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.

Flying Too Close to the Sun

I have been meaning to post on the moral issue of "probability" for some time. Since the blog is largely a conversation with myself, save for the loyal family member or unlucky visitor who happens to stray these portals, I don't feel guilty for indulging myself.

After William of Ockham set up reason as a kind of neutral arbiter which could operate, so to speak, from a skeptical void (since names are just conventions, and since we really only know what we think we know), moral theology moved definitively in the direction of laxness. The Jesuit order attempted to instill a counter-discipline, but it was perceived mostly as a hair-shirt. Since Ockham, Western man has moved in the direction of only having to give one, just one, good reason why a tradition, rule, law, or custom could be safely neglected, guilt-free.

Of course, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there is ALWAYS at least ONE good reason to do anything, even the most heinous acts imaginable (at least the ones I can imagine). While this may have liberated the sensual and sensually-sunken material man to pursue experimentation and science (or "Progress & Reality", as the proponents like to call it in its purest and most unfettered state), and while great material goods have undoubtedly been produced (though the problem of equity and distribution is yet, I note, to be solved, with no end in sight), it also essentially gave a trump card for Reason against Religion: no religious argument, or even a real religion, or perhaps even any personal piety, can long survive the conviction that one good reason on the devil's side is sufficient to fore go the ancient path.

This has been extended, even, in Modern Times to include the idea that merely one tiny doubt on the other side of the ledger (the Faith, or debit side) can suffice to justify a wholesale write-off. Modern "religious" people complain about this lopsidedness, but the two developments are related, it would appear. Minimalism in ethics can lead to minimalism in dogmatics, as well.

A host of intellects have debated these issues, and it is one of the more interesting Counter Reformation topics that developed out of the late medieval nominalism. I'll note Alphonso Ligouri as one of the more interesting.