We’ve been standing for a while now at the precipice of a dizzying decline from the world we were born into. Today, Margaret Thatcher died. She is, thanks to the speed of media (is ‘speedia’ a new meme?), already a yellowed and despised artifact of a time we have collectively decided to misremember. Contemporary Brits mock her, if they remember her at all, as our own ‘liberals’ continue to mock Reagan. Even though the two of them, with the help of John Paul II, managed to end one of the most oppressive and murderous regimes in the history of mankind, which also happened to be the greatest military force for the subjugation of humanity yet seen on earth. Rivals to that deadly regime are already preparing their own offensives, one religious and one atheist, and the only nation with the power to stand against them is sunk in indecisive lethargy.
Why? Because the people who are supposed to be the smartest among us are committed to our defeat and destruction.
There will be time later on to explore their motives in greater detail, but the purpose of mentioning this crisis is to explain the existence of this new blog. I spent much of the last decade fighting in the sphere of politics, believing — against the odds — that Americans would vote for their own freedom rather than those who nakedly seek to control every aspect of their lives.
I was fixated on the political threat from the left. In so doing I missed the equally dangerous threat from the right, those who cast themselves as political libertarians in the mold of Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy.
My blindness to the real issues underneath the politics caused me to make significant errors. With my political hat on, I was motivated to understate the extremity of the religious and philosophical divide that has empowered the totalitarians. I failed to apprehend that Randian libertarians are also totalitarians, but either naively or ignorantly unaware of it.
When I encountered a full-on attack from that quarter, I failed to take it seriously. I was dismissive, arrogant, and inattentive. I didn’t even read the posts all the way through. I was wrong in that. More specifically, I was wrong to prefer keeping religion out of the political discussion. I thought it a needless distraction. I was disastrously wrong about that.
Then I got forcibly silenced for a week that seemed like it could be permanent.There were clues I take seriously that I was being told to wake up and smell the coffee.
I have done so. Here are my new premises:
– Almost everything we think of as progress in modern history is a direct function of Christianity.
– Christianity, and its Jewish precursor, is under global attack, from within and without.
– Moral relativism based on identity politics and supposed post-Christian sophistication is nihilist, masochistic, incoherent, and poisonous to freedom.
– The line of defense against a new Dark Age is not defense of all religions, but one religion in particular, Christianity.
– It’s too late for politics to save us. At this moment before we plunge into an epoch of darkness, it’s crucial to remember what made us and what will enable us to survive as individual human beings through the crucible that awaits.
I say this as one whose Christian faith has always been subject to doubt. What I missed in my own internal debates was the strength of an argument I have made repeatedly over the years. Nothing else quite works. It was always a backward proof. Now I’m committed to exploring more positive proofs. Because the extent to which everything else doesn’t work is becoming more dire and horrifying by the day.
That said, this won’t be a blog full of sermons and sententious Bible quotations. That’s not my way. I just want to look at everything from a different, less political and more philosophical perspective. Why are we here and what should we be doing? Does the universe offer any clues? Is science really the enemy of faith? Are physics, mathematics, and poetry merely discrepant absurdist tricks? Or is there a whole we can perhaps (pun intended) divine from our own experience?
I promise not to do any of this without a sense of humor. That particular tone I leave entirely to the atheists, who have proven their humorlessness beyond possibility of any rival.
I can hardly wait. I am really looking forward to this site’s blogs. I believe it will open a whole new arena.
Good luck and may Raebert be with you.
“I just want to look at everything from a different, less political and more philosophical perspective.”
This sounds wonderful, both for us, your readers, and for you. Your premises and new mission are the perfect foundation for a new blog, and I’m here to help in any way that I can.
“Even though the two of them, with the help of John Paul II, managed to end one of the most oppressive and murderous regimes in the history of mankind, which also happened to be the greatest military force for the subjugation of humanity yet seen on earth.”
I have a problem with this statement (even though I agree with it) because I have never seen any American at any place on the political spectrum explain to me how exactly any of us can shirk partial responsibility for allowing the monster of communism to grow. Some were (and are) giddy over the prospect of a ‘worker’s revolution’ in America, like Lillian Hellman or Walter Duranty (or 70% of the Humanities faculty at any State-level diploma mill) but the communists were our formal ally, and at the height of their atrocities (i.e. the Holodomor engineered famine in the Ukraine) we fought to protect and empower them, and we turned a blind eye (especially Ambassador Davies) to their purgings and Kangaroo trials. I understand it was all to stop Hitler, but (and I say this not in defense of Hitler, but in the defense of the ability to apply logic to our history) the Nazis killed far fewer people than the communists. The Russians weren’t even the lesser of two evils. We were aligned with evil to defeat evil.
