Unlike most other contemporary Irish authors, she never (as far as I know) attacked the Church or the Catholic faith, and from the one book of hers that I read (The Copper Beeches) she seemed to portray nuns and priests with considerable affection.
In one article she wrote, she stated that, though she had lost her faith, she would love to regain it. Perhaps she did before the end.
May she rest in peace.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
The Human Form Divine
On Sunday I watched the movie Big Miracle, which is about three whales trapped in ice in Alaska. (I have been criticised for using the more American term "movie" rather than "film". But movie seems both more specific and more aesthetically pleasing.)
I loved Big Miracle for many reasons, but partly because I like movies set in cold places. Winter is my favourite season. There are many, many things that please me about winter, but one of them is seeing people bundled up in coats and scarves and hats and gloves. They always look so cosy and protected and-- strangely-- fragile and precious.
Looking at the actors thus bundled up in Big Miracle, it occured to me that the human body is a very beautiful thing. No, I'm not talking about Michaelangelo's statue of David, or the contours of a ballerina. I mean the human body in general, as we see it in the street.
I think we have been so eroticised, today, that we can no longer take innocent pleasure in many simple things. Mind you, I am not for a moment denying that some people are more aesthetically appealing than others, or that there is anything unhealthy in an instinctive response to a member of the opposite sex.
But I think we have become so fixated on those things-- and so obsessed, too, by looks and weight and fitness and skin tone and a long line of other factors-- that we miss out on the glory of what William Blake called "the human form divine", all around.
Children instinctively delight in drawing matchstick men, in reproducing the basic lines of head, torso, arms, legs.
If we are looking at an enormous panting of a landscape, our eye fixes gratefully upon a solitary, tiny figure in the background.
If we had not seen another human being for months and months-- how eagerly we would drink in the sight of the first person we saw!
I am always working on the Chestertonian exercise of discovering more to wonder at, more to be grateful for, all around me. And today it occurs to me; how lucky I am to be surrounded by the forms of those marvellous monstrosities, man and woman!
I loved Big Miracle for many reasons, but partly because I like movies set in cold places. Winter is my favourite season. There are many, many things that please me about winter, but one of them is seeing people bundled up in coats and scarves and hats and gloves. They always look so cosy and protected and-- strangely-- fragile and precious.
Looking at the actors thus bundled up in Big Miracle, it occured to me that the human body is a very beautiful thing. No, I'm not talking about Michaelangelo's statue of David, or the contours of a ballerina. I mean the human body in general, as we see it in the street.
I think we have been so eroticised, today, that we can no longer take innocent pleasure in many simple things. Mind you, I am not for a moment denying that some people are more aesthetically appealing than others, or that there is anything unhealthy in an instinctive response to a member of the opposite sex.
But I think we have become so fixated on those things-- and so obsessed, too, by looks and weight and fitness and skin tone and a long line of other factors-- that we miss out on the glory of what William Blake called "the human form divine", all around.
Children instinctively delight in drawing matchstick men, in reproducing the basic lines of head, torso, arms, legs.
If we are looking at an enormous panting of a landscape, our eye fixes gratefully upon a solitary, tiny figure in the background.
If we had not seen another human being for months and months-- how eagerly we would drink in the sight of the first person we saw!
I am always working on the Chestertonian exercise of discovering more to wonder at, more to be grateful for, all around me. And today it occurs to me; how lucky I am to be surrounded by the forms of those marvellous monstrosities, man and woman!
Monday, July 30, 2012
More Market Romanticism from George Weigel
The man makes lots of sense, except when he starts spouting about the miracles of the free market and the (modified Catholic version of) the prosperity gospel.
Here is a snippet from his latest syndicated column:
And that, from a Catholic social doctrine point of view, is the key to understanding the demise of the post-World War II social welfare state: it’s eroded the moral culture that makes free and responsible citizenship in self-governing democracies possible. Yuval Levin again: “The attempt to rescue the citizen from the burdens of responsibility has undermined the family, self-reliance and self-government”—and it has done this, not from a lack of compassion or resources, but because the social welfare state by its nature creates dependencies that erode the virtues necessary for genuine human flourishing.
Yes, the social welfare system creates dependencies. And bureaucracies. But guess what? Those things are features of modern life anyway. Ask the cubicle slave in a gigantic multinational, the kid doing unpaid work experience because it's the only way to break into his chosen profession, or the woman desperately trying to use her bank's helpline but unable to get past the pre-recorded menu, none of whose options have anything to do with what she wants to ask about.
How about this-- untrammeled commercialism has undermined the family (parents who never see their kids because they're working all hours), self-reliance (how will that look on my CV?) and self-government (give me some more of that addictive Happy Meal NOW!). That seems to make just as much sense to me as Weigel's finger-pointing at government. What about the evils of big business, Mr. Weigel?
