What’s Wrong with the World

(I've already supplied these links to WWWTW's contributors, but want them available to readers as well. Gotten via friend Jeff Culbreath.)

This one's to an NCR piece about a recently passed law in England making it "illegal for a teacher in any school, including a Catholic school, to state that homosexual activity is morally wrong..."

The other concerns an effort of the Oregon legislature to "eliminate attitudes opposing homosexuality," although the scope of the measure is not clear to me.

There is also a move underway in California to repeal Prop 22, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

And now we have news of a video making the rounds of public schools and television stations.

The April issue of First Things features an adapted version of a lecture Fr. Neuhaus delivered at Beeson Divinity School, entitled Christ Without Culture. Neuhaus, suggestively modifying the famous Niebuhrian taxonomy of the ways in which the relationship of Christ and culture has been understood, adds to the list - Christ against culture, Christ of culture, Christ above culture, Christ and culture in paradox, and Christ transforming culture - the formulation Christ without culture. Noting that there is, in point of fact, a distinctive American culture, and more specifically, an American culture as it pertains to religious affirmations, Neuhaus elaborates:

Now, as a matter of historical and sociological fact, Christianity is never to be found apart from a cultural matrix; Christianity in all its forms is, as it is said, “enculturated.” In relation to a culture, the Church is both acting and being acted on, both shaping and being shaped. What then do I mean by suggesting this sixth type, Christ without culture? I mean that the Church—and here Church is broadly defined as the Christian movement through time—can at times adopt a way of being in the world that is deliberately indifferent to the culture of which it is part. In the “Christ without culture” model, that indifference results in the Church unconsciously adopting and thereby reinforcing, in the name of the gospel, patterns of culture that are incompatible with her gospel.

Much ink and many pixels have been spilled in disputations over the nature and significance of neoconservatism, particularly as this tendency appears to be the dominant political motif of the present administration. Much of the discussion has been, well, not so much a discussion as an exchange of incandescent invective, and, when it has not been so intemperate, it has tended towards the obfuscatory, as in the attempt to deny that there actually exists a definable tendency corresponding to the term "neoconservatism". Fortunately, prominent neoconservative Michael Novak has obliged those pining for a succinct exposition of neoconservatism. That interview, however, requires some interpretation; for, like a scriptural text, the story of neoconservatism is not a fit one for private interpretation, particularly the self-interpretations of those who authored it. Unlike a scriptural text, which is best interpreted from within the tradition out of which it arose, neoconservatism is best interpreted by outsiders. After all, is it not the case that we are often understood best by those who are, well, not us?

To this end, I propose to provide an interpretation of select passages from the linked Novak interview, refraining from emotionally-freighted language; imagine the deadpan delivery of Bob Dole, and you will have in mind the intended tone.

Via the eccentric and interesting blogger Reihan, of The American Scene, comes this fascinating piece of Wikipediana related to Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder of the so-called Church of Satan:

Blanche Barton, author of an autobiography of Satanist Anton LaVey, not speaking disparagingly, has suggested that the Neo-Tech "system of thought...offers Satanism in a grey flannel suit, promises overnight wealth, and never mentions the dreaded `S' word."

“Modern man must be convinced again that he is free.” So declares Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver in a vigorous little talk delivered some weeks ago in Philadelphia. I do not believe I have heard the modern crisis ever put so succinctly and powerfully. The word freedom is nearer to our lips than perhaps any other society of men; and yet we do not believe in it. With every new calamity — every school-shooting or horrific murder, every affront to our honor as a nation, every cynicism, every petty betrayal, every sordid plunder — our instinct is to interpret events in light of material forces, against which man has no power of resistance. “Things are in the saddle,” as a great American wordsmith put it, “and ride mankind.”

Cardinal Newman wrote very astutely, if a bit acidly, that it is a misfortune to be self-educated. It may be a misfortune; often it is a joy and a calling. But even where joyous it must always be an exception, unless barbarism is ascendant. In that sense we might almost say of a society which, by lassitude, heresy or avarice, forces many men to become autodidacts: “there is a society oppressed by barbarism.” Upon reading a devastating essay by Larry P. Arnn in the Fall 2006 issue of The Claremont Review of Books, one is left with that distinct impression. Ours is a society oppressed by barbarism. Misfortune will be the lot of Americans for some time to come — at least for those Americans who believe that “education” contains a notion of diligent immersion in, and exploration and veneration of one’s own civilization.

