Conservatives and many others on the political right fail to understand what exactly is this thing that we call the "culture war" and as a result they are ineffective in their efforts to fight it.
I always warn to look out for the Imposing Your Beliefs Fallacy, used by by the left who warn we are trying to impose our beliefs. When, of course, they are imposing theirs. Somebody always must.
Yes, exactly. RR Reno’s open society is a pipe dream. The so called open society only existed because the rules of that society were imposed upon everyone culturally and it accepted no other alternatives. In many ways of was believing in the myth of the open society that allowed the open society to be subverted.
You are right. Reno advocated a “weak gods” society not unlike the open society, but where we have beliefs but don’t take them seriously enough to fight over them, or something like that. Easy to conflate the two.
Imposing Your Beliefs Fallacy, including the presumed superiority of his Christian ideology, is of course exactly, precisely and altogether what the author of this substack site does.
Thanks! Someone is always imposing their beliefs on a society. There is no such thing as an open or weak society in which no one is imposing their beliefs.
This is one of my three golden rules from the lessons of history. The Gordian Knot. “Don’t play their game on their pitch by their rules” you will never win. Make them play it on yours. Use Empathy not Sympathy to defeat their psychopathy. (The other two are Pandora’s Box “you can’t erase/forget what is known/discovered” and The Fifth Compartment - beyond the tipping point. After water entered the fifth so-called “watertight” compartment of the Titanic it was doomed. )
Roe v Wade didn’t come out of nowhere. It was the fruit (and guarantor) of the Sexual Revolution, which was the fruit of atheism and secularism, which was the fruit of theological liberalism.
It’s always been all about Jesus and the Bible. Love him and submit to his word, or hate him and it.
The culture wars have their origins in the bi-polar nature of the human brain and nervous system and the fact that every aspect of the world process is bi-polar too. Once the system starts replicating itself it becomes increasingly complex and of course any control of the pattern patterning becomes impossible. Further there is also a negative tendency/pattern "built" into the pattern patterning so everything inevitably gets darker and darker, which is the situation that humankind is now in.
The left side of the bodily being expresses and corresponds to the inward-turning upward-moving, passive, receptive, emotional-psychic, quality or force of bodily life. It is intrinsically in opposition or PLAY with the right-side, which expresses and corresponds to the verbally or analytical motivated, outward-turning, downward-moving or grossly life-oriented, active, penetrative, vital-physical, expansive quality or force.
The left side is controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain, the locus of the psychic, spatial, nonverbal, holistic-intuitive mental and feeling functions. Whereas the left hemisphere, which controls the right side of the body, is the locus of the intellectual, linear, verbal, analytical-deductive anti-feeling mental functions.
Western man and culture (in particular) is now extremely out of balance and in some sense is involved in a delusional fight-to-the-death struggle wherein one side will "win" - which is of course impossible because the PLAY will always continue.
These ancient internal dualisms of the bodily being is expressed as conflict between left and right, inner and outer, up and down, and also projected as conflicts onto the world stage as conflicts in the world between man and woman, cult and cult, "God" and "Man" Heaven and Earth, State and State, spirit versus flesh, and between all beings and conditions that may be separately identified and known..
Even a cursory inspection of one's own body-mind-complex will prove that every human being is, by tendency (and cultural patterning) a mass of conflicting desires and impulses: yes/no, so/stop, attraction/repulsion. This conflict is built upon the functional dichotomies , such as the split between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, and the split of the autonomic nervous system into the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system creating the fight or flight response, in contrast to the parasympathetic system moving the body to conserve energy in harmonious repose. Individually and collectively, human beings live as if life itself were a fundamental, and apparently irreducible dilemma.
I hear what you are saying. But you must not confuse the healthy interplay between factions within a unitary society where all disagreements are first order and a true culture war in which disagreements are of the second order. In the west there have been multiple second order disagreements and they all get resolved the same way, one side defeats the other. One side becomes dominant and the other accepts minority status. The balance you are describing is the re-establishment of a societal unity under the overwhelming dominance of a single determinative cultural force. A society can only worship one god (or one set of gods). The open society is a fallacy which was maintained through the strong imposition of a unified set of values. Once those values stopped being enforced, cultural breakdown and conflict was inevitable.
"There can be only one" is unfortunately where we are right now.
Looking back to the American Civil War, The South thought there was a first order mechanism in the Constitution to remove themselves from the compact they entered into, peacefully resolving the question of State Sovereignty over that of Federal supremacy, while the North made the dispute a second order one and thus, war ensued.
Yes, exactly. There are other examples in the history of the west. But if you look, one side ended up acquiescing to the other. If you don’t want to end up acquiescing to progressivism, you will have to defeat them. Peace is not an option.
Is there a point in history to look towards? It seems lacking to look to the secret Christians of Japan or the Indians under Mogul & British rule or the Fall of the Soviet Union or the re-emergence of West Germany or the independence of Ireland. Japan didn't convert after permission, the Soviet Union went to oligarchs, West Germany became a vassal of the State Dept rather than the Christian Humanist state all those poli-sci philosophers wanted, and India and Ireland got their nations because the British gave up ruling them rather than taking it for themselves (probably the same readon why America got independence). Where are the recent examples (or more historical - not legendary) to look at a time when the "lions" defeated serpents. Or are we to accept this is a fight of foxes against foxes? Are we going to have to wait for Robespierre to get Napoleon?
Ps. The legendary examples offer a hope and a vision, but not a game plan.
It is a good question. And if we take Ellul’s Autopsy of Revolution seriously (I did a series on it) the distributed mimetic network of the current regime makes revolution unlikely because there is no easily identifiable villain to point to and say, “He is to blame.”
