Items Posted by Jim Kalb


From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Wed Apr 17 07:03:03 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: future-of-christianity@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <200204161837.g3GIbZlr021478@mailrtr04.ntelos.net> (message from Seth Williamson on Tue, 16 Apr 2002 14:37:29 -0400)
Subject: Re: [future-of-christianity] More stuff
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"Seth" == Seth Williamson  writes:

  >> I just wonder whether that's so. In the absence of someone who can
  >> decide things authoritatively (there hasn't been an ecumenical
  >> council the Orthodox recognize for a very long time) and with the
  >> corresponding tendency to reject rational philosophy the emphasis
  >> has to be on holding to tradition. In America in 2002 that doesn't
  >> seem so bad.

  Seth> What is it that you think needs to be decided by an ecumenical
  Seth> council? Not counting major theological definitions (which is
  Seth> what such councils are for), the local bishop is the authority.

I agree with you on the purpose of ecumenical councils. Sometimes
however it's very useful to be able to make a decision authoritative for
the whole church on something that isn't a major theological definition.
So far as I know the EO have no appropriate way to do that.

One example would be which calendar to use. I understand that has been a
serious unresolved issue within Eastern Orthodoxy. Other issues would
include responses to major new intellectual movements, what sorts of
theological speculations and reformulations are legitimate and what
sorts clearly break with the faith. Or acceptance of new religious
movements and communities, which sometimes involve some rethinking of
discipline and ritual. Missions to the non-Christian world would be
another setting.

It seems to these latter issues are even more important and complex than
which calendar to use. A priori I would therefore expect the EO to find
it difficult to deal with them adequately and so tend to avoid them more
than they should. My impression is that that has been the case--that
there's no idea of an Eastern Orthodox university as there is of a
Catholic university, that EO monasticism is simply EO monasticism,
without much variation of organization and purpose, and that there
hasn't been much EO mission work since the conversion of the Slavs.

I might be wrong on all those points, so perhaps I should have
formulated them as questions. If I *am* wrong, though, I would be
interested in learning how the EO get around the absence of an
authoritative decisionmaker to settle disputes that come up in dealing
with changing circumstances once changes are admitted to be relevant to
what the church does.

  Seth> I'm not sure what you mean by "rejecting rational philosophy." I
  Seth> don't see anything resembling this. Do you mean rejecting some
  Seth> aspects of scholasticism?

I thought I was parroting your comment that from the EO standpoint all
Western Christianity attempts to rationalize things too much. I suppose
I was also parroting EO comments I've seen here and there to the effect
that science/religion is not much of a problem for the EO because the
two procede on different principles and don't come in contact. (By
"rational philosophy" I meant the attempt to order all knowledge in a
comprehensive system. All such attempts fail, but I think it's a human
necessity to make them.)

  Seth> The
  Seth> Orthodox believe the Church is here to help us a) repent and b)
  Seth> achieve theosis insofar as we are able. Period. Anything else
  Seth> good that might happen--and of course this is a large
  Seth> category--happens as a consequence of that primary goal.

It seems to me the transformation of life is aided by an understanding
of life with reference to the principle of transformation. So Christian
philosophizing about science and politics seems to me a necessary thing,
even though it's not the most necessary thing. So the Church has to
recognize Christian philosophy and have something to say about it.
Therefore it must be able to respond to changes in ways of thinking etc.

  Seth> Certainly first among equals, in a collegial system. But not an
  Seth> emperor or a dictator by any stretch of the imagination.

I certainly agree the pope shouldn't act like an emperor or dictator. It
seems to me Paul VI acted that way when he effectively abolished the old
latin mass in favor of a new form composed by some committee, and he
shouldn't have done it. Still, he also nailed down the position on
contraception as JP II did on the all-male priesthood and I'm not sure
how else that would have happened. Certainly the current pope tries to
avoid being dictatorial--he makes trips and writes encyclicals but goes
to all lengths to avoid imposing anything.

Church government is government, and I tend to understand it that way.
One question in government is whether there has to be a power somewhere
capable of dealing decisively with emergencies, exceptional situations,
irreconcilable conflicts, radical threats to the community etc. in ways
that can't be defined in advance. Political philosophers from Locke to
Carl Schmitt have thought there does, and even political societies like
our own that reject the idea in theory accept it in practice.

So I suppose the question is whether there's enough analogy between
secular and church government to require such a power in the latter. If
there is, you get the pope, and the formal statement of his powers (once
enough questions have been asked about them over a long enough period)
will be pretty much the one Rome gives. I agree it is a bad thing for
those powers to be viewed as the essence of the life and government of
the Church just as I think it is a bad thing for tanks, H bombs, gas
chambers, jails etc. to be viewed as what American society is all about
even though we can't get along without something of the sort.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://rightsreform.net

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Wed Apr 17 07:12:50 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: future-of-christianity@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <00ae01c1e5c6$57496e40$0201a8c0@ekklesia>
Subject: Re: [future-of-christianity] The future of which christianity?
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"gt" == GregoryThomas Williams  writes:

  gt> If you want to establish any ruling body with exercising authority
  gt> over your fellow man whether a village or a new world order then
  gt> you stray from the path and return to the mire.

Church government is not the purpose of the church, it's true. Still,
Christ gave Peter power to loose and bind, Paul wrote letters telling
people what to do, and when there was a dispute about Jewish law they
had a council to decide the matter authoritatively.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://rightsreform.net

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Wed Apr 17 07:39:03 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: future-of-christianity@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <200204161610.MAA18962@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU> (message from Jim Kalb on Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:10:36 -0400 (EDT))
Subject: Re: [future-of-christianity] More stuff
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[Did this go through? Anyway, here it is again.]

"Seth" == Seth Williamson  writes:

  >> I just wonder whether that's so. In the absence of someone who can
  >> decide things authoritatively (there hasn't been an ecumenical
  >> council the Orthodox recognize for a very long time) and with the
  >> corresponding tendency to reject rational philosophy the emphasis
  >> has to be on holding to tradition. In America in 2002 that doesn't
  >> seem so bad.

  Seth> What is it that you think needs to be decided by an ecumenical
  Seth> council? Not counting major theological definitions (which is
  Seth> what such councils are for), the local bishop is the authority.

I agree with you on the purpose of ecumenical councils. Sometimes
however it's very useful to be able to make a decision authoritative for
the whole church on something that isn't a major theological definition.
So far as I know the EO have no appropriate way to do that.

One example would be which calendar to use. I understand that has been a
serious unresolved issue within Eastern Orthodoxy. Other issues would
include responses to major new intellectual movements, what sorts of
theological speculations and reformulations are legitimate and what
sorts clearly break with the faith. Or acceptance of new religious
movements and communities, which sometimes involve some rethinking of
discipline and ritual. Missions to the non-Christian world would be
another setting.

It seems to these latter issues are even more important and complex than
which calendar to use. A priori I would therefore expect the EO to find
it difficult to deal with them adequately and so tend to avoid them more
than they should. My impression is that that has been the case--that
there's no idea of an Eastern Orthodox university as there is of a
Catholic university, that EO monasticism is simply EO monasticism,
without much variation of organization and purpose, and that there
hasn't been much EO mission work since the conversion of the Slavs.

I might be wrong on all those points, so perhaps I should have
formulated them as questions. If I *am* wrong, though, I would be
interested in learning how the EO get around the absence of an
authoritative decisionmaker to settle disputes that come up in dealing
with changing circumstances once changes are admitted to be relevant to
what the church does.

  Seth> I'm not sure what you mean by "rejecting rational philosophy." I
  Seth> don't see anything resembling this. Do you mean rejecting some
  Seth> aspects of scholasticism?

I thought I was parroting your comment that from the EO standpoint all
Western Christianity attempts to rationalize things too much. I suppose
I was also parroting EO comments I've seen here and there to the effect
that science/religion is not much of a problem for the EO because the
two procede on different principles and don't come in contact. (By
"rational philosophy" I meant the attempt to order all knowledge in a
comprehensive system. All such attempts fail, but I think it's a human
necessity to make them.)

  Seth> The
  Seth> Orthodox believe the Church is here to help us a) repent and b)
  Seth> achieve theosis insofar as we are able. Period. Anything else
  Seth> good that might happen--and of course this is a large
  Seth> category--happens as a consequence of that primary goal.

It seems to me the transformation of life is aided by an understanding
of life with reference to the principle of transformation. So Christian
philosophizing about science and politics seems to me a necessary thing,
even though it's not the most necessary thing. So the Church has to
recognize Christian philosophy and have something to say about it.
Therefore it must be able to respond to changes in ways of thinking etc.

  Seth> Certainly first among equals, in a collegial system. But not an
  Seth> emperor or a dictator by any stretch of the imagination.

I certainly agree the pope shouldn't act like an emperor or dictator. It
seems to me Paul VI acted that way when he effectively abolished the old
latin mass in favor of a new form composed by some committee, and he
shouldn't have done it. Still, he also nailed down the position on
contraception as JP II did on the all-male priesthood and I'm not sure
how else that would have happened. Certainly the current pope tries to
avoid being dictatorial--he makes trips and writes encyclicals but goes
to all lengths to avoid imposing anything.

Church government is government, and I tend to understand it that way.
One question in government is whether there has to be a power somewhere
capable of dealing decisively with emergencies, exceptional situations,
irreconcilable conflicts, radical threats to the community etc. in ways
that can't be defined in advance. Political philosophers from Locke to
Carl Schmitt have thought there does, and even political societies like
our own that reject the idea in theory accept it in practice.

So I suppose the question is whether there's enough analogy between
secular and church government to require such a power in the latter. If
there is, you get the pope, and the formal statement of his powers (once
enough questions have been asked about them over a long enough period)
will be pretty much the one Rome gives. I agree it is a bad thing for
those powers to be viewed as the essence of the life and government of
the Church just as I think it is a bad thing for tanks, H bombs, gas
chambers, jails etc. to be viewed as what American society is all about
even though we can't get along without something of the sort.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://rightsreform.net

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Thu Apr 18 05:33:26 2002
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox
Subject: Re: WCC & EU Against Israel
References: <3CBE1662.50E116A6@cris.com>  
From: Jim Kalb 
Date: 18 Apr 2002 07:33:12 -0400
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"AA" == Alexander Arnakis  writes:

  AA> Israel *ought* to be sanctioned for its Nazi-like tactics against
  AA> the general Palestinian population. Europeans, all across the
  AA> political spectrum, are in agreement about this.

Israeli tactics are plainly not Nazi-like. Going after enemy fighters in
populated areas the most effective way you know how and leaving it up to
civilians to get out of the way may for all I know qualify as a war
crime but it's not Nazi-like. It's not even as bad as Allied tactics in
WWII. Shooting prisoners *does* qualify as a war crime but it's a common
enough practice to make "Nazi-like" a silly expression to use.

As for the Europeans, they're convinced that all problems can be solved
administratively if you just get the right people in control and keep
everyone else quiet with some combination of bribes and manipulation. So
they get annoyed and irrational when that doesn't happen and blame
anyone who happens to be on the scene and looks like he ought to be a
responsible adult. Typical European childishness and naivete. They ought
to learn how the world works--study some history maybe.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://rightsreform.net

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Thu Apr 18 08:16:41 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: future-of-christianity@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <200204171911.g3HJBbg5020428@mailrtr04.ntelos.net> (message from Seth Williamson on Wed, 17 Apr 2002 15:11:32 -0400)
Subject: Re: [future-of-christianity] More stuff
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Thanks for your comments. Grand pronouncements on how things have worked
out overall for the EOs and RCs are beyond me at the moment so I can't
add that much to what I've already said.

Some thoughts though on the future of Christianity:

1. Eastern Orthodoxy, because of its aversion to abstraction, its
preference for a complex of particular practices ("just do it") over a
system of formalized doctrine, does seem to me to depend, more than
Western Christianity, on ties to particular concrete ways of life that
are inevitably ethic. If so, what does that mean for the future?

Possibilities:

a. That's bad for the EO, because ethnic particularity is necessarily
dying in the age of the internet. Therefore to survive and remain
coherent Christianity will have to rely on more formal statements
capable of application in various settings as well as an authority
capable of resolving conflicts regarding application.

b. That's good for the EO, because this one-world stuff isn't going to
work anyway. Universal commercial/bureaucratic culture is non-culture,
and people can't live in it. So one way or another particularity will be
the wave of the future, as it has been in other situations of ethnic and
religious mixing (e.g., the historical Middle East) and Eastern Orthodox
favors particularity and gives it a soul. It is therefore the wave of
the future.

c. That's irrelevant for the EO, because the ethnic character of Eastern
Orthodoxy is just an historical artifact. If the Russian Orthodox Church
sent missionaries to Melanesia any issues that arose wouldn't be any
different and wouldn't need to be handled any differently than in the
case of the RCs, Presbyterians or Baptists.

I'm probably just repeating something you said you don't see the point
of. Still, it's an issue that seems real to me and so I thought I'd
restate it in somewhat different words.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://rightsreform.net

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Thu Apr 18 10:32:17 2002
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Newsgroups: alt.recovery.catholicism,alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Subject: Re: Sex scandals may lead Catholics in US to defy Rome
References: <4NOu8.45824$To6.12877400@e420r-atl1.usenetserver.com>    
From: Jim Kalb 
Date: 18 Apr 2002 12:32:04 -0400
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The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to alt.recovery.catholicism,alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic as well.

"Apostate" == Apostate   writes:

  >>  >> "It is undoubtedly the greatest crisis in the modern Catholic
  >> >> Church since Henry VIII split from Rome," said Father Richard >>
  >> McBrien, a liberal theologian at the Catholic University of Notre
  >> >> Dame in Indiana.
  >> 
  >> Isn't this claim patently ridiculous?

