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Post by maolsheachlann on Nov 5, 2020 10:26:10 GMT
I don't retract anything I have said about Trump's utter swinishness and unfitness for office, but if I were an American I'd have voted for him on Tuesday because of the alternative. I came to this decision at the last minute, and it makes me sick. It looks as if we are about to see the alternative, which is that under President Biden the forces of political correctness will control crucial agencies which are run by the executive branch, and will use these agencies to enforce at home and abroad forms of political correctness which would have been universally regarded as madness a few decades ago. The fact that US society in the past tolerated or upheld other forms of grievous injustice will be used to deny that these new injustices are injustices at all. Jonathan van Maren's column linked below addresses a question which is worth considering - why is there still a resistance to the sexual revolution and to the secularisation of society in the US when most European Christians seem to have tacitly accepted the "new normal" even when they have not fallen away themselves? Even allowing that the American Religious Right has always been susceptible to frauds and grifters, that a great deal of American evangelicalism is so emotion-driven and ignorant that it is like the famous politician once compared to a certain river in his state "an inch deep and nine miles wide at the mouth" and that even the most committed American believers are often more secular than they think, there is still a contrast with the European churches' more or less placid deference to cultured godless officials with babies' blood on their hands. Part of this does I think relate to the Constantinian legacy in Europe and the populist non-establishment religious traditions in America (there is a downside to this; Cardinal Manning, for instance, was quite right in saying that the attempt to create a Christian society and state was a necessary outgrowth of the Incarnation, and it is often said that American culture is deeply influenced by Gnosticism with its emphasis on the ability of the mind to escape and reshape the constraints of the body). The higher clergy have a certain tendency to identify with civil servants and administrators. Part of it also is a certain distrust of the vulgar believer who is seen as simple-minded and forcing simplifications on their betters. The way in which certain spokesmen of the ACP, for example, seem to believe that everybody is saved already and the Great Commission is therefore redundant, except when it comes to converting those benighted few who actually believe in traditional Catholicism - the contempt for Marianism and traditional devotions (not just excesses, butthe whole thing) is very striking. They don't want to demean themselves. Is this comment of mine unfair? thebridgehead.ca/2020/11/03/why-america-is-different-there-is-still-a-battle-for-her-soul-underway/No, it's not unfair. In fact, I think you are onto a very profound truth when you mention "vulgarity". I'm truly taken aback at how little respect many European Christians have for the religious right in America-- people who centre whole their lives on Christ, as they understand him. I do believe it comes down to this snobbery against "vulgarity". Poor things have never read St. Augustine. I posted this on Facebook this morning: I'm very depressed at what is happening in America. Trump seems to me like the only genuinely anti-establishment politician in my lifetime, in any country I know about. All of the political parties in Ireland stand for the same thing; globalism, basically. Global commerce, global bureaucracy, global monoculture. Political correctness as a tool to this end, breaking up all customs and traditions (especially the family and the nation) like a bulldozer. And the same everywhere I look, including a lot (most?) of the Republican Party in America.
Pope Francis talks about a different vision of globalization, one that respects regional differences and spiritual tradition. A noble dream. But not one that's a live option today.
I don't have any proof there has been electoral fraud. But I can absolutely believe it, just seeing the constant shadow-banning online, the relentless propaganda in the media, advertising, entertainment, etc.
I am still a (half-hearted) democrat because I believe democracy is some kind of curb on the worst excesses of power. Just about. Most politics seems like a soap opera to me. Trump was different. Yes, he's a barbarian. So was Charlemagne. I'm very dejected.
