American Bishops Should Read This

CWR: Love, Loyalty, and Justice by James Kalb
Higher principles do not require a featureless global society ordered by commerce and public administration and run by billionaires and bureaucrats.

Catholic Politickin'

CWR: Why the issue of abortion is still the preeminent priority by Monica Migliorino Miller
It is the belief of this pro-life leader that those who consider abortion as merely one issue among others see abortion as just that—an issue. They don’t see 60 million dead people.

The judgment that life is a fundamental human good upon which others are founded is not identical to the claim that abortion is the most serious political problem, the first which must be addressed, nor is the latter simply a conclusion of a reasoning process from the first.

As for the "prudential" judgment about what is the worst problem? What is the fundamental problem or the fundamental injustice? I would argue that it is not abortion, which is a consequence of the problem, but the state. This judgment of particular circumstances is not the provenance of bishops or clerics but of the people who are members of a community or subject to the power of the state. The appropriate and morally correct response too may be outlined by Roman Catholic moral theology (but it hasn't really) but the judgment of whether circumstances warrant it, well, that too is left to the judgment of the people and not to clerics.

If the state is the source of all ills, we can then ask whether voting can remedy it, or whether we can only vote in order to address a limited set of issues.

The latest by James Kalb isn't of much help, unfortunately. Church and State today: What should Catholics do with politics?

James Kalb on Nationalism

CWR: Catholics, Nationalism, and American Identity by James Kalb

The claim that the United States is a “proposition nation” makes it once again simply an ideological project.

Be Reactive? Or Pro-active?

One perspective...

CWR: Can We Turn Back the Clock? by James Kalb

Recently I’ve been complaining about technocratic society. I’ve also emphasized how deeply rooted its problems are. But if I’m right on the latter point, what good does complaining do? Can we really repeal the modern [...]

James Kalb on Nationalism

Crisis: What Nationalism Means Today BY JAMES KALB
A piece I wrote last month on globalism and nationalism led to some extremely spirited discussion. A few more comments may be useful. Journalists and commentators today use the word “nationalism” [...]

Emotional Thinking

CWR: The Darkness Gathers: Why public discussion has become increasingly irrational by James Kalb

A regime of pyramiding illusions that substitutes abuse for argument can’t last forever, and many wonder what will end it.

It's Lonely Being Right All the Time

Some paleos may suffer from this but not as much as American Latin Catholic traditionalists? Though Latin traditionalists tend to band together; but do they get along with anyone else?

At any rate...

Does American exceptionalism still have something to offer the world?

Our national religion is a sort of divinely-mandated liberalism that makes politics a matter of securing and advancing the equal freedom to pursue our individual goals. Such a religion gives God nothing much to do once His will is accepted and the system set up. He becomes irrelevant except as an ultimate justification for the structure as a whole.

Mr. Kalb, as far as I know, didn't develop as a Paleo thinker in normal circles, though he is now associated with Chronicles Magazine. But I think paleos may dispute his version of American history and the timeline of the decline.

Benedictine Options

CWR: Benedictine Options by James Kalb

When worldly life is brutal and disordered, and the Church is persecuted, she needs a place where she can remember her ultimate goal. And when it’s easy and prosperous, she needs to have examples of heroic dedication to her fundamental vision.

Jim Kalb on Human Rights

Crisis Magazine: Re-evaluating Today’s Human Rights Regime by James Kalb

An Alternative Benedict Option

Focused on the reform of Church life -- James Kalb. I would agree with this; while it may not be a long-lasting or successful solution, it is the only one for Catholics. (Even civic or political reform should be understood in this respect, though I would not completely agree with William Cavanaugh's seeming conflation of the two orders.)

More from James Kalb on Immigration

More Thoughts About Immigration—and Some Suggestions

Wariness of a Strong International Authority

Empire and its Discontents
The push for more comprehensive global governance raises many questions, including "Who will control it and ensure that it deals rationally and effectively with the problems assigned to it?"
By James Kalb

The New Evangelization and the Benedict Option

The New Evangelization Begins with Us by James Kalb

From Rod Dreher: Benedictines, Not Fundamentalists
Don't Blame the Reformation
Christianity in Collapse

Gone Too Far, Or Not Having Gone Far Enough?

Accomodationism v. radicalism. Too much esteem for empire, and not enough knowledge of politics?

James Kalb, What is the Church's Political Role

James Kalb on Subsidiarity

Subsidiarity: Why is It Praised More than It is Practiced? by James Kalb (CWR)

I have written a little on subsidiarity so I won't add anything right now. The effort would be better used on a possible essay.

Items of Interest, 5 June 2013

5 reasons why the US will never again see economic growth by Lindsey Curren

The World Economy Is a Ticking Time Bomb (and The Fuse is Burning) by Richard Eskow

Dmitry Orlov will begin a new series of posts discussing the features of "Communities that Abide" - in his preamble he talks about his recent encounters with American feminism.

