that morality is only
invested in advancing liberal political goals, and not in morality as
traditionally understood? Or is there something else at work?
Or are (A) and (B) merely two expressions of the same idea, of denying
traditional morality? That is, (A) denies traditional morality in
private life or says that the presence or absence of morality in one's
private life is of no public concern. (B) denies traditional morality in
the public sphere.
No doubt it's a mixture of things. "Morality" is understood as support
of the rational system of equal gratification at which liberalism aims.
I'm not sure that's exactly the same as denial there exists a public
moral truth. It's very hard to pin down all aspects of liberalism at the
same time though.
However that may be, the means/ends rationality of the liberal
conception suggests that when you're speaking of a man's goodness as a
public official you should consider how his acts contribute to the
desired system, and private acts don't carry a lot of weight in that
kind of analysis. Even if Clinton did rape Juanita Broderick from the
standpoint of the overall functioning of the system that's a lot less
important than his support of abortion rights because it didn't affect
nearly so many people.
Also, private acts forbidden by traditional morality tend to involve
direct pursuit of personal goals like sexual gratification and so tend
to be the sort of thing that liberalism wants to protect from
interference by bluenoses. Even if there was something bad about what
Condit did there was something much worse about the people who object to
it. That was a very major point in the Clinton scandals.
jk
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Wed Jul 25 09:04:48 2001
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Message-id: <4593098@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 25 Jul 2001 10:59:07 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Libertarian evil
To: la
Status: RO
It seems to me there are several issues here:
1. "Separation of marriage and state" *does* seem rather like separation of
church and state, at least if the latter is a fundamental general principle
that forbids favoring one religion over another or religion over irreligion.
It's part of the movement toward the value-free state that fundamental liberal
principles have required at least since Locke. Once the movement is established
it's hard to stop the next step. That's been the basic problem for
conservatives for 200 years.
2. More topically, homosexual marriage may be ridiculous, but any definition of
marriage is particularistic because there are attributes of marriage that
different societies define differently. It follows that any definition of
marriage is antimulticultural and therefore oppressive in a variety of ways.
3. A striking feature of the discussion is the absolutely mechanical
understanding of human beings and human society. Giving marriage formal public
legal status is viewed simply as a requirement of certification by a
bureaucrat. The state - and therefore legal relationships and public affairs -
has no connection to moral life.
4. A really stupid argument is that redefining marriage to include homosexual
couples will strenthen the bonds of homosexual couples while having no effect
on those of normal couples. Apparently, formal public legal recognition of a
specific relationship as something special and valuable only affects attitudes
and conduct in the former case.
5. A tactically-libertarian traditionalist might accept separation of marriage
and state as preferable to state-recognized marriage that includes homosexual
marriage.
6. One serious problem of course is that short of a neo-levantine society
marriage and state *won't* be separated. There will be family law that defines
obligations and duties of family members, and therefore who's a family member
and what sort of member he is. Social security, welfare and employment law will
also identify family members and fix their rights and obligations. Sex
education in schools will train children in official attitudes toward family
life. Etc., etc., etc. Libertarians may propose abolishing welfare and
separating school and state etc. but that's not going to get anywhere. Their
proposal is really to establish a neo-levantine society. If that comes it won't
come because because it's chosen but in response to a hyper-post-Soviet
situation in which ordered public life disappears altogether.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Wed Jul 25 09:16:29 2001
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Message-id: <4593755@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 25 Jul 2001 11:10:55 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Libertarian evil
To: la
Status: RO
Left out the most obvious point, that antidiscrimination laws make the proposal
to separate marriage and state and turn marriage into a matter of private
definition and communal expectation and custom unworkable. Any time anyone
recognizes traditional marriage as something special he'll have to do the same
for homosexual couplings or violate the law. Libertarians naturally oppose such
laws but it's not an issue they make much of or apparently feel strongly about.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Thu Jul 26 01:56:52 2001
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Message-id: <4625205@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 26 Jul 2001 03:51:10 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: [Upstream] Eugene D. Genovese decries campus suppressions (PC, Postmodernism)
To: upstream-list@cycad.com
Status: O
--- Robert L. Gleiser wrote:
This "nihilism" seems to operate in a consistent manner, with
predictable themes and dovetails nicely with agendas that are anything
but nihilistic. I don't care whether Genovese is lying or clueless.
He is wrong.
--- end of quote ---
Don't understand the objection. Nihilists can be motivated by their nihilism to
act together coherently and effectively. For example in prerevolutionary France
and Russia nihilists might have acted together to overthrow the established
church and the monarchy, because those institutions were based on claims the
nihilists rejected and because their overthrow would give the nihilists
themselves a shot at power. Similarly today for institutions like the family
and the university (to the extent the university is based on claims about truth
and objectivity and the need for discipline that nihilists reject).
Maybe though the point is that the agenda of Genovese's nihilists is plainly
left-wing. True enough - it seems to me nihilism has always been at the heart
of the Left. Genovese doesn't think so. I agree he's wrong on that, but the
error only puts him in the position in which conservatives always find
themselves in America, of accepting the progress of the Left up to some point
in the past and then denouncing its further progress.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jul 27 08:17:44 2001
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Message-id: <4660911@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 27 Jul 2001 10:11:57 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Deroy Murdock
To: Ca
Status: O
--- "Carol Iannone" wrote:
I wonder if
they've thought everything out; in many ways Charles Murray can sound like a
traditionalist and very fond of marriage.
--- end of quote ---
In his Pursuit of Happiness or whatever the book was called Murray has some
interesting thoughts on how in a libertarian society communal practices and
attitudes would arise that can't be reduced to simple market exchange or
satisfaction of individual preference. I particularly remember a thought
experiment on the form education might take - it's not really something you can
buy, so various understandings, practices, attitudes etc. would gather around
it and lead to institutions that are workable and not self-seeking in any
simple-minded way.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jul 27 08:55:32 2001
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Message-id: <4662046@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 27 Jul 2001 10:49:44 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Deroy Murdock
To: Ca
Status: O
--- "Carol Iannone" wrote:
And the first time somebody finds these arrangements onerous, he would
invoke libertarianism and try to do away with them. I'll bet!
Libertarianism is the snake that bites its own tail I think.
--- end of quote ---
To me the question is why the society is a libertarian one. Could you have a
society that is institutionally libertarian - no state or a minimal state - but
not because people are radically individualistic and antiauthoritarian? Imagine
a bunch of Amish on an island with no-one else around for example. If there
were such a society I think the kind of argument Murray presents makes sense. I
just don't think such a society is a foreseeable possibility though.
It's an odd question. If there were an institutionally libertarian society
people would find they had to rely on each other in all sorts of complicated
ways that can't be reduced to market interactions, so they would stop being
radical individualists if that's what they were to start off with. But after
they gave that up would they really stick with a state that's as limited as the
one the libertarians demand?
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Jul 27 09:32:38 2001
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Message-id: <4663174@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 27 Jul 2001 11:26:46 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Deroy Murdock
To: fr
Status: O
--- Duncan Frissell wrote:
--- Start of quoted text:
I particularly remember a thought
experiment on the form education might take - it's not really something you can
buy,
--- end of quoted text ---
I wonder what this sentence means? I know that Lois and I have paid a couple
of $100K for the education of self and others so it must be sellable.
--- end of quote ---
You pay for it but don't buy it, just like you pay for a wedding or a family
but you don't buy them.
I suppose you could buy training in how to fly an airplane, but if everyone
involved viewed education as simply an article of commerce it wouldn't be
education. As education it involves trust, personal respect, acceptance of the
presumptive authority of another person in matters of value, etc., none of
which can be bought and sold. It's not really an arm's-length affair, which is
what commercial notions presume. It can't be arm's-length because it's part of
what makes the person being educated what he is.
The notion of teaching as a professsion, the titles of respect professors get,
the fact that schools are generally not-for-profit organizations, all those
things may be subject to abuse or hypocritical or undeserved at times, but
there's a reason for them beyond self-glorification.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun Jul 29 13:19:25 2001
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Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2001 15:13:24 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Jim Kalb
To: upstream-list@cycad.com
Sent-via: upstream-list@cycad.com
In-reply-to: <3B644688.2055B9B2@tscnet.com> (rgleiser@tscnet.com)
Subject: Re: [Upstream] Eugene D. Genovese, Postmodernism
References: <4625203@doc.Dartmouth.ORG> <3B644688.2055B9B2@tscnet.com>
Status: RO
"Robert L. Gleiser" writes:
I'm a hedonist and a narcissist. I use nihilism to rationalize my
behavior to inquiring Christians--and outraged feminists!
I really don't see that there's much of a contrast between hedonistic
narcissism and ethical nihilism.
Suppose someone said "I want what I want, and my goal in life is to get
it, whatever it is." I would call such a person, who thinks there are no
standards by which his conduct can judged other than what he wants, a
nihilist. Your response seems to be "he's not a nihilist, because he
does believe in a standard of conduct, 'what I want.'" To me though that
seems a non-standard. If all a moral standard can tell us is to do
whatever we happen to want to do it's not much of a standard. It's like
a standard of truth that tells me that whatever I think is true for me.
I find it hard to distinguish someone who holds that standard of truth
from a radical skeptic.
* ascribing a priori moral value to certain minority groups (and
withholding it from others) is not nihilism
* characterizing cohesive majority groups as pathological is not
nihilism
* characterizing empirical science as oppressive and an aspect of social
domination is not nihilism (this permits them to bypass empirical
methods in the development of alternate theories)
* resisting any attempt to construct a national culture is not nihilism
(this allows for the proposal of alternate, radical cultural forms)
All these strike me as manifestations of nihilism. They are all designed
to overthrow any coherent dominant system of morality other than "what I
want."
Why does he instead go off on tangents about communist-Trotskyite
civility in the 1940s? Why all the discussion about all of these
ideological movements (in books, journals, articles, web pages), but
no synthesis, no useful conclusions?
He doesn't want to recognize that nihilism - the denial of standards of
conduct irreducible to human desire - is and always has been at the
heart of the left.
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mon Jul 30 13:52:17 2001
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Message-id: <4726932@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 3
carneyaway@hotmail.com (""John Carney""), GJRussello@aol.com,
jgary@lehman.com, lrbieste@lehman.com, nimbus@panix.com
Status: RO
Duncan raises the very important question of what one means by "traditionalism"
or "traditional conservatism."