  Apostate> 	Getting all your news from a.r.c.r.-c., then?

Actually I just looked into it for the first time a day or so ago.

Unlike the protestant reformation and for that matter the aftermath of
Vatican II as a whole the situation doesn't raise any fundamental
problems. For an institution that has lasted almost 2000 years
occasional bouts of gross corruption are not a fundamental problem.

American bishops are like American college presidents. They head big
rich respectable institutions that want to stay that way even though
very influential people in prominent positions have rejected the theory
on which the institution is founded. As a result they think their basic
responsibility is papering over impossible contradictions so everything
will keep on looking good. That situation can't last forever, and the
sooner it blows up the better. If there are a lot of people who are
devoted to the purpose of the institution and think it more important
than anything else it will regroup and be stronger for the blowup, while
the people who rejected the purposes of the institution and were along
for the ride will drop out.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
http://counterrevolution.net and http://rightsreform.net

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Fri Apr 19 06:48:18 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: future-of-christianity@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <200204181906.g3IJ6aR24236@mailrtr02.ntelos.net> (message from Seth Williamson on Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:02:55 -0400)
Subject: Re: [future-of-christianity] More stuff
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If I make a suggestion about Eastern Orthodoxy and for you it rings no
bells then the discussion probably won't repay the effort.

Thanks again for your comments.


From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Thu Apr 25 11:15:39 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <3C54150C.778D2806.374EB743@aol.com> (Burkeanwhig@aol.com)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Re: Presidential IQ's
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"jl" == Burkeanwhig   writes:

  jl> The left screams "intolerance!" whenever someone like Charles
  jl> Murray raises the dreaded specter of IQ, even as they go to
  jl> lengths emphasizing the intellectual disparities between GW and
  jl> Gore -- even ferreting out their respective IQ scores (a presume d
  jl> 119 for GW; 135 for Gore). There was even a hoax perpetrated on
  jl> the net shortly after Bush's inauguration in which a bogus think
  jl> tank had determined the IQ's of every U.S. president back to FDR.
  jl> Predictably, all of the Democratic presidents had IQ's r oughly 10
  jl> to 20 points higher than the Republicans. Bush was supposed to
  jl> have the lowest score at 91. The Guardian (UK) even published it
  jl> as fact.

Interesting comment.

I think it relates to a conflict within liberalism. The basic notion of
liberalism is that there isn't any good or evil, there's just what
people want. That has two consequences:

1. The point of politics is to turn the whole world into a rational
   machine for the maximum equal satisfaction of desire.

2. All desires are equal, and all human beings are equal, since their
   desires are equally desires and it is desire that is the source of
   value.

Point 1 justifies absolute rule by a meritocracy, since politics becomes
a purely technical issue of a kind to which a meritocracy is best
suited.

Point 2 means that the power and even existence of the ruling New Class
meritocracy has to be denied, since otherwise some people are being
viewed as better than others since they are given the right to rule
others without consent.

So we're left in this position in which the most important thing in the
world is having a high IQ and being part of the meritocracy that rules
everything, but it's also absolutely necessary to deny that's so, that
there is a ruling meritocracy or that IQ means anything.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Sun Apr 28 19:07:02 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <20020428153215.15f25a9c.wmcclain@salamander.com> (message from Bill McClain on Sun, 28 Apr 2002 15:32:15 -0500)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Skills of the managerial elite
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"BMcC" == Bill McClain  writes:

  BMcC> Is the managerial elite constituted by what they know, or by how
  BMcC> they behave? And in either case, what is "it"?

As I understand it, the "managerial elite" are top-level bureaucrats and
functionaries and their adjuncts and hangers-on. They're the people who
run big rationalized institutions not because they own them or get
elected or rally popular support but because they are appointed to their
positions in accordance with some routine procedure. So they're defined
by function, what kind of authority they have, and to some extent by how
they get where they are.

They're important because the kind of institution they run is important.

You could define who's in the class and who isn't in various ways.
Obvious examples of members would be managers of large corporations,
high civil servants, members of the Federal Reserve Board and officials
of transnational organizations like the World Bank or UN.

Since power finds auxiliaries you could include other groups as well. To
the extent comprehensive social management becomes important the
professions become part of management. "Social policy" means
independence has to be abolished. So to the extent universities are
bureaucracies of expertise and training for the managerial state their
administrators and professors tend to assimilate to the managerial
elite. You could say something similar about media people, lawyers, etc.

Truth be told I don't know just what Francis' usage is or where he would
draw lines. I haven't seen the article or read anything by him on the
subject recently.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Mon Apr 29 07:07:10 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: seth@swva.net
In-reply-to: <200204291155.g3TBtKQ27364@mailrtr03.ntelos.net> (message from Seth Williamson on Mon, 29 Apr 2002 07:55:14 -0400)
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I think they're pretty much the same people but the theory's a bit
different. The "managerial elite" theory puts managers (corporate
managers, government bureaucrats, union officials) at the center and
then adds the others because they facilitate and extend managerial
control of society. The "knowledge class" theory puts experts and
communicators (academics, foundation officials, media people, lawyers)
at the center and then adds in corporate managers etc. because their
power is based on application of expert knowledge.

Jim

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From: Jim Kalb 
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <20020429072146.4182c604.wmcclain@salamander.com> (message from Bill McClain on Mon, 29 Apr 2002 07:21:46 -0500)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Skills of the managerial elite
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"BMcc" == Bill McClain  writes:

  BMcc> A "warrior elite" would have skills in battle that only some
  BMcc> could attain. A "technocratic elite", say in an ancient desert
  BMcc> kingdom, would have the engineering knowledge to bring in water.
  BMcc> A "scribal elite" would be the few who know how to read and
  BMcc> write.

  BMcc> What does a "managerial elite" have? Is it a craft? What is that
  BMcc> craft?

All those elites have whatever skills are necessary for their function,
but it's the function and not the skills that define them. A warrior
elite carries on war, an ancient technocratic elite in the desert builds
and maintains irrigation works, a managerial elite manages big
rationalized institutions.

So your question is what's involved in managing big rationalized
institutions and whether it can be described as a craft. I don't think
it's quite so well defined, although B schools try to pin it down and
make it something that can be taught.

Forget about Dilbert - the point of the strip is that he's *not* part of
any elite.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

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From: Jim Kalb 
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <6E1AC7BD.66DE4363.374EB743@aol.com> (Burkeanwhig@aol.com)
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"jl" == Burkeanwhig   writes:

  jl> But whether this "craft" is well defined or not, the functions
  jl> associated with managing big, rationalized institutions tend to be
  jl> heavily "g" loaded. Likewise, ascending to the ranks of this class
  jl> requires a lot of smarts and a prodigious amount of prepar ation,
  jl> most often at one of the premiere business schools.

Agreed. Whether what they do is a well-defined craft or not the
managerial elite tries to make everything a matter of expertise so that
it can be dealt with through a rational orderly procedure. That applies
to personnel matters too, so they emphasize B school and similar
credentials.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Fri Apr 26 14:51:12 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la
Subject: Re: "root causes" and anti-anti-Communism
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I do think there's a connection between anti-anti-crime and
anti-anti-communism, and that it's a possible subject of an article.

It seems to me the connection is that neither can bear making a
statement, because that would exclude the truth of the opposing
statement, and that would be unbearable because if there weren't
something to the other statement no one would say it.

Maybe one way to sum it up would be to say it's all an application of
the theory James Carroll applies to Christianity--to exist is an act of
hatred and exclusion.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Sun Apr 28 06:16:51 2002
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= = = Original message = = =

It's true the two need each other. The hard left gives the soft left
weight and force, while the soft left gives the hard left cover.

The NYT still treats its connection to Walter Duranty as something to
brag about. That wouldn't be so if there weren't some basic need.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb


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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Sun Apr 28 06:41:02 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la
Subject: Re: Defining evil as intolerance makes it impossible to oppose evil
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I agree with the subject line and think it's a point worth hammering
home, so good luck with the article.

I continue however to interpret everything as a matter of conceptual
necessity rather than historical contingency. So for me multiculturalism
is not Hitler's bequest to us. Rather, our image of Hitler is the
creation of multiculturalism.

Defining intolerance as the fundamental evil in Naziism wasn't a
"mistake" in the sense that it was a decision that could as easily have
gone some other way. Rather, intolerance-as-ultimate-evil is implicit in
the liberal view that human desire is what makes things good.

Since it is desire that makes things good, and all desires are equally
desires, my good and your good and Andrew Sullivan's good, all equally
self-chosen, are all equally good. Intolerance denies that, and so makes
the neutral management of society on the basis of the equal validity of
desires impossible. It is therefore the fundamental sin from a liberal
standpoint.

Where does such a view come from? James Carroll's basic problem is his
hatred of existence. That hatred is equivalent to liberal opposition to
intolerance - existence as such is intolerant, because "yes" is
intolerant of "no." Conversely, "intolerance" is simply an assertion of
existence. You don't start hating existence though because you make a
mistake as to the nature of Nazi evil. Rather, you interpret Nazi evil
as you do because of your fundamental attitude toward things.

It could just as easily have been Stalin who became the great devil
figure. Why was it Hitler instead?

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Sun Apr 28 19:27:03 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la
Subject: Re: Fw: Defining evil as intolerance makes it impossible to oppose evil
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I agree there's a connection between PC liberalism and Nazism. The same
movement of thought, the abolition of the transcendent, that produced
Nazism also produced PC liberalism as its other ultimate possibility.
Nazism therefore clarified to liberalism its understanding of what the
alternative to liberalism really is, within the world of thought which
liberalism inhabits, by perfectly displaying that alternative.

jk

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I'm inclined to believe it. They ordered the placard destroyed. 
So British law it appears requires the destruction of a writing 
that says "stop homosexuality." The theory possibly is that since 
it's left undefined how the stopping is to be done someone addicted 
to homosexual practices might well feel exposed and nervous, 
and that's enough for harrassment.

Surprising things do happen in Europe. Le Pen got fined for his 
"detail" remark, which wasn't any sort of threat to anyone and 
was arguably true (it's true that in a long history of WW II 
the gas chambers likely won't take more than a few lines, and 
it's true that it's a detail gas chambers were often used rather 
than shooting, starvation, etc.)

= = = Original message = = =

I can't believe this as it's reported here.  All he said was 
"stop homosexuality."  There must have been something more abusive 
to get him fined.  If not, then Britain truly is not a free country 
any more.  


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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Mon Apr 29 06:37:56 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la
Subject: Re: Defining evil as intolerance makes it impossible to oppose evil
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"la" writes:

  >> I agree there's a connection between PC liberalism and Nazism. The
  >> same movement of thought, the abolition of the transcendent, that
  >> produced Nazism also produced PC liberalism as its other ultimate
  >> possibility. Nazism therefore clarified to liberalism its
  >> understanding of what the alternative to liberalism really is,
  >> within the world of thought which liberalism inhabits, by perfectly
  >> displaying that alternative.

  la> Liberals are terrified of the
  la> possibility of real, incurable inequality because, lacking any
  la> traditional and transcendent order in which to assimilate human
  la> inequality, they fear that the conviction of inequality must
  la> lead to mass murder. If there's nothing higher than ourselves,
  la> then there's no reason not to kill or enslave people who are
  la> inferior to ourselves. This is truly what liberals think and
  la> fear, whether or not they articulate it in those terms.

Actually, things go beyond that I think. The abolition of the
transcendent makes the conquest, enslavement and extermination of whole
populations not only unobjectionable but the ground of renewed moral
order.

Maistre's emphasis on the central social role of the executioner
somewhat foreshadows the situation although Maistre unlike the Nazis
didn't try to make the executioner the sole sufficient basis of social
order. As a Catholic reactionary he thought there were other things
involved too.

Anyway, the point of Nazism is that if there's no transcendent good or
evil then good and evil are either a matter of pure individual desire or
pure social construction. Liberalism takes the former tack, so it gives
us the ideal of the universal technocratic state that brings about the
maximum equal satisfaction of individual desire. That's dull, and it
can't last because it can't arouse conviction or loyalty, so who needs
it.

Nazism in contrast views good and evil as social constructions and tries
to construct them as authoritative social realities. Unfortunately, it
has to do that without any initial content for "good" or "evil." So it
asks what the general qualities of authoritative good and evil are and
tries to recreate them within the limits of the modern scientific
worldview.

What are those general qualities? If there is someone whom all must take
into account and obey he is authority. If the authority can dispense
that which all desire by his mere will he is the authoritative possessor
of all good. He is in fact God. So to construct a new moral order all
you need do is construct God.

The empirically effective way to create someone whom all must take into
account and obey is to give someone the ability to inflict limitless
suffering and death on anyone anywhere and let him use it frequently so
people will be aware of it. By dealing out evil lavishly he also becomes
the source of all good, simply by not murdering someone.

Nazism is therefore the re-creation of God in the form of a this-worldly
caricature Jehovah through whom order is restored. That's why there are
those - not stupid or plainly crazy people - who consider Hitler an
avatar of Vishnu. (Stick "Hitler," "avatar" and "Vishnu" into Google.)

Advanced liberalism, like Nazism, makes Hitler and the Holocaust
fundamental to its understanding of reality. For both views H & H are
the final unsurpassible revelation of the nature of things. Each
therefore views the other as the alternative to itself - they inhabit
the same world and accept the same revelation but one gives it a
positive sign and the other a negative. So each would have to create the
other if the other didn't exist.

  la> But observation begs the question, was this terror
  la> present in liberalism before World War II?

