It may be that the restorationist is able, like Pygmalion, through divine agency and fervent affection, to bring to life the dream of the world he made. Yet such affection belies his original hatred of the world, where, had it been complete, there should never have been the natal dream that awakened him to hope. Perhaps a labor of such intensity can come from hate. After all, the devil is no idler. But from such hatred never proceeds the faith to kiss and to caress, to animate what could only ever be silent stone. Hope is the great master emotion of the West, whereas of the East it is quiescence, acceptance. Can there be faith absent hope? It is unlikely, for faith, absent hope, it simply knowledge, obtained by effort and craft, but never in doubt within its compass. One trusts knowledge, but only to its terminus, beyond which is abyss. But hope gives flight, to lift us beyond the limits of ourselves and our time. It is the sentiment of the spirit, of eternity, not of procedure, not of mastery, and European Man is its regent.
» Read MoreAn occasional blog on Theonomy, agrarianism, tradition, and Christian ethno-nationalism, by W.M. Godfrey
Until ID (or whatever science-o-rific) name it’s given chooses to abandon its ludicrous stance on population genetics, it’s going to get eviscerated by the equally ludicrous ranks of the “traditionalists” and “alt-right” who, in agreement with evolutionists believe the miraculous fable that something (everything that is) came from nothing, or the equally ludicrous mythology that everything that is, always was. That things don’t come from anywhere, they simply ARE, of course.
The article at Occam’s Razor is interesting, the article at Ars Technica not so much. The former is interesting in that it points up a critical weakness in the strategy of ID defenders. That is, because of their extra-biblical commitment to human uniformity, they end up in untenable positions, such as denying the findings of population genetics. But evolutionists themselves, like Richard Dawkins, deny the implications of human population genetics, so it mostly amounts to the same thing. Unfortunately for the evolutionist right, their rejection of creation (and of a creator) leaves them scrambling for the mostly impossible straws of their dishevelled strawmen, in attemtping to find evolutionary pathways for human behavior that has no evolutionary value. This yawning chasm in behavioral genetics has led the wilder fringe to postulate a non-competitive form of evolutionary advancement. Which seems like a theoretical deus ex machina to us, much like Punctuated Equillibrium was for the late Stephen J. Gould.
So Ars Technica lampoons the Discovery Institute for faking a lab setting for an interview saying,
“Presumably, we are meant to let the nice scientist’s words and theories wash over us in the glow of the lab she’s sitting in…”
But isn’t that precisely the effect that scientists (of the “right” sort, of course) want to have on the GP (general population)? Their white lab coats, their expensive, sterile equipment, their… » Read More
Watch as every “conservative” institution collapses before the gay “equality mandate.” Amazing how not one of the prominent right wing talkers or scribblers sees the correlation between this form of equality and the racial equality mandate, but the logic put forward by its advocates is precisely the same—a correlation that raises the ire of “Civil Rights” advocates in the black community, for whom not all civil rights are created equal. Only the property rights absolutists among the Libertards can approach the “holy mountain” of equality by diktat with their sandals on: http://reut.rs/XL6eU9
» Read MoreWhen the state began certifying unions beyond its sphere of authority and jurisdiction, conferring benefits as a kind of social engineering, it invented the gay marriage issue, and involved the legal apparatus in a false determination. The argument from equality proffered by homosexual provocateurs was surely seen in the very rudiments of state-granted unions, which are nothing more than mock marriages for the very purpose of usurping the Church’s exclusive right to form and dissolve marriages.
It was both inevitable and predictable that the issue be framed within the context of equal protection—especially as the etiology of homosexuality is mired in politics, and the scientific community, unable to find the “gay gene” (evidence of genetic determination elevating homosexual preference to the level of race) has elected to retreat behind a wall of demagoguery. Presumably, the argument from equality is based on the possession of some distinguishing characteristic that separates one, in theory, from the majority population, but is not morally disqualifying, based on its involuntary determination. In this way, the case is made by the advocates of homosexual unions that their petition has legal standing as a matter of civil right, when in fact it supplants a religious judgment with a secular-civic one. The state cannot affix any meaningful imprimatur on marriage, which is not in its power to grant, nor can it nullify a godly union. Gay marriage is therefore an oxymoron. Marriage is possible only within a Theistic context. The state deifies itself by creating a secular analog that confers stolen privileges.
