Repost-From The Times Higher Education: Simon Blackburn On The The Atheist/Believer Debate

April 11, 2023 / chr1 / Leave a comment

He appeals to David Hume’s depth and humor.

“But it is not just that old tunes are being replayed, but that they are being replayed badly. The classic performance was given by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, written in the middle of the 18th century. “

and Blackburn’s last paragraph:

“The upshot ought to be not dogmatic atheism, but sceptical irony. Of course, the latter is just as infuriating to those making special claims to authority, perhaps more so. Men and women of God may find it invigorating and bracing to meet disagreement, but even benevolent mockery is mockery. They would find that it is much harder to bear the Olympian gaze of the greatest of British philosophers.”

From The Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy: Charles Sanders Peirce

What The New Atheists Don’t See

Dalrymple claims that the new round of atheists, (or at least some of the current spokesmen of popular atheism) are glossing over the deep metaphysical questions surrounding the existence of God. Very few popular thinkers who attempt to address the depth of the God arguments succeed, but those who do so within Christianity strike me, as does Dinesh D’Souza, as ignoring a few hundred years of thought as they gaze out from within their own doctrines.

Isn’t the pursuit of scientific inquiry and truth (fortunately) a separate enterprise from the religious pursuit of truth?

Some atheists seem to be in danger of becoming adherents rather than free thinkers.

Addition: More on Roger Sandall’s blog here, as he discusses Roger Scruton.

One question seems to be whether we choose to give religious arguments any quarter at all. The hard atheist line seems to be no. Mine is…perhaps…

See comments.

Another Addition: Agnosticism, right? Thanks to a friend for bringing this up. Here’s a pretty nasty critique of agnosticism from the atheist point of view.

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As previously posted:

Short piece here (video discussion included)

(~33.00 minutes long)

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Link sent in by a reader. A British affair, but interesting:

‘For those who don’t believe in God, but do believe in humanity, how should we view religion? O’Neill argues for tolerance. That means we should be free to express our beliefs as we see fit, and others should be to criticise and even ridicule those beliefs’

It’s nice to see some pushback against the zeal of ‘activist’ and New Atheism, as well as eliminative materialism. Humanism can become anti-humanist after all, especially among environmentalists (some secular doomsday groups know how many people is enough).

But radical humanism, or renewed faith in humanism, must still ground itself in claims to knowledge and truth, in rationality, or in some thinking which can maintain civil society and mediate other competing claims according to its lights. Why and how should humanists manage the public square?

Here in America, we’re arguably witnessing the decline of organized religion in public life and in many of our institutions, and perhaps the rise of greater numbers of unaffiliated individuals exercising their freedoms and arranging their lives in other ways.

It’s become quite easy to mock the religious and religious figures (Christian, mostly) as representatives of a defunct/backwards way of thinking, thus marginalizing them from public debate. Of course, in my opinion, there remain good reasons to be skeptical of many claims to knowledge and truth made by the Church, to satirize the ignorance and abuses of earthly power, as well as the zeal of religious belief, but I’m generally content to leave it up to the individual should they choose turning inward to a relationship with God, to religious texts, or a church.

Perhaps the flip-side to liberal secular humanist faith is a lack of faith. Surely some deep, liberal thinker out there has become thoroughly convinced that people are no good, after all, and can’t be trusted with their freedoms apart from his/her thinking or ideological commitments. Perhaps there’s a secular humanist political leader somewhere thoroughly sick of humanity for the time being, simply accruing more political power and influence because they can.

As far as satire or mockery goes, they would be just as worthy, no?

Recently, British popular thinker Alain De Botton floated the idea of building an ‘atheist temple’ in the heart of London. He recommends combing through religious practices for useful organizing principles in response to the New Atheists. You can read more about it here, which includes a radio interview/podcast.

Did the Unitarian Universalists get there first, with a mishmash of faith and secular humanism?

Towards a theme: Perhaps you’ve also heard of the Rothko chapel, in Houston, Texas:

‘The Rothko Chapel, founded by Houston philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil, was dedicated in 1971 as an intimate sanctuary available to people of every belief. A tranquil meditative environment inspired by the mural canvases of Russian born American painter Mark Rothko (1903-1970), the Chapel welcomes over 60,000 visitors each year, people of every faith and from all parts of the world.’

Recent related posts: Roger Scruton suggests a return to Christian virtue I’m not sure I’d like to see: From The City Journal: Roger Scruton On “Forgiveness And Irony”…and how to get away from creationist/darwinist dualism…From Bloggingheads: Adam Frank And Eliezer Yudkowsky Discuss The Epistemology Of Science

Repost-Adam Kirsch At The New Republic: ‘Art Over Biology’…From Edward Feser: ‘Nagel And His Critics Part IV’

Evolutionary psychology and moral thinking: Franz De Waal At The NY Times 10/17/10: ‘Morals Without God?’…

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Related: A definition of humanism:

“‘…a morally concerned style of intellectual atheism openly avowed by only a small minority of individuals (for example, those who are members of the British Humanist Association) but tacitly accepted by a wide spectrum of educated people in all parts of the Western world.”