Then the Left learned this lesson through the consistent villianization of Dubya and Trump.
Could the Polish Solodarity Movement be a guide, since it was actual concessions won by the populace from the Socialist? Or was that too a giving up by the Soviet satellite?
I think this strikes at part of why I can’t take the neopagans seriously, they’re effectively a compromise to what we’re up against. They can claim the same thing about Christ but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. They are forced to make category errors to justify them not being a compromise while Christians can discuss actual historical events and theological errors the woke “churches” make.
Wotan is at best a half measure.
The necessity of Christ at this moment means a lot of work, as it frankly should and perhaps the mistake was getting lazy with things, but Clark’s Third Caution warns against a lack of imagination. If we never thought what we could do with iron we’d never have done the things we have.
It’s crude to think of Faith as a resource like iron, I agree, but the metaphor hopefully works.
(Full disclosure I’ve been feeling brain fog since Lent started so if this doesn’t make sense I apologize)
The one thing that Christendom does is that it reduces the urgency for discipleship. We do a generally poor or non-existent job of it, and it shows. You cannot exercise healthy church discipline in a context where you do not actively disciple people in the faith.
I’m not sure it’s so much Christendom/Christianity as the moment we find ourselves in today. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and it’s consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
As much as “a system is what it does” or whatever the line was the fact that this isn’t a consistent aspect of the system indicates it’s caused by a layer input to the system. This occurs after at least a millennia, the question has to be how much of it can be seen prior to the French Revolution. I know many founding fathers were deists, but does this have roots in the Renaissance? Does it stem from Scholasticism? I don’t yet know.
I think you are correct that there can be no compromise. And, I think you are correct that the situation is such that the Christian will be the only real wellsprings of our defense. A few thoughts:
- "Every place they are found, every institution they control, every source of power they possess must be defeated. It must be made to surrender and it must be destroyed." What does this look like, practically speaking? There are all of these calls to arms. I am exhausted with calls to arms and waiting for an actual fight to join. I mean, I subscribe to this & that, and I've spoken to local school boards about CRT & campaigned for sane school board members. We need real, actual generals and colonels for this war.
- "Whether that is by physical violence or some peaceful means the only way through this is that either the left or the right is defeated." If it's peaceful, which is highly preferable, then it will take time - a generation or more. Along that way, some interim compromises will be made. Some may be useful idiot type sell-outs but some will be what can realistically be accomplished at the time. We need a clear, broad vision of what we're striving for and charitable determination. It will take statesmen to hold together the weak-knee compromisers on the one hand and the hotheads and cranks on the other and hold forth a genuine vision and strategy.
- Whoever wins will have to put forward *some* kind of political framework of their metaphysical assumptions. Call me an idolator, but I think our current Constitution makes a fine placeholder.
- In the 5th para you say that the "will to power" is just a tactic. But then you say, "The content is fungible as long as it extends control over ever greater portions of society." That's why people say that the will to power is the operating morality, not just a tactic.
- 6th para you say that Human Progress is the operating myth. What do you think they mean by "human progress"? Do you think there is some specific state they have in mind? It strikes me that Human Progress is a myth that is the opium fed to the masses, as Marx said of religion. But that's only for the fools - the cognoscenti know that power is the name of the game.
- I thought this was a brilliant summation of the way moral reasoning acts these days: "Is this particular moral judgement “trending?” Then it is what is determined to be right. Who decided? No one. Everyone. But this does not make these judgements any less real or any less potent culturally." Again, though, this points to power as the only constant. Progress is just a fig leaf. Who the bleep could define it for more than a 2-minute hate session?
I had some other thoughts but that will do for now. Thanks for the piece. Thought-provoking and often on-target.
What does this look like? This is the hard pill to swallow. I think it means the functional end of the west as we know it. This was Ellul's conclusion and I think he is fundamentally correct. Beginning with the revolutionary period (the American and French Revolutions) there has been an attempt to apply the tools of the market and management to the political. As much as people don't want to hear this, the Constitution is something that serves the left, not the right. The present order was built by the left for the left. But do we want to become revolutionaries or reactionaries, sweeping aside the present order? Do the ends justify the means? Must billions die?
In this regard, this is why I am an advocate of parallelism. We build something separate, founded on a separate set of values that is first of all capable of withstanding the rewards and punishments of the regime. Eventually you may have to challenge it as "other." Or you may just have to wait for it to collapse. Destroying the regime means bringing an end to modernity as we know it. The abundance of cheap material goods. Its power to generate wealth as scale. But also things like modern medicine and easy travel. To end the regime, things will get harder. There is no way around this.
We also have to change our thinking. We now look at bureaucrats as just fellow citizens who work for the government, teachers, firemen, police and soldiers. Are we willing to see them as collaborators, as the enemy?
This question about the will-to-power as tactic is a thorny one. Because of its reliance on technique, much of the whole of modernity could be seen as a will-to-power play. But I think it is important that they do have a operative morality, as mimetically fungible as it is, that attempts to restrain and direct power according to their morality. As such it is not a pure will-to-power play that is purely amoral. But you are right, often it is hard to tease out what you are looking at in this regards,
When I talk about the idea of human progress, I am not sure they actually have an end state in mind. It is the kind of thing you will know you have achieved once you get there. In this regard it is purely hypothetical. But the key is the operative directionality, that we are better than our forefathers. This gives the impetus to make the judgement that what is old is bad, it holds us back and must be dispensed with to usher in the new. This also helps define friend and enemy. The true conservative, most particularly the Christian, by having a tradition rooted in the past, becomes a de facto enemy of the future. Christianity is non-progressive. Every generation is born just as sinful as the last, just as affected as the last by sin. The journey is the same for each generation. One of my very first pieces was about this. Our greater technological sophistication masks this reality.
