Someone Didn't Learn from MacIntyre Properly

MacIntyre may have denounced the nation-state but he also denounces its regime, which Adam DeVille fails to understand, instead promoting the fiction that we live in a "democracy":

White Christian nationalism motivates the anti-democratic, authoritarian, and violent impulses on display in our current political moment. The future of American democracy, Gorski and Perry argue, will depend on whether a broad spectrum of Americans―stretching from democratic socialists to classical liberals―can unite in a popular front to combat the threat to liberal democracy posed by white Christian nationalism.

Just because you're an academic doesn't mean you have political wisdom.

The Utter Fatuousness of All Nationalisms

MacIntyre on Protests

This a modified excerpt from After Virtue, but since it was published with MacIntyre's position, one can assume that MacIntyre hasn't repudiated his position on natural rights.

The Fractured Metaphysics of Protests
by Alasdair MacIntyrehttps://t.co/zvd4hlo05Z

— Church Life Journal (@ChurchLifeND) January 20, 2021

Gerald J. Russello Reviews The Limits of Liberalism: Tradition, Individualism, and the Crisis of Freedom

AmConMag: Liberalism: The Great Anti-Tradition By Gerald J. Russello
It may have rejected traditional authorities of church and state, but it has put other authorities in their place.

The Limits of Liberalism

CWR: Narrating the Tradition of Liberalism’s Anti-Tradition by Brian Jones
Mark T. Mitchell’s The Limits of Liberalism argues that the human person can only understand himself in this world by being in relation, with nature, neighbor, enemy, and ultimately the ontological source of all that is, namely, God.

The Value of PhDs has dropped even more.

"But he got his PhD not too long ago!" A graduate education in philosophy is crap, if one doesn't expect any real learning to take place until after the degree is conferred.

Catholic philosophers also need to stop masquerading as theologians.

Desanitizing Christianity After St. Benedict and After Virtue by Gregory P. Floyd

The Common Good and the Nation-State

The Imaginative Conservative: Did the Constitution Kill the Common Good? by Thaddeus Kozinski

Did I write anything about this in 2015, when the essay was originally published? Apparently not.

Not many quibbles -- Kozinski writes, "In 1787, America was a full-fledged nation-state, though in latency in extent and scope." Well, not a single nation-state, but a federation of states.

Let us agree that the nation-state, in whatever configuration it happened or happens to be (Federalist or Anti-federalist level of centralization, libertarian-market or welfare state, Republican- or Democrat-controlled, lower or higher taxes, Tea-Party or Occupy Wall St. ethos, George Bush or Barack Obama, is what it is, that is, an alliance, not a common-good institution, suitable for and capable only of providing goods and services to those polis organizations that can (but only with the Alliance’s instrumental help, as the instrumentlist insists) embody and keep common goods. Thus, it is just good philosophy to recognize what is and must be the case, and to act upon it. This, to me, is where Prof. George and the instrumentalists are coming from. Whether he would prefer to live under a state that could indeed keep a common good, such as a medieval French city or an ancient Greek polis, it doesn’t matter; for, the nation-state is here, and here to stay, and we must accept its exigencies and limitations so that we can work with it to uphold the mediating institutions that alone can secure those common goods that we need to flourish and get to heaven.

This is one way to save Roman Catholic Social Teaching on the state and the common good, which is upheld by George, and the reason why he takes the position that he does -- he isn't doing political philosophy, but theology.

In short, for the intrinsicist, the nation-state, absent any polises in which the political good is more than instrumental, will cease being a mere alliance, if it ever were a pure one, and turn into a monstrous anti-polis, pursuing anti-goods to the detriment and eventual eradication of the common good as well as individual goods.

I would argue that real poleis are not absent wholly without design; part of this is deliberate on part of the state. Whatever one may think about the political good proper to a federal union or to a political unit the size of the nation-state, historically those ruling a nation-state have held it to be superior to any other political good. There has been an increasing concentration of political and economic power in the hands of the few.

What if the ability of smaller intrinsic-good-embodying-and-enabling communities to survive and flourish requires the larger society in which they exist to itself be embodied politically in a more-than-instrumental way? What if the sine qua non of the solution to a government out of control and at odds with basic human goods is a radical alternative to the alliance-nation-state of America? What if we desperately need a newly revamped and reconfigured and workable Aristotelian polis, one subordinate to the Divine-polis of the Roman Catholic Church, and one workable in a contemporary context? What if the political order by nature, and ineradicably so, even the American one, is all about intrinsic goods?

