Towards a Theology of NETTR
One of the ideas emergent in the dissident right is the tactic of having "No Enemies to the Right." Many are troubled by this. Should they be? Is this something Christians can embrace?
“No enemies to the right.”
Perhaps this is you first time hearing this phrase. If so, you may be in for a bit of a culture shock. This is not “nice” discourse. It gets into the category of doing hard things and facing the tough realities of resisting the regime, successfully, and not just in theory. So what is “No enemies to the right” (NETTR, for short)?
It is primarily a calculated tactical political decision to cease policing our “right wing” boundaries. It is the choice not to react to regime attacks, to their bully attacks against our political allies, to their attempts to smear us as evil and outside the boundaries of civil discourse. It a choice to not continually throw our people under the bus because the regime has slapped a label on them, using their own categories, their own rules. There is an impulse among conservatives to desire a politics of morality, that we take the high road. But when you allow your opponent to determine the content of that morality, you can guarantee that he does so to punish you politically, to hammer you with your own mantle of integrity, rendering you neutered, ineffectual and hypocritical.
So how should conservatives, traditionalists and rightists respond, especially if Christian? Should we abandon our principles? Should we become as ruthless as our opponents? Should we pursue power, paying no attention to the cost, to ethical concerns? Do the ends justify the means? Should we be willing to get down in the gutter and get dirty in order to win? Should we be willing to shelter disagreeable and unpleasant people, those who, in more settled times, would obviously be considered beyond the pale? I would argue, as I have done elsewhere, there can be no hard and fast rule either “yes” or “no.” It depends upon the situation. You won’t know until you get there. But, it must be said, defeating the regime likely cannot be done without opening ourselves to a range of political ideas, actions and actors that many today who live in the realm of “polite company,” even if that polite company is conservative and Christian, would consider out of bounds.
So, let’s walk ourselves through a practical, realpolitik, Christian understanding of “no enemies to the right.”
Where does this NETTR idea come from? It is a based on a reciprocal principle —NETTL— which can be traced all the way back to the French Revolution. In his 1928 classic, The French Revolution: A Monarchist History, Pierre Gaxotte describes the inexorable logic of revolutionary “progress”:
The revolutionary period was characterized by allowing successive avant-garde parties or factions to take political power while riots and disturbances in the streets dictated the actual government policies that were adopted. Against the royal court and the privileged classes, the members of the National Assembly appealed to the turbulent sectors of the capital. Even while privately deploring the excesses committed from July 13 on, they closed their eyes to them because they wanted to hold in reserve the power of the clubs and of the streets. Thus they became prisoners of the alliance they had made; they became prisoners of the formula “no enemies to the left” (pas d’ennemis à gauche). 1
This notion gained real fixedness in the consciousness of the left when the phrase was cemented in their lexicon by Alexander Kerensky in the period leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution. The idea is pretty simple actually. You cultivate, maintain and protect radical activists aligned with the broad direction of your movement. “Movement” is itself an interesting word. With the notion of human progress working in the background, the very idea of a “movement” is then tied to this concept that we are ever moving “forwards” towards an ever better future. You really only need a “movement” on the progressive left. Today’s radical, manning the front lines of the movement, producing what seems like far out crazy ideas, become tomorrow’s policy prescriptions and laws. The left does not worry about setbacks or hurdles because they know that there is a ready supply of radicals who will continue to push the Overton Window of acceptable political discourse and policy ever leftward towards the progressive future.
There is no true pendulum swing. Even if for a time there are roadblocks, they just re-group and try again later. If you think that things have gone too far the movement will leave you behind. We hear again and again people who say that the they did not leave the left, the left left them. They still see themselves as progressives, but just not “that” progressive. The left does police its boundaries, just not its radical left wing boundary. They police their right wing boundaries. There can be no going back. There can be no standing still. If you remain in one place and the movement moves on, you very quickly discover that yesterday’s radical left position is now considered too right wing for polite company. You must be cut loose, or even cancelled. There can be no stopping the movement of progress.