» Read MoreThe [supposed] evils of the past (e.g., slavery) were committed against—and by—persons of the past. We can neither punish the perpetrators nor compensate the victims.Moreover, we ourselves are not these persons of the past. This seeming truism was lost on Justice Thurgood Marshall, who, in response to the condemnation of any government bias against or in favor of anyone, bellowed, ‘You guys [i.e., white people] have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it’s our [i.e., black people’s] turn.’ Again, most, if not all, of the people today, black and white, were not even alive during those past periods of injustice. But what would this racial eye-for-an-eye theory of ‘discrimination’ mean in practice? The implementation of a Jim Crow system against whites? The resurrection of involuntary servitude with whites as slaves?
“Affirmative Action, Negative Justice” by Barry Loberfeld, Front Page Magazine, September 21, 2003.
» Read MorePerhaps if Mexicans stopped toting rusty lawn chairs to recycling centers for a few minutes, they could learn English, and then teach themselves a skill that an Indian will do in their stead in a couple of years, who will then be replaced by a robot in a few more.
» Read MoreWe killed tens of thousands of American citizens – maybe hundreds of thousands – with no due process whatever in the Civil War. And it was the right thing to do. …You know, you want to discredit a movement: defend the Confederacy. Go ahead.
This is former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, quoted from an appearance on the Stossel show. I wonder whether the Apostle Paul would have advocated genocide on behalf of Abolitionism. Somehow, I rather doubt it.
» Read MoreThere lies at the core of Darwinism a dread realization that largely remains unrecognized by the ever-publishing, ever-disputing cadres of evangelical creationism. This realization is that human evolution implies human extinction—that the purported development of man is facilitated by the death of anything we might recognize as human. If one accepts the idea of created kinds, it is only in the context of a ‘creation typology’ that this extinction-producing change which evolutionary theory anticipates can be determined. By creation typology I mean the idea that God designed the world such that biological kinds endure through time, and remain within the adaptive framework established for them. Genuine creationism is itself profoundly intertwined with—indeed inseparable from—this notion of typological conservation. A creationism that abandons this concern with conservation in order to avoid the unpopular social (and genetic) implications of the Creation Ordinance of multiplication by ‘kind’ is vulnerable to corruption by notions of perfectibility and general ‘advance’—a direction of thought which would, most unfortunately, comport rather well with the progressive tendencies that have tainted ‘conservative’ evangelical eschatology of late. And yet the conservation of kinds is the only means by which created order can possibly be maintained in animal biology, or distinguished from utter fluidity of biological form, a fact which remains unacknowledged by most creationists. Where they speak of it, their insistence on limiting the scope of this conservation betrays an awareness of the sociological import of a fully developed and articulated creation typology.
This anti-typological view I am describing is all too comfortable with the conception of complete transmogrification of forms, a central tenet of evolution. How can we speak of man in the context of such change? It is nothing more than impertinence. What is ‘humanity,’ after all, if a human being is a wholly… » Read More
If you have read this blog much at all then you know that scripture tells us that the apostle Paul was willing to be condemned (to damnation and hell) if it meant the salvation of his “kinsmen after the flesh,” that is, his biological family or tribe. But perhaps you were unaware that this very “familist” proposal (in the words of Gary North, and now, Bojidar Marinov) was not without precedent. As it turns out, Moses, whom “conservative” exegetes refer to as a “type of Christ,” makes a very similar offer in Exodus 32:32, in pleading with God for His forgiveness of the people of Israel following the production of the Golden Calf:
[31] So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. [32] But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”
Understood correctly, Moses is unwilling to evade the condemnation of the people by God, for their sake, and in unity with them, though he was innocent of their sin of idolatry. What is more remarkable, Moses insists on this unity with sinful Israel, what God Himself refers to as “your people” in verse 7, even though God provides him with an escape:
[10] “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
In other words, Jehovah instructs Moses to stand aside under exemption and witness the consuming of the existing Israel, that He would bring forth out of Moses a new nation. The implication here is that this new nation would be the issue of Moses, a progeny biologically descended… » Read More
» Read More“Male supremacism on the Pauline model is necessary for civilization, since it gives men ability and motive to invest in posterity, necessary for society, because children need fathers, and is the only political tactic capable of achieving the rollback of the feminist imperative that Men’s Rights Activists want.”
