The Guardian: Small is beautiful – an economic idea that has sadly been forgotten by Madeleine Bunting
It is chilling that so many thinkers, politicians and academics have signed up to the deadening consensus of globalisation
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Mark Richardson responds to that fake conservative Bill Bennett
Bill Bennett: one rule for women another for men?
That's good evidence that Bennett, in his underlying philosophy, is a liberal: he thinks of freedom in liberal terms as being a freedom to choose a life of one's own design, i.e. a freedom to self-determine or self-create.
There are two problems with this claim. First, it's not clear how a man today really has such a freedom compared to a man of 100 years ago. Like most men I want to have a respected place as a husband and father in a family; I want to take pride in and contribute to my larger ethno-national tradition; I want to live in a society in which personal morality is taken seriously and in which art and culture reflect higher spiritual values; and I want to have a sense of my tradition building on the past and growing into the future rather than disintegrating. Isn't it true that I would have had more chance of of living such a life 100 years ago than today? So how am I more "free" today in choosing a life of my own design?
A useful map?
An ideological map by Stuart White
I need to write a more careful treatment of the differences between left and right communitarianism.
I need to write a more careful treatment of the differences between left and right communitarianism.
An objection to communitarianism
Might go like this: "Why do I need to live in community according to the communitarian vision? I am quite happy living as I am now: I have my family and my friends. I don't need more than this." Don't underestimate the complacency of fallen man with the status quo. Or his ignorance of the true good.
Many believe themselves to be content, despite the limited interaction with their friends. What can you do if they are satisfied? How does one answer this objection? Their beliefs reinforced through habit; living with strangers does not seem strange to them. They do not experience true loneliness unless something shocks them out of their complacency. Is their interaction with their wife sufficient to persuade them that they have found a soulmate, and that she is all they need to keep them company?
Cheap energy makes their diversions and private recreations possible and these facilitate atomistic living, keeping their users busy (and helping them to forget their loneliness).
Have we, then, achieved a new sort of politeia? Or are we more like the cyclops? After all, how can it really be called a form of community when the families hardly interact?
In response to the incentive to network (or engage in tribalism) to prepare for cases of emergency an Uhmerican might feign indignation that one would cultivate friends only as people to be used in order to survive (like many of the relationships one sees on Survivor or Big Brother). Now of course we should not form associations with others so that we can take advantage of them in times of need. But Uhmericans have become blinded to how dependent they are on cheap energy and technology for survival, believing themselves to be self-sufficient when they are not. It is proper for friends, and members of a community in general, to depend upon one another for survival, but this need is only foundational to the political order. It is not the "highest" good to which living in society is ordered, which is that living in society itself.
We are perfected in loving and living with others -- those who do very little to live and love others beyond his immediate family are stunted psychologically and spiritually. Lecturing them on what they ought to be doing will not cure their spiritual ailment.
It needs to be said that without grace, even the members of an community explicitly ordered to its proper end will be motivated by the love of their own good, rather than the love of God and other goods properly subordinated. This can easily degenerate into the love of his private subjective good. The problem with liberalism is that it espouses an agnosticism about man's good and its understanding of community is lacking. There is nothing to check selfishness except the 'no harm principle' and a weak sense of commutative justice. In effect, it takes the principle that man's proper end is his subjective good and enshrines it as the foundation for the political order.
A Sense of Owingness by R.J. Snell "We tend to think that freedom is the absence of responsibility." Freedom from responsibility or from coercion?
(Begun on October 28.)
Related:
Most people have about 2 people they consider friends.
Many believe themselves to be content, despite the limited interaction with their friends. What can you do if they are satisfied? How does one answer this objection? Their beliefs reinforced through habit; living with strangers does not seem strange to them. They do not experience true loneliness unless something shocks them out of their complacency. Is their interaction with their wife sufficient to persuade them that they have found a soulmate, and that she is all they need to keep them company?
Cheap energy makes their diversions and private recreations possible and these facilitate atomistic living, keeping their users busy (and helping them to forget their loneliness).
Have we, then, achieved a new sort of politeia? Or are we more like the cyclops? After all, how can it really be called a form of community when the families hardly interact?