Roger Scruton At The WSJ: ‘Memo To Hawking: There’s Still Room For God’

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A Few Links & Thoughts-Honor Thy Father

April 4, 2023 / chr1 / Leave a comment

A potential truth: A lot of people (most of us, most of the time) don’t really think for ourselves. We often confuse our father’s wisdom for timeless and universal truth, when our father’s wisdom may be wise in some situations, unwise in others (I don’t think we should aim to rationalize/clear the ground with every thought). We need a model for our hearts, minds and souls, especially while young.

In my experience: We’re often more interested in our own positions within our own relationships and status hierarchies, as self-interested rule-following punishers. Smart kids, of course, think through ideas quickly, bore easily, but are no less subject to youthful arrogance, over-confidence and lack of experience. A lot of people, a lot of the time, will subordinate truth, new ideas and new possibilities if it means a steady paycheck, or some praise, or continued influence or promise of future influence.

Or in the worse cases, if it means basic gratification of the desires (all manner of rationalization and self-delusion can accompany each of us)

We like to know where we stand, and we like rules, teams, and a royal ‘we’ to which to belong. Standing on principle is hard, especially if it requires steep costs.

Remember back to your middle-school days: Fitting-in for a thirteen year-old is serious business. Puberty has set-in. Some boys are fighting for status and rank. A lot of girls are gossiping and sometimes physically fighting for status and rank. Weaker kids, with fewer looks, muscles, skills, positive attributes etc. are scrambling for a foothold. Nature is kinda ruthless. It comes from without, and within, I suspect, and requires civilization to provide some ground rules.

In my generation, time and place, there were some basic ground rules and expectations, and these were usually enforced seriously. Back then, there was less anti-hero worship, less self-esteem talk and miscalibrated focus on the (S)elf, and less feminine sentimentalization of all problems (women=good, men=bad, freedom is next).

Don’t worry, it’ll all work out.

Again, a lot of people are not in the habit of thinking much, nor deeply, nor skeptically. Many people require a set of received opinions, beliefs, and commands to act upon, and will hold this bundle as gospel, especially when they sense their own abilities, value, and status is low.

Departments of education, and universities, attract both dull and quick minds. Both are especially subject to the modern hostility against tradition. I believe they are falling into the trap of rationality/irrationality, and into the postmodern, anything goes irrational response to most problems of ourselves and the world. I believe this helps explain the capture by much narrower ideologues, Left-radicalism, and arguably much worse ideas.

That’s all that’s required for action: True-belief, some money, influence and rank, and……endless promise of liberation. If you don’t water the trees of conservation, wisdom, speech and liberty…

Human nature and reality await.

Do you find the empirical claims persuasive?

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Three Tuesday Quotations

February 27, 2023 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Kelley Ross responds to a correspondent on Isaiah Berlin’s value pluralism, while discussing John Gray as well:

‘Now, I do not regard Berlin’s value pluralism as objectionable or even as wrong, except to the extend that it is irrelevant to the MORAL issue and so proves nothing for or against liberalism. Liberalism will indeed recommend itself if one wishes to have a regime that will respect, within limits, a value pluralism. I have no doubt that respecting a considerable value pluralism in society is a good thing and that a nomocratic regime that, mostly, leaves people alone is morally superior to a teleocratic regime that specifies and engineers the kinds of values that people should have. However, the project of showing that such a regime IS a good thing and IS morally superior is precisely the kind of thing that Gray decided was a failure.’

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Full paper here.

“As Strauss understood it, the principle of liberal democracy is the natural freedom and equality of all human beings, and the bond of liberal society is a universal morality that links human beings regardless of religion. Liberalism understands religion to be a primary source of divisiveness in society, but it also regards liberty of religious worship to be a fundamental expression of the autonomy of the individual. To safeguard religion and to safeguard society from conflicts over religion, liberalism pushes religion to the private sphere where it is protected by law. The liberal state also strictly prohibits public laws that discriminate on the basis of religion. What the liberal state cannot do without ceasing to be liberal is to use the law to root out and entirely eliminate discrimination, religious and otherwise, on the part of private individuals and groups.”

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‘We may sum this up by saying that the more the style of what used to be called politics becomes theorized, the more political problems come to be reintrepreted as managerial. Working out the least oppressive laws under which different and sometimes conflicting groups may live peaceably together is being replaced by manipulation and management of the attitudes different groups take towards each other, with the hope that this will ultimately bring harmony. In other words, in the new form of society, human beings are becoming the matter which is to be shaped according to the latest moral ideas.’

Minogue, Kenneth. Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. (Pg 111).

