For today, a new essay, "The Night My Father Shot Santa," under "Essays" in the website.  FK 

Ho boy - half way through "How the West Really Lost God," and it already strikes to the heart of the culture wars - and clears, for me at least, why the sides on the debate have certain attitudes toward the family.  Eberstadt, the author, has already shown that it is not only that religious families have more children, but that people with firm families with children are more religious.  There is something about the traditional family, she is veering, that makes them become religious, and she will soon show us why.  However, at this point we have enough to work with to get into deep trouble with political ideologues.  For instance: as abortion and contraception are generalized, people have less children, and so are less religious.  Without family and later, children, people are forced more and more to look to outside institutions for support in times of unemployment, sickness, and old age.  Without religion, that institution would be the state.  Thus we have set the table for the culture wars we see in this country.  Simply put (and in this, not all bases are covered), for those who believe that the state should supply people with the necessities, their natural enemy would be religion, and by relation, the traditional family.  The converse would also be true - the religious would want - beyond the dogma of their church - a strengthened church, and a concomitant weakened state.  If we were forced to simplify these warring factors as such, could it be any clearer? 

What is interesting is that this cuts across dogmatic lines.  Only Catholics are forbidden to use the standard birth control devices and drugs - and yet those of other religions have more children than the non-religious.  From another angle, feminists are ostensibly about women's liberation or equalization (as they see it), yet are more often than not in favor of state control over voluntary religious control.  Atheists, who are supposed to be for a rational approach to the "superstition" of God, are also universally, as far as I know, for the liberalization of what is meant by "family" - and supportive of state control.  The pieces of the puzzle fit remarkably well from her perspective - which has made me think: is her perspective as new as she thinks?  

There is on my satellite radio a religious program called "Focus on the Family" which sees precisely the relationship between family and religion in just the sort of feed-back loop that our author does.  I have further to go in the book, but how much more can she show the relationship of family and religion than this program?  On the Family channel, the idea is precisely this: that a successful family is about self-control and obligation, as well as love - which in turn creates children with that same attitude towards the world - which creates people ready to voluntarily sacrifice money, effort, and certain pleasures to become members of their church - which is a family writ large under the same dynamics as the biological family.  The family channel is also against the socialist state - not because of higher taxes, but because the aid of the state weakens the dependence of family members on one another -which weakens the family, and thus the church.  

It is also clear that such progressive organs as The New York Times like the idea of the "alternative" - or loose - family.  In a recent article, one of their reporters claimed that the traditional family "of the 50's TV fantasies" was dead.  This was not a lament, but a sigh of relief.  The strong, dependent family is more religious and in far less need of state support than the broken family.  The progressives thus naturally see the traditional family with children as an impediment to their ultimate designs.

I will briefly show what might be a prejudice here, although it appears to me to be logical: it seems that the means of the religious are far more moral than those of the progressives; that is, the family-religious do not look forward to a state of chaos to achieve their goals.  The progressives would not see it this way, I know.  They would not see that their necessary means - the breakup of traditional family and religion - promotes chaos, but it is apparent that it does; to compare the crime rates of 1950, for instance, with anything past 1970 is to compare apples and oranges - clearly greater chaos has ensued, to the overall detriment of society.  

To be fair, the progressives site the suffering of those who cannot fit in - the homosexuals, the militant feminists, the poor who are poor by circumstances - to support their goal and means.  Still - how to help the poor, who have always been among us - is up for considerable debate.  When, for instance, does help become an entitlement, and so lesson the chance that the poor might help themselves?  And at what point should the people who cannot fit into one of the many moral-religious systems control the lives of the great majority who do?  Should we be the first society on earth controlled by the non-conformist behavior of small minorities?

I knew this book would take us here.  I have a feeling it will take us further still.  Interesting and ultimately practical - for we should know the greater world we are creating by our individual choices.  More to come, FK 
               

             

A new book - and one that should provide much food for thought: "How the West Really Lost God" by Mary Eberstadt.  It begins with the question, "has the West really become more secular?" which is something that I took for granted, but the author wishes to leave no stones unturned - and in doing so, brings several researchers in to dispute this common belief.  "No" they claim, "the West has not lost god, but merely replaced him with images or ideas other than those from traditional Christianity."  These ideas, they say, include certain forms of politics (ie, communism) as well as the biggest of all, environmentalism.  For these apologists - some of them surprisingly from fields such as neurology - Man has proven to be Homo religiousus - that is, resistant to the press of secularism, even in the face of overwhelming proof against many religious beliefs.  Some have taken to look for the "religion gene," with the belief that religion has must have served a positive function in human evolution to continue to endure, and so must be embedded in the gene code.   It is not that these people are pro-religion, but rather surprised by the evidence.  Any readers of science in the late 19th century will find that the "sensible" man believed that religion held the last traces of superstition  for modern humans - and would soon cease.  That it has not has made these theorists believe that it must have something to do with encoding, for why else would an otherwise practical man still hold such fantastical beliefs?

