How the Left Hides its Dominance

Leftism rules. That’s obvious to anyone who can think accurately. But the Left thinks the Right rules. And so do many normies. Why can’t some people see the obvious?

[I call our enemies “the Left.” Yes, traditional American politics is dead; we are in uncharted waters. But supporting unlimited immigration, divorce and abortion, for example, is leftist by definition. Our enemies are leftistish, whatever else they are.]

The following goes a long way toward explaining the conundrum. In it, “racist” is a stand-in for anyone who shows any kind of opposition to the current System:

*

In America, it’s not formally illegal to be a racist. But the dominant culture defines racists to be bad people so racists are always subject to punishment.

Do Not Attack a Soldier When He’s in the Middle of Attacking Your Enemy, Or Richard Dawkins Publicly Praises Christianity

There was a much-talked-about recent public declaration by Richard Dawkins that he considers himself to be a cultural Christian, that he likes living in a culturally Christian (i.e., Christian) country, that “if we substituted any alternative religion, that would be truly dreadful,” that Christianity is a “fundamentally decent religion,” and the Islam that surrounds him in England is not.

It generated a lot of reaction, but I have not heard anyone point out the most important thing. Dawkins said publicly that Christianity is “fundamentally decent” and he greatly prefers it to Islam. He publicly supported our side. Richard Dawkins, of all people, said things that are dangerous to say in public but which support our side.

Christ the King of All the Heavens has Defeated His Rebellious Satrap Azazel

Having conquered Death, Jesus has conquered our entire system of things, of which Satan is yet still Lord – for a time. The Logos, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, the God of gods and Light of light, gave dominion of our cosmos at her beginning as a fief to his satrap, the seraph Satan. Satan then, with some number of his vassals, rebelled against his Lord and King, and so Fell from grace, and from his throne in the Court of Heaven. With him and his angels the whole realm of which they were minsters Fell in train, defected by their defection. So death – entropy, noise, error, sin, thus the gradual decrease of her power and being, her beauty, activity, life – began to eat her.

Vox Day Notices Zippy re Usury

Almost no one these days understands what usury is, or therefore why the Church (and all other traditional societies) have for so long condemned it – or used to do so, anyway. Most people think usury denotes only loans that bear interest rates “too high.” It does not. The rate of interest on a loan might be unjust for other reasons, but does not render the loan usurious; as to usury, the interest rate is therefore irrelevant. Usury is the charging of any interest at all on full recourse loans, that are collateralized only by the person of the debtor and his assets and revenues, without limit (a non-recourse loan, per contra, being collateralized only by certain specific assets, would not be usurious (albeit that it might be unjust in other ways)).

The basic problem of usury, from the perspective of the Church, of Aquinas, and of Zippy: it amounts to selling what does not exist; namely, the opportunity cost of a loan extended.

But NB: opportunity cost has no more than a notional existence in probability space. The opportunity cost of a loan extended is like the economic value today of what might have happened if I had asked that girl out 30 years ago. I can’t sell what might have happened had I asked her out, because that outcome does not exist. So ….

The basic problem, from my own perspective: full recourse notes are a sort of slavery. They can be had only by signing away one’s autonomy.

An Archon of Right Liberalism Takes the Turn to Orthogony

John C. Wright has long been one of the most intelligent and effective writers at the Right end of the political spectrum. He has been a great defender of the Constitution, the Enlightenment, the private sector as against the state, of traditional customs, mores and values, and so forth; and, in particular, of Christianity. He is one of the more competent, clever and entertaining Christian apologists now writing online.

He’s prolix, even compared to such as I. But his writing is always sprightly, and fun to read … so long as one has a half hour or so to spare for it each day. He’s a lawyer, so his comments on current affairs are well grounded in the tradition of English Common Law, in its down to earth common sense. And he’s also a competent and successful writer of science fiction novels, so he is able, ready and indeed eager to explore novel notions, and consider imaginatively how they might work out in practice.

A formidable guy, altogether. And what is more rare in these latter days of cultural antagony and deliquescence, sweet tempered and irenic withal. He is valuable and discerning wit.

Having grown jaundiced upon it myself circa 2009, it had bugged me for some years that despite all that, he had been so far still convinced of the Enlightenment as a natural and just evolution of Christian culture, rather than a divagation therefrom.

Well, I am pleased to report that he has recently suffered – nay, enjoyed – a paradigm shift of an orthogonal sort.

