Polite Kid

After reading a blog entry over at VFR, 'What Christianity requires in order not to be destructive of society'
I think I have a glimmer of understanding that had not occurred to me before. If anyone else has thoughts or comments, please feel free to add your thoughts.
Auster says
The key to Christian this-worldly confidence is not that an individual Christian be Jewish (an absurd and offensive idea); it is that Christian society--any Christian society--must include non-Christian cultural and political sources.
This is an absolutely fundamental point that Christians must understand. The original teaching of Christianity as presented in the New Testament is about how to live in what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven. It is about the individual soul's relation with God through Christ. It is not about the political organization of society. The New Testament simply assumes the existence of political society and goes on from there. Because Christianity is not, like orthodox Judaism and Islam, a complete recipe for this-worldly existence, Christian society is necessarily more complex--more differentiated, to use Eric Voegelin's term--than any other. It is multileveled, mediating between the pole of the Christian, spiritual realm and the pole of political and cultural existence in this world, which does not come from Christianity itself. If the society loses its this-worldly pole it will go out of existence. ''
Yes, this makes sense. Much of the New Testament is concerned with Kingdom living, which fact was touched on in a recent thread in which a reader mentioned the Sermon on the Mount and the ethos prescribed there.
Lawrence Auster in his blog entry makes this point which seems important:
Historical Christianity included the Old Testament as part of its scripture. This was a non-Christian source that provided the sense of living in this world as a community of people under God, a sense that is not provided by the New Testament. Thus Protestants, including the people who created America, were able to build strong national societies because they based themselves heavily on the Old Testament with its powerful sense of a people under God.''
Yes, I think the Old Testament religion is often described as 'this-worldly', while the New Testament is not concerned as much with this world. We are told to think of ourselves as 'pilgrims and strangers' in this world, and to consider ourselves as seeking a heavenly country. But for now we do have to live in this world, and it does seem that we need the anchoring in the Old Testament to keep us grounded.
I do think that Christianity is sufficient, just as I believe that the Bible is sufficient, but we have to take the 'whole counsel of God', both Old and New Testaments. It does seem to be true that the very liberal pacifist Christian concentrates solely on the New Testament, and tends to eliminate all but the Gospels or the words of Jesus. That does give one a very otherworldly orientation.
It definitely seemed to me that the turning point came with the liberalizing trend in Christianity, the point at which Christianity became a stunted form of the faith of our fathers. And that trend coincided with the downplaying or outright rejection of much of the Old Testament. Something important was lost there.
There is a saying that some Christians are 'too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good.' I think there is truth in that description, and it sums up the divide between the liberals and the conservative Christians pretty well.
I am still mulling all this over, and it's late, so these are just some quick random thoughts about what I have just read.
I hope my readers will offer their perspectives, and of course if you haven't already, read the post at VFR.
Thanks to Lawrence Auster for giving me some real food for thought here.

Labels: Christianity, Liberalism, Pacifism, Western Civilization

Just to let everyone know, I seem to have beeen hit hard by some kind of respiratory bug. So if I am missing in action tomorrow it will likely be because of that.
I hope you all will excuse any incoherency in my previous post; my brain seems not to be functioning at optimum tonight.
And I'll leave you with a link to a great blog post by Irish Tory, (H/T Flanders Fields) which paints a rather stark picture of our predicament in the West but which at the same time is eloquent and inspiring. I hope you find some inspiration in his words of exhortation. We all need it at this point, I think.
This hope is not in politics, it is not in arguing with our enemies, it is not in letter writing or pointless protests, it is not in powerless 'constitutional monarchies', it is in our souls, in our spirits, our peoples, the men of the west.
Read the rest at the link.

Labels: Blogosphere, Blogs, Christendom, Western Civilization, Western Decline

The Cambria Will Not Yield blog has had a spate of wonderful posts lately, and this latest is another worthy one.
...What then do we lack that our ancestors had? We lack the heroic, integral way of responding to adversity. We no longer see an evil and say, "this must not go on," (1) and strike out at the evil. Instead, we form "think tanks" and study groups. We spend years of fruitless effort in trying to get someone elected who will address the particular evil we are trying to combat. In short, we are Hamlet prior to his conversion from confused graduate student to the lawful King of Denmark. We are "crawling around between heaven and earth."
[...]
Our ancestors who built Christian Europe lived life in the heroic mode. They did not feel called upon to match wits with the devil. They felt called upon to defend their souls and their civilization from the onslaughts of the devil. The Christian hero cares only about one thing: Is his cause God�s cause? And if it is, he sallies forth and leaves the rest to God.
There's a special Providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, 'tis not to come: if it be not to
come, it will be now: if it be not now,
yet it will come; the readiness is all.
Since no man has ought of what he
leaves. What is't to leave betimes?
Every society has men of courage. But it takes more than courage to maintain a Christian civilization or to mount a counterattack against a satanic civilization. It takes courage and vision. And the "vision thing" of which George Bush senior was so dismissive is what has been lacking and is still lacking in the ranks of the far right.''
By all means read the rest.
CWNY makes one point which I have alluded to a time or two: when, as frequently happens these days, somebody on our side is decrying Christianity as the cause of our decline in the West, they often add that we need a new religion, one which will strengthen our side, unlike Christianity. Or, more likely, they say we need to go back to our 'old' religions, which presumably our ancestors held to before Christianity.
Now, I take exception to that line of thought because, first of all, being a Christian and a student of history, I think it's a groundless accusation to indict Christianity for our post-modern failure of courage and will. I won't go into that again now. But even were I not a Christian, I would find fault with this notion that we need to order up a 'better religion'.
CWNY quotes such critics here as implying:
"We need a religion to beat the barbarians � let�s buy one at the religion store." It doesn�t work that way, of course. European man has a religion, he has the religion, and it has always been his religion.
Even before I was a Christian, when I was still a spiritual seeker, I knew that "picking a religion" was not, as CWNY says, like shopping at a store and picking out the most suitable one or the best bargain. Only an atheist at heart would imagine that one 'picks a religion' as one picks out an article of clothing. If religion is a matter of expediency, or of its usefulness to us as individuals or as a people, then there is no God at all, just a series of roughly equivalent personal preferences in the line of religious merchandise, according to your tastes and lifestyle. Religion is not a consumer product that one takes back to be exchanged if it doesn't 'give us our money's worth', or if it doesn't serve as a talisman that brings us good luck and good fortune. To regard religion in that way is on the level of superstition.
Stray into your local barrio or ghetto and you will see stores peddling 'good luck' candles and scents and powders; you will see 'wangas' or fetishes meant to bring love or sexual conquests or power or money. Is this what our people think religion amounts to? We know that the more primitive peoples certainly believe so. Their religion is meant to provide power or material goods or 'love'; their 'gods' or spirits are like the genies in the old Arabian Nights stories, to be conjured up to serve them, not vice-versa.
However anyone who thinks deeply about religion or about a God ought to realize that if there is a God who is the Creator of this universe, and who created us, we ought to be in great awe of Him. We would surely not try to summon up such a Being and demand favors from him; we ought to be on our knees, not attempting to extort things from him.
I have had considerable first-hand knowledge of people who dabble in the 'natural' religions, and ultimately they all believe that their will should come first, and religion, which often amounts to little more than ritual and ceremony, ultimately is meant to be a servant to their wills. They thus see themselves as 'gods' of a sort, who wield power over supernatural forces.
In other words, they don't believe that there is one transcendental and yet immanent God, but they may believe there are multiple 'gods' who can be put into harness to serve their ends.
In that sense, I would call them unbelievers. They simply don't believe in one Creator God who is to be served, but they see themselves as small-g 'gods' and 'goddesses' who can shape reality to their wills.
Isn't this what the people are saying who claim that we have to go back to worshiping some nature 'gods'? The idea is apparently that these gods will empower us to be successful and dominant as our ancestors supposedly were in some pre-Christian 'golden age'. So we order up some gods who will act as our personal genies and who will lead us to victory.
Either there is a God who created this universe and all that is in it, or there are only small-g 'gods' who are thus not really gods at all, just some kind of magical beings who can be pressed into service towards our ends.
So the non-believer who proposes we scrap Christianity because our team is losing too many games, and we need a new mascot, truly does not understand what religion is, or what deity means. Religion is ultimately a matter of truth. If religion is not based on truth, but only on its usefulness to us in our worldly needs or on its expediency, then it is not religion in the true sense; it's magic or superstition.
Either a religion is true or it is not.
I strongly suspect that those who propose we wheel out the old pagan deities and put up altars to them don't for a moment believe that those 'gods' even exist; I suspect they believe that religions are meant to be some kind of psychological crutch or pep-talk to help us toward success. Religion would seem, to these people, to be no more than a kind of self-help system that we employ.
Our forefathers prospered and succeeded when Christianity was at its Zenith. Our fortunes in the West have waxed and waned with Christianity. But that is not a reason to be faithful to Christianity; Christianity is not a mere means to an earthly end. But it's apparent that we were blessed when we were faithful, and we've lost that blessing to a great extent as we've strayed from the faith of our fathers.
I believe, as CWNY says, that our Christianity is part of our blood and our substance, and to the extent that we have walked away from it, or have in some cases perverted it into a caricature of its real self, we have forfeited our sense of our identity and our heritage as Westerners, heirs of Christendom.