What Arnn — President of Hillsdale College — lays out in some detail is an arraignment of education in America so shattering as to induce the reader to a kind of despondency, followed by, it is to be hoped, a very solid kind of defiance. As Arnn tells it, with subtlety and incision, the agents of barbarism are in the driver’s seat; and the would-be defenders of civilization are reduced by bafflement, misconception, and disarray. Deriving from work by a committee of the President’s Advisory Council, the verdict is grim: “our kindergarten students rank with the best in the world in their knowledge of science and math. For each year that they are subjected to the capable attentions of our public education system, they fall a step behind. By the time they graduate from high school, they rank at the 10th percentile in math internationally, struggling to keep ahead of the unschooled goatherds of the Third World.” It might be added, of course, that a goatherd at age eighteen is probably the master of quite a variety of useful skills, such that his education is, in its own way, quite adequate.

On another thread, I had attempted to flush from hiding the Social Pathologist's moral conviction regarding the Church's teaching on artificial contraception, since he is a Catholic and a physician. So as not to fall in danger of going too far off that thread's topic, he has responded by email, and kindly granted me permission to post those remarks here. As follows:

* * * You wanted to know where I stood in regard to artificial birth control. I don't wish to give anyone the impression I'm something that I am not, but I'll briefly outline my position as follows.

1.) Sexual relationships should only occur in the context of marriage as traditionally understood: period.

2.) Directly intended abortion is wrong.

3.) Sterilization is wrong.

4.) While I am unsympathetic to the Church's position on contraception, I see that it is logically consistent and I am bound to support it.

5.) On the matter of non destructive IVF--That is, sperm fertilizing one egg outside the married couple and then transferring it to the uterus-- I disagree with the Church but am bound to support its position. Otherwise, I broadly support the Church's opposition to IVF.

6.) In the same way that charging at fair interest was once considered by the Church as usury, I believe that Pius VI prudentially erred in classifying ovulatory regulants, i.e., The Pill, as contraceptives. Therefore I feel I can prescribe these agents in some form of good conscience, though I have my moments.

7.) Saying that, I do not prescribe the low dose pill. I believe its inherent "sloppiness" in its suppression of ovulation leads to a reliance on its secondary methods of contraception--barrier to sperm and possible inhibition of implantation--and it is therefore morally unjustifiable. I rarely prescribe it for medical reasons as well.

8.) I'm not a big fan of NFP for the same reason that Zippy isn't; It makes you unhappy.

If you judge a tree by its fruit, Humanae Vitae was a dreadful document, the faithful left in droves after it and a general culture of disobedience was instituted. As I see it, there are two possible reasons:

a) The faithful were flawed: the traditionalist interpretation.

b) The Document and its reasoning were flawed. Error is just as likely to be seen in moral rigidity as it is in moral laxity. I'm generally inclined to think that the Church repeated the mistake of Galileo, confusing metaphysical truth with practical matter. The document was right in affirming contraception wrong, but it was wrong in its classification of what was contraceptive.

Anyway those are my thoughts on the matter.* * * *

[By "the mistake of Galileo" I assume he means the Church's mistake in the reasons brought to bear for its disciplining of that man.]

My initial reaction is that there is much here I ought to take strong issue with, but I'd rather hear others' reactions first. There is also much to unravel, that is, to draw him out on. But he's offering a summary of his thoughts, not a treatise, so perhaps that can happen in comments. Since we have a happy diversity (never thought I'd hear myself say that) of contributors here (and readers too), I thought their various perspectives might be of interest.

Most importantly, the Social P. is a valued commenter here, as at other places, and while rigor and some measure of passion are welcome, courtesy and respect for another's honesty are required.

For this Sunday, we continue with Bertrand Bronson, circa 1952:

*   *   *   The assumption that men are basically alike in all times and places, and that the sum total of scientific information already available or yet to be discovered is unlikely to make any radical alteration in human nature, obviously puts a premium on the way in which the old truths are restated. This is not...to reduce the importance of the old truths, which are old because they are fundamental and therefore discovered early, and which, only because they are familiar, are likely to be rejected unless continually re-presented in fresh and agreeable forms.