At the same time that the left encourages and harbors its radicals while being willing to jettison those who are now insufficiently progressive, conservatives and the right typically engage in a similar action. They tend to embrace those who are newly disaffected by and jettisoned from the “mainstream” left while at the same time policing their right wing boundary, making sure that they continually condemn those whose ideas are considered too radically right wing. The biggest bugaboos are those surrounding race, gender and sexuality. Excuses are given that we need to have a “big tent” or that we need to win over the “moderates.” The moderates typically fall into the category of leftists who couldn’t embrace the current radicalism and have now been left behind. But they are never asked to convert to a more rigorous and doctrinaire conservative position. Thus, you end up with weird groups like “gay conservatives.” In practice, when these newly embraced, not quite as radically left, leftists begin taking up positions of influence —and they are often given positions of favor and influence because they are seen as “converts” when they are nothing of the sort— they begin to exert pressure to police the right wing boundary of conservatism, setting lines of demarcation that move ever more leftward. Thus you get arguments for the “conservative case for transgenderism” and the like. Especially in regards to social issues, drawing a strictly conservative, let alone a Christian position is never, ever on the table in any serious policy discussion. You have to keep quiet about your desire to criminalize abortion because such talk, we are told, hinders the debate.
Why does this happen? Why does the political right in the West, but especially in America, seem incapable of drawing clear ideological boundaries, insisting that people either convert, or that they keep their less than 100% conservative ideas to themselves? Sure, absolute ideological rigidity is probably not tactically wise —we do need to be able to deal with the world practically as it is— but why do we seem incapable of drawing a clear line of demarcation. The left has its overarching principles of progress, equality and freedom from all unchosen bonds. Why does the right not have a similar set of core principles? In large part, it is cultural. All of the core ideas of our culture since at least the Enlightenment have been built around this grand idea of “human progress.” Whether it is in terms of science, technology, the market, politics or social conditions, we have this grand unifying principle of “progress.” The group that we think of as “the left” are generally oriented around the idea of social progress, whereas those who are on “the right” have generally oriented themselves around economic progress. Both share in the same pool of Enlightenment ideas of which Jacques Ellul says this:
“These common presuppositions of bourgeois and proletarian are that man’s aim in life is happiness, that man is basically good, that history develops in endless progress, and that everything is matter.”
This cultural impulse is expressed through a number of myths upon which most of our society is built, including our politics:
“In our society the two great fundamental myths on which all the other myths rest are Science and History [that is, Progress]. And based on them are the collective myths that are [technical] man’s principle orientations: the myth of Work, the myth of Happiness (which is not the presumption of happiness), the myth of the Nation, the myth of Youth, the myth of the Hero.”
The fundamental orientation of this great movement and these myths means that there is a strong cultural pull towards that which is seen to participate in the grand movement of human progress. Everything must be made to seem like it advances human progress. Thus, there was a time not too long ago that the “conservative” position on the environment and global warming was that we must resist all the efforts of the environmentalist movement to restrict our economy or our standard of life in any way. What we needed to do was to unleash the power of science and the market, letting our smartest and brightest figure out a way to make commercially viable products that would then clean the environment while increasing our wealth and prosperity. It is why Ellul would say in regards to propaganda messaging:
“Propaganda is forced to build on these propositions and to express these myths, for without them nobody would listen to it. And in so building it must always go in the same direction as society. A propaganda that stresses virtue over happiness and presents man’s future as one dominated by austerity and complication would have no audience at all.”
What this means in practice is that the messages which resonate in our culture are those which stress progress, prosperity, and ease. You are going to enjoy a bigger, brighter, better, more humane and prosperous future all without any cost to you. Conservatives and the right, if they wish to find receptive ears, must cast their political vision in terms that respect the fundamental progressive nature of society:
“[because of the myth of Progress, propaganda] must be associated with all economic, administrative, political and educational development…thus…the general trend toward socialization can neither be questioned nor overridden. The political left is respectable; the Right has to justify itself before the ideology of the Left (in which the Rightists participate). All propaganda must contain and evoke the principle elements of the ideology of the Left in order to be successful.”