Labels: Christendom, Christianity, Western Civilization, Western Decline

It seems I've never written a post on this blog which is specifically about capital punishment. It's odd that I haven't because I feel strongly about it.
Every now and then, there is some mainstream media article attacking the death penalty, and making claims about our 'biased' justice system. Every now and then, like clockwork, Mexico -- Mexico, of all countries! -- has the colossal temerity to condemn us for executing criminals in our prisons, usually in Texas prisons. Well, if they only kept their killers at home, we might not execute so many of them, but that would not occur to them. Mexico, one of the most corrupt, dysfunctional, ramshackle countries in the Western Hemisphere, lecturing us on morality, and striking a superior pose. That really is humiliating.
This is something that really annoys me: the way the left uses the death penalty as an issue on which to lecture to us, from their moral high horse. I find it really rankling when countries like Canada or Ireland or France or wherever refuse to yield up one of our fugitive murderers, actually making said murderers into some kind of perverse heroes, as if they were political prisoners. Ireland and France, for instance, harbored the odious Ira Einhorn, whose girlfriend's body was found in a trunk in his apartment. To me, his guilt was apparent.
Why did some in other countries take up his dubious cause? To teach the U.S. a moral lesson, I think. We are so often seen as the heavies in the rest of the world.
For liberals, capital punishment is merely legal murder. We have quite a few American-born liberals who hold this opinion, but the reality is, most Americans are not opposed to the death penalty where appropriate. The rest of the world seems to be of a different mind.
Sarah, Maid of Albion writes an honest blog entry on the subject, confessing some ambivalence about it. I tried to make a case for it as best I could in a few short paragraphs in a comment, but it's near impossible to do so in a blog comment.
I respect that Sarah has written about her misgivings. I simply think that all too often, this subject is not discussed, and the media relentlessly presents only their side of things.
It seems that there is quite a rift between us and our British cousins when it comes to some of these issues like capital punishment and the right to bear arms. The difference is greater than in previous eras due to the greater influence of liberal/leftist ideas in Britain, and the weakened state of Christianity there. At one time, we were more of one mind with the British on such matters, but a wedge has been driven between us. Unfortunately, liberal ideas, and an increasingly enfeebled Christian establishment may soon cause Americans to lose our traditional perspective.
Fewer and fewer Americans are really conversant with their Bibles, though we still have a Biblically-based system of laws. The Bible lays out the reasons for the death penalty.
However it is now commonly believed even in America that the commandment 'thou shalt not kill' forbids the death penalty, and that the popular statement that 'all life is sacred' means that we must executing killers.
Really? Sparing the murderer denies the value of innocent life; the Bible clearly differentiates between 'shedding innocent blood' and shedding the blood of a mankiller, a murderer.
This distinction between innocent blood, and the blood of a murderer or otherwise heinous criminal, is something that few people today seem to grasp. Why is it so hard to understand? Somehow, in place of the old understandings, we have this new liberal nonsense about how ''all life is precious.'' Really? Where does that idea come from? The Bible makes clear that those who shed innocent blood, who murder, must forfeit their own lives. That is putting the ultimate value not on life per se, but innocent life.
There is a difference. The Bible, contrary to what Christian and secular liberals think, is all about discerning, making distinctions, dividing, separating, judging, choosing a side -- the side of justice and right. It is not about egalitarianism or moral equivalency or blurring differences into nonexistence.
Liberal egalitarian dogma insists that 'all life is sacred' (except, seemingly, that of the unborn); though killers' lives are put on a par with those of the innocents whose lives they take.
Here this website puts forth the usual liberal arguments against the death penalty, such as:
Value of human life: Human life has intrinsic value, even if a person has murdered another individual. The death penalty denies the sacredness of human life. Live is so precious that nobody should ever be killed, even by the state.''
See above.
Other 'arguments' used to oppose death for murderers:
Unfairness: The mentally ill, poor, males, and racial minorities are over-represented among those executed. One pilot study of over 2 dozen convicted criminals on death row found that all had been so seriously abused during childhood that they probably all suffered from brain damage.''
Yes, and let's see some proof of this ubiquitous claim of abuse or 'brain damage.' Criminals always whine that they were themselves abused as children, so they can't help what they do. Never mind that many people who were abused in some way as children --- or as adults -- commit no crimes, and are law-abiding, decent people. Abuse does not guarantee a criminal career.
And again, I have an idea which will shock many post-moderns: criminals lie.
Is that so hard to imagine? Criminals are, as a group, guilty by definition of dishonesty or anti-social conduct. Lies are always part of their self-justifying, rationalizing, self-serving, narcissistic 'defense mechanisms.' They will, almost 100 percent of the time, try to deny everything, and when the evidence is against them, when they are backed into a corner, they try to deflect blame: somebody or something made them do it. They did not know what they were doing. They 'dissociated' and became temporarily insane. They had bad childhoods (which may be true, but does not excuse them), and they are often prone to blame their victims.
So nobody with an ounce of common sense should accept, at face value, unproven claims of childhood abuse on the part of criminals. They are prone to lie when it serves their needs.
But if it's the case that our justice system is so flawed, then let's scrap our whole justice system, by all means, because if it's not perfect we can't try or punish anyone, apparently. The ACLU and all other such criminal-friendly organizations are constantly bemoaning how blacks, I mean 'African-Americans' are disproportionately arrested, convicted, and punished at all levels. So they say. What is never considered, or even mentioned here, is that this may just be the case because blacks are more crime-prone (statistics certainly suggest this) and they simply commit more crimes. Yet the mainstream media perpetuate the idea of a 'racist justice system', apparently wishing us to believe that all races are 'equal' in the commission of crimes, which is absurd.
If anything, I would suggest that Whites, especially White males may be at a disadvantage. When a White man commits some heinous crime (which does happen; I don't deny that) there is no big media machine or racial advocacy apparatus that goes into overdrive to drum up sympathy and outrage over the 'unfairness' of his being arrested, convicted, or sentenced. There is no 'race card' to be played. There is no NAACP to march or to hold press conferences. There are no crying, hymn-singing, sign-carrying White liberals and black protesters when a White man is about to be executed. No, this only occurs when a person from a 'protected' group is convicted or sentenced or facing execution. So they have far more people advocating for them, at public expense ultimately, and they have a biased media on their side. Who is truly at a disadvantage here?
The website linked above even admits that there is a bias in favor of female criminals in general; it may seem surprising that they state this matter-of-factly, but not really, because race trumps all, even the feminist agenda:
Women convicted of murder are almost never executed; that is a penalty that is almost entirely reserved for men.''
I've mentioned that fact in a previous blog post. I am somewhat morbidly fascinated with women who commit violent crimes. I've followed many of these criminal cases, some involving women who kill, and it often seems as if they kill those nearest to them: spouses, children, siblings in some cases. Even parents.
Most of us still have a residual belief that women are the 'weaker' sex, the gentler sex, but there are always exceptions. The belief still persists, which makes many jurors think that surely something ''made'' the accused woman kill, because they ''know'' women would not do so without some extreme circumstance ''forcing'' her to do it, or 'driving her insane.'
So the justice system is imperfect. So is every human institution. It's an inbuilt thing. Does that mean we abolish courts, laws, and prisons because the occasional innocent person is accused, convicted, and in rare cases, executed?
And if there are a few innocent people convicted, I would wager there are many, many more guilty people who walk free, who suffer no punishment (because they have slick, shrewd, unscrupulous attorneys, or because a biased jury -- as in the OJ Simpson case -- gives them a pass). I am far more worried about the dangerous criminals who game the system being free to continue their crimes than I am about the few innocent ones being punished. It's absurd to expect perfection of our justice system, and I don't think we err on the side of harshness; just the opposite.
And why am I more concerned with the guilty ones being exonerated or getting obscenely light sentences? Because many innocent people suffer in some way at the hands of the guilty who go free. If an innocent man or woman is imprisoned, is there commensurate suffering? Certainly the wrongly convicted, and their family members would suffer, but how much worse is the suffering of an innocent victim of a murderer who should not have been free, and of course the suffering of the victim's family and friends.
I am more concerned about the fate of innocent people on the street who are prey to criminals than I am about possibly wrongfully convicting an accused. Of course we should try to minimize mistakes, but we are leaning far too much toward the lenient side, with predictable results. To fret and worry that we are executing innocent people while guilty and dangerous ones are running free is to have one's priorities upside down.
Here, I will recite the usual cliche that 'one innocent person convicted is too much', but when one guilty murderer or molester goes free, far more than one innocent person suffers, in most cases. And too often it is the most vulnerable who suffer.
One innocent victim of a wrongly-freed criminal is too much.
I think it is the stuff of Hollywood movies and of liberals' fevered fantasies to believe that innocent people, who have never done a wrong in their lives, are whisked off the streets, wrongly accused, railroaded by evil prosecutors, convicted by corrupt, biased juries and 'hanging judges,' and sentenced to death. I don't believe it's statistically likely that an innocent 'first offender' would end up on death row and be executed without a chance at justice.
If anything, the process drags on and on, as delays are sought, appeals are made, and years pass before a convicted murderer is executed, if ever. This process affords more than enough time for evidence to be gathered and presented to exonerate an innocent person, if he is truly innocent.
We hear so often, thanks to Hollywood's and the news media's bias, of some innocent man who is exonerated after years in prison, thanks to DNA evidence. But what of the cases in which the evidence proves the man's guilt after all? I suspect there are more of these cases, but the media plays these down.
Every prisoner claims to be an innocent victim. It's sensible to be skeptical of those claims rather than too credulous.
Another argument often made against executing criminals is that 'it's actually crueler to sentence them to life in prison; I would rather die than spend decades in prison, so we are letting them off easy to execute them." This argument has the advantage of trying to sound rather conservative, as if punishment for the murderer really is desirable, while paradoxically claiming that the death penalty is 'letting them off easy.'
If there were no chance of a killer serving life in prison escaping and victimizing others, which we know is not realistic, maybe there could be a case made for life in prison. But prisoners in maximum security prisons have escaped and have killed again. Think of the Texas Seven.
Others have managed to escape, or have been released by some bureaucratic incompetence or due to bad decisions by liberal judges, and have killed again. Google Kenneth McDuff.
No prison is escape-proof. Dangerous criminals whose lives are spared may one day be walking free and will almost surely do harm to more innocent people. When they do, whoever is responsible for their wrongful freedom should be held accountable for the harm they do.
And as for the supposedly harsher punishment of life in prison: maybe in the old days, the days of solitary confinement in a dank cell, fed on bread and water, or doing hard labor breaking rocks, this might, might have been true. Somewhat. Nowadays, prisons are generally not that bleak; prisoners have many amenities that some on the outside lack, such as cable TV, phone privileges, 'conjugal visits', gym equipment, and so on.
The idea that convicted killers spend time in a dark cell, alone with their supposed 'consciences', living out their lives tormented by remorse, is just straight out of a movie or a bad novel. Instead, the reality is the example of mass murderer Richard Speck in prison videotaping his 'parties' with his prison boyfriend. The videotape was shown, (the the least offensive parts, anyway) on national TV. Or think of Susan Smith, the mother who killed her children, seeking romance via personal ads while serving her sentence. Or Pam Smart, who had her husband killed, having liaisons with guards in prison. Or the Colorado 'black widow', whose name escapes me, who advertised that she would help an illegal get a green card via marriage, in exchange for companionship. I'm afraid that none of these people were sitting and repenting, weeping over their crimes, in prison. They were using and manipulating and having a good time, in many instances, at our expense.
We live in such a liberal age that even many who are in some respects conservative and who believe in being 'tough on crime', will shrink from approving the death penalty. We often hear things like 'if we kill criminals, we are just as bad as they are.' I think this kind of statement shows just how strong and pervasive liberal indoctrination is, and further, how far most people are from traditional understandings and interpretations of the Bible.
It is not just those "harsh" Protestant fundamentalists who traditionally supported the death penalty; the Catholic church followed the authority of Thomas Aquinas, and St. Augustine in approving of the death penalty for certain crimes, including murder.
If a man is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the common good is to be commended. Only the public authority, not private persons, may licitly execute malefactors by public judgement. Men shall be sentenced to death for crimes of irreparable harm or which are particularly perverted." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Further, Thomas Aquinas also said that executing criminals 'protects those who are undergoing capital punishment from the harm they may suffer . . . through increased sinning which might continue if their life went on."
Surely this makes sense from a Christian point-of-view. If the criminal is truly repentant, I would think the pain of remorse, and the fear of doing the same things again, would make them prefer to pay the penalty.
One such criminal, who was a child-killer, requested the death penalty, and said
"I must be executed before I have an opportunity to escape or kill someone within the prison.''
Further, he said that he knew he would kill again, including killing prison guards, if he had the chance.
Predictably, liberals took this statement as proof that he was just a poor sick man who should be spared and 'helped.'
His statement contained another reason for execution: prisoners have killed, even in prison. Prisoners have been killed (remember Jeffrey Dahmer?) while in prison. Better, from the criminal's perspective, to have been executed than subjected to 'justice' at the hands of another killer in prison, surely.
The fewer killers in prison, the safer for those who work there, as well as for the less dangerous prisoners there. Why keep dangerous individuals alive indefinitely, where they can wreak more harm?
Those who are not Christians will not be persuaded by arguments from Scripture or from Christian scholars, but they should at least concede that our society, though it may have fallen away to some extent from its Christian roots, is centered on Christian morality. The weakening of Christianity, and the decline in familiarity with the Bible and our Western traditions, have meant that our society is becoming more incoherent, in the true sense of the word, every day. We can't just cobble together a crazy-quilt of do-it-yourself liberal 'morality' and expect our society to hold together, or to be a safe and stable place in which to live and raise our families. There have to be some agreed-upon values and standards, and liberalism has made that more and more difficult, as liberalism constructs a warped mirror-image of Christianity which even cites Scripture in the cause of some rather un-Biblical ideas.
Here's another thing which crosses my mind: the anti-death penalty forces often point the accusing finger at the United States as being a 'backward' country because of our (rather infrequent, in some states) application of the death penalty. They like to associate us with some of the more barbaric countries which still execute criminals. Guilt by association.
It's often said that America is the 'only first-world nation still executing people', or words to that effect.
Actually Japan still uses the death penalty, and I think they are actually more sensible about it than we are, though some would say they are too harsh also.
But if our rulers are to go through with this rumored shotgun marriage between the U.S. and Mexico and Canada, and if we ultimately move towards some kind of one world system, with the U.N. having some authority over us all, our justice system is finished. Mexico and Canada do not use the death penalty. We will be the red-headed stepchild made to conform to Mexico's and Canada's ideas of justice. The system of jurisprudence that grew up over the centuries in England and later here will not be part of any New World Order. It's one more part of our longstanding traditions that will be slated for extinction should we lose our sovereignty.
Our system is not perfect, but I don't see any other country as being a superior example to follow. Our forefathers took great care to give us our jurisprudence system and we should not jettison it lightly.