They can't mean acting the way people acted at some point in the past. Which
people, and which point? And if on some point they ignored what people did in
*their* past, should we equally ignore what they did, because they are in *our*
past? Nor can traditionalism or whatever involve an overly-enthusiastic
adherence to some notion of "living tradition." After all, the state of the
living American tradition today is precisely the collection of habits,
attitudes, beliefs etc. that exists around us here and now. That seems somehow
unsatisfactory.
Wat's needed is a notion of fundamental principles that are known through
tradition - through habits, practices, beliefs etc. that grow up among those
who recognize and value those principles - but are not reducible without
remainder to tradition. That kind of notion allows distinctions between good
and bad traditions, legitimate developments and corruptions, when to go along
and when to draw the line. It also helps explain how tradition can be
authoritative - it's not simply a collection of helpful hints that each of us
judges on a par with hints from other sources, it's a sort of collective
understanding that knows more than any private understanding - without in
general being absolute.
All of which is horribly abstract, so maybe I should deal with some of Duncan's
examples:
1) Age-of consent/age of marriage
I suppose the point of the higher age of marriage is to make sure marriage is
entered into seriously and thoughtfully because (PRINCIPLE:) marriage is
intended as a lifetime commitment that's part of what defines the identity of
the participants. If most things are run on an extended-family basis the
extended family supplies the seriousness, thought and social support. If that's
breaking down then higher age of marriage makes sense and is a legitimate
development of tradition.
2) Dancing.
I thought it was mostly sectarian protestants (antitrads) that objected to
dancing. Of course there is dancing and dancing, and not all kinds should
really be acceptable. I suppose the trad principle would prefer that dancing be
part of an overall system of courtship and socializing that all ages take part
in. Square dancing, anyone?
3) Ostracism.
I thought everyone practiced ostracism. People break off friendships, stop
seeing people, etc. It seems to me to the extent there's a coherent common way
of life that tends to have some communal aspects since there are common
standards and responses.
4) Class/Race/Culture
Distinctions and distances seem necessary to me for a coherent way of life -
that is, a culture - to exist at all. And such things do exist today. A used
car dealer or fundamentalist Jesse Helms supporter would probably not be viewed
as good marriage material in most Ivy League yuppie circles, for example. He
probably wouldn't be invited to many dinner parties.
Some of Duncan's comments seem to relate to whether being a trad or neotrad or
whatever is to be an individual lifestyle choice or part of a common way of
life. The latter makes more sense to me. Man is a social animal after all. It's
hard for him to pull himself up by his bootstraps, to design his own ideal and
then undertake to live by it.
One issue is that today a traditionalist common way of life hardly exists
outside a few insular communities. It doesn't make sense simply to create your
own class/race/culture distinctions and decide who the (nonexistent)
traditionalist community is going to feel at odds with and how that feeling is
to be expressed. It's as if a Robinson Crusoe trad were marooned on an island
populated by liberals and a few other random castaways. He would no doubt hang
with whatever castaways or maverick liberals would talk with him but basically
would rather live in a civilized country. To the extent he could he would
promote the development of what he would recognize as civilization on the
island.
5) Dress
A matter of degree. Once again there's the problem that we're in a Robinson
Crusoe situtation. Standards are better than no standards but you can't reform
the world.
6) Religion
Presumably one that recognizes tradition as an important principle. Not
pentecostalism.
7) Women
Circumstances do change, and the arrangements of another time can't simply be
reproduced. The battle today is against the view that there should be no
socially accepted distinctions at all between the sexes, that eradicating such
things is a demand of justice. As to where the particulars should settle once
feminist dogma is rejected, I think it will be necessary to look to permanent
principle - the need for functional and stable families, for coherent images of
masculinity and femininity, and so on - and let the habits and attitudes
develop in light of those principles and inherited images, stories,
preconceptions, etc. That would be a refounding of tradition.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://www.freespeech.org/antitechnocrat
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Aug 7 04:39:07 2001
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Date: 07 Aug 2001 06:32:49 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Big-Government Conservatism Comes to ALEC
To: la
Interesting about the flip-flops on publication.
Martinez' argument is an old one. "Jeffersonian ends through Hamiltonian means"
was a big slogan in the early part of the century. John Dewey etc. used it all
the time and Bruce Ackerman was still using it when I was in law school.
How do you recreate the things Jefferson cared about today - a race of sturdy
yeomen or whatever? Well, yeomen were more or less independent and equal, and
they had material backing for that independence and equality, so the way you do
it is through guaranteed welfare rights that no one can interfere with, rights
of free speech and democratic governance in the workplace, etc. And naturally
women and blacks have to be as sturdily yeomanish as white males, so you have
to have affirmative action to put them in the same
individually-independent-of-everyone situation. And the agency that can do
those things is the federal government, freedom's friend.
Hope your ISP problems come to an end. I've been getting lots of copies of the
SirVan virus, about 240K a shot. An annoyance but not a crushing problem with
DSL.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Fri Aug 10 05:25:53 2001
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Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 07:19:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jim Kalb
To: mj
In-reply-to: <000501c12108$33607920$0a9bf9c3@mjkeys> (mj-keys@mail.tele.dk)
Subject: Re: A letter of admiration
Thanks very much for your note!
You are right that the basic situation is very similar in Europe and
America - a ruling elite that is universal in thought, feeling and
interests, and a people that generally prefers its own ways and
loyalties. So the two groups are at odds. What makes matters worse is
that the ruling elite controls almost all communications, and it claims
to represent only the interests of the people, so the actual views of
the people cannot be discussed and drop out of sight. For that reason I
am happy to hear of the book you and your friend are working on.
Thanks again for your encouragement,
Jim Kalb
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Sep 5 12:48:33 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: jg
Subject: Re: Agenda suggestions
References: <200108221525.LAA15076@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU> <000001c12bf4$d92e7680$b1ca243f@oemcomputer> <200109051138.HAA25123@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU> <000401c13626$bd2ec2a0$c1ca243f@oemcomputer>
Status: RO
-I would say the latter. Although he doesn't make a big point of it, Smith
assumes God. As far as I can tell, his work is based on the observation that
the Author of Nature placed His sense of morality into the fabric of human
nature: that it is His plan that our moral instincts are as much a part of
our make-up as any physical characteristic and are necessary for our
survival.
A difficulty with the line of thought is that it tends to make God a
clockmaker who gets the world started, implants a sense of morality,
etc., and then drops out of sight with no further function. He made the
world so perfect it runs on its own principles, without reference to
him, and in fact we should do the same.
Going in another direction, you asked for suggestions for discussion, in
addition to your interest in comparing Anglicanism and Catholicism. How
comparing and contrasting European and American values? American religion is
more Protestant, historically. I think I'd like to get into a discussion of
what is meant by traditional Americanism.
Good idea - it's a necessary part of the discussion.
Politically, a representative list of values was developed by Balint
Vaszonyi in America's 30 Years' War: Rule of Law (vs. Social Justice),
Individual Rights (vs. Group Rights), Security of Property (vs.
Redistribution of Wealth) and a common identity based on our
Judeo-Chrisitian heritage (vs. multi-culturalism). To his mind, the opposite
of Americanism is socialism or totalitarianism.
What happened I think was that the ultimate transcendent principle - God
- that turned these things into a system of truth instead of an
arbitrary set of cultural prejudices lost substantive content because he
was nowhere institutionalized ("Judeo-Christian" is a sign of the loss
of substantive content) and the whole structure collapsed.
I think our traditions have been more influenced by the Protestant
work ethic and various forms of Puritanism than by Anglicanism or
Catholicism.
America has obviously been a protestant country. Rejecting protestantism
would be a very major step.
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Sep 5 18:18:52 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: jg
Subject: Re: ??
References: <200108221525.LAA15076@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU> <000001c12bf4$d92e7680$b1ca243f@oemcomputer> <200109051138.HAA25123@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU> <000401c13626$bd2ec2a0$c1ca243f@oemcomputer> <200109051841.OAA25567@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU> <000701c13664$0
Status: RO
6173be0$1d9e2a3f@oemcomputer>
I can't possibly summarize Adam Smith's entire thought system at this point,
but I don't think a man who writes a sentence such as "That to obey the will
of the Deity is the first rule of duty, all men are agreed." sees God as a
clockmaker who has dropped out of sight.
The problem is not what AS believed as a man but the tendency of his thought.
Re your interest in a pope. Are you trying to say that humanity is lost
because there is no one universally recognized religious authority?
The thought is that a hierarchy is better than no hierarchy, because it
helps keep Christianity coherent and articulate, and an international
hierarchy is better than an national one, because it is less likely to
be captured by secular ruling elites (the way all mainstream churches
have in the US). If you have an international hierarchy you need a top
hierarch.
Another thought is that the idea of Christendom is the idea of
Christianity as the recognized basis of politics. As the recognized
basis of politics it must be universal throughout the civilization. But
universal principles and ways of thinking need some sort of concrete
expression to be effective. In science for example there are
international congresses, Nobel Prizes etc. that express the
universality of science. So Christendom would need some sort of concrete
universal expression too. The Pope would fill the role.
I'll try VERY HARD on the 11th
Remember it's now Wed the 12th - there was a scheduling problem.
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sat Sep 8 17:06:55 2001
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Date: 08 Sep 2001 18:59:22 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Conservatism... confused...
To: jt
Status: RO
"Concerning 1.1, from my past experiences that which one persons claims to
know, but cannot "demonstrat[e] or even explicitly stat[e]" does not know
what he claims. For example, usually when someone wants to show another
person how to do something, but they fail to effectively demonstrate
it. This person does not have a clue what he is trying to do. "
But most important knowledge can't be communicated directly. You seem to be
saying that Matisse could have written a treatise on painting and Edison on
inventing and Patton on military command and Clinton on political maneuvering
that I could read and become as knowledgable as those men were.
"I am
wondering then, what does it exactly mean when it says "goes beyond what
can be demonstrated or even explicitly stated"? Are you saying that it
cannot be shown, and rather represents a metaphysical or theoretical
wisdom? And if that is the case, are you trying to in a sense get someone
to believe something that lacks cognitive truth?"