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Post by annie on Nov 5, 2020 21:15:08 GMT
I don't retract anything I have said about Trump's utter swinishness and unfitness for office, but if I were an American I'd have voted for him on Tuesday because of the alternative. I came to this decision at the last minute, and it makes me sick. It looks as if we are about to see the alternative, which is that under President Biden the forces of political correctness will control crucial agencies which are run by the executive branch, and will use these agencies to enforce at home and abroad forms of political correctness which would have been universally regarded as madness a few decades ago. The fact that US society in the past tolerated or upheld other forms of grievous injustice will be used to deny that these new injustices are injustices at all. Jonathan van Maren's column linked below addresses a question which is worth considering - why is there still a resistance to the sexual revolution and to the secularisation of society in the US when most European Christians seem to have tacitly accepted the "new normal" even when they have not fallen away themselves? Even allowing that the American Religious Right has always been susceptible to frauds and grifters, that a great deal of American evangelicalism is so emotion-driven and ignorant that it is like the famous politician once compared to a certain river in his state "an inch deep and nine miles wide at the mouth" and that even the most committed American believers are often more secular than they think, there is still a contrast with the European churches' more or less placid deference to cultured godless officials with babies' blood on their hands. Part of this does I think relate to the Constantinian legacy in Europe and the populist non-establishment religious traditions in America (there is a downside to this; Cardinal Manning, for instance, was quite right in saying that the attempt to create a Christian society and state was a necessary outgrowth of the Incarnation, and it is often said that American culture is deeply influenced by Gnosticism with its emphasis on the ability of the mind to escape and reshape the constraints of the body). The higher clergy have a certain tendency to identify with civil servants and administrators. Part of it also is a certain distrust of the vulgar believer who is seen as simple-minded and forcing simplifications on their betters. The way in which certain spokesmen of the ACP, for example, seem to believe that everybody is saved already and the Great Commission is therefore redundant, except when it comes to converting those benighted few who actually believe in traditional Catholicism - the contempt for Marianism and traditional devotions (not just excesses, butthe whole thing) is very striking. They don't want to demean themselves. Is this comment of mine unfair? thebridgehead.ca/2020/11/03/why-america-is-different-there-is-still-a-battle-for-her-soul-underway/The American people I have had the privilege to meet have all been models of courtesy, kindness, peacefulness and hospitality. Genuine christians. It is so sad to see their goodness thrown back in their faces. The one world government and Agenda 2030 proposed by the UN and its allies will I fear, be a vehicle for totalitarianism and oppression on the Chinese model as applied currently on their own people. We need someone to shout stop. If Trump is gone, who is left? insidethevatican.com/news/newsflash/letter-33-monday-november-2-2020/
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Post by assisi on Nov 6, 2020 22:26:56 GMT
I don't retract anything I have said about Trump's utter swinishness and unfitness for office, but if I were an American I'd have voted for him on Tuesday because of the alternative. I came to this decision at the last minute, and it makes me sick. It looks as if we are about to see the alternative, which is that under President Biden the forces of political correctness will control crucial agencies which are run by the executive branch, and will use these agencies to enforce at home and abroad forms of political correctness which would have been universally regarded as madness a few decades ago. The fact that US society in the past tolerated or upheld other forms of grievous injustice will be used to deny that these new injustices are injustices at all. Jonathan van Maren's column linked below addresses a question which is worth considering - why is there still a resistance to the sexual revolution and to the secularisation of society in the US when most European Christians seem to have tacitly accepted the "new normal" even when they have not fallen away themselves? Even allowing that the American Religious Right has always been susceptible to frauds and grifters, that a great deal of American evangelicalism is so emotion-driven and ignorant that it is like the famous politician once compared to a certain river in his state "an inch deep and nine miles wide at the mouth" and that even the most committed American believers are often more secular than they think, there is still a contrast with the European churches' more or less placid deference to cultured godless officials with babies' blood on their hands. Part of this does I think relate to the Constantinian