Tuesday Quotations-The Past Ain’t Dead: How To Think, What To Do

February 26, 2024 / chr1 / Leave a comment

I hate to take the fatalist approach, here, but even at your most (S)elf (youthful questing, committed artist), every individual has obligations to others (other parts of your (S)elf, family, loved ones, true friends). At any given point in time, some other (S)elf, group, or coalition may have plans for you (from serial killers to love interests).

Like belief, we seem to move in and out.

Christopher Hitchens could be entertaining, especially on grounds I’m guessing he knew instinctively as a former Trotskyite: Ideologies, while highlighting truths, promise a one-stop shop on truth, knowledge, how to be in the world, what to do and what the future will be.

People can kill for less, and when they adhere to such systems, then they can end-up killing more.

**I would call the man below a white identitarian, a man whose vision of the Nation is seen primarily from within the lens of identity (a few truths and mostly gobbledygook). He’s just on the opposing side of the supposedly right-thinking identitarians. Questions of truth, and your highest good become crucial.

William Faulkner is likely underrated these days. I think it’s worth bearing in mind the people in his own town didn’t like him very much:

‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken, we pursue images perceived as new but whose providence dates to the dim dramas of childhood, which are themselves but ripples of consequence echoing down the generations. The quotidian demands of life distract from this resonance of images and events, but some of us feel it always.‘

—

Moving along:

‘A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risque the loss of that part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve. The two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their antient edifice; they did not however, dissolve the whole fabric.’

–Edmund Burke, commenting on the French Revolution, in The Evils Of Revolution, What Is Liberty Without Wisdom And Without Virtue It Is The Greatest Of All Possible Evils, New York, NY. Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2008. Pg 8.

Jacques Barzun on the War for American Independence as a reactionary rather than revolutionary event pic.twitter.com/KFVSlXn7X6
— Dr. Ben Braddock (@GraduatedBen) February 13, 2024

Repost-Two Quotations

January 15, 2024 / chr1 / Leave a comment

“Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.”

–George Santayana

‘It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.’

–Edmund Burke

Saturday Quotation-Edmund Burke On The French Revolution

March 17, 2023 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Thursday Quotation-Edmund Burke On The French Revolution

October 26, 2022 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Sunday Quotations-Edmund Burke

February 27, 2022 / chr1 / Leave a comment

I’ve been asked to comment more on the Ukraine conflict. I don’t know what to tell you, but I often think about which kinds of leaders I could potentially trust, and what life would be like if I were the one asked to fight. From where I am, I can only hear a lot of noise.

Thanks for reading.

‘It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.’

–Edmund Burke

and from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

‘This type of treatment began in the nineteenth century, when Burke was invoked as an antidote to the confidence of the French Revolution by liberal thinkers who prized its principles, saw their narrowness, and required a sense of historical development to situate them properly in a viable civil society. It was continued when Matthew Arnold tried to treat Burke as a (pre-Home Rule) Gladstonian spokesman about Ireland. It went further still in the twentieth century, when Burke was pressed into service as a counter-revolutionary agent in the anti-Communist cause, and when the twenty-first dawned some treated Burke as proponent of postmodernism.’

Sunday Quotation: Edmund Burke On The French Revolution

Tuesday Quotation-Edmund Burke On The French Revolution

February 25, 2022 / chr1 / Leave a comment

‘A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risque the loss of that part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve. The two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their antient edifice; they did not however, dissolve the whole fabric.’

Repost-Some Links On Robert Kagan’s New Book: ‘The Jungle Grows Back: America And Our Imperiled World’

January 6, 2021 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Our author reviews Robert Kagan’s new book ‘The Jungle Grows Back: America And Our Imperiled World.’

The piece contains liberal pushback (the search for a center?) against what’s argued to be Kagan’s proselytizing neo-conservatism.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t advocate for too many young people to join a military run by the current institutional leadership without serious thought. You may have your reasons, but think twice:

‘That is precisely what today’s moment cries out for: Kennan’s humility rather than a new crusade against a new Evil Empire. It cries out for a skeptical liberalism that sees the world as it is rather than going looking for new monsters to destroy.’

Our ideological troubles spring, I have argued before, from liberalism’s lack of perceived legitimacy. Authoritarianism emerges as a symptom either where the liberal approach to organizing society has failed to take root, or where an established liberalism is seen to be overreaching unopposed. We ought to be on the lookout for these failures of liberalism—for “the appeals to core elements of human nature that liberalism does not always satisfy,”

There’s lots of stuff in the piece for regular readers of this blog (Mention of Edmund Burke, Isaiah Berlin etc.).