In response to the incentive to network (or engage in tribalism) to prepare for cases of emergency an Uhmerican might feign indignation that one would cultivate friends only as people to be used in order to survive (like many of the relationships one sees on Survivor or Big Brother). Now of course we should not form associations with others so that we can take advantage of them in times of need. But Uhmericans have become blinded to how dependent they are on cheap energy and technology for survival, believing themselves to be self-sufficient when they are not. It is proper for friends, and members of a community in general, to depend upon one another for survival, but this need is only foundational to the political order. It is not the "highest" good to which living in society is ordered, which is that living in society itself.
We are perfected in loving and living with others -- those who do very little to live and love others beyond his immediate family are stunted psychologically and spiritually. Lecturing them on what they ought to be doing will not cure their spiritual ailment.
It needs to be said that without grace, even the members of an community explicitly ordered to its proper end will be motivated by the love of their own good, rather than the love of God and other goods properly subordinated. This can easily degenerate into the love of his private subjective good. The problem with liberalism is that it espouses an agnosticism about man's good and its understanding of community is lacking. There is nothing to check selfishness except the 'no harm principle' and a weak sense of commutative justice. In effect, it takes the principle that man's proper end is his subjective good and enshrines it as the foundation for the political order.
A Sense of Owingness by R.J. Snell "We tend to think that freedom is the absence of responsibility." Freedom from responsibility or from coercion?
For finite beings, the generosity of existence occurs both because we are rich and because we are poor. As rich, we have existence and communicate ourselves to others. Unlike God, finite beings are poor, lacking the fullness of existence and so each tries to enrich itself by its relation and dependence on other beings. As persons, we give and receive because we are both generous and in need. While all finite being must receive, this is not a shameful imperfection but a sign of personhood. Unlike the sovereignty model where capacity for isolation is the mark of perfection, to receive is not imperfection but perfection, a mark of our dignity. I can think of myself as an empty container of freedom, as a sovereign who exists prior to my entanglements with others, but this is a paltry and ghost-like self. The person who matters is the one who is son, father, husband, cousin, son-in-law, friend, and each of those roles limits my ability to do just whatever I want, whenever. As son, I owe piety; as husband, I owe fidelity; as father, I owe gentle instruction; as friend, I owe loyalty. Consequently, I am what I am in virtue of the responsibilities I bear. Insofar as I matter as a person, I am constituted not by sovereignty, but by what I owe. And only by knowing what I owe to others do I know who I am and what I’m for; ignorance of owing is to be devoid of a self.The first paragraph is fine; the second... not so much, unless this is personhood understood of creatures and not of the Holy Trinity. We are created to know and love and we are made to bring each other to perfection. As for owing -- we do have duties to one another, but the ratio for the duties of a superior to an inferior are not the same as the duties of an inferior to a superior. The latter are acts of virtues related to justice, the former are not, though they may be acts of legal justice or of charity or friendship. (Not all owing is related to a right, although contemporary Catholics believe this, having expanded the notion of justice to encompass anything that is owed. See John Finnis, for example.)
(Begun on October 28.)
Related:
Most people have about 2 people they consider friends.
Thumos
This was posted over at Amerika: Men Without Chests. As it discusses thumos in conneftion with Plato, I was reminded of Plato's predecessors. (MacInityre should still be reliable as a historian of ancient Greek ethics?) It seems to be another post-Christian article -- the author is seeking to recover a pre-Christian account of virtue through Francis Fukuyama: "Much of the book revolves around thymos, Plato’s spirited part of the soul that yearns for honor and recognition. Thymos can then be divided into two: megalothymia as the need to be recognized as superior to others, and isothymia as the need to be recognized as merely equal to others." Perhaps the author is not aware of the Christian tradition's treatment of the virtues. (Did the Franciscan school ever discuss the cardinal virtues to the same extent as Aquinas?)
According to the author, liberal society seeks to do away with distinctions; the rationale for megalothymia is thereby eliminated.
Thumos refers to the spirited part of man that enables him to overcome difficulties or obstacles or fear. There is a place for thumos in Christian moral theology, in the virtue of fortitude or courage. It is also tied to the desire for honors, as we see in St. Thomas's account of magnanimity. We can have a proper desire for honors without going to a pagan excess. But another problem which the article brings up is the emasculation of American (Western?) men. It is necessary to suppress men in order to preserve the political order from internal threats and also to create wage slaves for the economy. How should we character deformation that results from the education proper to such an order?