Repost-From The Access Resource Network: Phillip Johnson’s “Daniel Dennett’s Dangerous Idea’

October 23, 2022October 24, 2022 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Originally posted twelve years ago now. A healthy empiricism (there is a world out there, and our senses can potentially give us a direct connection to it) doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me.

Full piece here.

I’ve found this type of hubris in some quarters:

‘Daniel Dennett’s fertile imagination is captivated by the very dangerous idea that the neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution should become the basis for what amounts to an established state religion of scientific materialism.’

There are a lot of areas in which religion, libertarianism, and secular liberalism come into conflict, and I don’t think education here in America is any exception:

“Dennett cannot be accused of avoiding the religious liberty issue, or of burying it in tactful circumlocutions. He proposes that theistic religion should continue to exist only in “cultural zoos,” and he says this directly to religious parents:

‘If you insist on teaching your children falsehoods– that the earth is flat, that “Man” is not a product of evolution by natural selection–then you must expect, at the very least, that those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being–the well-being of all of us on the planet–depends on the education of our descendants.’

Of course it is not freedom of speech that worries the parents, but the power of atheistic materialists to use public education for indoctrination, while excluding any other view as “religion.”

Our author finishes with:

“Science is a wonderful thing in its place. Because science is so successful in its own territory, however, scientists and their allied philosophers sometimes get bemused by dreams of world conquest. Paul Feyerabend put it best: “Scientists are not content with running their own playpens in accordance with what they regard as the rules of the scientific method, they want to universalize those rules, they want them to become part of society at large, and they use every means at their disposal — argument, propaganda, pressure tactics, intimidation, lobbying — to achieve their aims.” Samuel Johnson gave the best answer to this absurd imperialism. “A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.”

There are always dangers. Any thoughts and comments are welcome.

Also On This Site: A former Marxist materialist and still quite anti-religious: Via Youtube: “UC Television-Conversations With History: Christopher Hitchens”

Maybe if you’re defending religion, Nietzsche is a problematic reference: Dinesh D’Souza And Daniel Dennett at Tufts University: Nietzsche’s Prophesy…

A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty” …Harry Jaffa At The Claremont Institute: ‘Leo Strauss, the Bible, and Political Philosophy’…

Jesse Prinz argues that morals too, have roots in emotions, and argues that evo-psy/cog-sci should get back to British Empiricism, with some Nietzsche thrown in, among other things-More On Jesse Prinz. A Review Of “The Emotional Construction Of Morals” At Notre Dame…Jesse Prinz Discusses “The Emotional Construction Of Morals” On Bloggingheads. Another Note On Jesse Prinz’s “Constructive Sentimentalism”

Overlap With Religion-Whence The WASP? Some Past Links & Thoughts

August 9, 2022 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Rod Dreher linked to Sean Collins at Spiked, who interviews Joseph Bottum: “Wokeness: old religion in a new bottle“:

Collins:

‘…if I understand your thesis correctly, you argue that the beliefs, mindsets and manners that animated earlier Protestantism have not been abandoned, but instead have been projected on to the political realm.’

Bottum:

‘The Mainline churches helped define American culture in several ways. First of all, the churches were mostly apolitical, which has had a profound effect on American culture. For instance, there’s never been a great American political novel. The average French streetwalker in a novel by Zola knows more about politics than the heroes of the greatest American novels. What is it to be an American? At the highest artistic level, it is to be concerned about the cosmos and the self. Politics is incidental to Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter and Huckleberry Finn. And that’s because Mainline Protestantism rendered politics secondary to what it deems is most important — namely, salvation and the self.’

Dreher, once Catholic, now Eastern Orthodox:

‘You should read it in tandem with this classic James Lindsay and Mike Nayna essay, “Postmodern Religion and the Faith of Social Justice.”They argue that the best way to understand Social Justice Warriors is as members of a postmodern religious cult.’

Hmmm…..Bottum touches on Walter Rauschenbusch, grandfather of Richard Rorty,

‘Yes. There’s an extraordinary point here. Walter Rauschenbusch [an American theologian and a key figure in the Social Gospel movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries] lists six species of social sin.’

As posted:

Nothing religious about chanting and chasing Charles Murray away, with violence if necessary:

In light of all the flak Ross Douthat was getting for his opinion piece on the death of G.H.W. Bush ‘Why We Miss The WASPs.’

From this article in the Independent on American novelist Louis Auchincloss:

How did money actually work among those in America’s elite?:

But the old monopoly of power had gone, and the country was the poorer for it. “The tragedy of American civilization,” Auchincloss wrote in 1980, “is that it has swept away WASP morality and put nothing in its place.”