People like George Weigel talk as though social welfare is the only thing holding an unemployed man back from marching to the unowned virgin forest ten miles from his home and carving out a plantation for himself. Piffle, pure and simple.
Those who believe the social doctrine of the Church is compatible with neoliberal economics, anarcho-capitalism, or other laissez-faire social philosophies seem to be simply ignoring the actual teachings of the Church to which they belong. Take, for instance, John Paul the Second's enyclical Centesimus Annus, itself drawing on Leo XIII's famous Rerum Novarum, the definitive anti-free market pronouncement of the Church's magisterium:
Rerum novarum is opposed to State control of the means of production, which would reduce every citizen to being a "cog" in the State machine. It is no less forceful in criticizing a concept of the State which completely excludes the economic sector from the State's range of interest and action. There is certainly a legitimate sphere of autonomy in economic life which the State should not enter. The State, however, has the task of determining the juridical framework within which economic affairs are to be conducted, and thus of safeguarding the prerequisites of a free economy, which presumes a certain equality between the parties, such that one party would not be so powerful as practically to reduce the other to subservience.
In this regard, Rerum Novarum points the way to just reforms which can restore dignity to work as the free activity of man. These reforms imply that society and the State will both assume responsibility, especially for protecting the worker from the nightmare of unemployment...
Furthermore, society and the State must ensure wage levels adequate for the maintenance of the worker and his family, including a certain amount for savings...
Finally, "humane" working hours and adequate free-time need to be guaranteed, as well as the right to express one's own personality at the work-place without suffering any affront to one's conscience or personal dignity. This is the place to mention once more the role of trade unions, not only in negotiating contracts, but also as "places" where workers can express themselves. They serve the development of an authentic culture of work and help workers to share in a fully human way in the life of their place of employment.
No mention of social welfare, you might say. But I think you would also agree the whole tone and rhetoric is very different from the "get the Jerry Springer-watching bums off their asses and let the laws of supply and demand do their miraculous work" style language of of market romanticists.
Yes, perhaps my reaction is emotional. But if the champions of the free market (including other Catholics such as Thomas E. Woods and Ireland's own Gerard Casey) ever mentioned the evils of impersonal market forces and the need to balance them with other (not necessarily governmental) institutions, I would be a lot less suspicious.
I'm with the Popes, not the Catholic market romanticists.
P.S. Even though I am a Chestertonian, I am not a Distributist, though I sympathise with the goals and vision of the Distributists. I just don't find their programme convincing. Nor do I claim to understand economics, but I don't think you have to understand economics to be highly sceptical of this rather mystical faith in market forces that seems more and more prevalent in our era-- even amongst Catholics, who should be immune to superstition.
Here is a snippet from his latest syndicated column:
And that, from a Catholic social doctrine point of view, is the key to understanding the demise of the post-World War II social welfare state: it’s eroded the moral culture that makes free and responsible citizenship in self-governing democracies possible. Yuval Levin again: “The attempt to rescue the citizen from the burdens of responsibility has undermined the family, self-reliance and self-government”—and it has done this, not from a lack of compassion or resources, but because the social welfare state by its nature creates dependencies that erode the virtues necessary for genuine human flourishing.
Yes, the social welfare system creates dependencies. And bureaucracies. But guess what? Those things are features of modern life anyway. Ask the cubicle slave in a gigantic multinational, the kid doing unpaid work experience because it's the only way to break into his chosen profession, or the woman desperately trying to use her bank's helpline but unable to get past the pre-recorded menu, none of whose options have anything to do with what she wants to ask about.
How about this-- untrammeled commercialism has undermined the family (parents who never see their kids because they're working all hours), self-reliance (how will that look on my CV?) and self-government (give me some more of that addictive Happy Meal NOW!). That seems to make just as much sense to me as Weigel's finger-pointing at government. What about the evils of big business, Mr. Weigel?
People like George Weigel talk as though social welfare is the only thing holding an unemployed man back from marching to the unowned virgin forest ten miles from his home and carving out a plantation for himself. Piffle, pure and simple.
Those who believe the social doctrine of the Church is compatible with neoliberal economics, anarcho-capitalism, or other laissez-faire social philosophies seem to be simply ignoring the actual teachings of the Church to which they belong. Take, for instance, John Paul the Second's enyclical Centesimus Annus, itself drawing on Leo XIII's famous Rerum Novarum, the definitive anti-free market pronouncement of the Church's magisterium:
Rerum novarum is opposed to State control of the means of production, which would reduce every citizen to being a "cog" in the State machine. It is no less forceful in criticizing a concept of the State which completely excludes the economic sector from the State's range of interest and action. There is certainly a legitimate sphere of autonomy in economic life which the State should not enter. The State, however, has the task of determining the juridical framework within which economic affairs are to be conducted, and thus of safeguarding the prerequisites of a free economy, which presumes a certain equality between the parties, such that one party would not be so powerful as practically to reduce the other to subservience.
