God, Man at Yale

As a result of the tremendous impact Buckley's "God and Man at Yale" had on modern conservative thinking, it has been commonly assumed by the faithful and the leftist critics as well that the values of Christianity and the free marketplace should be synonymous. Weaver, (influenced by Chesterton, Belloc, and the Agrarians) thought this not true. Garry Wills points out correctly that, in modern conservatism, there is a traditionalist strain that propounds the position of distributism....

So we have Buckley to blame for this mess?

Red Toryism - A Catholic Economy

Phillip Blond is painfully English, terribly pasty white, but he's "right on". Alexander Dugin notes some of the same features in our modern "convergence" of un-truth. I need to look into the land enclosures in some detail - von Mises mentions this, page 621, Human Action.

Multiculturalism?

They keep telling us that multiculturalism offers more possibilities than threats. Probably true. It's just that these numerous possibilities are each unlikely and have a small payoff, whereas the few threats are each very likely and have massive consequences.
Source

The Temple of Intellect

Re-reading Barzun's Temple of Intellect, which the college library at Texarkana still has (amazingly) after the A&M move. It is astounding what good books many public libraries still possess, and one wonders "How much longer?". In any event, Barzun begins his thesis by showing how (using a minimum of evidence and a maximum of "rhetoric" and logic) Art, Science, & Philanthrophy have made themselves rebels and opponents of the Intellect, whose un-emotional claims are considered in bad taste (at best) in an era of massed democracy with its attendant panoply of technological goods and services, and its apparatus of public service bureaucracy. Barzun is right, of course, but he is refreshingly brilliant and powerful in a rather counter-intuitive and unusual diagnosis, one of the kinds which immediately shock you and prove themselves right at the same time. Why didn't I think of this? Because Barzun is using his intellect, and the rest of his aren't. Here is another writer with a penchant for doing just that, & an ability to see into the belly of the beast we dwell upon.

What Happened to America?

"The struggle of bankers for control of America is an enduring theme in American history since the founding. Defeat of the southern aristocracy during the Civil War unbalanced the political balance, giving Northeastern bankers unprecedented dominance. They used this to implement a policy of tight money. The resulting shortage of currency reduced much of rural America to barter (cattle sales to the Indian Agents were one of the few sources of cash in the West; eastern villages were reduced to barter with general stores as clearinghouses). This resulted in a boom-bust pattern of growth and deflation which almost exterminated the small farmer and merchant classes. The results were a massive concentration of wealth and power, continuing until they overreached themselves. The political convulsion of the Great Depression restored a more balanced distribution of political and social power. Starting in the 1980′s the banks gradually rebuilt their political influence with both parties by means of massive campaign contributions, armies of lobbyists, and well-funded advocates at think-tanks. This effort produced large gains:"

Source

This is over-simplification of sort (if nothing else, by default, since there are many other things to be mentioned and discussed in this vein); however, certainly the Civil War (including Lincoln's Land act which altered education in this country) marked the beginning of a "sea change" that we are seeing in fruition since about 1960. At the very least, the Civil War was a watershed in which the intermediate institutions (Robert Nisbet) began to be subservient to the federal power, thus imbalancing the organic substrata of government and the social edifice. If intermediate institutions were imbalanced by the War, then they were liquidated during the century which followed. Perhaps (one might think) technology made this process inevitable? However, it is interesting that the progressive argument for technology embraces "conservation" the instant that technology is introduced into the debate. Technology is by definition the application of intelligence to Nature with the method and theory of science. How (then) can we fail to consider the results and plead inevitability? What else is government for but to either encourage, or resist, the Zeitgeist? Since the Civil War, America has not really known a government or elite that was willing to critique itself; the "liberals" (in other words) are faux liberaux - they substitute a critique of "reactionaries" (conservatives, fascists, racists, populists, nationalists, etc.) for the proper self-critique of Socrates, who said "know thyself". This should define the essence of classical liberalism; but it does not. Instead, it becomes either self-hating and other-hating in a destructive form, rather than self-critical in a true sense. America has not known a self-critical moment in a long time. Since we have not engaged in this past time, we substitute ersatz critiques which center around scape-goating someone or something else (see Rene Girard). Hence, the rage for progress, democracy, technology, etc. at the expense of "bad" societies (there is always a bogeyman out there). This is an actual religion, and it is being conducted from the halls of the moneychangers. The Revolution must go on.