legacy in Europe and the populist non-establishment religious traditions in America (there is a downside to this; Cardinal Manning, for instance, was quite right in saying that the attempt to create a Christian society and state was a necessary outgrowth of the Incarnation, and it is often said that American culture is deeply influenced by Gnosticism with its emphasis on the ability of the mind to escape and reshape the constraints of the body). The higher clergy have a certain tendency to identify with civil servants and administrators. Part of it also is a certain distrust of the vulgar believer who is seen as simple-minded and forcing simplifications on their betters. The way in which certain spokesmen of the ACP, for example, seem to believe that everybody is saved already and the Great Commission is therefore redundant, except when it comes to converting those benighted few who actually believe in traditional Catholicism - the contempt for Marianism and traditional devotions (not just excesses, butthe whole thing) is very striking. They don't want to demean themselves. Is this comment of mine unfair? thebridgehead.ca/2020/11/03/why-america-is-different-there-is-still-a-battle-for-her-soul-underway/I have always found Americans to be more open and up front than we Europeans are. We appear more cynical and furtive when compared to most Americans. No doubt that a lot of the American brashness, particularly in evangelical circles, can be incredibly naive, and like us they have had their fair share of preachers that have been caught in the act. But there is an enthusiasm that they have which we don't seem to possess. In general most Europeans seem jaded while many Americans still have that exuberance for God and country, although this is increasingly under attack over the last number of years with the extreme progressivism that is tearing the country apart. I wouldn't feel comfortable at an evangelical preaching tent revival type of get together, as it strikes me more as a performance. Neither would I feel comfortable with a group of liberal ACP type Catholics rabbiting on about inclusivity and other such secular empty soundbites. But at least the Evangelicals and many Catholics are holding out in the US while our top clergy are missing in action. Europe has just run out of ideas. The last bunch of ideas Europe championed were crackers like existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism, that wouldn't inspire anyone. It's the banks and multinationals that are managing Europe now under the flag of neo-liberalism. It is probably true that many older and senior clergy distrust or despise faithful Catholics. The current metropolitan Labour/liberal types now pretty much all have a great disdain for what could be called the working classes. There is a real elitist set out there who think and view life the same way. They know best and they exist in the Church and in society at large - they are winning now but more and more people are getting wise to them. It's just a pity that we don't have strong enough Catholic hierarchy to lead us in the direction of Christ rather than championing dubious social justice programmes with liberals who despise us.
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 7, 2020 22:00:00 GMT
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America
Nov 8, 2020 11:48:47 GMT
via mobile
Post by maolsheachlann on Nov 8, 2020 11:48:47 GMT
I don't retract anything I have said about Trump's utter swinishness and unfitness for office, but if I were an American I'd have voted for him on Tuesday because of the alternative. I came to this decision at the last minute, and it makes me sick. It looks as if we are about to see the alternative, which is that under President Biden the forces of political correctness will control crucial agencies which are run by the executive branch, and will use these agencies to enforce at home and abroad forms of political correctness which would have been universally regarded as madness a few decades ago. The fact that US society in the past tolerated or upheld other forms of grievous injustice will be used to deny that these new injustices are injustices at all. Jonathan van Maren's column linked below addresses a question which is worth considering - why is there still a resistance to the sexual revolution and to the secularisation of society in the US when most European Christians seem to have tacitly accepted the "new normal" even when they have not fallen away themselves? Even allowing that the American Religious Right has always been susceptible to frauds and grifters, that a great deal of American evangelicalism is so emotion-driven and ignorant that it is like the famous politician once compared to a certain river in his state "an inch deep and nine miles wide at the mouth" and that even the most committed American believers are often more secular than they think, there is still a contrast with the European churches' more or less placid deference to cultured godless officials with babies' blood on their hands. Part of this does I think relate to the Constantinian legacy in Europe and the populist non-establishment religious traditions in America (there is a downside to this; Cardinal Manning, for instance, was quite right in saying that the attempt to create a Christian