A perhaps unexpected perspective on immigration:
Open Borders and the Tragedy of Open Access Commons by Herman Daly

Freedom and the Family: The Family Crisis and the Future of Western Civilization by Stephen Baskerville

Michael Avramovich has begun a series of posts on Common Core:
Common Core Educational Standards: Federal Government Power Grab?
Part 2: Common Core Literature Standards
Part 3: Common Core Math Standards

TED: Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley


Donald Kagan:
Ave atque vale by Donald Kagan
Upon his retirement from Yale, Donald Kagan considers the future of liberal education in this farewell speech.
(Open Yale Courses | Introduction to Ancient Greek History - intro)

His farewell lecture:
Yale's Donald Kagan, a lightning rod to the nation, retires





Parts 3 and 4, 5

Interview: Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Why Choose a Catholic College?
By Most Rev. William E. Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore


James Kalb
Unlearning the Errors of Our Secular Age
The Idea of Catholic Society

Free the Animal: Unplugging the Internets (see also Addiction by Design)

Liberty, Technology, and the Advent of Social Networking by Gladden J. Pappin

How Two Plant Geeks Grew a Permaculture Oasis in an Ordinary Backyard

Place, its Importance, and its Limits by Bruce Frohnen

Pieces related Rod Dreher's book about his sister: A Small-town Saint for a Placeless Age
The Limits of Place by Mark T. Mitchell
Place Isn't Just Geographical by Jeffrey Bilbro

AoM's list of best westerns.

What Are Catholics to Do?

Part 2 of Jim Kalb's essay (via Insight Scoop)

It’s a difficult question, especially when the state and other centralized forms of social organization are as pervasive as they are today. What we obviously can’t do, though, is support the realization of the progressive vision. The egalitarian, bureaucratic, and centrally-administered conception of social justice on which it is based is something we can’t cooperate with. When we support it, as the case of Obamacare illustrates, we are strengthening what will crush us. We might as well support the construction of a universal caliphate.

Instead, we must insistently, in season and out, in every possible setting, assert, argue for, and act on our own contrary understanding of human life. When there is a fundamental misconception the answer is not to join in the projects of the people who suffer from the misconception. It is to do whatever is needed to correct it. Today the Catholic view is simply not a presence in public life, and at best is misunderstood as an eccentric variation on some other view. Our most important political task is to change that.

But we can only change that through evangelization and bringing others to Christ.

James Kalb on What Are Catholics To Do?

Catholic World Report

That’s what’s happened in our public life. Everybody who matters is a secularist today, and the situation has far-reaching implications. One is that educated and well-placed people now believe that the institutions on which social order is based should be technically expert, economically rational, morally nonjudgmental, and universal in their reach. So the world should be ordered comprehensively by global markets and expert regulatory bureaucracies, together with subsidiary institutions such as universities, think tanks, media organizations, and various NGOs that serve or try to influence government and business. That, it is thought, is the uniquely rational way of organizing society, and whatever threatens it, or attempts to limit it or introduce other authorities, is irrational, disruptive, and a threat to humanity.

That’s why the people who run things in Europe have rejected Christianity and adopted the EU as their religion. For those committed to it, the European Union is not really a practical contrivance to be judged by its visible or likely effects. It is a supreme principle that must forever expand and deepen in its application without regard to practical considerations or the outlook or well-being of the people the governments involved supposedly represent. Anything else would violate the vision of the secular development of the human world into an ordered and beneficent cosmos. That, it is thought, would be the triumph of chaos, irrationality, and violence.

The problem is that the society aimed at has no room for man as he is. It treats him as fundamentally a careerist and consumer, with no natural particularities, and no higher aspiration or destiny than the perfection of the system that enables him and his fellows to get what they want. Any qualities that go beyond that are disruptive, and must be eradicated or neutralized by confining them to a purely private sphere where they won’t influence anything.

For that reason it has no place for the attachments that have always formed human life and to which we have always given our deepest loyalties: family, religion, specific community, particular people and culture, ultimate truth. Such things become private, sentimental matters with no special definition and therefore no serious public function. They are not permitted to make a difference, because when they do the kind of rational, transparent society at which liberal modernity aims becomes impossible. So to the extent they retain a connection to aspects of how people live, it’s a problem to be dealt with under the rubrics of equality, tolerance, and inclusion.

The vision is utopian, which means that it does violence to human nature by trying to root out things that make us human. To make matters worse, the situation can’t be discussed intelligently because the abolition of ultimate truth leads to the abolition of truth as such. Truth becomes first a matter of what is useful, then what is comfortable and pleasing, and finally what helps the teller get what he wants. Integrity disappears from commerce, politics become spin and optics, and even scholars present truth as something constructed for other purposes. When such tendencies join with the view that common sense doesn’t count, and we should only pay attention to what experts say, the result is a tendency to ignore the obvious in favor of the assertions of those who have social authority and claim special insight. For examples, consider contemporary architecture and educational theory. People hate the one, and the other notoriously doesn’t work, but nothing can be done about either.

So the problem with present-day life is that it’s short on truth and reason. Our job as Catholics is to stand for those things, so if (to pick a prominent example) the truth of marriage and the sexes is rejected, then we need to say what it is and work toward it.

I don't see the American Church extricating itself easily from feminism (or, in practice, sex egalitarianism).

Managerialism...

The Sixties Regime in Power: The Dangerous Shortcomings of the Managerial Class by James Kalb

P. Blond, David Cameron has lost his chance to redefine the Tories
He has abandoned the vision of one-nation conservatism that so inspired me, and retoxified his party

James Kalb, The Left, the Right, and Catholicism

CWR (via Insight Scoop)

Catholicism sees freedom as directed toward the good life, and fills in the details with its understanding of God and man. Liberalism likes to avoid big issues like God, man, and the good, because they cause arguments, so it sees freedom not as freedom to pursue anything in particular but as freedom to choose freely. Freedom is freedom to go after whatever it is you happen to want.


The result of that view, along with the view that freedom is the highest political goal, is that the good life drops out of sight as a public concern. That’s a problem for Catholics who want to promote the good life through politics, because almost all politics today are liberal. Even the battle between liberals and conservatives is mostly a dispute between two groups of liberals. The two sides may differ in their interpretation of freedom, but they agree that it comes first, and that in essence it’s freedom to do whatever you want.