Our last Sunday with Samuel Johnson, for the time being, though the first to offer an actual excerpt of his own writing, wherein he declares upon the "works of fiction" gaining fashion in his day, the difficulties (and virtues) of which are equally, if not more keenly, felt in our own time, now that the feeding of fantasy to the populace has become an industry. Most important for our puposes, though, is the fact that, however varied his subjects may be, the same force and foundation of character impresses itself upon them all:

...But the fear of not being approved as just copyers of human manners, is not the most important concern that an author of this sort ought to have before him. These books are written chiefly to the young, the ignorant, and the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and introduction to life. They are the entertainment of minds unfurnished with ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impressions; not fixed by priniciples, and therefore easily following the current of fancy; not informed by experience, and consequently open to every false suggestion and partial account.

Here at What’s Wrong with the World, we have recently endured the spectacle, not without its amusements, of conventional freethinking arguments. We have not neglected to laugh at the absurdities into which these poor men have cast their minds. But we have sometimes neglected, perhaps, to pray that they would be freed from this bondage. And we should not make light of the oppression of this bondage, yoked upon both the minds of individual men, and through them upon the public life of the Republic. As our won Daniel Larison sharply puts it, Freethinking ruins all things.

Old Russell Kirk was a man who bent is supple and penetrating mind over this oppression, especially in the latter part of his career, after he returned to the Church of Rome.

*    *    *    *

So it has come to pass, here in the closing years of the twentieth century. With the weakening of the moral order, “Things fall apart; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. . . .” The Hellenic and the Roman cultures went down to dusty death after this fashion. What may be done to achieve reinvigoration?

I'd thought I was done with him for the present, but I'm afraid I must resurrect the spirit of Samuel Johnson one more time. It is not the consequence of an obsession, but an obligation imposed by coincidence. He has been the victim of an insult and needs defending. I'm here to return the vituperation in kind, to heap calumny, shall we say, on the calumniators. It's dirty work, but somebody's got to do it. To make a short story long, here's how it happened.

Red State editor and blogger Pejman Yousefzadeh is currently on board at Right Reason as a guest-blogger, contributing a series of pieces sketching the lineaments of a rapproachment between conservatism and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche's philosophy, long tarred by association with the horrors of German National Socialism, and rejected by most conservatives on account of its advocacy of militant irreligion and its status as a resource for postmodernists and nihilists, such as this fool, may, he argues, contain rich potentialities for conservative thought.

The suggestion that conservatives, and even religious conservatives, might find something of value in the writings of that prophet of the death of God, Nietzsche, seems to have been poorly received. It may not be possible to help this, but it might be of some value to explain why one conservative, even reactionary, soul found some berries amidst the briers of Nietzsche.

If I had to offer a one-sentence explanation of why I ever bothered to read Nietzsche, it would be the following: I read Nietzsche because I was raised as a low-church evangelical Protestant.

Back on May 9, Michael of the 2 Blowhards kindly linked to this site. I happened to notice that his post from the previous day was entitled "Chesterton's Orthodoxy", about his experience of reading that wonderful book. Mr. Blowhard is not a Christian, so the review seemed far more generous, and even insightful in places, than I would have expected. If he also got some things wrong, that's not my concern here. What interested me was his claim that he delves into Judeo-Christian stuff every so often, not out of a desire to be convinced of its truth, but out of sheer curiosity.

In a brief post commenting on a discussion of trends in religious affiliation that began with this post by Razib of Gene Expression, and was picked up by Brink Lindsey, Ross Douthat writes:

My own preferred explanation - which is doubtless a small part of the pantomime - is theological rather than sociological: Christianity has thrived in the United States by adapting its theology to the habits and mores of the American people, in a way that religion in Europe hasn't managed to do. America is an Emersonian country, and its religious innovators have invented an Emersonian form of Christianity - which some might suggest isn't Christianity at all, of course - that's nicely tailored to the broader culture in which it swims. Call it gnosticism, or Moral Therapeutic Deism, or just plain Americanism - it means Elaine Pagels and Karen Armstrong for highbrow audiences and T.D. Jakes and Joyce Meyer for the masses, and it works.

I have recently begun a rereading of Augustine's Confessions, a fine work when considered purely as literature, but finer still when read as high theology, and yes, even as philosophy. Theologically, the work is structured in accordance with one of the great motifs of Patristic thought - man as microcosmos, a recapitulation in miniature of the cosmic drama of redemption.