Loved this, and I agree. I've been an Art Historian at a NYS college for 22 years now and keep thinking that at some point they will meet me halfway. But they don't. I just get a blank stare or comment about my supposed closed mindedness. All the while my students are dying from a lack of purpose and truth. I now work the Tom Holland aka "everything good you have you owe to Christianity" into almost every lecture.
We don't have a path to victory over 50 states, but we do for the red states.
The only way to deal with cancer, when you have no power to acquire chemo or radiation, is surgical removal of the tumor. That's what National Divorce is.
The Left has tremendous power to craft the narrative for the NPCs because they have control of media and other institutions
The solution is to help the Texas Nationalist Movement to lead the red states out of the Union, so that we can use state power to prevent this subversion
How does this rhetoric about fighting the left actually apply to Christian doctrine? Didn't Christ teach us to turn the other cheek?
What do the political struggles of this world matter when we are facing the prospect of eternal life based on whether or not we are holy and good in this life?
I'm just curious because your articles tend to be purely focused on worldly and political gain, and lack any serious theological or spiritual reason to engage in these political fights. Please clarify.
The answer to this is, "It's complicated." In the larger picture of scripture, a valid case can be made for both violence and for non-violence in a sinful world. Are you acting just for yourself? Are you in a position of formal authority, tasked by God with punishing wrong doing with the power of the sword? Are you somewhere in between, thrust momentarily into a position of having to defend someone else's life with violence?
I believe, and come from a tradition which believes, that God is sovereign over all of society and can call believers into positions of power. It is a great responsibility. I don't think that God forbids us from the political. If that were the case, if Christians were an overwhelming majority in society, do we really think that God would not want us to shape civic life best we could according to divine law and moral teaching? Would he demand we abdicate rule to pagans, even if they only make up 10% of society? I don't profess to have all the answers, but I try to grapple with these questions because so many believers shy away from them. Governance in a sinful world will, by necessity, involve violence. We don't have to like it, but these realities are best confronted head on. And in the end, the answer from God might be that it is better to go en mass to the lions with courage. Either way, there is no one single answer that can be given ahead of time. Wisdom garnered from being in the presence of God will provide the answer when needed.
"In the larger picture of scripture, a valid case can be made for both violence and for non-violence in a sinful world."
"I believe, and come from a tradition which believes, that God is sovereign over all of society and can call believers into positions of power. "
Who makes this case for violence, theologically? And what is this tradition re. a Christian understanding of power? Could you explain, or offer some references so I can look into it?
I found a PDF and skimmed through Chapter 4. From such a brief reading I obviously don't have a deep grasp of what Ellul is saying. But two main points seem pretty clear:
1. Violence is completely contrary to the Christian life. Ellul says: "violence is contrary to the life in Christ to which we are called. Therefore, as Christians, we must firmly refuse to accept whatever justifications of violence are advanced; and in particular we must reject all attempts to justify violence on Christian grounds."
2. A Christian may resort to violence, but when he does so, he is doing something wrong & is no longer acting as a Christian:
"The important thing is that, when he uses violence, the Christian knows very well that he is doing wrong, is sinning against the God of Love, and (even it only in appearance) is increasing the world’s disorder... The only thing he can do is to admit that he is acting so out of his own fears and emotions...
...In a revolution or a resistance movement, for instance, there are things that cannot be evaded, that have to be done; violence must be used -- it is a necessity. But in such a situation the Christian must realize that he has fallen back into the realm of necessity; that is, he is no longer the free man God wills and redeemed at great cost. He is no longer a man conformed to God, no longer a witness to truth."
So, if these passages are representative of Ellul's thinking, I'm struggling to see how he is making a valid case for a Christian to engage in violence.
OK, a Christian using violence can say that he's "fallen back into the realm of necessity". But crucially, according to Ellul, when a Christian uses violence he knows full well that he's no longer acting as a Christian. So I don't see how this can be read as a Christian *justification* for violence at all.
Maybe I've misinterpreted what you were saying? Apologies if I'm jumping to unwarranted conclusions. I'm completely new to this discussion, and don't know what else you've said on the subject.
Is there anywhere else that you've discussed your perspective on Christianity, violence and Ellul?
To give a little context for my position: I was brought up Christian, but am not a practising one. I'm in England and watching the civilised country I knew disintegrate around me. Like many people, I'm drawn back to Christianity. And equally, I feel like my country and its traditional values need defending - which may well involve violence. I would like to be able to reconcile those two things, though I don't know if it's possible. Hence my interest in this topic.
The important thing to remember is that Ellul is trying to grapple with a number of moving pieces:
1. Deal with the realities of a sinful world.
2. Honor the Biblical teachings and the theological history regarding the use of violence.
3. Avoid the justification of violence as a "good."
4. Maintain the radical nature of the gospel, even if it cannot be realized in this life.
He acknowledges that the scriptural and theological tradition can be used to support both a non-violence position as well as to justify violence in certain contexts, such as just war. But, Ellul argues, the gospel is radical and redemptive and desires to undo/overcome/redeem the world and restore or better fulfill God's intents for us as human beings. Violence was never part of God's intent for us. It comes as a result of sin. But unfortunately, even though Christ has won the victory over sin, we don not fully participate in or reveal that reality today.
That leaves us dealing with world of sin. This means that our choices are not always between good and evil, but often between the greater and the lesser evil. He calls this the world of "necessity." When you operate in this world you are outside the world of grace. Ellul perhaps draws too hard a line here in my mind, but his point is clear. He wants to exclude the idea that violence, while necessary in a sinful world, can never, ever be redemptive. Violence is always an evil and always imperils your soul. The reasons may be necessary, but they cannot be justified before God. Violence always leaves you at God's mercy, in need of grace. So, as Christians, when the circumstances of a sinful world make violence "necessary" we always engage in it with regret and sadness, mourning the tragic circumstances in which we live. We mourn, though, with a vision of grace, a world in which we desire to live, but know that in this time of "not yet" this is not possible.