Labels: Capital Punishment, Justice System, Media Bias, Western Civilization, Western Culture

Here, DanielJ of the blog Tomorrow in Vinland writes about Philip Rieff and the Triumph of the Therapeutic.
I will not even attempt to discuss Rieff and his ideas. I know little but that he was Jewish, and that he was married to Susan Sontag, she of the infamous ''the White race is the cancer of the human race'' comment.
Now that does not necessarily delegitimize his ideas or writings, but nonetheless I haven't been inclined to read his works. There is a thread at the Kinism Forum on Rieff, here, for those interested.
The excerpts I have read show his writing to be too abstruse and arcane and too intellectual for my liking; I am not one of those who can deal in abstractions and ideas about ideas on a sustained basis. So I will leave Rieff and his ideas to those who have a head for such rarefied stuff. I am, however, interested in the idea of the role of the therapeutic culture in a post-Christian West. That may be a topic for another entry. And even more, I am concerned with the ongoing anti-Christianism that many self-identified neo-pagans promote on the racial right.
Taking that last into account, this first reply to DanielJ's post was expected, and all too typical:
If today�s Christianity is a defence mechanism against non-White invasion of Euroman�s lands then I�m a baked hedgehog with mushroom sauce. Christianity, that ancient Hebrew heresy foisted upon White people by Jews and their proselytising, brainwashed catspaws, is the natural parent of multi-culturalism�s sponsor, Marxism. Of course, the supernatural element of Christianity�s arrant nonsense had to be excised in order for those foolishly egalitarian Whites who, at least, valued observed reality above blind, racially alien, Middle Eastern deity worship to accept the worthless religion�s new Communist guise.''
He pretty much hits all the usual notes sounded by the anti-Christian zealots on the racial right.
But wait, one pro-Christian comment appears:
1. Christianity has been for a long time the religion of the West. As an empirical proposition, as Europe has dispensed with the old faith, it has been transmogrified into a bunch of non-reproducing, non-white-ass-kissing pansies and socialists. Correlation or causation?
2. Must Christianity lead to multiculturalism? I genuinely do not know (and neither do you - this is one of the most profound yet largely unexplored areas of intellectual concern). All patriots should avoid this easy inference, however, as it is not clear that multiculturalism is a latent outgrowth of "taking Christianity seriously". At least as likely is the hypothesis that Christianity�s replacement, sentimental secular humanism, the aptly called Religion of Humanity, is what has directly lead to our modern hysterical denials of racial differences, and acceptance of race-replacement.''
Yes. If 'taking Christianity seriously' is the issue, then just about any generation before the 20th century took it much more seriously than today's lukewarm liberal Christians and CINOs (Christians In Name Only). So if Christianity was the toxic ingredient that killed off the spirit, and is killing the body, of the West, it would have done so long ago. None of the critics ever address this little anomaly.
3. Another empirical proposition. Most conservatives generally, and most racial conservatives in particular (I don�t mean celebrity racialists, or extreme rightists - just the plain people who vote against immigration, affirmative action, etc) describe themselves as "conservative Christians", at least here in America. There is, in other words, a much stronger correlation between Christian conservatism and racial conservatism, than between atheism and racial conservatism. Why this should be, or WHETHER this should be, intellectually, I don�t know. But this fact ought to influence political thinking about explorations of the intersection of Christianity and race-liberalism, especially when calls for a new paganism or similar nonsense start issuing forth.''
This is a point I haven't made sufficiently: there is at least as much of a case, if not more, as the commenter says, for a correlation between conservative Christianity and racial conservatism. I keep asking, with no response, why, if Christianity is guilty of destroying the West, it took millennia to do so. That's like saying that a meal eaten a decade ago could kill someone today. Presumably if Christianity was so destructive to the West, the West would not have survived and prospered and expanded for centuries.
4. I am sufficiently confident in my comparative theological knowledge to make this claim: the only philosophically and scientifically tenable alternatives to atheism are either some form of rational Christianity, or a deism as yet not fully articulated; that is, all existing non-Christian forms of supernaturalism, including various Christian sects, fail intellectually and scientifically. Christianity, especially Catholicism, is very strong, however. The more it is studied the more (intellectually) impressive it becomes. Paganism, however, whatever its former tribe-unifying merits, cannot be resurrected by the modern mind.''
The last sentence seems convincing to me. The fact is we know very little about the pre-Christian religions of Europe; there was no extensive body of writings, no holy books, nothing other than bits and pieces written by Roman historians or others in various places. Much of what is called 'paganism' today is a cobbled-together 'tradition', mostly the work of Gerald Gardner, who lived in the 20th century, far-removed from the traditions he was supposedly resurrecting. In Victorian times, Sir James Frazer and his work The Golden Bough also contributed a great deal to this reinvented paganism. In other words, the authenticity of it is very much in question, but then I suspect that matters not at all to its proponents, because it appears that to them, neo-paganism is merely a means to an end, a supplanter of Christianity which they deem as more useful to their cause of creating a new Europe in which the hated faith of our fathers will not exist. A Christendom without Christ, as some have put it.
5. Even if all religion is, finally, empirically false, white nationalists may want to encourage a new efflorescence of traditional Christianity, if only for its healthy, life-affirming aspects. The old faith encouraged large families (biological reproduction). We need this now. For centuries, moreover, the old faith was not seen to be incompatible with anti-miscegenation laws, with ethnic expulsions, with ranks and hierarchies, and with anti-immigration statutes. Instead of jettisoning the faith because it has been racially corrupted, the easier as well as more politically prudent and fruitful course would be to recover and reapply the earlier, non-multiculturalist understanding of Christian obligation."
[Emphasis mine.]
6. The Faith presided over great periods of Western (biological) expansion. It may have helped cause that expansion, directly and certainly indirectly. The Faith is therefore not necessarily inimical to the West; secular liberalism undeniably is. Oh, and the Faith may even be true ... racialists should adjust their thinking accordingly. ''
That last little point is not made often enough. What if Christianity is true? That should be the central question. Is it true? Is there a God, one God, as the Bible states, and is Christ his son and our savior? If so, then it behooves those who revere truth to seek out the true God, rather than inventing or 'rediscovering' a set of 'gods' who will serve as mascots or talismans for their new Christless Eurotopia.
I'm often tempted to ask those who profess to be pagans: do you really believe in your gods or are they just intellectual symbols for you? Props in your scenario for a new Europe? If they do exist, and if they are specifically tribal gods of the White race or the Northern European race, are they not there to help their people now? Or are they dormant until Christianity is overthrown?
Truth be told, I've known people who professed to be pagans or Wiccans or sort of freelance witches, or Druids. Before I was a Christian, I was something of a seeker, spiritually, and I learned about all religions, Eastern and Western. I never got the sense that the pagan gods were real and vital in the minds of those who called themselves pagans. How is worshipping them supposed to spiritually and racially revivify the West? Come to that, why did the pagan West fall to Christianity, if the gods were so potent, and if paganism was authentic while Christianity was alien and artificial for Europeans?
And I don't buy the allegation that Christianity was 'forced' at swordpoint on Europeans. Those who say that must be confusing Christianity with Islam. Christianity was not forced on Europe. The story of Constantine forcing his supposed 'faith' on Rome (his profession being in doubt, according to some observers) does not apply to Europe generally.
I have no grudge against the pagans or neo-pagans on the right, as long as they are not calling for the stamping out of Christianity, nor engaging in wholesale slanders against our Christian ancestors. I think that all of us who care about the future of our people have to come to some kind of modus vivendi, and tolerate one another. We can't afford the divisions, and I don't see these divisions as originating with the Christian side; the hostility consistently shows up in the constant blaming and vilifying of Christians and the faith of old Europe. I simply don't see how one can love Europe and hate the faith which informed it during its height of achievement and strength.