But the author knows better - that the religions indigenous to Europe are on the sharp decline, and those that might be thought to replace them cannot really be called "religions" in the traditional sense.  The remainder of her book will show how the decline of religion is paralleled precisely with the decline of the traditional family - and how each provides feedback to the other.  

I will certainly write more of her thesis in the coming pages - for it will raise such ideas as the State serving as the new family head - and put additional light on such things as abortion, divorce and gay marriage.  But here I will speak of my own immediate reaction to her belief that the new notions of spirituality are, indeed, rejections of religion, not merely changes.  

It is in Scandinavia, for instance, where we find the greatest decline in traditional religious participation and belief; but are the Scandinavians godless?  With my anecdotal reaction, I had to say "no" - rather, that they had instead followed the same path as a collective that I had done personally - that is, rejecting church teachings and church attendance while still thinking of themselves (and myself) as "religious" or at least spiritual.  For me - and I like to think for them as well - we were rejecting the authoritarian nature of the Church, while keeping the inner nature of, if not Christ, at least of "spirit."  And, although the implosion of Christianity in Europe began in the 1960's (one author put it precisely at 1963), in my own life, it really began earlier, with my parent's generation.  Married, decent, liberal and religious church goers, they never-the-less believed that many of the customs of the Church (ours was Catholic) were either outdated or cruelly unfair.  Was a man or woman to be damned for having sex outside of marriage (or, say, oral sex inside of marriage)?  Or the unwed mother made a pariah, or the woman so desperate that she has to have an abortion to be destined for hell?  And hell - would a good god even have everlasting damnation?  And so on, bringing us up with such questions - questions that were and are good ones.  

At this point in my readings, I still believe what I did last night - that it is not spirituality, at least, that is being lost, but dogmatism in an age of liberal thought.  I will revisit this again.  I have, though, already begun to question this democratization of religion.  My parents gave me doubts about the authority of the Church, but not about the existence of some sort of god (not in youth, anyway), and never the idea that the morality preached  by Jesus was anything but sacrosanct.  But will these generalized notions continue to exist with the loss of prestige and credibility of the churches? 

"God" is already a word, if not a notion, that is seldom proclaimed in public without a sense of embarrassment.  And of morality - it is not only church attendance and confession that are mandatory for Catholics, but also fidelity in marriage and the bedrock notion of the sanctity of life of the unborn.  In Scandinavia, if not quite yet the US, both are already considered antiquated ideas, or marginal at best.  What else might be considered "antiquated" without the constancy of church teachings?

Abbey Hoffman, a '60's radical, wrote a book called "Steal This Book," with the idea that theft is a GOOD thing, as it destroys the capitalist (as he sees it) notion of property.  Killing the unborn has slid towards euthanasia, where in Holland some of the old or infirmed are killed without consent - for their own good.  And we can continue down the list of the Ten Commandments with like examples.  

Is individual conscience enough?  Is a nation run by notions held for the hour good enough for the ages?  That is, are we wise enough on our own, and as a democratic agglomeration, to rewrite the rules of morality for good and long-lasting effect?  More later, FK       

Just a note that an essay was posted late yesterday under "Essays."  For those who are fans, it is a long one.

On Ron Berg's comment: why did the US not go the way of Germany in the 1930's?  A huge question that historians have pondered for decades, and it is huge because of the nearly infinite variables involved.  We had lots of people of German decent in this country, but they were not the majority, in either numbers or power; we had a depression, but not to the extent of Germany, burdened with reparations from WWI, as well as a corrupt, inefficient government.  We both had loud calls for change, followed by lots of change, but we did not go the route of communism (then the most powerful it has ever been) or of Huey Long because...of what?  The list of differences could go on and on, and one might speculate: if Southern Whites had had more power, would we have had an apartheid government, as the Nazis had with the Jews?  If northern WASPS had firmer control, might we have a plutocracy like, say, Arabia?  But they did not - and instead we got big changes without a quintessential change.  