Cognitive truth depends on things that can't be shown. Mathematics is part of
cognitive truth but it depends on non-demonstrable axioms. History is part of
cognitive truth but almost any historical claim can be disputed without
absurdity because it involves conclusions that go beyond the evidence. One
could claim that records have been falsified etc. and it would be hard to
demonstrate the contrary.
"The
fact of the matter is you cannot apprehend the truth through tradition,
because tradition is in no way a cognitive term. In order to discuss truth
and falsity, you must refer to terms that are based on empirical and
factual knowledge, not something as vague as tradition."
But science itself can't function without traditions - without a complex of
attitudes, habits, preconceptions etc. that arose historically and on the whole
can only be accepted by practicing scientists. The alternative would be to turn
everything into an issue simultaneously, which is impossible.
jk
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mon Sep 10 14:22:10 2001
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Date: 10 Sep 2001 16:14:38 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Kopff reply/St. Paul and Roman Statism
To: jkalb@nyx.net
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Status: RO
"Statism" seems to be the view that the state is the highest authority, which
does look like the view behind the modern state. It seems unreasonable to me to
identify all government with that view though. I don't think it was a likely
view of government before the days of cuius regio eius religio.
Force and compulsion are necessary parts of human life. Miss De Coster's gun
closet shows she knows that. There is no way of organizing them that is
altogether satisfactory. The problem with the modern state is that it attempts
to create a single comprehensive solution to the problem and thereby creates a
monster. Of course that's not the only attempt, libertarian ideology is
another.
Jim Kalb
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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sun Sep 16 07:35:04 2001
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Date: 16 Sep 2001 09:27:20 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] terrorism
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
Status: RO
--- George Kalas wrote:
I'm at a loss to comprehend what purpose anyone thinks it serves
at a time like this to continue to nurse our own peculiar gripes
--- end of quote ---
If the peculiar gripes are based on an understanding of what political life is
like and should be like then on the whole they should be nursed and extended.
What was the WTC attack? The murder of thousands of innocents, obviously. Most
of us watched the murder on TV while it was taking place and I saw some of it
from the roof of my house. Last night my wife and I were able to walk around a
few blocks from the site and saw close up the huge pillar of smoke and dust
that's still rising from where the towers were.
But what else is it? What is the world like in which it took place? Which
direction are things going? Where do we want to end up in dealing with it?
These questions don't answer themselves.
Was it an attack on America, a complex unity formed by history of a particular
land and people, by men whose goal in life it is to destroy it? On a growing
worldwide system of markets and managers that is building a universal society
reconstituted on purely this-worldly and economic principles? On a policy of
intervention in the Muslim world? What sort of response would defend which of
those things?
The "they hate us and will always hate us just because we're us" claim might
for all I know be true but it doesn't explain the attack. There are lots of
people much closer to home for them to hate and get tied up with. Why do they
have to go so far afield when they could be fighting with each other? It's as
difficult for them as for anyone else to kill everyone they hate. Why are we at
the top of the list?
The terrorists do what they do for its political effect. They don't seem
stupid. What sort of political effect are they aiming at? What would the
political effect of an American attempt to wipe out terrorism in the Muslim
world? The Russians couldn't do much about it in Afghanistan. The Israelis are
still living with it. Are we that much smarter and more capable than they are?
Suppose what the attack shows is that a universal complex centralized
technocratic system requires pervasive controls on everything everywhere to
defend it from threats that otherwise might arise? That it can exist only in a
sort of universal clean room? There are things in the world around us, PC and
other attempts to reconstitute the soul for example, that suggest something of
the sort. Is that kind of consideration relevant to what kind of response one
should support?
I agree that the attack should be compared to Sarajevo rather than Pearl Harbor
- it's an event that in itself doesn't define the right response. So yes I
think we should continue to develop our own peculiar line of thought.
Jim Kalb
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mon Sep 17 07:36:31 2001
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Date: 17 Sep 2001 09:28:47 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Ayn Rand stuff
To: ro
Status: RO
Peikoff's views don't seem political enough to me.
He seems to be saying that the US govt should absolutely defend the life,
liberty and property of every US citizen or other person under the protection
of US law against all threats from all sources anywhere. That sounds to me like
a demand for universal empire based on enforcement of objectivist legal
concepts by American military power. Securing by force if necessary the life
liberty and property everywhere of close to 300 million active and enterprising
people is quite a comprehensive job. If he's asking for less than that where
does he draw the line without what he calls pragmatism?
It seems that if I am unjustly deprived of my property in India say then the US
govt should go to all lengths to get it back for me. How would that apply to
Union Carbide, if Peikoff decided that liability assessed against the company
on account of the Bhopal disaster was determined on the wrong principles? To
any American company operating abroad if it were subjected to unjust taxation
or other burdens? Suppose the govt of Russia were unable to protect the lives
of Americans who for one reason or another found themselves in Chechnya? Should
the Americans come in and take whatever measures are required to do the job for
them? Anyway, that's why it looks to me like a demand for universal empire. He
doesn't like to draw lines based on practical considerations so I'm not sure
what to make of his argument.
Also, I'm not sure why he thinks governments are necessary for terrorism.
Revolutionary conspiracies have existed that haven't involved governments, why
not terrorist conspiracies? 20 guys and a million bucks would have been enough
for the WTC job. Do all criminal conspiracies of that size involve the support
of national governments? Maybe most large-scale terrorist operations so far
have, but if we followed Peikoff's "mass death in the terrorist nations" policy
I think other sorts of large-scale terrorist operations would arise.
Actually, the Salman Rushdie business didn't involve a government in any
essential way. The key is that Khomeini as a recognized scholar of Islamic law
issued a legal opinion (a fatwa) that Rushdie deserved death and that any
Muslim could or should kill him. He could have done that without being head of
state or government or whatever. So do we bomb governments out of existence
that let influential legal scholars issue opinions that would justify acts that
violate the life, liberty or property of American citizens? Have a policy of
assassinating the scholars?
So I guess my complaint about Peikoff's arguments is that they are too
far-reaching. It's not clear how they can be limited by politic considerations
and limitations seem necessary.
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Wed Sep 26 07:49:57 2001
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Date: 26 Sep 2001 09:41:52 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: hello
To: la
Status: RO
You can find all sorts of ways in which we deserved it. The problem of course
is that the we who deserved it isn't the same as the thousands who died so
horribly. The WTC was a symbol of a universal abstract order at odds with human
life. The people who worked there weren't universal abstract symbols though.
That is what the missing person posters drive home.
Immigration is part of the Universal Nation concept, and that concept is
fundamentally what the WTC stood for - one world organized through and through
in accordance with rational economic principles in which particularities of
place and culture don't matter and opposition to immigration is therefore
irrational. If it had stood for something as humble as voluntary exchange among
peoples in a world fundamentally organized on other principles it wouldn't have
looked as it did. It was meant to be inhuman and overwhelming and to abolish
particularity - you couldn't even identify the separate floors that turn a
structure into a place human beings can inhabit.
The Universal Nation also involves bringing the rest of the world in line with
the program, which means foreign interventions. And the abolition of culture
and its replacement by pop culture and the therapeutic custodial state, which
means the Western decadence that annoys Muslims and even other people as well
as the enforced passivity that made it possible for men with box cutters to
turn a 767 into a flying bomb. All these things of course mean centralization,
and complex systems of communication and control, which creates targets. So
maybe this event dramatically brings out weaknesses in the project. We shall no
doubt see.
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Wed Sep 26 09:06:36 2001
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Date: 26 Sep 2001 10:58:31 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: hello
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
It was impossible not to have mixed feelings about it. Up close I found it
somewhat frightening. It was impossible to take it in as a place for human
beings to use. On the other hand there was something understated about it that
made it tolerable from a distance, and it was beautiful at dusk, when it became
completely insubstantial. Maybe the fact it was two towers rather than one made
it seem more modest and social somehow, or at any rate less featureless.
It wasn't a symbol of free enterprise or freedom at all in any human sense but
rather the modern blend of capital and transnational bureaucracy - the Port of
New York Authority isn't actually transnational but it has some of the same
qualities. To some extent it was a symbol of America and New York but it was
America and New York transcending themselves and becoming universal. That had a
certain greatness I suppose but not a greatness that is a good thing or can be
sustained.
It's interesting that both the buildings attacked were abstract geometrical
forms.
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Thu Sep 27 14:00:58 2001
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Date: 27 Sep 2001 15:52:27 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] terrorism
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- B McL wrote:
"At the moment, I am worried that there is no State apparatus of any sort
which can protect people from the sort of weapons which recent technology
has made possible. No means at all."
--- end of quote ---
One possible outcome is a much more decentralized social order like that of the
Middle Ages or traditional Middle East based on local strongholds and walled
communities. Anything bigger would be too much a target, while anything smaller
wouldn't be able to stabilize everyday life.
Jim Kalb
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun Sep 30 12:22:11 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: la
Subject: Re: designer babies
References: <002101c148f8$81f08f40$2957580c@h6l3p>
Status: RO
Even more than contraception and abortion it makes a baby not a gift or
a destiny but a choice as choice in now understood - a consumer choice,
one good freely chosen among many in accordance with individual taste
and desire. It's going to mean child abuse. What you make as you wish
you can treat or get rid of as you wish.
Jim
Re: Discussion on the Cairo Declaration
I'm not sure what constitutes lip service. There are a number of
possible conceptions of religious freedom.
It seems to me the conception accepted today in the West is so broad as
to be incoherent. It demands equality for all religions, and for
religion and non-religion. But if all public affairs have to be carried
on based on the assumption that one religion is no more true than any
other, because otherwise religions would be treated unequally, they will
necessarily be carried on the antireligious assumption that religion is
irrelevant to important and comprehensive aspects of human life. So in
fact irreligion will be established and religion correspondingly
suppressed.
Maybe some comparisons would help. The state of necessity must take a
stand on fundamental political principles, and I suppose it is entitled
to promote its view among the citizens. It can build public monuments
and establish public holidays. It can require citizenship education and
prescribe its content. In most Western countries it can prohibit speech
and public observances (e.g., Nazi rallies) that promote radically
contrary principles. It can also attempt in various ways to force its
principles on foreign countries that reject them.