society and state was a necessary outgrowth of the Incarnation, and it is often said that American culture is deeply influenced by Gnosticism with its emphasis on the ability of the mind to escape and reshape the constraints of the body). The higher clergy have a certain tendency to identify with civil servants and administrators. Part of it also is a certain distrust of the vulgar believer who is seen as simple-minded and forcing simplifications on their betters. The way in which certain spokesmen of the ACP, for example, seem to believe that everybody is saved already and the Great Commission is therefore redundant, except when it comes to converting those benighted few who actually believe in traditional Catholicism - the contempt for Marianism and traditional devotions (not just excesses, butthe whole thing) is very striking. They don't want to demean themselves. Is this comment of mine unfair? thebridgehead.ca/2020/11/03/why-america-is-different-there-is-still-a-battle-for-her-soul-underway/I have always found Americans to be more open and up front than we Europeans are. We appear more cynical and furtive when compared to most Americans. No doubt that a lot of the American brashness, particularly in evangelical circles, can be incredibly naive, and like us they have had their fair share of preachers that have been caught in the act. But there is an enthusiasm that they have which we don't seem to possess. In general most Europeans seem jaded while many Americans still have that exuberance for God and country, although this is increasingly under attack over the last number of years with the extreme progressivism that is tearing the country apart. I wouldn't feel comfortable at an evangelical preaching tent revival type of get together, as it strikes me more as a performance. Neither would I feel comfortable with a group of liberal ACP type Catholics rabbiting on about inclusivity and other such secular empty soundbites. But at least the Evangelicals and many Catholics are holding out in the US while our top clergy are missing in action. Europe has just run out of ideas. The last bunch of ideas Europe championed were crackers like existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism, that wouldn't inspire anyone. It's the banks and multinationals that are managing Europe now under the flag of neo-liberalism. It is probably true that many older and senior clergy distrust or despise faithful Catholics. The current metropolitan Labour/liberal types now pretty much all have a great disdain for what could be called the working classes. There is a real elitist set out there who think and view life the same way. They know best and they exist in the Church and in society at large - they are winning now but more and more people are getting wise to them. It's just a pity that we don't have strong enough Catholic hierarchy to lead us in the direction of Christ rather than championing dubious social justice programmes with liberals who despise us. This is one of my favourite posts ever. I agree completely.
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Post by assisi on Nov 8, 2020 14:19:16 GMT
I have always found Americans to be more open and up front than we Europeans are. We appear more cynical and furtive when compared to most Americans. No doubt that a lot of the American brashness, particularly in evangelical circles, can be incredibly naive, and like us they have had their fair share of preachers that have been caught in the act. But there is an enthusiasm that they have which we don't seem to possess. In general most Europeans seem jaded while many Americans still have that exuberance for God and country, although this is increasingly under attack over the last number of years with the extreme progressivism that is tearing the country apart. I wouldn't feel comfortable at an evangelical preaching tent revival type of get together, as it strikes me more as a performance. Neither would I feel comfortable with a group of liberal ACP type Catholics rabbiting on about inclusivity and other such secular empty soundbites. But at least the Evangelicals and many Catholics are holding out in the US while our top clergy are missing in action. Europe has just run out of ideas. The last bunch of ideas Europe championed were crackers like existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism, that wouldn't inspire anyone. It's the banks and multinationals that are managing Europe now under the flag of neo-liberalism. It is probably true that many older and senior clergy distrust or despise faithful Catholics. The current metropolitan Labour/liberal types now pretty much all have a great disdain for what could be called the working classes. There is a real elitist set out there who think and view life the same way. They know best and they exist in the Church and in society at large - they are winning now but more and more people are getting wise to them. It's just a pity that we don't have strong enough Catholic hierarchy to lead us in the direction of Christ rather than championing dubious social justice programmes with liberals who despise us. This is one of my favourite posts ever. I agree completely. Thanks, Maolsheachlann, but in all honesty I wish I didn't have to write about such things. I wish we were all in a better place.