Obviously there are no easy answers when trying to reconcile exalted principles with the realities of living in a troubled and violent world.
Having said that, what I’m struck by, here in England listening to authorities in the Church, is that none of them ever speak of any idea of self-defence, or of resisting or opposing forces that are clearly harmful to our country.
It’s probably ridiculous of me to even think that there would be a Christian idea of ‘resistance’. Christ didn’t offer up that kind of resistance to the alien rulers of his country. And he got crucified by them.
But whilst my country (like yours) is invaded by millions of Third World immigrants, its institutions laid waste by progressive-thinking bureaucrats, white men continually demonised, and the streets of our cities increasingly unsafe, my overwhelming impulse is for the protection of our society and culture, and of my family. And that protective/defensive impulse seems entirely at odds with the Christian one.
There are people around who talk about the Crusades and Christian warriorship etc. In other words, referring to a strong, virile, martial version of Christianity which recognises who its enemies are and isn’t afraid to confront them. But whether that has any valid theological basis, I’ve no idea. That’s why I was intrigued by your thoughts here.
If someone attacked a member of my family, there is no way I could stand by and allow it to happen. I don’t need a Christian ‘justification’ for that. I know I would fight back. And that would, I presume, be an inherently sinful act. (As I said, I’m not even a practising Christian - but I’m trying to think it through).
I suppose I’ve been looking for some version of Christianity which would acknowledge the simple fact that good things need defending. But maybe that Christianity doesn’t exist, and from a true Christian perspective my matter-of-fact worldly assumptions are entirely the wrong place to start from.
Aside from that, I’ve also been looking for living Christian examples that could inspire me. The Church authorities I see all preach acceptance and love and acceptance of strangers, but to me they simply look weak and pathetic. A coward will say, “Yes, take everything I have” simply because they are frightened or too weak to resist. I'm not saying that self-sacrifice can't arise out of strength and courage, but that's not the impression these guys give.
Inviting Muslims to conduct Islamic services in their cathedrals, as a gesture of inter-faith understanding? Saying that any government action against the massive inflow of immigrants is inherently immoral - whilst saying *nothing* about the danger some of these immigrants pose to our own women and children? Is that Christianity? Perhaps it is. But I honestly can’t respect that outlook, and would find it impossible to try and adopt it myself.
Anyhow, there is clearly a lot to consider. No-one said being a Christian was easy.
The simple answer is that turning the other cheek comes from the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon about personal discipleship in your personal piety. Being struck on the cheek is not being murdered, nor is it the imposition of government. It is receiving a serious personal insult.
I’m all in favor of Christian thought. Terrible to say that since inception this faith has been woven tightly into the State substituting an idol and ideology for Christian belief. Berdyaev writes well on this in his essay The Worth of Christianity and the Unworthiness of Christians.
Interesting image at the top of this essay by you.
The aggressive hard-edged heavily armored left-brained knight-warrior male principle/persona doing battle with trying to subdue or even kill the dragon or the feminine life sustaining life force - the all-pervasive spirit-energy in and as which all of this is spontaneously arising.
That hard edged drive to total power and control has reduced humankind and culture to rubble. It has "created" a situation in which The Divine Gift or Creation Itself (The Goddess) is now treated like mud.
Ordinary institutional religion, ordinary science, and ordinary culture seek to experience, to know, to gain an advantage with respect to, and gain CONTROL over what is mysterious, what is unknown, what is threatening. Ordinary institutional religion, ordinary science, and ordinary culture want to achieve absolute power for human beings. This ancient (and now) quest for power and control over the unknown is the collective egoic (or sinners) pursuit and aggressive search of humankind, in the midst of, and on the basis of, the universal human reactions of egoic fear, sorrow, and anger - or the universal denial of un-conditional relational love, and the universal denial/suppression of the Love-Bliss That IS the Inherent Characteristic of Reality Itself.
To affirm, as the world dominant culture of scientific materialism does, and conventional religiosity too though all the time pretending otherwise, that this All of space-time is merely materiality - limited, dying, and, effectively, dead - is itself, a kind of aggressive affirmation of power, a collective cultural manifestation of a dissociative (sinful) disposition that is merely afraid, self-absorbed, and deeply depressed by hell-deep sorrow and anger..
In this dark time, many/most/all of those who affirm common or institutional (conservative) religion often have to become virtually insane in order to piously affirm it.. If they are not informed in their understanding, and patterned in their lives, by true, and, necessarily esoteric, and really ego-transcending religion, it is only by developing fundamentalist craziness, or fanatic cultism, that people become religious.
Christian based Trump supporters gleefully dramatize this fundamentalist craziness (psychosis).
Humankind is collectively insane (even psychotic) in this dark time. That dangerous collective insanity/psychosis is becoming more and more profoundly destructive day by day.
I always warn to look out for the Imposing Your Beliefs Fallacy, used by by the left who warn we are trying to impose our beliefs. When, of course, they are imposing theirs. Somebody always must.
Let it be us.
Yes, exactly. RR Reno’s open society is a pipe dream. The so called open society only existed because the rules of that society were imposed upon everyone culturally and it accepted no other alternatives. In many ways of was believing in the myth of the open society that allowed the open society to be subverted.
Well, his wife doesn't share his supposed faith, so there's that.
You are right. Reno advocated a “weak gods” society not unlike the open society, but where we have beliefs but don’t take them seriously enough to fight over them, or something like that. Easy to conflate the two.