Or consider medicine. Presumably, medical science is not an area in
which the state has any special competence. Nonetheless, the state is
presumed able to recognize sound medical principles and act on them when
relevant. It can act to protect and promote public health, for example
by banning smoking in restaurants. It can require health education in
schools. It can set standards for medical practitioners and prosecute
those who make false medical claims.
Why should religion be altogether different? It also has to do with
basic social principles and the well-being of the people. Religious
views differ, but so do political and medical views. It seems there
should be limits to the use of force in religious disputes, but the same
is true in regard to all disputes regarding what is right and true.
You ask narrower questions though, about:
1. The right to change or reject religion.
2. The right to engage in public observance.
3. The right to proselytize.
It seems to me difficult to make changing or rejecting religion
criminal. A man believes what he believes. For me though it's hard to go
much beyond that as a matter of universal human right applicable to all
men and all religions everywhere. But then it seems to me that kind of
universal abstract principle can't apply to much except the grossest
abuses anyway.
On the other hand a society or religion could recognize for its own
reasons a broader system of religious freedom. For example, there might
be freedom of public observance and private persuasion, subject perhaps
to limitations to prevent situations regarded as abusive. Or maybe
something else. Once you give up religious freedom as a broadly-defined
absolute any number of possibilities open up.
Jim Kalb
Re: The Limits of Identity Politics
It seems to me the effect, or perhaps function, of identity politics is
to destroy social cohesion and so make comprehensive bureaucratic
administration all the more necessary - without it, nothing can
function, and besides, the alternative is bloody chaos.
I don't think there will be a fight for dominance among minority groups.
Minority politicians like Sharpton are no threat to the established
political order, since their power is wholly dependent on their ability
to get favors from that order. They aren't interested in running things
because then there'd be no one to demand things from. Therefore they
have no real interest in political dominance. And it seems to me people
don't have serious fights over things they have no interest in.
Jim Kalb
World Trade Center Bombing
For what they're worth, here are some things that occurred to me. It's
hard to know which way things will go, and anything one says now may
turn out to be radically off-base, but that's all the more reason to
talk things through. Anyway,
1. What was the WTC attack? The murder of thousands of innocents under
horrible circumstances, obviously. But what else?
Was it an attack on America, a complex historical unity of a particular
land and people, by men who want to destroy it? On a policy of
intervention in the Arab and Muslim world? On a growing worldwide system
of markets and managers that is building a universal society
reconstituted on purely this-worldly and economic principles? Which of
those things are worth defending with a tenacity equal to that those on
the other side are likely to show?
War is policy carried on by other means. That means that first and
foremost we should think through where we want to end up, and then be
realistic about possibilities and consequences.
2. The "they hate us and will always hate us just because we're us"
theory doesn't explain the attack. There are lots of people closer to
home for them to hate and murder. Why go so far? The terrorists did what
they did for its political effect. They don't seem stupid. What sort of
political effect are they aiming at? What would the political effect be
of an American attempt to wipe out terrorism in the Muslim world? The
Israelis are still living with it. The Russians couldn't do much about
it in Afghanistan. Are we that much smarter, more capable and more
determined than they were?
3. It seems significant somehow that both the buildings attacked - the
twin towers and the Pentagon - were abstract geometrical forms. The
people who worked there and died so horribly were of course not abstract
symbols. That is what the missing person posters you see all over New
York and especially near Ground Zero drive home. The symbolism of the
attack is nonetheless relevant to its meaning and to the right response.
The WTC stood for one world organized through and through in accordance
with rational economic principles in which particularities of place and
culture don't matter. If it had stood for something as humble as
voluntary exchange among peoples in a world fundamentally organized on
diverse principles it wouldn't have looked as it did. It was meant to be
inhuman and overwhelming and to abolish particularity - from outside it
you couldn't even identify the separate floors that turn a structure
into a place human beings can inhabit.
Up close I found the towers somewhat frightening. It was impossible to
take them in as a place for human beings to use. The WTC wasn't a symbol
of free enterprise or freedom at all in any human sense but rather of a
blend of capital and transnational bureaucracy - the Port of New York
Authority isn't actually transnational but it has some of the same
qualities.
4. The universal order for which the WTC stood involves bringing the
rest of the world in line with the program. That means foreign
interventions and the abolition of culture and its replacement by pop
culture and the therapeutic custodial state. It therefore means the
Western decadence that annoys Muslims and even other people, not to
mention the enforced passivity that made it possible for men with box
cutters to turn a 767 into a flying bomb and the nearly open borders
that made it easy for them to organize and carry out the project. All
these things of course mean centralization, and complex systems of
communication and control, which create targets. So maybe this event
dramatically brings out weaknesses in the project.
5. Suppose what the attack shows is that a universal complex centralized
technocratic system will in the end require pervasive controls on
everything everywhere to defend it from threats that arise? That it can
exist only in a sort of universal clean room? There were already things
in the world around us, PC and other attempts to reconstitute the soul
for example, that suggested something of the sort. Do the proposals for
homeland security suggest the same?
6. One possible outcome is a much more decentralized social order like
that of the Middle Ages or traditional Middle East based on local
strongholds and walled communities with loose connections to each other.
Anything bigger would be too much a target, while anything smaller
wouldn't be able to stabilize everyday life. It seems possible that we
will be fighting a war to avoid such an outcome. Is that something to
support?
It seems our intent is not limited to punishing the particular men
responsible for the attack. What beyond that will we be aiming at? Will
we be fighting for empire? If so, will that be good? Is it likely we
will succeed?
Jim Kalb
counterrevolution.net and www.human-rights.f2s.com
More on the WTC attack
More thoughts on the effects of the WTC attack and the likely
consequences of war, again put forward for the sake of discussion:
Almost everyone can agree that the attack calls for forceful action
against those who planned and supported it, and preventative measures to
make future attacks much less likely.
What immediate action is possible and appropriate depends on
circumstances. How much do we know, and how close a connection do
various groups and governments have to the attack? What possible demands
could be made or sanctions imposed on whom? It is hard for someone far
removed from the seat of power to say much about such issues.
What to do for the future is a different matter. Preventative measures
could be of various kinds, and their implications don't depend on
anything secret. For example, we could arm pilots and otherwise make it
easier for people to defend themselves. We could accept "racial
profiling" as plain good sense in dealing with a threat from within the
Arab and Muslim world. We could tighten our borders, end mass
immigration, restrict visas, and expel illegals. We could worry less
about controlling the international order and disengage from the Arab
and Muslim world. We could accept that there is genuine diversity in the
world, that a single universal system is unworkable, as well as
destructive of the actual order that exists, and that good fences make
good neighbors.
It is unlikely we will do any such thing. The war that will actually be
fought will reflect the nature of the American regime and of what have
become its permanent overriding goals, which are those of universalistic
managerial liberalism.
The regime will make use of this war to advance its overall goals. War
advances the pervasive and comprehensive system of control over social
life that managerial liberalism demands. Consider the consequences of
the First and Second World Wars, and of the Cold War. It requires
"national unity," which can be interpreted as inclusiveness, definition
of war aims, which can be understood as a worldwide system of peace,
justice and development as managerial liberalism understands those
things, and popular allegiance to "what we are fighting for," which can
be said to be managerial liberalism.
On the other hand, managerial liberalism creates problems in dealing
with war or other national emergency since it makes men weak. It
destroys their ties to each other and the coherence of their character
for the sake of making them manageable. It destroys demanding virtues
like steadiness, courage and self-sacrifice, and makes men emotional,
short-sighted and easily manipulable. That affects the kind of war that
will be fought and preventative measures that will be taken.
The war will therefore be made a technical matter that requires no
participation on the part of the people other than doing what they're
told, supporting the government, feeling and thinking what is expected
of them, and watching the spectacle that's presented. The government
cannot demand individual risk, hardship or effort. Military strategy
must therefore eliminate the possibility of U.S. casualties. Nor can the
way the war is carried on permit national or religious rivalries to
enter the matter. It must therefore be purely ideological, based on
excluding our opponents from human society as insane or evil. It must be
a war against ways of thinking, a continuation worldwide of the struggle
at home that demands further intensification of that struggle on all
fronts. Nor can people be permitted to defend themselves or otherwise
take action on their own. To arm flight crews would be the first step in
depriving government of its role as custodian of the people, so it can't
be permitted regardless of advantages.
Many questions are open of course. Will it matter that George W. Bush
rather than Clinton, Gore or Tony Blair is in charge of the effort?
Possibly. By nature, W. is a traditionalist and centrist rather than an
ideologue like the others. How he directs the war will therefore reveal
a great deal about the forces now at work, whether the West is
hopelessly locked into managerial liberalism and can escape from it only
by some terminal crisis, or whether there is still room for maneuver and
resources that permit development in a better direction.
It is also unclear whether the war will be successful on its own terms.
Will it manage to contain the threat of terrorism without compromising
basic principles of the managerial liberal regime? The neoconservatives
have always wanted to compromise certain aspects of managerial
liberalism with the principles needed for a basically imperial order to
govern effectively, extend its sway, and defend itself. Will they win?
Or is it possible that a war against terrorism or against Islam and the
Arabs will lead to a crisis of the regime, to a final collapse of its
project of creating universal order on its own peculiar principles?
We shall see.
Jim Kalb
counterrevolution.net and www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Oct 5 08:46:44 2001
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Message-id: <6155225@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 05 Oct 2001 10:38:20 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Same message different format
To: up
Status: RO
Thanks for the excerpt. It was well-timed; I was just writing a book
review, of Peter Hitchens' Abolition of Britain, that touches on the
issue of what to do in the face of transformations that seem a
consequence of enormous and irresistible trends that Guenon etc. argue
are aspects of the very nature of manifested being.
For what it's worth, here's the relevant part of the current draft of
the review:
"Hitchens tells the story well, but what in the end is behind it all?
What explains the unity and the irresistible power of the process that
destroyed the old Britain? Why did elites - those who lost by the
changes as well as those who gained - turn against the basic principles
of their own society? However stupid and mendacious they may have been,
academics did not intend to wreck education or churchmen the Church. Why
did their actions promote that end so steadily and so obviously? Why is
it that all things - war, peace, depression, prosperity, Labour and Tory
governments - have worked together to a single goal? And why is the new
order in Britain so similar to that in other countries? One is forced to
conclude that particular events that seem decisive, the loss of empire
or the 1997 election, were only the occasions for changes that would
have occurred in any case.