Magnanimity is concerned with great honors. What virtue is concerned with ordinary honors? St. Thomas writes:
Should we attempt to understand the virtues dealing with fear as being differentiated by degrees? That is to say we should also take into consideration the subjective condition of the man, so that what may be an ordinary difficulty for one may be a great difficulty for another? Or should we classify the virtues instead based on the kinds of difficulties? The latter is the proper approach. We can look at the fears and difficulties related to the social life and interacting others, dangers that do not affect the body but some other aspect of the person. (Acting out of fear is not the same as acting out of prudence.)
What we Christians need to recover is not pagan morality, even the best of pagan morality, but the best of Christian moral theology which can teach a man how to live his vocation well. At the same time, we should not shun the use of classical sources which have contributed to the development of the Western tradition, or any other material which may be useful. Christians do have something to say to American men about living well. (Although "Game" has yet to be fully "translated" into traditional Christian ethics, there are both virtues that a man needs to relate to a woman specifically as a woman. Plus general precepts he should follow?)
We can look at the ordinary honors we pursue are meaningless some other time.
According to the author, liberal society seeks to do away with distinctions; the rationale for megalothymia is thereby eliminated.
When you subdue megalothymia, you subdue pride, when you subdue pride, you subdue shame, when you subdue both shame and pride, you throw out spirit. When you throw out spirit, you are left with “last men.”What of Christian humility? But here pride may name something other than the vice opposed to humility - having the correct assessment of one's self and abilities and to what one is thereby entitled.
Thumos refers to the spirited part of man that enables him to overcome difficulties or obstacles or fear. There is a place for thumos in Christian moral theology, in the virtue of fortitude or courage. It is also tied to the desire for honors, as we see in St. Thomas's account of magnanimity. We can have a proper desire for honors without going to a pagan excess. But another problem which the article brings up is the emasculation of American (Western?) men. It is necessary to suppress men in order to preserve the political order from internal threats and also to create wage slaves for the economy. How should we character deformation that results from the education proper to such an order?
Magnanimity is concerned with great honors. What virtue is concerned with ordinary honors? St. Thomas writes:
In like manner there are two virtues about honors, one about ordinary honors. This virtue has no name, but is denominated by its extremes, which are philotimia, i.e. love of honor, and aphilotimia, i.e. without love of honor: for sometimes a man is commended for loving honor, and sometimes for not caring about it, in so far, to wit, as both these things may be done in moderation.While this virtue has no name, it nonetheless is important for men for daily life. It may have no name beecause it is so obvious or because most men had it, and it seems almost natural, like confidence or self-assuredness. But the virtue is not mere natural disposition; a virtue is required to mediate reason and emotion. Is there something akin to pusillanimity with respect to ordinary difficulties (talking to a woman, for example), a virtue opposed to "confidence" other than aphilotimia? It seems that what we really want to look at is not the virtue concerned with ordinary honors, but the virtue concerned with ordinary difficulties, something "lesser" than the virtue of fortitude. Confidence or self-assuredness deals with the fear of failure; it is connected to self-assertiveness (not being afraid to speak one's mind because of the possible consequences, particularly social consequences like ostracization, or the loss of one's job). It is not identical to self-assertiveness. Of course, a man be assertive for other reasons, for example, anger.
Should we attempt to understand the virtues dealing with fear as being differentiated by degrees? That is to say we should also take into consideration the subjective condition of the man, so that what may be an ordinary difficulty for one may be a great difficulty for another? Or should we classify the virtues instead based on the kinds of difficulties? The latter is the proper approach. We can look at the fears and difficulties related to the social life and interacting others, dangers that do not affect the body but some other aspect of the person. (Acting out of fear is not the same as acting out of prudence.)
What we Christians need to recover is not pagan morality, even the best of pagan morality, but the best of Christian moral theology which can teach a man how to live his vocation well. At the same time, we should not shun the use of classical sources which have contributed to the development of the Western tradition, or any other material which may be useful. Christians do have something to say to American men about living well. (Although "Game" has yet to be fully "translated" into traditional Christian ethics, there are both virtues that a man needs to relate to a woman specifically as a woman. Plus general precepts he should follow?)
We can look at the ordinary honors we pursue are meaningless some other time.