Perhaps we were just not that  bad off.  Or perhaps - it just wasn't in our zeitgeist.  I have mentioned before in this blog that I consider not two factors in creating who we are - environmental and genetic - but also a third, one that I think of as "spiritual."  That  could involve karma, or it could involve a higher power's need, or desire, for certain forms.  However it might be, I believe we have all seen it: the nasty kid from an otherwise decent family, or the reverse; or the spectacular diversion of personality between identical twins.  In an individual it is a mysterious thing, but in a people at large - a unity that is commonly embraced - one might see that the "spirit of the people" arises from certain conflicts and comforts that have long beset these people, setting up common goals and prejudices.  On the "spiritual" level, I might say that these goals and prejudices are often unknown to the people themselves - that is, that they come from the shadow side of shared history.  Germany had hatred of France, distrust of the Jews, hatred of Russia, and a strong belief in their own superiority, among other factors.  Hatreds and dislikes might be hidden if they are considered by common convention to be forbidden - but they still exist.  In Germany, in might have been Hitler who exposed the underside to light, under extreme conditions of resentment in the people, and who then made these prejudices not only acceptable, but laudable.  

Our society is much more diverse than Germany's was in  the 1930's, and so I used examples of sections of our society above.  If certain groups  were to gain firm control of America, would not their unvoiced, even unrecognized prejudices come to the fore?  

On a different note, another tidbit from GK Chesterton: "The beginnings of a decline, in every age of history, have always had the appearance of being reforms."  One might ask: was that true of FDR's reforms?  It certainly was true of Hitler's.  Or of Reagan's or of Obama's?  The trouble with the quote, of course, is that it is a "truth" looking for an example (ie, what does not preclude decline would not then be a reform), but I love Chesterton anyway, and not just from his wit.  He is so conservative - so antiquarian, that he would be hated by both liberals and conservatives of our era.  He hated capitalism as much as he hated socialism (and forget Marxism!).  His view gazes over all of European history, and as such, he has found certain ways that must be truth for the West - among them, privacy, property, and dignity.  Capitalism takes away dignity, and socialism the other two.  It might be that his reference to Christianity as something "never tried" - at least not enough - shows us his better world - a Christianity that has been tried, and at last tried enough.  FK       

Today an essay, "Tyler Mill Road," under the Essay section of the website.  FK

I had hoped to have my weekly essay ready for today, but the start of the holidays has probably pushed that off until Monday.  For today, then, some sharp observations of society from that great early 20th century wit, GK Chesterton:

Chesterton had a running criticism of HG Wells, the futurist writer who gave us The Time Machine, among many other popular titles.  This look towards the future, said Chesterton, was a bit of modern cowardice - for it brushed away the deeds of the past in favor of some abstract notion of the future.  The past, he  said, was not filled with things that were tried and found wanting; rather, it is filled with ideals and experiments of society that were tried and then cast aside before they were close to fulfillment.  Christianity is one of the greatest of these, for, as we have often heard, it's a great idea that has never been fully practiced.  We did not throw off Christendom because we tired of it, but because it was never correctly implemented.  The ideal still stands, but we have pushed it away, not for something brighter, but because we lack the stamina to try to perfect it in our societies.  We look then to an uncomplicated future because we fear we do not have the guts to perfect the better ideas of the past.  

Another observation of modern cowardice: people pat themselves on the back for throwing off the hoary superstitions of the past - whatever we as a society have proclaimed as such - but tremble at pushing away the superstitions - that is, the shallow - of the  present.  It is to those people who do so that we can attribute courage, for it is these who face public condemnation for criticizing our cherished, but short-sighted, ideas.  This strikes home immediately - for instance, we thrill to someone who might decry racism, but that is already past - it takes no courage.  But to those who decry against (and I only pick these for the notoriety) abortion or gay marriage or, on the other side, the car culture and conspicuous consumption, this is where courage is necessary - where one disagrees with the fashions of the elite.  

And on the elite - and here he hits home - many of their attempts to throw aside "hoary superstition" are only workable for those with the excess income to do so.   A millionaire actress can proudly have several children by several lovers without a hint of a marriage contract; but for the poor or working woman, this leads almost always to dysfunction, poverty and/or disaster (it is hard to believe, but this attitude of "doing your own thing" was current in 1920's aristocratic England).  This, it seems to me, is the outstanding superstition of our times: that we may pleasantly follow the elite in casting off our old traditions.  Much of this leads to the superstitions of our current age - and woe to the the "ignorant" who oppose them.  We must have, as Chesterton said, courage - and a clear sight into what is real and what is childish ego fulfillment.  There are many things to change from our past - but there are many things to preserve.  How to decide must be based on more than what the elite might want for their own immediate pleasure, or for the pleasure of forcing a pet utopia built not from the best promises of the past, but on their rubble.