In this regard, Rerum Novarum points the way to just reforms which can restore dignity to work as the free activity of man. These reforms imply that society and the State will both assume responsibility, especially for protecting the worker from the nightmare of unemployment...
Furthermore, society and the State must ensure wage levels adequate for the maintenance of the worker and his family, including a certain amount for savings...
Finally, "humane" working hours and adequate free-time need to be guaranteed, as well as the right to express one's own personality at the work-place without suffering any affront to one's conscience or personal dignity. This is the place to mention once more the role of trade unions, not only in negotiating contracts, but also as "places" where workers can express themselves. They serve the development of an authentic culture of work and help workers to share in a fully human way in the life of their place of employment.
No mention of social welfare, you might say. But I think you would also agree the whole tone and rhetoric is very different from the "get the Jerry Springer-watching bums off their asses and let the laws of supply and demand do their miraculous work" style language of of market romanticists.
Yes, perhaps my reaction is emotional. But if the champions of the free market (including other Catholics such as Thomas E. Woods and Ireland's own Gerard Casey) ever mentioned the evils of impersonal market forces and the need to balance them with other (not necessarily governmental) institutions, I would be a lot less suspicious.
I'm with the Popes, not the Catholic market romanticists.
P.S. Even though I am a Chestertonian, I am not a Distributist, though I sympathise with the goals and vision of the Distributists. I just don't find their programme convincing. Nor do I claim to understand economics, but I don't think you have to understand economics to be highly sceptical of this rather mystical faith in market forces that seems more and more prevalent in our era-- even amongst Catholics, who should be immune to superstition.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Why I am a Traditionalist Conservative (3)
In my previous posts on this subject (here and here), I have named the three cardinal virtues of conservatism-- or at least, my sort of conservatism-- as tradition, character and gentleness. I have given some account of the first two terms, which was not too difficult. I find myself rather more challenged by the last.
It seems as though gentleness is a virtue we don't really associate with conservatism. We think of conservatives as judgemental, pessimmistic, intolerant and harsh.
And not without reason; there are many brands of conservatism which are noticeably "nasty". There is social Darwinism, which may not have very many self-confessed adherents these days, but which is surely the tradition of those who see life as a rat-race-- the radical individualists and the readers of Ayn Rand who believe altruism is a vice. (I've never read a book by Ayn Rand and I never intend to.)
There are also-- although their numbers are greatly exaggerated-- racists and extreme nationalist who view blacks, foreigners and other groups as inherently inferior and even less than human. Are these conservatives? They are certainly not liberals or progressives.
But, aside from those exceptions, I really think it makes sense to say that conservatism-- especially traditionalist conservatism-- cherishes gentleness.
In this instalment of the post, even more than the others, I plead guilty to making sweeping generalisations that are highly simplistic and highly disputable. Nevertheless I believe they describe a rough sort of truth.
Why do I say conservatism cherishes gentleness? Because conservatives tend to believe that life is worth living, that there is a benevolent Creator behind the universe. Life is not simply a defiance of a cosmos indifferent to our existence. Even if they are not religious believers themselves, traditionalist conservatives are usually sympathetic to religion. They tend to place a very high value on childhood innocence. They tend to believe in chivalry-- chivalry between men and women, rich and poor, strong and weak. They value reverence. They enjoy art and culture that is sentimental, life-affirming and optimistic rather than bleak, cynical and fatalistic-- It's a Wonderful Life rather than La Haine.
Valuing gentleness, and desiring to protect gentleness, this sort of conservative can become highly critical and censorious of whatever threatens it. They complain about bad language, violence on TV and in movies, the flaunting of sexuality, and aggressive marketing. It seems like they are always moaning, always disapproving-- but only because they yearn for a gentle world.
This type of conservative, while being hospitable towards immigrants, will tend to be hostile towards multiculturalism and "pluralism". This doesn't seem so gentle, I suppose. But this is because they recognise that multiculturalism inevitably comes with tensions, resentments, prejudices and even racism. A society that shares a common language and history (or at least accepts the primacy of one language and history) can afford to be more at ease with itself, more relaxed in telling its own story, in celebrating its festivals-- in other words, gentler.
Conservatives have a less problematic attitude to femininity than progressives and radicals. Amongst those preoccupied with sexual politics, women must prove they can be as hard-hitting, abrasive and tough-minded as any man-- generally the most obnoxious sort of man. They must repudiate the stereotypes of nurturing mother, supportive wife and kindly household angel. The extent to which they succeed is the extent of society's loss, since it is women who play the biggest role in creating a gentle society-- both in their own personalities and in the civilizing influence they have upon men and children.
Conservatives believe in bonds-- bonds of family, community, nation and religion. When these are sundered-- usually by a liberal, individualist mindest-- people find themselves in search of an identity and a role. Teenagers and young people are especially affected by this quest for identity.