Ron Paul, The Executive Order Dictatorship?
Tenth Amendment Center
These are frustrating times for the President. Having been swept into office with a seemingly strong mandate, he enjoyed a Congress controlled by members of his own party for the first two years of his term.
However, midterm elections brought gridlock and a close division of power between the two parties. With a crucial re-election campaign coming up, there is desperation in the president’s desire to “do something” in spite of his severely weakened mandate.
Getting something done is proving to be a monumental task. This may be news to the supposed constitutional scholar who is now our president, but if the political process seems inconvenient to the implementation of his agenda, that is not a flaw in the system. It was designed that way. The drafters of the Constitution intended the default action of government to be inaction. Hopefully, this means actions taken by the government are necessary and proper. If federal laws or executive actions can’t be agreed upon constitutionally- which is to say legally- such laws or actions should be rejected.
The vision of the founders was to set up a government that would remain small and unobtrusive via a system of checks and balances. That it has taken our government so long to get this big speaks well of the original design. The founders also knew the overwhelming nature of governments was to amass power and grow. The Constitution was to serve as the brakes on the freight train of government.
Lonesome River Band on Letterman
full episode (includes an interview with Steve Martin)
alt
Lonesome River Band takes Manhattan : Bluegrass Today
official (MS & FB)
Related:
Steve Martin and Martin Short Show
Steve Martin Interrupts Dave's Monologue
Steve Martin's Wardrobe Interrupt
Friday, November 11, 2011
More for Veteran's Day
Welmer, Scars of War
Morning Joe: Gen. Odierno: Bond among soldiers can't be underestimated
(Includes coverage of a book on the Medal of Honor.)
Similar descriptions of the brotherhood of soldiers to that given by Sebastian Junger, very much commonplace these days but at the same does this characterization of their actions not diminish the nationalist myth of the citizen-soldier? One can be motivated for both purposes, but it is also possible to be motivated by love of one's comradse only, having lost any faith in one's government or being agnostic about whether the cause itself is just or not.
Morning Joe: Gen. Odierno: Bond among soldiers can't be underestimated
(Includes coverage of a book on the Medal of Honor.)
Similar descriptions of the brotherhood of soldiers to that given by Sebastian Junger, very much commonplace these days but at the same does this characterization of their actions not diminish the nationalist myth of the citizen-soldier? One can be motivated for both purposes, but it is also possible to be motivated by love of one's comradse only, having lost any faith in one's government or being agnostic about whether the cause itself is just or not.
Items of Interest, 11 November 2011
John Robb, A Very BAD Trend. US Combat Vet Unemployment hits 30%
Jim Antle, The Veterans' Jobs Crisis
Vox Day, The Downside of Meritocracy
Relocalization:
Distributist Review: From Teacher to Farmer: Why I Went Back to the Land
Distributism: A Success Story
Grist archive on the Chronicles of Higher Ed piece on the Oberlin Project
Coping With Economic Meltdown by Gwendolyn Hallsmith
Restoring Food Hubs (EB)
Streetscapes: The Pedestrian Loses the Way
How to save small farms
By protecting farmland from development, land trusts are making small-scale agriculture more viable
By Jane Black, Gilt Taste
OWS:
Occupy movement makes sense to Ron Paul
Can the Occupy Movement Civilize the USA? by BOB SIMPSON
Diet and Health:
Why cooking counts
Study finds an increase in energy from meat, suggesting key role in evolution
MDA: Finding the Person Within: A Mother and Daughter Journey
Catholic:
New book on icon painting by Aidan Hart
Music:
Review: Bearfoot ~ American Story
Playing solo, Chris Thile sets himself free
Jim Antle, The Veterans' Jobs Crisis
Vox Day, The Downside of Meritocracy
Relocalization:
Distributist Review: From Teacher to Farmer: Why I Went Back to the Land
Distributism: A Success Story
Grist archive on the Chronicles of Higher Ed piece on the Oberlin Project
Coping With Economic Meltdown by Gwendolyn Hallsmith
Restoring Food Hubs (EB)
Streetscapes: The Pedestrian Loses the Way
How to save small farms
By protecting farmland from development, land trusts are making small-scale agriculture more viable
By Jane Black, Gilt Taste
OWS:
Occupy movement makes sense to Ron Paul
Can the Occupy Movement Civilize the USA? by BOB SIMPSON
Diet and Health:
Why cooking counts
Study finds an increase in energy from meat, suggesting key role in evolution
MDA: Finding the Person Within: A Mother and Daughter Journey
Catholic:
New book on icon painting by Aidan Hart
Music:
Review: Bearfoot ~ American Story
Playing solo, Chris Thile sets himself free
Waldorf School of the Peninsula
Featured in a story on KPIX last night:
According to the story, tuition for elementary school is about $18k, for high school $25k. Some of the teaching methods may aid natural impulses of learning when they are young, but what happens as the students gets older?