It wasn't present after WW II either. It was several decades before
Hitler and the Holocaust took on their present role, and then it was the
civil rights movement that led to a setting in which H & H became such
compelling images as to become the key to all morality. The power of the
H & H symbol seems to me a result rather than cause of the postwar
liberation movements.

  la> What do you think? Am I making an "historian" out of you? :-)

Dunno. What would have happened if Hitler had never been born? After
all, someone who rejects the Hitler-as-avatar-of-Vishnu theory has to
reject the idea that the concrete existence of Hitler is a metaphysical
necessity. And it's true that the images of Hitler and the Holocaust are
uniquely compelling for liberalism, so much so that without them
liberalism could not have attained its perfection so easily. Still, I
can't help but think that liberalism would have ended up pretty much the
way it has even without those images.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue Apr 30 08:33:35 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <38020FAC.2AC3115D.374EB743@aol.com> (Burkeanwhig@aol.com)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Re: Despair
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"jl" == Burkeanwhig   writes:

  jl> The left has won utterly,
  jl> despite the remaining pockets of resistance.

The question is whether the victory has led to something that can be
stable, or whether the existence of the left still depends on the things
it destroys. Their increasing hysteria suggests that at bottom they
realize things aren't at all secure and have no idea what to do about
it.

  jl> Yes, we end up with sickened souls as a result,
  jl> but even this ultimately may be circumvented (or, at least,
  jl> mitigated to a significant degree) with the advent of more
  jl> sophisticated pharmacology and, even more disturbing, genetic engi
  jl> neering.

Sure, that's the question - can technology, which works by concentrating
on issues that can be isolated and manipulated, manage all things
comprehensively? For that matter, is strong AI possible? If so, then man
will successfully be abolished. I don't see any reason to think it'll
happen though. It's impossible in principle to manage the weather. How
can it be possible to manage human society?

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue Apr 30 16:36:34 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <03cf01c1f08e$020ccc60$1a29fc80@dpmccart>
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Re: Despair
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"DMcC" == Daniel McCarthy  writes:

  DMcC> Even if liberal democracy is not self-sustaining, barbarism may
  DMcC> well be.

The advantage of barbarism is that it is corrupt, incompetent and
short-sighted, and so can't be totalitarian.

  DMcC> By which I just mean that we cannot expect
  DMcC> the collapse of liberal democracy alone to make things better,
  DMcC> they could get worse.

Oh, I agree. I think things on the whole are likely to get worse than
they are now. They won't get worse from every point of view though.
There's no such thing as a perfect system of evil. I think the ambition
to establish a perfect system will drop out and with it the spectre of
the abolition of man. And that offers hope for the future. Maybe the
distant future, we just don't know, but hope for the future nonetheless.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue Apr 30 18:36:56 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
In-reply-to: <20020430194343.SM02500@seth> (message from Seth Williamson on Tue, 30 Apr 2002 19:44:00 -0400)
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Re: Despair
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"sw" == Seth Williamson  writes:

  sw> The mania for over-arching explanatory systems seems to be in
  sw> abeyance at the moment. Although it is a permanent temptation,
  sw> especially of intellectuals--it's a form of gnosticism.

I think we still have the mania for over-arching system, although maybe
the coherent explanations have dropped out. Think of "diversity,"
feminism or the EU.

  sw> Of course, with continual scientific progress, it will shortly be
  sw> possible--if it's not already--for nearly anyone or any group to
  sw> make weapons of mass destruction.

Sounds like barbarization has even more advantages than I thought, as
long as it goes far enough.

I've wondered whether this possibility will make extensive empires
impossible because they offer too many big targets. I suppose the plan
is to control everything everywhere as needed to prevent this. That
sounds like another plan to set up a perfect system though.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Wed May  1 06:59:05 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: io@btopenworld.com
Subject: Re: fish/neuhaus
References: <000b01c1f07e$c9319560$2179073e@oemcomputer>
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Hello!

Thanks for your note.

I wouldn't trust anything Fish says, and agree with a lot of what you
say. Nonetheless it seems to me that the Christian outlook is not simply
continuous with a secular outlook, but is in many ways opposed to it,
for two reasons:

1. Grace completes nature, but it is not determined by nature. It
   therefore makes demands that nature doesn't make. A system that
   recognizes grace thus conflicts as a practical maer with one that
   recognizes only nature.

2. Nature is not self-sufficient, but needs grace for its completion.
   Those who aempt to make nature a single self-sufficient system
   therefore distort even nature (Romans 1:19 ff.) by trying to make it
   do what it can't do. So Christianity disagrees with secularism not
   only in recognizing what grace requires but also in its
   interpretation of what nature itself tells us.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.nyx.net/~jkalb

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Thu May  2 11:47:46 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la@a.net
In-reply-to: <000301c1f188$88fb4760$43ccfea9@h6l3p> (la@a.net)
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I don't think undoing of the dominant group and enhancement of the
subordinate group is a pure double standard, since it can be given a
principled basis - prevention of tyranny through creation of a balance
of power in which there is no dominant group. You're probably right
though there'll never be a turnaround, because with the undoing of the
white race society will become too incoherent to enforce anything
comprehensive like liberalism.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/blog

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Mon May  6 14:05:14 2002
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Subject: Re: An essay you might enjoy
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Hello!

One point: you say modern politics makes peace the highest goal 
and also that it's founded on will. But if there's no independent 
standard of the good it's not clear why peace should be the highest 
goal. Why not the triumph of the will, which doesn't seem a peaceable 
notion? For that maer, why I should listen to a theoretician 
who tells me anything other than how to get my own way, and why 
I shouldn't assume that the theoretician is interested in the 
truth of the case and not totally motivated by self-interest?

To resolve the difficulty, or at least explain why very intelligent 
men have thought they could get by it, I think you'd have to 
touch at least briefly on Kant's notion that a purely formal 
morality is enough. That's why I think liberalism is so important 
- it's based on that kind of move, which enables people to argue 
e.g. that the modern state does protect friendship because it 
establishes a regime in which people can pursue whatever they 
want and those who like friendship can pursue it and pursuade 
others to do the same.

For my own part I don't think that works - formal considerations, 
without reference to any substantive goods at all, just don't 
tell us enough to decide much of anything. Still, that kind of 
reasoning is what contemporary government is based on so it has 
to be dealt with.

Jim

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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue May  7 05:18:48 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: tk@p.net
In-reply-to:  (message from Thaddeus Kozinski on Mon, 06 May 2002 16:49:45 -0400)
Subject: Re: An essay you might enjoy
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I've read Rawls' Liberalism. To me it seems he just packs everything
into what he calls reasonableness. I don't think it's an independent
criterion - if his system can accommodate something it's reasonable and
otherwise no.

You can have the most illiberal comprehensive view imaginable, the idea
is, as long as you respect a few basic principles like tolerance so that
other very different views don't get suppressed. Intolerant people of
course are unreasonable. The problem though is that tolerance turns out
to dictate all public life and all serious interpersonal relations. So
you're allowed to hold your illiberal comprehensive view as long as it
doesn't touch those things. What good is that?

Will look at your second paper. What's the topic of your dissertation?

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue May  7 05:24:45 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: tk@p.net
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Subject: Re: An essay you might enjoy
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Well, yes - that's why I think politics should be based on religion,
because whatever it's based on will turn out to be in effect the
accepted conception of God anyway so why not deal with the situation
directly. The genius of liberalism though is that it deals with all
significant issus before they even get raised. If you point that out
people get alarmed.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue May  7 12:29:38 2002
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Subject: Re: An essay you might enjoy
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They're a largish institution so they have to exist in a big
institutional world and need to maintain at least enough
respectability to operate as part of it. So they can't accept the
position that those big institutions are fundamentally misdirected.

I don't have any substantive comments that wouldn't make things worse
from that perspective. I think for example that there's an almost
mechanical reason why the principles of the polis, if it is to endure,
*must* become authoritative everywhere. The reason is that the polis has
the power of the sword and so must claim obedience and therefore loyalty
in life and death maers. Mentioning that would seem to tinge the
argument with violence though.

You may underestimate the extent to which the regime is coercive.
Suppose it's treated as a disciplinary maer when an unmarried student
gets pregnant? Suppose the college wants to hire a priest for some
position that isn't purely sacramental and so could be performed by
anyone, and someone complains about sex discrimination? Suppose an
employee comes out as a homosexual and says he feels harassed by
pronouncements that his way of life is objectively disordered? It would
complicate things.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue May  7 18:52:43 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: tk@p.net
In-reply-to:  (message from Thaddeus Kozinski on Tue, 07 May 2002 17:04:38 -0400)
Subject: Re: FW: On Immigration -- must-read
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It's hard to know what his complaint is. Fred Reed's piece doesn't claim
to be a discussion of philosophical liberalism, he's just vigorously
arguing - in a fairly reasoned if popular and colorful way - that some
factually very influential positions of actual non-philosophical
liberals don't make sense and make life worse.

It's impossible to deal with all conceivable arguments and rejoinders at
once. I think it's legitimate to present a simple comprehensive forceful
argument against things you think are fundamental in liberal thought or
any other kind of thought. By doing so you don't settle the whole
argument but you may clarify the issues for some readers by laying them
out in a particular clear order and that's a necessary function.

I certainly agree that if you want to discuss liberalism seriously you
should read Rawls, Locke, etc., etc. You ought to understand what their
arguments are and to the extent possible be able to say what they would
say in response to objections etc. I don't think however that wisdom
necessarily lies in sympathy with positions you think are fundamentally
wrong.

In any case, for most people the point of interest is not liberal theory
but liberalism, a movement of politics and thought based on things like
individualism, equal rights etc. that has had and is continuing to have
an enormous effect on the world around us. Liberal thinkers no doubt
know a lot about the movement they're part of but they don't have
privileged access to it that trumps the way anyone else might look at
it.

So I think it's legitimate to characterize liberalism in ways few
liberals would be inclined to characterize it. Why is that worse than
characterizing anything, the stock market or traditional gender roles or
the British Empire or whatever, in a way participants don't or didn't
characterize it? Liberalism after all is something we all have to live
with so saying what it is isn't the sole privilege of those who like it.
Again, one view or argument or essay isn't going to settle all issues
but if someone finds a line of thought particularly persuasive and
others learn something from it I don't see the objection.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

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From: Jim Kalb 
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu: Re: An essay you might enjoy]
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------- Start of forwarded message -------
Date: 07 May 2002 20:18:56 -0400
From: Jim Kalb 
To: tk@p.net
In-reply-to:  (message from Thaddeus
	Kozinski on Tue, 07 May 2002 15:15:12 -0400)
Subject: Re: An essay you might enjoy

"tk"  writes:

  tk> Do you really think they HAVE to deny the position we take
  tk> on the regime as part of prudence? Or do you think it is an
  tk> illegitimate compromise that they accept to remain alive? Or is
  tk> it just a suitable acceptance of a lesser degree of perfection for
  tk> the college to preserve whatever good they can? I am not sure I
  tk> understood your statement.

I just meant that if you're going to have something that's recognized as
a legitimate institution of higher education that's accredited, grants
degrees that are given credence elsewhere, participates in various
subsidized student loan programs etc. then you're going to have to fit
in with the system in a lot of ways. And you're not going to be able to
do that unless institutionally you believe in the system. For example
you're going to have to comply with the civil rights laws and that
raises the possibilities I touched on in my last note. In addition, it's
impossible to hold the civil rights laws at arms' length - unless you
act like you believe in them you aren't really complying with them.
That's what the affirmative action and anti-harassment rules mean.

Whether in view of that it would be better to do something else and what
that other thing might be I can't say.

  tk> Have you read Charles DeNunzio's on-line book about American
  tk> culture and Catholicism?

I skimmed through part of it. He does seem to treat everything too much
like a geometrical demonstration.

  tk> Sometimes it is hard to see where prudence ends
  tk> and illicit compromise begins. The more I read
  tk> non-integrist-Catholic authors, the more I see that the situation
  tk> is almost infinitely complicated.

Agreed it's complicated. It seems to me best to try to be clear about
ultimate goals and existing problems,and then make whatever contribution
you can.

- -- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Wed May  8 03:53:18 2002
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Subject: Re: On Immigration -- must-read
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Actually I'm glad you sent me his note - it's a common kind of 
comment and it's good to have responses to common comments.

One formulation: there's a distinction between the implicit logic 
of liberalism and the systems liberal theoreticians present. 
It's like the distinction between the grammar of the English 
language and particular grammarians' accounts of it. A grammarian 
who's a native speaker might come up with a grammatical description 
that's not nearly so accurate or complete as one a foreigner 
might come up with. There's nothing privileged about the native 
view of the maer. There might be local biases, blindnesses 
etc. that distort his understanding that an outsider might be 
free from. The foreigner's grammatical description might procede 
on different principles and so initially seem rather odd to native 
grammarians. It might nonetheless be superior.

jk

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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Fri May 10 12:20:26 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la@a.net
CC: GJRussello@aol.com, carol.iannone@a.net, carneyaway@hotmail.com,
   jgary@lehman.com, frissell@panix.com
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It seems to me she hasn't thought it all through.

She wants a true liberalism, a moderate liberalism. She specifically
says that "the treatment of women, freedom of speech, the separation of
private and public values, and tolerance of homosexuality" are all
non-negotiable liberal fundamentals. So what she wants is a sort of
classical liberalism plus moderate civil rights, moderate feminism,
moderate gay liberation, moderate everything.