Labels: Christendom, Christianity, Europe, Liberal Christianity, Western Civilization

Following my post about 'equality vs. liberty', Takuan Seiyo writes, in his latest essay at The Brussels Journal:
Pods are deeply committed to the idea that freedom and equality are not mutually exclusive. They are the emotional children of the French Revolution and worship its motto so much that they are willing to install PC tyranny in the name of Liberté, enforce racist and gender discrimination and robbery of private property in the name of Egalité, and stop at no fraud, libel and persecution of their opponents in the name of Fraternité.
Pods view biological race and gender differences as social constructs, and therefore social group differences as an unjust inequality that must be rectified by reconstructing society. They view nation, ethnoculture, and private property as obsolete obstacles in the way of freedom, equality and fraternity of all people. Therefore, the right of anyone to immigrate anywhere precedes the right of the one suffering the destruction of his social capital by this immigration. The right of a slacker to home, sustenance, and self-esteem counseling precedes the right of the 80-hours-a-week worker not to have his earnings confiscated to float the slacker in splendid idleness.
They view the refusal to tolerate the intolerable as unacceptable intolerance, and the desire to protect and preserve one�s family, community, country and culture as racism and xenophobia. And lastly, they have stood Jesus� metaphor on its end, so that they fail to see the beam in the nonwhites�, non-Christians� eye, but they see and greatly magnify the speck in their own peoples� eye.
This is deep, delusionary dementia.''
Deep, delusionary dementia. That describes liberalism, does it not? And the rest of the excerpt, wherein he writes about 'pods', makes it clear that it is the Politically Correct who are being described.
As usual, Takuan Seiyo writes a mordant piece on the crisis of our Western world, in which he describes with great accuracy what is happening.
I've used the 'pod people' analogy before; it's such an apt one, for those of us who have seen the old 1956 movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It comes to mind readily when you see the behavior and the relentlessness of the Politically Correct Possessed Ones.
For those few who haven't seen the classic 1956 movie or its later remakes, the story was of an invasion of a small California town by alien lifeforms resembling giant seed-pods, which 'took over' or replaced the human population of the town, gradually, with only the protagonist and his girlfriend escaping replacement. Eventually they are pursued relentlessly by the 'pods' who were once their friends and neighbors, but who are now bent on forcing them to be 'replaced' with pod likenesses of themselves.
The movie comes to mind as some of us see our neighbors and even relatives suddenly becoming willing cult followers of a certain presidential candidate. I can think of at least two such examples in my life. Otherwise normal people becoming zealous defenders of their Leader -- it can be something of a jolt to see it happen to people one knows.
But as for us holdouts, I like the term Seiyo uses to describe 'us': ''ethnoconservatives.'' I think it's a good descriptive term without the baggage of many other possible terms for people like most of us here, who want to preserve our people and our culture and our heritage.
We are the ethno-conservatives -- perhaps 60 million people in Western Europe, North America and Oceania. There are probably four times that number who are like us, but they are latent, unable at this time to cut through the fog of suppressive propaganda and inertia.
In every Western country, we are a minority encircled by brainwashed zealots discharged at a steady rate from the left-only assembly line of public education. The conveyor belt�s propulsive power is multiplied many times over by the giant dynamos of Mainstream Media (MSM) and manufactured pop culture. Our own propulsive power comes from inner conviction, books by Dead White Males, and � to steal a phrase from Abraham Lincoln � the mystic chords of memory.''
He writes that it is in opposition to the PC 'pods' and our treasonous elites that we must define ourselves, and he writes of this dominant 'mental disorder' which has gripped the West:
This mental disorder is now the dominant orientation of the Western peoples, with its triumphant apotheosis, The One We Have Been Waiting For, coasting on the final approach to the most powerful job in the world, so that he can change the world into Pod kingdom.
The dementia�s hold on the brains of the majority of the white population is such that the vile Afro-American racism that America�s probable 44th president imbibed during most of his adulthood goes unmentioned and uncriticized by the MSM. Even Mr. Obama�s opponent in the presidential election remains paralyzed by the possibility that anything he might say would be deemed "racist."
Barack Obama is expected to receive 75 - 80% of the white vote in many urban areas of the United States. If this is not having one�s body and soul snatched, nothing is.''
I rather like his analogy of the present Obamania to the Children's Crusade, which was based on the delusional notion which caused participants to go to the Holy Land and attempt to convert the Mohammedans by means of 'love and peace.' Needless to say, it didn't work out well. Such is always the case when delusional idealism goes up against merciless reality. Tradition has it that many of the 'crusaders' were sold into slavery by their would-be converts among the Moslems. Today's ''pods'' ought to take heed. History has a way of repeating.
Read the entire piece by Takuan Seiyo at Brussels Journal. There are no comments on the piece as of the time I am writing this, but that's not a bad thing; the comments never measure up to the level of Seiyo's pieces, and often derail the discussion, going off on tangents.
I agree very much, too, with his urging Western 'ethnoconservatives', regardless of nationality, to offer mutual support and to make common cause. By uniting, we stand. We are few but we needn't let that discourage us. Defeatism and resignation are creeping up on us, and we mustn't give in to those things.
To return to our pop culture metaphor, in the 'Body Snatchers' movie, it was only when the human beings went to sleep that they would fall prey to the 'body snatchers' and become mindless pods. We mustn't let our guard down or relax our vigilance, and we mustn't be lulled to inaction or somnolent passivity.

Labels: Ethnoconservatism, Ethnonationalism, Liberalism, Population Replacement, Presidential Candidates, Western Civilization

