Contra Commandments

The always stimulating Christopher Hitchens is at it again, this time aiming his well-sharpened witty pen against a rather big target: Roy Moore and his "fight" for the Ten Commandments. But Hitchens leaves aside the question of Moore's fight and instead dissects the Commandments themselves (or as he calls them, "vague pre-Christian desert morality"), and in true atheistic fashion finds them contradictory, nonsensical, and immoral. A few comments and replies to Hitchens' broadsides:

The first four of the commandments have little to do with either law or morality, and the first three suggest a terrific insecurity on the part of the person supposedly issuing them. I am the lord thy god and thou shalt have no other ... no graven images ... no taking of my name in vain: surely these could have been compressed into a more general injunction to show respect. The ensuing order to set aside a holy day is scarcely a moral or ethical one, unless you assume that other days are somehow profane.

Once we get past the first step of faith (something Hitchens clearly finds silly and inhuman, since it involves the dimunition of human reason), understand that Commandments 1-4 aim at the errors of the Hebrew world, namely polytheism, idolatry, deliberately destructive blasphemy (rather than just irreverence), and prideful forgetfulness of God True, combined they demand respect, but it is more than this, even today. Polytheism and idolotry worship gods of war, love, and the sea; modern polytheism and idolatry worship money, lust, and social esteem. Both place personal gods above God. And what destroys the respect for God (and the civic obedience and social stability that come with it) more than flippant name-calling, using God's name with the same laxity as your next door neighbor Bob? Finally, caught up in their own little worlds and pursuits, men begin to see the world as their own: they made it and make it. Weekly worship stops men, sends them to a place of introspection, and forces them to recover lost humility. Isn't a weekly holy day at its most basic level a warning to avoid hubris, there is more to the world than just you? So, yes, 1-4 are a call for respect, but they go deeper to warn against worship of the self: be careful when pursuing earthly things, watch your mouth, and remember your place. This isn't God suffering from self-esteem problems; all this makes civilization possible.

The next instruction is to honor one's parents: a harmless enough idea, but again unenforceable in law and inapplicable to the many orphans that nature or god sees fit to create. That there should be no itemized utterance enjoining the protection of children seems odd, given that the commandments are addressed in the first instance to adults. But then, the same god frequently urged his followers to exterminate various forgotten enemy tribes down to the last infant, sparing only the virgins, so this may be a case where hand-tying or absolute prohibitions were best avoided.

It is a peculiarly modern error to see children separate from parents and family, even the orphans, as if they were a category all to themselves. But the call to "honor your father and your mother" implies children, no? Who is to honor their parents other than children? And do not the other commandments imply the proper way to raise children, setting an example by being humble, honoring elders, refraining from murder, lying, adultery, and greed?

There has never yet been any society, Confucian or Buddhist or Islamic, where the legal codes did not frown upon murder and theft. These offenses were certainly crimes in the Pharaonic Egypt from which the children of Israel had, if the story is to be believed, just escaped. So the middle-ranking commandments, of which the chief one has long been confusingly rendered "thou shalt not kill," leave us none the wiser as to whether the almighty considers warfare to be murder, or taxation and confiscation to be theft. Tautology hovers over the whole enterprise.

Hitchens is correct; the sixth Commandment says "thou shall not murder," not kill. In fact, murder is the terrible end point of those errors which were mentioned earlier: you murder for honor, you murder for money. If you had only listened to the warning against hubris... And since a state implies the means to support a state (unless you see the Old and New Testaments as anti-state libertarian tracts, silly no?), taxation cannot be considered theft. There are such things as just and unjust taxation (another blog entirely), but taxation as such is rather obviously not prohibited.

In much the same way, few if any courts in any recorded society have approved the idea of perjury, so the idea that witnesses should tell the truth can scarcely have required a divine spark in order to take root. To how many of its original audience, I mean to say, can this have come with the force of revelation? Then it's a swift wrap-up with a condemnation of adultery (from which humans actually can refrain) and a prohibition upon covetousness (from which they cannot). To insist that people not annex their neighbor's cattle or wife "or anything that is his" might be reasonable, even if it does place the wife in the same category as the cattle, and presumably to that extent diminishes the offense of adultery. But to demand "don't even think about it" is absurd and totalitarian, and furthermore inhibiting to the Protestant spirit of entrepreneurship and competition.

Well, Hitchens is saying the perjury commandment was unnecessary, because everyone knows not to lie. Do they? Just how many people were prosecuted for perjury last year? The mere fact that the commandment was given is evidence it needed to be said. That is like saying, "why does the Declaration say we have rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- everyone, particulary in Whiggish America, knew that already." Obviously not. If that commandment had been peripheral, wouldn't it have fallen by the wayside long ago? Isn't its continued presence evidence that it serves some need, that it reminds us of a common and recurring failure, that imperfect people need that injunction? The adultery commandment is straightforward, even though Hitchens postures a bit by noting women and cattle are mentioned in the same category, hence women are animals, and having an affair with a poodle is a lesser offense (ahem, really?) -- it also mentions "my neighbor's house"; does this mean my wife is a four-bedroom Colonial? It does show that in Hebrew times, men had things that were regarded as "their things," and women were among them. This is not longer true, but I fail to see how this weakens the commandment to avoid covetousness. Have we "progressed" into the "post-covetous era?"

One is presuming (is one not?) that this is the same god who actually created the audience he was addressing. This leaves us with the insoluble mystery of why he would have molded ("in his own image," yet) a covetous, murderous, disrespectful, lying, and adulterous species. Create them sick, and then command them to be well? What a mad despot this is, and how fortunate we are that he exists only in the minds of his worshippers.

Men are not God, although too many aspire to be and think they already are -- this is what makes the Ten Commandments necessary and relevant. Hitchens finds the existence of fallen man an "insoluble mystery," but is it? The only grace worth having is that which is freely chosen, and "covetous, murderous, disrespectful, lying, adulterous" men forsaking those things to accept God makes life livable and lovable. I want to live in a society with men who say "no" to those things. To say fallen man and a benevolent God are a contradiction is to deny free will. Thus, Hitchens appears caught in the "insoluble mystery" more than the Christians he opposes. If you deny the fallen men-benevolent God-free will scenario, aren't you forced into one of two other scenarios: God manipulating men completely (in which case God would be malevolent and men automatons) or no God at all and men following their own urges alone (in which case men are again determinisitic biological automatons).

