Lawrence Auster on the Root Cause of Why We Are Letting Our Culture be Destroyed

From the late, great traditionalist blogger Lawrence Auster comes this min-essay clarifying the meaning of transcendence. Auster points out that unless our activities, loyalties and institutions have meanings that transcend their merely physical elements, we cannot understand them, love them, or act to protect them.

In a postscript to the essay, Auster observes:

My main purpose in this discussion is to get at the root of why we our letting our culture be destroyed. I’m saying it’s because we have lost the experience of the transcendent as it is related to our specific culture, and therefore we don’t have the will to preserve or defend our culture. [Emphasis added] The transcendent needs to be understood not only in relation to the idea of God, but in relation to culture. If the transcendent is only experienced in relation to universal morality or God, then we end up with modern conservatism, which worships universal ideas of democracy and puts 99 percent of its moral energy into opposing abortion, but which fails to defend our culture as a culture from the innumerable ills that threaten it from without and within. It is no coincidence that both neoconservatives and evangelical Christians favor mass non-European immigration. It is because they lack a sense of the transcendent quality of our particular culture and nation.

Here is the essay:  (Source.)

An Aphorism

Right now, Derek Chauvin looks like he may become the Gavrilo Princip of our age. Let us pray that this time, history turns out differently.

(I make no reference to Chauvin’s intent, which is currently unknown. I refer to his impact.)

To the Alt Right (and Everyone Else): Jesus Christ is a Strong God, and You Need Him

As a rightist, you know we live in Clown World. In religious terms, a foretaste of Hell. But Hell is real and you’re in danger of going there permanently. The only escape is via Christianity. Read on:

Non- and anti-Christian rightists have, I think, two basic grudges against Christianity. One, the Christian institutions have mostly been converged, with a motley crew of liberal pseudo-Christians, “Christcucks,” “Gay Christians,” and so on turning most of Christendom into just another enabler of multiculturalism, LGBTQ, leftism, and on and on. If Christianity looks just like the rest of the nation, in thrall to the left, why respect Christianity?

But the more important objection is that real Christians appear weak and powerless. It makes their God look weak and powerless.

But according to the Bible (the real definer of Christianity), the real God is a mighty Being who in eternity past chose and predestined a group of people yet to be born to be saved and sanctified, and to live forever in resurrected bodies in paradise. And yet the mark of your being predestined is that you freely choose to repent and believe. God is powerful enough to predestinate and to give you free choice. God is not a weakling who sits around hoping that somebody would choose to join his team; according to Scripture God acts to save His people and to keep them saved. And if right now God’s people are having their behinds kicked big time, that’s because it’s part of his plan. God has good reasons for everything that happens; we just don’t know what they are. And at the end of the world, when God brings the current world order to an end and judges mankind, God’s team is the winning team.

Ontological Relativism: Our Civilization’s Latest Thing

Philosophy at its best is the study of basic reality. It helps people to think more accurately. At its worst, philosophy is irrelevant or malevolent. Let the buyer beware.

One way to divide philosophy is into ethics, epistemology and metaphysics.  Each can be ruined by being relativized.

The classic expression of ethical relativism is Pope Francis’s infamous “Who am I to judge?” In moral relativism there is no morality for all, just for individuals. Ethics is subjective (relative to the subject who is ethicizing), not objective (the same for everyone.)

Epistemological relativism says “Your truth is not my truth.” Everyone (or maybe every tribe) has his own truth. Alethic relativism (it sounds better in Greek) makes all truth relative to the subject, the individual.

These last two have been popular for decades, because relativism means you cannot be wrong.  But there’s a new kid on the relativistic block. When the postmodern dude or dudette says “I self-identify as a[n] insert descriptor here” he is spouting ontological relativism.

The Gillette Syndrome

Gillette Syndrome   When an individual or organization acts against its well-being, because of the requirements of its consciously-professed beliefs.

*

We see in the news that Gillette has taken a major hit, no doubt largely because of its infamous commercial accusing its natural customer base (people who shave) of being sinners against the new state religion of liberalism.

(ht Dalrock.)

Why would they knowingly offend customers actual and potential?  Because nowadays everyone is supposed to agree with feminism, which requires, inter alia, badmouthing men.