...another Moslem protest.
These headlines come around every year at this time:
By Aroonim Bhuyan, Dubai, Feb 13 : Protests against Valentine's Day celebrations are building up in the Gulf region with the Saudi Arabian moral police banning the sale of red roses and an Islamic group in Kuwait warning the media against "glorifying the pagan celebrations". Thawabet Al Umma, while condemning the Feb 14 celebration, has warned the media against misguiding Muslims "by glorifying such pagan celebrations", according to a report in the Arab Times website.
"Such traditions are imported from the West, and people blindly follow them without looking into the good and bad aspects. Participating in such celebrations will tarnish the image of Islam," it said in a statement.
So, in light of the fact that the news stories represent déj� vu, I decided to repost my blog entry from last Valentine's Day, which I titled
..and never the twain shall meet
As another Valentine's Day is past, some recent news articles on the subject give us pause to consider the gulf between us in the West and those in the non-Western, non-Christian world.
In a society which insistently tells us that we are really all the same, and that our respective cultures can easily be thrown into the blender and retain their flavors, let's think about the differences in worldview displayed in these stories:
At the Conservative Voice, Grant Swank writes about the Moslem campaign against Valentine's Day.
To extremist Muslims, inter-gender love is anathema to their interpretation of Allah�s ethic as set forth in the Koran. It�s contrary to the extremist Muslim murderers global who see their lot in life to spread hate rather than love.
Therefore, when Valentine�s Day comes around once again this year, extremist Muslim mouthpieces are hailing it as from Satan.
According to Dr. Walid Phares� report: "Valentine�s Day Enrages Jihadists," a Muslim cleric has let the world know that "love is forbidden, love is infidel," per AP.
A Muslim scholar stated that "basic love is not permissible outside commitment to Jihad." Romantic expressions is "decadent."
And it is not just Moslems who object to our Valentine's Day traditions.
Indian Hindus protest Valentine's Day
In India, hardline Hindu nationalists have been burning Valentine's Day cards in protest against what they consider a corrupt and commercial Western celebration.
As South Asia Correspondent Peter Lloyd reports from New Delhi, every year in the capital and other northern cities the radical fringe of Hindu politics gather for noisy protests against Valentine's Day.
This year was no exception.
They denounced it as a corrupting influence on Indian culture.''
This article from India, while more pro-Western, shows again the gulf that exists between Western ideals and customs, and those of non-Western cultures.
... it is evident that such days, and the general ethos of romance and love conveyed through advertisements, serials and books, is raising aspirations in the young. They dream of a chance to "fall in love" and live "happily ever after". Sadly, that is where the dream ends. For Cupid's arrow, in this country, must land in a preordained space � it must strike a person of the right caste and creed. Otherwise, the love match is rejected. Increasingly, that is the hard reality that thousands of young people, who delude themselves into believing that things are changing and that they will be able to make a choice on the basis of the dictates of their hearts, are being forced to face. They are firmly brought down to earth by families who refuse to accept their right to make a choice. If a couple refuses to fall in line, they must face rejection, ex-communication, and even violence. The happy endings are few and far in-between.''
It's a commonplace among those who are wary of Islam to label it misogynistic, oppressive of women. And so it is. But to a great extent, so have been most non-Western cultures. It's ironic that Western feminists are the loudest complainers about the supposed oppression of women in our countries, seemingly oblivious to the fact that generally speaking, women have enjoyed the highest status in Western countries, in Christendom. than in any other culture. I invite anyone to show me an example of a culture outside the West in which women had higher status and more respect.
And the whole tradition of Valentine's Day, which ostensibly honors a St. Valentine,or one of several Saints named Valentine. And apparently, around the 14th century, the feast day of St. Valentine became associated with romantic love, which in turn, developed as an ideal along with the Code of Chivalry.
I've long been fascinated with the Code of Chivalry; I think it was one of the proudest achievements of our Norman ancestors. Now these days, for some reason, our Norman ancestors are not well spoken of; it's more fashionable for those of British ancestry to claim kinship to Anglo-Saxons and Celts, while the poor Normans are judged harshly. Why? They were too strong, and too capable. In our modern world, the strong are devalued, and the weak, the underdog, and the victim reign supreme. Ironically, that grotesque exalting of the weak is something of a perversion of the chivalric tradition. Under the chivalric code, men were to treat the weak generously and kindly, but they were not to disown their power. Strength was honored, not disparaged as it often is now.
Here is one writer's modern take on the meaning of chivalry
Chivalry spells out certain ethical standards that foster the development of manhood. Men are called to be: truthful, loyal, courteous to others, helpmates to women, supporters of justice, and defenders of the weak. They are also expected to avoid scandal.
Beautiful ideals! They attract us with a sense of nostalgia that is almost religious. That's because they are part of us already. Unfortuantely, they must contend with powerful, often destructive influences, like commercial television, that bombard us with outrageously bullish images of men that are, at best, inappropriate.
The virtues of chivalry offer more than pleasantries and politeness. They give purpose and meaning to male strength, and therefore support the overall workings of society. They remind us that Camelot is an ideal worth striving for, the reflection of who we are when we are at our best. Here is a short summary:
Truth provides the foundation of chivalry. A man who lies cannot be trusted. His strength and ambitions cannot be counted on. Truth should always remain our greatest concern.
Loyalty denotes a relationship that is based on truth and commitment. If we are fortunate, we have companions who are loyal to us�but we must be loyal to others as well. Remember, loyalty is a virtue to cultivate, even when it is not reciprocated.
Courtesy provides the means for cordial and meaningful relationships. A society cannot be healthy without courteous interaction. We sometimes admire people who trample on courtesy to get what they want�but keep in mind, the contentious world they create is very disappointing, and we all have to live in it.
Chivalry calls men to honor women, and to serve as their helpmates. This precept merely states the natural order of things. Men should honor women first as people, and then as the conduits and nurturers of life. That certain men commit violence against women, or treat them with disrespect, is an outrage against nature, and presents a poor image of manhood.
Justice involves little more than treating people fairly. It also calls for mercy. We all make mistakes.
We admire men who are strong, but if their strength is not directed to uphold what is good, what value does it have? We are therefore called to use our strength to defend those who cannot defend themselves, and commit ourselves to just causes. Never oppress other people.
[...]
Chivalry also speaks about romantic love. People today often romantic love disappointing. It promises more than it delivers, especially in regards to permanence. Why? Because we perceive romantic love as something spontaneous, something that does not demand work and a strong moral base. Medieval literature tells us quite the opposite. The very essence of romantic love is commitment. This is where chivalry provides a vital ingredient. Love relationships provide the laboratory where the virtues of chivalry are tested to their fullest, and manliness is finally proved. An added bonus shows that proper love encourages us to do our best in all things.''
And here is an excerpt from a 19th century work on Chivalry.
From G.P.R. James, The History of Chivalry, 1830
The first point required of the aspirants to Chivalry in its earliest state, was certainly a solemn vow, "To speak the truth, to succour the helpless and oppressed, and never to turn back from an enemy.''
[...]the knights for long after the first institution of Chivalry, were "simple in their clothing, austere in their morals, humble after victory, firm under misfortune."
In France, I believe, the order first took its rise; and, probably, the disgust felt by some pure minds at the gross and barbarous licentiousness of the times, infused that virtuous severity into the institutions of Chivalry which was in itself a glory.
[...] [N]o words will be found sufficient to express our admiration for the men who first undertook to combat, not only the tyranny but the vices of their age; who singly went forth to war against crime, injustice, and cruelty; who defied the whole world in defence of innocence, virtue, and truth; who stemmed the torrent of barbarity and evil, and who, from the wrecks of ages, and the ruins of empires, drew out a thousand 14 jewels to glitter in the star that shone upon the breast of knighthood.''
[...]There cannot be a doubt that Chivalry, more than any other institution (except religion) aided to work out the civilization of Europe. It first taught devotion and reverence to those weak, fair beings, who but in their beauty and their gentleness have no defence. It first railed love above the passions of the brute, and by dignifying woman, made woman worthy of love. It gave purity to enthusiasm, crushed barbarous selfishness, taught the heart to expand like a flower to the sunshine, beautified glory with generosity, and smoothed even the rugged brow of war.
For the mind, as far as knowledge went, Chivalry itself did little; but by its influence it did much. For the heart it did every thing; and there is scarcely a noble feeling or a bright aspiration that we find amongst ourselves, or trace in the history of modern Europe, that is not in some degree referrible to that great and noble principle, which has no name but the Spirit of Chivalry.'' [emphasis mine]
An old friend of mine, years ago, used to say 'Chivalry isn't dead; it's just moribund.' And that is true, I think. Our age has forgotten the roots of our civilization, going back to European Christendom, but some of the remnants of the Code of Chivalry still survive, and those traditions are what divide us from the Moslems and the Hindus and the rest of the non-Western, non-Christian world. And to those agnostics and atheists who are indignant at any mention of Christianity and Christendom, I can only say that history cannot be denied; even if you dislike Christianity, it is part of our European heritage. All of us of European ancestry had Christian ancestors going back many generations, and Christianity largely shaped European culture.
The high ideals of Chivalry are all but forgotten today, and the word is rather an archaic word which refers to now politically incorrect things like opening doors for women. But it encompassed both love and war, and it encompassed faith as well. The knight was strong yet compassionate toward the weaker: children, women, the old. A knight fought fairly, and did not attack the unarmed. Please notice how those basic rules of civilized warfare are not observed by Moslems or most non-Western people. Perhaps the Japanese code of bushido closely approximated the Western chivalric tradition, but in general, chivalry, as known in Christendom, was unique in the world.
Our more humane standards in warfare, as compared to the Moslems, make a striking contrast. Unfortunately, they put us at a disadvantage in our war with Moslems. If we are fighting by the old chivalric traditions, as we have been, trying to avoid harming civilians and noncombatants (and how can we tell, when our opponents are not regular, uniformed soldiers) and they are fighting with no holds barred, we are at a disadvantage. Our chivalric traditions leave us vulnerable, when facing an opponent who is not principled. How can we deal with an enemy who is not above using women, children, and the old, as human shields? An enemy who sends children out in harm's way, purposely? Our chivalric codes took the barbaric edge off warfare, as long as our enemies were others who observed the same rules. Now, this is not the case.
And notice how in every Western country where there are Moslem colonies, there seems to be a pattern of rape against the indigenous Western women, often gang rape.
Our prolonged contact with Moslems can only result in conflict, unless one of us is conquered and submits culturally. To survive among Moslems would require that we become more like them; we can no longer cling to our age-old traditions of measured, civilized rules of warfare. We would have to match them in ruthlessness if we are to continue to try to coexist in the same space with them. And in fighting to survive, we would lose something of ourselves, of who we are and who we have been for thousands of years. This would be as tragic as the mere physical or political conquest by Moslems: the surrender of our standards, ideals, and civilization. This is just one more reason why separation from Islam is necessary if we and our culture are to survive intact.
St. Valentine's Day may be thought of as just a sentimental, but ultimately silly, holiday by many people, but it is symbolic of what makes us in the West what we are, with our idealism and sentimentality. The celebration is emblematic of the stark contrast between us and the non-Western world. To them, our romantic love is corrupt, decadent, and intolerable. I think they see it as weak and feeble. And, isolated from the rest of the chivalric code, maybe it is. Christendom, the West, must rediscover the strength and justice aspect of chivalry, and not only the softer, tenderer side which, alone, makes us vulnerable to the predators abroad in a dangerous world.
Forum comments here.