Imposing Your Beliefs Fallacy, including the presumed superiority of his Christian ideology, is of course exactly, precisely and altogether what the author of this substack site does.
Thanks! Someone is always imposing their beliefs on a society. There is no such thing as an open or weak society in which no one is imposing their beliefs.
This is one of my three golden rules from the lessons of history. The Gordian Knot. “Don’t play their game on their pitch by their rules” you will never win. Make them play it on yours. Use Empathy not Sympathy to defeat their psychopathy. (The other two are Pandora’s Box “you can’t erase/forget what is known/discovered” and The Fifth Compartment - beyond the tipping point. After water entered the fifth so-called “watertight” compartment of the Titanic it was doomed. )
Please explain the empathy not sympathy--and how I would use either to defeat them. TIA.
Thoughtful explanation of what we see around us. The war is real. Reminds me of That Hideous Strength.
Bingo. I date the falling apart of the consensus to Roe v Wade. Up until that time it seems to me we all pretty much agreed on basic morality.
But if some think it’s ok to kill unborn humans, and others think it’s murder, how can the center hold?
Roe v Wade didn’t come out of nowhere. It was the fruit (and guarantor) of the Sexual Revolution, which was the fruit of atheism and secularism, which was the fruit of theological liberalism.
It’s always been all about Jesus and the Bible. Love him and submit to his word, or hate him and it.
This is it for me, too. The science is no longer nebulous, if it ever was.
The culture wars have their origins in the bi-polar nature of the human brain and nervous system and the fact that every aspect of the world process is bi-polar too. Once the system starts replicating itself it becomes increasingly complex and of course any control of the pattern patterning becomes impossible. Further there is also a negative tendency/pattern "built" into the pattern patterning so everything inevitably gets darker and darker, which is the situation that humankind is now in.
The left side of the bodily being expresses and corresponds to the inward-turning upward-moving, passive, receptive, emotional-psychic, quality or force of bodily life. It is intrinsically in opposition or PLAY with the right-side, which expresses and corresponds to the verbally or analytical motivated, outward-turning, downward-moving or grossly life-oriented, active, penetrative, vital-physical, expansive quality or force.
The left side is controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain, the locus of the psychic, spatial, nonverbal, holistic-intuitive mental and feeling functions. Whereas the left hemisphere, which controls the right side of the body, is the locus of the intellectual, linear, verbal, analytical-deductive anti-feeling mental functions.
Western man and culture (in particular) is now extremely out of balance and in some sense is involved in a delusional fight-to-the-death struggle wherein one side will "win" - which is of course impossible because the PLAY will always continue.
These ancient internal dualisms of the bodily being is expressed as conflict between left and right, inner and outer, up and down, and also projected as conflicts onto the world stage as conflicts in the world between man and woman, cult and cult, "God" and "Man" Heaven and Earth, State and State, spirit versus flesh, and between all beings and conditions that may be separately identified and known..
Even a cursory inspection of one's own body-mind-complex will prove that every human being is, by tendency (and cultural patterning) a mass of conflicting desires and impulses: yes/no, so/stop, attraction/repulsion. This conflict is built upon the functional dichotomies , such as the split between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, and the split of the autonomic nervous system into the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system creating the fight or flight response, in contrast to the parasympathetic system moving the body to conserve energy in harmonious repose. Individually and collectively, human beings live as if life itself were a fundamental, and apparently irreducible dilemma.
I hear what you are saying. But you must not confuse the healthy interplay between factions within a unitary society where all disagreements are first order and a true culture war in which disagreements are of the second order. In the west there have been multiple second order disagreements and they all get resolved the same way, one side defeats the other. One side becomes dominant and the other accepts minority status. The balance you are describing is the re-establishment of a societal unity under the overwhelming dominance of a single determinative cultural force. A society can only worship one god (or one set of gods). The open society is a fallacy which was maintained through the strong imposition of a unified set of values. Once those values stopped being enforced, cultural breakdown and conflict was inevitable.
"There can be only one" is unfortunately where we are right now.
Looking back to the American Civil War, The South thought there was a first order mechanism in the Constitution to remove themselves from the compact they entered into, peacefully resolving the question of State Sovereignty over that of Federal supremacy, while the North made the dispute a second order one and thus, war ensued.
This is where we are.
Yes, exactly. There are other examples in the history of the west. But if you look, one side ended up acquiescing to the other. If you don’t want to end up acquiescing to progressivism, you will have to defeat them. Peace is not an option.
Is there a point in history to look towards? It seems lacking to look to the secret Christians of Japan or the Indians under Mogul & British rule or the Fall of the Soviet Union or the re-emergence of West Germany or the independence of Ireland. Japan didn't convert after permission, the Soviet Union went to oligarchs, West Germany became a vassal of the State Dept rather than the Christian Humanist state all those poli-sci philosophers wanted, and India and Ireland got their nations because the British gave up ruling them rather than taking it for themselves (probably the same readon why America got independence). Where are the recent examples (or more historical - not legendary) to look at a time when the "lions" defeated serpents. Or are we to accept this is a fight of foxes against foxes? Are we going to have to wait for Robespierre to get Napoleon?
Ps. The legendary examples offer a hope and a vision, but not a game plan.
It is a good question. And if we take Ellul’s Autopsy of Revolution seriously (I did a series on it) the distributed mimetic network of the current regime makes revolution unlikely because there is no easily identifiable villain to point to and say, “He is to blame.”
Then the Left learned this lesson through the consistent villianization of Dubya and Trump.
Could the Polish Solodarity Movement be a guide, since it was actual concessions won by the populace from the Socialist? Or was that too a giving up by the Soviet satellite?