We do need a polis; but not at the scale of the state, or the federal union. The desirability and necessity of different sorts of political goods at those magnitudes of scale still needs to be acknowledged.

Will There Be a Return to the Medieval University?

There is no financial infrastructure for it, and today's good Catholic colleges are a pale comparison with the Catholic medieval university. They may feel fortified within a conservative enclave, but just wait until they hire their first SJW (who is more likely than not to be a woman, and of course our conservative Catholic intellectuals have to show how egalitarian they are but hiring women). The sort of accountability that is required for honest debate and discussion can only be found within a group of men, and that is not always what happens. A woman who must submit and show deference or respect to men because of their unequal social standing isn't really a peer for such a discussion. An university doesn't not operate separate from the political community; rather it is an instantiation of the political community, and a teacher or scholar cannot divide his identity into two separate spheres of life. As a teacher or scholar he is also at the same time a member of the political community; he is accountable not only to his colleagues at the school but to his fellow citizens in the polis.

Imaginative Conservative: Why the Christian Philosopher & Christian College Need Each Other by Thaddeus Kozinski

CWR: The "Benedict Option" or the "Gregorian Option"? By Fr. Andrew Liaugminas
Since the Benedict Option appears to be more motivated by cultural preservation than a supernatural outlook on engagement of the world, the Church is better pursuing a path that holds to the necessity of spreading the Gospel in the world.

The problems:
(b) a deep concern for the state of the world, and an all-in investment of our witness in public life to bring the light of Christ to the world;

(e) clear, firm, and effective administration of temporal affairs (Gregory knew how many grains of corn there were in a husk and made sure Rome was not being ripped off in the economic trades); and

With the loss of political community (b) and (e) have to be understood correctly. The enemy is not merely "secularism" but the secular modern nation-state.

CWR Blog: Is Patriotism a Virtue? by Jerry Salyer
The fact that so few public figures openly challenge the value of patriotism indicates not a genuine consensus in favor of patriotism, but only that few public figures have given much thought to what patriotism actually is.

Whence This Change?

Alasdair MacIntyre: From Socratic Subverter to Supporter of the State by Thaddeus Kozinski

While I disagree with Kozinski regarding the American founding and the tenets of the Anglo-American political tradition, the centralization of political and economic power has transformed the original federal republic or federation of states into a unitary nation-state, more or less. The power of the Federal government (and that of many of the states arguably) is problematic, to say the least.

According to Kozinski's summary, MacIntyre was not talking about the legitimacy of the use of coercive power in an abstract manner (that is, a discussion of the state's authority proper to the exposition of the practical science of politics) but making claims about the responsibilities of the modern nation-state. (I haven't watched the lecture yet and probably won't be able to do so for a while.) Maybe this change isn't so surprising since MacIntyre did support the American with Disabilities Act and necessarily the power of the Federal Government (in Dependent Rational Animals, I believe).



Someone should write a sustained critique of Charles Taylor on modernity and liberal democracy (as philosophy or as intellectual history)?
Charles Taylor on Secular Democracy

The Virtues Need to Be Practiced Within a Community

Why Community Matters by Rod Dreher

MacIntyrian lesson for Benedict Option enthusiasts

Be the Change You Wish to See in the World

Reform and Renewal Starts with Us
Anthony Esolen

BenOp in Wsj
Austin Ruse, The Escriva Option

What distinguishes the laity from the monastics? Fr. Louis Bouyer has written on both, and how both share the same Christian vocation, even if their rule of life is different. For lay people in (post-)industrialized Western countries living as wage slaves (whether they are aware of the degradation of their condition or not, despite the manifold material comforts they may have), their freedom to live a fuller prayer life may be curtailed to one degree or another. (Hence the objection from many to the laity praying the liturgy of the hours, or at least the two major hours, morning and evening prayer, because it is not "practical."

As for forming intentional communities -- this may not be necessary if one has a parish community; however in a parish one may need to fight the temptation to see one's self as being part of the "remnant." One should do what one can to help the lukewarm and to instruct the ignorant; even if these efforts do not seem successful, the witness to the love of Christ which should inspires such actions does matter. Nonetheless, one should strengthen the friendships one has with fellow Catholics.