Unfortunately, when the time-honoured identities are kicked away, the replacement identities close to hand are usually those of pop culture, career, sports, consumerism and sexual adventure. Since most of these are competitive fields, the quest for identity becomes a battle for status-- the battle to be "cool", or "hot", or to own the most impressive car, or to have the most advanced aristic tastes. We become used to hearing that horrible term "loser" applied to those who are deemed to have failed in the quest.
So traditionalist conservatives-- in my view-- are those conservatives who emphasise gentleness, character and tradition, rather than freedom or authority or individualism or any other set of values.
I know that this is an ideal, and one perhaps that is nowhere instantiated in reality, least of all in my own poor self. But as ideals go, I think it's a pretty good one, and one worth aspiring to. I make no stronger claim than that.
I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read this trio of posts, which I enjoyed writing more than I've enjoyed writing anything else on this blog. Thank you.
It seems as though gentleness is a virtue we don't really associate with conservatism. We think of conservatives as judgemental, pessimmistic, intolerant and harsh.
And not without reason; there are many brands of conservatism which are noticeably "nasty". There is social Darwinism, which may not have very many self-confessed adherents these days, but which is surely the tradition of those who see life as a rat-race-- the radical individualists and the readers of Ayn Rand who believe altruism is a vice. (I've never read a book by Ayn Rand and I never intend to.)
There are also-- although their numbers are greatly exaggerated-- racists and extreme nationalist who view blacks, foreigners and other groups as inherently inferior and even less than human. Are these conservatives? They are certainly not liberals or progressives.
But, aside from those exceptions, I really think it makes sense to say that conservatism-- especially traditionalist conservatism-- cherishes gentleness.
In this instalment of the post, even more than the others, I plead guilty to making sweeping generalisations that are highly simplistic and highly disputable. Nevertheless I believe they describe a rough sort of truth.
Why do I say conservatism cherishes gentleness? Because conservatives tend to believe that life is worth living, that there is a benevolent Creator behind the universe. Life is not simply a defiance of a cosmos indifferent to our existence. Even if they are not religious believers themselves, traditionalist conservatives are usually sympathetic to religion. They tend to place a very high value on childhood innocence. They tend to believe in chivalry-- chivalry between men and women, rich and poor, strong and weak. They value reverence. They enjoy art and culture that is sentimental, life-affirming and optimistic rather than bleak, cynical and fatalistic-- It's a Wonderful Life rather than La Haine.
Valuing gentleness, and desiring to protect gentleness, this sort of conservative can become highly critical and censorious of whatever threatens it. They complain about bad language, violence on TV and in movies, the flaunting of sexuality, and aggressive marketing. It seems like they are always moaning, always disapproving-- but only because they yearn for a gentle world.
This type of conservative, while being hospitable towards immigrants, will tend to be hostile towards multiculturalism and "pluralism". This doesn't seem so gentle, I suppose. But this is because they recognise that multiculturalism inevitably comes with tensions, resentments, prejudices and even racism. A society that shares a common language and history (or at least accepts the primacy of one language and history) can afford to be more at ease with itself, more relaxed in telling its own story, in celebrating its festivals-- in other words, gentler.
Conservatives have a less problematic attitude to femininity than progressives and radicals. Amongst those preoccupied with sexual politics, women must prove they can be as hard-hitting, abrasive and tough-minded as any man-- generally the most obnoxious sort of man. They must repudiate the stereotypes of nurturing mother, supportive wife and kindly household angel. The extent to which they succeed is the extent of society's loss, since it is women who play the biggest role in creating a gentle society-- both in their own personalities and in the civilizing influence they have upon men and children.
Conservatives believe in bonds-- bonds of family, community, nation and religion. When these are sundered-- usually by a liberal, individualist mindest-- people find themselves in search of an identity and a role. Teenagers and young people are especially affected by this quest for identity.
Unfortunately, when the time-honoured identities are kicked away, the replacement identities close to hand are usually those of pop culture, career, sports, consumerism and sexual adventure. Since most of these are competitive fields, the quest for identity becomes a battle for status-- the battle to be "cool", or "hot", or to own the most impressive car, or to have the most advanced aristic tastes. We become used to hearing that horrible term "loser" applied to those who are deemed to have failed in the quest.
So traditionalist conservatives-- in my view-- are those conservatives who emphasise gentleness, character and tradition, rather than freedom or authority or individualism or any other set of values.
I know that this is an ideal, and one perhaps that is nowhere instantiated in reality, least of all in my own poor self. But as ideals go, I think it's a pretty good one, and one worth aspiring to. I make no stronger claim than that.
I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read this trio of posts, which I enjoyed writing more than I've enjoyed writing anything else on this blog. Thank you.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Why I am a Traditionalist Conservative (2)
In a previous post, I named the three cardinal virtues of my sort of conservatism as tradition, character and gentleness.
The first is obvious enough, I'm sure. Who is actually hostile or indifferent to tradition? Not even liberals and radicals, except those of the most hardboiled variety. Most people feel some call to honour their ancestors, to celebrate and perpetuate their national way of life, to pay homage to the past.