All she wants is to keep moral self-restraint, norms of sexual behavior,
family values, and rejection of nihilism and libertinism. Apparently
these things are going to come from a common civic identity within which
immigrants, whom the West will continue to welcome, can pursue their own
culture and traditions.

Where's that civic identity going to come from though? The phrase sounds
like it'll be something generated by and for the benefit of liberal
institutions, so it can't go beyond what's implicit in those
institutions. I don't see how she gets family values out of that. How do
you extract sexual restraint out of consent, fair procedures and equal
treatment, which are the principles of liberal institutions?

She's right that liberalism needs family values etc. to survive. That
just shows that liberalism depends on things that aren't liberal just as
exact science depends on things that aren't exact science. What follows
from that though is that the whole idea of a liberal civic culture as
sufficient for social order is crazy.

I agree it's important that people are starting to think about these
things. They're starting to realize that you have to be able to assert
something that's non-neutral and make it publicly binding. You can't
always be neutral. But if you can do that, what in the end becomes of
the arguments for liberalism even in the West? The claim to neutrality
has been essential to liberal dominance. The assumption seems to be that
liberalism simply *is* the Western tradition, so that's not an issue.
That's obviously not so though.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Sun May 12 19:06:18 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la@a.net
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"la" == la  writes:

  la> Freedom
  la> and equality are one.

Exactly so. Liberal freedom is just recognition that all impulses are of
equal value and so should get equal play. None should be suppressed in
the interests of any other. (The reason they are of equal value is that
it is the simple fact that something is an impulse that gives it value
and all impulses are equally impulses.)

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Thu May 16 06:29:02 2002
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Subject: Re: Amending Washington's letter to the Jewish community of Newport
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"la" == la  writes:

  la> "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the
  la> indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the
  la> exercise of their inherent natural rights, for happily, the
  la> Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no
  la> factions, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they
  la> who live under its protection should demean themselves as good
  la> citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual
  la> support."

  la> "May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in the land
  la> continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other
  la> inhabitants while every one shall sit in safety under his own
  la> vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."
  la> [George Washington, A Collection, p. 548]

I'm not sure it really means equal participation as citizens. Not
everyone had the vote then, and he's emphasizing the non-political
aspects of political society and not rights of political participation.
"Every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there
shall be none to make him afraid" just means that each has a natural
right to property and personal security that will be protected in return
for supporting the agency that protects it.

The whole thing depends on a very limited role for government. I suppose
what I'm saying is that Washington had the notion of neutral government
based on universal principles of natural right. That notion didn't raise
problems in his mind because he didn't think government had to do much,
just protect life, liberty and property. He thought those things were
self-defining. Problems arose later because it turned out that you can't
define what's appropriate to protect life, liberty and property without
defining the good life, and neutral liberal principles can define the
good life only as getting what you want.

I think even foaming-at-the-mouth let's-have-a-state-church religious
rightists can sign on to what Washington actually says here. There *are*
natural human rights that don't depend on what religion you adhere to,
that's always been recognized in Christendom, and any government should
protect those rights so that Turk or Jew can sit under his own vine or
fig tree without fear. I think you just need the additional recognition
that there can't be a government that does no more than protect
universal natural human rights and to that extent religious outlook
becomes relevant to participation in government.

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Thu May 16 07:58:33 2002
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On reading W's actual words it struck me how much he was thinking 
of government as a very limited institution and its relation 
to "citizens" or persons "liv[ing] under its protection" as one 
of protection of life, liberty and property on the one side, 
which he didn't think were controversial concepts, and support 
on the other. The goal was to enable every man to live quietly 
and unmolested on his own.

It does seem to me that to the extent government does only what 
he thinks it does his words are acceptable. There is indeed a 
universal human right not to be subjected to random robbery, 
abuse, persecution etc. The problem is that government is a lot 
more than that, and it has to be more than that even to define 
"liberty" and "property" and what's involved in protecting those 
things. So I suppose what I was trying to do was to agree with 
Washington as much as possible and only point out things he left 
out that have since become impossible to avoid.



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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Sat May 18 05:20:54 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la@a.net
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Subject: Re: UN conference on children
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"la" == la  writes:

  la> Notice the name of the document, "A World Fit For Children,"
  la> suggesting that the world is not now a place fit for children,

I like the name, it's right up there with "making the schools safe
places for all our children" (i.e., promoting homosexuality).

  la> Also, see the quote from the Convention on the Rights of the
  la> Child, which already has been passed I believe, though we
  la> haven't ratified it.

The CRC has been ratified by every country in the world other than the
United States and (as I recall) Somalia. It's well worth reading -
children have the right to information and free association, for
example, so if Mom tells Junior he can't play with little Joey or watch
Dawson's Creek she's just violated international law. It's like Dutch
antidiscrimination law, you have to look for yourself because otherwise
you won't believe how bad it is.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Sat May 18 05:39:39 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
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"la" == la  writes:

  la> classical liberalism, the liberalism of equal rights and equality
  la> under the law, is not hypocritically neutral, it is truly
  la> neutral. But when equality morphs from the belief in the
  la> equality of rights to the belief in substantive equality, then
  la> you have the double standard and the hypocrisy.

Classical liberalism is neutral if "life liberty and property" are
neutral. That doesn't seem to be so, though, since what interests get
protected under those headings and what is thought to violate them
depends on the substantive understanding of human life. Is it a
violation of life, liberty and property to have no money, no food, no
place to live? To get fired for being a Jewish communist homosexual? To
be unable to go into public places certain times of the year without
having people say "Merry Christmas" to you?

I think it's the consideration that "life liberty and property" are not
neutral, that they can't be turned into concrete rules without favoring
some people and some ways of life over others, that leads
philosophically from classical to contemporary liberalism.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Thu May 16 07:29:11 2002
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I'm still inclined to think that the basic problem is not this or that
habit or cultural particularity of the Jews but the circumstance that
they are an energetic and capable community living within a civilization
one of whose pillars they reject as part of their self-definition. If
that's so then the old American dream (basically Protestant society in
which Jews are welcome and participate fully in all respects) seems to
require an improbable amount of mutual deference in the long run.

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Thu May 16 09:05:47 2002
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It seems to me that what you write about immigration and the 
American identity takes the point of view of defending the old 
American arrangement . That arrangement involved conventions 
and accommodations that I think aren't likely to be restored. 
I don't object to someone defending the way things were though, 
a lot was lost when we moved from it to what we have now, and 
from that point of view you'd have to say something rather like 
what you do. So I don't know that it's true to say I disagree 
with you. In fact maybe your line of thought points hte way toward 
a Christian society in which non-Christians and even anti-Christians 
are treated decently.

Was that answer vague enough? I suppose my basic thought at the 
moment is that the ideal of full equal welcoming participation 
of Jews in all aspects of American society is just a form of 
multiculturalism. Jews can't be happy as Jews unless society 
is definitively deChristianized, which means the abolition of 
the West. So then the question becomes, for those who'd rather 
not see the West abolished, whether Jews can be told "no" in 
a humane way that preserves mutual respect etc. Maybe America 
used to have a way of doing that, or maybe it was always just 
a matter of time until America either decisively rejected inevitable 
Jewish communal aspirations or committed suicide.

Now I've rambled myself, so enough for now.

jk

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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Mon May 20 12:54:12 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: ca
Subject: Re: Why liberals consider all conservatives to be bigots
References: <002201c1fdd8$d18b11c0$5f3efea9@h6l3p> <200205172036.QAA13983@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU> <007801c20022$8cd43240$de52580c@61lvi>
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"ci" writes:

  ci> Why is it though that liberals have these patterns in which they
  ci> do indeed villainize an "other," and do indeed have a concept of
  ci> evil, albeit a stupid one, as in men, whites, white men,
  ci> capitalists, rich people, and so on? I guess that's not called the
  ci> "other," since those are the "dominant" groups?

Part of it I think is that as rational universalists - people who think
their political positions are based plainly and directly on principles
that no one could reasonably dispute (which is why it's natural to
enshrine those positions in constitutional interpretation, international
human rights conventions, etc.) they have no place in their conceptual
universe for sane, well-informed and well-intentioned opposition.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Thu May 23 04:42:14 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Subject: [James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org: Re: Does Europe Need More Immigrants]
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 It's not psychological like mania, it's more metaphysical. If 
it were psychological it would be a temporary passing fad and 
it wouldn't have the quality of absolute necessity that the pro-immigration 
view does have.

The problem is that if you don't insist that immigrants be welcomed 
in large numbers on economic or humanitarian grounds and fully 
integrated into all aspects of social life at the expense of 
whatever stands in the way then you're admitting that there are 
human connections, attitudes, habits etc. that matter and are 
worthy of respect that can't be reduced without remainder to 
the technical requirements of the efficient functioning of markets 
and bureaucracies. But if you admit that you screw up your whole 
metaphysics and ethics, not to mention your understanding of 
what constitutes an acceptable social order. You also destroy 
the absolute right to rule of the class of managers and experts 
of which you are a member.

Jim

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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Mon May 27 09:15:44 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la@a.com
Subject: Re: the wages of self-sufficiency
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"lr" == la  writes:

  lr> Yet the sheer
  lr> "well-made-ness" and self-sufficiency of the Constitution also
  lr> pointed the way toward an increasingly autonomous and secularized
  lr> order.

That's a good way of putting it. You could connect the issue to Pascal's
comment: "I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would
have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him
give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further
need of God." Also to Laplace, who said didn't need the God hypothesis
in his account of the world.

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Mon May 27 13:56:48 2002
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Subject: Re: Fw: on D'Souza's redefinition of America and conservatism
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He's intelligent though, and I think he tries to be honest although 
he's not necessarily reasonable, so it could be an interesting 
discussion.

Locke of course was the father of all liberals, Burke not at 
all a liberal in the same sense. He reinterpreted talk of society 
as a contract for example to mean society as not a contract. 
A primeval contract that includes the dead is not a contract.

The Bohemian ethos is a fact. Is it a self-consistent fact, one 
that could be thoroughly accepted by the whole of society, or 
is it necessarily parasitic? Is it an oppositional culture that 
depends on the thing it opposes? Could you have a society that 
consists of nothing but market, bureaucracy, and purely individual 
and sentimental associations and pursuits?

The thing that confronts the Bohemian ethos is a complex of habits, 
attitudes and beliefs inherited from the past and rooted in the 
civilization of Christendom. I don't see that as less a fact 
than the Bohemian ethos. The basic political question today is 
the nature of man and the good life - whether the former or latter 
shall be viewed as authoritative publicly. A secondary question 
is the extent to which government should support or suppress 
one or the other.

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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue May 28 13:38:22 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la@a.com
In-reply-to: <005a01c20668$9bf0a500$d459fea9@h6l3p> (la@a.com)
Subject: Re: D'Souza Goes Left
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Good answer.

Another way of putting it: conservatism isn't a special kind of outlook,
it's just good sense in dealing with a world in which we know some
things but not others, in which we have to make comprehensive judgements
but can focus on things enough to judge them only by leaving out a great
deal.

In such a world making judgments simply by applying abstract
propositions is disastrous because it leaves out so much. Therefore
reasonableness requires our judgments to be tied to a system of actual
life that makes their meaning and consequences concrete while implicitly
taking into account all the human affairs and experience to which they
are tied.

Tying judgements to a system of actual life doesn't mean we are wholly
at the mercy of what's actually being done around us right now. Systems
of life have internal standards, complexities and contradictions, and
they extend over time. They are also oriented to something beyond
themselves, to some conception of what man and the world are. So without
launching ourselves into outer space we can reject one aspect of how
things are done now (acceptance of libertinism) because it conflicts
radically with other aspects of tradition and actual practice both today
and historically (e.g., religious tradition, everyday decencies, the
family loyalty upon which social order still depends and must depend)
that have better claim to authority. For example, a tradition of
rejecting tradition and deciding things based on abstract propositions
is obviously suspect from the conservative standpoint.

Conservatism doesn't mean not thinking and it's not about itself. It has
to do with how we think and know things that we would otherwise find it
difficult to get a grip on.

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Tue May 28 15:21:43 2002
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Good for him!

I'd say, basically, yes. Specific institutional arrangements 
like the role and status of the states and thus how senators 
are chosen are very important, but other things were more important 
to the polity the Founders established.

For example, limited government and local and popular self-rule 
were more important. The latter require a moral people with stable 
loyalties and strong sense of personal responsibility who are 
able to look after themselves and rely on those around them when 
they need assistance. I haven't the faintest idea how you achieve 
those things unless you have strong family ties, and I have no 
idea how you'll have strong family ties as a general thing that 
can be relied on unless you have something very much like traditional 
sexual morality.

He's right of course that the normalization of homosexuality 
is not the single thing that wrecks all else and everything else 
that's ever happened has been tolerable. It's hard to see how 
normalization of homosexuality can be reconciled with a free 
self-governing society though.

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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Thu May 30 12:42:35 2002
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The Blut und Eisen business I think is so far off as to be just 
a pretense unless he only means to observe that all political 
order involves force. That's not particularly philosophical though 
although it's something philosophy has to take into account.

It can't just be Blut und Eisen or even Blood and Steel and the 
Ideal of Liberty. By themselves these conceptions are inhuman. 
There's also the network of human relationships, habits, attitudes, 
language, beliefs, history etc. that make a people a people and 
encode an understanding of the good life. And beyond that every 
system of human habits and relationships points beyond itself. 
So there is also necessarily an orienation to the transcendent.

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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Mon Jun  3 09:35:25 2002
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One thing that's shocking in America here and now is seeing something 
that's obviously the peak of a highly developed civilization 
presented and accepted as a living ceremony.