I agree about Libertarians. They conflate freedom from responsibility with the freedom to pursue one’s goals. Their freedom is my slavery, particularly on the subject of immigration.
I believe the idea of a “Judeo-Christian” anything doesn’t stand up to textual readings of the Bible, or to the observation of the behavior of actual Jews vs. Christians (excepting the link between Fundamentalist Evangelicals and Zionists, which I believe is situational, and destined to collapse), but yeah, I’ll save the Bible Study for another time.
Overall, this RL 2.0 seems to be about ready to become a member of what John Derbyshire called ‘the dark Enlightenment” or a member of what James Howard Kunstler referred to as “the reality party.” You’re a lot closer to the truth now than I gave you credit for back in the day, which makes you a very rare breed among bloggers, on the Left or the Right (if such distinctions still mean anything).
“It’s too late for politics to save us.” I fear you are right, and had come to the same conclusion in these few months following November’s reelection.
The silence at the other site had me concerned – I thought that maybe that was it. I’m very happy to see that the writing continues, so, Robert,thanks once again.
Joe:
Thanks for the kind words.
A few quick points in response. I don’t disagree that Americans and Brits were complicit in the rise of Soviet communism. I said what I said because that was the relevant statement to make. This doesn’t mean I believe we should have tolerated Nazi conquest of Europe. Matters for another day.
Also, I didn’t use the term “Judeo-Christian” in my post, rather specifically if you’ll notice. I referred to the Jewish precursor.
btw, I’m not advocating a Christian theocracy here. I’m hewing to the very old idea that separation of church and state was originally conceived to protect religion from government, not the other way around.
Also, for everyone who reads this comment, I want to make clear that the other site is not dead. I have figured out how to comment. You can too. Your privacy will not be publicly breached. Therefore, I will continue to post there while I post here for the foreseeable future. Visit both to stay up to date.
OK. New website means a fresh start. So I’ll start by affirming a new personal policy: When I disagree, I will state why I disagree, and I won’t be a jerk about it. No matter how much fun it is. I will appreciate, but not demand, that others treat me the same. Fair? Cool.
Robert, you and I want to defend life and civilization. Both of us can admit the other doesn’t harbor any secret death wish. What we disagree on is how to mount that defense. Which means, ultimately, we disagree on what caused civilization, and therefore on what precisely in civilization must be defended most.
*1. Almost everything we think of as progress in modern history is a direct function of Christianity.*
This is our fundamental disagreement. Or at least one of them. I hold progress is a direct function of a lack of constraints on the mind. The less the mind is inhibited by faith or force, the more progress. Period.
A God who mandates intellectual freedom is nice, but not necessary (and not, as I see it, very tenable). J. Random’s objections notwithstanding, Japan and three of the four Asian Tigers are fine examples (I’m not counting Singapore, fuck that shit). Scarcely anything like the Christian God can be found, but their rises to modernity have been spectacular. True, I wouldn’t hold up any of these countries as perfect models by any stretch. You could argue they’re stagnant NOW that they’ve pretty much caught up. But playing catch up in the game of modernization is no mean feat– look how bad most of the rest of the world stinks at it. Japan’s stumbling economy and tumbling birth rates are problems, but those are trifles compared to Latin America’s poverty and dictatorships. And Latin America has plenty of Christian God. Japan = First World without God. Latin America = Third World with God (and with too few exceptions in it to disprove the rule).
There’s an even better Eastern proof that progress is neither inherent nor exclusive to Christianity: Byzantium.
You’ve insisted the Dark Ages can be better understood as recovery from Roman desolation than as a regression imposed by Christianity. Even if we accept that, the East had none of the West’s excuses. Rome hardly decimated Constantinople the same way she decimated Germany and the Celts. Christianity thrived there unmolested for centuries. We’ll even leave out the Arab Wars and the Crusades, to give the Empire the maximum benefit of the doubt. For six hundred years, the Christian East was healthy, prosperous– and stagnant. (Sure, the Plague of Justinian kicked the East’s ass in the 6th Century, but the long-blighted West managed to start its Renaissance DURING the Black Death.) There don’t seem to have been any Byzantine philosophical innovators at all– where was their Plato, their Thales, their Bacon, or even their Dante? But maybe theology was the philosophy of the age. OK then. Name six Byzantine theologians– that’s just ONE thinker for each prosperous century– that contributed significantly to Christianity as we know it.