Benedict & the Omnibus of Options

Bruce Frohnen's Rejection of the Benedict Option

“There Is No Benedict Option” By Bruce Frohnen

And this gives us reason to take actions that many might consider to constitute a tactical retreat—e.g., those who have children in public schools should take them out and those with students in parochial schools must be prepared to fight, hard, for their education. But voting, writing, speaking, and marching must continue and increase. The press continues to ignore hundreds of thousands who march for the unborn every year. The answer must be for more of us to march and to stand in solidarity with those whom the new system seeks to ruin financially and spiritually. We may well “lose” in the short run by the standards of this world.

What separates Frohen from Dreher? I think both would (or should) agree that a re-appropriation of the order of charity is necessary for Christians, and the Benedict Option should be understood as a further development of Christians taking the order of charity seriously. Is "political action," as Frohnen describes it here, a precept of Christianity? I do not think so, especially as it assumes that the current political system is legitimate or effective. Does the Benedict Option exclude the possibility of undertaking civic action? No -- we can collaborate with non-Christians of good will who seek to uphold traditional mores and identity in order to strengthen whatever community we have with them. Our response must begin with that, and it is very possible that it may end there or not even get  very far. But if a political response requires the building and exertion of power, then Christians need to understand how to build up power, and participating in a system that seeks to diffuse that power is counter-effective.

"Patrick Henry" looks at other options: The Benedict Option (via The Orthosphere)

Related:
What Does Community Mean?
On intentional communities:

Community is tangible; community is cohesive; community brings people together in ways that allow them to do things they couldn’t have done in isolation.

Within this context, this is how I would define an IC:

An IC has a shared purpose and set of values; the people who live in it are economically entwined to some degree; there is a definition for membership in the community and a process for becoming a member.

What of natural communities, which should share some of the same characteristics? Would liberals let traditional ones live in peace? I think not.

More on the Benedict Option

Rod Dreher explains the ‘Benedict Option’
BreakPoint This Week: The Benedict Option

Rod Dreher: Babylon and the Benedict Option

There are the critics; the program has not been well-defined yet; Dreher undoubtedly intends to give a better explanation in his proposed book on the topic. How does the rebuilding of the political community relate to the reform of the local Church? If the hierarchy of the Church should not hold political power or coercive force, then what sort of political power should Christians try to attain? Or should there merely do what they can for the Church while submitting to the temporal power? Is political reform a realistic goal for Christians?

The good of communion with God (and other Christians) is distinct from civic friendship; the Christian laity should be aiming at both goods in their life with one another; the latter good is possible with their non-Christian neighbors of good will and who share their localism. The second is less possible with those Christians who are statists and support the usurpation of local authority by the national government.

How does the attempt to shore up their Christian faith relate to inculturation and evangelization? Should they uphold some older or more traditional form of culture at the risk of alienating potential converts? If Christians seek to uphold English and standards of Anglo culture, they may be accused of being "uncharitable" to members of other ethnic groups. Can they provide a coherent defense for seeking to pass on their culture? See What is to be Done? Samizdat Classical Education, for example.

Nor should we require a sort of uniformity in the culture of American Churches, certainly not Yankee Roman Catholicism.

William Cavanaugh has talked about the Church becoming a locus of politics or political life; I'll have to reread what he says but one must be careful to circumscribe ecclesial life and community even if the external actions of its members coincide with those of political or civic life. One can help a Christian neighbor fix his roof out of charity and civic friendship, for example. But the Church will never have the authority to legislate for the sake of the local community (and enforce it through punishment). And while Christian laymen are still subject to the current temporal (dis-)order they lack the power to do this, though they can excommunicate and shun.


Responding to this article by Dreher: Benedict Option--
The Benedict Option and the Lay Vocation by John T. Goerke
The Benedict Option: What Does It Really Mean? by R. Jared Staudt

More responses to Dreher:
The Jeremiah Option vs. the Benedict Option
The Benedict Option: Why the religious right is considering an all-out withdrawal from politics by Damon Linker
Benedict Option Reading Suggestions by Peter Blair
What Do We Make of the Benedict Option? by Steve Wedgeworth

A Benedictine Considers the Benedict Option

‘Opzione Benedetto’ Turning Up All Over

One of the things that needs to be clarified is that while we may be part of some sort of social organization, whatever you want to call it, it is not a community. And I take the Benedict Option, regardless of how Alasdair MacIntyre or Rod Dreher may explain it, to be a re-assertion of the order of charity. One does not withhold the practice of charity from non-Christians, but in the political order one needs to determine who can be considered a civic friend and one who is not.