Fairy Tales

Magica Theologica

Video of a miracle, or if you prefer, magic using ritual and the spoken word and relics.

Of course, a skeptic will automatically react to this ("the water had salt, then they changed it, the surface tension was broken, etc., etc." or even worse, they switched the fragment, or it isn't wood but some other substance, etc."). The Cartesian mind can always find an alternative explanation (psychologists should realize that "rationalization" is a mental, not a scientific, operation). And of course, there is the possibility that charlatans can perpetrate a hoax; however, to reject the possibility outright, or to suggest that it is done with the power of "demons" (this might be the Protestant approach for the hard-core "evangelical"), is to effectively assert (from the lesser to the greater) that miracles do not occur anymore. Is this where modern Christianity is arrived? What have we come to? God is a God for the living, not the dead.

Want to be a Pythagorean?

I studied music therapy at the graduate level. Perhaps I can shed some light
on this highly misunderstood allied healthcare field. According to the American
Music Therapy Association:Music Therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use
of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic
relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music
therapy program. In order to call yourself a music therapist, you have to
complete at minimum fours years of college at an accredited music therapy
school. The course work is very intense- you have to take lots of music theory
classes, music history classes, music literature classes. You need to audition
on your major instrument, whether it is voice, winds, piano, strings, etc. You
need to learn how to play every orchestral instrument and demonstrate proficency
on them, including piano and guitar. You need to be able to sight-sing, which is
a complex skill in which you sing on sight and command an unfamiliar piece of
music. You need to be able to hear a piece of music and write down all of the
pitches and rhythms on a score. In addition to course work in which you master
all of these skills, you have a weekly clinical in which you conduct music
sessions in a group setting. Each session plan takes at least 8 hours to prepare
and has to be approved by your clinical supervisor. Finally, after completing
your course work, you are required to complete a 6 month, full time and usually
unpaid internship. The internship sites are very limited an almost always
require students to relocate to the other side of the country. Finally, after
the internship you sit for a national exam and earn you earn the following
credential: MT-BC (music therapist, board certified). Only then can you call
yourself a music therapist. There are so many uninformed people and
organizations out there calling themselves music therapist and what they do
music therapy. If you do not hold the MT-BC credential but call yourself a music
therapist, you are slapping the face of every music therapist who spent years in
school, thousands of dollars on tuition, instruments and spent all that unpaid
time in clinicals and internships. Please do not do it. I know of plenty of
organizations that falsely market themselves as providing music therapy when all
they really have is an unlicensed assistive person with a boom box and elevator
music. Think about how hard you worked for your nursing credentials and be sure
to give the same respect to your allied healthcare professionals. This
information holds true for Art Therapists, Dance Therapists and other creative
arts therapists.

On the other hand, are these "specialists", once they invest this much,
anything other than paid functionaries beholden to the system

The Inklings' Magic

Reconciling Tomberg with the Inklings.
Post.

Prayers from the Lake, St. Nicolai of Ochrid

Thanks to my friend, Aaron Friar, for introducing me to this:

I

Who is that staring at me through all the stars in heaven and all the creatures on earth?

Cover your eyes, stars and creatures; do not look upon my nakedness. Shame torments me enough through my own eyes.

What is there for you to see? A tree of life that has been reduced to a thorn on the road, that pricks both itself and others. What else-except a heavenly flame immersed in mud, a flame that neither gives light nor goes out?

Plowmen, it is not your plowing that matters but the Lord who watches.