And where was their SCIENCE? Unlike the West, they shouldn’t have needed a Renaissance to spark a scientific revolution or Enlightenment. If Christianity was going to spark “almost everything we think of as progress,” it had ample opportunity to do so. And do so A THOUSAND YEARS earlier than it happened in Europe. What were Byzantium’s unique contributions to civilization? They did invent hospitals as we know them. Great! What else? Once every century, they’d build the Hagia Sophia or somesuch awesome building. Which required them to blow the dust off the old mathematics books left behind by the pagan Greeks. Anything else? At all?
I simply don’t see how “Christianity caused civilization” passes historical muster.
*2. – Christianity, and its Jewish precursor, is under global attack, from within and without.*
Agreed. Though I think when any religion steps outside its proper sphere of private conviction, it ought to be repelled. (I can understand you taking issue with this if you think objectivity about religion is impossible. We’ll talk this over in the coming weeks.) (If by “Jewish precursor” you mean Israel, I agree we should defend the hell out of her.)
*3. Moral relativism based on identity politics and supposed post-Christian sophistication is nihilist, masochistic, incoherent, and poisonous to freedom.*
Agreed. But how not-relative is a morality based on faith? Seems to me like out of the frying pan, back into the fire.
*4. The line of defense against a new Dark Age is not defense of all religions, but one religion in particular, Christianity.*
Like I said, I don’t see it.
*5. It’s too late for politics to save us. At this moment before we plunge into an epoch of darkness, it’s crucial to remember what made us and what will enable us to survive as individual human beings through the crucible that awaits.*
Couldn’t agree more. Team Philosophy!
You also have an unstated sixth premise: If there is no God, then totalitarianism is the natural and inevitable coagulation of human society. In other words, if there is no God, then Marx must be right, and the most abysmal implications of materialism must be true.
For reasons I’ve tried to outline in the past, I think the opposite is the case. Anyone who understands God isn’t here and who *wants* to live will necessarily gravitate toward a robust model of individual rights.
I should share my own premises. Fair’s fair.
1. The human mind is the real engine of human progress. When left unconstrained, it tends toward achievement, prosperity, and liberty– both for the self and for others. Any belief system– Christian, Islamic, atheist, prudish “hardline” Objectivism, whatever– that constrains free inquiry is bad.
2. Since God is, by theists’ own admission, unprovable, no one is obligated to consider Him. Very simplified, this is why morality *must* have a foundation in something other than God. Something reasonably incontestable. I’m compelled to accept the principle found in Hitchens’s Razor: “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Likewise, what can be asserted by maybes can be dismissed by maybes. Maybes won’t do.
3. What can be proven, or demonstrated, should be accepted.
4. Freedom of religion should be defended, but that’s not the same as imposing a tenet of faith on society at large. Separation of church and state ought to protect one from the other equally (again, as far as possible).
5. Along with the unconstrained mind, Ayn Rand’s core ethic– Neither sacrifice yourself to others, nor sacrifice others to yourself– is indispensible to human thriving. Under this code, totalitarianism is not possible. She got it right.
That’ll do to start. I’m putting the finishing touches on an InstaPunk post that goes into further detail on some of these matters.
Very much looking forward to continuing this conversation. And I guess it won’t kill me to crack a smile every now and then.
You’re a post behind. I appreciate the new civility. I promise to reciprocate. But as I said, you’re a post behind.
If it makes you feel any better, I’m finally taking you seriously. Which means I get less nasty and more intent. I feel bad for you.
“Almost everything we think of as progress in modern history is a direct function of Christianity.*
This is our fundamental disagreement. Or at least one of them. I hold progress is a direct function of a lack of constraints on the mind. The less the mind is inhibited by faith or force, the more progress. Period.
[A platitude. Period. Without faith or force, the mind is flaccid. All that’s left are appetites. What constrains appetites? How? Why? Beat your gums all you want to about this but you have no answer that isn’t ivory tower bullshit.]
A God who mandates intellectual freedom is nice, but not necessary (and not, as I see it, very tenable). J. Random’s objections notwithstanding, Japan and three of the four Asian Tigers are fine examples (I’m not counting Singapore, fuck that shit). Scarcely anything like the Christian God can be found, but their rises to modernity have been spectacular.
[Spectacular. Capitalism uninformed by Christianity. Love the the 99 percent conviction rate of all Japanese brought to trial. Freedom is an illusion we associate with pure capitalism, which I remind you was invented by Christian civilization in the first place, and which does nothing to liberate individuals who are subject to suffocating demands of conformism, collectivist subordination of individuality, and ruthless hierarchy.]
