The New Beginning: Claes Ryn

Showing posts with label Claes Ryn. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 05, 2021

Claes Ryn Judges the Election

Claes Ryn: "What I have found to date regarding the election makes it impossible for me to accept the media version of the election outcome." https://t.co/89qyF4LkF4
— Arthur Bloom 🇺🇸 (@j_arthur_bloom) January 5, 2021

Wednesday, August 05, 2020

A Common Human Ground

"In A Common Human Ground, Ryn, influenced by Babbitt, as well as others such as Edmund Burke & Benedetto Croce, provides nothing less than a complete philosophy of civilization & a rich meditation on 'grand strategy'..." @ProfEricAdler @umissouripress https://t.co/NAUnLAqgQY
— Russell Kirk Center (@KirkCenter) August 5, 2020

University of Missouri Press: A Common Human Ground: Universality and Particularity in a Multicultural World by Claes G. Ryn.

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Moral Imagination and Paideia

The claim that the United States is now in a “post-Constitutional age,” requires even less explanation than just a few months ago. https://t.co/aJg8HeU9Ux
— Richard Reinsch (@Reinsch84) July 15, 2020

L&L review by Joshua Bowman of The Historical Mind: Humanistic Renewal in a Post-Constitutional Age

In this way, the book exemplifies a tradition of “moral realism” and resistance to abstract moral idealism. This realism requires, as one might expect, a sufficient attunement to reality in the broadest sense. That attunement takes place in the interplay between will, reason, and especially “imagination,” a word emphasized by nearly every author in the book.

“Imagination” as understood by Ryn and Babbitt, drawing on Burke, Benedetto Croce, S.T. Coleridge and others, is a pre-rational intuition of the good, the true, and the beautiful. “The imagination,” the editors explain, “always gives a unity, but it does not always give one that is real, which is to say, it is not always commensurate with the concrete, historical experience of human life.” Put simply, then, an imagination rooted in reality is what Ryn and Babbitt see as the Burkean “moral imagination,” while an imagination disconnected from reality is termed the “Romantic” or “idyllic” imagination of Rousseau.

By focusing on the imagination, the contributors emphasize the centrality of ethical character and culture which can be nourished or corrupted by experience and works of philosophy, history, theology, literature, art, and film.

The same as Kirk's use of the term "moral imagination"? It would seem so, as he, too, draws from Burke. It may be time to revisit this, the sharpening of synderesis through paideia, and what role art has to play in paideia. Imagination should be subject to right reason, not perverse appetite, I think we can agree with these traditional conservatives on that. But does the shaping of the "moral imagination" through the human letters, as offered by traditional conservatives, differ from the Renaissance humanists and contemporary intellectuals who are trying to resurrect them? There must already be something to a rightly-formed character in the youth for there to be a moral imagination which can receive something from the human letters. But paideia is not limited to humane studies alone, as Kirk admitted: "Of course it was not by books alone that the normative understanding of the framers of the Constitution, for instance, was formed. Their apprehension of norms was acquired also in family, church, and school, and in the business of ordinary life." The question is whether we have these other sources of moral formation now. I would say that many of them no longer exist or have been vitiated by both the presence of moral error and also by people who have fallen from the standards of Christian morality.

Also, let us not forget that the sort of paideia and handing on of tradition necessary to maintain American republicanism and to preserve the federal order given by the Constitution was already failing in the first half of the 19th cent, not the 20th, as is revealed by Lincoln's successful initiation and pursuit of the Late Unpleasantness. Second, the reviewer admits: "A country as large as the United States could hardly expect to achieve a kind of Aristotelian politeia" but "a genuine, widespread constitutional ethos is possible." It is probably an unreasonable fantasy that a "Constitutional imagination that informs morality" can be possibly restored at a national level. But we can work for the restoration of a good and healthy paideia, republicanism, and Aristotelian politeia at the local level.

Thursday, April 09, 2020

A Realistic Assessment by a Latin of Latins?

AmConMag: Catholics May Be in Crisis, But the Laity is No Savior by Clase G. Ryn
Still, the time may be ripe for creative—even audacious—action to reviving a faltering tradition.

Bishops and clergy are not uniquely subject to the forces of corruption that have wreaked havoc in the Church. They have been affected by trends in the same society that the laity inhabit. In fact, the laity may well have been even more influenced by questionable views of life that have become increasingly prominent in Western society. Successful lay leadership would thus have to be acutely self-critical and discriminating.

The challenge to Christianity in the last few centuries has not been confined to denying the existence of God. The basic terms of human existence have been reconsidered. Not only Christianity but the classical Greek and Roman heritage stressed the importance of moral character for personal and social well-being. Human beings were morally cleft, and they had to learn self-control and responsibility. Any genuine social betterment had to begin in this manner. For Christianity, the main obstacle to improving human existence was the fallenness of man. The crux of the moral-spiritual life was to recognize evil in self, repent, and reform self. A central purpose of civilization was to support this effort.

But Western high-brow and popular culture alike have long portrayed such notions of self-restraint and character as vestiges of a perverse puritanism. We should not bottle up natural cravings but live out our dreams and longings. We are not to fret over little personal failings but show moral nobility by endorsing virtuous social and political schemes for transforming the human condition. Our goal should be not so much to love neighbor—the people just around us—with all of what it entails of personal, sometimes inconvenient up-close engagement. We should love mankind, whose advancement requires the mobilization of government. This shift from self-reform to socio-political reform proved very appealing in that it greatly relieved the moral burden placed on the person.