Here’s another Auchincloss quote from a reader (haven’t checked this one out…probably a quote site). The prose strikes me as kind of post-Wharton, mannered and dull:

“I used to go to church. I even went through a rather intense religious period when I was sixteen. But the idea of an everlasting life — a never-ending banquet, as a stupid visiting minister to our church once appallingly described it — filled me with a greater terror than the concept of extinction…”

If such things be true, then many of the best and the brightest seem busy contructing a meritocracy in the old WASP establishment’s place; an enterprise of many unresolved personal conflicts between political ideals of activist change, progress, and ever-expanding personal freedoms on one hand and deeply held religious beliefs, traditions and customs on the other.

There seems to be an ex post facto character to much of the ol’ meritocratic enterprise, where a healthy skepticism is warranted.

In fact, it’s probably made [more] room for the same old Socialism.

On that note, I have a healthy respect for contrarians, frankly, when merely speaking out in favor of…:

‘the importance of traditional marriage values in ensuring children’s future success…’

…involves controversy and professional censure.

It’s so bland!

In fact, what will you do with your own blandness, dear reader, entombing the flaming desire to be woke within; the little half-opened doors of ecstasy and ‘environmental justice’?:

Earth Quaker Action Team is ON IT. (I’m not sure the Quakers ever had much institutional authority…so this could well be a marketing ploy to start more Quaking)

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Full discussion here.

Helen Andrews offers a critique of the meritocratic system she sees dominating U.S. education (more grades, achievement and performance-based…less legacy and WASP based).

Yes, the old system had its problems and horrors, but she cites its end in a Victorian redesign of the British civil service, a redesign whose counterpart is now thriving here in the U.S. since the 1960’s.

Andrews from her original piece:

‘Others favor the slightly more radical solution of redefining our idea of merit, usually in a way that downplays what Guinier calls “pseudoscientific measures of excellence.” She even has a replacement in mind, the Bial-Dale College Adaptability Index, the testing of which involves Legos. (Why are you laughing? It is backed by a study.) This is even less likely to work than fiddling with the equality-of-opportunity end. For one thing, the minority of families willing to do whatever it takes to get into Harvard will still do whatever it takes to get into Harvard.’

and:

‘My solution is quite different. The meritocracy is hardening into an aristocracy—so let it. Every society in history has had an elite, and what is an aristocracy but an elite that has put some care into making itself presentable? Allow the social forces that created this aristocracy to continue their work, and embrace the label.’

Is there proof of a causal mechanism from which this meritocracy will thus harden into an aristocratic elite?

If so, will it just be an elite of different ideals, assumptions, blind-spots and stupidities…now with top-down social-science and pseudo-scientific bureaucratic/administrative oversight?:

As I see it, yes, these schools were always about grooming ambitious, wealthy, and well-connected people to some extent; grooming them into institutions that often govern the rest of us.

***I’d add that much like the deeper logic behind a more general multiculturalism, its practitioners and the younger people raised within this system can easily lose sight of the lenses they’re using to view the world (shared ideals and assumptions about moral virtue, truth and knowledge claims, the idea of moving towards the telos of a ‘better world’ which can now become the social glue of the institutions themselves).

***I should add that I’m rather sympathetic to Andrews’ slow-change, tradition-favoring, conservative-ish, position.

If we are coming apart, who’s putting us back together? : Via Youtube: ‘Are We Really Coming Apart?’ Charles Murray and Robert Putnam Discuss…Repost-Charles Murray Lecture At AEI: The Happiness Of People

Related On This Site: Once you take apart the old structure, you have to criticize the meritocracy you’ve helped create: David Brooks At The NY Times: ‘Why Our Elites Stink’

The anti-intellectual’s intellectual: Repost-Via Youtube: Eric Hoffer-’The Passionate State Of Mind’…

Leo Strauss:From Darwinian Conservatism By Larry Arnhart: “Surfing Strauss’s Third Wave of Modernity”

A deeper look at what education “ought” to be, which is remarkably like it is now: A Review Of Martha Nussbaum’s ‘Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education.

How dare he?: Repost-Revisting Larry Summers: What Did He Say Again?From The Harvard Educational Review-

Still reliving the 60′s?: A Few Thoughts On Robert Bork’s “Slouching Towards Gomorrah”

The classical liberal tradition…looking for classical liberals in the postmodern wilderness: Isaiah Berlin’s negative liberty: A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”… From George Monbiot: ‘How Freedom Became Tyranny’…Looking to supplant religion as moral source for the laws: From The Reason Archives: ‘Discussing Disgust’ Julian Sanchez Interviews Martha Nussbaum.New liberty away from Hobbes?: From Public Reason: A Discussion Of Gerald Gaus’s Book ‘The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom And Morality In A Diverse And Bounded World’…Richard Rorty tried to tie postmodernism and trendy leftist solidarity to liberalism, but wasn’t exactly classically liberal: Repost: Another Take On J.S. Mill From “Liberal England”

How To Live, What To Do, Humans & Non-Humans-Some Links

June 7, 2022 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Roger Scruton perhaps could have chosen his words a little more carefully, but he was likely set-up from the start.