The author finishes with the area of most shared agreement [between himself] and Kagan (a view of ‘teleological’ progressivism as dangerously narrow and very authoritarian itself; delegitimizing and destabilizing Western liberalism from within).

It’s going to be harder to deal with the rest of the world when these core elements of debate rage within Western hearts, minds and institutions:

‘The Jungle Grows Back is an important book insofar as it contains all the debates outlined above within it. And Kagan opens the space for these ideas to breathe a little by rightly dismissing teleological progressivism in his book’s opening pages—a great service that makes reading the book a richer experience than it otherwise might have been. But a more moderate, and therefore much wiser, conclusion is passed over by an author whose commitment to his priors prevents him from seeing what a gem he might have had on his hands. It’s too bad.’

Kagan discusses the book here with what I’d describe as an evolutionary psychologist/soft-ish Marxist:

Also On This Site: Taking on the telos of progress and questioning modern liberal assumptions with a largely nihilistic approach (progress is learned but doesn’t stay learned in human affairs; the lesson of various 20th centry writers and one of the main purposes of a humanities education): Repost-John Gray At The Literary Review Takes A Look At A New Book On Michael Oakeshott: ‘Last Of The Idealists’…Repost-John Gray Reviews Francis Fukuyama At The Literary Review: ‘Destination Denmark’…Repost-Classical Liberalism Via Friesian.Com-‘Exchange with Tomaz Castello Branco on John Gray’

People on the Left and a more moderate middle, and from libertarian conservative backgrounds are increasingly challenging core ideological assumptions of far Left doctrines having crept into so many institutions. They must defend their own disciplines and be of exemplary character: Repost-Moving Towards Truth And Liberty, But What To Conserve?-Some Thoughts On The Bret & Eric Weinstein Interview…Jonathan Haidt At Heterodox Academy: ‘The Blasphemy Case Against Bret Weinstein, And Its Four Lessons For Professors’…Charles Murray From ‘The Happiness Of People’…The Hoover Institution Via Youtube: Charles Murray On ‘Coming Apart’

Repost-Looking For Liberals In The Postmodern Wilderness-Jordan Peterson & Stephen Hicks

A restatement of Anglican, British conservatism with deep Kantian, Hegelian roots: Repost-Roger Scruton At The WSJ: ‘Memo To Hawking: There’s Still Room For God’…Link To Roger Scruton’s First Of Three Charles Test Lectures Hosted By Princeton University

The Religious Conservative American right advocating a step back from a common Constitutional project?: Two Links To Rod Dreher On How To Live And What To Do... Another view of the 60’s radicalism on campus: Repost-A Few Thoughts On Robert Bork’s “Slouching Towards Gomorrah”

Out of the Valley of modernism, post-modernism, and relativism…one path from Nietzsche’s nihilism is through Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom: Update And Repost: ‘A Few Thoughts On Allan Bloom–The Nietzsche / Strauss Connection’…Some Tuesday Quotations From Leo Strauss…From Peter Berkowitz At Harvard: ‘The Reason Of Revelation: The Jewish Thought Of Leo Strauss’

Kant chopped the head off from German deism and the German State has been reeling every since…is value pluralism a response?: A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”

Repost-In The Mail-Yuval Levin: The Framers As Anticipating The Technocratic Mind & Well, The People Themselves

June 12, 2020 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Via the Federalist: Yuval Levin discusses his book The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and the Birth Of Left And Right.

=======================

Some of the questions coming at Levin during the interview, I suspect, are meant to challenge Burke as either a Straussian historicist, or a(n) utilitarian. The historicist critique would have Burke holding an epistemological framework which presumes knowledge of an endpoint to human aims and affairs and a lens to observe all of human history accordingly (quite dangerous in the hands of intellectuals, Statesman and policymakers, especially the radical kind willing to break what came before and design, top-down, what will subsequently come on the way to that endpoint).

The normative ethics of the utilitarian arguments, on the other hand, tend to run into the problems of eventually sacrificing individuals on the altar of the greatest good, and also majoritarian politics, or perhaps even ‘tyranny of the majority’ scenarios, where many of the subtle protections of individual and minority (literally defined) liberties in our constitutional framework could potentially be eroded by populist sentiment, moral panics, bad laws, and mob rule.

One of Levin’s main insights is that Burke should be thought of as a Statesman, a politician and a debater, one who nearly always refused notions of top-down, abstract principles and design rather than simply conserving what was already in place.

***Abstract principles, perhaps, of the rationalist kind, the centrally planned, bureaucratic kind, or the progressive activist kind which have been serious influencers on our laws and lives.

Any thoughts and comments are welcome.