Latin traditionalists and "conservative" Latins might think themselves to be exceptions. However, for the most part Latin traditionalists do not engage or interact with Latins who are not traditionalists, except perhaps to dispute them into attending an EF Mass. (There are those who offer a friendly invitation, without polemics, but they are in the minority it appears.)

Ryn criticizes the weak response by Catholic intellectuals to the liberalism creeping into their churches:

Many Catholic intellectuals continued to resist sentimental idealism. It did after all contradict a Christian view of human nature and traditional moral beliefs. But rationalistic bias made it difficult for Thomists to diagnose the root problem with the new moralism. They were used to giving primacy in moral philosophy to rational principles and rule adherence. Putting reason in charge—getting the mind to think right—was assumed to lead to proper willing. Moral character would somehow flow from or be the same as right reason. They did not see that the great appeal of sentimental humanitarianism was its capturing the imagination, stirring the entire personality with visions and images and benevolent-looking grand causes. The new spirituality also imparted a pleasant feeling of moral superiority. All that was required to be virtuous was to demand Social Justice and Human Rights.

Thomism is a bad vehicle for evangelization, and a poor one for catechesis, both of which were needed within the Latin churches. (Even Thomistic theology could not meet both roles, as much of it was speculative and unnecessarily complicated for neophytes and beginners, despite what the Dominicans and organizations like the Thomistic Institute are trying to do for faith formation and catechesis.)

He emphasizes the importance of a spirituality that recognizes the need for personal conversaion away from sin.

The most nefarious element of the new spirituality may be that it takes little account of personal sinfulness as the central problem of the moral-spiritual life. It denies or downplays the importance of the moral struggle within the individual and the indispensability of character. Moral rationalism does not really understand how to arm the will against the lower desires. It employs such smarts as it has to formulate intricate rules and principles, but without character no amount of intellectual brilliance or teary-eyed sentiment can control the lower desires.

However, I am not sure I know whom he is criticizing as "moral rationalists."

The moral rationalists for their part are heavily invested in the belief that the crux of human conduct is for reason to guide us.

I don't know of anyone who preaches reason alone, rather than the use of the sacraments and some measure of asceticism.

That there is imagination and idealism that are very different from what has been described here is not in dispute. Sound imagination and idealism are indispensable to elevating life. The problem is addiction to dubious and even impossible dreams. Terrible evil and suffering has resulted from benevolent-looking but perverse illusion. Neither is the indispensability of reason in dispute. Knowledge must inform conduct. But not even the most intricate ratiocination will rescue souls that are captive to alluring but shoddy spirituality. Rules and principles will not steer people right if will and imagination are pulling them in a different direction. Unless we be guided by what Edmund Burke calls “the moral imagination,” which is sound will and imagination in one, some lower form of imagination will direct the person. Brilliant philosophers in the latter predicament will only argue themselves deeper and deeper into self-deluding illusion.

There is a need for a Christian culture, within our churches and homes at the very least, if not in the "public square." But what more would Professor Ryn advocate so that the "renewal of the moral-spiritual and intellectual life" is not superficial but deep?

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Claes Ryn

The Presidency Unchainted

Thursday, April 04, 2019

Paleoconservatism 101:

Found this on FB:

Just Write the Book Already

See his response to Claes Ryn. His latest: The Benedict Option & 'Faithful Presence Within'

The problem here: the dichotomy between the Church and the world -- should Christians strengthen their parishes and local Churches? Yes. Do they need to withdraw from the world? If the society they live in is of the world, then yes. If it is am embodiment of secularism, then yes. But if it is not, but traditional but non-apostolic Christian? Then not necessarily -- alliances can still be formed, if not political friendships.

Has Rod Dreher ever found himself fitting in a traditional Southern community? Or does his impulse to be a moderate SJW preclude him from doing so? Or maybe he's just a rootless individual.

Related:
Rod Dreher on Norcia.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Something by Claes Ryn

AmConMag: Conservatives in Denial
Traditionalists must neither retreat nor surrender.

A response to the Benedict Option proposal?

Something by Claes Ryn

AmConMag: Conservatives in Denial
Traditionalists must neither retreat nor surrender.

A response to the Benedict Option proposal?

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Two By Bruce Frohnen

Finding the Roots of the Old Republic (JGA Pocock. Does Frohnen get Machiavelli right? Or is Dr. Fleming's interpretation better?)
Is the United States a Republic or a Democracy? (alt)

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

“The Benedict Option: The Problems of Culture in Times of Crisis.”

Academy of Philosophy and Letters Conference - Info at FPR

Rod Dreher is the keynote speaker; other participants include Mark Mitchell, James Matthew Wilson, and Jeffrey Polet, Claes Ryn, and David Walsh). Walter McDougall will be the Saturday evening dinner speaker.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

What is Neoconservatism

Claes Ryn on the Tom Woods Show

Related:
Mike Church interview
Imaginative Conservative

Monday, November 24, 2014

Idealism and the Constitution by Claes Ryn

Imaginative Conservative

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.