In the end, Hitchens wishes to subtract the influence of organized religion from human civilization, thinking that if such had occured the history of men would be immeasurably better over the last several thousand years. With visions of holy wars and inquisitions dancing across his eyes, he appears to throw the baby out with the bathwater. What political order, economic standards, artistic and literary beauty would we have today without the traditions Hitchens hates? In the Hitchens' calculus, much like Ayn Rand's, the Empire State Building is more glorious than Chartres, after all the former was built with free labor in a secularist society, while the latter was built by silly theists and serfs. Yet, isn't the continued resilient presence of the Commandments and Christianity evidence that not only do they serve a human need but reflect something larger, something timeless, something (dare I say?) divine?

I'm not a betting man, but I'll put my chips with God and thousands of years of history, rather than Christopher Hitchens in last August 2003.

Jamestown News

Strangely enough, Jennifer, all of your posts fit together around the Jamestown Theme.

First of all, that is pretty big archaeological news. They weren't really sure where the fort was until this year, and now they have found the whole thing. There have also been some human remains found which indicate the first graveyard...all in all, this is adding up to the biggest archaelogical find in Virginia history, ergo the biggest archaeological find in the history of the Eastern United States.

The silkworm fits in because growing silkworms was the perennial dream for Virginia entrepreneurs seeking to diversify from tobacco. Pigs? Lawsuits against Indians always center upon a charge of pig killing. And endless time had to be spend in building fences to keep pigs out of a tobacco field. The Virginians allowed their pigs to wander, you see, and then got upset when people took advantage of this fact.

All of which shows, I think, that you had to have the emotional and intellectual resilience to know how to light your gas stove if you wanted to settle in early Virginia. At the very least!

It's a Boar!

At least it may be if you're living in Berlin, where wild boar have embraced urban living. (Yo, A, is this part of the new urbanist concept?)

My native town recently experienced much excitement when it became known that a domestic pig that went feral was roaming the environs. And that was only one pig (albeit a very BIG pig and well mannered) imagine having lots of them hurtling about. (Medieval hunters viewed boar as a dangerous (and therefore thrilling) quarry.) The boar seem to have lost some of their edge though so Berliners are unfazed.

Just wait until the raccoons do get into their attics.

Definitely of Interest To Me

Scientists have figured out how it is that a worm can produce a fiber as amazing as silk.
Scientific American: Silkworm's Secret Unraveled

Is this exciting news for historians?


Archaeologists Find Jamestown Fort Walls
(AP) - Seven years after archaeologists discovered evidence of the fort built when Jamestown was founded in 1607, they finally know how big the triangle-shaped log enclosure was.

Off the Grid


During the great grid meltdown the Wash Po had an article by the sometimes amusing Joel Achenbach in which he related this vignette:

"(True story: Several years ago, when Bethesda lost power for several days due to an ice storm, a highly educated lawyer discovered to his astonishment that a neighbor had made a cup of coffee. "How did you do that?" he asked. She said she boiled water. But how did you boil water? he asked. She said she had a gas stove. Stunned, he said he had a gas stove, too, but noted that it had an electronic ignition to create a spark. She said, "I used a match." In a state of nature, this man would be eaten alive by field mice.)"

Naturally, I chortled, but I thought to myself that this man was doubtless an aberration, the result of too much law school.

Last evening, we had a stimulating storm that knocked out the power. Accustomed as I am to power outages, I revved up the candles and continued to read about malaria vaccine development. (Fascinating stuff, BTW). My housemate arrived home about a half hour later having successfully managed to avoid get smashed by tree branches on the drive home.

After a discussion of storm related details, she mentioned that she regretted the fact that she couldn't have some soup for dinner, because the microwave didn't work. I pointed out that before the microwave there was the "pot on top of the stove" concept, and as our stove is gas and not electric, this method remained a possibility.

"But," she said, "our stove has an electric spark igniter."

It was then that I saw some field mice peer thoughtfully in through the window.

(Once introduced to the concept of the match, though, she caught on instantly and did some impressive maneuvers with tortillas and the burner. The field mice then decided that had easier business up the street.)

I must say though, I am decidedly more impatient with power outages in the suburbs than in the country, even though power outages in the 'burbs are much more pleasant (The water still works, an incomparable benefit.) Virginia Power informs us that our power will be on by 10 PM today, and I'm peeved, instead of being grateful.

The field mice will doubtless be after me soon as well.

Blair's Past Comes Back to Haunt Him

I know this is hard to get across to lots of Americans, especially (and this is kind of strange) American conservatives, but: lots of people in Britain don't trust Tony Blair. Who? Oh, let me count the ways. There's the hard left. There's everybody on the right. There is an increasing share of middle Britain who weren't too keen on the Iraq war, and are particularly upset with continung waiting lists for service in the National Health Service, which is my vote for oxymoron of the century.

Janet Dailey is an American expat and columnist for the Torygraph, aka The Daily Telegraph, and she is always my favorite person to read in the British newspapers. She has an interesting analysis of the ongoing enquiry into the "Intelligence Dossier", and what this tells us about Tony Blair. Actually she doesn't think it tells us anything we didn't know already.

It is clear from reading through the gripping emails that flew around Whitehall that what was at issue was not the counterfeiting of real evidence, but the manipulation of tone and emphasis. To the extent that there was misrepresentation, it seems to have been a question of marginal or tenuous evidential material being overhyped for dramatic impact. And that, in a nutshell, is what the Blair Government is, and always has been, about.

Too right. I have listened to angonized bureacrats over here complain about the Bush Administration's problems with spin and overspin. Oy, vey. These are nice people, but they have no sense of perspective. They have not read, in short, the British papers that much. The fact is that Blair has weakened the President, in just the way that if, say, Bill Clinton was doing the right thing he would still have weakened (and let's go with a crazy counterfactual here) Margaret Thatcher had she still been Prime Minister during the Serbia crisis. Even if Bill was right, it would have been shrouded by his essential inability to tell the simple truth, simply.