Belief in “Evolution” is not Necessary for the Dissident Right

Understand the terms used here. This is about evolution in the Darwinian sense: That purely material forces drive all biological change and therefore God is not the creator of the species and the human race. As a Christian I reject Darwinian evolution; the Bible says that God created the living beings, including mankind, and therefore Darwin contradicts Christianity. I do affirm evolution in the other senses, including microevolution, minor variation in already-existing forms caused either by natural selection or by deliberate human interference. I believe it because we see it happening now. But Darwinian evolution, which goes far beyond the observable evidence to postulate that all biological change was non-theistic, is doubtful and unnecessary.

And by “dissident right” I mean the non-mainstream yet non-insane right. Others may try to define the term more narrowly, but since the mainstream right is not helping to restoring a sane society, we need a term for rightists who are on the right path. At the moment, “dissident right” is the best candidate.

Honoring Our Ancestors: The Building of the Transcontinental Railroad

Today marks the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad, then called the Pacific Railroad. The driving of the now-legendary Golden Spike by California governor Leland Stanford at Promontory Summit in the Utah territory on May 10, 1869 marked the completion of the most titanic engineering feat of the nineteenth century and a key moment in the development of the American nation. Begun in earnest only four years earlier, a continuous line of about 1,800 miles of track now connected Sacramento, California and Omaha, Nebraska, cutting the travel time from coast to coast from generally six months to about eight days. The ceremony was also the first major public event to be broadcast live to the entire nation, as telegraphers had rigged the spike and the track so that a signal was sent all across America when the last blow was struck. Technical details prevented the scheme from working perfectly, and telegraphers on the scene had to improvise in order to send the signal, but the entire event was a fitting celebration of progress.

 

The building of the Pacific Railroad is a massive subject, meriting many volumes, but this present work has only a modest aim: To introduce the reader to the effort and the people involved, and to honor the occasion.

Letter to My Son: Old Movies and Books Help Inoculate You against Liberalism

My Son,

You may not like those old movies and books, but you need them. Why? Because old movies and books were made before liberalism took over.

The old moviemakers and authors were free to show normal human beings doing normal things. They were free to show life as it should be. They didn’t have to worry about being punished by social justice warriors, and they were not brainwashed by liberalism. Yes, some old movies and books get things wrong, but overall they are the best place to see how things should be. Contemporary liberalism has distorted and perverted our way of life.  If you want to see how life should be, the best place to look is old movies and books.

That’s why the liberals (if they have any brains) don’t want you to like old books and movies.

Proposed Necessary Nomenclature: “Sexpervism”

There’s a widely-used, one-word name for female selfishness organized into doctrines and movements.  “Feminism.”

There’s a widely-used, one-word name for forcing the majority group to give up its place to minorities. “Multiculturalism.”

Reveling in uncertainty and ambiguity is called “Postmodernism.”  And so on.

Something else needs a catchy, one-word, widely-used name: The forced legitimization of sexual perversion and confusion. It’s not just the deviant sex acts and the sexual ambiguity and confusion. More importantly it’s trying to force us to say the deviance and confusion is not just acceptable, but good.

Letter to My Son: What is Postmodernism?

My Son,

I’m not using your name because the Web is public and I want to minimize the chance that your privacy will be invaded. But this letter is written mainly for you. Other people may benefit from it, but that’s just a fortunate byproduct.

As a young man, your most important task is to come to understand the world.  A man cannot live well if he does not know what’s happening.

The contemporary world has been disrupted. But the disruptors (the liberals) are a wicked bunch, and their disruption, which is really destruction, threatens you and everything you love (or should love.) You are just one person and you cannot stop the destruction by yourself. But as a first step you can understand the disruption by understanding how the world really works, and how humans should behave.

That’s what I want most to get across: What reality really is, and how humans should behave. There’s a lot to say, but I can only write one letter at a time. This letter concerns postmodernism.

*

Postmodernism is one of the defining features of the modern world, so we must understand it. We don’t need to understand everything about it; we’ll leave that to the scholars. But we have to understand its essence, the thing that makes it what it is.