In the wake of the Fiscal Cliff kerfuffle it seems appropriate to discuss the nature of the much ballyhooed capitalism that is supposedly the prevailing economic system of the United States, an assertion that is highly debatable. But for the sake of argument, let’s presume that this is the case. Every historical example of “capitalism” we have seen thus far seems to have presupposed the operation of a central bank, to ensure the flow of credit (as lender of last resort) when credit would naturally falter and fail. Hayek admitted this, made theoretical provision for it, and the result was his disciple Hoppe’s ideological parricide on the basis of Hayek’s crypto-socialism. Markets that are only operative under this presumptive condition are not “free,” rather they are planned. Characteristically, Republican and Democrat references to “free market capitalism” actually indicate something akin to a status quo economics, albeit with lower corporate and individual tax rates. The Democrats, being unabashed Keynesians, are rather forthcoming concerning their commitment to all manner of interventions, more especially those driven by ideology. Republicans are Keynesians without enthusiasm, repentant economic sinners. It is not coincidental that the vast majority of Republicans with Public Religion (PR) are either Baptists or Catholics (the few Mormons notwithstanding). A conservative Presbyterian would be verbally committed (at least) to even the moon-baying lunacies of Really Free Markets (which means Really Non-existent Borders). Further, even were it a free market, a market that is perfectly free is one free of rules, which ignores the economic implications of a biblical exegesis. My opinion is that Wilhelm Röpke (who, as far as I know, and despite his prominence as an Austrian School economist, has never been mentioned in any of Gary North’s writings on biblical economics) made the essential dissociation between market economies and so-called… » Read More
Absent the Creation Ordinances of “kind after kind” and God’s ownership of all life, there is no biblical basis for opposition to genetic modification. The genetic code of every creature, the origin of which is inexplicable in Evolutionary Theory, is the signature of God on its title of ownership. The transformation via biotech of man into other-than-man is the subconscious attempt to invalidate God’s claim of ownership, and to trump the scripture’s claim to authority over man and his deeds. Prominent Christian thinkers and media personalities who support genetic modification of organisms do so either in ignorance or rejection of these Ordinances.
» Read MoreI’m amused when Republicans advance theories for their losses in national elections having to do with continued association with the right wing of the party, denying that there is any causality in the correlation between race and the dependency mentality. If only the party were younger, if only we could craft a more compassionate, more sympathetic message, if only we could give up on untenable positions like immigration, if only we’d compromise on abortion. Gentle reader, I would suggest that this cant is nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing; it is a Big Noise meant to advance a false cause for election losses with the intention of using the despair of the right wing to move the Overton Window ever leftward. Trollope, in his novel Phineas Finn expressed it this way,
“Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable;–and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.”
“It is no loss of time,” said Phineas, “to have taken the first great step in making it.”
“The first great step was taken long ago,” said Mr. Monk,–”taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards.”