Daley concludes:

What will probably remain after all this will be a sense of the Government having been cleared on the specific charge that the BBC pursued with such badly judged zeal, but having been exposed as little more than a team of political conjurors: illusionists who fail to distinguish between content and packaging, who believe that all problems are solved by finding the right form of words.

The risk is that the electorate will lose sight of the distinction, too, and the real good that has been done in Iraq will be confounded...

Did Free Blacks Own Slaves?

I had thought that free blacks in Virginia were prohibited from owning slaves by a series of laws passed by the House of Burgesses in the 1680's. The curious (for us) idea of blacks owning blacks is covered in Breen and Innes' Myne Owne Ground, a short monograph on Anthony Hammond, a free black and slaveowner on the Eastern Shore in the mid-seventeenth century. (And just what is so curious about blacks owning blacks? Race never prevented Italians in the 15th century from owning white house-slaves.)

Now here is Jonathan Yardley praising to the skies a new novel, The Known World by Edward P. Jones that chronicles a Virginia county in the antebellum era, that has as its protagonist a black slaveowner. OK, sounds like a fascinating bit of artistry, and I mean to read it...but was it legal?

Family Matters

A reasonable answer to the "why is genealogy so popular" question, though several others remain.

I don't know the demography of those searching family history, but it does seem to be disproportionately elderly. Why is this so? Is it a matter of people facing their own mortality and attempting to find meaning in their lives -- by placing themselves into a vast pedigree web stretching back centuries and across borders? Is it the fear of meaninglessness, the answer (or solution) to which can be found in a family tree that reveals you are related to William the Conquerer twenty times removed through marriage? Why else are family researchers overheard saying things like, "I found out I'm related to Abe Lincoln though my mother's uncle's wife," unless it is a matter of self-esteem, of meaning, of making one a bigger person. Genealogy transforms Joe the Plumber into Joe the descendent of Charlemagne.

In addition, isn't genealogy evidence that Americans don't quite buy Lockean individualism (ok, I'm getting heavy here). Isn't genealogy evidence that Americans believe in "blood" rather than individual achievement? The genealogy of the word genealogy is revealing; it comes from the Greek word genos, meaning "race." Why do people think and act the way they do? Do they make themselves or are there other forces at work, deep beneath the foilage of the family tree, shaping decisions? If genealogy means anything other than curiousity and the search for meaning, it must mean these searchers believe there is a bloody invisible hand shaping their destinies; that they are not quite in control of themselves, that ancestral blood giving people tendencies and proclivities is at work. Again, why else do you hear family researchers say things like "isn't it interesting my great-great-great-great grandfather was a sailor, because I was in the Navy. I guess love of the sea is in our family"? This is almost a syllogism with blood. Smiths were sailors in the past. I am a Smith and in the Navy today. Therefore there must be something in the Smith blood that loves the sea. I didn't choose the sealife; my Smith blood drove me to it.

Now all this makes me the crabby, curmudgeonly deflator of genealogy, but not quite. As has been pointed out, I too have made the treck eastward to Ireland, seen the abandoned family hovel amidst the bleak Irish countryside. I too have the family photographs stretching back into the nineteenth century. I too have notes taken down from my grandmother's recollections about the family, and family notebooks about birthdays, weddings, and deaths going back a hundred years. Why? To be frank, I myself am not sure. There is curiosity, yes -- as a historian, these things give me a more intimate connection to the past that I otherwise miss. I do think there is more to "blood" then many would admit (if hair color and eye color can be passed down, why not social tendencies as well?). The "genealogy as self-esteem" bit doesn't fly with me, as I am pretty smug and self-satisfied. So why? I await other answers.

Geneaology: What's Not to Understand?

A while ago the Doc mused in this space on the subject of geneaology, viz., why the heck are so many people crazy for it? It is time to take up the gauntlet.

Simply enough, Doc, because Americans don't know where they come from...oh, heck, you do, of course. You have, if I recall correctly, visited the old family house outside Cork, on t' ol ancestral sod, begorra. But most Americans cannot do that. And they want to know where they are from. Simple as that.

This is a trend accelerated by events of fifty years ago, when people started to travel hither and yon in search of a job, or going where their company told them to go. So they ended up in Oregon when they had started out in South Philly, and the South Philly gig had been as a result of someone moving down from the Appalachians looking for work when the mine closed. A whole lot of moving has been going on, and this leads to a whole lot of people wondering where they come from, you see? It is not a historical question so much as a philosophical or even theological one. But it is a genuine historical emotion, a sense awakened when contemplating the past. And therefore, for the historian, it should be an important emotion, one to be dealt with respectfully.

Even if those genealogical types do get in our way when we're in the archive, ours is not the only way of approaching the past. Too broad-minded for you? Well, I plead guilty. And just wait until I get on the subject of military reenactors!

And how about the NRO expose by Amir Taheri, outlining how (1.) the Baathists are bankrupt and fleeing their creditors, (2.) they are broke because they bribed the "Arab Street" into anti-American protests this winter (is the media reporting this?), and (3.) Sadaam spent around $1 billion dollars bribing prominent Arab and Western politicians, intellectuals, and businessmen for their services. Some of this came out earlier, when a left-wing British Labourite was revealed to have received Sadaam's largesse. But apparently this is just the beginning, and if the new Iraqi government would take over the investigations and follow the paper trail across the Middle East and Europe, all kinds of fascinating things would be found.

Staying with foreign policy, the Sunday Globe printed an interesting review essay on the divisions within conservatism over "empire," "imperialism," and "hegemony." Wilsonian idealists (read the wicked neo-conservatives) at the Weekly Standard and National Review want to project American economic, political, and military power across the world, while Hobbesian realists at the National Interest want a multi-polar, cautious, almost coy policy that projects power only in a strictly defined "American national interest."