What this means in practice is that any truly conservative, traditional or right wing politics is simply out of bounds in our culture. At best it is considered “backwards.” As a conservative, you are essentially an opponent of progress. So if you wish your so-called “conservatism” to find a listening ear, you must present it in a fashion that makes it seem progressive and “forward thinking.” Because of the fundamentally progressive nature of western society and its core myths, conservatives can easily be propagandized as “the enemy” of society, the reason why it is failing to progress sufficiently. This dynamic is a big contributor as to why Conquest’s Second Law remains in force in the west:
“Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”
In a society dominated by images, narratives and propaganda, the political left broadly defined, aligned with the core narratives, the core myths of our society, is able to easily use this underlying cultural dynamic as a method of control, a way to silence and neuter any who might resist the regime and the pull of the broad culture upon which its power rests. Conservatives, and others on the right, may not like to hear this, but liberalism conceived of broadly, including the “we need to be faithful to the intents of the Founders” variety of liberalism, is the “will of the people.” Before it can fully understand its place and role in society, conservatives, and the right, must see that the current regime governs in line with the will of the people. The broad spectrum of mainstream politics in America ranges from slow and cautious liberal to radical liberal. The political views and agenda of true conservatives, true members of the right, has been set out of bounds axiomatically. This allows the regime to control the discourse, forcing those who occupy the position of cautious liberal to always be policing their rightwing boundary to ensure that no meaningful threat to the regime, broadly conceived, will emerge. This is the role of the cautious liberal who often takes for himself the label “conservative.” As this leftward drift continues, ever pursuing progress, more and more groups that used to be tolerated as part of mainstream political discourse, such as traditionally minded practicing Christians, will sooner or later be considered outside the Overton Window of “acceptable” views.
So, what is to be done? How do you resist this dynamic? How do you resist as Christians?
The best way, tactically, is not to play the game or fight the battle on the ground of the enemy’s choosing. It means not letting the regime set the parameters for acceptable discourse and political action. It means being willing, not just to protect those who live outside the Overton Window on the political right, but to actually reside there one’s self. It is an idea that is troubling to many. Many are willing to ignore accusations directed against conservatives, traditionalists and rightists. Many are willing to allow themselves to be accused of horrible things, as long as deep down they believe the accusations to be mistaken and made in bad faith. But how many of us are actually willing to openly stand outside the Overton Window? It is a dangerous place. There is a reason that people post ideas anonymously and pseudonymously. There are those in the regime who are quite willing to take your livelihood from you and banish you. Some would be quite content to criminalize conservative, traditional or right wing ideas.
For at least three quarters of a century now, cautious liberals (i.e. regime approved “conservatives”) have been dutifully gate keeping to their political right, ensuring that we move ever leftward. The principle works by means of what is called “the ratchet.” For those of you who don’t know what a ratchet is, they are used in wrenches and to tighten straps and ropes. Basically, they have a toothed wheel. Every time you turn it, there is a toggle, the pawl, that catches the next toothed notch on the wheel. Until you hit the release, there is only one way that a ratchet can turn. If you are tightening a strap or a rope, every time you pull on the ratchet, it gets tighter and tighter. Always one direction. Tight and tighter.
The ratchet is a good image for our politics. Whether the ratchet turns slowly or it turns quickly, it can only go in one direction. This is why the left protects its radicals. It knows, senses, that even if its most radical members advocate for things completely outside the Overton Window today, they know that if they wait, with one or two turns of the ratchet, today’s radicals are tomorrow’s regime policy. This is the essence of “no enemies to the left.”
So why doesn’t this work on the right? Why can’t we have a conservative ratchet? This does not work for conservatism because it is not really set of policy programs or a set of ideas. It is an attitude, a relationship to tradition. It is about treasuring, cultivating, nurturing the things which have been passed onto us from before. Until the Enlightenment, most societies were baseline conservative. They understood that tradition, custom, culture and law were things that developed slowly over time. You did not change them easily or lightly. Every society has radicals who want to change things, but most societies kept them around, on the margins of society because sometimes society faced crisis that required an injection of new ideas. But for the most part, the governing elite preserved the way things have always been. They did so in part because their power was drawn from the existing order.
What happened in the Enlightenment is that those radical change agents gained ascendency and developed a grand cultural idea around the notion of human progress. The working out of this concept involved breaking down the “backwards” barriers of custom and tradition. The problem with tradition and custom is that once they are broken down they are just gone. Tradition is not a set of policy prescriptions that you can put into place. In fact, what has happened is that the progressives are now the guardians of the current political order. In some sense, this makes them “conservative” in that they are trying to conserve their own political power. The mechanism by which they extend and maintain it is to be always working to extend progress through the mechanism of the technical managerial state, while directing their radicals against the “backwards” traditionalists, undermining what few remnants of traditional beliefs and practices remain. I wrote more about this here:
What this implies, really, is that “conservatism” is not really a thing, unless you mean it to extend back to the early revolutionary and post revolutionary period and the institutions of that day. But that era is gone and the attempt to return is itself a kind of reactionary position. Augusto del Noce discusses this problem in The Crisis of Modernity. He identifies two broad attitudes. One is revolutionary, progressive, looking to sweep away the old and present order in the hopes that in so doing, a new utopian age can be ushered in. It sees utopia as a thing yet to be conceived, but which can only be realized by sweeping away the current order —but with the progressive still in charge— with its connection to the past.