True, I wouldn’t hold up any of these countries as perfect models by any stretch. You could argue they’re stagnant NOW that they’ve pretty much caught up. But playing catch up in the game of modernization is no mean feat– look how bad most of the rest of the world stinks at it. Japan’s stumbling economy and tumbling birth rates are problems, but those are trifles compared to Latin America’s poverty and dictatorships.
[Tumbling birth rates are trifles? Really? Think about it, you who like to think about things. The world of the future ultimately belongs to the peoples who reproduce. The cultures who don’t will cease to exist. But why should anyone reproduce? Children are expensive, difficult, and awful. Without some sense of duty to propagate, the rational answer is not to reproduce. Why Europe in its accelerating atheism has also fallen well below birth rates needed to sustain their cultures. They’re tired of it all. They just want to fuck and drink and spend. Your objectivist utopia, self interest writ large.]
And Latin America has plenty of Christian God. Japan = First World without God. Latin America = Third World with God (and with too few exceptions in it to disprove the rule).
[Welcome to paradise. Japan is obsessed with robots and violent cartoon pornography. Latin America still has Carnivale. Where I’ll be, son, while you’re enjoying the hive mind of Asia.]
There’s an even better Eastern proof that progress is neither inherent nor exclusive to Christianity: Byzantium.
[Excuse me. I was unaware that Byzantium was not Christian. I was also unaware that Byzantium was not highly civilized for the thousand years it persisted after the fall of Rome. But maybe I’m missing your brilliant historical point.]
You’ve insisted the Dark Ages can be better understood as recovery from Roman desolation than as a regression imposed by Christianity. Even if we accept that, the East had none of the West’s excuses. Rome hardly decimated Constantinople the same way she decimated Germany and the Celts. Christianity thrived there unmolested for centuries. We’ll even leave out the Arab Wars and the Crusades, to give the Empire the maximum benefit of the doubt. For six hundred years, the Christian East was healthy, prosperous– and stagnant. (Sure, the Plague of Justinian kicked the East’s ass in the 6th Century, but the long-blighted West managed to start its Renaissance DURING the Black Death.) There don’t seem to have been any Byzantine philosophical innovators at all– where was their Plato, their Thales, their Bacon, or even their Dante? But maybe theology was the philosophy of the age. OK then. Name six Byzantine theologians– that’s just ONE thinker for each prosperous century– that contributed significantly to Christianity as we know it.
[Hmmm. Methinks you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too. Last point first. Is there a need for NEW theology if the old one is working?]
And where was their SCIENCE? Unlike the West, they shouldn’t have needed a Renaissance to spark a scientific revolution or Enlightenment. If Christianity was going to spark “almost everything we think of as progress,” it had ample opportunity to do so. And do so A THOUSAND YEARS earlier than it happened in Europe. What were Byzantium’s unique contributions to civilization? They did invent hospitals as we know them. Great! What else? Once every century, they’d build the Hagia Sophia or somesuch awesome building. Which required them to blow the dust off the old mathematics books left behind by the pagan Greeks. Anything else? At all?
[No new science? By what standard is this a deficiency? Only by Western European standards. In the NEXT millennium. Seems to me the Byzantines had a pretty good thing going. Until the Muslims crashed the party.]
I simply don’t see how “Christianity caused civilization” passes historical muster.
[You simply don’t see much, do you? Greek math was nice, but it was hardly the spark of the Renaissance. Not even algebra, stolen by the Muslims from India, could do that. More was needed. The explosion of intellectual thought in the Renaissance is without precedent. Comparing every other phase of civilization to it and finding those phases wanting is fatuous. Christianity doesn’t necessarily lead to the invention of science, capitalism, and modernity. It’s just that in the case of Western Europe it did. A unique phenomenon. Newton’s articulation of the scientific method was explicitly put in terms of understanding’s God’s creation. The Magna Carta could not have been formulated without Christianity to assert that commoners had some kind of rights. These are stunning and unprecedented innovations. Mostly, the histories of other cultures are dynastic lists, without individuals worthy of remark. Names of people who aren’t royal but talented and special occur very early in Christian Europe. You don’t notice because you’re so used to celebrity. Familiarity breeds contempt. T’was ever so.]
*2. – Christianity, and its Jewish precursor, is under global attack, from within and without.*
Agreed. Though I think when any religion steps outside its proper sphere of private conviction, it ought to be repelled. (I can understand you taking issue with this if you think objectivity about religion is impossible. We’ll talk this over in the coming weeks.) (If by “Jewish precursor” you mean Israel, I agree we should defend the hell out of her.)