But of course, the problem is in the multiple definitions of "national interest." Both sides insist (rather obviously) that they are working in the nation's best interests, the extroverts through projection, the introverts through cautious, limited expectations and goals. The former say "use American power to quash threats and spread American ideals to prevent future threats," while the latter reply "use American power sparingly and wisely, else overuse will cause the threats you seek to prevent by creating a bitter, desperate backlash -- ie. terrorists and dictators will develop WMDs to check expanding American power." Not a debate that will go away anytime soon.

On a related point, the Standard is now claiming that three things are needed to seal victory in Iraq: more troops, more money, and more civilian personnel. Thus far, I have been with the neocons in the Iraqi endeavor. Simply put, I do not think (and I have not heard) any reasonable alternatives to the present Iraq policy, that will not weaken American power and influence abroad. Which is more likely to decrease the probability of Arab terror, anti-Western attitudes, and inhumanity? More rounds of diplomacy, foreign and military aid bribes, and simplistic pro-Israelism? How have these things made a September 11th less likely in the past 40 years? Or a shocking, aggressive, massive response of American power into the Arab world, not only to change Iraq but to show the region what they can expect if they act in improper ways? No one is afraid of paper tigers, and until 2001 that is what America was for much of the Middle East.

The problem is not over-projection, but under-projection. After Baghdad fell, American energy in rebuilding Iraq seems to have fallen by the wayside, as we congratulated ourselves on how fast the Iraqis folded. Great, the American Army is the best in the world, now what? Are we tracking and squashing the anti-American threats to the best of our ability? Are we controlling the borders to prevent radical Syrians and Iranians from infiltrating the country? Are we doing those basic things for Iraqis that city-dwellers around the world expect from their mayors and city councils (pick up the trash, keep the lights on, and keep me from getting robbed or murdered -- I know this because I lived in DC for 7 years these 3 things rarely occured simultaneously)? The answer seems to be, no. Michael Ledeen in NRO says this:

It is hard to believe that the president approves of this state of affairs, especially as he sees the poll results that document the American people's mounting dissatisfaction with developments in Iraq. They are right to be upset, and they are likely to get angrier still if, as I expect, the terror war against us gets uglier. I am an admirer of George W. Bush. He seems to have extraordinarily good instincts and the kind of faith-based courage that makes for good leadership under terrible circumstances. But I do not think he has come to grips with the systematic myopia of our policymakers, and the culture of self-deception that afflicts our intelligence community.

You don't need master spies to see what's going on in the Middle East, or brilliant diplomats to tell you that we are playing for enormous stakes. Most normal Americans, unencumbered by visions of diplomatic breakthroughs and negotiated settlements, sense that we are losing the initiative, and that this is costing us money, blood and prestige. We are indeed at war, but we have inexplicably stopped waging it.

Faster, please.

Has American foreign policy the attention span of those who watch too much tv? Press on.

Somehow, no matter the misery I see and hear from the Middle East, Victor David Hanson always makes me feel better. He puts everything in perspective and presents a broader vision for why we are there and what we should do. I hope the DC powers-that-be are indeed reading what he says.

A new book is out, calling the development of Rock-n-roll music one of the most important events in US history. Debatable, but certainly a central cultural moment of the past 50 years. But do you judge it a positive or negative development? Read this quote from the book All Shook Up:

To a significant extent, a distinct teenage culture, with its own mores and institutions, did develop during the decade. A catchy and insistent rock 'n' roll led the way by encouraging boys and girls to resist the authority of parents, be more sexually adventurous, and learn from their peers about what to wear, watch, and listen to, when to study, and where to go on Saturday night. With the development of a separate market for teenagers, differentiation based on age became more pervasive and permanent in American culture and society. The values of young men and women were by no means fully formed, nor were they necessarily all that different from those of their parents. But in increasing numbers these young people were unwilling to be policed or patronized. As the '50s ended, the vast majority of baby boomers had not yet become teenagers: rock 'n' roll and the youth of America had history (and demography) on their side.

A concise, well-written overview of what Rock-n-roll wrought, and one that makes it clear to me that its influence has been profoundly negative. Why? (1.) it "encouraged" kids to resist the authority of parents, and once that was achieved, the power of most authority figures and institutions in the 60s and 70s -- a manifestly disasterous development the effects of which can still be seen today in tattered family life, crime, education, and public suspicion of institutional life; (2.) it encouraged, not sexual freedom, but sexual license, a silly and destructive sexual hyper-individuality with miserable effects on health, family, and children; (3.) it created the concept of generational differences, that tense pack mentality standoff between age-groups -- and how Orwellian, the contradictory combination of "be yourself" but act like those of your own generation; (4.) it spurred pernicious marketing to kids (ever notice how stupid parents are in commercials trying to sell to kids?) and the notion that kids should "learn from their peers about what to wear, watch, and listen to, when to study, and where to go on Saturday night" -- what began as rebellion against the authority of parents, ended as stifling peer pressure to conform to what the cool kids did.

Am I ranting? But there is so much to dislike! And I am only using their own conclusions!

Shhhh! Don't let the Robinsonian Episcopals read this, but Kathleen Parker's article claims (gasp!) that marriage, tested by time (shock!), is a healthier social arrangement than new-fangled replacements. Nice slaps at new agey primitivism and multi-culti "noble savage" nonsense along the way, as well.

And Jeff Jacoby (a twinkle of good sense on the numbingly silly Globe editorial page) recommends the new book called "The Literary Book of Economics," which uses authors from the Western canon to illustrate basic economic theories. Clever stuff. Jacoby also points out that economic writers are the dullest scribblers around, which is too often true. I would offer several authors as a cure for this: try Wilhem Ropke's A Humane Economy and Joseph Schumpeter's Capitalism, Democracy, and Socialism. Not only do I approve of the content, but the style is pleasing.

Speaking of food and Britain, I was given a book of British cuisine and recipes the other day, a glossy Time-Life edition from the late 1960s. In it are a number of traditional English, Welsh, Scottish, Cornish, and Irish recipes and dishes complete with glossy photos of the same. Tell me (I ask my compatriots more familiar with these things than I), do people still eat (or order) things like Toad in the Hole, Potted Pork, Jellied Pig's Feet Terrine, Ham and Veal Pie, Crumpets & Butter, Bangers and Mash, Bubble & Squeak, Ploughman's Lunch, etc.?