"It appears, although Hitchens is not explicit on the point, that the
most basic cause of the changes is a decline in the sense that society
expresses an order of things not reducible to human desire. Without such
a sense, social relations can only be a matter of what particular men
want, and there can be no rooted loyalty, principled deference, or
justified self-sacrifice. It was the established church that once
embodied the faith that the social order is founded on something beyond
the here and now. A final explanation of what has happened to Britain
would then involve an explanation of the loss of religious faith and the
decline and collapse of the church. It is difficult to settle on such an
explanation. Hitchens traces loss of faith to a variety of things,
notably the pointless slaughter of the First World War, but it had
obviously been in the works long before that. Many have traced it to the
scientific revolution of the 17th century, or perhaps the late medieval
nominalism that gave us Occam's Razor. Others like Guenon reach much
farther back, and argue that loss of faith is simply an aspect of a
downward cycle that began before the beginning of recorded history and
is a necessary consequence of the nature of manifested being.
"Such arguments have a great deal of force, but it is hard for most of us
to see how to deal with issues that are so enormous. The line of thought
can be put on a somewhat less grand plane, however: what if the thing
that created the world we love is the thing that is destroying it? That
is the difficulty that makes it impossible to be a truly consistent
reactionary. The old order that the reactionary takes as a standard was
brought forth by the destruction of what came before it, and it was
based on principles that led to later developments and thus to its own
downfall. As a creation of history Britain must be destroyed by history.
Anglicanism and empire were among the things that defined it; the first
was revolutionary and the second antitraditional, and both destroyed
earlier and more organic arrangements. The grammar schools whose passing
Hitchens regrets already represented a movement toward rationalized
education for a rationalized society. Perhaps the same could be said
about the 19th century public schools that they imitated. And Hitchens'
emphasis on Britain must come at the expense of more rooted loyalties to
England and the other nations making up the United Kingdom.
"Conservatism of some sort is necessary but insufficient. In social life
as in art value lies less in explicit principles, which are always
partial and one-sided, than in particular traditions and concrete
achievements that cannot be reduced to the principles they reflect. The
defense of the concrete and particular, which is the essence of
conservatism, is therefore a worthy cause. How to defend them in a way
that preserves their value is nonetheless a difficult question.
Rejecting principle and resisting change for the sake of attachment to
things as they are can lead to the hollowing out and eventual collapse
of a tradition. That, in fact, seems to be what happened in Britain. On
the other hand radical principle taken literally soon becomes antihuman
and murderous because it destroys the particular in the name of the
abstract. What is needed is for men to give their final loyalty to
something that transcends the given, and so is not merely conservative,
and is concrete enough to give direction without being altogether
reducible to principles that we can state explicitly and so fully
possess. What is needed, in fact, is something very like God.
"We cannot get God just by deciding we need him. He must be waited on. So
what do we do in the meantime? Hitchens' mood is elegaic, and he has
little vision for the future apart from the necessity of fighting for
what remains of an admirable civilization. There is certainly enough in
that struggle to sustain a man, and it is hard to believe that the
effort expended will be truly lost."
Comments are welcome. What I say needs to be added to, and I'm still
mulling over some of the points.
Moving from my draft to the book, I'll just intersperse some comments
here and there:
Guenon's idea of the "reinstatement," at least by the time he wrote
The Reign of Quantity, was not sociopolitical. The end of a
manvantara is no more capable of being exploited by this or that
political ideology than the end of one's individual life for the
worldly purposes of that life.
Politics does not come first, but it can play a role in defending or
securing what is most valuable to us. Globalism etc. want to create a
universal self-contained system. Something like opposition to the EU and
to various social programs help put sand in the mechanism and so is
worth supporting. If part of the problem is that politics is being given
too much of a role then political action, generally in the form of
obstructionism, ought to be part of the solution.
And as Martin Lings points out in Ancient Beliefs and Modern
Superstitions, if men in the kali-yuga have fallen below caste, the
men of the krita-yuga are above it.
I like Aristotle's formulation that to live outside society one would
have to be either a beast or a god. To live in human society however is
to have a position in society that is part of what makes one what he is
- I suppose that is what having caste means, although it's not a term I
use. So caste - particular social identity - is necessary for human
life, which is a relative and in-between sort of thing rather than an
abstract universal. The modern error is to believe human life can be
purified. Moderns have abolished the transcendent so the here-and-now
must be made absolute. Liberals would purify human life by abolishing
caste, Nazis by making it ultimate and absolute. Both views are inhuman
and extirpationist and should be opposed. Opposition to such views is
itself a political view, of course. Therefore one should, among other
things, be political.
I believe the system of Antichrist will emerge -- is in fact emerging
-- out of the conflict between the New World Order and the spectrum
of militant reactions against it.
I don't think terrorists will be able to establish a worldwide order. I
suppose bolshevism was an attempt to do so but it didn't work and fell
apart. So I'm inclined to think the main political risk today is a
liberalism made all the more comprehensive, intrusive and ideologically
demanding by the need to root out terrorist opposition. That and the
violent opposition such a liberalism will evoke. I don't think though
that a third thing, the Antichrist or whatever, will arise out of the
conflict. Just a lot of bloodshed and oppression. Eventually people will
get tired of it and do something else. I should mention though that I'm
not inclined to see things as eschatologically as you or as
metaphysically as Guenon.
The ironic truth is that given globalism, we need globalism. If
business is international, unions must be international too, or wages
might eventually be driven below the subsistence level everywhere. If
epidemics are global, public health efforts must cross national
boundaries. If pollution is global, efforts to limit it must be
global. If crime is global, the police must be also. If emerging
nations and terrorist gangs develop weapons of mass destruction,
efforts must be made to limit their spread. We have no choice but to
try and manage the earth on a planetary level.
I think this is overstated. The problem with international business is
not that it reduces the wages or material well-being of those it
employs. It does the contrary. Public health cooperation and cooperation
in the fight against crime can be voluntary. All states have similar
interest in such matters, so no planetary management is needed. The
problem of terrorists with weapons of mass destruction would I think be
exacerbated by the growth of systems of planetary management.
Environmental issues present the strongest case for worldwide
governance. I think it is important to keep it to a minimum though.
Only a One World Government could possibly limit the destructive
power of these international economic forces.
Here I don't agree at all. Countries can control their own borders with
respect to most things. Social groups can also set up boundaries within
which their particular ways of life could exist. One World Government
would try to keep them from doing so and in general strive constantly to
transform all countries and peoples to make them more uniform and easily
administrable in accordance with bureaucratic sanctions and economic
incentives. For it to do otherwise would be to undercut its own
position.
Action for social justice, action to save the environment are
laudable.
The conception of social justice is the conception of a uniform rational
system that gives measurable and transferable things like money and
status priority over all other human concerns. I don't think it's really
laudable. Social justice is not the same as opposition to injustice and
oppression; unlike the latter it's an imperialistic notion that attempts
to remake the whole world in its own image.
the idea of unity as opposed to transcendence. The implication, here,
is that one of the deepest deceptions of Antichrist in the last days
of the cycle will be to set these two integral aspects of the
Absolute in opposition to each other in the collective mind, and on a
global scale, in the four quarters of the earth.
I'm not sure it's really unity versus transcendence. It seems to me in
the WTC attack what we see is a conflict between two forms of unity that
are final and all-inclusive and can be fully possessed by us here and
now, and therefore are necessarily intolerant and imperialistic - that
of universal economic man and that of the Muslim Ummah under the
Shariah.
It's true that Islam speaks in the name of the absolutely transcendent.
It seems to me though that that its understanding of the transcendent is
defective. It's essential to transcendence that we not fully possess it.
It's necessary to its role in human life that we participate in it in a
more organic way than following arbitrary commands. It's also necessary
for our conception of the transcendent to accommodate a great deal of
practical diversity, since no particular can capture the transcendent
and therefore no particular can be an absolute standard. It seems to me
that the Islamic view falls short in these respects, I mean the emphasis
on the absolute unity and transcendence of God (as opposed to the
Trinity and the Incarnation), his definitive revelation in the form of a
text (as opposed to a human person), and the establishment of a single
universal all-embracing community and code of law (as opposed to
distinguishing the things of God from those of Caesar).
So I think it's a conflict between two this-worldly systems, one of
which claims the authority of human desire and the other that of
transcendence. Maybe it's a matter of lovers of the transcendent putting
themselves on the same this-worldly plane as their opponents.
the Transcendent Unity of Religions clearly represents a middle path
As a path the TU of R sounds like a religion that somehow is supposed to
trump everyone else's religion. That doesn't make much sense. It strikes
me as an interesting field of scholarly speculation but if it tries to
become a path then it becomes just another religion, one founded by
people who are very impressive but not of the same stature as the
founders of religions.
Best wishes,
Jim Kalb
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Oct 8 12:32:54 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: Mo
In-reply-to: <39.1bbe0e37.28f31c7e@aol.com> (Momperson458@aol.com)
Subject: Re: Bill Tully's Sermon
References: <39.1bbe0e37.28f31c7e@aol.com>
Status: RO
I read the sermon, but didn't like it all that much. It seemed to me his
concern was mostly political, in configuring religion to make it fit
some overall hoped-for political system in which everything is taken
care of and nothing difficult or dangerous needs to be done because
other people look after the serious issues. The function of religion, it
seems, is to make people tame and accepting and cooperative and
therefore (this is the political aspect) manageable.
It seems to me though the point of religion is that it deals with things
that *can't* be controlled, and with ultimate questions of what to do
and what not to do. Basically, my view is that if 5000+ people suddenly
out of nowhere get horribly murdered right in front of our eyes it ought
to wake us up and make us think about life, death, the world, the
contingency and uncertainty of it all, and how we should live in view of
all that. America emphasizes comfort above everything and American
religion the same. Everything has to be nice, and all problems can be
done away with by understanding or tolerance or something. It seems to
me his sermon played into that, and that seemed an inadequate response
to the attack.
Other complaints - he speaks of our faith traditions and the faith
traditions of others. That's all very well, but so to speak is not to
speak as a Christian from within Christianity. It's to speak from within
some other tradition, the tradition of sociology or comparative religion
maybe, and so to look at the various faith traditions including
Christianity from the outside as manifestations of human religiosity or
some such. When a pastor gives a sermon to his congregation after such
an event then if ever it seems to me he ought to speak simply as a
Christian, if that is truly what in the end he cares most about. Tully
didn't do that.