Labels: Chivalry, Islam, Multiculturalism, Western Civilization, Western Culture

Who Gives the Most? Americans, by a long shot
Americans give more to charity, per capita and as a percentage of gross domestic product, than the citizens of other nations. But why?
It would be nice to believe that as a group they are just more generous. Of course, it's more complicated than that.
For instance in the U.S., which is notably religious among wealthy Western nations, about a third of all charitable giving goes to houses of worship.''
This article confirms the same phenomena regarding charity and Americans.
It's worth noting that Christians tend to be bigger givers, as do conservatives generally, contrary to popular stereotypes of stingy conservatives.
Liberals give less, despite all their talk about the downtrodden poor. I suppose the idea is that Uncle Sugar is responsible for taking money from the greedy right-wingers and giving it to the worthy poor. If this is supposed to constitute 'charity', it seems liberals don't get the idea that charity cannot be coerced or demanded; it's always voluntary.
The writer of the Forbes article linked at the top of the post, Elisabeth Eaves, dissects the motivations behind the American altruistic tendency, examining various possible reasons for it, and ultimately, and rather disappointingly, says this:
In the end I don't think Americans are more generous in their hearts than other people, nor that they have more cynical motives than anyone else. They are responding, rather, to their culture.
For all its polyglot shifting, U.S. culture is unique when it comes to a belief in philanthropy. It's a value that may be rooted in Christian tithing, but has spread to the secular world. Maybe it's a recognition that with individual freedom comes responsibility, too.''
[Emphasis mine]
It's social expectation and 'peer pressure', ultimately, she says.
Well, yes, that's becoming the default liberal explanation for any and all observable differences among groups of people: ''it's the culture." This is the safe, non-threatening answer to all differences which can't be denied. ''It's the culture."
But as I've said before, this just shifts the question elsewhere: WHY do some people have certain cultures? What causes Western people in general, specifically Americans in comparison with other Westerners, to have a culture which values altruism and charity? Why should Americans have 'peer pressure' or 'social expectations' concerning charitable giving?
Could a nation of stingy, selfish, cynics value charity and volunteerism? What an absurd question. The reason we have the culture we have is because it embodies the innate traits and tendencies that we, on a communal level, share among ourselves.
So often in discussion of racial/ethnic differences, the answer to all obvious distinctions among groups is to blame (or credit) this mysterious thing called 'culture' for the differences. But which came first, the chicken, or the egg?
Some who believe in evolution and natural selection claim that because of the harsh climates in which European man developed, Europeans had to learn to be cooperative and altruistic, at least within kin groups, in order to survive. That's as may be; if it's true, why are not Eskimos, for example, the most altruistic of peoples, since they live in the coldest climate?
Other groups survived in harsh conditions without developing our traditions of helpfulness and altruism.
Some people credit (or blame) Christianity for our tendency to be charitable; obviously our charitable and helpful tendencies can be a vulnerability when interacting with people who do not share them, and who don't reciprocate.
This 'study' would seem to indicate that those who receive the most help will in turn be most helpful to others. If it's true, why are not Third World countries the most altruistic, since they are by far the biggest recipients of help, mainly from us?
But to return to the subject of Europe: why was Europe the only area of the world which enthusiastically embraced Christianity? It never really ''took'' in any other part of the world, despite scattered believers here and there in other regions. And I don't count Latin America; their ''Christianity" is too syncretistic, bearing little resemblance to European Christianity.
There's no avoiding the issue of how much of our behavior is genetic, and how much is environmental.
If I overemphasize the genetic aspect of behavior, it's only as a necessary corrective to the big error of our time, an error motivated by political correctness and cultural Marxism, towards denying all genetic components of behavior.
The subject of charity and altruism, which as this article says derives from the Latin alter or Other:
Coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte, the word "altruism" has dominated the social sciences� discussion and measure of our behaviors toward the Other, and the motivations behind those behaviors. Altruism derives from the Latin alter, or "other." Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have since taken up Comte�s nomenclature.''
Certainly altruism is a good thing, but even good things can be excessive and then become bad things. We are now at a stage in which we are wrongly placing priority on the ''Other'' at the expense of our own, and ourselves. This is contrary to nature. I don't see how the secular believers in evolution or natural selection -- as many liberals are -- can champion suicidally altruistic behaviors such as the idea of open borders and special privileges for people of color. This is not natural, nor conducive to our survival and the survival of our progeny.
And those Christians who advocate this self-sacrificing preference given to The Other are slighting their own kin and people in doing so. It seems there is almost an idolatrous reverence for The Other, and the more ''other'', the more they are idealized by this type of Christian.
Many ethnoconservatives accuse Christianity of being responsible for our present precarious position. And they are correct that a certain faction of Christians, unfortunately the most visible and vocal ones, are promoting what amounts to self-genocide in the name of 'Christian charity' and loving one's neighbor. Yet these same people would not promote such self-abnegation if the recipients of the charity were our own people.
Has anyone noticed how virtually all of those TV appeals for starving children never show any American children? I actually saw one such appeal that did show some White American children, and it was startling because we never see that. Never, ever. I can hear someone say, 'well, we are so prosperous in this country that we have few or no starving children." Technically, we don't have starving children like those shown in the 'food for Africa' appeals. But we certainly have malnourished children and children in need.
The other response is usually ''anybody who can't find a way to prosper in this country just isn't trying, isn't working hard." To some extent, it's true, but in our increasingly difficult job market and with living expenses rising, many families are barely scraping by. So it isn't accurate to say that nobody need be poor in this country.
But why is it that we tend to rush to the aid of the ''other'' in preference to our own? Is it a perverse scramble for moral superiority, a desire to show off one's superior charitable tendencies?
Why is it that Americans tend to put foreign people on a pedestal? Some years ago, when Russian immigrants were a rarity in this country, there was a newspaper sob story about a Russian immigrant who had succeeded in getting to this country, but who was struggling to get on his feet. A follow-up story told of how the people in a local small town rallied to provide him with a car, a place to live, and a job. Who would do this for a local neighbor? Not many, but lots of people will rush to the side of a foreigner who has a sad story to tell. Why don't we seek out our kin and neighbors who have needs first, and if there truly are none, then give to ''others"?
It may be that this is an admirable thing; it may be that these people who will give the shirts off their backs for 'others' will have many stars in their crown in eternity. But somewhere we have lost the healthy love for our own that enabled us to prosper so well for so many centuries.
Whether something in our wiring has gone wrong, or whether propaganda can override our natural tendencies, I don't know.
Our altruism is something to cherish, only if we use it as it was meant to be used, to care for those nearest to us first, and for our extended family and tribe next. If all people everywhere did just that simple thing, we in the West need not have to be responsible for saving the whole world again and again.

Labels: Allophilia, Altruism, American Culture, Charity, Nature Vs Nurture, Western Civilization