All respect to the Doctor and his sport obsession, but I think this is obviously the best idea of the day. I can see the ad campaign now: "When Jesus was walking upon England's mountains green, what He really wanted was a doughnut from Krispy Kreme." At last Jerusalem is being built in England's green and pleasant land!

And here is the best idea of the day! Move the virtually homeless Montreal Expos to Boston! Look, we (and by "we" I mean greater Boston, and by "greater Boston" I mean New England) had two teams through the 1952 season. Why not try it again? Boston and St. Louis are the best two major baseball cities in the US, perhaps the last two. Boston is a "baseball town." Despite the Patriots' Super Bowl win in 2001, the Red Sox are still the major attraction. So why not capitalize on a good thing, and make them the Boston Expos?

And don't you just love the "what would Jesus do?" questions that pop up? Remember the anti-SUV ads earlier this year, suggesting that Jesus wouldn't drive one, to which one wag cleverly retorted, "of course he would -- the 12 apostles couldn't fit into a smaller car!" Well, now the Governor of Alabama (a Republican, mind you) is suggesting that state income taxes be raised 22% to cover expenditures -- and that Jesus would do the same thing. Really?

Well, I took a few days respite from blogging (and my compatriots seem to have done the same...). So now I return with a few things.

Irving Kristol has written a tight, clear, description of what it means to be a neo-conservative. It is interesting that instead of saying it is dead or non-existent, he labels it a re-occuring "persuasion" among intellectuals: economically "liberal," culturally critical, internationally aggressive and "responsible." Kristol is also quick to take shots at the traditionalist elements within conservatism, elements he admits are the majority. For example:

[Neo-conservatism's] 20th-century heroes tend to be TR, FDR, and Ronald Reagan. Such Republican and conservative worthies as Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Barry Goldwater are politely overlooked. Of course, those worthies are in no way overlooked by a large, probably the largest, segment of the Republican party, with the result that most Republican politicians know nothing and could not care less about neoconservatism.

Yikes. Them's fightin' words. In the search for a usable past, one's choice of heroes is always revealing. TR is a mixed bag, a progressive nationalist, lots of personality, perhaps a bit too much actually -- wasn't it once observed of TR that he wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral? Reminds of one of the obnoxiously omnipresent Bill Clinton rather than G.W. Bush. FDR a conservative? He and Hoover lengthened the Depression by their ill-advised economic policies -- how does FDR's alphabet soup statism and class warfare square with the tax-cutting preferences of the neo-cons? Or are they just looking at WW2? Reagan, here-here! No Coolidge? But remember Reagan putting Coolidge's portrait up in the Cabinet room? Hoover -- I should think the neo-cons would like him, a progressive Republican, statist tendencies, devout internationalist. Eisenhower, ditto: statist internationalist, contra Bob Taft. Goldwater? Would you have a Reagan without a Goldwater?

People have always preferred strong government to weak government, although they certainly have no liking for anything that smacks of overly intrusive government. Neocons feel at home in today's America to a degree that more traditional conservatives do not. Though they find much to be critical about, they tend to seek intellectual guidance in the democratic wisdom of Tocqueville, rather than in the Tory nostalgia of, say, Russell Kirk.

Another shot. Far be it from me to rush to the ramparts for Russell Kirk, as I have criticized him pretty steadily for a few years. But Conservative Mind shares the stage with Up from Liberalism as the most important and influential books in American conservatism. And if you cannot stomach Kirk's Toryism (and even that is a bit forced -- he is a Burkean, after all, and Burke was a Whig), his cultural criticism would warm many a neo-con heart. Further, Kirk's Roots of American Order is a revelation, necessary core reading for every undergraduate.

Two quick mentions of articles very much worth reading.

First, take a peek at this clever one by Jack Kenny in the Union-Leader, bringing up irony that the Anglican Church (born in schism over marriage and sex) may be losing its traditionalist adherents to the Roman Catholic Church (with another scandal/schism over marriage and sex). Divided by Henry VIII, re-united by Gene Robinson.

Second, the always reliable John Derbyshire in NRO has this insightful little piece about a long forgotten heresy, and linking it to the Anglican troubles. Most happy of all is his mention of Hilaire Belloc, who along with Chesterton should be required reading for everyone over the age of 10. In fact, take a gander through the small but growing catalog of books released by IHS Press.

Debunking Churchill

The Sunday Globe had a disturbing piece on the American reverence for Winston Churchill, and British skepticism of the same. Americans see the bulldog PM amidst the ruins of Parliament, urging the Brits to "fight them on the beaches," predicting the Cold War stakes when most still saw the Soviets as allies. Brits see the villain of Gallipoli, the aristocratic Tory, the drunkard.

Richard Vinen, author of the essay and history professor at Kings College, London, ties British anti-Churchill attitudes to the post -1960s western trend of political cynicism and anti-institutionalism. This corrosive anti-nationalism (which often goes beyond not taking oneself too seriously, to outright self-loathing) is plenty healthy in the US (ironic political satire has never been so omnipresent), but equally so in the UK. The best overview of this is Peter Hitchins' bitter but effective Abolition of Britain, tracing the systematic decline of national pride, cultural institutions, religious loyalty, and political depth from Churchill to Princess Diana.

Certainly Churchill deserves better than his countrymen give him.

Rome waiting in the wings?

I know I have beaten this Gene Robinson debacle to death, but I find it so interesting. Monday's Virtuosity posting by David Virtue had some interesting predictions and assorted goodies about the upcoming October Anglican summits (the American traditionalists in Plano, Texas, and then the Primates with Archbishop Williams after). Here is a smattering:

The common wisdom now is that a separate orthodox province for biblically orthodox Episcopalians is the only way forward for the theologically and morally fraught Episcopal Church...