= = = Original message = = =

I attended a special Tridentine high pontifical mass several 
years ago at St. Patrick's conducted by Cardinal Stickler.  It 
was an unforgettable event.


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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Tue Jun  4 14:11:40 2002
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Subject: Re: Anarchism traditionalist?
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Do I say it is anywhere? Anyway the argument would be that a 
stateless society would have to be a traditionalist society since 
there would be no other way to organize human relations and expectations. 
The market can only do so much; things that can't really be handled 
by contract have to be handled either by tradition or state authority, 
and if the latter is lacking tradition becomes all the more necessary.

= = = Original message = = =

BF>How is anarchism traditionalist?
    Bates


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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Wed Jun  5 03:54:57 2002
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Why should I have to square it with her claims? I think her basic 
understanding of the world is wrong, and I'm not an anarchist, 
so I shouldn't have to reconcile two views neither of which I 
agree with.

It seems to me if someone is an anarchist he'll recreate in his 
imagined stateless society whatever his view of human nature 
is. If he's a socialist it'll be a socialist anarchy but a libertarian 
(market-oriented)or traditionalist anarchist would think otherwise.

How did this discussion get started? What in anything I've written 
are you  referring to?

= = = Original message = = =

BF>How do you square this with the claims of Emma Goldman and 
co.?  You know,
the Left-wing anarchists who, in all fairness, coined the concept 
of
anarchism?
    Bates

James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org wrote:

> Do I say it is anywhere? Anyway the argument would be that 
a
> stateless society would have to be a traditionalist society 
since
> there would be no other way to organize human relations and 
expectations.
> The market can only do so much; things that can't really be 
handled
> by contract have to be handled either by tradition or state 
authority,
> and if the latter is lacking tradition becomes all the more 
necessary.
>
> = = = Original message = = =
>
> BF>How is anarchism traditionalist?

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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Wed Jun  5 10:59:16 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Subject: [James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org: Re: hate crimes calls]
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To interpret anything it has to have a stable setting you're 
familiar with. For that reason it's obvious you can't have popular 
government without strictly limited government that's as local 
as possible.

= = = Original message = = =

You prove my point.  It's hard even for smart people to keep 
track of these things.  Imagine what it would be like if we were 
part of the EU, and such laws were not even being passed by elected 
legislators but invisible commissioners.

That's one of my worst nightmares.  That scares me even more 
than the thought of being overwhelmed by third-world immigration. 

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Mon Jun 10 06:46:36 2002
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Can't think of any pro-Israel/pro-white sites. Horowitz's probably 
comes as close as any. I should say that it's not hard to see 
why someone who thinks there's a particular European people and 
civilization that should be defended might have some issues with 
the Jews, or why someone might not feel like supporting Israel. 
If someone decides to move into a hornet's nest and live there 
that's great but why is it my responsibility to help him?

Still, there are lots of complications and people do get batty 
on the subject. I think one problem if someone makes the European 
people his ultimate cause is that ethnicity by itself doesn't 
tell him to do anything in particular. It's a condition and not 
a purpose. As a result if his ultimate standard is ethnicity 
his practical politics are likely to become a matter of identifying 
and attacking enemies, and since enemies at home are more dangerous 
than foreign enemies those are the ones he'll go after. So it 
seems to me that unless loyalty to white civilization is tied 
into some more universal scheme of things it's likely to become 
everything left-wingers accuse it of being - narrow, suspicious, 
xenophobic, obsessively antisemitic, etc., etc., etc.

= = = Original message = = =

(2) Every site I have seen on the web, other than David Horowitz's 
Frontpage, that opposes hatred of whites, supports the achievements 
of whites, defends the right of the peoples of Europe to restrict, 
stop or even reverse Third World immigration, and the
 right of the US to do much the same, etc., is so wedded to anti-Semitism 
that it opposes both the US "war on terror" and the Jewish state. 

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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Mon Jun 10 11:31:44 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Subject: [James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org: Re: Fw: your new poll]
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The internal threat is worse, other things being equal, so I'd 
choose human rights ideology. Human rights ideology acts coherently 
and is in command of all authoritative institutions in the West. 
Radical Islam is mostly thousands of miles away, and they're 
all screw-ups who hate each other anyway.

jk

= = = Original message = = =

Another way of phrasing this question would be, when I was walking 
through the shopping arcade in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center 
last summer on the way to our meeting at Foxhounds, and noticed, 
within one second of each other, a shop maniquin with nipples 
visible through its blouse, and a Muslim woman passing me with 
her head covered, which represented the greatest threat to our 
culture?  

I see the first (i.e. complete freedom and rights) as having 
opened up the doors to the second (i.e. letting in everyone, 
even people who would destroy all our freedoms).  So I guess 
the human rights is the greater danger.


From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Wed Jun 12 10:34:09 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: ca
Subject: Re: Tuesday meeting
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Missed you! (Not to mention all others who couldn't make it.) It
was a productive discussion nonetheless. I've summarized some ideas we
kicked around in my most recent post to View from the Right:

http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/000481.html#000481

We also talked about how we got into the situation we are in, in which
the definition of America is that it's a place anyone in the world can
come to and do whatever he wants, and if there are any limitations on
that then it proves we're a failure as a nation. A lot of the discussion
was really a rehash of Larry's comment at

http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/000460.html#000460

Once it had become absolutely fundamental that blacks and whites had to
be equal in all respects, so that substantive equality regardless of
group differences had become a supreme value that trumped everything
else, it was hard to see why everyone in the world shouldn't be
absolutely equal in all ways, and the highest meaning of America became
that it's a place that includes everyone and makes them all equal. So
treating mass 3rd world immigration, multiculturalism etc. as other than
supreme political goods becomes unAmerican.

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Thu Jun 13 14:39:14 2002
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To: la
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"la" writes:

  la> What do you think of my article on the Church scandal?

It pulls a lot together. The bishop's comment does I think show that he
identifies the Church as an organization pretty much identical to the
people (i.e. the clerics) who compose it. That's subphilosophical to the
point of brainlessness but it does reflect a philosophical background,
the destruction post-Vat II of consciousness of the Church as a
transcendent reality not reducible to the people in it here and now.

I thought it was good to bring in Romans I - some of the specifics are
very much to the point. That's usually so when one reads St. Paul with
some serious church problem in mind.

Vatican II is a big topic. It seems to me a very strange event that can
be interpreted in all sorts of ways. It looks so ill-advised and it's
certainly led to bad things notably the flattening of religion into
something that seems basically this-worldly with maybe a little poetry
and ad hoc ceremony added. Do you have references for your quotes
though? The Paul VI closing speech I could find is different:

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/v18.html

As to the pronouncement of the Council itself, a Google search didn't
turn up any documents that had both the phrase "church serves man" and
"phenomenal totality" so it seems likely your translation of the
pronouncement isn't the standard one. Certainly the quotes are very
startling so I would like to see more.

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
Weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Fri Jun 14 07:29:48 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: I found Paul's speech quoted elsewhere with citation
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The additional language creates a rather different impression, I
think. I would want to read the whole speech. Paul VI mentions the two
sides of Pascal's view of man, his greatness and his misery, and says
that the Council admires his greatness and wants nothing more than to
serve man. All of which seems OK - the greatness is real and salvation
is serving man - as long as other sides of the picture aren't left
out. The Abbe creates the impression other sides were left out by
leaving them out in what he quotes but it appears from the more
extended quote that they were there.

It seems that what Paul VI was doing is the same as what JP II does -
avoid anathemas, and say he approves of almost everything anyone does
anywhere that reflects a search for what is good, beautiful or true
because no human action is coherent or complete without God so
whereever you start if you honestly reflect on what you're really
trying to do you'll end up in the Church. On that line of thought the
best thing is let the inquirer keep on inquiring and propose for his
consideration additional things that you think meet his needs. In the
end truth is one and he'll get to it if he wants it.

You can question how far that line of approach should be pushed but I
don't think it's really a religion of man.

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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Fri Jun 14 07:34:29 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Fwd:Re: Islamists and neo-Nazis
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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.


From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Fri Jun 14 11:29:00 2002
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My theory is still that Paul VI was doing the Pascal greatness 
of man/misery of man thing, with emphasis on the first because 
his intention was to find common ground with the secularists, 
whom he rightly viewed as extremely powerful and increasingly 
so in all aspects of life including fundamental philosophy.

With that the case he thought he wasn't going to get anywhere 
evangelizing by claiming authority but had to start by saying 
"what you say is all wonderful but I've got some additional things 
to propose that you may conclude help fill out the picture and 
better express what in the end you're really trying to do." The 
A. de N. makes his case, I suspect, by quoting the "it's all 
wonderful" parts and not the other parts.

The plan was to point out, once the discussion had started, that 
while Nature has a certain relative autonomy which we can all 
admire because God makes good things it points beyond itself 
to Grace, which is needed to perfect it. I don't think there's 
anything essentially heterodox about the approach. If the heavens 
can proclaim the glory of God and man is made in the image of 
God and some truths about God can be known with certainty by 
natural reason (a dogma of Vat I as well as Vat II) and Augustine 
can say there's a God-shaped hole in the center of each of us 
then theology from below is possible at least as part of an overall 
effort.

The danger of course, and what has happened, is that the part 
becomes the whole, the apologetic strategy becomes the substance, 
and we end up with immanent humanism as a religion. One of the 
things that has to be proposed is that Christianity is authoritative 
and based on revelation, and recent popes have been too much 
concerned to find ways to speak to the modern word in ways it 
will accept to put that forward. When the issue comes up occasionally 
as in Dominus Iesus everyone's shocked because it doesn't sound 
like the usual message.

jk

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Wed Jun 19 17:53:02 2002
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There's a variety of formulations all of which can be illuminating. My
usual one is no transcendence => the good is simply the desired =>
since all desires are equally desires all goods are equally goods. I
don't know if that makes equality or relativism come first after
abolition of transcendence. If saying "the good is the desired" is
relativism then relativism comes first. If not, and "all goods are
equally goods" is the definition of relativism, then the fact that
desires, which define the good, are equally desires comes first.

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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Wed Jun 19 18:01:18 2002
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It's interesting to concentrate on this. What's the corresponding 
trilogy for liberalism? Maybe human desire instead of God, logic 
and technique instead of culture, and raw material instead of 
nature.

jk

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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Wed Jun 26 06:04:03 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: Prager touches on a question we've often discussed
To: la
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It seems to me though (I repeat myself) that the Left really does like
feminism, homosexuals, democracy (in the sense of equality) etc. They just  try
to work out and apply the principles of equality and antitranscendence that
make those things seem like supreme goals in a more comprehensive way. They
therefore favor the overthrow of the hegemony of every historical culture,
which as a practical matter means first and foremost the overthrow of the West.

It's the old argument between radicals and liberals--the radicals want utopia
now, while the liberals want to stabilize gains to date and work toward utopia
by reform. Rather than overthrow the West they redefine it by stages to mean
tolerance. It does seem to me the liberals have become more radical--they think
they can do anything. I suppose a neocon would be someone who's come to think
that the process can't go on forever, that there's some irreducible minimum of
family structure, religious commitment etc. that's needed to make freedom and
equality secure.

He's right of course about the kill-the-father concept. All I'd say is that
Leftism is supported by conceptual as well as psychological considerations. I
was sorry though to have to read once again about James O. Freedman, a truly
disgusting man. (When did "college president" stop being a respectable job?)

Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right weblog: http://counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Fri Apr 19 06:42:08 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: to
In-reply-to: <3CBF9EB1.6EFC9B88@attbi.com> (message from Paul Duca on Fri, 19 Apr 2002 00:36:00 -0400)
Subject: Re: STUDY FINDS MARRIED WOMEN & CHILDREN SUFFER LEAST ABUSE
Status: RO

"pd" writes:

  pd>             As well as send the message that if you aren't in
  pd> an "approved" social structure, you DESERVE to be
  pd> abused...plus, when a "godly" husband hits his wife or kids,
  pd> it's an act of love or discipline, i.e. NOT abuse--therefore,
  pd> the traditional marriage and family structure is the safest
  pd> haven for helpless women and children.

Not sure of your reasoning:

1. If some forms of human relationship work much better than others it
   seems right to hold them up as ideals. You seem to be saying that
   nothing should be considered better than anything else because if it
   is then the people involved in the things viewed as not as good will
   be worse off.

   That view seems odd to me. Do you think all social standards, all
   notions of good and bad conduct, should be abolished because if such
   notions exist then people who don't comply will be looked down on and
   treated badly?

2. You also seem to be saying that the reason there is much less
   violence, abuse etc. in traditional families is that the same things
   happen but it is called something else. Do you apply that to
   situations in which mom beats baby and baby ends up in hospital or
   mom's live-in forces himself on mom's daughter? Those things are much
   more common in nontraditional arrangements. Is your claim that lots
   of moms beat their babies to death and lots of dads rape their
   daughters and everyone thinks it's OK so long as mom and dad are
   married and living together?

jk

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue Jul  2 05:54:28 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: la
Subject: Re: vouchers cont.
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My guess is that he thinks the problem ("socialism") is comprehensive
central control of social life, and vouchers plainly represent a move
away from that, one that has actual popular support potentially even
among Democratic constituencies. Your objection is that vouchers will
actually spread certain forms of control, because if you take the
government's money you must do what the government says. His response
might be that strings attached to grants are obviously less invasive
than direct administration, and if grants can go to religious
institutions then government involvement will have to remain far less
invasive than direct adminstration and there will be a strong popular
constituency to keep it that way. Once grants to independent schools
become institutionalized then he no doubt recognizes that the battle to
keep them independent will begin. But to argue that battle will be lost,
he would claim, is to say that creeping socialism always wins. And if
that's so why not just roll up and die right now?