I don’t know. I am big on the “do the right thing” option, which I translate as a robust parallelism.
I think this strikes at part of why I can’t take the neopagans seriously, they’re effectively a compromise to what we’re up against. They can claim the same thing about Christ but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. They are forced to make category errors to justify them not being a compromise while Christians can discuss actual historical events and theological errors the woke “churches” make.
Wotan is at best a half measure.
The necessity of Christ at this moment means a lot of work, as it frankly should and perhaps the mistake was getting lazy with things, but Clark’s Third Caution warns against a lack of imagination. If we never thought what we could do with iron we’d never have done the things we have.
It’s crude to think of Faith as a resource like iron, I agree, but the metaphor hopefully works.
(Full disclosure I’ve been feeling brain fog since Lent started so if this doesn’t make sense I apologize)
The one thing that Christendom does is that it reduces the urgency for discipleship. We do a generally poor or non-existent job of it, and it shows. You cannot exercise healthy church discipline in a context where you do not actively disciple people in the faith.
I’m not sure it’s so much Christendom/Christianity as the moment we find ourselves in today. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and it’s consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
True. I was thinking more about the periods which led up to our current moment and our embrace of things like MTD.
The “Enlightenment” is definitely a root to it, although I’m unsure how much further back it might yet go.
In either case, what happened isn’t orthodox (little o) and as such should be recognized as a bug and not a feature.
Yes, agreed.
As much as “a system is what it does” or whatever the line was the fact that this isn’t a consistent aspect of the system indicates it’s caused by a layer input to the system. This occurs after at least a millennia, the question has to be how much of it can be seen prior to the French Revolution. I know many founding fathers were deists, but does this have roots in the Renaissance? Does it stem from Scholasticism? I don’t yet know.
I think you are correct that there can be no compromise. And, I think you are correct that the situation is such that the Christian will be the only real wellsprings of our defense. A few thoughts:
- "Every place they are found, every institution they control, every source of power they possess must be defeated. It must be made to surrender and it must be destroyed." What does this look like, practically speaking? There are all of these calls to arms. I am exhausted with calls to arms and waiting for an actual fight to join. I mean, I subscribe to this & that, and I've spoken to local school boards about CRT & campaigned for sane school board members. We need real, actual generals and colonels for this war.
- "Whether that is by physical violence or some peaceful means the only way through this is that either the left or the right is defeated." If it's peaceful, which is highly preferable, then it will take time - a generation or more. Along that way, some interim compromises will be made. Some may be useful idiot type sell-outs but some will be what can realistically be accomplished at the time. We need a clear, broad vision of what we're striving for and charitable determination. It will take statesmen to hold together the weak-knee compromisers on the one hand and the hotheads and cranks on the other and hold forth a genuine vision and strategy.
- Whoever wins will have to put forward *some* kind of political framework of their metaphysical assumptions. Call me an idolator, but I think our current Constitution makes a fine placeholder.
- In the 5th para you say that the "will to power" is just a tactic. But then you say, "The content is fungible as long as it extends control over ever greater portions of society." That's why people say that the will to power is the operating morality, not just a tactic.
- 6th para you say that Human Progress is the operating myth. What do you think they mean by "human progress"? Do you think there is some specific state they have in mind? It strikes me that Human Progress is a myth that is the opium fed to the masses, as Marx said of religion. But that's only for the fools - the cognoscenti know that power is the name of the game.
- I thought this was a brilliant summation of the way moral reasoning acts these days: "Is this particular moral judgement “trending?” Then it is what is determined to be right. Who decided? No one. Everyone. But this does not make these judgements any less real or any less potent culturally." Again, though, this points to power as the only constant. Progress is just a fig leaf. Who the bleep could define it for more than a 2-minute hate session?
I had some other thoughts but that will do for now. Thanks for the piece. Thought-provoking and often on-target.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Judith.
What does this look like? This is the hard pill to swallow. I think it means the functional end of the west as we know it. This was Ellul's conclusion and I think he is fundamentally correct. Beginning with the revolutionary period (the American and French Revolutions) there has been an attempt to apply the tools of the market and management to the political. As much as people don't want to hear this, the Constitution is something that serves the left, not the right. The present order was built by the left for the left. But do we want to become revolutionaries or reactionaries, sweeping aside the present order? Do the ends justify the means? Must billions die?
In this regard, this is why I am an advocate of parallelism. We build something separate, founded on a separate set of values that is first of all capable of withstanding the rewards and punishments of the regime. Eventually you may have to challenge it as "other." Or you may just have to wait for it to collapse. Destroying the regime means bringing an end to modernity as we know it. The abundance of cheap material goods. Its power to generate wealth as scale. But also things like modern medicine and easy travel. To end the regime, things will get harder. There is no way around this.
We also have to change our thinking. We now look at bureaucrats as just fellow citizens who work for the government, teachers, firemen, police and soldiers. Are we willing to see them as collaborators, as the enemy?
This question about the will-to-power as tactic is a thorny one. Because of its reliance on technique, much of the whole of modernity could be seen as a will-to-power play. But I think it is important that they do have a operative morality, as mimetically fungible as it is, that attempts to restrain and direct power according to their morality. As such it is not a pure will-to-power play that is purely amoral. But you are right, often it is hard to tease out what you are looking at in this regards,
When I talk about the idea of human progress, I am not sure they actually have an end state in mind. It is the kind of thing you will know you have achieved once you get there. In this regard it is purely hypothetical. But the key is the operative directionality, that we are better than our forefathers. This gives the impetus to make the judgement that what is old is bad, it holds us back and must be dispensed with to usher in the new. This also helps define friend and enemy. The true conservative, most particularly the Christian, by having a tradition rooted in the past, becomes a de facto enemy of the future. Christianity is non-progressive. Every generation is born just as sinful as the last, just as affected as the last by sin. The journey is the same for each generation. One of my very first pieces was about this. Our greater technological sophistication masks this reality.