I like this piece; it expresses many of the same thoughts I have had about "political correctness" which is merely one of the more smarmy and obnoxious manifestations of liberalism.
The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don't have to lie. I don't have to pretend that men and women are the same. I don't have to declare that failed or oppressive cultures are as good as mine.
Nor do I have to say that everyone's special or that the rich cause poverty or that all religions are a path to God. I don't have to claim that a bad writer like Alice Walker is a good one or that a good writer like Toni Morrison is a great one. I don't have to pretend that Islam means peace.
Of course, like everything, this candor has its price. A politics that depends on honesty will be, by nature, often impolite. Good manners and hypocrisy are intimately intertwined, and so conservatives, with their gimlet-eyed view of the world, are always susceptible to charges of incivility. It's not really nice, you know, to describe things as they are.
This is leftism's great strength: It's all white lies.''
It is true that conservatism, real conservatism, is grounded in a realistic attitude toward life, and in an honest appraisal of flawed human nature. In that sense, many of today's 'conservatives' and Republicans have abandoned that realism and have, perhaps unwittingly, bought into the liberal view of the world and of people. The liberal view is generally a utopian, wishful-thinking ideology. It tends to divide people up simplistically according to how closely they conform to liberal morality: those who engage in the pretense and flattery that we call "political correctness" are of superior character, while those who do not are classed as "mean-spirited" and hateful. Many Republicans and self-styled conservatives share the liberal predilection for quashing any frank speech which steps on the wrong toes; if we speak harshly but truthfully about illegal immigrants, we might be called "hateful" by a Republican almost as often as a Democrat. We have seen how skillful many Republican politicians are at pandering to various protected groups, and how they are just as practiced at uttering 'white lies' as are the Democrat politicians.
So the culture of white lies, craven flattery, and rose-colored glasses is not confined to one political party.
As a Christian, I am aware of how the Bible warns us against "flattering lips" and a lying tongue:
They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: [with] flattering lips [and] with a double heart do they speak.
- Psalms 12:2
The Bible also tells us repeatedly that we are not to be respecters of persons, and that includes giving preference to the poor or to the rich; we are not told that respecting the persons of 'victim groups' is permissible, any more than respecting the person of the rich or the famous.
Of course if someone is truly a victim, they are entitled to justice and sympathy where appropriate, but thanks to liberalism and its warped "compassion", everybody, including the most heinous criminals, is portrayed as a victim. Terrorists and mass killers have their vocal champions among the Politically Correct because of this twisted notion of 'victimhood.'
So our society, in its obsession with exalting 'victims', has become enmeshed in lying, distorting, and dissimulating.
But because it is all done in a "good cause", to spare someone's feelings, or to rectify some claimed injustice, however distant in time, it is seen as moral and noble. Thus the evils of lying and hypocrisy are called good.
These issues came to mind whenever our President or some other official spoke fawningly and flatteringly about Islam as a "Religion of Peace." Secretary of State Rice spoke of the "benevolence that is at the heart of Islam." When I discussed this with fellow Christians, who personally did not buy the 'religion of peace' cant, they justified the flattery and guile as being simply "diplomatic." But if lying and dissimulating is wrong, do we call it right because the need for "diplomacy" outweighed the commandment to be truthful?
Usually when I asked this question, somebody would respond, "well, do you expect the President to say Islam is a false, evil religion? He can't say that." No, he can't say it publicly, but are those the only choices? Being honest does not necessitate that we insult or confront or provoke everyone with blunt candor, but it certainly requires that we not truckle or flatter, especially when the object of our flattery is not the least deserving of praise or compliments.
We are living in an age when mealy-mouthed 'niceness', a bland, limp-wristed desire to placate and mollify, is considered the highest virtue. But I am left to wonder: is the motivation fear? Are we afraid of those we flatter and fawn over? Do we think that our niceness will disarm them and lead them to spare us, or do we simply want to ingratiate ourselves and buy goodwill and benevolence? Or is it a pharasaical desire to appear morally superior, like the Pharisee in the Gospels who loudly thanked God that he was not like other men, a sinner?
Do even the liberals believe their flattery and "white lies" or is it just a pose? Or are they speaking the lies as "affirmations", believing that saying it enough will make it so?
I have heard it said countless times by many people of all political opinions that Christianity is the cause of almost every social ill of our times; leftists, of the atheist or anti-Christian variety, think Christianity leads to xenophobia and persecution, and they gleefully cite the Inquisition, the Crusades, and of course the 'witch trials', slavery, and every other crime of history. Then, I have ultra-liberal Christian acquaintances, who see Christian doctrines as the basis for their pacifist, multiculturalist, all-'tolerant', 'progressive' ideology. According to them, the Bible supports open borders, mass immigration, socialism/globalism, the whole gamut of leftist ideas.
Here,Fjordman's latest essay seems to indict Christianity:
A Christian Background for Political Correctness?
As a non-Christian, I have been complimenting Christianity for contributing immensely to many of the positive aspects of our culture. But precisely because Christianity has so profoundly shaped our culture, isn�t it plausible that it may also, at least indirectly, have contributed to some of the flaws that currently ail us as well?
According to the blogger Conservative Swede, whom I have debated this issue with at some length, Christian ethics is more unfettered in modern liberalism than it is in Christianity itself. The West, and Europe in particular, is sometimes labeled as "post-Christian," but this is only partly true. We have scrapped the Christian religion, but we have still retained some of the moral restraints associated with it, which have been so mired into our cultural DNA that we probably don�t even think about them as Christian anymore. Yet our humanitarian ideas are secular versions of Christian compassion, and it is Christian or post-Christian compassion that compels us to keep feeding and funding the unsustainable birth rates in other cultures, even actively hostile ones. Likewise, there are elements of Christian thought, such as universalism, that could be seen as the inspiration behind our one-world Multiculturalists.
[...]
One major component of Western self-loathing is the idea that we should we be punished for crimes, perceived or real, committed by our ancestors before we were even born. It could be argued that this idea has its roots in Christian thinking, in the concept of original sin, committed by Adam and Eve, but where all their descendants are subject to its effects. Christian ethics have proved more durable than Christian beliefs. Even when we have supposedly left the religion behind, we still believe we have to make atonement for the sins of our forefathers, but since we no longer believe that Christ has made that sacrifice for us and washed away our sins, we end up sacrificing ourselves instead.
This proves that unbalanced Christian ethics without Christian beliefs can be unhealthy, especially if combined with a high degree of cultural feminization and a focus on the feminine aspects of the divine, the self-sacrificing.''
There are quite a few conservatives, of the secular sort, who blame Christianity for the West's decline and possible demise; some of these people are very bitterly anti-Christian, and suggest that the West can only survive if we renounce the 'weak' religion of Christianity. Fjordman is not as extreme as those critics, but I think he somewhat caricatures Christianity, and takes the modern, liberal version of Christianity as the norm, or the standard.
Some of the extreme critics of Christianity as the supposed destroyer of the West assert that we should find a new religion which will serve us better; some even suggest that we go back to the pre-Christian religions of Europe. Now supposing that it were even possible to reconstruct the old religions of Europe, which I doubt, this idea seems wrong-headed. The underlying idea is that a religion is simply a man-made institution or belief system which is meant to serve us: if it does not serve some purpose of our own, we simply shop around for a religion that suits us better, or tinker together a religion of our own. This presupposes that there is no God, a God who is and who exists, with a nature of his own. In effect, this is essentially an atheistic attitude: the idea that God exists only insofar as we construct him or conceive of him, and thus we can make a religion that is useful to us.
Fjordman cites the Christian doctrine of original sin, and blames it for our present 'guilt complex' in the West. To be fair, the doctrine of original sin does not mean that I am guilty for the personal sins of my ancestors. And Christians believe everyone, of every race and nation, is equally a sinner, but the leftist idea of Western guilt convicts Westerners only; according to the popular PC belief, only Western white people carry ancestral guilt. Western white nations are endlessly castigated for slavery, while the liberals never condemn the present-day slavery in the Third World, or the past guilt of the Arab nations in the slave trade. Liberals, influenced by Rousseau and his 'noble savage' idea, seem to see Third World peoples as innocent and childlike, capable only of being victimized, of being sinned against but not sinning. 'Victim' groups are seemingly exempted from accountability, much as we exempt minor children.
The modern idea of a uniquely Western guilt and the need for 'atonement' via self-abasement is not intrinsic to Christian belief.
I would say, and have said, that Christianity in past centuries did not emasculate the West; far from it. Were it not for the efforts of Charles Martel, El Cid, John Sobieski, and the efforts of the Crusaders, Islam would long ago have swallowed up Europe. Our Christian forebears had firm defenses against invaders; they did not understand Christianity as requiring that they welcome mass invasion by 'strangers', as today's Open Borders fanatics believe. They did not generally believe that Christianity demanded pacifism and passivity; certainly there were some who championed such ideas, but they were not the dominant group in Christendom.
Our Christian ancestors, who practiced a "muscular Christianity" that has all but vanished, were not guilt-ridden doormats to the world as we in the West are; did they misunderstand their Christian faith for all those centuries? Are we moderns and post-moderns the first to "understand" the supposed message of self-destruction inherent in Christianity? I would say, in our secular and confused age that we are the ones who have a corrupted form of Christianity. Christianity does not call on us to lay down before our enemies and offer our necks for the chopping block.
Those who say that Christianity is to blame for the West's enfeebled condition are missing the obvious fact that, were it not for the efforts of their Crusader ancestors, Europe as we have known it would never have come to be.
Christianity in our modern times has been, like our society as a whole, in a state of imbalance. As Fjordman mentions,
..unbalanced Christian ethics without Christian beliefs can be unhealthy, especially if combined with a high degree of cultural feminization and a focus on the feminine aspects of the divine, the self-sacrificing.''
But the overemphasis on the feminine aspects is not representative of historic Christianity.
It's no accident that liberal Christians tend to exclude the Old Testament; David, in the Old Testament, calls God a "man of war." The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for war as well as a time for peace.
I am not a theologian or even much of a Bible scholar; I claim no authority on the subject, but simply as a daily reader of my Bible I know that there is wholeness and balance in the Biblical message; there is a place for strength and for the more masculine virtues, as well as the gentler and softer ones.
If the West falls, thanks to our dissolving borders and to the Islamic onslaught, Christianity is not the culprit; it is too easy to scapegoat Christianity. Our forefathers for 1300 years withstood Islam and they defended their territories and their way of life successfully. And they did so as Christians. The modern-day distortions of Biblical teachings, and the secularized perversions thereof, called 'leftism' are to blame for our present loss of nerve and will.
I continue to think that if the West fails to rediscover its historic faith and purpose, there will not be much of a future for the West.

Labels: Christendom, Christianity, Political Correctness, Western Civilization

Recently I discovered the blog called A True Progressive. Blogger Jemison Thorsby's choice of a blog name is from this quote by C.S. Lewis, (which I've used in the past here on this blog)"
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."
That is exactly the kind of progressive approach we need now, more than ever before.
In this blog entry, Thorsby diagnoses what is wrong with our system, in the context of the present political situation.
One of our biggest challenges is we recognize symptoms of a problem but not the systemic issues that cause them. We have a sense we are overtaxed/over-regulated yet ill-served by government, but we don�t ask how we got here. Frustrated, people tend to fall into two camps. One shrugs, says we live in the best of all possible worlds, and accepts the flaws and flubs as the price of doing business. The other rages against the machine, wanting to tear down the system and start fresh (ah, the tonic of youth known as revolution!).
There is another way, however. We are so indoctrinated with the idea of "progress" we have a bias against the past. If yesterday�s gadgets and gizmos were inferior, and people harbored silly ideas like segregation, the past has nothing to teach us, right? This arrogance-of-the-now cuts us off from generations of lessons learned through hard knocks, as we throw out babies with the bathwater.''
[Emphasis mine]
These two paragraphs cut right to the heart of it, especially the second one, above. Thorsby is making a point that I have often tried to make here: the 'arrogance-of-the-now', the idea which seems to pervade our society, the idea that the past is worse than irrelevant. The past is one long dark age, only redeemed by the liberal revolution of the 1960s. The implication is always that our forefathers were benighted, backward, moral deficients. We are the first people, we post-moderns, to have seen the light. "Nothing like us ever was."
In a series delineating the history of conservatism, Fred Hutchison wrote an article called 'What went wrong? The bad seeds sowed from Bacon to Kant'. In it, Hutchison describes this mindset, tracing it back some centuries.
He is mostly discussing science in this piece, but the attitude he describes permeates Western culture generally.
Francis Bacon (1561�1626) laid the indispensable empirical foundations of Western science, enabling science to become the glory of European culture. He also introduced a handful of logical fallacies in which many Western scientists still believe.
Bacon was the father of Western skepticism. He greatly damaged Western culture by providing philosophical grounds for brushing aside the cultural and intellectual heritage of the West.
[...]
Bacon proposed that we should cancel all the knowledge of the past and start from scratch, using a method for acquiring knowledge that he would teach us. We should expunge from our minds of all preconceptions, prejudices, assumptions, theories, and old knowledge. He claimed that all knowledge brought forward from the past is tainted and should be expurgated.
This alone should have made Francis Bacon public enemy number one to all conservatives from that day forward. However, Bacon's contribution to the empirical foundation of modern science was so great that he has generally escaped the censure of future generations. Yet, even Bacon's most important contributions were laced with fallacies. The man who would cure all our old fallacies was a great sower of new fallacies and new myths.
Western culture after 1800 A.D. declined in direct proportion to the extent to which Western man cut himself off from his cultural past. Those who were most persuaded by Bacon and his philosophical heirs went the furthest in cutting themselves off from the Western cultural heritage. Great thinkers such as Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, Diderot, and Hume were among Bacon's heirs and gave weight and momentum to his program of cutting us off from the past and building a new world on the ashes.''
[Emphasis mine]
In another article in the series, Hutchison elaborates on how the traditionalism that led to the Renaissance is at odds with progressivism, historicism, and multiculturalism:
a) Progressivism looks upon the cultural past with contempt, lionizes the mediocrities of our present day, and idealizes an unknown future.
b) Historicism values only the present culture and finds cultural history and traditional morality irrelevant to the needs and values of the present moment.
c) Multiculturalism demeans the works of "dead white European males," and exalts contemporary works that are chosen for praise with no regard for innate merit, but valued solely on whether the works are authentic expressions of favored cultures.''
And in this piece, relating the history of the 'five kinds of conservatism', Hutchison names those five kinds as:
1) Traditionalism, 2) Christian Conservatism, 3) Natural Law Conservatism, 4) Neoconservatism, and 5) Libertarianism.
And he says:
Looking back is the way forward
The seminal ideal of Western Traditionalism in the ancient world was the belief in a golden age of the mythical past. Societies that had glorious visions of their cultural past tried to recover and preserve as much of it as possible. They wanted to conserve precious old cultural treasures and hence were called conservatives. Tradition was valued as a means of embracing the wisdom and blessings of the past and preserving the culture from decay.
Liberals have long argued that looking back to the past blocks "progress." This essay's walk through history indicates that where culture is concerned, almost the opposite is true. Every cultural renaissance we shall encounter in Part 1, was inspired by "backward-looking" conservative ideals. My counterintuitive hypothesis is that for the cultural improvement of a society, looking back is often the way forward.''
I think this is a crucial point. We are so accustomed to hearing that 'we can never go backward', 'you can't turn the clock back' and 'people who look to the past are reactionaries' -- that last being considered a slur rather than a neutral descriptive word.
But what is the good of conserving when there is little left, after the liberal demolitionists have had their way, that is worth conserving? We have to be able to acknowledge that we are on the wrong road, and that it is necessary to correct our course, and seemingly 'go backward' if we want to truly go forward. It's either backward or downward.
Conservatives these days are rather like the comic figure of the man who is hopelessly lost on an unfamiliar road, but who is too proud or arrogant to stop and ask for directions, or better yet, to consult a map and follow the known way home. There are some men who are more afraid of looking inept or admitting to being lost than they are of finding themselves out of gas on a remote road, far from their destination.
And we do have the maps provided by our forebears; they left us a wonderful set of maps to guide us through life; a whole set of traditions, a record of experiences, a body of knowledge and wisdom, that is Western culture. We in America are doubly blessed in that we have our own set of maps in our Founding documents. And we are too proud or too obtuse to rely on those maps, preferring to blunder down dangerous side-roads toward our doom on our own foolish initiative.
This arrogance and self-willed stubbornness is a profoundly un-conservative attitude; it doesn't get much more un-conservative than this. As long as we continue to disregard and look down our noses at our forefathers, at all those who went before us, we will never be able to get ourselves back on the right track; we will continue to wander off into uncharted territory without a compass. To be really 'conservative', to conserve the republic our Founding Fathers created for their posterity (that's us), we have to find our way back to the trail they blazed for us. Trying to be 'conservative' while disregarding the past and treating this present order of thing as not only inevitable but worth preserving, will only lead us further astray. We've got to find our way back before night falls.
To return to Jemison Thorsby's post,
The quote from which this blog draws its name refers to "progressive" as sometimes being the person who backtracks to the point he began down the wrong road. To me, America started down that road almost immediately after its birth.''
Thorsby describes how the original desire of the Founders to minimize and distribute power in a balanced way has been thwarted by those who destroyed the barriers between the branches of government. Now there is little to impede the will of those who have got control of this hypertrophied state power, and the people have been shut out of the process. Many of us wonder why 'our government' seems to have gone rogue and to be operating not only independently of our will, but in direct violation of our will.
We need to be the kind of 'progressives' who are willing to recognize that we are lost and heading in the wrong direction, who are then willing to turn back and find the good paths, as in Jeremiah's words:
Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where [is] the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.''
Conservatism should be synonymous with 'asking for the old paths, the good way', but unfortunately for us and for our Republic, it no longer is. The very name 'conservatism' has been so corrupted as to be devoid of meaning these days; maybe we who really are seeking the old paths, the known, tried-and-true ways, should name ourselves something more meaningful.
Forum comments here.