The Basic Error of Modernity versus the Basic Truth of Tradition

I’ve just finished one of the 20 or 30 best books I’ve ever read. Theophany: The NeoPlatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite, by Eric Perl, is only 138 pages long (counting end notes, but not index or bibliography), but it took me months to read, because it is so packed with insight. I could read only a page or so in a given session, before I had to set the book aside to process what I had learned. Perl opens Neo-Platonism and sets it forth plainly and coherently. Before I read it, Neo-Platonism seemed to me a foggy confusing mess. Having read it, I feel that I understand Neo-Platonism as it were from the inside; so much so that I am able to see that it has informed my own thought from the beginning. Indeed, I daresay I may just have discovered that I have been a Neo-Platonist all along!

Highly recommended, for those who are interested in metaphysics generally, or in ancient Greek philosophy. Or, for that matter, in thinking clearly.

I write about the book now because in his conclusion, Perl nails the divergence – or as I would characterize it, the divagation – in intellectual history that gave rise to the whole of modernism: to liberalism, nominalism, Kantianism, the Nietzschean transvaluation of values, to relativism, and so forth; in the limit, to nihilism, to nonsense, to insanity, and so to cultural deliquescence. Beginning on page 111, he writes:

“Pascal’s Wager, 21st Century Edition”

(HT Patriactionary.)

Someone calling himself Bleppstein von Sama says

Pascal’s Wager for the 21^st century:

God may or may not be real, but the other side is so passionate, so committed to worshiping Satan, evil, homosexuality and corrupting children that even if god wasn’t real, believing in him to fend these demons off is preferable.

Yep. The other way doesn’t work. So the Christian way is, at minimum, preferable.

This is evidence for God rather than a full proof, but it’s strong evidence for the truth. Sooner or later, you must commit yourself to that to which the evidence leads.

This is an argument presuppositional in spirit. But you can just call it not being a dumba**.

The Grammar of Hate

When the word “hate” has a direct object, it has its traditional meaning. In the sentence “I hate broccoli,” hate’s direct object is broccoli. That’s what I (hypothetically) hate.

But in the sentence “We’re fighting hate,” hate has no direct object. What is hated is not specified.

Whenever the word “hate” is employed with no direct object it means sane people and sane ideas. It is reality and the people who acknowledge it. The “hate” that the Left hates is, at root, reality.

This is the modern-day grammar of hate.

Christ is Now Borne of a Pure Maid, in an Ox Stall He is Laid, Therefore Sing We at a Brayde

The words of the title come from Sir Christémas, an old Christmas carol. We sang it this year at Saint Dominic’s. It boils down to a drinking song in the final verse, as is not uncommon with the more boisterous carols: “… buvez bien, buvez bien, par toute la compagnie, make good cheer and be right merry and sing with us now joyfully …” “Buvez bien” means “drink you well.” Compare “Wassail, wassail, all over the town …” These are songs that were sung not so much in church, liturgically (although the monks were (and are) often famous brewers and vintners, so who knows …) as at the Christmas festivities in private houses. In the case of “Wassail,” one ought to consider that the lovely custom of caroling from door to door generally involved a fair bit of drinking. The carolers would pound on a door and start singing, in the expectation – as at All Hallows’ Eve – that at the end of their song they’d all be given a tipple or two of the household cider, or beer, or wassail, or mead, mulled wine, or whatnot. Or, even invited in to join the party.

Wherefore these parties, these drunken revels with dancing, halls with holly and mistletoe bedight, roast boar’s heads bedecked with bay and rosemary carried in on pallets to the feast, and so forth?

A good question.

“Unite the Right:” A Conceptually Simple Framework Based on First Stopping the Destruction

By “The Right” I mean those who are relatively sane, moral, and devoted to construction. The Left consists of those who are insane, immoral, and devoted to destruction.

This gives the Left a structural advantage. Destruction is conceptually simple. Just take away what exists and replace it with something new and untried (and therefore suboptimal), or with nothing. Disgruntled people naturally agree that the existing order is bad; from there it’s a small step to desiring destruction. It’s easy to rally the legion of the disgruntled with a campaign of destruction. The Left is more cohesive than the Right because it’s easier to organize a lynch mob than a construction crew.

While sane people agree that the existing leftist order is bad, they cannot agree on what should replace it. The Right lacks a unifying principle.

Ultimately social renewal will require a specific blueprint. But we can do a lot of good right now without any blueprint by devoting ourselves to stopping the destruction. And it’s done by destroying or at least blocking the institutions and laws that carry out the destruction.