Waldorf School of the Peninsula
Why Waldorf Works
Waldorf goes against school grain
wiki
Waldorf Critics
Open Waldorf
Sydney Hearld - Steiner Schools
From 2000: Religion or Philosophy? / Critics say Waldorf schools' unusual methods make them ineligible for public funding
Waldorf Answers (not exactly comforting to the critics)
According to the story, tuition for elementary school is about $18k, for high school $25k. Some of the teaching methods may aid natural impulses of learning when they are young, but what happens as the students gets older?
Waldorf School of the Peninsula
Why Waldorf Works
Waldorf goes against school grain
wiki
Waldorf Critics
Open Waldorf
Sydney Hearld - Steiner Schools
From 2000: Religion or Philosophy? / Critics say Waldorf schools' unusual methods make them ineligible for public funding
Waldorf Answers (not exactly comforting to the critics)
Corporatism
I had to look at how "corporatism" was commonly used - it underlies the organization of men into guilds and the like. What would be a good authoritative source on this topic?
Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier
The Thinking Housewife: Is “Veteran’s Day” a Misnomer?
It's a better name and a better holiday than Armistice Day, which can only be a reminder of a bad war and a bad peace for Europe - the final blow to Christendom? Here in the U.S. we can honor our veterans without approving the bad wars in which they participated. It would be a better way to care for those in uniform to work to prevent our entry into bad wars.
Edit. See Daniel McAdams, Veterans Day (Armistice Day)
It's a better name and a better holiday than Armistice Day, which can only be a reminder of a bad war and a bad peace for Europe - the final blow to Christendom? Here in the U.S. we can honor our veterans without approving the bad wars in which they participated. It would be a better way to care for those in uniform to work to prevent our entry into bad wars.
Edit. See Daniel McAdams, Veterans Day (Armistice Day)
"Meritocracy"
Published at FPR: Susannah Black, Debating Conservatism: An Old Mistake in The New Inquiry
She refers to an exchange between Daniel Larison and Corey Robin: Redefining the Right Wing. No examination of that exchange here. Later, maybe.
Miss Black objects to Mr. Robin:
One can hold that political office falls under the division of labor, but why can aristocrats say they should hold office rather than another group? Social inertia + the degeneration of an original republican organization because of conquest and the concentration of power in the hands of the few? (Did the barbarian peoples of Europe always have kings? Or were the tribes originally more egalitarian, to an extent?) The accidents of birth would not seem to be an adequate defense of the aristocrats' claims. Good breeding and education would be better, but are these not then arguments for merit? I find that G. K. Chesterton's discourse on aristocracy, which Miss Black uses in her post, to be rather lacking:
The military leader is not qualified to be leader because he is a better person morally, but he should be better with respect to the military arts and the virtues proper to military command. (While the possession of the moral virtues may enhance one's leadership, charisma and other natural dispositions such as affection for the men under one's command probably suffice in most situations.) I think this is probably a decent account of political developments in the late Roman Empire and after the fall, but the rejoinder to this is that just because one excels at being a military leader does not entail that he will be a good ruler. The function of the two offices are different, as the ends are different. Having the power to coerce others to do one's will, as in the case of those who have armed men following them, is not the same as having a just claim to rule. It might have been "natural" that military leaders be the first to fill in the political vacuum; once they were in place, social inertia, the natural "conservatism" of a polity, took over (though this does not prohibit the political order from gradually developing).
So do all "conservatives," Anglo-American or Western, really share Miss Black's understanding about the rationale for rulership?
On Polities and Warriors
Related:
John Derbyshire's review of Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin.