Labels: Conservative Principles, Founding Fathers, Western Civilization

Recently on this blog I've written about the role of Christianity in the decline of the West, and now Robert Spencer has written a book, Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't. John Derbyshire offered his review of the book, and Spencer replied here.
Derbyshire, in his review, first examines the question of moral equivalence between Islam and Christianity, because Spencer describes this as the 'prevailing malady in the West.' Derbyshire expresses impatience with this point of view:
I understand that this bogus equivalence must be very vexing to a committed Christian, but Spencer seems not to understand how wacky all religions seem to the irreligious. All religious faith, after all, depends on magical thinking. To people who eschew such thinking�people who prefer to ground their beliefs in the strict rules of evidence used in modern law and science�Mohammed�s flying through the air to Jerusalem on a white steed is no more preposterous than the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; and so, God�s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ.''
To begin with, that last sentence is a non sequitur. Whether or not Derbyshire the scoffer thinks Catholic doctrines are 'preposterous' has nothing to do with the question of the effect of Islam or Christianity on their respective adherents.
And another quibble, which may seem insignificant, is that Derbyshire evidently confuses the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception with the Virgin Birth. These are not the same thing, and Derbyshire's evident confusion here shows me that he does not understand the basics, and has not done his homework vis-a-vis Catholicism or Christianity. He makes it clear that he considers Christian beliefs childish and absurd, on a par with the Koranic beliefs, and so he is in a sense making an equivalency on that basis between Mohammedanism and Christianity. If Derbyshire wants to argue Christianity with Spencer or anyone else, the least he might do would be to do some research, and not merely cite creaky anecdotes from friends who attended Christian Brothers schools. But Derbyshire seems uninterested; he's a sophisticated, empirically-minded man of the world and can't be bothered.
Indeed, everybody who grew up in the West, although many may scorn Christianity and the Bible, seem to feel qualified to argue theology or doctrine with Christians although the critics of Christianity may have little or no familiarity with the Bible, except in a second-hand fashion.
But Spencer does a masterful job at pointing out Derbyshire's inconsistencies in his own response.
John Derbyshire seems to think that since, in his view, Islam and Christianity are equally preposterous, they are equally likely to incite violence: "Mohammed�s flying through the air to Jerusalem on a white steed is no more preposterous than the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; and so, God�s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ."
Huh? "And so"? One thing is unbelievable, and so is another, and therefore they�re of equal moral value? Come now. I myself find National Socialism no more preposterous than Shakerism � does that mean that National Socialism is no more or less likely to make us better or worse than Shakerism?
[...]
Derbyshire�s review, while marvelously written and delightful to read, is full of inconsistencies. I don�t see how he could possibly find what I reveal about Islam to be "persuasive" if at the same time he thinks that Islamic and Christian doctrine are equally likely to inspire their adherents to commit acts of brutality, since the contrary assertion, as he himself notes, is a major point of my book.
[...]
But I digress. The ringing peroration of Derbyshire�s review is his declaration that while "Islamia has sunk into the grip of a poisonous ideology�the ideology of jihadism�the Christian West (Spencer actually says 'Judeo-Christian,� but that is just a lagniappe) has been seized by an even more destructive ideology: globalization." (Not a lagniappe at all, but that is a discussion for another time.) He claims that "a great enabler of globalization has been the Christian tradition. If all men are brothers, heathens only a little less enlightened than Christians, they why should not a Pakistani, or a Somali, or for that matter a Mexican, come to live in the U.S.A.?"
One may wonder, given this line of reasoning, why Catholic Europe, at the apex of its self-conscious religiosity, didn�t throw open its doors to the jihadist invaders instead of resisting them. One may wonder why the United States, governed in the main by Protestant Christians for the most part throughout its history, maintained relatively sane immigration policies until the 1960s.''
I am glad Spencer makes this last point; I have been arguing it myself whenever this subject comes up, as it does frequently these days. I have never yet heard any of those who are accusing Christianity of weakening the West answer this argument satisfactorily. If Christianity inexorably leads to passivity and universalism, why did this tendency not manifest itself until more than 1900 years after Christianity began?
And I also wonder why, in this age of wholesale Christian apostasy, anyone seriously thinks that we in the West are committing suicide because of our Christian faith. Anyone who says this must believe that Christianity is much more widespread and that it is taken much more seriously than many 'Christians' in this lukewarm age actually take their faith.
But there is a grain of truth there: the only 'Christians' who seem to be full of 'passionate intensity' these days are the leftist kind: the Barry Lynns, the Cardinal Mahonys, et al. The universalist, open-border, self-immolating Christians are the most zealous of all, to judge by their visibility and their determination to force their agenda on everybody. However, despite all the sound and the fury from the Christian left, who are after all the 'religious' wing of the leftist army, they do not represent true, historical, Biblical Christianity. Yet few will be aware of this unless they educate themselves by reading the Bible, first of all, (which does not prescribe a 'one-world' globalist system), and by reading history books, in which they might learn that our European ancestors' Christian faith enabled them to drive back the Mohammedan interlopers, and to push them out of Europe. Christianity then was not incompatible with self-defense or with particularism and love of one's own. It is not incompatible with those things now.
European blogger JKayce at Kayce's Corner writes about Europe's Multiple Personality Disorder, and the rise of Islam in Europe:
We have acquired values that have estranged us from our true selves, values which basically are an expression of internal corruption, and in our pride we blinded ourselves to the corrupt source of our values.
So, now we are confronted with the consequences.
In our foolish idea of tolerance, compassion and love we have allowed the immigration matter to go completely out of hand, to the extent that our societies are disintegrating and people are reverting to yet another corruption, a weak bid: ethnical/racial identification.
The hollowing of the Christian faith whereby it degenerated into a dogmatic institution thriving on the conformity principle, even marrying the dogma of various Christian churches to the State ideology so that the idolatry is made complete, has rendered typical Christian institutions impotent and fossilized reminders of the past. The decline of Christianity is culturally based and rooted in this very principle of conformity, and it is the logical result of the culmination of a process which has been at work for many decades prior to its current demise.
Thus the inevitable outcome as embodied in the empty churches on the European continent is merely a symptom of the spiritual bankruptcy and corruption which preceded this.
When Mosques take the place once occupied by Churches it is really God asking us:
"What is the rock of your foundation?
Where is your claim of superiority based upon?
If your love and tolerance brings forth your own demise, how can you maintain its superiority?
[...]
I strongly feel that the most important reason why Islam is growing so strongly is due to the spiritual bankruptcy of Europe by which Europe does not have the spiritual armament necessary to combat the spirit of Islam.
Although often it is said that Europe has a Christian identity, it is overlooked that Europe suffers from a Multiple Personality Disorder. There is no one prevailing Christian identity, but instead we see a plethora of identities, often with conflicting and opposite interests.
So where is Europe able to get its spiritual strength from to wrestle with the spirit of Islam?
A house divided against itself cannot hold up.''
JKayce is right; the weakness of Europe, and the rest of the West, is not due to Christianity, which is very attenuated and divided within right now; the weakness is due to a fragmenting in which there is no common belief system and strength deriving therefrom.
Some claim that America is in better shape, in part because we still have a strong Christian foundation here. I wonder how true that is? We are suffering from the same division within Christianity and in the larger society, with leftists and even 'conservative' secularists lining up against Christianity.
Still, at least we are having this discussion now, and that in itself is a beginning. Spencer's book is one that I hope to read.

Labels: Christendom, Christianity, Islam, Jihad, Mohammedanism, Western Civilization