***More Burke musings here.

============================

As previously posted:

‘A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risque the loss of that part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve. The two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their antient edifice; they did not however, dissolve the whole fabric.’

Also On This Site: What are the drawbacks of defining that change within J.S. Mill’s utilitarianism, or within abstract ideals which are assumed to be universal…i.e….perhaps…more like France in this context?: Saturday Quotation-J.S. Mill…A Few Thoughts-Another Take On J.S. Mill From “Liberal England”

Who Wants To Help Build A Technocracy? Repost-Megan McArdle At The Daily Beast: ‘The Technocratic Dilemma’Repost-From The Spiked Review Of Books: ‘Delving Into The Mind Of The Technocrat’

Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’Repost-Monday Quotation From Charles Kesler And A Few Thoughts on Conservatism

Taking religion out of the laws, and replacing it with a Millian/Aristelolian framework?: Repost: Martha Nussbaum Channels Roger Williams In The New Republic: The First Founder……From The Reason Archives: ‘Discussing Disgust’ Julian Sanchez Interviews Martha Nussbaum

Some Links On Robert Kagan’s New Book: ‘The Jungle Grows Back: America And Our Imperiled World’

January 19, 2019January 21, 2019 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Our author reviews Robert Kagan’s new book ‘The Jungle Grows Back: America And Our Imperiled World.’

The piece contains liberal pushback (the search for a center?) against what’s argued to be Kagan’s proselytizing neo-conservatism:

‘That is precisely what today’s moment cries out for: Kennan’s humility rather than a new crusade against a new Evil Empire. It cries out for a skeptical liberalism that sees the world as it is rather than going looking for new monsters to destroy.’

Our ideological troubles spring, I have argued before, from liberalism’s lack of perceived legitimacy. Authoritarianism emerges as a symptom either where the liberal approach to organizing society has failed to take root, or where an established liberalism is seen to be overreaching unopposed. We ought to be on the lookout for these failures of liberalism—for “the appeals to core elements of human nature that liberalism does not always satisfy,”

There’s lots of stuff in the piece for regular readers of this blog (Mention of Edmund Burke, Isaiah Berlin etc.).

It’s going to be harder to deal with the rest of the world when these core elements of debate rage within Western hearts, minds and institutions:

‘The Jungle Grows Back is an important book insofar as it contains all the debates outlined above within it. And Kagan opens the space for these ideas to breathe a little by rightly dismissing teleological progressivism in his book’s opening pages—a great service that makes reading the book a richer experience than it otherwise might have been. But a more moderate, and therefore much wiser, conclusion is passed over by an author whose commitment to his priors prevents him from seeing what a gem he might have had on his hands. It’s too bad.’

Kagan discusses the book here with what I’d describe as an evolutionary psychologist/soft-ish Marxist:

Repost-Looking For Liberals In The Postmodern Wilderness-Jordan Peterson & Stephen Hicks

Kant chopped the head off from German deism and the German State has been reeling every since…is value pluralism a response?: A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”

From Edward Feser: ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity?’

October 12, 2017 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full post here.

“Surely you’re not against liberty, equality, and fraternity?!” you ask. Well, no, not necessarily – depending on what you mean by those terms. The trouble is that though some of the ideas that commonly go under those labels are good, others are very bad.’

Hmmm…:

‘Modern egalitarianism makes essentially this mistake. In the name of equal concern for all, it resists or even rejects the idea that different members of society have different roles, aptitudes, and needs. Hence socialism’s hostility to the very existence of different classes. Hence feminism’s hostility to traditional sex roles within the family and to the idea that men and women naturally tend to differ in psychological traits no less than they do physiologically. Hence the liberal’s dogmatic insistence on seeing persistent differences in economic and other outcomes as a result of unjust discrimination and insufficiently vigorous social engineering.’

Just providing a reasoned, principled critique of such liberal political idealism may actually be beneficial to us all.

Edward Feser In The Claremont Review: ‘Looking For Meaning in All The Wrong Places’

From Edward Feser: ‘Nagel And His Critics Part IV’

Leo Strauss seems to have had Burke succumbing to historicism? A response here.

As to the American and French Revolutions:

“In both cases the political leaders whom Burke opposed insisted on certain rights: the English government on the rights of soverignty and the French revolutionists insisted on the rights of man. In both cases Burke proceeded in exactly the same manner: he questions less the rights than the wisdom of exercising the rights.”

“What ever might have to be said about the propriety of Burke’s usage, it is here sufficient to note that, in judging the political leaders whom he opposed in the two most important actions of his life, he traced their lack of prudence less to passion than to the intrusion of the spirit of theory into the field of politics.”

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