On to Turkey Day, part II.  FK    
          

If readers are wondering why the blog is concerned recently with totalitarianism, it is because of the recent book already mentioned by George Roberts on natural law - by which is defined the state's relationship with the individual - and another that I am now finishing, "The Garden of Beasts," by Erick Larson.  While the former is decidedly conservative, the latter is a fascinating anecdotal history concerning the Dodd family's stay in Berlin in 1933-34, the father being a history professor surprisingly appointed as ambassador to Germany for those years.  By the time he arrived in June of 1933, Hitler had been chancellor for 6 months, and the changes brought to Germany in that time he found astonishing.  Having attended the University of Leipzig before WWI, he knew of what he spoke - that, like magic, Germans were saluting Hitler everywhere, Brownshirts ran rampant and unchecked throughout the cities, and the German people had generally become docile in the face of a rule that alarmed, immediately, all the world.  

Cal Roeker's comment on humans as occasionally intersecting vectors is the view that we might characterize as the American Way.  The Founders, in contrast to Thomas Hobbes' idea that government (codified society) is what held people back from anarchy and a "constant state of war," went instead to the more benign notion of the individual.  Given that we were all endowed by our creator with certain "goods" - and as such were essentially good in a natural sense - they saw that it was the tyranny of government more than anything else that caused harm to human society.  Thus, limited government; thus the primacy of the individual.  In this they did NOT forbid others to found communal societies; rather it was up to the individual to find his source of happiness under liberty.  In this sense, neither individualism or collectivism is necessarily the end - but rather, that the individual has an un-coerced choice to make regarding his personal obligations (beyond that of the necessary structure to insure that others could not take away that choice.)

Yes, I know I step into deep waters, and will steer away towards something both lighter and deeper still: what is the natural path for humans?  What is, as the old Chinese would say, the will of heaven?

The Tao looked to the activities of nature to determine the natural in man.  The importance of this struck me one day when one of my brothers said, "but [this certain law] is not in line with the laws of nature!"  But what laws of nature?  From the Darwinian perspective came social Darwinism, where human society should reflect the struggle for fitness that evolutionists saw in the natural world.  Late 19th century American industrialists made the identification with creating the American Rose - that is, they claimed that to make the perfect rose, the inferior roses had to be clipped away.  This notion brought us the infamous monopolies of that era, which once in place controlled prices any which way they desired.  Acting against the American tradition of limited government, but for the idea of American freedom, Teddy Roosevelt enacted laws against such monopolies (and I believe they improved the nation as we headed into the industrial age).   Thus, we saw that the after effects of naked capitalism could lead to its reverse - the lack of competition and the laws of supply and demand.  But did we then transgress the rule of nature?  By this, did we go against the will of heaven?

Coming out of the deep waters, I will rely on my own views of nature, supplanted by views from people who lived without government authority.  Rousseau, against Hobbes, viewed the primitives as people living as they should in a veritable Garden of Eden, in peace and well-being.  While we of the past several centuries could never witness people truly beyond at least some influence of civilization, we can, I think, infer from the myths of primitives a good notion of their relation with nature and other people.  As it turns out, these relationships were far more complex than one might think: some of the "gods" were bad; some animals turned into devious, although not necessarily evil, tricksters; people killed one another and men rose over women.  In this primitive mythological view, nature was not evil nor entirely good, but deceptive and slippery - what we might call "real."  But ultimately, it was filled with wonder.  If one word could be used to encapsulate the primitive concept of nature, it would be 'wonder.'

This might teach one to follow the will of heaven by opening up to wonder - which would be the power of spirit that suffuses everything, beyond the means to empirically understand it all.  But how might that govern our behavior?  How might that determine which is the best form of government?   

I see in nature, besides its ultimate magical wonder, attributes that we might attribute to both Darwin and Rousseau.  Darwin in that nature can be absolutely brutal.  Look at your cat playing with he dying mouse; look at chickens and their vicious pecking order; and don't even look at the insect world!  And yet, nature is not out to get anyone - it and its animals simply do what they are supposed to do and seldom any more.  Bears don't mount attacks against humans for dominance any more than hurricanes search for human settlements before landing.  No, they just go their own route, and with rational observation, humans can pretty much avoid the worst, at least until old age takes us.  There is in nature no more compelling order than to do what comes naturally - with those things that don't being culled by the steady demands of survival.  