Futhermore, even revolutionaries can rarely resist the backward glance; Spartacus, the Peasant's Revolt, the Paris Commune and so forth.
In my case, the call of tradition is very loud indeed. I cherish all traditions. National traditions, family traditions, local traditions, school traditions, professional traditions, academic traditions...I can't understand why anyone would want to remove the wigs and gowns of judges, or force an old all-male club to accept female members (or vice versa), or abolish the English monarchy. It seems like the purest vandalism to me.
My love of tradition is so ludicrously strong that I once found myself feeling sad that the code for my workplace's staff door had changed. It had been there so long and now it would be forgotten...
I don't value tradition because it is (as Burke claimed, and as may be the case) a better guide than reason-- that is, the sort of reason that seeks to engineer society and redesign social institutions, based upon abstract ideas. I don't value tradition for its practical use, or for its distilled wisdom. I value tradition for its own sake. I like old things because they are old.
But why?
This seems to me to be one of those classic imponderable questions, like asking why people enjoy scary movies, or what makes funny things funny. But (as with those other two imponderables) I have spent some time thinking about it.
One thing we can say about tradition, and that may go some way to answering this question of why we value it, is that it cannot simply be willed into being. No amount of power, no amount of money, and no amount of ingenuity can create a fully-formed tradition. It can only be created over time, often at annual or longer intervals, and by a large amount of people, most of them anonymous and unacquainted with each other. Thus tradition has a strangely equalising effect; Christmas belongs to everybody, and unites people across time.
Another possibility is that tradition reconciles two contradictory desires deeply rooted in the human spirit-- the desire for the new, and the desire for permanence. To take the example of Christmas again-- every Christmas is a new experience, and yet it seems to stand outside time and even to unite us with those who went before, and who also decorated Christmas trees and sang Christmas carols.
But in the end, I am happy for the appeal of tradition to remain a mystery-- because I believe that everything that truly enriches life is mysterious. We can only see to the bottom of shallow things.
Character is the middle term of my conservative "trinity". By character, I do not mean moral fibre, but rather personality, distinctiveness, atmosphere.
We value our national traditions, such as the monarchy in Britain or the Irish language in Ireland, not only because they are old but because they make us special, different, unique.
A conservative-- a conservative like me, that is-- is somebody who wishes for a world full of character, and for all things to preserve their own character. His attitude to men and women is vive le différence, and he is suspicious of anything that might make the sexes more alike. In the same way, he treasures national distinctiveness. He wants England to remain quintessentially English, Russia to remain uniquely Russian. If he goes to America, he will take great pleasure in watching a baseball game, but he will frown if he hears of baseball being played in Ireland or England.
Within the nation, too, he wishes to find distinctive character. He exults in the existence of regional dialects, slang words, customs, attitudes. He wants Liverpool to be Liverpool and London to be London. Even within cities, he is pleased to hear of neighbourhoods with a particular reputation or atmosphere, and he dreads the advent of universal identikit suburbia.
I am not a seasoned traveller by any means, but I have paid several visits to Richmond, Virginia. In that city there are two "hipster" bookshops by the names of Chop Suey and Chop Suey Tuey. The shelves are packed with Jack Kerouac books, radical histories, gay and lesbian tracts, handbooks on New Age spirituality, and so forth. As a conservative, did I disapprove? Not at all. It pleases me very much that there are hipster bookshops out there. The existence of such a sub-culture seems to me to make the world a more interesting place.
A conservative of this sort does not fume and mutter about illiteracy when he sees a mispelling on a handwritten shop sign. He is pleased that the shop sign is handwritten rather than printed, laminated and composed at corporate HQ. He dreads a deadening rationalisation and a bland professionalism.
There is one final, and very important, point to be made about character. Even though it is linked to the idea of diversity, I have not used that word for a very good reason. "Diversity" has been hijacked to mean a kind of cultural and social free-for-all that, instead of increasing the world's diversity, actually diminishes it. Take the example of multiculturalism. It might seem that multiculturalism makes the world a more diverse place, but it does the opposite; instead of particular societies boasting their own distinctiveness, each becomes more like everywhere else; an anywhere rather than a somewhere.
The paradox here is that institutions and places and ways of life that are exclusive, stuffy, narrow and strict often do more to make the world an interesting and diverse place than those that are tolerant, cosmopolitan and open-minded.
This is also one of the reasons why a traditionalist conservative is ambivalent about the free market. He does not see the great blessing in having a Starbucks and a Subway in every town and village. He would prefer a local or family-run café, even if it was by all objective standards inferior to Starbucks or Subway.
"Fair enough", you say. "I give you tradition, which was entirely predictable, and character, which was only a little less so. But gentleness? What has that got to do with conservatism? Aren't conservatives the nasty party, the spoilsports, the perpetual begrudgers and curtain-twitching nosy neighours of the world?"