Dialectic, the inevitability of Progress, these were always red herrings, meant to divert us from the fact that radical change is most efficiently brought about in minute increments and it isn’t an… » Read More
Here is a blog post at Lew Rockwell from “libertarian” pundit Ryan McMaken arguing that for the GOP to win national office in the future, it has to abandon everything it has historically stood for (I use the phrase “stood for” very loosely) and become the Democratic Party “lite.” Of course, in the wake of embarrassing and painful ED (electoral dysfunction), such hand-wringing is a normal part of the political grieving process that is the recent quadrennial lot of conservtives. Only, it appears that Mister McMaken is not a conservative after all, but among that group of Libertarian Pragmatists who realize that their views are so unappealing to the majority of Americans that they can only achieve success by a parasitic secretion of said views into the body of the GOP. In other, words, only by the GOP (the white male party) making itself over into the failed Libertarian Party (the other white male party) can the GOP succeed. Such a rare specimen of delusion is truly a discovery, like the impossible zoology of a Pacific trench. I must presume that even Mister McMaken would have preferred the Main Street rhetoric of Romney to the politics of envy, which Obama purveys—irrespective of the probabilities that such rhetoric might be enacted in policy—and that this is the reason he has penned his—ah—article. Writes McMaken,
“Conservative evangelicals, on the other hand, have become little more than a niche interest group within the GOP. This is the group that gives rise to people like Todd Akin, and who are far more of a liability for the party when it comes to appealing to urban and educated people, which is a huge part of the voting population.”
So to hell with conservatism, says he, they are a “niche interest group.” The urban… » Read More
“The basic foundations of autocracy, whether it be class government or capitalism in the sense that a few men through unrestrained control of property determine the welfare of great numbers, is as far apart from the rightful expression of American individualism as the two poles.”
» Read MoreThe wholly self-conscious direction of humanist thought toward a new birth of society is utopian, of the same essential spirit as the modern scientific-technocratic project, and cannot be dissociated from it, despite certain particulars at variance between the two geographies of feeling. In linking themselves with the classical mind in a kind of creative re-imagining of the past, the Renaissance’s great classicists sought to reconnect themselves and their age to what they imagined was a more vital past. They sought to circumvent and subvert the immediate past, concretized in its own medieval conditions of life. Erasmus marks the distinction between those stylists seeking to revive only the prior forms without also reviving their essential spirit. Perhaps Erasmus, in his privileging of a historicist authenticity unconsciously advocates for imitatio (or even parody) as a means for the appropriation of a past which never was, but ought to have been. This Renaissance eclecticism has much in common with modernism, which rejected its own immediate past in favor of indirect connection with the spirits of former ages, as best the modern mentality could apprehend them. The depth and ultimate success of that apprehension is in great doubt. With deference to Burckhardt, one wonders the extent to which a 15th Century Italian could imbibe and metabolize the peculiar genius of the Hellenes. Rather we think that while they managed to create a high culture, it was by their own lights, seeing the classical world through the lens of the Middle Ages. It may have been that Erasmus neglected the transforming power of time. One sees in Shakespeare the same appropriation of history as material, yet not for an act of resurrection, but instead for transformation.
A kind of ‘modernism’ is necessary, then, one may suppose, when the immediate past has become of… » Read More
The question of race and public policy is an inquiry that of necessity must include contemporary perspectives, but cannot halt there, when it has succeeded in uncovering the almost kaleidoscopic pattern of attitudes that map the current scene. One feature of that scene that forcibly presents itself is the energetic involvement of powerful interests in shaping the public view of race and racial relations. While their activities in this area are something less than determinative, their influence is also not to be dismissed, since, taken collectively, the world that such men have helped to shape also gives a certain cast to thought, and provides a template for the pattern of modern life—one that is not easily set aside for another. In examining the social result of their activity, one can make out a group of related ideas on race that for convenience I will refer to as the Authorized View. This view, very briefly, is just the range of ideas that a great plurality of powerful figures in industry, government, education, and religion wish to promote—we must presume at present for the ‘common good,’ which might cynically be thought of as that mentality which promotes the interests, venal or otherwise, of such figures and those to whom they owe either patronage or deference. In turn, the inert legions under their sway can do little save promulgate through both speech and action a set of conditions which will tend to conserve the privileged position of these ideas, whether through emulation, fear, or any other of the motives that regulate human arrangements. We may think of such ideas as, together, forming a kind of civic piety which in many instances stands in the place of religion in the life of contemporary Americans.