But one must begin at the beginning:

Daniel Larison on Sullivan's ridiculous Christianist conspiracy theory:

If they existed, Christianists would be interesting people. They would have to believe at one and the same time that they must make God’s will into the law of the land and enforce Christian doctrine throughout society and be convinced that the best instrument for this goal was the utterly secular, Mammon-serving Republican Party. They would have to be completely fanatical and at the same time completely indifferent that their chosen vehicle of political power was basically hostile to everything they sought to achieve (which is one of the reasons why, despite decades of trying, they have achieved next to nothing). They would have to be able to turn their fanaticism on and off with a readily available switch, which makes them rather less worrisome as the founders of the future theocratic nightmare to come.

Growing up, the harder sort of Protestant fundamentalists were wont to argue that the alliance of the Religious Right with the GOP would end in failure, futility having been its lot. Setting aside the question of what, precisely, Christians should have done when the nation slipped into the cultural centrifuge in the Sixties and Seventies, it is remarkable that what began with a mixture of noble aims and low, political farce should now end in tragedy, as the Christian right fragments, and finds itself increasingly marginalized (or perhaps this marginality is being revealed). The only play left is that of refusal - of the role of GOP 'automatics'. This, at least, would be a beginning.

In the course of giving his devastating reply to Derbyshire's review of his book Religion of Peace?, Robert Spencer reminds us once again of a crucial point regarding Christianity and immigration:

In reality, Christianity has no inherent connection at all with open-borders insanity and globalization. No less prominent a Christian than St. Thomas Aquinas expressed the mainstream Christian view when he said that “after his duties towards God, man owes most to his parents and his country. One’s duties towards one’s parents include one’s obligations towards one’s relatives, because these latter have sprung from [or are connected by ties of blood with] one’s parents…and the services due to one’s country have for their object all one’s fellow-countrymen and all the friends of one’s fatherland.” An open-borders globalist? Not quite.

In 1565 the Grand Master of the Knights was a Frenchmen of Gascony, Jean Parisot de la Valette by name, who was by then (like Sultan Suleiman himself) in his seventies, but still vigorous. Piety and military acumen were his leading virtues: he was the very model of the warrior-priest, a kind of throwback to a dying medieval age. The religious fervor of the Knights had of late diminished, much as the chivalric piety of the medieval age itself was dying, and many of them had become worldly, sensuous, and arrogant. But La Valette, when he became Grand Master, aimed to check this corruption. Ernle Bradford calls him, “that rarest of human beings, a completely single-minded man.” His lieutenant was an Englishman, in exile from his homeland where Catholicism was proscribed; and it was this latter who decoded the reports from spies in Constantinople that the Turks were again massing against the Knights. The Order was the last vestige of that great Christian counterattack known as the Crusades, and the Sultan was now determined to stamp it out forever. Communiqués were sent all over Europe, calling the Knights to the defense of their last island home.

For the strategists of the Turks, including an old Algerian corsair called Dragut, Malta was more than just the remnant of an antique military order: it was the key to a proposed offensive in the western Mediterranean, an offensive that was to cow the Spanish and if possible carry the jihad to the very doors of St. Peter’s. And in any case, since Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, and southern Spain itself had once been Islamic lands, it was a duty imposed upon the Sultan, by the iron principles of jihad, as duly constituted ruler, the successor to the caliph, to recover them from the infidel. Lands where the banners of the Crescent had once flown proudly must be returned to the Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam). The presence of the Maltese Knights barred such a project; and therefore the reduction of the island would be a prelude to a wider war. Said Dragut: “Unless you have smoked out this nest of vipers, you can do no good anywhere.” In March of 1565, a fleet of nearly 200 vessels, bearing some 40,000 soldiers (including 6,500 elite shock troops known as the Janissaries), assembled in the Golden Horn for the Sultan's inspection. Dragut made two astute recommendations: move against the isle early in the season, and detach a significant flotilla to menace the Spanish mainland, thereby preventing aid from the Emperor. Once the invasion began, the more confident among the Sultan's advisers anticipated the victory to come — in a matter of days.

The victory never came. Across Europe news of the bravery of Knights — outnumbered five to one or more — rang like a great tocsin. All throughout that brutal summer on the sun-baked isle, the Turks had been repulsed, time