Well, I'll get to that in the third and final part of this post.
POSTSCRIPT: Some after publishing this post, I came upon this quotation from GK Chesterton's essay "What is Right with the World", which illustrates it nicely:
"In short, this vast, vague idea of unity is the one 'reactionary' thing in the world. It is perhaps the only connection in which that foolish word 'reactionary' can be used with significance and truth. For this blending of men and women, nations and nations, is truly a return to the chaos and unconsciousness that were before the world was made. There is of course, another kind of unity of which I do not speak here; unity in the possession of truth and the perception of the need for these varieties. But the varieties themselves; the reflection of man and woman in each other, as in two distinct mirrors; the wonder of man at nature as a strange thing at once above and below him; the quaint and solitary kingdom of childhood; the local affections and the colour of certain landscapes -- these actually are the things that are the grace and honour of the earth; these are the things that make life worth living and the whole framework of things well worthy to be sustained. And the best thing remains; that this view, whether conscious or not, always has been and still is the view of the living and labouring millions. While a few prigs on platforms are talking about 'oneness'and absorption in 'The All', the folk that dwell in all the valleys of this ancient earth are renewing the varieties for ever. With them a woman is loved for being unmanly, and a man loved for being un-womanly. With them the church and the home are both beautiful, because they are both different; with them fields are personal and flags are sacred; they are the virtue of existence, for they are not mankind but men."
The first is obvious enough, I'm sure. Who is actually hostile or indifferent to tradition? Not even liberals and radicals, except those of the most hardboiled variety. Most people feel some call to honour their ancestors, to celebrate and perpetuate their national way of life, to pay homage to the past.
Futhermore, even revolutionaries can rarely resist the backward glance; Spartacus, the Peasant's Revolt, the Paris Commune and so forth.
In my case, the call of tradition is very loud indeed. I cherish all traditions. National traditions, family traditions, local traditions, school traditions, professional traditions, academic traditions...I can't understand why anyone would want to remove the wigs and gowns of judges, or force an old all-male club to accept female members (or vice versa), or abolish the English monarchy. It seems like the purest vandalism to me.
My love of tradition is so ludicrously strong that I once found myself feeling sad that the code for my workplace's staff door had changed. It had been there so long and now it would be forgotten...
I don't value tradition because it is (as Burke claimed, and as may be the case) a better guide than reason-- that is, the sort of reason that seeks to engineer society and redesign social institutions, based upon abstract ideas. I don't value tradition for its practical use, or for its distilled wisdom. I value tradition for its own sake. I like old things because they are old.
But why?
This seems to me to be one of those classic imponderable questions, like asking why people enjoy scary movies, or what makes funny things funny. But (as with those other two imponderables) I have spent some time thinking about it.
One thing we can say about tradition, and that may go some way to answering this question of why we value it, is that it cannot simply be willed into being. No amount of power, no amount of money, and no amount of ingenuity can create a fully-formed tradition. It can only be created over time, often at annual or longer intervals, and by a large amount of people, most of them anonymous and unacquainted with each other. Thus tradition has a strangely equalising effect; Christmas belongs to everybody, and unites people across time.
Another possibility is that tradition reconciles two contradictory desires deeply rooted in the human spirit-- the desire for the new, and the desire for permanence. To take the example of Christmas again-- every Christmas is a new experience, and yet it seems to stand outside time and even to unite us with those who went before, and who also decorated Christmas trees and sang Christmas carols.
But in the end, I am happy for the appeal of tradition to remain a mystery-- because I believe that everything that truly enriches life is mysterious. We can only see to the bottom of shallow things.
Character is the middle term of my conservative "trinity". By character, I do not mean moral fibre, but rather personality, distinctiveness, atmosphere.
We value our national traditions, such as the monarchy in Britain or the Irish language in Ireland, not only because they are old but because they make us special, different, unique.
A conservative-- a conservative like me, that is-- is somebody who wishes for a world full of character, and for all things to preserve their own character. His attitude to men and women is vive le différence, and he is suspicious of anything that might make the sexes more alike. In the same way, he treasures national distinctiveness. He wants England to remain quintessentially English, Russia to remain uniquely Russian. If he goes to America, he will take great pleasure in watching a baseball game, but he will frown if he hears of baseball being played in Ireland or England.
Within the nation, too, he wishes to find distinctive character. He exults in the existence of regional dialects, slang words, customs, attitudes. He wants Liverpool to be Liverpool and London to be London. Even within cities, he is pleased to hear of neighbourhoods with a particular reputation or atmosphere, and he dreads the advent of universal identikit suburbia.
I am not a seasoned traveller by any means, but I have paid several visits to Richmond, Virginia. In that city there are two "hipster" bookshops by the names of Chop Suey and Chop Suey Tuey. The shelves are packed with Jack Kerouac books, radical histories, gay and lesbian tracts, handbooks on New Age spirituality, and so forth. As a conservative, did I disapprove? Not at all. It pleases me very much that there are hipster bookshops out there. The existence of such a sub-culture seems to me to make the world a more interesting place.