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 11, 2020 19:50:21 GMT
The idea of a governing administrative meritocracy which replaces political conflict with administration is if anything stronger on the European continent, where governmental traditions are more state-centred. (France is a prime example.) Oddly enough, it was the dominating ideal of a lot of Catholic social thinkers,, both right and centrist in the generation or two before Vatican II. (There was a strong Christian Democrat founding influence in both the UN and the EU.) Their idea was that such a society must be founded on virtue, and that natural law provided a space where Catholics/other believers/secular liberals could co-operate in the moral formation of the administrators - especially if the alternative was totalitarianism. What can be said for it? First, most people are naturally too concerned with their everyday lives to engage in extensive political participation. (I sometimes meet people who, seeing how easily many people are duped by the Varadkars, Martins, Keyeses and Hoziers of this world, think that most people are stupid. I don't believe that they are stupid - just that they don't have the specialist training required and have too much else going on in their lives to acquire it.) Town-meeting democracy can only work in small communities which are to a considerable extent self-sufficient and consequently peripheral and poor. (This I might add is a departure from personalist Christian Democracy which sees political participation as a positive good - which is why Maritain admired Alinsky, which by any other standards would seem a most unlikely pairing.) Second, small communities/countries are vulnerable to outside forces and need to gain some control over them by joining in larger units. (The question then arises of whether it is possible for the small community to influence the larger unit once swallowed. This is the story of our relations with Britain and Europe for the last few centuries. Furthermore, a large unit becomes more atomised and - except within governing circles - loses the face to face relationships necessary for happiness and participation. Bear in mind the argument that totalitarianism is in part an attempt to cope with loneliness and isolation by immersing oneself in a greater whole. Third, the governors very rapidly become self-referential and amoral, and manipulate (or pander to) the people to secure their own power. Don't forget that Michael young's THE RISE OF THE MERITOCRACY was intended as a satirical attack on what the author believed would be an elite more arrogant and self-righteous (because convinced of its own justice and righteousness) than any predecessor. I used to have a very low opinion of that book (partly because it assumes for the sake of argument that planning and Keynesian economics have solved the problem of scarcity, which they haven't, and partly because its professed egalitarianism has led in practice to entrenching privilege by discouraging social mobility) but the more I observe the workings of society in recent years, the more I think he was onto something. Fourth is legalism - once a model of how the system is supposed to work is established, the model is taken as an exact description of the reality and problems which it can't explain are assumed not to exist or to be unworthy of discussion. (The Soviet administrators declaring the Chernobyl plant couldn't explode when it had done so in front of them would be a great example, as is Soviet central planning in general. This hasn't stopped Western professional bureaucracies developing a very similar model, complete with statements of aims and objectives, conformity to acepted best practice, and similar teeming fry of fraud.) I might add that the corresponding vices of populism, both in leaders and led, are laziness (an unwillingness to learn), the assumption that governance is much simpler than is actually the case, and simplistic reliance either on the supposedly unmediated popular will, or on a single heroic leader. The outgoing US President certainly had those vices in spades, and I don't feel sorry for him. It's those supporters who voted for him because he spoke of problems unacknowledged by the political elite, even though he did little or nothing concrete to fix those problems, that I feel sorry for. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Course_of_Empire_(paintings)
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 11, 2020 19:57:53 GMT
Vulgarity is partly about simplicity - the Gospel is full of everday metaphors. The problem with the Religious Right IMHO is that a lot of its vulgarity is not simplicity but kitsch. A comparison of this example of gospel music from the 1940s: www.youtube.com/watch?v=v83AJvRPUtk with this more recent example will show the difference between the two: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SiylvmFI_8
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Post by assisi on Dec 2, 2020 20:36:43 GMT