The authorized view I am outlining does not… » Read More
I hadn’t seen this previously by it’s worth a moment to watch. Thanks to Conservative Heritage Times for bringing it to our attention:
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When asked to define race, there are several possible and excellent definitions, depending on the category of knowledge or experience one is addressing. Race is not a single characteristic that is susceptible of univocity. It is plurivocal. Historical, etymological, spiritual, biological, social, psychological… Race is a collection of facets from all of these categories of the understanding. So, before answering the angry interlocutor to define race, I will typically ask which one of the kaleidoscopic dimensions of race he would prefer be defined first.
» Read MoreHow much more dull would life be if there were one type of dog, one type of horse, or one type of human? Miscegenation leads to the extermination of diversity, and robs us of the beauty of life. Multiculturalism is not static. It begins with state-mandated “diversity” and ends with complete homogeneity, which is the tendency of social systems under the influence of industrial methods of organization. The same scientific management principles used in global industry have been applied to social policy, and the result is “normalization” across a range of phenomena. You can’t separate the race question from economics and social policy.
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1) Build markets under protectionism
2) Kick away the ladder and become “free trade” converts
3) Offshore most non-managerial work
4) Decide that competition is bad and become a client of the state
5) Infiltrate state with lobbyists to secure oligopoly
6) Fund trade associations and think tanks that berate protectionism
7) Fall prey to foreign predatory corporatist economic warfare
8) Declare bankruptcy, misappropriate pension fund of domestic workers, plead for Federal bailout and receive it
9) Go bankrupt again, lose Federal “investment”, and restructure with foreign ownership
10) Perform cosmetic on-shoring and ship profits overseas
Any questions?
» Read MoreIn such a condition of brokenness as the application of modern technique leaves Western men, the anomie of the denatured body is accepted as a condition of the general political and social expression, of orientation to the evanescing moment in which the governance of social modalities is never fixed. It follows the imposition of a kind of bodily equivalence of value, it is isolated from all relation. The body is stripped of meaning, of any spiritual function. Sexual union is set on a par with digestion, its mysterium rejected as a contrivance of outmoded prudery, if not the positive oppression of ‘instinct.’ What Freud sought to govern, the new egalite seeks to liberate as a destructive-constitutive force. Sexual destruction is one of the basic modalities of the money economy. What it destroys are the sexual mores (the inherited bodily discipline) of the culture where it is unleashed. What it constitutes is the disorder-order of anomie. Taken together, these carnal reductions make up what can only be called an anthropological monadism and commodification, and it is indifferently to be located in both the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ and the ‘dictatorship of capital.’
All our modern prurience is nothing but the desperate inventiveness of a ‘civilization’ which finds itself exhausted before its prize, with nothing forbidden, nothing sacred, and no taboo remaining to transgress. As a matter of course, this necessitates the invention of new taboos, new sins, such as ‘racism’ and ‘homophobia,’ which were never before sins, in order to preserve our delectation of transgression. We now maintain our admiration for the coquette only long enough that the whore might still elicit some mild surprise. Were a novel and self-conscious fertility cult to arise, we would derogate our “Lydian Women” to the status of mere harlots, lest something of any… » Read More
The politicization of being comes into view with the understanding of being as constituted not by the sources of the transcendent Order, but by its position vis-à-vis the historical-temporal criteria of human organization. It is a matter of common historical observation that the powers that are an independent expression of the polis—by which I mean the citizenry that considers itself to participate in some form of political unity, or those who control them—seek always to totalize their scope and reach. Even concessions to those who align themselves as against the desires of majority are seen to be granted the power of existence from the plenary authority of the will of the polis. It suffers them to be, to find expression in the world. This perspective is unaffected by the status of that power, whether it is real or imaginary, as it exists as a psychological condition of the identity of “the people.” These may suppose that they possess a power that they do not, that is perhaps exercised on their behalf, or is a mere auto-suggestion that is consciously effected by the actual powers, but we are speaking here of will. We have seen nothing in history to suggest that the actual locus of political power differs from the notional in respect of this will to multiplication of powers and the increase of their scope. This infringement on the transcendent grant of rights to non-political institutions (namely those of the church and general society) which is a feature of the biblical order of life, is limited only by material or organizational insufficiency, or the impositions of sacerdotal power. We use power here in the broadest sense, that is, the capability to arrest such expansions, which must include the psychological techniques of the maintenance of political power. Indeed, politics proper can… » Read More