A conservative of this sort does not fume and mutter about illiteracy when he sees a mispelling on a handwritten shop sign. He is pleased that the shop sign is handwritten rather than printed, laminated and composed at corporate HQ. He dreads a deadening rationalisation and a bland professionalism.
There is one final, and very important, point to be made about character. Even though it is linked to the idea of diversity, I have not used that word for a very good reason. "Diversity" has been hijacked to mean a kind of cultural and social free-for-all that, instead of increasing the world's diversity, actually diminishes it. Take the example of multiculturalism. It might seem that multiculturalism makes the world a more diverse place, but it does the opposite; instead of particular societies boasting their own distinctiveness, each becomes more like everywhere else; an anywhere rather than a somewhere.
The paradox here is that institutions and places and ways of life that are exclusive, stuffy, narrow and strict often do more to make the world an interesting and diverse place than those that are tolerant, cosmopolitan and open-minded.
This is also one of the reasons why a traditionalist conservative is ambivalent about the free market. He does not see the great blessing in having a Starbucks and a Subway in every town and village. He would prefer a local or family-run café, even if it was by all objective standards inferior to Starbucks or Subway.
"Fair enough", you say. "I give you tradition, which was entirely predictable, and character, which was only a little less so. But gentleness? What has that got to do with conservatism? Aren't conservatives the nasty party, the spoilsports, the perpetual begrudgers and curtain-twitching nosy neighours of the world?"
Well, I'll get to that in the third and final part of this post.
POSTSCRIPT: Some after publishing this post, I came upon this quotation from GK Chesterton's essay "What is Right with the World", which illustrates it nicely:
"In short, this vast, vague idea of unity is the one 'reactionary' thing in the world. It is perhaps the only connection in which that foolish word 'reactionary' can be used with significance and truth. For this blending of men and women, nations and nations, is truly a return to the chaos and unconsciousness that were before the world was made. There is of course, another kind of unity of which I do not speak here; unity in the possession of truth and the perception of the need for these varieties. But the varieties themselves; the reflection of man and woman in each other, as in two distinct mirrors; the wonder of man at nature as a strange thing at once above and below him; the quaint and solitary kingdom of childhood; the local affections and the colour of certain landscapes -- these actually are the things that are the grace and honour of the earth; these are the things that make life worth living and the whole framework of things well worthy to be sustained. And the best thing remains; that this view, whether conscious or not, always has been and still is the view of the living and labouring millions. While a few prigs on platforms are talking about 'oneness'and absorption in 'The All', the folk that dwell in all the valleys of this ancient earth are renewing the varieties for ever. With them a woman is loved for being unmanly, and a man loved for being un-womanly. With them the church and the home are both beautiful, because they are both different; with them fields are personal and flags are sacred; they are the virtue of existence, for they are not mankind but men."
Friday, July 27, 2012
Avoiding Abortion
With the storm clouds of possible pro-abortion legislation gathering over Ireland, I find myself feeling guilty about how little attention I have paid to this topic, and how-- in a certain sense-- I have lacked interest in it.
When I say "lacked interest", I don't mean that I am not horrified at the thought of abortion, or distressed at the pressure being exerted on behalf of its introduction in Ireland. I simply mean that, when I come to an article on abortion in a newspaper or magazine-- even a Catholic newspaper or magazine-- I tend to skip it, or to force myself to read it. Because of this, my grasp of the arguments-- both medical and metaphysical-- is poor.
This is simply because the subject seems so open-and-shut to me. I agree with Mother Teresa: If abortion is not wrong, nothing is wrong. As many people have pointed out, every other right is meaningless without the right to life.
But it's not just that. I don't want to read articles by those who support abortion because I find it painful to witness intelligent, articulate, apparently sane people promoting the slaughter of human beings. In the same way, I don't want to get into discussions about abortion in my daily life because I don't want to face the fact that people I like and even love might agree with something so monstrous.
There are those amongst my relations, friends and acquaintances who I suspect would be "pro-choice"; but I don't want to know they are. I can enjoy other debates in an academic, detached kind of way, even when my deepest beliefs are called into question. But how can murdering the unborn be discussed in a debating club manner?
And I am conscious of a feeling of hopelessness, of defeat. If the thought of ending a human life before it has even reaached birth doesn't sicken somebody, what else is there to say? When they have seen the gory pictures, and heard the nightmarish stories-- what else will move them?
I don't say this as an excuse, but as an explanation. I should have paid more attention to this subject. And I can't help feeling guilty now, when the enemies of life are manouvering to strike.