[I don’t mean Israel when I speak of Jewish precursor. I mean Judaism.]
*3. Moral relativism based on identity politics and supposed post-Christian sophistication is nihilist, masochistic, incoherent, and poisonous to freedom.*
Agreed. But how not-relative is a morality based on faith? Seems to me like out of the frying pan, back into the fire.
[The single dumbest thing you’ve ever said.]
*4. The line of defense against a new Dark Age is not defense of all religions, but one religion in particular, Christianity.*
Like I said, I don’t see it.
[I know you don’t. I feel sorry for you. Not jeering at you. Everything you are and think of as your own identity is attributable to Christianity, without which the you that despises Christianity would be an impossibility. But you don’t see it. Fish don’t know they live in water. But we’re supposed to be smarter than fish.]
*5. It’s too late for politics to save us. At this moment before we plunge into an epoch of darkness, it’s crucial to remember what made us and what will enable us to survive as individual human beings through the crucible that awaits.*
Couldn’t agree more. Team Philosophy!
You also have an unstated sixth premise: If there is no God, then totalitarianism is the natural and inevitable coagulation of human society. In other words, if there is no God, then Marx must be right, and the most abysmal implications of materialism must be true.
[No. Not that Marx must be right. But that human pretenders to rational superiority will come up with innumerable schemes indistinguishable from Marx. God is necessary to keep human beings from becoming their worst. I ask you: if you thirst, is there no water; if you hunger, is there no food; if you lust is there no sexual outlet; if you — like the overwhelming majority of people who have lived and survived on earth — believe there is a guiding intelligence above us, is there no God.]
For reasons I’ve tried to outline in the past, I think the opposite is the case. Anyone who understands God isn’t here and who *wants* to live will necessarily gravitate toward a robust model of individual rights.
[A “robust model of individual rights.” You sound like a sociology professor.]
I should share my own premises. Fair’s fair.
1. The human mind is the real engine of human progress. When left unconstrained, it tends toward achievement, prosperity, and liberty– both for the self and for others. Any belief system– Christian, Islamic, atheist, prudish “hardline” Objectivism, whatever– that constrains free inquiry is bad.
[Pure banality. I believe in the absolute sanctity of good intentions. And that Any rational construct which makes the clever ones superior to the gullible is bad. Are we even now?]
2. Since God is, by theists’ own admission, unprovable, no one is obligated to consider Him. Very simplified, this is why morality *must* have a foundation in something other than God. Something reasonably incontestable. I’m compelled to accept the principle found in Hitchens’s Razor: “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Likewise, what can be asserted by maybes can be dismissed by maybes. Maybes won’t do.
[Utter nonsense. Unless you regard life as a fucking CNN sound bite. Hell, you can’t prove to me that YOU exist, or even New York City or the physical world outside your senses. So you’re not obliged to consider any of consensus reality and I’m not obliged to consider you. Hitchens’s Razor? Really? Try Hitchens’s baseball bat. I’m sure I’d map my whole life based on a smart turn of phrase by a professional turner of phrases. No evidence? Do you know anything of the unlikely physics of the universe or the bizarre coincidence of the relationship between earth and moon and its crucial catalytic role in the tiny chance that evolution could result in human life in so very few years? No. Because you know so much that you have no way of knowing. Hence your certainty.]
3. What can be proven, or demonstrated, should be accepted.
[What can’t be proven should be automatically rejected. There is no history at all. The universe started two minutes ago. You can’t prove it didn’t.]
4. Freedom of religion should be defended, but that’s not the same as imposing a tenet of faith on society at large. Separation of church and state ought to protect one from the other equally (again, as far as possible).
[Like it’s an equal contest. The ones with all the tanks and guns and laws need to be protected EQUALLY from the ones who believe in a forgiving God and just want to be ledt alone with that belief. Yeah. Sounds dead even to me. ]
5. Along with the unconstrained mind, Ayn Rand’s core ethic– Neither sacrifice yourself to others, nor sacrifice others to yourself– is indispensible to human thriving. Under this code, totalitarianism is not possible. She got it right.
[Crap. It’s a platitude that addresses nothing about government, morality, or human values. It’s a bumper sticker.]
That’ll do to start. I’m putting the finishing touches on an InstaPunk post that goes into further detail on some of these matters.
Very much looking forward to continuing this conversation. And I guess it won’t kill me to crack a smile every now and then.
[ : ) ]