Also, I don't like name-dropping.
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mon Oct 8 14:34:16 2001
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Message-id: <6209145@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 08 Oct 2001 16:25:11 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: yet another job for the managerial state
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
This sort of thing is all over. A man's wife dies horribly and his response to
the event is treated as a medical issue. The day schools opened after the
attack they opened late so grief counsellors could be ready. When people went
back to work in lower Manhattan I saw a clip of sidewalk psychiatric workers
passing out leaflets and telling people what was normal. I went to my uncle's
funeral Saturday and the priest referred to the parish bereavement team. We're
all in custody so nothing we do can ever be serious. Doesn't anyone see how
horrible this is?
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Wed Oct 10 15:38:00 2001
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Message-id: <6269067@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 10 Oct 2001 17:29:21 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Last night
To: Car
Status: RO
--- "Ca" wrote:
did I gather that the feeling in the discussion was that a wide war is not a
good idea, that we should simply answer each act of aggression with an act of
aggression. I ask, however, doesn't that run the risk that we will get into
what Israel did, just putting up with horrific suicide attacks, trying to carry
on normally, and just throwing some bombs here and there to "retaliate"? And
gradually learning to live with the unlivable?
--- end of quote ---
The problem I think is defining the enemy. The WTC atrocity justifies
destroying whoever did it. The men immediately involved are dead already, and
it was a low-budget operation they carried on apparently with a great deal of
independence. It appears however that UBL (excuse the affectation, my sister
got me into it) knew about it, backed it, etc. Ditto for the Cole and embassy
bombings and no doubt other things. So we should get him and his
organization.That in itself is a big job but one that should be pursued. So it
isn't a matter of tit-for-tat, it's a matter of destroying a definable actor
who is a proven and effective enemy.
Who beyond that though? Which definable actors do we want to punish or destroy?
Maybe the Taleban regime because they knowingly sheltered our enemy and allowed
him to have his headquarters and training camps there from which he could carry
on his war against us. How far should that line of thought be extended though?
The line has to be drawn somewhere, in some illogical place, because otherwise
we'd have to declare war on ourselves. After all, there are undoubtedly a great
many Americans (Muslims, everyone knows they're as American as anyone else) who
contribute money to organizations that cooperate with UBL or otherwise are tied
to terrrorism. The U.S. government has been doing nothing about it even though
it could undoubtedly have been much more active. For that matter, many
Americans have given financial support and politicians like Teddy Kennedy have
given open countenance in one way or another to IRA terrorists. And aside from
that kind of line-drawing problem it seems better to keep the war narrow and
distinguish among those who generally oppose us.
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sun Oct 14 05:08:29 2001
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Message-id: <6346125@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 14 Oct 2001 06:59:44 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: U.N. gets Nobel Peace prize (forwarded from James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69))
To: jkalb@nyx.net
MIME-Version: 1.0
Status: RO
On Sat, 13 Oct 2001 01:10:48 -0400 "La wrote:
> They get the peace prize not for
> achieving "peace," but for helping build up the
> institutional ideological momentum leading toward
> global governance.
The meaning of "peace" is analogous in managerial liberalism and in Islam - it is the state of affairs in which the true principles rule comprehensively through appropriate authoritative institutions.
Look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. None of its
principles apply to relations between the regime established by the
Declaration and the United Nations and the opponents of that regime. In
other words, there is no common law for the Dar-us-Salaam and the
Dar-ul-Harb. The latter must be destroyed and rooted out.
Jim
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun Aug 19 19:01:26 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: mj
Subject: Re: Divide and rule.
References: <000901c128fa$5c1ca240$759bf9c3@mjkeys>
Status: RO
The Brecht quote is a good one, I've often thought of it in connection
with government social policy and immigration - the people have lost the
confidence of the government, so the government dissolves the people and
forms a new one. As you say, all questions are answered in advance and
if the people give the wrong answer too bad for them.
jk
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Mon Sep 3 05:16:53 2001
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Message-id: <5418463@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 03 Sep 2001 07:09:41 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: confucius
To: mm
Status: RO
Also, I suppose, from the opposition between his thought and radical
egalitarianism (although there is a sort of human equality at the heart of his
thinking). He thinks of man as social, and human society as evolving from
natural attachments, feelings and loyalties. So he likes the family, and the
notion of reconstructing society in accordance with abstract standards like
equality would be anathema to him.
jk
Jim Kalb
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Oct 15 06:21:01 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: en
Subject: bishops
Status: RO
I think a key part of the bishop's statement is:
God's project, in which we participate by virtue of our baptism, is
the ongoing work of reordering and transforming the patterns of our
common life so they may reveal God's justness - not as an abstraction
but in bread for the hungry and clothing for the naked. The mission of
the Church is to participate in God's work in the world. We claim that
mission.
So the sum and substance of Christianity and religion, from their
standpoint, is the establishment of a social order that provides equal
material abundance for all. I thought there were problems with socialism
as a project, let alone as an explanation for the the meaning of life,
the universe and everything, but what do I know.
The "our common life," by the way, seems to be the common life of
everyone in the world. The statement below that "we are called to bear
one another's burdens across the divides of culture, religion, and
differing views of the world" seems to show that the universal social
order the practical establishment of which is the sum and substance of
true religion has nothing special to do with Christianity.
On that point anyway I agree with them. Maybe a universal multicultural
PC socialist order would really be a wonderful thing. I don't think so.
I think it would obviously be a catastrophe, a mixture of tyranny,
chaos, hypocrisy and brutality, but there are learned and intelligent
men who believe the contrary. What I don't understand is why I should
take these guys seriously as religious leaders. If true religion is the
abolition of religion in a secular utopia, why not say so and get on
with it?
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Tue Oct 16 07:15:49 2001
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Message-id: <6389438@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 16 Oct 2001 09:07:00 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: new attacks on media (forwarded from James B. Kalb 69)
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: RO
--- "La" wrote:
aren't the Muslims making a mistake in targetting the major liberal news media?
--- end of quote ---
They targetted the major American news media, and the highest ranking
politician they had a shot at getting close to (the Senate majority leader).
The thought I suppose is that the American leadership is cowardly, and if they
feel personally in danger will do anything to make the danger seem to go away.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Wed Oct 17 05:48:10 2001
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Message-id: <6418318@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 17 Oct 2001 07:39:22 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: U.N. gets Nobel Peace prize
To: la
Status: RO
--- "La" wrote:
All power has thus been concentrated in a set of processes which denies power,
prevents all normal forms of power from being manifested. All that's left is
simmering chaos, "managed" by the blue helmets.
So even though the UN does not exercise true power, it nevertheless prevents
all other, legitimate forms of power from being exercised and thus is absolute.
--- end of quote ---
The liberal ideal is for the liberal order to be something like logic. In a
sense logic is the most powerful thing in the world. Everything that happens
complies with logic, for example contradictory statements are never both true.
For that very reason, because it precedes all particular events, logic is not
associated with power in the usual sense of something that enables one thing to
override another of similar status. Liberals want politics to be like that.
That of course makes no sense politically. In politics you can't have something
that like logic absolutely predetermines what can happen and also leaves
everything absolutely alone and free to follow its own nature. So the question
is how people who believe you can have something like that will act. Their
choice it seems is either to act in a way that is unprincipled and
contradictory, or to take one side or the other of the grand contradiction that
constitutes the liberalism - to choose either totalitarian government or
utterly ineffectual government.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net
http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Wed Oct 17 06:18:30 2001
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Message-id: <6418679@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 17 Oct 2001 08:09:43 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Anti-Feminism
To: Id
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
There were few opportunities for women in the legal profession when I
graduated from law school. I am glad I became a lawyer, but I would have
liked to be able to do more in my profession. (I especially would have liked
to be a law professor!) Today, a woman with my character and intellect has a
good chance of fulfilling her professional dreams. What's wrong with that?
Who would have been hurt if I'd had more chances?
--- end of quote ---
Thanks for your note.
There would have been no way to deliver more chances to you in particular, and
no special reason to do so, so I suppose your question is who would have been
hurt if attitudes, expectations and so on had been different so men and women
had the same practical career opportunities. That seems the same question as
who gets hurt if there are no accepted sex roles, if men aren't expected to
take primary responsibility for support and women for homemaking and childcare,
if men and women can't expect anything specific of each other but must work out
the arrangements for whatever life they decide to share by individual agreement
with no preconceptions as to what the agreement should be and therefore no
social support for any particular form of agreement.
The problem I see with that is that it makes the basis of life in society -
family life - too much of a bootstrap affair. The family becomes a private
arrangement that is the business only of those immediately involved and not a
social institution. More concretely, it makes family ties, which on this new
understanding are a matter of arbitrary individual choice, much less stable
and reliable. Unstable family life makes men, women and children unhappy, so
they are the people who are hurt. I think the world around us confirms that
view.
Jim Kalb
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Wed Oct 17 16:17:08 2001
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Message-id: <6438325@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 17 Oct 2001 18:08:01 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Anti-Feminism
To: Id
Status: RO
--- You wrote:
You're implying that more chances for me would have meant an unstable family
life for our family. I don't think so, and my husband and I know ourselves
better than you or anyone else can know us.
[My lead-in was intended to make it clear I didn't mean that and couldn't
possibly have meant that.]
Or are you implying that I ought to accept the stinting of my life's
opportunities in the interest of some overarching common good? Sounds like
totalitarianism to me.
--- end of quote ---
Sounds more like recognition that man is a social animal. For starters if sex
roles are necessary for basic social goods like being surrounded by people who
were well brought up in stable families then you like everyone else share in
those goods and have some obligation to cooperate in producing them. In any
event, to choose anything other than pure self interest as the standard of
conduct is to accept the stinting of life's opportunities in the interest of
some overarching common good.
In addition - it seems to me sex roles on generally traditional lines are a
good thing and necessary for a tolerable and lasting society. Are you implying
that I ought to accept the stinting of my hopes for the future - for my
children, for my children's children, for all those to whom I am connected -
for the sake of what you take to be your private benefit?