The idea of a governing administrative meritocracy which replaces political conflict with administration is if anything stronger on the European continent, where governmental traditions are more state-centred. (France is a prime example.) Oddly enough, it was the dominating ideal of a lot of Catholic social thinkers,, both right and centrist in the generation or two before Vatican II. (There was a strong Christian Democrat founding influence in both the UN and the EU.) Their idea was that such a society must be founded on virtue, and that natural law provided a space where Catholics/other believers/secular liberals could co-operate in the moral formation of the administrators - especially if the alternative was totalitarianism. What can be said for it? First, most people are naturally too concerned with their everyday lives to engage in extensive political participation. (I sometimes meet people who, seeing how easily many people are duped by the Varadkars, Martins, Keyeses and Hoziers of this world, think that most people are stupid. I don't believe that they are stupid - just that they don't have the specialist training required and have too much else going on in their lives to acquire it.) Town-meeting democracy can only work in small communities which are to a considerable extent self-sufficient and consequently peripheral and poor. (This I might add is a departure from personalist Christian Democracy which sees political participation as a positive good - which is why Maritain admired Alinsky, which by any other standards would seem a most unlikely pairing.) Second, small communities/countries are vulnerable to outside forces and need to gain some control over them by joining in larger units. (The question then arises of whether it is possible for the small community to influence the larger unit once swallowed. This is the story of our relations with Britain and Europe for the last few centuries. Furthermore, a large unit becomes more atomised and - except within governing circles - loses the face to face relationships necessary for happiness and participation. Bear in mind the argument that totalitarianism is in part an attempt to cope with loneliness and isolation by immersing oneself in a greater whole. Third, the governors very rapidly become self-referential and amoral, and manipulate (or pander to) the people to secure their own power. Don't forget that Michael young's THE RISE OF THE MERITOCRACY was intended as a satirical attack on what the author believed would be an elite more arrogant and self-righteous (because convinced of its own justice and righteousness) than any predecessor. I used to have a very low opinion of that book (partly because it assumes for the sake of argument that planning and Keynesian economics have solved the problem of scarcity, which they haven't, and partly because its professed egalitarianism has led in practice to entrenching privilege by discouraging social mobility) but the more I observe the workings of society in recent years, the more I think he was onto something. Fourth is legalism - once a model of how the system is supposed to work is established, the model is taken as an exact description of the reality and problems which it can't explain are assumed not to exist or to be unworthy of discussion. (The Soviet administrators declaring the Chernobyl plant couldn't explode when it had done so in front of them would be a great example, as is Soviet central planning in general. This hasn't stopped Western professional bureaucracies developing a very similar model, complete with statements of aims and objectives, conformity to acepted best practice, and similar teeming fry of fraud.) I might add that the corresponding vices of populism, both in leaders and led, are laziness (an unwillingness to learn), the assumption that governance is much simpler than is actually the case, and simplistic reliance either on the supposedly unmediated popular will, or on a single heroic leader. The outgoing US President certainly had those vices in spades, and I don't feel sorry for him. It's those supporters who voted for him because he spoke of problems unacknowledged by the political elite, even though he did little or nothing concrete to fix those problems, that I feel sorry for. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Course_of_Empire_(paintings) Although not directly related to America, I recently watched a video discussion between an Orthodox Christian and Tom Holland on Holland's new book 'Dominion' on the influence of Christianity in the West. He's a historian who is popular in the UK. He is sympathetic to Christianity, likes the cultural artefacts of Christianity, and recognises how the West is still saturated with the Christian ethos, even the corrupted versions currently adopted by those who are attacking Christianity. But he is not a believing Christian. Indeed he seems to have that very rationalistic approach to religion that many well educated English have, love the aesthetics and ethos but won't accept the doctrines nor will they attend Church as a believer. It strikes me that there is a strong streak of pride in all this. However it is interesting to hear his take on things. Perhaps the take away point that I got from this interchange was his view that he thinks Christianity should get back to the beliefs that many Christians now seem to be embarrassed about, that is the likes of good and evil, angels and demons (and presumably, although not mentioned by him, Heaven, Hell and Judgement). He talks about the need for the Christian story, the history, the sacred, all of which is being secularised in our current anemic version of Christianity. With that, I could agree with him wholeheartedly. However some elements of his understanding seemed to me to be correct in a general way, but not in the specific examples he gave. He thinks that Merkel in Germany