Either the orthodox will roll over and accept the inevitability that anything goes and that the Episcopal Church is now little more than a Unitarian body reciting the creed that no one believes in, while on occasion choosing to meet in a field with Sufi Rumi, or that those who do believe the message must now disassociate themselves from the moral and theological chaos and go their own way. There can be no more compromises.

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury. The man looks like a Welsh goat herder with high church pantheist views that come under the umbrella of something called Affirming Catholicism. They are a tiny group in the Anglican communion, almost as small as the vociferous and vocal pansexualists.

They wield power out of all proportion to their real size. The three most notable Affirming Catholics are Rowan Williams, Frank Griswold (ECUSA) and Peter Carnley, Primate of Australia. Affirming Catholicism is also known as Progressive Christianity.

This group tries to play it down the middle by affirming some high church aspects to their worship, but fudge on moral and doctrinal issues in order to accommodate to the prevailing mood of the times. They are treated with real suspicion by biblically orthodox Anglicans who see them as loose on Scripture, and by Anglo-Catholics who see them
as faux high churchmen...

At the end of the day, Rowan Williams will be forced to face the untenable truth that he is no longer in control of the Anglican Communion, and what was once a communion is now a loosely knit federation.

Bishops, by reason of apostolic succession are still bishops whether they are in communion with Canterbury or not.

And I have been reliably informed that The Roman Catholic Church stands ready to receive them with their own rite should they want to flee in that direction.

An interesting article in the latest London Spectator from Peter Hitchins, high Tory of the old type and brother of the redoubtable Christopher Hitchens. He makes an argument against disestablishment of the Anglican Church, suggesting that England unchained from its traditional religio-political ground would drift even further into an agnostic no-man's-land and democratic license. Is that possible? I am not really sure disestablishment has not already occured in deed if not in name, probably as far back as Catholic Emancipation in the nineteenth century.

I wonder if all this "crisis in Anglicanism/Episcopalianism" talk will ignite something within that faith akin to the old Oxford Movement, taking some into a more orthodox, vital Anglicanism and others straight over to Rome. Where are the new Newmans? Certainly the church is shakier now than ever before.

Should be a fun fall to watch the Robinson fallout. The Episcopal traditionalists, joined by their global Anglican supporters, will meet in Plano, Texas next month to discuss their options. Then in October, the Anglican prelates will meet up in London to discuss the crisis with Archbishop Williams -- all this in advance of Robinson's November consecration. For all their victories, you must think the left wing Episcopals are concerned. The American branch of global Anglicanism is so small (under 3% all Anglicans) and the Western liberals and modernizers are dwarfed by the African, South American, and Asian conservatives.

Episcopal riddles

I noticed the newspaper headline when I was walking from the village store this morning: Bishops reject same-sex liturgy. Chuckling, I went over in my head how totally nonsensical the poor Episcopals have become in this Gene Robinson mess. One one hand, to cohabitate with a person of the opposite sex is a sin and disapproved by the Church, while traditional marriage is encouraged and fostered; on the other hand, to cohabitate with a person of the same sex is acceptable (if not, how could they elect Robinson?), while same-sex marriage is still off the table. So, man/women/no marriage = bad; man/women/marriage = good. And man/man or woman/woman/no marriage = good; man/man or woman/woman/marriage = bad. Clearly, the Episcopals have twisted themselves into quite a dilemma.

Others are on to this silliness as well, as David Virtue relates in his ezine this morning:

At his press conference yesterday, [Presiding Bishop Frank] Griswold got blind-sided by a reporter. A CBN news reporter asked whether, if it was okay for a divorced male bishop to live with a man with whom he was not married, would it be all right for a divorced heterosexual man with a female lover to be an Episcopal bishop as well?

Griswold said he thought there would be a significant problem with this.

In other words, "there's a double standard?" the reporter replied.

Jim Solheim, the church's media man moved in to rescue the PB and cut off his answer. The press laughed. Shortly after that, Griswold, donned in magenta cassock, departed.

And Rowan Williams' first statement on the controversy was pretty non-commital, or as one Anglican wag put it: It's an Anglican version of the Rodney King 'why can't we all just get along'. I guess he hopes it will all just solve itself? Fat chance.

Do they have the stomach for it?

We can now say Bishop Robinson of NH. He was confirmed yestereday by the Episcopalian House of Bishops, and now we get to see if the traditionalists have the guts to follow through on their threats of schism. They threatened when women were ordained, and stuck around. They threatened again when a new prayer book was adopted, and stuck around. Now let's see what they do with the legitimization of homosexuality.

The traditionalists have already called upon Canterbury to intervene, and Rowan Williams' July warning letter to the American bishops gives some hope. In it he backed the concerns of a July gathering of overseas bishops who told their American counterparts in Minneapolis not to "realign" the morality of the Church to their liking. So, the first step is to see what Williams does. If that fails, then the traditionalist bishops can go back to their parishes and see if the faithful want out. Separate North American province? Separate Church? Closer relationship with Rome (we'd love to have you)?

What gets me in all this is how anyone can reconcile homosexuality with Christianity. Last I looked, Christianity was in the sin business. Considering Scripture and historical revelation (what was it Chesterton said of history, "a hill or high point of vantage from which men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living"), some things are forbidden, will soil your soul and relationship with God, and cast you into Hell (GKC again, "the place where nothing can happen"), while other things are welcomed, will redeem your soul and relationship with God, and propel you into Heaven (GKC, "our native land"). Last I looked at Scripture and 2000 years of Christian history, homosexuality and sodomy were of the former category. It seems sin is no longer a reality for some Christians, that it represents hate, judgement, and intolerance, that love is all. Wrong. By the law of opposites, to know what to love is to know what to hate, and all Christians must love God and hate sin. Do the new Christians believe in sin? Is their any sin in their minds outside of some vague "intolerance?" If so, what do they base it on? It cannot be Scripture or history, because they quite obviously negate that.

Quite frustrating and perplexing. Perhaps I live in that happy world of C.S. Lewis and Chesterton, of firm truths, the reality of sin and redemption, of God's grace and the lack thereof, of Christian history and dogma. But the ground under my feet is solid, and I can feel and see it. The new Christians are walking on the clouds of their own wishful invention, a sinless world of total love, denying the efficacy of history, and reading Scripture as they like it.