The Guardian
She refers to an exchange between Daniel Larison and Corey Robin: Redefining the Right Wing. No examination of that exchange here. Later, maybe.
Miss Black objects to Mr. Robin:
It was liberal reformers– throughout the nineteenth century, and earlier– who were keen to institute meritocracy in the civil services of various European governments. The struggle for existence is an essentially liberal way of conceiving civil society: that’s why laissez-faire capitalists, arch-liberals all, tended to be such fans of the eugenics movement.It seems to me that at the very least, conservatives wish to preserve the constitutional order, even if it is imperfect or even has some evils, because to abolish it would lead to an even greater evil befalling the polity. I would agree more with Aristotle than Miss Black's conservative - those who rule should be qualified to do so precisely because they are better than the others. This is demanded by distributive justice and falls under the natural law. Therefore, liberal meritocracy is judged to be incorrect not because authority is given on the basis of merit but because how merit is ascertained is wrong or unjust.
Conservatives, by contrast, see social solidarity as the normal state of things, and the dynamism or creative destruction that the liberal order fosters, and in which natural law promotes the rule of the “best,” is really quite alien to the conservative mind. Those conservatives who are defenders of aristocracy do so not on the basis that the aristocrats are better than others, but on the basis that aristocrats fill a social role that someone’s got to fill, just as someone’s got to bake the bread and someone’s got to write for the feuilletons, and it might as well be this lot as anyone else.
One can hold that political office falls under the division of labor, but why can aristocrats say they should hold office rather than another group? Social inertia + the degeneration of an original republican organization because of conquest and the concentration of power in the hands of the few? (Did the barbarian peoples of Europe always have kings? Or were the tribes originally more egalitarian, to an extent?) The accidents of birth would not seem to be an adequate defense of the aristocrats' claims. Good breeding and education would be better, but are these not then arguments for merit? I find that G. K. Chesterton's discourse on aristocracy, which Miss Black uses in her post, to be rather lacking:
[T]he thing we call aristocracy in Europe is not in its origin and spirit an aristocracy at all. It is not a system of spiritual degrees and distinctions like, for example, the caste system of India, or even like the old Greek distinction between free men and slaves. It is simply the remains of a military organization… Now in an army nobody ever dreams of supposing that difference of rank represents a difference of moral reality… No one ever says, in reporting a mess-room conversation, “Lieutenant Jones was very witty, but was naturally inferior to Captain Smith.” The essence of an army is the idea of official inequality, founded on unofficial equality. The Colonel is not obeyed because he is the best man, but because he is the Colonel. Such was probably the spirit of the system of dukes and counts when it first arose out of the military spirit and military necessities of Rome.
The military leader is not qualified to be leader because he is a better person morally, but he should be better with respect to the military arts and the virtues proper to military command. (While the possession of the moral virtues may enhance one's leadership, charisma and other natural dispositions such as affection for the men under one's command probably suffice in most situations.) I think this is probably a decent account of political developments in the late Roman Empire and after the fall, but the rejoinder to this is that just because one excels at being a military leader does not entail that he will be a good ruler. The function of the two offices are different, as the ends are different. Having the power to coerce others to do one's will, as in the case of those who have armed men following them, is not the same as having a just claim to rule. It might have been "natural" that military leaders be the first to fill in the political vacuum; once they were in place, social inertia, the natural "conservatism" of a polity, took over (though this does not prohibit the political order from gradually developing).
So do all "conservatives," Anglo-American or Western, really share Miss Black's understanding about the rationale for rulership?
On Polities and Warriors
Related:
John Derbyshire's review of Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin.
The Guardian
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Google+ Is Dead by Farhad Manjoo
"The search behemoth might not realize it yet, but its chance to compete with Facebook has come and gone."
While I don't like all of the changes to FB, I think the company was smart to copy the better features of Google+. Maybe they didn't think they had much of a choice at the time. But I don't foresee a mass migration to Google+, unless FB does something to severely alienate its users. This predicting may all be pointless though, if the economy implodes and takes both companies down with it.
"The search behemoth might not realize it yet, but its chance to compete with Facebook has come and gone."
While I don't like all of the changes to FB, I think the company was smart to copy the better features of Google+. Maybe they didn't think they had much of a choice at the time. But I don't foresee a mass migration to Google+, unless FB does something to severely alienate its users. This predicting may all be pointless though, if the economy implodes and takes both companies down with it.