When I say "lacked interest", I don't mean that I am not horrified at the thought of abortion, or distressed at the pressure being exerted on behalf of its introduction in Ireland. I simply mean that, when I come to an article on abortion in a newspaper or magazine-- even a Catholic newspaper or magazine-- I tend to skip it, or to force myself to read it. Because of this, my grasp of the arguments-- both medical and metaphysical-- is poor.
This is simply because the subject seems so open-and-shut to me. I agree with Mother Teresa: If abortion is not wrong, nothing is wrong. As many people have pointed out, every other right is meaningless without the right to life.
But it's not just that. I don't want to read articles by those who support abortion because I find it painful to witness intelligent, articulate, apparently sane people promoting the slaughter of human beings. In the same way, I don't want to get into discussions about abortion in my daily life because I don't want to face the fact that people I like and even love might agree with something so monstrous.
There are those amongst my relations, friends and acquaintances who I suspect would be "pro-choice"; but I don't want to know they are. I can enjoy other debates in an academic, detached kind of way, even when my deepest beliefs are called into question. But how can murdering the unborn be discussed in a debating club manner?
And I am conscious of a feeling of hopelessness, of defeat. If the thought of ending a human life before it has even reaached birth doesn't sicken somebody, what else is there to say? When they have seen the gory pictures, and heard the nightmarish stories-- what else will move them?
I don't say this as an excuse, but as an explanation. I should have paid more attention to this subject. And I can't help feeling guilty now, when the enemies of life are manouvering to strike.
What Will Happen to the Non-Libertarian Right?
Recently I wrote the first part of a three-part post called Why I am a Conservative, which I thoroughly enjoyed writing even if nobody else is especially interested. Using the title made me curious as to what other articles and posts appeared on an internet search if I entered in those words.
I found the results depressing. In virtually all cases, with one or two welcome exceptions, "conservative" meant free market, libertarian, anti-government, and sometimes a US foreign policy "hawk". The concentration was virtually always upon economic matters, sometimes to the exclusion of any others.
Some of the articles were by former leftists who had kept their anti-establishment, anti-traditional, lifestyle libertarian views intact but had come to the view-- naturally, I think-- that anti-statism and free market economics fit these better than their hitherto socialistic opinions.
Yesterday, while browsing the magazine rack in Eason's, I came across a magazine called Total Politics whose cover story was an interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative backbencher who is often hailed as an "old-fashioned" Tory. He looks the part and he sounds the part, with his upper-class accent, air of refinement, and cultural allusions. But a quick skim through the article showed he had little to say about the preservation of Englishness, the bolstering of family life, the importance of community, religion, or any classically High Tory subjects. It was pretty much all to do with money.
And that's your conservative today. I have had one protracted debate with a correspondent who insists he is a solid Catholic but who also insists that "greed is good" and that Rerum Novarum was "a rush of blood to the head". (One of these "Why I am Conservative" essays was written by a Christian who described his priorities as "God, my family, and my country, in that order" but who also said, "I don’t resent wealthy people. To the contrary, I want to become one of them one day.")
Some residual elements of traditional conservatism might survive alongside this passion for the free market and radical individualism-- most of these essays mentioned an opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, as well as a commitment to patriotism.
But can these hangovers long survive when individual choice has become an idol? My guess is that social and cultural conservatism will become more and more irrelevant as the political landscape is increasingly dominated by the liberal left on one side and the libertarian right on the other.
I found the results depressing. In virtually all cases, with one or two welcome exceptions, "conservative" meant free market, libertarian, anti-government, and sometimes a US foreign policy "hawk". The concentration was virtually always upon economic matters, sometimes to the exclusion of any others.
Some of the articles were by former leftists who had kept their anti-establishment, anti-traditional, lifestyle libertarian views intact but had come to the view-- naturally, I think-- that anti-statism and free market economics fit these better than their hitherto socialistic opinions.
Yesterday, while browsing the magazine rack in Eason's, I came across a magazine called Total Politics whose cover story was an interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative backbencher who is often hailed as an "old-fashioned" Tory. He looks the part and he sounds the part, with his upper-class accent, air of refinement, and cultural allusions. But a quick skim through the article showed he had little to say about the preservation of Englishness, the bolstering of family life, the importance of community, religion, or any classically High Tory subjects. It was pretty much all to do with money.
And that's your conservative today. I have had one protracted debate with a correspondent who insists he is a solid Catholic but who also insists that "greed is good" and that Rerum Novarum was "a rush of blood to the head". (One of these "Why I am Conservative" essays was written by a Christian who described his priorities as "God, my family, and my country, in that order" but who also said, "I don’t resent wealthy people. To the contrary, I want to become one of them one day.")
Some residual elements of traditional conservatism might survive alongside this passion for the free market and radical individualism-- most of these essays mentioned an opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, as well as a commitment to patriotism.
But can these hangovers long survive when individual choice has become an idol? My guess is that social and cultural conservatism will become more and more irrelevant as the political landscape is increasingly dominated by the liberal left on one side and the libertarian right on the other.
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