Loved this, and I agree. I've been an Art Historian at a NYS college for 22 years now and keep thinking that at some point they will meet me halfway. But they don't. I just get a blank stare or comment about my supposed closed mindedness. All the while my students are dying from a lack of purpose and truth. I now work the Tom Holland aka "everything good you have you owe to Christianity" into almost every lecture.
Kudos to you for that!
Well if I keep reading you, I'll work your ideas in there, too, eventually! I'm always bringing ideas from Postcards from Barsoom in there, as well..
Thanks!
We don't have a path to victory over 50 states, but we do for the red states.
The only way to deal with cancer, when you have no power to acquire chemo or radiation, is surgical removal of the tumor. That's what National Divorce is.
The Left has tremendous power to craft the narrative for the NPCs because they have control of media and other institutions
The solution is to help the Texas Nationalist Movement to lead the red states out of the Union, so that we can use state power to prevent this subversion
How does this rhetoric about fighting the left actually apply to Christian doctrine? Didn't Christ teach us to turn the other cheek?
What do the political struggles of this world matter when we are facing the prospect of eternal life based on whether or not we are holy and good in this life?
I'm just curious because your articles tend to be purely focused on worldly and political gain, and lack any serious theological or spiritual reason to engage in these political fights. Please clarify.
The answer to this is, "It's complicated." In the larger picture of scripture, a valid case can be made for both violence and for non-violence in a sinful world. Are you acting just for yourself? Are you in a position of formal authority, tasked by God with punishing wrong doing with the power of the sword? Are you somewhere in between, thrust momentarily into a position of having to defend someone else's life with violence?
I believe, and come from a tradition which believes, that God is sovereign over all of society and can call believers into positions of power. It is a great responsibility. I don't think that God forbids us from the political. If that were the case, if Christians were an overwhelming majority in society, do we really think that God would not want us to shape civic life best we could according to divine law and moral teaching? Would he demand we abdicate rule to pagans, even if they only make up 10% of society? I don't profess to have all the answers, but I try to grapple with these questions because so many believers shy away from them. Governance in a sinful world will, by necessity, involve violence. We don't have to like it, but these realities are best confronted head on. And in the end, the answer from God might be that it is better to go en mass to the lions with courage. Either way, there is no one single answer that can be given ahead of time. Wisdom garnered from being in the presence of God will provide the answer when needed.
"In the larger picture of scripture, a valid case can be made for both violence and for non-violence in a sinful world."
"I believe, and come from a tradition which believes, that God is sovereign over all of society and can call believers into positions of power. "
Who makes this case for violence, theologically? And what is this tradition re. a Christian understanding of power? Could you explain, or offer some references so I can look into it?
This is the argument made by Ellul in his book: Violence.
I found a PDF and skimmed through Chapter 4. From such a brief reading I obviously don't have a deep grasp of what Ellul is saying. But two main points seem pretty clear:
1. Violence is completely contrary to the Christian life. Ellul says: "violence is contrary to the life in Christ to which we are called. Therefore, as Christians, we must firmly refuse to accept whatever justifications of violence are advanced; and in particular we must reject all attempts to justify violence on Christian grounds."
2. A Christian may resort to violence, but when he does so, he is doing something wrong & is no longer acting as a Christian:
"The important thing is that, when he uses violence, the Christian knows very well that he is doing wrong, is sinning against the God of Love, and (even it only in appearance) is increasing the world’s disorder... The only thing he can do is to admit that he is acting so out of his own fears and emotions...
...In a revolution or a resistance movement, for instance, there are things that cannot be evaded, that have to be done; violence must be used -- it is a necessity. But in such a situation the Christian must realize that he has fallen back into the realm of necessity; that is, he is no longer the free man God wills and redeemed at great cost. He is no longer a man conformed to God, no longer a witness to truth."
So, if these passages are representative of Ellul's thinking, I'm struggling to see how he is making a valid case for a Christian to engage in violence.
OK, a Christian using violence can say that he's "fallen back into the realm of necessity". But crucially, according to Ellul, when a Christian uses violence he knows full well that he's no longer acting as a Christian. So I don't see how this can be read as a Christian *justification* for violence at all.
Maybe I've misinterpreted what you were saying? Apologies if I'm jumping to unwarranted conclusions. I'm completely new to this discussion, and don't know what else you've said on the subject.
Is there anywhere else that you've discussed your perspective on Christianity, violence and Ellul?
To give a little context for my position: I was brought up Christian, but am not a practising one. I'm in England and watching the civilised country I knew disintegrate around me. Like many people, I'm drawn back to Christianity. And equally, I feel like my country and its traditional values need defending - which may well involve violence. I would like to be able to reconcile those two things, though I don't know if it's possible. Hence my interest in this topic.
The important thing to remember is that Ellul is trying to grapple with a number of moving pieces:
1. Deal with the realities of a sinful world.
2. Honor the Biblical teachings and the theological history regarding the use of violence.
3. Avoid the justification of violence as a "good."
4. Maintain the radical nature of the gospel, even if it cannot be realized in this life.
He acknowledges that the scriptural and theological tradition can be used to support both a non-violence position as well as to justify violence in certain contexts, such as just war. But, Ellul argues, the gospel is radical and redemptive and desires to undo/overcome/redeem the world and restore or better fulfill God's intents for us as human beings. Violence was never part of God's intent for us. It comes as a result of sin. But unfortunately, even though Christ has won the victory over sin, we don not fully participate in or reveal that reality today.