I think part of the reason for his view is that he's not as much at odds
with things the govt is likely to try to enforce as you are. He believes
in colorblindness, would no doubt accept mild affirmative action,
multiculturalism and education for tolerance, has no problem with
acceptance of homosexuality, etc. So it would be natural for him to
think some sort of tolerable compromise on the issue of the strings to
be attached to the vouchers would be within reach.

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Tue Jul  2 18:23:54 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: to
Subject: Re: Libertarian on tradition
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Thanks for the paper. I can force myself to read academic liberal theory
only sporadically and out of a sense of duty, so a clear summary of a
basic current dispute that has a sense of historical background is quite
helpful.

A problem with the "tolerant" side of the debate I think is that as
liberals they tend to deny the actual goodness of anything but autonomy
and pursuing one's own tastes, which in fact they view as supreme goods.
One result is that the things that are tolerated (the Amish way of life
or whatever) are viewed as intrinsically not-so-good but simply to be
tolerated on the grounds that (1) it's dangerous to set up the apparatus
needed to uproot them altogether, and (2) it's hard on the people
already involved to tell them they have to knock it off. I think that it
has to bias the direction things are going to take if being Amish, or
apparently recognizing the authority of any sort of tradition, is viewed
as sort of like being addicted to something.

I approve of your new career of debunking health crazinesses, by the
way. And I do hope you manage to get your book published. Never say die!
(Not that you're likely to.)

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Wed Jul  3 03:12:03 2002
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Subject: Re: Conservatism FAQ
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Status: O

If you're attached to traditions and follow them you're not likely 
to say it's because you like tradition. You'll more likely say 
it's because you like the particular thing. For example if you're 
a traditionalist as to food (in middle America) you won't say 
"gee I'm a traditionalist as to food so I'll order meatloaf instead 
of sushi." You'll say "I like meatloaf and think sushi is a little 
odd."

As to Republicans, most of them aren't Bible believing Christians 
but they're attached to ways of looking at things associated 
with the Bible because the Bible has been so influential. It's 
a more indirect influence than you suggest.

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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Sun Jul 14 10:41:35 2002
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: jf
Subject: Re: Your reply to my comment
References: <322233FA-972D-11D6-9C10-003065773FAE@mac.com>
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Status: O

"Even-handedness" as an ideal suggests that the various issues have
already been presented adequately and all stand on a basis of equality
so what remains is to sort out what's been said in a sensible way. If
you believe as I do that the overall discussion of public affairs has
become seriously distorted that's not a sensible ideal.

I do think it's important to be honest, to be constantly aware of what
one's opponents could say on their own behalf, and not to say things
that can't be succesfully defended against objections. I don't see how
it's possible or desirable always to stand above the fray though.

To me it seems absolutely clear that in American public life liberalism
is dominant. It's an issue that's possible to view various ways because
the substance of life is always conservative. That's one of the basic
conservative points, that liberalism misconstrues life because it
believes that everything can be made systematic, objective, rational and
equal, when in fact most of life is instinctive, intuitive, and
habitual.

Still, the conservative complaint is not that liberalism has succeeded
in making the substance of life liberal but that the attempt to do so is
unaware of its limitations and destructive. (Sorry if that's overly
abstract but it's hard to make an email note into a treatise.)

You seem to agree that the "normal" that conservatism makes the standard
is not the same as the "accustomed" or "whatever it is that I do." In my
reply to you I tried to flesh that out a bit by saying that to be the
conservative standard the "normal" has to include a notion of human
nature and a self-sustaining self-governing society that permits human
nature to develop in accordance with its own proper principles. Another
conservative objection to liberalism is that it rejects notions of human
nature and obfuscates what it is to be self-supporting and
self-governing.

Enougjh though--answering objections is how you develop your thought,
but you can't go on forever. Your comments will help me improve the
piece.

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Wed Jul 17 08:08:18 2002
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Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 10:08:12 -0400
To: 
Subject: Re: clarifications
Status: O

Eakins doesn't make much sense to me as a homosexual. It does 
make sense to me that he would be more interested in the male 
than female body because he had such a strong interest in force, 
action and functional design and less interest in tactile values, 
the organic, or the pleasing. I agree the boxer was somewhat 
sleazy looking.

I didn't think his portrait of his wife was lacking in whatever 
sort of affection he could feel for someone. Given his understanding 
of things how could he show a woman for whom he had some understanding 
and whose situation in the world he cared about as other than 
desolate? The later picture of her suggested she aged well, and 
she collaborated with him from time to time, and there doesn't 
seem to have been anything secret about his life, so I don't 
see any reason to think there was anything bad or particularly 
abnormal about the marriage.

I didn't look closely at the photos. I was there to see the paintings. 
Mostly it seemed to me he liked to work from photos--not only 
of the nude--because his attitude toward things was not sensual 
or intuitive but technical. Also he studied things obsessively, 
not only the male nude but also light reflections in the water 
and Mrs. Whosywhatit's clavicle and the throat of the singer 
as she sang a particular passage.

Another question was the selection of the photos. What did the 
curator have in mind? What other photos could he have shown? 
Maybe I was more conscious of that issue because of the Gentileschi 
exhibit (my comments on that one are at http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/a
rchives/000124.html ).

Anyway, I wasn't annoyed by the criticism of Eakins. What you 
and Carol said went beyond what I saw in him but it's possible 
my understanding of him is oversimplified.

jk

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Thu Jul 25 07:01:40 2002
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 9:01:38 -0400
To: 
From: 
Subject: Re: essay
Message-ID: 
Status: O

You're right that men get manipulated but that's always been 
true. The question is why today the manipulation is more successful. 
I think it's because men are in a weaker position because of 
general social conditions that deprive people of a secure place 
to stand. The same conditions help manipulators in other settings 
too. Think of all the money spent on advertising, public relations, 
political spin control, etc., etc., etc.

Yes it's obvious that the only people allowed to talk about feminism 
are women, just as the only people allowed to talk about racial 
matters are members of racial minorities. It's more cowardice--more 
fear of taking a position that will draw criticism.

jk

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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Thu Jul 25 07:01:41 2002
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Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 9:01:42 -0400
To: 
From: 
Subject: Re: Slouching Toward Gomorrah
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Status: O

Thanks for the note. I've seen the quote and agree with it--I 
think that the Catholic Church is the test case for whether modernity 
carries everything before it. If it does that will be a real 
catastrophe, because modernity won't last because it's antihuman. 
If there's nothing else to take its place when it collapses because 
it's destroyed all other organized ways of thinking then we'll 
be left with nothing but violence, anarchy and irrationality.

jk

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From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Fri Jul 26 10:10:28 2002
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Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 12:10:25 -0400 (EDT)
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From: Jim Kalb 
To: we
Subject: Re: essay
Status: O

It's hard to tell. Enforced PC seems stronger in Europe, in part I
suppose because the Europeans are so used to the idea that the state
should run everything. I agree that the huge difference between public
and private opinion is important. It means that a great deal can be
gained by publicly articulating and justifying non-PC opinion. It can
give others the ability and courage to say what they think.

Just noticed this piece on the new UK rape study:

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006D9AB.htm

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Tue Jul 30 05:00:48 2002
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Date: 30 Jul 2002 07:00:46 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: liberalism and multiculturalism (forwarded from )
To: jkalb@nyx.net
Status: O

Interesting point.

One issue that occurred to me while writing the comment was what 
happens to the deified Other. I suppose one answer is that just 
as the religion of the WASP majority becomes worship of the Other 
the religion of the Other (of the designated sacred minorities) 
becomes acceptance of their own deification and devotion to the 
triumph of God--that is, since they are now God, going for whatever 
they can get by whatever means come to hand.

Still, it all seems terribly unstable. The long-term trend toward 
isolated individuals who are both identical to each other and 
infinitely distant from each other still seems to me far the 
stronger. Other-worship would then become not multiculturalism 
but altrism (literally, "otherism") and radical environmentalism.

From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Sun Aug  4 16:33:22 2002
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Message-id: <14357667@doc.Dartmouth.ORG>
Date: 04 Aug 2002 18:33:17 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: liberal tyranny
To: jo
Status: O

--- You wrote:
 I would have thought that Mrs Thatcher would have ben an exemplar for all
conservatives everywhere.  It is true that the present British Conservative
Party leadership are simply nervous twits but, in Tony Blair, Britain still has
a distinguished conservative leader (Unusually for Britain, he is even a
regular churchgoer, you will be pleased to hear).
--- end of quote ---

Hello!

Mrs. Thatcher was an admirable woman but not really an exemplar. Besides, she's
been out of power for quite a while now. As to the aspects of her work that
have lived on, opposition to socialism and acceptance of fairly free markets
are not the whole of conservatism. Even though Blair accepts those things, I
don't view him as conservative. For reasons to think Mrs. T is not a true
exemplar and Mr. B not conservative at all I suppose you could look at Peter
Hitchens' Abolition of Britain.

>From your paper, it seems that you view the Left as basically a psychological
disorder, and the Right as defined by realism and acceptance of an ancient
Germanic political tradition that emphasizes individual rights. I see things
differently. Grand enduring international oppositions like liberalism v.
conservatism can't normally be explained by some quirk of psychology. What is
behind them is more likely to be differences regarding fundamental issues like
the nature of man, the world, human knowledge etc.

Left liberalism seems to me a natural development of a tradition of thought
that goes back to Locke,  Hobbes and beyond. That tradition seems to me closely
related to ways of thought characteristic of modern natural science and
modernity generally. So I view Leftists as much more intelligent and principled
than you do, at least in aspiration, although I do think that their tradition
of thought has become terminally incoherent. (For a development of these
thoughts see
http://www.counterrevolution.net/kalb_texts/lib_ideal_reality.html.)

In a nutshell, it seems to me that when you make subjective human experience
and formal logic the sole criterion of truth (Descartes) and make power the
purpose of knowledge (Machiavelli, Bacon) you end up reducing morality and
politics to human desire, technological possibility, and formal principles like
equality. But that's a description of contemporary managerial liberalism, at
least in aspiration--give everybody what he wants equally through comprehensive
rational control of everything.

Conservatism in contrast seems to me the surviving recognition that truth,
knowledge and the moral and political good can't be reduced to the clear
comprehensive manipulable system that modern thought aims at. We can approach
such things, especially through tradition, but there's a lot in them that
forever escapes us. So conservatism involves a recognition that part of what
constitutes the world is goods that transcend us--we didn't make them, we
cannot fully know them, but they nonetheless oblige us. Hence the view that
religion is essential to conservatism.

Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right Weblog: http://counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Sun Aug  4 17:41:15 2002
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Date: 04 Aug 2002 19:41:11 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: what's wrong with the church
To: la
Status: O

I think it's a good idea for the Church as a whole to define doctrine when
necesary (in the course of 2000 years there have been a lot of occasions on
which it's been necessary) and be able to respond to various sort of
objections. When you do that you necessarily use technical language.So far as I
can tell "transubstantiation" is just a formal way of saying the bread and wine
have truly changed and become the body and blood of Christ even though they
don't appear to have changed. I don't see a problem with the formalization.

I do think that esp. since Vat II there's been a collapse of catechesis in the
Church, and a continuing attack by Church experts and bureaucrats on concrete
lived Catholic culture. Still, the same thing has happened in Anglicanism,and
it seems to me the availability of precisely defined doctrines has enabled the
Romans to weather the  common catastrophe better. 

jk

Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right Weblog: http://counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Mon Aug  5 08:21:38 2002
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To: 
Subject: Re: liberal tyranny
Status: O

I think "external prop" is misleading. Government and other social 
institutions are always based on some understanding of what man, 
the world and the good are. Such things are not add-ons to government. 
Also, we are social beings so the assumptions on which the institutions 
of our society are based are not external props of our own understanding 
of things. Our society and therefore those assumptions and institutions 
help make us what we are.

That's the objection I raised to strict Hayekian libertarianism--it 
can't exist without allegiance to particular social traditions 
that make the market and orderly government possible, but if 
social traditions are completely external to the individual it's 
hard to understand why he would have any allegiance to them.

jk

From kalb@aya.yale.edu  Mon Aug  5 07:23:03 2002
Return-Path: 
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 09:22:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jim Kalb 
To: jo
Status: O

"jr" writes:

  jr> We both reject liberalism because of its procrustean
  jr> (oversimplifying) tendencies. As fellow conservatives, we both
  jr> seem to agree that the way to organize the good life is infinitely
  jr> complex and not reducible to any simple "one size fits all"
  jr> formula. And we therefore believe that the individual must be free
  jr> to seek and find his own conception of the good.

I most likely would mean the last sentence in a much more limited sense
than you. The seeking and finding don't take place in a vacuum, and
individual conceptions can be stupid or wrong and can be known by others
to be so. Also, government and other social institutions inevitably
favor some conceptions over others, so a particular understanding of the
good is always implicit in them.

  jr> Like Burke, you however see the complexity of life and the
  jr> unanalysable nature of the good as footprints of the divine
  jr> whereas I am more Hayekian and see it as simply another example of
  jr> how easily complex systems can have unpredictable outcomes -- as
  jr> in chaos theory.

  jr> I guess you are right, though, in saying that I do share with
  jr> liberals the view that human happiness is the ultimate good. I
  jr> just think that the path to maximizing it is much more fluid and
  jr> complex than they ever imagine.