Joseph R. Stromberg responds to J.G.A. Pocock
Tensions in Early American Political Thought
Liberalism and Republicanism Together Made for a Stronger Worldview
Can a republican talk about the limits to human authority without using the notion of "rights" as it is understood by liberals? (Or, is all rights talk inherently liberal? I don't think so, but we also have to look at how it was explained in the past, as opposed to applying our own definitions to historical texts.) And if republicanism is linked to communitarianism, how can it be synthesized with liberalism without internal contradictions? Perhaps the early Americans were influenced by both streams of thought and did not pay much attention to consistency. If so, is it too early to conclude that there efforts were doomed to failure? But I think that one can think and legislate in terms of rights without being a liberal. Can I find evidence that this was true of some early Americans?
Liberalism and Republicanism Together Made for a Stronger Worldview
It seems fairly clear that the two separate doctrines—liberalism and republicanism—were fused together by the English opposition writers and the American revolutionaries because together they made for a stronger, and reasonably coherent, worldview. Liberalism, as such, had no theory of government. The French physiocratic school of laissez-faire liberal economists had no better political theory or plan than simply to get the King to sweep away barriers to trade. Republicanism, as such, had no theory of individual rights. Writers like Rousseau showed how unalloyed republicanism can easily justify militaristic and authoritarian rule on the model of ancient Sparta or the Roman Republic. (The “radical phase” of the French Revolution teaches this lesson very well.) By combining the two ideologies, the Anglo-Americans forged a powerful outlook favorable to liberty and limited government.
Can a republican talk about the limits to human authority without using the notion of "rights" as it is understood by liberals? (Or, is all rights talk inherently liberal? I don't think so, but we also have to look at how it was explained in the past, as opposed to applying our own definitions to historical texts.) And if republicanism is linked to communitarianism, how can it be synthesized with liberalism without internal contradictions? Perhaps the early Americans were influenced by both streams of thought and did not pay much attention to consistency. If so, is it too early to conclude that there efforts were doomed to failure? But I think that one can think and legislate in terms of rights without being a liberal. Can I find evidence that this was true of some early Americans?
Jeffrey Tucker posts another interesting clip of chant: What did chant sound like in the early centuries?
Someone posted this on FB: "The virtuous man is driven by responsibility, the non-virtuous man is driven by profit." - The Analects, Chapter IV
Well, virtuous man is a questionable translation of the original Chinese junzi (君子), though other Confucian terms do refer to qualities which not one does not have merely because one is a human being - they are acquired somehow. This must be an older translation, but at the moment I can't check if it is Legge's.
Anyway, there may be some agreement among members of different traditions that a virtuous action is one that is in accord with reason, and that virtue is some sort of habit. But what sort of reason? How does one reason well (practical reason)? How does this differ from "calculative" reason, which is in accordance with "base" desires? And what is the relationship between reason and the various appetites? Is virtue merely rule-following (like various proponents of the New Natural Law Theory would hold)? Or is it more than that?
I was reading about the Six Martyred Ministers this afternoon, because the KBS drama The Princess' Man (공주의 남자), while fictional, is based on the events of their time. There are a lot of tests of relationships and their virtues, such as loyalty. I couldn't think of any Uhmerican movie or TV drama that really examines the virtues of interpersonal relationships.
Well, virtuous man is a questionable translation of the original Chinese junzi (君子), though other Confucian terms do refer to qualities which not one does not have merely because one is a human being - they are acquired somehow. This must be an older translation, but at the moment I can't check if it is Legge's.
Anyway, there may be some agreement among members of different traditions that a virtuous action is one that is in accord with reason, and that virtue is some sort of habit. But what sort of reason? How does one reason well (practical reason)? How does this differ from "calculative" reason, which is in accordance with "base" desires? And what is the relationship between reason and the various appetites? Is virtue merely rule-following (like various proponents of the New Natural Law Theory would hold)? Or is it more than that?
I was reading about the Six Martyred Ministers this afternoon, because the KBS drama The Princess' Man (공주의 남자), while fictional, is based on the events of their time. There are a lot of tests of relationships and their virtues, such as loyalty. I couldn't think of any Uhmerican movie or TV drama that really examines the virtues of interpersonal relationships.
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