Maybe we can compromise. Opinions differ, so each should do as he chooses.
Those who like sex roles can do their sex role thing (engage in sex role
stereotyping, etc.) and those who don't like them can do their feminist thing
(in the case of women, be the strong silent type, take out the garbage, fix
things, support their families, whatever.) That way no one would demand that
anyone else stint anything. How about it?
Jim Kalb
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Fri Oct 26 07:29:49 2001
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Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 09:28:00 -0400
To: Wi
From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: cycles of history
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Status: RO
Thanks for the note!
There are certainly a lot of people out there trying to make sense of
things, and cyclical theories are an interesting way of doing it.
I suppose the key to the bleak conclusion is that a society like those
Ibn Khaldun describes is multicultural and therefore basically
incoherent. There is no continuing setting for a series of cycles. So
when one cycle ends it really is the end of things. I suppose the
question is whether that applies to the situation that is developing
around us, whether what is growing up is simple incoherence or whether
some universal liberal culture based on individualism and human rights,
or some nonparticularistic participatory civic culture, could take the
place of the sort of connections say Burke or T.S. Eliot write about.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Fri Oct 26 07:57:45 2001
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Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 09:55:49 -0400
To: Di
From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Free Republic and Ibn Khaldun
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Status: RO
I do think there's something about Islam as a religion that's going to
make relations difficult between the Islamic countries and the rest of
the world. Basically I favor a "good fences make good neighbors" policy.
With that in mind I have no special objection to most of what MacDonald
has to say. I also think it's a bad idea to allow much Muslim
immigration into Western countries. I agree though that a lot of the
things people say on FR are outrageous.
The "they hate us because we're us" theory is stupid. I'm sure Mullah
Omar has the same opininon of US culture that Hillary Clinton has of
radical Islam, but we're not bombing Afghanistan simply because the
Taliban are unpopular in Washington. In the same way Muslim terrorism
obviously has to do with much more particular complaints. OBL's biggest
complaint seems to be the continuing conflict with Iraq and the presence
of our forces in Arabia. I have no special theories about what our
policy should be on Israel - it simply hasn't been one of our interests
- but people like Podhoretz incline me to think it should be less
favorable.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Nov 13 12:51:39 2001
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Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 14:41:51 -0500 (EST)
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From: Jim Kalb
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Subject: [James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG: Re: Krauthammer: It's Iraq '91 all over again]
Status: RO
I must say that the "don't enter Kabul" business does sound like an attempt to
fine-tune by remote control. It's not likely it will work in a country in which
trying to get people to work together is like trying to herd bobcats. Also, we
shouldn't get into a position in which we are responsible for what happens
politically in Afghanistan. Our interest there is the destruction or at least
disruption of Al Qaeda. It should be kept strictly limited and everything we do
there should serve or be ancillary to that goal.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu Nov 15 07:19:29 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: pa
Subject: Re: sex in marriage speech
Status: RO
1)Do you have any personal testimony that would vouch
for your standpoint that sex within marriage is
healthier for a married couple? (experience with
premarital sex?)
If I did I wouldn't tell you about it. I think reticence in speaking
about sex, especially with strangers, is a good thing.
2)What are the longterm effects of young adults who are having
premarital sex? for example, how this practice effects their
marriages, raising children, etc..
They're establishing what sex is for them and what kind of tie it
creates. They're establishing that it has nothing special to do with a
durable connection to the other person and instead has to do with how
you feel now, which changes. That introduces an element of holding back,
of looking out for yourself, of fundamental distrust.
Sex is an extremely vivid experience and it touches us very deeply. The
kind of trust and commitment needed in marriage and family life can't be
taken for granted without regard to the habits and attitudes we have
developed in our life before marriage. Once the attitudes reflected in
premarital sex have come to define for us what sex means they can't be
turned off when we want to turn them off. The result is weaker family
ties, more divorces, and less security for children. That's bad for
everyone.
The mechanical way people think about life today can make these
considerations seem far-fetched. Life isn't mechanical though. It
depends on a whole web of attitudes, habits and meanings, and unless we
think about it that way we won't understand it. For example, most people
today think that living together before marriage ought to make marriages
more durable, because couples will know more about each other when they
get married. It has the opposite effect, though, because it introduces
an element of tentativeness and perpetual reconsideration into the
sexual tie. How can that lead to trust?
3)Short term effects?
Premarital sex is sex without the element of trust it needs. That causes
a lot of unhappiness even in the short term, especially I think for
women. It's also sex that's nothing special. That flattens the world out
and makes it more boring. Who needs that?
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun Nov 18 06:51:48 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: la
Subject: Re: equality and power
References: <000801c16f98$15cc30a0$d058580c@h6l3p>
Status: RO
Jim, I'd like to return to an issue we've discussed before: that
liberals, believing in equality, are against power, since power by
definition is unequal, therefore they want to build a world in which
there is no power. But of course that is impossible, so we end up
with hidden, unaccountable power.
Institutionally we end up with everything being regulated then
constitutionalized then being made a matter of universal human rights,
which are put beyond question. The point of the exercise is that all
decisions that might involve the exercise of power have to be settled
before social life can begin. Otherwise social life would not be free
and equal, because some would exercise power over others.
As you point out, it's a fiction that questions can be settled before
social life begins, and doing so necessarily involves hidden,
unaccountable power.
So it seems a basic contradiction or inadequacy in democratic theory is
that it doesn't explain power. How can power--which itself is not a
democratic phenomenon--be explained and justified in an overall
democratic context?
It can't be explained and justified as such but must be made to seem
self-rule. That's why there are elections. You point to a problem with
elections, that they involve the choice of leaders and thus inequality,
since a leader is not equal to his followers. That's why elections count
for less and rotation in office for more as democracy evolves. The
Greeks had offices assigned by lot. We have affirmative action, which
serves the same function - abolition of the inequality even democratic
leadership introduces - by means of representation. Rather than each
holding office in turn as in Greece each holds office through assignment
of office to someone who is like him. In both cases office stops being
something conferred for special qualities and becomes something all
participate in equally as a matter of right.
So really we have two strategies: (1) abolish politics as much as
possible by making all questions either technical (how do you maximize
GDP?) or a matter of human rights, and (2) make sure that everyone
somehow participates equally in answering whatever questions remain.
Both strategies are motivated by the need to abolish power, or
"domination" as they say. What lies behind that need, of course, is the
view that there is no good other than what particular people happen to
want, a view that makes power necessarily exploitive.
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Nov 20 07:43:49 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: no
Subject: Re: Careers
References:
Status: O
It's a good question and I'm glad you're thinking about it. Some thoughts:
1. How fields of study are presented and what they're actually about can
be different. Evolutionary psychology for example is suspect because
it naturally leads to differential psychology and J. Philippe
Rushton. So it has to present itself in a super-PC manner. Whether
that has much to do with what the department actually does - the
content of courses and so on - is another question.
2. What a field of study is and what people who study the field end up
doing aren't necessarily the same. American law for example in its
doctrines and as a field of study is applied liberal theory. On the
other hand a lawyer need not be a liberal, and it's what you would
end up doing as a lawyer that's important and not how much you like
law school.
3. If you want independence of mind you want a certain financial and
professional independence too. If you make your living fitting into
a large organization and pleasing those above you then you'll
probably have to think in a way not too much at odds with the
official views of the organization which today by force of the civil
rights laws are going to be liberal-to-radical on non-economic
issues. So you should be thinking about ways of making a living in
which you offer customers or clients an individual skill or
expertise. The more technical professions are like that, also
anything that can be run as an individual proprietorship.
4. One thing you might do is get in touch with people who are doing
things you might like to do. Most of them would be happy to talk to
you.
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Nov 20 16:17:44 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <3BFAD218.BD1A3C14@salamander.com> (message from Bill McClain on Tue, 20 Nov 2001 15:58:48 -0600)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Logic of liberalism
References: <200111191533.KAA31704@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU> <3BFAD218.BD1A3C14@salamander.com>
Status: O
"BMcCl" == Bill McClain writes:
BMcCl> You inspire me to dig out a bunch of books on
BMcCl> liberalism I have stowed away somewhere. I'll have to read them
BMcCl> someday...
A painful task, at least for me. Someone like John Rawls goes so
horribly against the grain. It's like chewing sandpaper. I don't know
why I write this stuff. A sort of exorcism I suppose.
BMcCl> The idea that the transition of classic to contemporary
BMcCl> liberalism is the extension of its domain from the public to
BMcCl> private realms is intriguing.
I think it's a standard view on the left that classical liberalism
granted only formal freedom and equality that let the old relations of
domination continue and it has to be supplemented by substantive freedom
and equality to attain the emancipatory promise it seems to hold out.
>> In the long run what counts, however, is that liberalism puts a
>> single abstract standard with comprehensive implications for all
>> human affairs at the center of politics. Whatever its preferred
>> manner of operation, liberalism is therefore essentially
>> perfectionistic.
BMcCl> This is tragically ironic, in that it is just what Liberals
BMcCl> said they would NOT do at the outset, which I take to be the
BMcCl> aftermath of the wars of religion.
They tried to do something that had a logical problem, to stop people
from murdering each other in the name of The One Great Principle That
Trumps Everything by setting up their own One Great Principle That
Trumps Everything. As you say, it worked for a long time.
BMcCl> I think it is to some degree "fear": the apprehension that
BMcCl> deviating from Liberalism takes us back to fire and slaughter.
Again, there's a logical problem: you try to do away with war and
oppression in the name of views that believe their opponents will cast
the whole world into hell by setting up another view that believes its
opponents will cast the whole world into hell.
BMcCl> Your idea that challenging Liberalism requires a new type of
BMcCl> rationality is a good one. But a very difficult prospect. The
BMcCl> new reason will seem like unreason at first exposure, and
BMcCl> accepting it will be very tough sledding.
Luckily it's not really a new rationality but a restoration of an older
broader rationality that is more conscious of human limitations and
doesn't attempt to be as pure or as self-contained. Postmodernism is
doing part of the work by saying that the knowing agent is always
situated. All you have to add to that is that our knowledge really is
knowledge and it's of reality, which implies faith in our tradition and
understanding that tradition as oriented toward something that
transcends it and is known through it.