The other broad move is reactionary in that reacts against the current state of things, but sees utopia as a period in the past. The present needs to be swept away so that we can re-institute this past moment of utopian perfection. Into this category del Noce place Fascism, which he argues is the mirror of Marxist and Liberal utopianism. Fascism wants to draw on a mythical idea of “the people,” their history and myths in order to unlock and return the spirit of the people to greatness. We see variations on this “return” idea in our own political context with “Make America Great Again,” as well as the Tea Party desire to return to constitutional originalism thus restoring the institutions of the country to their former vibrancy and greatness. The current order is rotten. It must be swept away and we must return to a better, earlier, time. Past utopia. And we achieve this past utopia by means that are no less abstract and technical than the means being used to try to institute the future utopia of the leftist agenda. As flip sides of the same post Nietzschean coin, they are far more similar than they are really different. I speak more about this here:
What does this mean in the context of our discussion about “no enemies to the right?” Even though the political landscape is not quite as neat and clean as a clear left and right, we need to recognize that the idea of a “conservative ratchet” just does not work. Either you are merely trying to preserve what is, the past deposit of culture, tradition and institutions handed onto you, what little of them are left; or you are engaged in trying to instantiate some form of past or future utopianism. As we noted earlier, future utopianism is in line with our culture and past utopianism is not. But, that said, because both are essentially realized using technical means to replace the present order, because of the nature of technical society —that the fact of administrative systems is more important than their content— you end up in roughly the same place over the long term. And when you tally up the price, the cost, of the two future utopian ideologies, Marxism and Liberalism —now merged together in Progressivism— they end up being similar to the past utopian ideology of Fascism. The main difference between the two is that there is no stomach for past utopian policy in a culture that is dominated by future utopianism. Even though in theory, a right wing ratchet might work, in practice it tends to be a non-starter, and because of the realities of technical administration you end up in roughly the same place, a technocratic totalitarian state.
Can anything be done? Yes. But it means reconceiving the battle in which we are engaged. We cannot go back to the past. There is precious little to conserve. The progressive utopian vision is unpalatable. Augusto del Noce argues that there is in fact a door number three. Instead of trying to reclaim the preindustrial past, a time in which there was a general culture of Christianity, a form of past utopianism, of trying to instantiate a once living thing which is now past and gone, we instead break through the post-Nietzschean “God is dead” world we live in, to encounter anew the living God of our Christian faith tradition in the present. We draw ourselves towards and encounter the mystical presence of God. We do so within the confines and boundaries of the historical faith passed down to us. We have a present, living relationship with God in Christ, rooted in the traditions passed onto us.
As we have discussed recently, the State has come to fill the secular void created when the Christian faith was pushed into the private realm. It has stepped in to assume a metaphysical role, establishing the order of all things. The State is at once religious and at the same time god. What this implies is that our struggle within the west is essentially a religious one. That means that Christians —specifically Christians who are deeply rooted in the ontological presence of God— will find themselves at the core of this fight. If not actively, they will end up there by default, as the regime turns its attention ever more firmly on the only real contrasting belief system to itself: Christianity.
But, and here is the “but.” Tactically, we will not be able to win this fight on our own as a vibrant Christian community, at least not initially. I am not a proponent of “the big tent.” Building a coalition merely for the sake of wining elections ensures that once won, this governing coalition will be largely ineffective because it lacks focus. We must have a core sense of purpose, a mission. We must understand what we are building and why. We build for the long term, for the time after the regime has fallen. Post-liberal. Post-western. I do not think that winning elections should be the primary goal. If we do, great. Let’s make use of them by having a sense of purpose to accomplish real things, even if they are within the confines of the current system. Don’t refuse a win because it isn’t as pure as you were hoping. But we must understand that participation in the current political structures lend them validity, as they have been built upon core liberal principles such as reason, discussion, debate and the marketplace of ideas, as well as the social compact and the general idea of human progress and more. Our active participation in the system means we are fighting on the enemy’s ground of choice. This does not mean that we should entirely abandon the system, but we must recognize that in so doing we squander and disperse our energy fighting battles in the way that the enemy wants in a manner that they have decided for us.