I don't think a pure Hayekian/libertarian view stands up. Hayek
recognized that allegiance to a complex of traditions and moral
standards the origin and justification of which is opaque to the
individual is necessary for a market society to work. I don't see how
that allegiance can endure if the good is a matter of people getting
what they want and everyone can define his own.

  jr> If it is consistent with your aims, you might want to consider
  jr> linking my paper to your site as an alternative view of the
  jr> liberal downfall.

It's a good paper with a lot of interesting material intelligently
arranged, so most likely I will.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Mon Aug  5 08:00:25 2002
Return-Path: 
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 10:00:20 -0400
To: 
From: 
Subject: Fwd: Re: liberal tyranny
Status: RO

"jr" writes:

  jr> We both reject liberalism because of its procrustean
  jr> (oversimplifying) tendencies. As fellow conservatives, 
we both
  jr> seem to agree that the way to organize the good life is 
infinitely
  jr> complex and not reducible to any simple "one size fits 
all"
  jr> formula. And we therefore believe that the individual must 
be free
  jr> to seek and find his own conception of the good.

I most likely would mean the last sentence in a much more limited
sense than you. The seeking and finding don't take place in a vacuum,
and individual conceptions can be stupid or wrong and can be known by
others to be so. Also, government and other social institutions
inevitably favor some conceptions over others, so a particular
understanding of the good is always implicit in them.

  jr> Like Burke, you however see the complexity of life and 
the
  jr> unanalysable nature of the good as footprints of the divine
  jr> whereas I am more Hayekian and see it as simply another 
example of
  jr> how easily complex systems can have unpredictable outcomes 
-- as
  jr> in chaos theory.

  jr> I guess you are right, though, in saying that I do share 
with
  jr> liberals the view that human happiness is the ultimate 
good. I
  jr> just think that the path to maximizing it is much more 
fluid and
  jr> complex than they ever imagine.

I don't think a pure Hayekian/libertarian view stands up. Hayek
recognized that allegiance to a complex of traditions and moral
standards the origin and justification of which is opaque to the
individual is necessary for a market society to work. I don't see how
that allegiance can endure if the good is a matter of people getting
what they want and everyone can define his own.

  jr> If it is consistent with your aims, you might want to consider
  jr> linking my paper to your site as an alternative view of 
the
  jr> liberal downfall.

It's a good paper with a lot of interesting material intelligently
arranged, so most likely I will.

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr


From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Wed Aug  7 06:54:08 2002
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Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 8:54:05 -0400
To: 
From: 
Subject: Re: The great American sense of humour
Status: RO

Looks to me more like an article on the decline of an obstinate, 
narrowminded and somewhat lawless form of local class solidarity 
that, as the writer points out disapprovingly, didn't emphasize 
feminism or antiracism.

= = = Original message = = =


The link below has got an article about the decline of Leftism 
in the UK

http://www.spiked-online.com/




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From: Jim Kalb 
To: g
Subject: Telos piece
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Status: RO

Since what you wrote was so substantive I thought I should put a
response together. I'm not sure what form it'll take--maybe just
something on my web site or conceivably it might turn into something
publishable.

Anyway, here are some initial thoughts that you might find worth
reading. Any criticisms would be welcome.

1. I don't suggest that liberals are at all likely to "admit their
errors and turn elsewhere for social and moral solutions." Instead, I
predict "incoherence, arbitrariness and the reign of brute fact," a
politics that is "increasingly unprincipled and brutal," and
unsuccessful attempts by intellectuals to reinvent liberalism in a way
that mitigates the problems while preserving the ultimate commitment to
equal freedom. (Communitarianism and various neoconservatisms would be
examples.)

The thought behind the pieces in Modern Age and Telos is that current
problems result from something so basic and enduring in our outlook
today that we're not going to be able to think our way out of them
collectively in any coherent way, through gradual changes in what
experts and academics tell us or whatever. I do say things will
eventually change and something else will arise, but mostly because
nothing lasts forever especially when it's radically flawed. As you
note, I make no specific predictions.

2. I don't speak of equal and consubstantial liberals or claim there is
a constant liberal belief system. I say that the liberalism we have
today is better understood as a consequence of the development and
growing influence of the same turn of thought that gave rise to
classical liberalism than as a concatenation of particular institutions,
practices, attitudes, etc. that happen to come together and somehow took
on a particular name as a result of various historical contingencies.

Naturally there is a great deal more to political life than a turn of
thought manifested in preferred language (e.g., "freedom and equality")
and forms of argument (e.g., something is good because it is part of the
right to do as one chooses consistent with equal freedom for others).
Vocabulary and forms of argument are always mixed with a huge mass of
other things that determine their practical effect. Further, those who
adopt a political language and preferred form of argument, and so adopt
and develop a political tradition, may use it for ulterior purposes or
feel the need to limit its implications or to find a way to preserve
something they value that's not really consistent with it. Sometimes the
attempt to limit or redirect the tradition overpowers its basic logic
and sometimes it doesn't. (Attempts to create a Christian socialism or a
free and democratic socialism are examples of attempts to reform a
tradition that fail because of the tradition's basic logic.)

3. How one interprets a tradition inevitably depends on how things have
actually turned out. So the problem is how to tell whether (i) time
reveals truth, so if something is as comprehensively dominant and
apparently deeply based as managerial liberalism then the steps by which
it has achieved dominance should be seen as steps by which what was
implicit became actual, or (ii) history is contingent, and everything
could have turned out otherwise, so genealogies are spurious that pick
out a line of development that starts in the distant past and leads
through profound transformations to the present.

I am sympathetic to (i) at least in some cases. It seems to me that
there are fundamental understandings about things like what sorts of
things exist and how we know about them that are normally quite stable,
and when they change it has an enormous cumulative effect that can take
centuries to develop fully. As such fundamental changes play themselves
out they cause and color social transformations. It seems to me
liberalism arises out of one such change in fundamental understanding,
the one that also gave rise to modern natural science. The point of the
recent Telos piece was to outline those connections and show why I think
liberalism as we have it today is a true development of a distinct
modern line of thought that runs through Bacon and Descartes as well as
Hobbes and Locke.

The question is difficult, since the issues are so all-embracing and
history can't be rerun to verify what really caused what and how the
results might have been different. The closest one can come is to point
to past theories of longterm social evolution that seem somehow to have
been borne out by events. Tocqueville for example thought there had been
a trend toward equality since the early Middle Ages that was likely to
end in a custodial state and clientized populace. That has in fact
happened. Plato thought that once an orientation toward transcendent
good had been abandoned society by stages would reorient itself toward
honor, then wealth, and then the equal enjoyment of pleasures, and at
last would fall into comprehensive disorder and fall prey to the
strongest obsession. His description of democratic society, the one
defined by equality of pleasures, does have resemblances to current
multicultural PC liberalism. Marxists at least would see a resemblance
between the preceding wealth-oriented oligarchical state and classical
liberalism.

4. You say that recent changes in the practical content of "liberalism"
show only that "those in charge are free to jerk around their subjects."
Then you say that the changes are in a consistent direction and that
they show the necessary direction of a perpetually revolutionary regime.
And after that you say that things might have nonetheless stuck with
interwar social democracy. The statements don't seem consistent. More
importantly, it seems to me that contemporary liberalism is much more
principled than you suggest. It may be that an ordinary EU citizen
accepts various changes because he's servile, but how do party leaders,
academics, judges etc. know what changes to force on him? There's no
Central Committee or other formal method of decision. Nonetheless,
everyone knows what's PC and people are convinced of its unquestionable
rightness and necessity. To my mind that shows that even today
liberalism has a clear internal logic and is not simply a matter of
who's boss.

5. It doesn't seem to me that managerial liberalism openly opposes
rationality and liberty. If (as I argue) rational pursuit of equal
freedom as the single ultimate political standard leads in the end to
comprehensive despotism, then there's no need for open opposition. You
can plausibly claim almost anything is rationally required to root out
oppression and build equal freedom. And that's what people do claim.
Amnesty International and the ACLU, single-issue pro-liberty groups, are
fully on board with managerial liberalism. The ACLU denounces cutbacks
in affirmative action, and Amnesty International thinks criticism of
ritual Muslim slaughter of animals is an oppressive hate crime. They may
redefine liberty, but they still claim to support it.

My view of this may be affected by the fact that I'm a lawyer and not an
academic. Academics who want to get tenure and silence their opponents
may oppose rationality and liberty openly because it saves them the
trouble of presenting evidence and arguments. Lawyers and judges can't
do that but have to claim that what they want follows rationally from
general principles like liberty that no one can object to. Also, one of
the points of my Telos piece is that even if someone claims to be a
postmodern rejecter of Cartesian rationality or whatever the practical
effect is always to strengthen liberalism because to do anything
effective he has to join with others, and what distinguishes liberalism
is its claim to offer a way to do so while minimizing substantive common
commitments.

6. If classical liberalism lacked a certain fundamental integrity, so
that it naturally collapsed into contemporary liberalism, why (you ask)
couldn't something similar be said about conservatism or Christianity?

My reply is that there seems something inherently unstable about making
freedom, equality, or a combination of the two the final standards.
They're too abstract and necessarily at odds with essential features of
government, inequality and coercion. I agree conservatism doesn't really
stand up by itself either, at least in a generally liberal environment.
All it's been able to do is drag its feet. It seems to me though that
the same objections don't apply to Christians who recognize the
authority of the Roman magisterium, or of a settled and rather demanding
conception of tradition (the Eastern Orthodox), or even of the Bible as
interpreted by the reader or congregation. In the case of Christianity
the loyalty is to something much more complex and concrete than an
interpretation of formal and in fact rather empty concepts like liberty
and equality. I agree there's a lot in contemporary liberalism that has
Christian sources. It seems to me though that Christian orthodoxy as
well as free-floating Christian heresy is possible.

7. It seems to me that you'd like to maintain some sort of classical
liberalism as an enduring orthodoxy to provide a standard for the good
society. Maybe there's a way of conceiving classical liberalism that
makes that possible. I'm mostly struck though by the apparent reluctance
of liberals generally to state some substantive good with respect to
which liberty is to be defined and to which it is to be subordinated.
For liberals of all stripes it seems that liberty is the ultimate
political good. It seems though that as an ultimate good liberty can't
be clearly subordinated to something substantive because then that other
thing would be the ultimate political good. But if it can't be
subordinated it tends to make itself more and more absolute and in the
long run ends up as an unlimited right to do whatever one chooses
(limited by a structure that maximizes that right equally for all). Or
so it appears to me.

8. You think I'm confused, ignorant or wrong. Is it because you think
the idea of a change in fundamental philosophical presumptions appearing
and then taking centuries fully to transform inherited institutions and
understandings is silly, because nothing of the sort has any connection
to liberalism, or what? If such a thing did happen, and someone said
"hey it happened," how could it be determined whether he was right?
Could the objections you're making be made equally cogently? Or is the
notion that such a thing could happen meaningless?

Enough though. Thanks again for your comments, and I'd be grateful for
any additional ones.

jk

-- 
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
View from the Right weblog: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr

From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Sat Aug 24 16:12:08 2002
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The libertarians are so dogmatic. I suppose the problem is that 
in creating a cityscape one's use of property affects others 
in all sorts of ways so their view has a hard time dealing with 
it except in the case of a developer building a town de novo 
on a single piece of property who's trying to find the rules 
that will maximize value for purchasers and tenants.

Maybe I'm reading too much of the simulated society business 
into it but it seems that the New Urb. could work with somewhat 
simple standards (e.g., no more than 5 stories) rather than detailed 
planning so that the ultimate cityscape would still be something 
evolved. That might mollify some moderate libertarians somewhat. 
The intention after all is to reject modernist totalitarianism 
and facilitate the organic growth of complex human interactions. 
That requires certain abstract rules, as Hayek tells us. One 
could I suppose have a Hayekian New Urbanism inspired by simulated 
society thinking that attempts to specify a minimum set of constraints 
that results in a maximally livable urban space.

The simulated society piece reminds me that I wrote something 
several years ago about this emergent complexity business, a 
review of K. Kelley's Out of Control ( http://www.counterrevolution.net/kalb_t
exts/out_of_control.html ). The review ends by suggesting that 
classical political thought has to do with dealing with situations 
that are out of control because they're complex and have organic 
aspects so why not look at that.

jk

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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Sun Aug 25 12:54:19 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
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I see it differently. It seems to me liberalism is a philosophical
rather than psychological disorder.  The logos you mention is a
philosophical criterion rather than a psychological impulse.
Liberalism is a result of trying to make sense of the world given a
defective ontology (one lacking the transcendent) and a
correspondingly defective epistemology. Since we don't have access to
anything that transcends our subjectivity the only truths we can
attain are (i) formal truths like the truths of mathematics and (ii)
subjective states, such as sights, sounds and basic pains and
pleasures, that are relably shared by all. Given those fundamental
commitments liberals will view qualitative and substantive moral
distinctions, as well as any restrictions on individuality based on
the notion of participation in a larger whole, as arbitrary and unjust
and try to do away with them as much as possible. It's true the
liberal criterion of acceptability drives liberals to conceptually
incoherent results, but that doesn't mean the criterion itself is
incoherent or the mere expression of psychological disorder.

jk


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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Sun Aug 25 13:07:43 2002
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Date: 25 Aug 2002 15:07:39 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re: liberal and leftist
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All I'd add is that liberals have more a feeling for the paradox of
forcing people to be free--if your ultimate standard is liberation of
desire you have to take existing patterns of habit and desire into
account and not override them altogether immediately. Also for the
practicalities of political transformation when there is in fact no
finished social technology. You have to feel your way forward step by
step. There may also be an implicit sense that the common goals they
share with the leftists may be unrealizable, or involve repellant
things that liberals don't want to look at. I agree the differences
are differences of emphasis and degree.

jk

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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Mon Aug 26 06:04:06 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
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They tolerate business because of its practical necessity. They were
happy to experiment with public ownership and would have expanded it
indefinitely if it could have been made to work. The difference on
this point reflects the other differences I mentioned, liberals'
greater moderation, their greater feeling for the difficulty of
forcing men to be free and for the practical problems of achieving
their goals immediately, directly and comprehensively. Otherwise I
don't see a difference of principle. Liberals do not now believe in a
right of property as such.

jk


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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Mon Aug 26 09:22:07 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
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They believe in comfort and being taken care of and doing whatever
they want to do and (as a practical matter) in special privileges for
themselves personally that are not squarely called such.  You can get
those things more reliably by being part of a nomenclatura though than
through the institution of property as such.