“White privilege” is a cultural Marxist code word for nothing more than the same in-group mutual preference that is shared by all peoples everywhere. The predominance of in-group preference is why there are Korean churches in the United States; it is why the word “China” denotes something other than a geo-spatial convention. But, like all cultural Marxist terms, this one has only selective application, à la Gramsci. It is a correlative expression intended to belie the existence of a social pathology that is formally and forensically, ipso jure, denied existence within not only other ethnic groups, but also agglomerate populations that are artificially selected. An example of such an agglomerate is the construction “people of color,” a phrase which in practice means simply non-white, and an intellectual entity which has no existent correlative. One supposes this is done to emphasize the commonality of those groups in the single qualifying characteristic that matters for racial politics: that of being “other,” in contrast to the fictional hegemony of “whiteness.” However, if one takes the policy of race-based university admission criteria (affirmative action) as an example of public policy that is directed toward such artificial collections, this policy is formally denied inclusion in the class of social privilege by those who deploy it. By such contortions of reason, we see that it is not unequal treatment that is systematically attacked in policy by race demagogues, which, per definitionem, cannot be European. It is rather the chimerical evil of “white privilege” -that is, unequal treatment is only deleterious when practiced by whites. Further, class-based unequal treatment is deemed, in a prejudicial manner, to be lacking any conceivable justification, wherever it is seen, though there may in fact be many noble and even merciful reasons for employing it. Unequal treatment is rarely opposed when it… » Read More
Population diversity and multiculturalism are cognate, and they defy the notion of “assimilation.” Indeed, no one in the immigration debate any longer seriously maintains that immigration and assimilation should be correlative. If we were honest with ourselves, could we say that, in North America, outside of the rituals imparted by our commercial behavior, we have much of a unitary culture, whatsoever, to which the immigrant ought to assimilate?
The breakdown of moral consensus leaves us grasping for any type or pattern to which obligations of fealty attach. The idea of cultural hegemony and destiny is of course a “racist” conception. It presumes that there is something called “culture” which is not merely notional, not intuited directly from the ether, nor the product of rational necessity. It presumes that a self-identified population has the right -perhaps the duty- to resist the surrender of the public square to a demographic contest of artificial selection, a selection effected by law and fashionable ideas. It presumes instinctive objection to the idea that the patterns of life we inherit must be viewed as merchandise in a market of ideas, rather than the subject of an unquestioned tradition, a milieu which we breath unconsciously, and make a part of ourselves, rather than an act of critique and assent.
This cultural marketplace is what neoconservatives refer to when they make public appeals to civic religion, to “freedom,” to notional culture as contest or agon. This is a deeply liberal appoach to culture, and one which had its nativity in Vienna and Manchester. Those first Magi of market dominion worked a charm on conservatism, teaching it that there was nothing, no useful datum, which a price could not embody. Spengler was no fillip to the supremacy of the West with his notion of… » Read More
There is absolutely clear and unequivocal scriptural support for the understanding of the term nation as relating to a group of descendants of a common ancestor. In fact, consanguinity was the biblical means for determination of access to the temple, of one’s standing within Israel, and whether an individual was eligible for marriage. There is no way to “spiritualize” this understanding of the former covenants (promises). Israel must be understood in this way, or the specific material aspects of the covenant of works are meaningless. It is well and good to say that the ceremonial laws of separation were abrogated in Christ, though there is some reason to dispute this, however such abrogation does not affect whether nations, using the example of Israel’s laws of separation, may write for themselves similar laws. Given the OT support for such statutes, they cannot, in themselves, be immoral. God’s law is always and everywhere the highest and best example of civil legislation. The modern state of Israel, in fact, possesses similar restrictions on citizenship, based on national origin, yet we hear little to no criticism by “theonomists” of these laws.
