The Monarchist 1.0
Defending the British Crown Commonwealth and the English-Speaking Peoples
[+] HONOURING OUR PATRON, SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, VICTOR OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
[+] HONOURING OUR QUEEN, ELIZABETH THE SECOND, ON THE 80TH YEAR OF HER BIRTH (1926 - 2006)
[+] HONOURING OUR KING, SAINT EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, ON THE 1000TH YEAR OF HIS BIRTH (1005 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR HERO, LORD NELSON, ON THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR (1805 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR SONS, THE QUEEN'S COMMONWEALTH SOLDIERS KILLED IN THE 'WAR ON TERROR'
Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard, 46, Royal Canadian Regiment, Nov 27, 2006 (Afstan)
Staff Sergeant Sharron Elliott, 34, Intelligence Corps, Nov 12, 2006 (Iraq)
Private Jacob B. Kovco, 25, Royal Australian Regiment, April 21, 2006
[+] HONOURING OUR VETS ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VICTORIA CROSS (1856 - 2006)
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Another Lesson from the Gods
The Gods of the Copybook Headings continue to impress: (I find myself forced to copy much, given that the relevant chunks are lost within the span of a rather long permalink. My apologies to the Gods)
"One of the treads that binds the modern Right is a respect for tradition and history. The past, observed Edward Gibbon, is "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." The modern Left's spin on this is that the register should be read along racial and class lines, a list of grievances to be used in mixed economy horse trading...
It's sometimes forgotten that Edmund Burke was a man of the Left, though the term would gain currency only after 1789. A staunch Whig, he was no admirer of George III, and walked very close to treason in backing the American rebels. Contrary to what some of his biographers, and devout enemies, would like us to believe he did not convert to conservatism, he was always the same. What changed were the times. The more radical Whigs, from perhaps the 1760s onward, adopted the fatal conceit of the continental Enlightenment, rationality without empiricism and its corollary materialism without spirituality. All the elements of the modern Left are present in that summation. A rationality that from first principles deduces elaborate theories of human behaviour, never descending to the level of data. Evidence of such an approach can be seen in the ruins of numerous "planned economies" and countless public housing projects.
More grimly we see a materialism without spirituality, a vision of man as a hunk of meat moved by instinct, bereft not only of free will, and necessarily freedom, but ultimately of humanity itself. Burke, in contrast, was a perfect representative of the 18th century English mind. Deeply suspicious of abstract theories, perhaps too much so, it functioned by a kind of rough empiricism and simplified Christianity. English intellectuals of the late 17th century had seen the Cartesian alternative that was developing to the Catholic Church. Going forward along this road they sensed something danger. Their strange little island had thrived as far as it had by chance. Their ancestors had made mistakes; the generations that had followed had striven to avoid repeating those mistakes. Even their faith was, by historical accident, pragmatic. The Anglican Church makes sense only as an English Church born of English circumstances. Its theology is otherwise inexplicable. This makes it no less worthy or effective a church, merely more historical than most.
This famous English pragmatism was not so much an eschewing of principles as prudent skepticism toward principles. Let's see what "works." What "works" is a loaded question however. What works depends on your values. Feudalism, Fascism and Communism "worked" too. Here the English, perhaps more so than other people, fell back, ironically, upon the greatest of Catholic Church Fathers, Aquinas. Here was a nexus of reason and faith that opposed both Platonic rationalism on the one hand and superstition on the other. The English were pragmatists within a Thomistic context. A good English compromise is only good and English when it presupposes certain values. Our Canadian aversion to extremes comes from this English belief in compromise. Like the English we sometimes forget that compromise "works" only within a context.
Those on the Right sometimes forget this, opposing all change, or opposing change on crude reactionary grounds. Compromise and change may be necessary within a context. In issues like marriage, if the vice of the Left is to drop context and denounce all values; the vice of the Right has been to focus on the Left's folly. That focus on the other guy's dumb ideas sometimes suckers the Right into opposing change outright. This is because the Right has conceded to the Left a monopoly on change, specifically the idea of positive change: progress. The Right needs to re-define progress on its terms; prudent, historically minded and pragmatic in the best sense of the word."
POSTED BY: Beaverbrook AT 5:15 p.m. | LINKS |
The Gods of the Copybook Headings continue to impress: (I find myself forced to copy much, given that the relevant chunks are lost within the span of a rather long permalink. My apologies to the Gods)"One of the treads that binds the modern Right is a respect for tradition and history. The past, observed Edward Gibbon, is "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." The modern Left's spin on this is that the register should be read along racial and class lines, a list of grievances to be used in mixed economy horse trading...
It's sometimes forgotten that Edmund Burke was a man of the Left, though the term would gain currency only after 1789. A staunch Whig, he was no admirer of George III, and walked very close to treason in backing the American rebels. Contrary to what some of his biographers, and devout enemies, would like us to believe he did not convert to conservatism, he was always the same. What changed were the times. The more radical Whigs, from perhaps the 1760s onward, adopted the fatal conceit of the continental Enlightenment, rationality without empiricism and its corollary materialism without spirituality. All the elements of the modern Left are present in that summation. A rationality that from first principles deduces elaborate theories of human behaviour, never descending to the level of data. Evidence of such an approach can be seen in the ruins of numerous "planned economies" and countless public housing projects.
More grimly we see a materialism without spirituality, a vision of man as a hunk of meat moved by instinct, bereft not only of free will, and necessarily freedom, but ultimately of humanity itself. Burke, in contrast, was a perfect representative of the 18th century English mind. Deeply suspicious of abstract theories, perhaps too much so, it functioned by a kind of rough empiricism and simplified Christianity. English intellectuals of the late 17th century had seen the Cartesian alternative that was developing to the Catholic Church. Going forward along this road they sensed something danger. Their strange little island had thrived as far as it had by chance. Their ancestors had made mistakes; the generations that had followed had striven to avoid repeating those mistakes. Even their faith was, by historical accident, pragmatic. The Anglican Church makes sense only as an English Church born of English circumstances. Its theology is otherwise inexplicable. This makes it no less worthy or effective a church, merely more historical than most.
This famous English pragmatism was not so much an eschewing of principles as prudent skepticism toward principles. Let's see what "works." What "works" is a loaded question however. What works depends on your values. Feudalism, Fascism and Communism "worked" too. Here the English, perhaps more so than other people, fell back, ironically, upon the greatest of Catholic Church Fathers, Aquinas. Here was a nexus of reason and faith that opposed both Platonic rationalism on the one hand and superstition on the other. The English were pragmatists within a Thomistic context. A good English compromise is only good and English when it presupposes certain values. Our Canadian aversion to extremes comes from this English belief in compromise. Like the English we sometimes forget that compromise "works" only within a context.
Those on the Right sometimes forget this, opposing all change, or opposing change on crude reactionary grounds. Compromise and change may be necessary within a context. In issues like marriage, if the vice of the Left is to drop context and denounce all values; the vice of the Right has been to focus on the Left's folly. That focus on the other guy's dumb ideas sometimes suckers the Right into opposing change outright. This is because the Right has conceded to the Left a monopoly on change, specifically the idea of positive change: progress. The Right needs to re-define progress on its terms; prudent, historically minded and pragmatic in the best sense of the word."
POSTED BY: Beaverbrook AT 5:15 p.m. | LINKS |
Comments:
Can't see the comments?If you are unable to see the comments, your browser may have javascript turned off or may not support javascript. Check your security settings. Otherwise you can click here to access to comments in regular HTML from the TheirSay! Comment Server.
.gif){kind=small}
.gif){kind=small}