Property rights simply as such are never an issue for liberals. Think
of govt regulations. It is not an issue at all whether they violate
property rights but only whether they achieve their goal effectively.

Sorry about the email formatting--I've been having connectivity and other computer problems, and 
we're getting ready to get our daughter Emma off to college so I haven't had time to fix them.

Jim

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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Wed Aug 28 08:14:30 2002
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From: 
Subject: Re: Rory Dickson and the Jews (sounds like the title of a Commentary article)
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I don't read him the way you do. His reference to things in the 
Torah and Talmud was a response to Brewer's claim that the Koran 
has bad stuff in it that has no parallel in the sacred writings 
of either Judaism or Christianity. Brewer specifically mentioned 
the Torah in that connection.

Dickson's basic view seems to be that of an Integral Traditionlist 
a la Schuon:

http://www.counterrevolution.net/cgi-bin/mt/fs/fcp.pl?words=dickson&d=/000526.
html

As such he thinks there's one primordial religion and one primordial 
tradition variously articulated. His main point here seems to 
be that religions with a strong this-worldly component like Islam 
and Judaism (which for example include a comprehensive code of 
law binding on those who accept the religion) have to deal concretely 
with participation in war and violence and so sometimes say bloody 
things. They're different from Buddhism and Christianity in that 
respect he says.

Whether he's right or wrong I don't see him as antiJewish or 
antisemitic.

jk

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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org  Wed Aug 28 18:07:57 2002
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The only enforceable rules they like are the rules of property. 
I suppose those are abstract. I think it's less abstraction that 
is the problem than government discretion. The rules have to 
be general rules applicable to all that arise the way social 
conventions arise when people deal with each other and develop 
common understandings and habits that reduce conflict and promote 
cooperation.

One wonders if the gap could at least be narrowed. The rules 
of property include the law of nuisance for example, which forbids 
or at least makes actionable various ways of using one's property 
that reduce the value of another's property--using an open area 
in a residential area as a garbage dump for example. So the question 
is how much one would have to stretch the law of nuisance to 
make it include things like building something over 5 stories 
or a cul de sac or otherwise violating the New Urbanist principles 
that the property owners in an area live by.

jk

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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Mon Sep  2 14:18:50 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Jim's post on Mrs. Robinson and my comment
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But presumably food, shelter, work etc. don't mean just any old f, s, w etc. but something corresponding to full participation 
as a  fellow citizen in world society.

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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Wed Sep  4 05:50:53 2002
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Date: 04 Sep 2002 07:50:51 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Faith and Doubt
To: l
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I had heard a couple of lead-ins on the radio, some lady saying "where
was that nice loving man [God] I had been talking to all those
years--after that I couldn't believe any more..."

After you called I went down and watched it for a few minutes. They
had the Jewish Conservative rabbi who talked about his
three-times-a-day "Hear O Israel" prayer and how "One God" means
pantheism and human love and then chanted some extracts from phone
messages from those who were to die. After that they got off onto
evil, the devil, etc.

Where had those people been all those years? Hadn't they noticed that
utterly horrible things happen? Hadn't they noticed that everyone
dies? For that matter, what had they been getting out of the religion
they professed? God tortured to death is the center of
Christianity. Life in Old Testament times wasn't always a laff-a-minit
and the psalms, prophets etc. deal with it. I always thought that's
why people still read them today.

So one thing the show showed was the triviality of much religious life
today. It's purely decorative.  It can't stand up to recognition of
genuine evil. People can't bear the notion there are basic
problems--it has to be possible to take care of everything. That's
why, on a more everyday level, your fellow parishioners refused to see
anything wrong with co-ed bathrooms in school dorms. If they saw
anything wrong with them then there's be something wrong with how they
were carrying out one of their fundamental responsibilities, looking
after their children.

Maybe one aspect of the show is that TV becomes its own religion. X, Y
and Z say A, B and C, and TV presents them next to each other each on
a par with the others. The real truth therefore becomes the mutual
presence of inconsistent particular statements of the truth. The
latter become relativized and what remains is human striving for truth
tempered by consciousness that one truth is as good as another so all
truths are really just personal assertions. The ultimate truth
therefore becomes recognition that we all make assertions that we must
limit by recognition of their purely personal nature and respect for
the assertions of others. Abstractly speaking, the latter is just
another assertion, but it doesn't appear so because the TV camera
doesn't show the TV camera as proponent of a particular truth.

Do write something up on this. I think I'll touch up what I've just
written and post it to VFR.

jk

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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Sun Sep  8 06:29:52 2002
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Date: 08 Sep 2002 08:29:48 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Fw: Steven Yates
To: la
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I think you judge him too harshly. He doesn't suggest the state or the
army as such is absolute evil or that McVeigh shouldn't have been
executed. He does come too close to saying that the Gulf War, Waco and
the Randy Weaver situation (together with what he views as the
unconstitutional abolition of the Old Republic) show the US govt to be
nothing more than a criminal conspiracy so that the purpose of the US
military is terrorizing domestic separatists and bombing govt
buildings in Baghdad and Belgrad to destroy people and institutions
who get in our way and that's just like the OKC bombing. He didn't
seem to view that as simply a rhetorical provocation although it's not
clear how far he'd go with it.

What I infer is that he's fallen into bad company and overly-polemical
habits and sometimes says stupid things. Like most Americans he
underestimates man's social nature and the necessity of authority and
organized society generally. Also, he seems to think what he calls the
"bush" can be definitively and altogether excluded from human society,
so he sets his standard for government legitimacy too high. Those are
indeed libertarian vices and he shares in them. A man should be judged
by the bulk of his work though and not by the worst things he ever
says.

jk


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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Fri Sep 20 12:15:13 2002
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Date: 20 Sep 2002 14:15:08 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Secession
To: l
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Before the last meeting at La Bonne Soupe we touched on a question
about secession, whether the states had the legal right to
secede. After thinking about it some it seems to me they probably did.

The thought is that the Constitution seems based on the notion that
the people of each of the states meeting in convention had the power
to abandon the union created by the Articles of Confederation and set
up a different sort of union among the (9 or more) states agreeing to
it. That power was not based on any explicit law, and was at odds with
the terms of the "perpetual" Articles of Confederation, so it was
apparently conceived as a sort of original preconstitutional right
that the people of New York etc. had just because they were a
political people. If that's right, and the Constitution draws its
authority from an original constitution-making right of the peoples of
the states, why should it be thought to abrogate that right?

I suppose what lies behind this line of thought is a view that the
primary substantive political communities involved, in 1787 and still
in 1860, were the states. That seems to be the view taken by the 1787
constitution itself, in its method of adoption and its principle of
creating by agreement a purely secular union of delegated and limited
powers.

jk

From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Fri Sep 20 19:56:15 2002
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Date: 20 Sep 2002 21:56:11 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Secession
To: l
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I'm not persuaded by Lincoln's arguments. In what follows I 
quote them and give my comments in brackets. Incidentally, 
I didn't say I was pro-secessionist, only that it seems to 
me that under the 1787 constitution states could secede by 
act of a convention of their people. Legal powers can of 
course be exercised in ways that are imprudent, wrongful, 
satanically evil, whatever. Anyway, here's the argument and 
commentary:

Our States have neither more, nor less power, than that 
reserved to them, in the Union, by the Constitution---no 
one of them ever having been a State out of the Union.

[But the rights of the states, which existed before the 
Constitution, weren't created by the Constitution. The 
Constitution is a grant of powers to the federal 
government, not to the states. If something isn't mentioned 
it's therefore reserved to the states. See Amendment X. So 
far as I can tell, Amendment X is only declaratory and it 
means that whatever the states might have done without 
respect to the Constitution they can still do under it 
unless the Constitution says otherwise.]

The original ones passed into the Union even before they 
cast off their British colonial dependence; and the new 
ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of 
dependence, excepting Texas.

[He seems to be saying that political societies (the 
states) became members of the greater political society 
formed by their union (the Union) even though at the time 
they were not yet in existence because they were still 
wholly subordinate to some other political society (Great 
Britain). I don't see what he can mean. I would think that 
to form a union the members must first exist. Ex nihil 
nihil fit. The union would then acquire whatever the 
members granted it. As to the new states, they acquired 
whatever status the old ones had, so they seem irrelevant 
to the question of the status of states in the federal 
union.]

The new ones only took the designation of States, on coming 
into the Union, while that name was first adopted for the 
old ones, in, and by, the Declaration of Independence. 
Therein the "United Colonies'' were declared to be "Free 
and Independent States''; but, even then, the object 
plainly was not to declare their independence of one 
another, or of the Union; but directly the contrary, as 
their mutual pledge, and their mutual action, before, at 
the time, and afterwards, abundantly show.

[I suppose they first called themselves states--independent 
political societies--in the D of I. That was after Lincoln 
says the union was established, so I'm not sure why he says 
they took the designation of states on coming into the 
union. He's right of course that the function of the D. of 
I. was not to declare the mutual independence of the 
states. I don't see why that would have been necessary. At 
the time of the D. of I. so far as I know there was nothing 
that created a binding union. Also, the D. of I. seems to 
recognize the individual independence of the states. It 
says "these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be 
Free and Independent States [with] full Power to levy War, 
conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and 
to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States 
may of right do." So far as I can tell, the intention was 
to say that each of the colonies was now a state--an 
independent political society. What else could they have 
meant by the expression "state"? The states were of course 
mutually pledged to cooperate in a common struggle, but so 
were the United Nations in WWII.]

The express plighting of faith, by each and all of the 
original thirteen, in the Articles of Confederation, two 
years later, that the Union shall be perpetual, is most 
conclusive.

[But it was only 2 years after the D. of I. that they set 
up a binding union. So when they became independent it 
appears that such a union didn't exist. Also, the states 
didn't view themselves as bound by the "perpetual" Articles 
of Confederation when they decided to throw those articles 
aside and set up a new arrangement among 9 or more states. 
State conventions trumped the perpetual articles and if 
some of the states didn't like the new venture then too bad 
for them. To me that seems a very strong argument in favor 
of the legitimacy under the 1787 constitution of secession 
and creation of the Confederacy.]

Having never been States, either in substance, or in name, 
outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence 
of "State rights,'' asserting a claim of power to lawfully 
destroy the Union itself? Much is said about 
the "sovereignty'' of the States; but the word, even, is 
not in the national Constitution; nor, as is believed, in 
any of the State constitutions. What is a "sovereignty,'' 
in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong 
to define it "A political community, without a political 
superior''? Tested by this, no one of our States, except 
Texas, ever was a sovereignty.

[The founders of the United States thought otherwise. 
Article 2 of the Articles of Confederation says "Each state 
retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and 
every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this 
Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in 
Congress assembled."]

The Union is older than any of the States; and, in fact, it 
created them as States. Originally, some dependent colonies 
made the Union; and, in turn, the Union threw off their old 
dependence, for them, and made them States, such as they 
are.

[I just don't understand the claim that a union is older 
than and has superior ontological status to the members 
that created it.]

Not one of them ever had a State constitution, independent 
of the Union.

[I don't understand this either. Presumably each of them 
upon being declared an independent state by the D. of I. 
had a system of government that was constituted somehow.]

and certainly, a power to destroy the government itself, 
had never been known as a governmental---as a merely 
administrative power.

[But the ordinances of secession didn't destroy government 
any more than the state conventions that adopted the 
constitution, which established a new federal government in 
place of that established by the Articles of Confederation 
in a manner at odds with the Articles of Confederation. And 
very quick-and-dirty research suggests that the ordinances 
of secession were adopted by the people of the seceding 
states in convention. They weren't governmental--merely 
administrative--acts.]

jk

From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG  Sat Sep 21 06:01:27 2002
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Date: 21 Sep 2002 08:01:24 EDT
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Secession
To: l
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On rereading my comments it seems to me they wander in 
various directions not directly called for by Lincoln's 
text. My apologies.

One point that occurs to me--by the time the struggle with 
Great Britain began the separate colonial societies had 
been in existence for up to 150 years. Their religious, 
cultural and political origins and traditions were quite 
distinct. What Lincoln seems to be saying is that all that 
substantive history and development was trumped by a unity 
that was mainly generated by the common struggle for 
political independence from Britain and then by the need to 
establish a stable and unified commercial system and 
provide for the common defense. The basic loyalty of each 
of us should be to the latter rather than the former.

It's true the unity of the United States also depended on 
certain religious, cultural and political commonalities, 
but those commonalities were much thinner than those 
obtaining within the particular states. Also, the federal 
government was not based on them and in some cases was 
forbidden to recognize them (e.g., no religious test for 
public office). So Lincoln's view seems to treat the kinds 
of concerns traditionalist conservatives have as strictly 
subordinate to the kinds of concerns liberalism emphasizes--
freedom, equality and prosperity.

jk



Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.

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