The New Beginning: 9/15/13

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Watching Valhalla Rising - the graphic violence does repel; I saw another of Nicolas Winding Refn's movies recently, Drive - I thought the depiction of the effects of violence in that movie too was a negative, and the story didn't need it. I don't think the showing of graphic violence does anything to create a reaction of aversion to it in those who do not already have the character or natural inclination/sensitivity to be repelled. Can it convert someone who enjoys watching graphic violence in movies to hating its use in movies, to becoming "squeamish"?

Given the anti-Christian animus of some of the characters, has Valhalla Rising become a cult favorite among the neopagan alternative right?

No North American Distributor Yet

TIFF’13: ‘Cold Eyes’ is perceptive action thriller

Friday, September 20, 2013

Paul Gottfried's Perspective on the Conservative Scene

Claes Ryn, Allan Bloom, Leo Strauss, And Me by Paul Gottfried

Even more importantly, says Ryn, Catholics recognize in Straussians figures who share their own “alienation” about living in a predominantly Protestant country. As Canadian philosophy professor Grant Havers documents in a forthcoming book about the studied avoidance by Straussian interpreters of America’s Protestant heritage, Straussians provide a narrative about the American founding that make ethnic Catholics feel secure about their Americanness.

According to the Straussians, America was founded on secular, materialist and democratic principles, but in no way on Protestant ones. Thus, if the Straussians try to de-Christianize and de-ethnicize America, they also conveniently cover up the Protestant aspects of a specifically American tradition.

Catholic Straussians (of whom there are many in Conservatism, Inc.) feel safe living in a “propositional nation” and “global democracy” in which they don’t feel threatened by the real American Protestant (and/or Northern European) American past, extending back to the colonial period. It’s more convenient to jettison such associations for the vision of a constantly changing hybrid society that is held together by universal, egalitarian propositions.