The Saga continues

And just when it seemed we knew everything, saw everything, and read everything about the ongoing confirmation saga of Gene Robinson to be Episcopal bishop of NH, allegations have surfaced from VT that Robinson was, well, "exploring his sexuality" (and another's) inappropriately, and linked his homosexual rights website to pornography.

It's all so seedy. You can read about how this all came about from the leading anti-Robinsonian (or who the Boston Globe rather dismissively calls "a crusading Web journalist"), David Virtue and his e-zine Virtuosity. Liberals claim the allegation's timing is fishy; conservatives claim they didn't plant anything. Funny, if you read the Globe article on all this, you can feel the dislike of Virtue (in all senses). When speaking of the pornography links from the homosexual rights webpage Robinson was affiliated with, the article sneers: The Internet contains many pornographic websites that can be accessed via other sites. The Globe was able to connect from the Episcopal Church's home page to a site featuring explicit photographs in seven links yesterday. Oh well, then, I guess we are all pornographers now.

Stay tuned.

Fasten your safety belts, we're going highbrow. A really well-done thoughtful (and thought-creating) article by John Derbyshire on NRO, saying that the more we dissect, concentrate on, and analyze habits, mores, and institutions the greater dangers and crises we create. He says this in connection to the current debate on marriage and possible federal recognition and protection thereof, mentioning the Scottish philosopher David Hume in the process.

Hume and other skeptical conservatives (Burke, Maistre, Stephen, Mallock, for example) were inherently drawn toward deconstructing existence but ultimately pulled back and saw that many of the good and true parts of our lives would not stand up to the rigor of logic and analysis. This is not a weakness on the part of our institutions (aren't things that serve a purpose, and prove their usefulness over time by making life livable and lovable, good, no matter their logical foundations?) but a weakness on our parts, that we cannot resist the temptation to aim the barrel of our minds against society and taste the fruit from the tree of knowledge. So, even though marriage is an impressive social/historical institution that has lasted centuries by proving its worth, in just a few years time, by applying our minds and thinking what marriage means in theory, we can destroy it and make it look silly and illogical. Maybe, says Derbyshire, we are thinking too much (that is always possible, even in a society that errs too much in the other direction). Maybe federal protection of marriage, and all the attention and analysis that will bring, will hurt more than help much like governmental protection of Christianity has killed religion in Europe by focusing people's attention on it (Charles Murray's point).

Of course this is a gamble. Do you take the optimistic stand, based on history (God bless), that marriage is stronger than you think because it serves a social purpose, people will realize this over time, stop analyzing and legislating on it, and it will survive stronger than ever? Or do you take the pessimistic stand, that unless we do something, the deconstructors will tear marriage down so that it means everything to everybody, and hence nothing?

I don't solve problems, I only create them.

Baby Tossing


I say hurl that baby. It's ugly anyways.

Oversight's a lovely thing to ponder, but as long as government funds studies, your tax money will fund studies like this. Even the science world is tainted by political agenda. Some of the peer reviewed articles that get published these days beggar the imagination.

I would say either get used to it and seek your revenge in drumming up government funds for your apotheosis of Warren G. Harding or grit your teeth and toss the baby.

But let us, like all those scientific articles, madly hypothesize on a very small, non replicated data point. Let us, seekers in this modern era, search for the third way. How would you, dear Doctor, structure this oversight so that such studies don't get funded?

Hither and yon

Oh my. Seems federal money found its way into academic pockets to fund a study of how political conservatism is a dangerous social disease. Seems conservatives (typical ones, like Reagan, Mussolini, Limbuaugh, and Hitler -- no joke, the study said that) are anti-social, violent, and suffer from low esteem, anger, and fear. Seems I ought to be locked up, little did I know I was so neurotic. These types of misappropriation pop up every year, usually with the NEA and NEH rather than NIH and NIMH, yet how to prevent them? Libertarian elimination of federal grants seems a bit much, "baby with the bathwater" reaction. Yet better oversight has been the mantra since Mapplethorpe and Serrano in the 1980s.

The Anglican Communion is trotting to schism today, as they will probably approve Rev. Gene Robinson as the new Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. If the traditionalists fail to block it, there is talk of (1.) getting Canterbury to intervene, (2.) creating a new traditionalist North American province, or maybe (3.) aligning with a foreign province leaving Robinson and company to their own devices. A nice thorough overview of the ugly proceedings here.

I don't know if you've ever seen or listened to this, but the Library of Congress has a sizable collection of old sound recordings that can be listened to online. Check out this fascinating collection of American addresses from 1918-1920, given by the leading lights of the day: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Henry Cabot Lodge, and others. How amazing to hear their voices!

Bits and Bobs


>Having had to suffer through Andrew Gilligan's insufferable reporting for BBC Radio 4's Today program (like Morning Edition but much more unbearable; yet I listened to it every morning), it's nice to see Andrew "Americans Claim to Be at Airport but I can't seem them from the Al-Rashid Hotel" Gilligan getting shafted but good. Hah! No sympathy from me, mate.

>Burstein's book is unbearable with its pretentiousness; I persist in thinking his Jefferson book to be far superior. Yet I cannot warm to the General. I was too much affected by Paul Johnson's portrayal of him in The Birth of the Modern to ever like him. The Doc has helped me to appreciate Jacksonians; but I still think Jackson was kind of nuts.

> Interesting review by Preston Jones in Books and Culture of Still Fighting the Civil War, a book that doesn't sound as good as its review. In fact, the book sounds like it's kind of annoying.

Honor, Honour, etc.

As the Doc well knows, I am a sort of limited-Honor thesis guy. This hinges on the question, I think, of when "southern anxiety" begins. The majority of historians of Colonial America see a spirit of anxiety pervading Virginia and Carolina society from 1720 on upwards, with the Civil War being a major point in its development...but, as the Doc points out, continuing through the period of segregation.