BMcCl> The historical descent of Liberalism seems to be a constraining
BMcCl> of horizons, a refusal to admit all of human reality into the
BMcCl> consensus reality. Breaking out of this and grappling with the
BMcCl> whole human universe might lead us back to health.
I think that's right. It's part of an attempt to reduce the world to a
self-contained system that we can possess fully.
Thanks for the comments.
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sun Nov 25 12:55:44 2001
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Message-id: <7297948@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 25 Nov 2001 14:55:37 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Michael Lind's all-out attack on Christianity
To: la
Status: RO
He managed to get in a lot of talking points, for which I suppose he deserves
a certain amount of credit. I hope it's OK if I didn't read every word.
An odd but typical aspect is his claim that his and his readers' allegiance is
to humanist civilization. He says
"Humanists seek to ameliorate the problems of social life with the guidance of
practical wisdom, derived chiefly from history, literature and custom, with
little or no reference to supernatural religion or natural science, with the
possible exception of the emergent sociobiology. Humanists tend to be modest
as philosophers and cautious as reformers. Examples of great humanist thinkers
and statesmen are Petrarch, Erasmus, Bacon, Montaigne, Voltaire, Franklin,
Hume, Burke, Smith, Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison."
I wouldn't have thought that state-enforced feminism, multiculti, denial of the
value of religion, choice as the only sexual standard, the equal value of
homosexuality etc. were instances of attempts to ameliorate the problems of
social life with the guidance of practical wisdom, derived chiefly from
history, literature and custom, the sort of thing typical of modest thinkers
and cautious reformers like Petrarch, Erasmus, Bacon, Montaigne, Voltaire,
Franklin, Hume, Burke, Smith, Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison.
I suppose my basic comment is that there's no such thing as his humanist
civilization. There's always an ultimate commitment, and it can't be to some
free-floating self-sustaining reasonableness. There has to be something to do
the heavy lifting. Reasonableness and liberalism are always either adjectival
or some unstable mixture of what he calls rationalism and romanticism.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sun Nov 25 19:20:17 2001
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Date: 25 Nov 2001 21:20:08 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Krauthammer: It's Iraq '91 all over again (forwarded from James B. Kalb 69)
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: O
I must say that the "don't enter Kabul" business does sound like an attempt to
fine-tune by remote control. It's not likely it will work in a country in which
trying to get people to work together is like trying to herd bobcats. Also, we
shouldn't get into a position in which we are responsible for what happens
politically in Afghanistan. Our interest there is the destruction or at least
disruption of Al Qaeda. It should be kept strictly limited and everything we do
there should serve or be ancillary to that goal.
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sat Dec 1 10:04:39 2001
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Date: 01 Dec 2001 12:04:34 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Islamists and neo-Nazis
To: to
MIME-Version: 1.0
Status: O
I saw the piece. It seems to me it tends to present a world
in which there are two alternative, Taleban nazism or the
NWO. To the extent it does it presents an extremist point
of view.
Basically it seems to me that modern politics is innately
extremist because it tries to fit everything into a single
small set of principles that we can fully possess and
implement. That's true of both NWO liberals and radical
Islamicists. I think both are antihuman and destructive and
don't favor either. You can reject the Taleban without
embracing Sade. In the same way, you can reject some of the
things the WTC stood for without any sympathy at all for
the murderers of the people who worked there.
To my mind the alternative to modern extremism is a view
that accepts that we can partially understand things but
not fully, that we depend on things that are bigger and
more subtle than we are, and so we have to trust in
particular evolved understandings that can't be altogether
formulated and turned into ideologies or rational decision
procedures. That is the traditionalist view. I think recent
events make that view all the more necessary.
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Dec 5 07:52:05 2001
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Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 09:51:59 -0500 (EST)
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From: Jim Kalb
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu: Re: [paleo-right] RE: "He's Really a Good Boy"]
Status: RO
"eck" == KOPFF E CHRISTIAN writes:
eck> On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Jeff Adams wrote:
>> The course of John Walker's life isn't surprising as he's following
>> his beliefs....Oh, yea, and he should stand trial for treason since
>> he actively took up arms in support of a clearly identified enemy
>> against the country in which he claims citizenship.
eck> U. S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 3: Treason against the
eck> United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or
eck> in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No
eck> person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimoney of
eck> two Witnesses to the same overt act, or on Confession in open
eck> Court.
Has anyone seen a discussion how all this would apply? There's no
declaration of war, no dispute between the US and the Taliban other than
the use of their territory as a base by a national enemy of ours, and no
American participation in the war against the Taliban other than air
support. Does the fact we're bombing them because of their ties to
somebody else make them our enemy for purposes of the law, so that being
in their army constitutes "levying war" or at least "adherence" and
therefore treason?
- --
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Dec 5 10:28:48 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: la
Subject: Re: PC means don't argue
References: <001601c17da0$51f47860$975e580c@h6l3p>
Status: RO
There's something to the idea that PC means don't argue, but I think
that formulation conceals more than it reveals. It reduces a trend that
is transforming our country profoundly and for the worse into an oddity
of our social customs.
1. Why is discussing politics so bad? Presumably, because there is no
objective right or wrong in politics, just what particular people
happen to want, so to say you disagreee with someone politically is
to say his desires are worthy of less consideration than yours. It's
an essentially aggressive act.
2. The effect of "don't discuss politics" though is that decisions get
made by people who don't have to answer to the public. Who are they?
Presumably a ruling class of experts, publicists and functionaries
who decide what truth and goodness are among themselves and present
it to us as incontestible reality.
3. The consequence is a sort of custodial society, in which a people
with no say in public affairs is encouraged to produce, consume and
dissipate themselves under the tutelage of a managerial elite. That
is indeed the social order contemporary liberalism gives us.
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Dec 5 15:27:28 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <000b01c17dcc$e8a348a0$1832f7a5@com> (mricherny@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] RE: "He's Really a Good Boy"
References: <200112051308.AA89784742@keepandbeararms.com> <000b01c17dcc$e8a348a0$1832f7a5@com>
Status: RO
"mr" == Matthew Richer writes:
mr> But we declared the Rosenbergs guilty of treason and had them
mr> executed. And yet we were not at war with Russia (officially, at
mr> least).
The Rosenbergs were executed for violating the Espionage Act of 1917,
not for treason.
Incidentally, do we know when Walker joined the Taliban?
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://www.human-rights.f2s.com
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sat Dec 8 05:14:17 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: cb
Subject: Re: What about the liberal opposition to military tribunals
References: <000801c17fb9$27b47620$1608bed8@carolyn>
Status: RO
There's a contradiction at the heart of liberalism because of its denial
of objective goods transcending desire. That denial means that the
individual human will is sovereign, so liberals can't approve of
compulsion. On the other hand, all wills are equally wills, so each must
be equally sovereign, so there has to be a detailed and pervasive system
of compulsion to define how far each will can go without infringing on
other wills.
Liberals try get rid of the contradiction in various ways. One is by
multiplying procedures - if you have infinitely many procedures then the
compulsion is somehow purified and looks like less a matter of A
deciding what to do to B.
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Dec 10 09:20:29 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: la
Subject: Re: Fw: [Sci: On the functional origins of essentialism
References: <001601c18191$6ebcea00$d758580c@h6l3p>
Status: RO
"la" == La writes:
la> Will those busy little reductionists never rest? Here's a summary
la> of an article posted to the h-bd list which "explains"
la> essentialism as the result of Darwinian natural selection.
That kind of argument always seemed odd to me. Maybe natural selection
means those who can classify correctly will live long and prosper. That
doesn't explain anything though about what's involved in correct
classification. It's as if someone explained nuclear fusion by saying
natural selection led to behavioral propensities favoring bigger and
better weapons. Even if that does explain why we built the H-bomb it
doesn't begin to tell us what the H-bomb is or why it works.
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://rightsreform.net
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Dec 11 10:27:56 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu: Re: [Upstream] Erasing racism]
Status: RO
This is great news! It means that instead of having to supervise us in
every aspect of our lives, because our ineradicable racism makes us
unfit to live on our own, our rulers can create a truly free and equal
society by re-educating us. So what we need is more and better diversity
programs, sensitivity training, role-playing exercises, etc., etc., etc.
Sounds like a great adventure, and I'm looking forward to it!
- --
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://rightsreform.net
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Dec 14 15:56:08 2001
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: beliefs challenged by recent events
To: la
MIME-Version: 1.0
Status: RO
Today everybody flies the flag, says "God bless America,"
and supports the government, and as Will says that's a
change for both liberals and conservatives. Where will it
lead, though? WWI and WWII both had a similar effect, but
the centralization and destruction of established patterns
turned out more enduring than the boost to social
solidarity. The latter lasted 15 years or so, and so had
genuine staying power, but in the end the view prevailed
that it was mindless, really not a good thing, and better
gone. I can't help but think that things will turn out the
same this time, only quicker, since 9/11 is not as big an
event as the world wars.
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sat Dec 15 07:43:08 2001
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From: Jim Kalb
To: la
Subject: Re: beliefs challenged by recent events
References: <002d01c18535$fbe16c60$7a57580c@h6l3p>
Status: RO
"lr" == La writes:
la> That's a good point. WWII and WWI stimulated patriotism, and also
la> speeded the growth of the state. Differences: the patriotism of
la> WWI was of a semi-fascist type, with total enforced conformity
la> and people being jailed for criticizing the war, and after the
la> war there was the return to normalcy (including shutting down
la> immigration) rather than continued liberal big government
la> agenda. WWII is a better example of Jim's point.
After each war there was a period of reaction and continued artificially
heightened mass social solidarity (the 20s and the 50s) followed by a
profoundly radical decade. Am I being overly schematic? It does seem to
me that war mobilization set the pattern for later social mobilization.
In England the link to radical social change was more direct. Both wars
were mass struggles involving sacrifices that made mass society seem a
moral requirement. Equality of sacrifice meant there should be equality
of treatment and status. Andrew Sullivan had a piece in which he said
this will be the first war with openly homosexual combatants and their
sacrifices will make gay marriage etc. a plain moral obligation to those
who joined in the common struggle. One problem with the view is that
there haven't been that many sacrifices.
Sullivan said the "don't ask don't tell" rule has been quietly dropped
in favor of an "all is OK" rule. Anyone hear anything about that?
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun Dec 16 11:36:24 2001
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From: Jim Kalb