This says to me that humans should, just as the Founders thought, seek out their own paths to happiness provided, as Hobbes would have it, that we don't keep others from THEIR path in the process.  This, too me, speaks of the naturalness of individual freedom and dignity, even if this freedom causes the individual to willingly give up the centrality of his individuality.   The latter is a move of spirit - and should be free from government intrusion or coercion - just as the US Constitution would have it.  

Finally - is harmony part of the will of heaven?  Yes, by definition, but what is that harmony?  For geese it would be to flock; for bears, it would be to disperse.  Which is it for humans?  Again, I side with the Founders - that the human route is to find happiness.  And if harmony for humans is seeking one's personal happiness while allowing others to do so as well, maybe we don't have to consider either individualism or collectivism in our scheme.  Maybe the lone prophet in the wilderness is as sacred as the guru in his village.  I think, at bottom, it is finding what will make one truly happy - and I believe that to be harmony of spirit.   But that is our journey, to find this out.  If we follow the golden rule, we should all be left to do so - free of Big Brother as well as the American Rose.  FK             

Talking of imposed utopias in the last blog, I recognized something that was unrealized in my book Dream Weaver.  Some three quarters of the way  through, I wrote the Chapter "Back to the Garden" about my visit to one of the few successful hippie communes, this one numbering over one thousand people in central Tennessee.  This was not an imposed utopia; the people there had the spirit and you could feel it.  Their communal lifestyle  was a result of the collective spirit, not the other way around.  It was as it should be and is among monastic and religious orders and such groups as the Amish (who give their young the option of becoming "English," as they put it).  It was, I thought at the time, what I was looking for, but I realized after a week there that I was an individualist - that is, an ordinary American who put his own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness above the group.  This, as I understood it and still do, was not a bad thing - rather, it was appropriate to the spirit that I then had, and still do.


I left the commune, and in the first paragraph of the next chapter I wrote, "There [at the commune] it had become clear that any community of place, any community that would outlast the generations, could only be obtained through the sacrifice of the individual.  Since I had learned that this was beyond me, any amount of self-reflection would have shown that my greatest reason for life on the road was a chimera.  What place was left  now?"  What was meant by "community" was exactly the communal unity, and I had learned that it was not my cup of tea.  Why then was I still on the road?  What then was I still looking for?


What was I looking for?  In the few chapters that remained, I again experienced religious communities of other stripes and again rejected them for the same reason - my individuality.  And I was right to do so.  The inner self, the spirit, was not there for the task.  And what I should have  learned - and  gradually  did - was that transformation must first come from within.  It is cliched, I know, but usually treated far too casually.   What I was looking for was still externalized by me.  It took decades after returning to normal life to fully appreciate this.  Further, it explains to myself, which is sometimes left in the dark as to the movement of its own inner spirit, why I have come to detest top-down collectivism.  It is, first and foremost, a violation of spirit - which is a direct violation of human dignity.  The ends do not only not justify the means in matters like this, but the means never reach the end.  Force cannot change the spirit in this way.  And  Marxists are wrong - the means or modes or ownership of production cannot do this alone, either.  Spirit must be brought out, not beaten into shape.  This can be done  by free reason and by example - or through the sheer brilliance of those few rare people who emanate great spirit - but never through force or trickery.  This results in a confinement of the spirit, and with it, resentment and violence.   With spirit, the means and the ends must be the same.  One cannot violate the first and achieve a greater version of the second.


A criticism of my book has been that I left a great potential - the accumulated experiences of my prolonged hitchhiking ordeal - unfinished.  This is true.  But I was unfinished at the time (and in regards to many things, still am); to make a conclusion would have been dishonest, which is also a trick, a violation of spirit.  No, we often don't know some things, and we never know everything.  And anyone who brings you to a utopia against your will, or who tricks you into believing in one, is being dishonest: he is saying he knows better than you, and in the end, knows everything.  George Orwell called that person "Big Brother."  


I could say now to "look within" for spirit, for that is what I know and think.  By it I do not mean to force one to do so; it is merely my honest statement.  But if the spirit moves you, I would also say to "look without."  In reflection, I have done this too, through my readings, through my attendance in church services and so on.  In fact, look where your spirit guides you.  If freedom and dignity is on the path, it could be the path you should take.  FK 




       

Today an essay, "Katie Says..." under Essays in the website.  FK