Thus, we are looking long term to a post-liberal, even post-western world. Even if we decide that the cost of bringing down the modern world is too high —we are not utopian revolutionaries or reactionaries who believe that bringing down the current order will magically usher us into a utopian global age, either of past or future construction. Such thinking justifies atrocities on the level of “billions must die.” No, we are Christian Realists who know that sin cuts through the heart and soul of each of us, that no amount of human effort can ever perfect society, that we do the best we can and leave it at that— even if the cost of bringing down the modern world is too high, there are things we can and should be doing to prepare, to battle with the regime meaningfully, and to have a decisive stake in what is to follow after. For this great task, we as Christian Realists will need allies. Some of these allies will be found within the system. They will have to be unplugged.
“You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”
Those that can be unplugged will join us. Some will follow without understanding why or what they are doing, even though it seems to violate everything they understood about the good society and the meaning of liberty. But for the most part, our allies will come from among the already unplugged, those who live beyond the bound of the Overton Window of ideas and discourse that the regime has determined as “acceptable.” There are many well adjusted, high functioning people with views deemed unfit for “normal” society. There are also a fair number of mal-adjusted, bitter, angry, disaffected and alienated people who populate fringe groups and fill message boards with wild vitriol. Some will be rescued, given purpose and meaning. Others, will be used, and likely cast aside when their usefulness ends. Some will have to be treated like a rabid dog. These are the harsh realities of power as well as resisting power. But the hard truth is that meaningfully resisting the regime cannot be done by those who live within the Overton Window of acceptable discourse and political action.
And here we begin to near the crux of the matter, the heart of NETTR, “no enemies to the right.” In a sense, ours will be a movement lived near the borderlands of acceptable political discourse and action. Many have the idea that we can have “honest conversations” about hard realities. We can, for example, believe that we talk can honestly about race without actually being racist. We might not feel racist. But the regime will deem us so, and push us out to the borderlands and beyond. Now that we are out here, beyond the boundaries, is it ok for us to make common cause with people we are pretty sure are actual racists? Or perhaps more frightening, will the task ahead, the actual exigencies of resisting the regime, demand that we actually be racist?
These are hypotheticals, but the idea of “no enemies to the right” recognizes that ours is likely to be a coalition that lives beyond the boundaries the of Overton Window of approved discourse and action. We have been reading, learning, writing and these are the decisions that will soon confront us, if they don’t already now. On issue after issue, whether it be feminism, sexuality, gender, race, abortion, regardless of whether or not you feel like a hateful or bigoted person, by becoming unplugged from regime approved discourse, you are have been deemed as such. From the regime perspective, how you feel about yourself matters little. You have been branded and from their perspective you are what they say you are. Get used to it. You are a racist. You are a misogynist. You are anti-women. You are a homophobe. You get the idea. To say to yourself, “They may call me that, but I am not one, and I am not going to associate with real racists,” is to do the work of the regime for them. They consider you a real racist. When we police our “right wing” boundaries —accepting the understanding that the modern “right” and “left,” as we discussed above, are not nearly as different as people might think— we ensure that the ratchet continues. We become unwitting participants in regime discourse and propaganda.
Lets take the issue of immigration as an example. Tightly restricting immigration implies a sense of “us” as a people. If we permit too many of “them” to come into our country too quickly, it does threaten our culture, our way of life. This bias is a prejudice towards the “us” and against the “them.” There is no escaping this reality. It is a bias towards your own people. You don’t even necessarily have to hate “them.” They are just different enough, that too many coming too quickly erodes the fabric of our society. Nonetheless, this is a bias, a prejudice. What if the people, the “them,” are of a different race, a different skin color? Again, you may have no animus towards “them” but you just don’t want them here among “us.” Many would consider this a racist posture.