Singers, it is not your singing that matters but the Lord who listens.

Sleepers, it is not your sleeping that matters but the Lord who wakens.

It is not the pools of water in the rocks around the lake that matter but the lake itself.

What is all human time but a wave that moistens the burning sand on the shore, and then regrets that it left the lake, because it has dried up?

O stars and creatures, do not look at me with your eyes but at the Lord. He alone sees. Look at Him and you will see yourselves in your homeland.

What do you see when you look at me? A picture of your exile? A mirror of your fleeting transitoriness?

O Lord, my beautiful veil, embroidered with golden seraphim, drape over my face like a veil over the face of a widow, and collect my tears, in which the sorrow of all Your creatures seethes.

O Lord, my beauty, come and visit me, lest I be ashamed of my nakedness—lest the many thirsty glances that are falling upon me return home thirsty.

Hurrah for the Cleaning Lady

This is awesome.
Source
Best book on modern art? Who knows, but Tom Wolfe debunks it pretty convincingly in the field of architecture - From Bauhaus to Our House.

Sunday Roundup

George Orwell shows us what it's like to be a truly "literate" man. Who could write a defense this intelligent these days? Or as objective?

A LaRouche article - at least the subject matter is interesting. I've been aware there was occult involvement in France's revolutions for some time, albeit I think it simplistic to believe that the Peace of Westphalia was an event which was "sweetness and light" only, or that "synarchy" necessarily represents Fascism.

From our "man in Munich", someone whom I truly admire:

Intermission over

Power, and the struggle for power, is cemented in the modern mind such that one can hardly imagine doing anything without such a struggle. Even when such an urge arises, and it invariably does since there is more to humans than competition of the fittest, it cannot be evaluated with recourse to power. This is a neurosis, and yet there is no way out for the present generation, since a way out would invariably contain another way of conceptualizing the situation, the possibility of other motives, perhaps even an aesthetically replete sensibility. This is, however, too much to ask, and even we are not wrong to discuss the crude lusts that motivate men (and women!), it is not at all clear that this is the main drama. It is as though in the audience at the opera, we noticed a man selling popcorn. This is out of place! And yet, of course, the audience is hungry. There are some who will buy. This is true, this is life, this is what it is to be human. However, should a review of the opera include a line or two about the popcorn salesman? Was his popcorn good? Was his sales pattern efficient? Perhaps he should even get a page in the program. Perhaps a book on popcorn sales. Maybe even an additional academic department.

Or, perhaps better, we should simply forget that he exists and go back to the main drama.

Joel Dietz

The Light

Thought of Thursday, November 10, 2011
When you feel anxious, tormented, link yourself to heaven and pray. For these anxieties and torments are manifestations of evil entities that wish to harm you. But as soon as you link yourself to heaven, they say to themselves, ‘This being uses the most formidable weapon known to us,’ and they are afraid and attempt to flee. When humans pray sincerely, they use the weapons of light, and immediately an invisible cohort approaches: you will hear the quivering of angels’ wings and the retreat of dark entities as they rush to disappear, for they know they will be burned and pulverized. Evil spirits are afraid of one thing only: the light. That is why, whenever there is difficulty or danger, you must immediately link yourself to the Creator and increase the light within you. All the lower beings that are threatening you will be neutralized, paralysed or chased away.
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
http://www.prosveta-canada.com/anglais_accueil.html

"Good and Sufficient Conservators"