That leaves us dealing with world of sin. This means that our choices are not always between good and evil, but often between the greater and the lesser evil. He calls this the world of "necessity." When you operate in this world you are outside the world of grace. Ellul perhaps draws too hard a line here in my mind, but his point is clear. He wants to exclude the idea that violence, while necessary in a sinful world, can never, ever be redemptive. Violence is always an evil and always imperils your soul. The reasons may be necessary, but they cannot be justified before God. Violence always leaves you at God's mercy, in need of grace. So, as Christians, when the circumstances of a sinful world make violence "necessary" we always engage in it with regret and sadness, mourning the tragic circumstances in which we live. We mourn, though, with a vision of grace, a world in which we desire to live, but know that in this time of "not yet" this is not possible.
Does this help?
Thank you for the thoughtful reply.
Obviously there are no easy answers when trying to reconcile exalted principles with the realities of living in a troubled and violent world.
Having said that, what I’m struck by, here in England listening to authorities in the Church, is that none of them ever speak of any idea of self-defence, or of resisting or opposing forces that are clearly harmful to our country.
It’s probably ridiculous of me to even think that there would be a Christian idea of ‘resistance’. Christ didn’t offer up that kind of resistance to the alien rulers of his country. And he got crucified by them.
But whilst my country (like yours) is invaded by millions of Third World immigrants, its institutions laid waste by progressive-thinking bureaucrats, white men continually demonised, and the streets of our cities increasingly unsafe, my overwhelming impulse is for the protection of our society and culture, and of my family. And that protective/defensive impulse seems entirely at odds with the Christian one.
There are people around who talk about the Crusades and Christian warriorship etc. In other words, referring to a strong, virile, martial version of Christianity which recognises who its enemies are and isn’t afraid to confront them. But whether that has any valid theological basis, I’ve no idea. That’s why I was intrigued by your thoughts here.
If someone attacked a member of my family, there is no way I could stand by and allow it to happen. I don’t need a Christian ‘justification’ for that. I know I would fight back. And that would, I presume, be an inherently sinful act. (As I said, I’m not even a practising Christian - but I’m trying to think it through).
I suppose I’ve been looking for some version of Christianity which would acknowledge the simple fact that good things need defending. But maybe that Christianity doesn’t exist, and from a true Christian perspective my matter-of-fact worldly assumptions are entirely the wrong place to start from.
Aside from that, I’ve also been looking for living Christian examples that could inspire me. The Church authorities I see all preach acceptance and love and acceptance of strangers, but to me they simply look weak and pathetic. A coward will say, “Yes, take everything I have” simply because they are frightened or too weak to resist. I'm not saying that self-sacrifice can't arise out of strength and courage, but that's not the impression these guys give.
Inviting Muslims to conduct Islamic services in their cathedrals, as a gesture of inter-faith understanding? Saying that any government action against the massive inflow of immigrants is inherently immoral - whilst saying *nothing* about the danger some of these immigrants pose to our own women and children? Is that Christianity? Perhaps it is. But I honestly can’t respect that outlook, and would find it impossible to try and adopt it myself.
Anyhow, there is clearly a lot to consider. No-one said being a Christian was easy.
Thank you. I'll look into it.
The simple answer is that turning the other cheek comes from the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon about personal discipleship in your personal piety. Being struck on the cheek is not being murdered, nor is it the imposition of government. It is receiving a serious personal insult.
I’m all in favor of Christian thought. Terrible to say that since inception this faith has been woven tightly into the State substituting an idol and ideology for Christian belief. Berdyaev writes well on this in his essay The Worth of Christianity and the Unworthiness of Christians.
This got me fired up
Let's go! Thanks.
Interesting image at the top of this essay by you.
The aggressive hard-edged heavily armored left-brained knight-warrior male principle/persona doing battle with trying to subdue or even kill the dragon or the feminine life sustaining life force - the all-pervasive spirit-energy in and as which all of this is spontaneously arising.
That hard edged drive to total power and control has reduced humankind and culture to rubble. It has "created" a situation in which The Divine Gift or Creation Itself (The Goddess) is now treated like mud.
Ordinary institutional religion, ordinary science, and ordinary culture seek to experience, to know, to gain an advantage with respect to, and gain CONTROL over what is mysterious, what is unknown, what is threatening. Ordinary institutional religion, ordinary science, and ordinary culture want to achieve absolute power for human beings. This ancient (and now) quest for power and control over the unknown is the collective egoic (or sinners) pursuit and aggressive search of humankind, in the midst of, and on the basis of, the universal human reactions of egoic fear, sorrow, and anger - or the universal denial of un-conditional relational love, and the universal denial/suppression of the Love-Bliss That IS the Inherent Characteristic of Reality Itself.
To affirm, as the world dominant culture of scientific materialism does, and conventional religiosity too though all the time pretending otherwise, that this All of space-time is merely materiality - limited, dying, and, effectively, dead - is itself, a kind of aggressive affirmation of power, a collective cultural manifestation of a dissociative (sinful) disposition that is merely afraid, self-absorbed, and deeply depressed by hell-deep sorrow and anger..
In this dark time, many/most/all of those who affirm common or institutional (conservative) religion often have to become virtually insane in order to piously affirm it.. If they are not informed in their understanding, and patterned in their lives, by true, and, necessarily esoteric, and really ego-transcending religion, it is only by developing fundamentalist craziness, or fanatic cultism, that people become religious.
Christian based Trump supporters gleefully dramatize this fundamentalist craziness (psychosis).
Humankind is collectively insane (even psychotic) in this dark time. That dangerous collective insanity/psychosis is becoming more and more profoundly destructive day by day.