The alternative, breaking down the boundary between “us” and “them” would forbid any national identity at all, would forbid any preference for your land or place, and would forbid any preference for your own people, especially those to whom you have shared racial or ethnic ties. By regime definition, the only non-racist position is that of complete open borders everywhere, a flattening and eliminating of all differences, a single global humanity, equal, united and completely interchangeable. Since World War Two immigration has been a deliberate strategy to undermine regional and national differences and identities towards the goal of creating universal world peace. The very idea of “nation” is itself a source of conflict and for a certain set of regime taste setters is verboten. Thus, to love your nation and your people is to set yourself at odds with the regime writ large. Just by loving your own country and your own people, you are already considered a bigot at the very least and likely a closet racist. You just mask your racism.
We could go down issue by issue and talk about taking a stand. Want to stop the corrosive effects of feminism on society? You are an anti-woman misogynist intent on engaging in a “war on women.” Do you think homosexual sex is immoral? Well, you hate gays and are a homophobe. Do you think transgenderism is a form of mental illness? By not affirming their delusions, you are quite literally denying them being, you are killing trans people. In practice you might comfort yourself by saying to yourself, “I am content with being accused of being a racist, as long as I know I am not actually one myself.” So, we then engage in the ritual of digging up some poor lost souls who think that being virulently racist is a good thing, joining the regime in condemning them, not realizing that we are doing the work of the regime. Because of the ratchet and the directionality of “progress,” today’s person engaging in “honest discussions about race” is tomorrow’s lost soul engaged in virulent racism.
We said this would be an uncomfortable discussion. So how do we respond? How do we shelter and make common cause with, or make use of, people whom, all things considered, we probably find too radical and a little distasteful? Most importantly, NETTR is about not giving the regime easy wins by letting them set the discourse. Don’t do the regime’s work for them. Also, these radicals might be helped by being folded into something purposeful and meaningful. And those who are timid right now might speak more boldly if they new that when they lost their regime approved career because of their views and actions, that they would be sheltered, they would have a soft landing spot somewhere where they could continue the work of resistance. They might be bolder if they knew that there were legal funds set up for their defense. Because conservatives, traditionalists and rightists don’t have the built in advantages of their political program being culturally aligned, all the more reason to not to sacrifice those who live outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse and action in vain attempts to curry the favor and approval of the regime. Know that if the regime thinks you are a threat, your prior obsequiousness will not save you. Part of their propaganda machine is to infiltrate and use foolish right wing radicals as cartoon straw men that allow the regime to continue to demonize you and smear you as beyond the pale. Being bland and innocuous will not save you when the Eye of Sauron turns its gaze upon you.
“But all of this sounds very ‘unchristian,’ Kruptos,” you respond. We have been taught that conservative politics, and by extension Christian politics, is about taking the high road. The left may do these things, but we don’t. Our Christian ethics inform our politics. Are we not trying to instantiate and reveal the divine hierarchy of being in the material, in the living artifact of the people? Ideally, yes. But we do not live in the world of the ideal. We live in a mixed world. We don’t live in the world as created and as God intended it in the Garden of Eden. Even though the Son of God was born, lived, died and was raised again for us, and his grace is complete, the battle has been won, we do not now live in a world where the grace of God has been fully revealed. We live in a world where everything around us is stained by sin and evil. In practice, what this means is that our choices are limited. In a world of sin and evil our decisions are not always between right and wrong, good and evil, or virtue and vice. Very often we face choices that are more along the lines of choosing between the lesser or greater evil.
Ellul calls these kinds of choices “necessity.” He wants to clearly distinguish between the world of “grace” and the world of “necessity.” His reasoning for this distinction is that it allows us to keep the reality being revealed “in Christ” free from muddying justifications and inversions. He says do the lesser evil because it needs to be done, but don’t try to white wash what you are doing by trying to invert it and make it some form of good. No, this thing you do is evil. You would rather not have to do it. You heart and soul desires to move in the realm of grace. You desire to fully reveal all that is “in Christ.” But in this time of transition, in the now, but not yet, sometimes we are forced to do things which are truly evil. They are hard things to do, but they must be done. When God says that in the realm of grace the lion will lie down with the lamb, he means it. It will be a space without violence, without sin, without evil.