I am skeptical of that view. The more primary sources I read from amongst the gentry of Colonial Virginia, the more I ask myself "where's the anxiety?" I just don't see it. My developing view is that anxiety stems from the Revolution, and that for at least two reasons. One was the appeals by Lord Dunmore and later Lord Cornwallis to the enslaved population of the American South. This in many ways moves Britain towards abolition, first by placing limits on the slave trade, then with the outright abolition of slavery. (Done, as the Doc likes to say, without a hideously bloody civil war; the Civil War was not inevitable.) The societal memory of those British appeals is vivid for both the enslaved and their owners. It leads to rebellions and fears of rebellions. Sure, there were rebellions before the Revolution; but remember, there was a Revolution. Slave rebellions are both encouraged by events in the Revolution, and are transmuted in their appearance in the minds of Revolutionaries and their descendants.

Secondly there is a deep financial crisis following the Revolution, a crisis of debt, a matter which offends the honor of a gentleman who regards himself as self-sufficient. Sure, there had always been debt. But it is hard to overstate the impact of the post-Revolution financial crisis, and its effects on the Southern gentry. It leads, among other things, to a Westward movement. But at its simplest it creates a new spirit of vulnerability and anxiety.

There are some other reasons as well. I'm not completely certain where to locate the religious dimension vis a vis Southern anxiety; certainly Anglicanism has transmuted, in antebellum Virginia where the Anglican order was strongest, into a much smaller and very evangelical Episcopal Church. The varieties of Calvinism adhered to by Episcopalians, Baptists, Presbyterians (of course) and (believe it or not) some Lutherans may have given a certain spiritual anxiety to Southern life; but I am uncertain about that.

As for honor. It was a living concept in early 18th century Virginia. It was not created after the Revolution. And certain of its manifestations, such as the duel, were slavishly imitated from England in the 1760's as Virginia gentlemen sought to make themselves more English. (That's ironic considering the subsequent decade, but only in hindsight; nothing is inevitable.) Some scholars have tried to make Southern gambling habits a question of anxiety, but that's ludicrous and only shows that they haven't read anything about contemporary English society.

So I think it's the Revolution that makes a big difference...but a lot of the raw materials were there beforehand. Just not the fully-formed Southern anxiety that most want to locate there.

This review of Burstein's Passions of Andrew Jackson, a book I have mentioned on the blog previously, will take your breath away. Quite critical, and I am quite pleased. Get a load of the concluding paragraph:

It appears that, here as elsewhere, Burstein has simply not taken the trouble to think out his own argument. He offers hasty judgment and superficial wisdom. In a concluding chapter, "Courting Posterity," he assesses Jackson's character and legacy. He compares him to Washington and Jefferson, and curiously finds all three alike. Looking for a handle, or perhaps just seeking to impress, Burstein fronts his book with three passages from Shakespeare, and proceeds to liken Jackson to a string of tragic protagonists: Lear, Richard III, and finally Coriolanus. His strategy recalls Cole Porter's sage advice:

Brush up your Shakespeare; / Start quoting him now. / Brush up your Shakespeare, / And the readers you will wow. / If you want to prove Jackson was heinous, / Just compare him to Coriolanus. / Brush up your Shakespeare, / And they'll all kowtow (I trow).

In the end, if there is a lesson in this book it is not about Americans, or democracy, or even Andrew Jackson. It is about the perils of pseudoprofundity, of reaching for deep meaning without paying the price of careful reflection. Burstein may not be wrong about Jackson, but he has not made a case that will persuade or endure. Still he offers one homily worth contemplating: "Vanity is a failing common to the overeducated as well as the ignorant" (p. 218).

Ouch. Jackson lives.

Honor This

Do you mean agog, or a-gag? There are "honor people" and there are "not honor people." Count me among the latter. As talented as BW Brown and Kenneth Greenberg are as historians of Southern honor, I've never bought the case they make, that honor was a determining factor in sectional affairs.

The reason Southerners have traditionally been touchy and quick-tempered has been race, at least until very recently. When you are always in the presence of those beneath you, you are constantly on guard to never become like them. This worked during slavery and during segregation; you always protect your liberty when in the presence of those who have little or none. It's a daily reminder to be vigilant. I also think Southern thin-skin has a religious dimension, being particularly populated by evangelical Protestantism, more emotional, more individualized, less institutional than the Catholic and Episcopalian Churches that dominated the US from Virginia northward.

A couple of further problems with the article:

1.) Sensitivity over one’s honour was more than a purely personal matter. It was southern honour that caused the War of 1812. The areas of America that were suffering most from the British impressment of American sailors, and who had most to gain from expansion to the West and a possible conquest of Canada, were opposed to the war. Really now. It couldn't have anything to do with the gobs of money at stake in New England commerce, could it? That Jefferson's Embargo locked up the coast, bankrupted countless merchants, and dried up smaller ports like Salem and Newburyport? Federalists said war would kill trade. They were right. Look at the money, not the duels.

2.) In a much discussed recent book, Walter Russell Mead identifies four strands of American foreign policy: Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian, Wilsonian and Jacksonian. Jacksonians follow the ideas of President Andrew Jackson, the archetype of ante-bellum, aggressive southern honour, who fought more than a dozen duels. They see the pursuit of national honour as the prime purpose of policy. Right now, Jacksonianism reigns triumphant in the halls of American power. In fact, most commentators are saying the exact opposite, especially the vaunted neo-conservatives so often pasted as the new imperialists. Pax Americana is not Jacksonianism, but Wilsonianism: internationalist moralism, nation-building, making the world safe for markets and democracy. Jacksonians snuff out opponents; Wilsonians reform them.

3.) As the ancient Greeks knew, the pursuit of honour often leads people to attack others, to drive them down, in order to inflate themselves. The Greeks called such behaviour hubris, and believed that hubris inevitably resulted in disaster. It certainly did for the Confederacy. Now we get to the crux of the matter: America as Achilles, hubristic nationalism spelling defeat. Nonsense. Achilles sat on the beach when he didn't get his way. America took to the battlefield to defeat and defang Troy. That isn't overweening pride; that's acting responsibly.