He explained more here in an interview with Toby Young at Quillette.

It’s a shame the man was treated this way.

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Also from Quillette:

Clay Routledge-Is Secular Humanism Is A Religion?

Jerry Coyne-Secular Humanism Is Not A Religion

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Certainly there are no deeply rooted religious impulses underlying many of these modern politico-moral movements, are there? This blog sees a deeply Romantic-Modern-Postmodern Self-seeking artistic and philosophically-backed Western tradition unfolding before our eyes, sometimes falling into the vortices of radical, dead-end ideologies, resentment and ressentiment filled utopianism, and non-scientific modern mythic doctrines.

First, I’d noticed this,

Bathe in the bathos of a warming world: A SF Gate review of poet Jorie Graham’s ‘Sea Change:‘

‘In “Sea Change,” Graham becomes Prospero, casting spells by spelling out her thoughts to merge with ours, and with the voices of the elements. The result is a mingling of perceptions rather than a broadcasting of opinions. Instead of analysis, the poems encourage emotional involvement with the drastic changes overwhelming us, overwhelming the planet.’

‘Strengths and weaknesses, flows and ebbs, yet every poem in “Sea Change” bears memorable lines, with almost haunting (if we truly have but 10 years to “fix” global warming) images of flora and fauna under siege. Jorie Graham has composed a swan song for Earth.’

Now, perhaps, this filtering out into the culture:

At Peace Pavilion West, our Leader encourages his Children to re-connect with Gaia’s rhythms, channeling primal, hippie cries into produced hipster wails. Upon this raft of global sound will Humanity be Saved. Namaste.
— Chris Navin (@chris_navin) April 25, 2019

This blog likely got there before it was somewhat cool, anyways:

‘Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very Heaven.’
Come see us at The Human Pagoda. Serve (M)ankind. We’re celebrating Progress, collective humanity and secular human transcendence daily. Liberation is Next. Nature is your home.
— Chris Navin (@chris_navin) February 14, 2019

I’d like to point out the quote from William Wordsworth was celebrating the birth of not only new Enlightenment knowledge, but the French Revolution as it came to term.

Here’s a similar, but different debate.

-Steven Pinker, Harvard experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist wrote a piece in the New Republic, entitled: ‘Science Is Not Your Enemy‘

-Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of the New Republic since the 80′s, responded at The New Republic: ‘No, Science Doesn’t Have All The Answers.‘

-Ross Douthat, conservative Catholic columnist at the Times jumped in the fray: ‘The Scientism Of Steve Pinker’

-Jerry Coyne, evolutionary biologist, responded to Douthat.

-Wieseltier jumped back in with: ‘Crimes Against Humanities: Now science wants to invade the humanities. Don’t let it happen.‘

-Daniel Dennett, philosopher, cognitive scientist, one of the New Atheists and Boston-based secularist responded to Wieseltier:

‘Pomposity can be amusing, but pomposity sitting like an oversized hat on top of fear is hilarious. Wieseltier is afraid that the humanities are being overrun by thinkers from outside, who dare to tackle their precious problems—or “problematics” to use the, um, technical term favored by many in the humanities. He is right to be afraid. It is true that there is a crowd of often overconfident scientists impatiently addressing the big questions with scant appreciation of the subtleties unearthed by philosophers and others in the humanities, but the way to deal constructively with this awkward influx is to join forces and educate them, not declare them out of bounds.’

From Edward Feser: ‘Nagel And His Critics Part IV’…A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”…

John Gray Reviews Jonathan Haidt’s New Book At The New Republic: ‘The Knowns And The Unknowns’

Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’

Franz De Waal At The NY Times 10/17/10: ‘Morals Without God?’…

Maybe It’ll Become Cool To Skeptically Observe Coalitional Political Idealism. Maybe Not.

January 10, 2022 / chr1 / Leave a comment

From Edward Feser: ‘Continetti on post-liberal conservatism:’

‘Continetti notes that post-liberals are “mainly but not exclusively traditionalist Catholics,” and proposes a test for determining whether someone falls into the category:’
One way to tell if you are reading a post-liberal is to see what they say about John Locke. If Locke is treated as an important and positive influence on the American founding, then you are dealing with just another American conservative. If Locke is identified as the font of the trans movement and same-sex marriage, then you may have encountered a post-liberal.

Feser again:

‘The late Michael Novak, who was no post-liberal, made a useful distinction between liberal institutions on the one hand, and liberal philosophical foundations on the other. Examples of liberal institutions would be the market economy, limited government and its constitutional constraints, and the rule of law. There is in fact nothing essentially liberal about any of these things, but they have certainly come to be closely associated with the modern liberal political order. Examples of liberal philosophical foundations would be Locke’s version of social contract theory, Kant’s conception of human civilization as a kingdom of ends, Rawls’s egalitarian theory of justice, and Nozick’s libertarian theory of justice.’