But we do not yet live in this realm, not fully. This is why political leadership, the role of the king, is hard. This is why politics corrupts. From the violence that must be done to punish the wrongdoer or to defend your people to the lies that you must tell to the leaders of rival people groups to protect the secrets, the interests, of your own people, all of them corrupt you. The ruler is tasked with the weighty role of deciding to engage in necessary acts of evil for his people. Romans 13:
4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
Do you think it is uplifting to be the agent of God’s wrath? Is your soul elevated by wielding the sword, even against the wicked? This perhaps may be the best reason for a small and limited political class. Democratic participation is bad for the spiritual life of the people. It demands the people involve themselves in the affairs of state and because of the need for elections, it ensures that the state will involve itself in as much of the lives of the people as possible in attempting to address ever more of their needs. Ellul says it this way:
“If we believe—and we firmly believe it—that the individual has a spiritual life, a value, that man cannot realize except by the accomplishment of moral acts, then it is evident—and necessary—that there be distance between political affairs and the individual.”
There is that word, “necessary.” As much as we are tempted towards a broad franchise, it is “necessary” to protect people for their own spiritual wellbeing from the corrupting demands of politics. The fewer people to handle Tolkien’s ring of power, the better. So as not to draw this piece out more than “necessary,” I encourage you to read the two other pieces in which I walk through Ellul’s thinking on this:
Let me give an example that might help clarify this category. In the Garden of Eden we were naked and did not know shame. We eat of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, sin enters the world and we are conscious of our nakedness. Ever since, we have been clothed. We even hide from ourselves, the buried subconscious and preconscious shadow side. In deep bonds, such as marriage, the goal is nakedness before each other. The goal of good community is that people can trust the group, shed the layers of “clothing” in which they cover themselves. The Garden of Eden speaks to our desire for naked intimacy. Even though the world of grace, being “in Christ” speaks to not just restoring, but to fulfilling God’s intent in the Garden, we know that in the here and now we cannot simple just be “naked” with each other whether materially, emotionally, or spiritually. So even in an instrument of grace like the confessional, we are hidden behind a screen. Writing the things I write, if they were widely known, it might have a deleterious impact on my business. So I clothe myself in a pseudonym. I do this out of “necessity.”
But Kruptos, you argue, does this not open us up to abuses? Of course. Yes, the thing you are thinking is very much true. We can try to use “necessity” as justification for all manners of evil. This is why Ellul reserves this category. It does not let us shy away from the reality that our actions, when we claim the mantle of “necessity,” are, technically speaking, wrong, sinful, and evil. At the very least, like anonymity, they fall short of the mark of God’s intentions for us.
And as much as I would like to give you a clear set of guidelines, a policy manual detailing when and where and under what conditions it is ok to allow open racists into your movement, I cannot. Nor can I give you an ironclad set of rules detailing the situations in which racism is an acceptably “necessary” action. This is one of the functions of living in a world governed by abstract, rationalized technique. We desire a situation in which there is a closed set of rules accounting for every circumstance. The policy manual then absolves us of the need to be responsibility for our actions. “The policy manual dictates that in these seven situations, racism has been determined to be the lesser evil.” What the policy manual does is it gives us moral absolution for all our actions. I just did what was dictated by policy. I was just following orders. When you phrase it this way it seems abhorrent. But yet this is how much of our world is run. This was the mindset of the Covid-19 regime. The actions were deemed “necessary” not by persons, but by the system. The other favorite was that they were just “following the science.”
If we are to meaningfully challenge the regime, we must resist this systems mindset. This realm of necessity demands that we take personal responsibility for our decisions and actions. But we must face the Biblical teaching that for many situations in life, there are no pre-existing rules. Even if we are determined to make this movement of resistance deeply Christian at its core, there are no set of Divine laws or Biblical teachings that can tell you how to make many of the decisions you make in life. There just isn’t. God’s law is a thing. But in a world of sin and evil, there are a great many circumstances in which there are not obvious clear cut ways to apply the law. Many want to think of the Bible like a policy manual for their life, “God’s rules for living.” But it just isn’t a policy manual. And this is not a case for relativism. The reality is that many of the deepest and most profound books of the Bible understand and teach us these realities.
Let us look at this passage in Ecclesiastes:
3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
We could perhaps add at the bottom, to illustrate our discussion here, as an extension of “a time to love and a time to hate,” that there is “a time to be inclusive and a time to be racist.” When you lay it out there in plain language, you want to shy away from it. This is not the only example. From Proverbs 26:
4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
5 Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.
If this is God’s guide for living, the policies don’t seem to be all that clear. This is two opposite pieces of advice. There is no way that you can develop the “Manual for Successful Fool Encounters.” This is why, by the way, that our leadership class, dependent as they are on rules, policies, procedures, systems, that so much of their advice seems like folly. It is. You cannot educate yourself into the right answers. So what do you do? Proverbs 1:
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
And Job 28:
20 Where then does wisdom come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
21 It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
concealed even from the birds in the sky.