Rod Dreher's Next Book: The Benedict Option

The Benedict Option and Antipolitical Politics
Benedict Option Reading List
Having the Talk With the Kids

Related:
Millennials, Christianity, and Covenant by Gracy Olmstead

Rod Dreher Reacts to a Disney Product: Yes, We Lost the Culture War
Does 'How Dante' Repudiate 'Little Way'?
Benedictine Agrarians

Against the Catholic Ghetto

The Dominican Option by C. C. Pecknold

Rod Dreher Asks

Is It Benedict Option Time?

Related:
A new Benedict for a new Dark Ages by Thaddeus J. Kozinski

C.C. Pecknold on "Catholic instead of what?"

Thinking Well About Things (Other Than Politics) (I posted the video of Dr. MacIntyre's address here.)

Catholics affirm that the state has the authority, within limits, to recognize marriage and to protect people who enter into it; to recognize the sanctity of life, and to do no harm to it; to recognize the dignity of the human person, and therefore ensure an economy in which every person can flourish according to their capacities without being debilitated by poverty. Yet currently, the Catholic is being asked to divide her affirmations and denials more or less equally between political parties that may or may not finally represent these concerns at all. It is like asking King Solomon, or a mother, to tear a child in half.

That means that we are beyond the Churchillian “least bad” problem in choosing between parties. The political culture we inhabit has exceeded that problem. Ours is not only a polarized politics, it is also an excessive politics. It dominates every aspect of life. Political campaigns have learned to carefully cultivate every existing identity for itself, and only for itself. It has come to take over every aspect of life so there is no place where presidential politics is absent. I think this excessiveness is an enduring aspect of every politics that detaches itself from natural limits, that consistently refuses to allow space to that which is not politics, that refuses to admit that there is anything prior to politics, that habitually ignores anything which supersedes politics, and which denies anything which is not reducible to politics.

All of this makes my post-election reflections sound like a plea for resistance to political instrumentalism. It is that, but it is also simply a plea for contemplation on those things which are not political, but are nevertheless important to political community. The popular motto of the Catholic resistance movement during WWII, “France be careful not to lose your soul” is worth recalling to this end. A generation earlier, Charles Péguy, the atheist socialist convert to Catholicism, sought to remind France to attend those things which were preludes to politics: metaphysics, narratives, language, family, friendship and contemplation upon the causes, effects, and ends of our most cherished commitments – our loves and our liberties (to recall St. Augustine). In our post-election reflections, Christians should be the ones asking the really substantial questions, not the ones asked at our very insubstantial presidential debates – but the questions we would want our children to ask: questions about existence, such as why there is something rather than nothing; about justice, and to whom it is owed; about truth, and making ourselves truthful; about the nature of goodness and how we can be formed in accordance with it. Questions like these are pre-political, but they matter for politics too. If these sorts of question whither, we will get the politics we deserve. Amongst ourselves as well as with others, we must be asking what it means to be a Christian in our excessive, polarized, political order.

At its best, true Christianity has always resisted being instrumentalized by politics – it has always affirmed the legitimate authority of the state, but it has also helped the state to flourish precisely by pointing out its limits, and its disorder. Sometimes it has done so with martyrs, but usually with a different kind of Christian witness — one which entails discursive reasoning as well as contemplation and prayer, marked by both seriousness and joyfulness about things other than politics but which nevertheless matter for the political health of the places that God has entrusted to us.

Another Catholic intellectual trying to span the divide but going beyond it, but I don't think he goes far enough. The problem is not with "politics" per se, but with the scale of the "National Unity." Scale is one of those limits which few American Catholics recognize, probably because they have become habituated to living in this mess and thinking that it is normal.

I've been wondering if the lack of real conversion is due to a failure of witness, not only through words but in how we live. (As in that saying attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.") And not because we fail to live as Catholic individuals, but because we have failed to live as Catholics in community.

Alasdair MacIntyre's Presentation at the 13th Annual Fall Conference of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture

Alasdair MacIntyre "Catholic Instead of What?" Response by Sean Kelsey