My speculation: A deeper, broader American conservative coalition has broken apart (or is being renegotiated), and some religious folks no longer see a path forward through current culture and/or politics. Some are recommending a retreat into communities of like minds in order to build again. Retreat and regroup, even in Britain. Genuine persecution is coming from radical activists pushing liberatory doctrines (Equality, Social Justice, Sexual Liberation), and these doctrines have increasingly become institutionalized (academia, government & corporations). Coalitions of liberal idealists fail to observe the barbarians agitating at their own gates; the instability of their own foundations.

Looking at a liberal, Left and Democrat coalition, it too has broken apart (or is being renegotiated), the most true-believing Socialists and Communists still seeking authoritarian/totalitarian utopias here on Earth. The persecution is coming from all existing forms of illegitimate, oppressive moral and political authority. Violent revolution remains an option. Anarchy is preferable to stability and slow change.

Coalitions of conservatives fail to observe the suffering and injustice of those not included within their closed-minded conceptions of home, hearth, family, Nation and God. Progress is generally a moral good. Coalitions of open-minded, educated, tolerant, individuals can make a better, human, more globally connected world.

John Locke quote found here:

“7. What is meant by enthusiasm. This I take to be properly enthusiasm, which, though founded neither on reason nor divine revelation, but rising from the conceits of a warmed or overweening brain, works yet, where it once gets footing, more powerfully on the persuasions and actions of men than either of those two, or both together: men being most forwardly obedient to the impulses they receive from themselves; and the whole man is sure to act more vigorously where the whole man is carried by a natural motion. For strong conceit, like a new principle, carries all easily with it, when got above common sense, and freed from all restraint of reason and check of reflection, it is heightened into a divine authority, in concurrence with our own temper and inclination.”

A quote from this piece over at the Atlantic: From The Atlantic: Samuel Huntington’s Death And Life’s Work

“Although the professional soldier accepts the reality of never-ending and limited conflict, “the liberal tendency,” Huntington explained, is “to absolutize and dichotomize war and peace.” Liberals will most readily support a war if they can turn it into a crusade for advancing humanistic ideals. That is why, he wrote, liberals seek to reduce the defense budget even as they periodically demand an adventurous foreign policy.”

I’ll keep putting it up, as it’s so relevant. A few central quotes from this article here:

“Huntington was instinctively a conservative because he valued an ordered society, but he also championed conservatism as a necessary instrument to defend liberal institutions against communism. In many of his books he attacked idealistic liberals for holding such institutions to impossible, utopian standards that undermined their effectiveness in the world.”

and:

“An iconoclast to the core, Huntington never threw his lot in with left or right. He was too statist to be a libertarian, too realist to embrace neoconservatism, and too sympathetic to nationalism, religion and the military to identify with liberal Democrats. As a conservative Democrat, then, he is an intellectual rarity.”

Political Order In Changing Societies info here, a book likely worth your time.

Repost-Theodore Dalrymple-Some Links On Atheism, Identity & Speech

November 5, 2021 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Theodore Dalrymple at The Epoch Times: ‘Surrending Freedom Of Expression To The Monomaniacs Among Us‘

‘We live in an age of bad temper…’ (behind a paywall).

As posted:

So, You’re Telling Me What’s Cool?-Theodore Dalrymple At The City Journal: ‘Banksy In Neverland’…Repost-Theodore Dalrymple And Roger Scruton-Don’t Judge Me

‘I’ll write what I damned well please:’

Such a brave stance to take: Six writers apparently know what is acceptable speech and what isn’t, and thus didn’t think the folks at Charlie Hebdo engaged in acceptable speech.

Theodore Dalrymple In The City Journal: Atheism’s Problems.

Skeptics and aesthetics are best in small doses. Try and gather group dynamics around (R)eason, (S)cience and Religious skepticism, and be prepared to run into the problems with which religious groups are all too familiar.

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Bari Weiss at Tablet: ‘Stop Being Shocked: American liberalism is in danger from a new ideology—one with dangerous implications for Jews‘

It’s all fun and games to indulge in liberation (sexual, moral, ‘the personal is political’), while embracing one’s identity as a group. It can be exhilarating to endlessly theorize, plan and rationalize the new society to come, but, Dear Reader, don’t forget human nature.

Many of the same judgments, in and out group dynamics, and minority vulnerabilities caution against full-throated liberatory politics.

See Tom Wolfe’s Radical Chic: That Party At Lenny’s for a rich account of the 60′s liberation.

It’s rather enervating to watch ‘radical chic’ devour the minds of reasonable people leaning upon a still-functioning Republic, dismantling existing institutions without necessarily providing suitable replacements (often caught advocating presumedly universal human ideals, reasonable/[unreasonable]tribal political idealism, and negotiating with radicals).