What criteria would “theonomists,” then, desire to be the example for their civil magistrates? God’s law is such a social boon that Paul regards nations that abide by it incidentally as “a law unto themselves,” blessed by their adherence. The question for the biblical doctrine of nations is just this: what can we, biblically, consider a “nation,” and it is this, among other questions, that Kinism seeks to answer in the same ways that our forefathers and scions in the church answered this question. To repudiate them is to repudiate the testimony of the Saints, and of the scripture itself, which describes in Acts 17:26-27 the divine purpose of national division. This separation… » Read More
I am reminded of how like things are brought together in the mind, and how, while separated by years and miles, these can share so close an affinity that one could think they originated in the same creative impulse and in the same creator. This fills us with hope (at least I am so filled), that there are threads in time that to the discerning will not be lost, and that right has a kind of invulnerability and immortality that will not permit its thought to be extinguished, no matter the efforts of systematizers and humanitarian busibodies of whatever stripe. By way of example, I have been thinking of the unanimity of spirit found in the painting by Ruskin titled “Lake, Land and Cloud (Near Como)” and the letters exchanged between Guardini and Louis Dupre during Guardini’s stay there at the lake. Could there be any closer commerce between two minds separated by the accidents of birth? In the shadows and dark outlines of poplar trees, in the weightless hulks of clouds, I am taken back to Guardini’s gentle humanity, his utter, unpretentious simplicity (for there can be much pretention in the manque of primitivism), and the difficulty of accepting life, absent the tendency to treat the moment, this moment, as somehow cumulative and directional. I am reminded here of the notion of “spiritual race” and how this certainly has meaning as an epiphenomenon of which the modern mind is almost completely ignorant. A critic of Guardini’s has written that he falsifies the “individuality” available to the modern man as a result of the new techniques of production. But I think that the critic misunderstands individuality, introducing confusion between mere multiplicity of choice and individuality of person. If individuality can be reduced to the process of selection among an array… » Read More
Adding to the spate of recently published books supporting an environmental theory that accounts for the phenomenon of performance disparity in modern society was an offering by New Yorker columnist Malcolm Gladwell entitled, Outliers, The Story of Success. Gladwell’s persuasiveness and popularity are rooted in a rhetorical technique that marshals selective anecdotal evidence in support of his pet social presuppositions. Among his cherished causes is the notion that genetic factors (such as intelligence) play little or no part in predicting success in modern economies, an assertion which tends to defy not only common observation, but also increasingly voluminous evidence from controlled studies. Gladwell’s insouciant and engaging style has the remarkable effect of suspending disbelief and projecting credibility just long enough that the anecdotal is taken by many as empirically unassailable. But looks are often deceiving. Evidence that tends to run counter to Galdwell’s hypothesis is, predictably, elided. Observations on the performance of separated twins and trans-racial adoptions are absent from Gladwell’s battery of charming stories.
Contrary to “culture” theory, ethnic academic gaps are nearly identical for trans-racially adopted children, and to the extent they are different they move in a direction counter to that predicted by culture theory. The gap between whites and Asians fluctuated from 19 to .09 in available National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data while the gap in the adoption data is from 0.33 to 3 times larger. This finding is quite consistent with the Sue and Okazaki paper showing that, contrary to popular anecdotes, the environmental values that lead to higher academic grades are actually found more often in white homes. This contradicts rather directly Gladwell’s contention that the explanatory variable for Asian performance in math is cultural and environmental.
To put it differently, Asian-Americans perform well in… » Read More
Injustice and segregation are not necessarily correlative. Separate spheres of life provide for regulated and purposeful contact between the races. It precludes the constant, incidental contact that breeds intimacy and breaks down resistance to integration. Segregation is, among other things, a psychological tactic, to keep the “other” as “other” against social forces that would transform them into “us”. Why? Because they ARE other, as history and science have shown.
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