was welcoming migrants in to Europe due to the Christian 'Good Samaritan' example. And Europe in general was de-christianising itself as it felt guilt for the holocaust due to historic Christian anti-semitism. He also thought that much of the Antifa/BLM attacks on statues and churches was due to a corrupted Christianity, whereby they adopted Jesus' compassion for the weak and poor in such a basic way that they just attacked anything which seemed 'establishment' or that wielded any sort of power. There are good arguments against all of the above but I do believe there are indeed strong elements of Christianity in much of liberalism; however I also believe that it has been so denuded of truth and transcendence, that it has almost morphed into a rebellion against Christianity (i.e. they will take the idea of compassion but cast off truth and sacrifice). One other point was his view that St. Paul in his letters was almost making things up as he went along. Holland saw Paul as being immersed in Old Testament learning and having difficulties integrating Christ with this old testament knowledge, an outlook I haven't come across before. Anytime I've read Paul I haven't had that impression. Paul seemed to have problems which would have been expected, how best to preach and how to keep the various new Christian communities from fragmenting. But I never got the impression of lack of direction. Holland seems to be an interesting character. It is probably worth noting that he may also have to be careful with his words as he has worked with the likes of the BBC and other mainstream media, and there is only so far you can go with supporting Christianity before you risk being cancelled.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 2, 2020 21:47:59 GMT
One obvious difference between Britain/Ireland and America is that the US edition of Holland's book has a subtitle which directly refers to Christianity, whereas the UK edition (which is the one sold here) only mentions Western civilisation. This reflects the relative degree of secularisation in the two countries. One thing that struck me about the book BTW is the very sympathetic attitude Holland takes towards the Hildebrandine/Gregorian Reform. Gregory VII is often seen as a power-hungry theocrat but Holland emphasises his concern for justice (the relevant chapter opens with a vignette of an aristocratic bishop in Germany receiving a stern papal missive informing him that someone whom he had burned for heresy was in fact perfectly orthodox). The point that by attacking the image of sacred kingship Gregory/Hildebrand unintentionally paved the way for separation of church and state is also relevant. The point about Merkel is that she is a pastor's daughter who does show a degree of personal Christian influence. I might note BTW that Holland is very clear on just how anti-Christian the Nazis were and how far they represented an attempt to revive the attitudes of pre-Christian aristocrats. As Chesterton put it: He only heard the heathen men Whose eyes are blue and bleak Singing about some evil thing Done by a great and smiling king In daylight on a deck. It's the "smiling" that is the hook, and then "in daylight". The Christian knows whatever was done was evil, the heathen in the poem not only see it as admirable, they can't imaginr anyone seeing it differently.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 21, 2021 21:24:16 GMT
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Dec 8, 2021 14:37:08 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 18, 2021 22:23:57 GMT
A couple of interesting details: (1) The think-tank network which allows these people to build careers. Ironically, this reflects the cold-war era "fusionist" alliance between economic and social conservatives, funded by the former (2) The post-cold war sense that this alliance actually involved the social conservatives being played like a fiddle by the free-enterprise types, with disastrous results for the lifestyle they wanted to conserve. (3) The problems of reactionary nostalgia for a past you never experienced, and of what happens when you adopt a 'no enemies on the right' policy. (The result is the same as when left-wing parties go for 'no enemies on the left' - they are infiltrated by extremists who believe in destruction for its own sake. Even allowing for liberal snark and condescension, this is depressing - these people have identified real problems but have little in the way of coherent solutions.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 9, 2022 23:09:19 GMT
George Weigel's view of America as the universal social model can be spectacularly clueless. Here's a prime example. He dismisses comparisons between the Monroe Doctrine prohibiting European intervention in Latin America and Russian claims to a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe by saying that the Monroe Doctrine was intended to end colonialism. The Mexicans, Guatemalans etc might think that the US warned off other potential colonisers so that it could colonise them itself, but this does not seem to occur to Weigel. Nothing I am saying here is intended to excuse Russia's criminal invasion of Ukraine. www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/03/05/putins-megalomania-the-monroe-doctrine-and-the-truth-about-prudence/
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 31, 2024 13:32:05 GMT
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