This brought me back to Frenchman of The Left Bernhard Henri-Levy’s piece before the 2008 election:

“And one of the reasons I am so much in favor of [Senator Barack] Obama is that his election might be, will be—because I think he will be elected—a real end to this tide of competition of victimhood, and especially on the specific ground of the two communities, Jews and African Americans, who were so close in the 1960s.”
…”The Obama election would reconstitute the grand alliance.”

Hail the grand alliance!

It seems to me you’ve got a few options once you’ve become a member of a favored identity group, as like pretty much all of life, the clock is ticking.

Game the identity system by using it to full personal advantage to try and escape its orbit (understandable, but maybe not the most honorable because of the bad people and the bad in people which come to lead, even if you just want a leg-up because you actually are poor and oppressed).
Play the identity game and pursue your ambition within its orbit. After all, there’s meaning and purpose in treating enemies as evil in a War and the game of politics as rigged. Retreat to the ideological purity of your group when attacked and advance upon the enemy positions whenever possible. Until larger failures and/or the money runs out, rinse and repeat.
Wait around long enough until the same underlying logic is used against you and/or your group, religion and/or ethnicity (Jewish folks seem to be on the outs lately, Muslims in—Asians being disfavored at elite schools). The identity politics game marches onwards towards utopia, against the oppressor. Being forced to choose between model failures or seeing the world anew outside your model, generally choose to project your personal and group failure onto your enemies, because after all, you’re Human, all too Human.

Repost-Ken Minogue At The New Criterion: ‘Christophobia’ and the West’

July 3, 2021July 3, 2021 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full piece here.

There’s something almost religious about the way some people go about pursuing their non-religious ideas.

Minogue framed it thusly:

‘Olympianism is the characteristic belief system of today’s secularist, and it has itself many of the features of a religion. For one thing, the fusion of political conviction and moral superiority into a single package resembles the way in which religions (outside liberal states) constitute comprehensive ways of life supplying all that is necessary (in the eyes of believers) for salvation. Again, the religions with which we are familiar are monotheistic and refer everything to a single center. In traditional religions, this is usually God; with Olympianism, it is society, understood ultimately as including the whole of humanity. And Olympianism, like many religions, is keen to proselytize. Its characteristic mode of missionary activity is journalism and the media.’

And:

‘Progress, Communism, and Olympianism: these are three versions of the grand Western project. The first rumbles along in the background of our thought, the second is obviously a complete failure, but Olympianism is not only alive but a positively vibrant force in the way we think now. Above all, it determines the Western moral posture towards the rest of the world. It affirms democracy as an ideal, but carefully manipulates attitudes in a nervous attempt to control opinions hostile to Olympianism, such as beliefs in capital or corporal punishment, racial, and other forms of prejudice, national self-assertion—and indeed, religion‘

As previously posted, Minogue discussed ideology (Marxist ideology in particular), and modern promises of radical and revolutionary freedom: To go deeper and replace Science and Religion, Economics and Politics, on the way to some knowable end-point to human affairs.

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As previously posted:

As far as satire or mockery goes, they would be just as worthy, no?

Those who rebel against authority, mindlessly, are more likely to embody a new authority.

Did the Unitarian Universalists get there first, with a mishmash of faith and secular humanism?

Towards a theme: Perhaps you’ve also heard of the Rothko chapel, in Houston, Texas:

‘The Rothko Chapel, founded by Houston philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil, was dedicated in 1971 as an intimate sanctuary available to people of every belief. A tranquil meditative environment inspired by the mural canvases of Russian born American painter Mark Rothko (1903-1970), the Chapel welcomes over 60,000 visitors each year, people of every faith and from all parts of the world.’

There’s even a suite of music by Morton Feldman, entitled ‘Rothko Chapel’

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Related: A definition of humanism:

“‘…a morally concerned style of intellectual atheism openly avowed by only a small minority of individuals (for example, those who are members of the British Humanist Association) but tacitly accepted by a wide spectrum of educated people in all parts of the Western world.”

Roger Scruton At The WSJ: ‘Memo To Hawking: There’s Still Room For God’

Sunday Quotation: Edmund Burke On The French Revolution

Roger Scruton In The American Spectator: The New Humanism…From Nigel Warburton’s Site: A Definition of Humanism?…From The City Journal Via Arts And Letters Daily: Andre Glucksman On “The Postmodern Financial Crisis”

One way out of multiculturalism and cultural relativism:

Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’

Designer Tribalism, Rich Kids, Jordan Peterson & Jesse Singal-Some Links On Knowledge Claims Which Are Good Enough For Many Who Want To Be In Charge

April 23, 2021April 24, 2021 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Worth a read. From the late Roger Sandall: ‘Designer Tribalism-The Communal Great Escape‘

‘Communes being communal, they are invariably seen as uniquely virtuous, fair and compassionate forms of association. Yet they rarely turn out that way. Discipline and authority are always a problem.’