22 Destruction and Death say,
“Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.”
23 God understands the way to it
and he alone knows where it dwells,
24 for he views the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.
25 When he established the force of the wind
and measured out the waters,
26 when he made a decree for the rain
and a path for the thunderstorm,
27 then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;
he confirmed it and tested it.
28 And he said to man,
“The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.”
The answers to these questions come from our encounter with the Living God. Just as Abraham did on the mountain of testing where he saw God and was seen by him, so too, our men of wisdom are expected to make the same journey. Genesis 22:14:
“And Abraham named that site Adonai-yireh [lit. “the Lord is seen”], whence the present saying, “On the mountain of the Lord there is vision.”
This is the journey of Moses on Mount Sinai. This is the experience of Paul on the road to Damascus. These are of course archetypal stories reaching their pinnacle in Jesus, the Word, Wisdom, made flesh. We see it revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Sermon on the Mount, as well as on Mount Golgotha. On the mountain of the Lord there is vision. This is the archetype of wisdom, of leadership, of the man who knows when it is time to kill or it is time to heal; when it is time to tear down or to build up; when it is time to love and when it is time to hate. There will be those moments where it is “necessary” not just to make common cause with the racist, but to be one, one’s self. How do you know in which moment you are living? You journey up the mountain. You are tested by God. You see and meet God and you gain your sight. You walk in the fear before the Lord, and when you encounter the racist, just as when you encounter the fool, you will know what to do and how to respond.
For those of us raised enframed by technique and the administrative system and the “rules based order” this is a deeply unsatisfying answer. How do you produce consistent results? How do ensure it won’t be abused? You are very careful about the people who are anointed king. Chances are, in a world of sin, you will get a mixed bag anyways. People wrapped themselves in the comforting world of system and technique in part because they thought in doing so they could guard against corruption and incompetency. The cost has been the loss of wisdom and a society largely cut off and alienated from God and from spiritual realities. But the regime itself is now rotten through and through and the fragility and limitations of this complex global system are beginning to show themselves. We are also propelling ourselves towards AI powered totalitarianism on frightening level.
But resisting the regime, as we discussed earlier in this piece, means reconnecting ourselves to spiritual realities, the ontological presence of God. Doing so means letting go of the clean cut answers of system, policy and technique for the direct encounter with God. Out of this encounter, we gain wisdom. This wisdom allows us to respond to the regime in ways that are on our own ground. We can reject the “rules” of the progressive system for a living relation with God. Just as in Jesus’ day, we are in a world of profound danger with many landmines. Matthew 10:
16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
Again, we hear the wisdom tradition being carried forward in the words of Jesus. As we encounter this dangerous world of sin where the enemy is the all encompassing metaphysical reality of technique as instantiated in the administrative state writ large in its governmental, business, NGO and non-profit forms, we must manage to hold together those two realities, the shrewdness of snakes —with all the power that the snake imagery carries with it, an apt symbol of the world of “necessity”— and the innocence of doves —with its concomitant imagery of the world of grace, of the Spirit of God.
In this sense, NETTR, is not a hard and fast rule. It is rather an invitation to not be afraid to do hard things, “necessary” things. It is a call to know who we are, to have a clear identity and purpose so as not to get lost and tossed about in a sea of relativity. We cannot be all things to all people. In fact we must, in this world, draw the line more carefully so that we remain strong, with a clear identity and clear sense of purpose. We walk before God, we go up the mountain and gain our sight, we live in fear at the foot of the Living God, and in those moments we will trust God to give us, and especially our leaders, our men of wisdom, what they need to be shrewd as snakes, to know what time it is and not be afraid that they will lose themselves by doing what is “necessary” in the moment, working with whom it is “necessary” to make common cause, and protecting whom it is “necessary” to protect.
Kenneth D. Whitehead “No Enemies to the Left” [pas d’ennemis à gauche] — Still!” http://pblosser.blogspot.com/2017/06/no-enemies-to-left-pas-dennemis-gauche.html
It is remarkable to me how bold and courageous you are. It is one thing to share others ideas and what has been done historically, it is another thing completely to introduce new ideas of how we might take action for such a time as this.