Are modern conservatives up to the job? Do they even know, or have a shredded clue, of what that would mean? Or are they merely "take it slow" liberals, who share the same basic worldview with the progressives, that money and power and technology answer to all things? They are not preserving the statutes, and are faithless public servants, they and all their ilk. Maybe they should spend some time in "useless knowledge" pursuits, say, perusing the rolls of England. Sad to say, it would improve their mind immensely and noticeably, for their minds have shrunk to the size of a newspaper caption or a TV sound byte - we hear that Herman Cain is quoting Pokemon these days. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but Democrats and Republicans have one-upped him. You see, the problem is not "for lack of trying". The Bible tells us (assuming people still read it, and the only reason - and it is a clear and sufficient reason - I bring it up is that they drape themselves in it, both sides of the political spectrum) that "without vision, the people perish". They don't "have a vision", and if they did, it would be a hodge-podge stew of sentimental rubbish they concocted from Sunday school fables, personal experience they don't understand, and good old fashioned demagoguery. It would be, in short, confabulation - political rhetoric aimed at winning the vote, so the same tired lies - how good America is just like she is, how wonderful everything is becoming, etc., etc., - could be used to keep people in line to earn millions for special factions, interests, and groups. The only question is, which brand is the public buying today? And is Coke really better than Pepsi? Is this how it ends? Dig deeper, America. Look into the mystery of evil. Find the truth. This will not be won at the polls; the revolutionaries have always known that.

Lancashire annals

The God-Layer Panopticon

"I would be tempted simply to share an anecdote. One evening not so long ago, as I drove down the road with my family, my wife chuckled to herself. I asked her what was so funny, and she said something to this effect: “Given what we all know about human nature, how puerile, pathetic, and violent it is, it strikes me as more than naive that there are actually persons out in the world who think the solution to the ills and abuses of this or that community or institution is simply to create another one, bigger and more powerful.” She was, that is, laughing at the false idol of the modern age, whose inmates, having abandoned their Maker, go in search of ever more authoritative layers of bureaucracy, in hopes that someday they will find the “God-layer,” that administrative order so panoptic, efficient, and rule-abiding that all shall be well at last."

Source

Precisement. Certainement. QED.

Actually, what the globalists believe is not just that "bigger is better", and not just that they and they alone understand all of the multi-dimensional aspects of reality, but that this Super-State will actually embody and incorporate God-on-earth in an inversion of the doctrines of the Incarnation. They yearn for the Incarnation, but they have no idea what it means. Or, rather, they see its shadow (or what they think is its shadow), and wish to embody that shadow. They are supremely dangerous, and ultimately nothing more than whited sepulchres. They will give a "hell of own making".

Minor Poets

Jasmin Barber.

The Sunday Article Round-Up

Sundays, or Saturday evenings, I'll be trying to post articles I am currently working on, or at least interested in trying to halfway complete sometime soon. Here is the weekend offering.

Dugin-Olavo debate.

Dugin argues against "the West" and calls for allies within. Olavo calls him a fascist. I am left wondering if these are the only two alternatives, and somehow feel that Dugin is closer to the truth than his interlocutor.

Greed Ain't Good.

Since Vico & Mandeville, "greed is good". First Things writer takes umbrage at any system, moral or otherwise, which reaches such a counter-intuitive result.

The Market as God.

Sacrificing chickens may work as well as the "science" of economy. The language of the invisible hand sure sounds theological.

An alternative, paleo-con style.

Medaille tries to parse why we, the West, are disintegrating on all fronts, even in our vaunted "free markets". I especially like this short effort to refute the idea that politics and economics (or morals) can be ultimately and finally separated.

Occupy Wall Street

The Four Reformers by Robert Louis Stevenson might cause you to think of the unwashed Occupy Wall Street mob, for as long as you can stand it.

Four reformers met under a bramble bush. They were all agreed the world must be changed.

“We must abolish property,” said one.

“We must abolish marriage,” said the second.

“We must abolish God,” said the third.

“I wish we could abolish work,” said the fourth.

“Do not let us get beyond practical politics,” said the first. “The first thing is to reduce men to a common level.”

“The first thing,” said the second, “is to give freedom to the sexes.”

“The first thing,” said the third, “is to find out how to do it.”

“The first step,” said the first, “is to abolish the Bible.”

“The first thing,” said the second, “is to abolish the laws.”

“The first thing,” said the third, “is to abolish mankind.”

(Not original with me - quote from elsewhere)