What do rich folks and the children of many rich folks happen to believe these days? Does it happen to be more vaguely Communal? Many are definitely (S)elf-Oriented, or have bathed in the waters of such thinking.

How might this bear on the consent of the governed, and those difficult things which must be carried to maintain the Republic?

What are you carrying, Dear Reader?

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Gore Vidal from a while ago did a thing called a ‘book review’: ‘Rich Kids’. Words can become delightful daggers.

The fact that I seldom actually finish reading anything that he writes probably has to do with my own perhaps irrational conviction that Dr. Coles’s heart is so entirely in all the right places (mouth, boots, upon the sleeve) that nothing he has to say will ever surprise me despite the fact that he has traveled far and reasonably wide because “One hopes; one hopes against hope that somehow it will make a little difference; only a little, but still some, if people mostly unknown to almost all of us get better known to more of us.”

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Liberalism, and many rationalists, New Atheists, and other bright types often overlook some basics about human nature; just why Churches undergo schisms, why (S)cience might not be enough, and the many darknesses of the human heart. The rationalists/irrationalists have many causal relationships.

Perhaps the postmodern ground has been cleared, and the appeal to property, free-markets, collective duties and personal liberation won’t exactly cut it against points further Left. The call to adventure, and purpose, is partly what drives violent ideologues, anti-humanists and the same old Communists. The existential void and the abyss are deep.

Activists, the most impassioned and zealous, are definitely seeking to remake the world, and other people, through politics and law.

And if they’re wrong about a particular policy or law?

When knowledge claims are insufficient, and disagreement reasonable, the failure to maintain open dialogue is a failure which many liberals I know will be loathe to acknowledge, offloading onto the same old targets: Anyone conserving anything.

Coleman Hughes and Jesse Singal have an interesting discussion on the replicability crisis in psychology, the problems of IAT, and the TED circuit. Singal has a new book out: ‘The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can’t Cure Our Social Ills.’

Also discussed: The Research Behind Nudges & Cass Sunstein.

You don’t have to be a Cruisin’ Scientologist to have….some doubts:

As posted:

Lecture here.

Feynman (wikipedia) wonders what makes science science. He manages to argue quite well why he doesn’t think psychology meets a certain standard.

At least, he says the following:

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas–he’s the controller–and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all theapparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.’
Also On This Site: From 3 Quarks Daily: Richard Feynman Talks About A Pool And A Not-So-Pretty Girl.
Clearly math can bring people together, but what is it being asked to do, exactly? Elizabeth Spelke On Bloggingheads: Towards A Coalitional Mathematics?

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A potentially interesting thought: Let’s all take a moment to recall Jeffrey Dahmer, shall we?

What if through the social sciences and American institutional innovation (IQ tests for the military, academic placement testing), there dripped-down a battery of tests given to all American schoolchildren. After an hour or two taken out of a child’s day, a thick envelope would arrive at home a few weeks later; to be examined or unexamined by the parents and/or child:

While possessing above-average intellience, JEFFREY scored high for violent imagery and/or ideation. JEFFREY might display a predilection to become fixated on objects, animals and/or other living things in his attempts to understand and navigate the world. Providing positive and rewarding outlets for JEFFREY will likely enhance learning opportunities and the chance to develop fruitful interpersonal relationships.

Oh, there are a few more out there…

As posted, someone’s going to be running our institutions and making rules out of a presumed universal and common sense set of knowledge claims:

An interesting take from Slate Star Codex-‘The APA Meeting: A Photo-Essay:’

There’s a popular narrative that drug companies have stolen the soul of psychiatry. That they’ve reduced everything to chemical imbalances. The people who talk about this usually go on to argue that the true causes of mental illness are capitalism and racism. Have doctors forgotten that the real solution isn’t a pill, but structural change that challenges the systems of exploitation and domination that create suffering in the first place?
No. Nobody has forgotten that. Because the third thing you notice at the American Psychiatric Association meeting is that everyone is very, very woke.

This reminds me of a poem by Robert Pinsky, entitled ‘Essay On Psychiatrists’

V. Physical Comparison With Professors And Others

Pink and a bit soft-bodied, with a somewhat jazzy
Middle-class bathing suit and sandy sideburns, to me
He looked from the back like one more professor.

And from the front, too—the boyish, unformed carriage
Which foreigners always note in American men, combined
As in a professor with that liberal, quizzical,

Articulate gaze so unlike the more focused, more
Tolerant expression worn by a man of action (surgeon,
Salesman, athlete). On closer inspection was there,

Perhaps, a self-satisfied benign air, a too studied
Gentleness toward the child whose hand he held loosely?
Absurd to speculate; but then—the woman saw something

Maintaining a healthy skepticism: