• Tag Archives conservative

  • Orthodoxy become Orthopraxy: A Political Sinkhole

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain                              Moon of the Winter Solstice

    An interesting article in this morning’s Star-Tribune about the conflation of economics and religion, in particular laissez-faire economics (individualism) and Christianity as defined in William Buckley’s God and Man at Yale.  The author of a biography of Buckley, Carl T. Bogus, also the writer of this column, identifies this conviction as a sentiment rather than an argument, that is, the United States must be as radically laissez-faire in its economics as it is pure in its Christianity, so orthodoxy conflates into orthopraxy, a recipe for political disaster.

    Bogus sees these two sentences as central to GAMAY (as Buckley’s book is called by movement conservatives):

    “I myself believe,” he declared, “that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world. I further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.”

    The effect of this framing is to create either/or, black and white analysis.  Either you are Christian or you are not.  Either you are a laissez-faire economics individualist or you are a communist/socialist collectivist.  Either you are a Christian or you are an atheist.  One side is good, the other bad.

    Buckley was an Episcopalian and had definite opinions about the correct, or orthodox line of thought within Christendom, a bright line that defined his Episcopalianism over against diluted or deluded others.  In the same way either you were a free-trader, a hands-off the individual para-libertarian or you were a collectivist, crushing the individual and the marvel of the free-market.

    This splits the world, shattering the notion of a dialectic where individualism and collectivism, for example, exist as poles on a continuum, in dialogue with each other and informing each other.  In dialectical thinking the world is more complex, more given to nuance, there may be times where collectivism makes more sense and others where individualism does.  They are not, in dialectical thought, opposites, rather they represent dynamic forces always at work.  In other words you can’t have one without the other.

    Bogus helped me follow the trail from Buckley, who was well-known for his warm personal relationships with liberals, to Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney, evolution and climate-change deniers.  This underlying either/or analysis of Buckley’s has devolved into a crusade the evils of secular humanism and government action in general, though especially government action designed to show our collective responsibility as citizens of one nation.

    I’m not sure what trail we follow to get back from this place where heaven is Milton Friedman and hell is John Maynard Keynes, where heaven is right-wing Christian evangelicalisim and hell is any other way of understanding the world.

    Orthodoxy helps clarify and simplify the world, leading to clear lines of ethical and moral thought.  When orthodoxy makes the concomitant leap to orthopraxy, that is, practice must always be in line with orthodox belief, we find ourselves in the same spot as those with conservative Islam looming over them.  Mullah Limbaugh and his fellow clerics, Ann Coulter and others of the shock jock circuit lash waverers back into line.

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Commentary on Religion Commentary on the news Faith and Spirituality US History 📎and tagged

  • A Paradox

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                                                                       Waning Last Frost Moon

    Groceries.  Bees.  Check in for cruise.  That’s my day today.  Well, I might watch a bit of the 500, just see how it goes.

    It Broke From Within (see post below) is based on a quote from a p.r. piece for an early Walker project that read:  Remember France?  It broke from within.  That can happen here.

    It goes on:  We can only protect our own country within by making more of us more understanding of each other’s freedom and each other’s work and possessions.  We must learn to place a high value on the things that we have created and built and which we would inevitably lose through disunity and social revolution.  Nothing is more important to us than those civic institutions, of which the art center is one, that create a broader appreciation of our common bonds–our homes, our work, and our personal expressions.

    At first I read this as an artist’s statement by Goshka Macuga and wrestled with its obviously conservative tone, especially in the sentence:  We must learn to place a high value on the things we have created and built and which we would inevitably lose through disunity and social revolution.  The first we here seems to encompass all, all Minneapolis, all Twin Cities, all Minnesota, all USA while the second we encompasses those who build and create, mostly the upper classes, who then, the third we, stand to lose things during a period of disunity and social revolution.

    Then I realized that, no, it was not an artist’s statement, but a statement from the Walker Art Center fund drive brochure in 1941.  Oh.  Well, it makes sense then. However, in that time between first reading it and realizing it was a fund drive brochure quote, I did consider a conundrum, a paradox that dogs my thinking and my working life.

    It is this.  Since the mid-60’s I have considered myself a political radical, willing to act outside the law if necessary to protest and resist unjust laws and unjust governmental or corporate actions.  I’ve not only considered myself a radical, but have, on many occasions, been a direct action activist.  What I’m saying here is that my political sympathies and my political work lie considerably left of center and left of liberal.

    Here’s the rub.  I love art.  I love being around art and talking to other folks about art.  Especially in the context of a museum.  I love the outdoors and mother earth.  I love being outside and talking with others about being outside. I love the garden and growing things, working with bees.  I love my family, keeping them close and supporting them.  I love the classics in literature and music, too.  I love them enough to learn Latin and translate a 2000 year old Latin text.  These are all conservative impulses.

    Art in museums and the purpose of a docent lies in admiring and sharing the work of artists over thousands of years and vast spans of geography.  This requires, quite literally, conservation and an appreciation for the past.  Working on behalf of mother earth and our great outdoors, even gardening and beekeeping, are, by definition, conservative.  That is, they act to conserve our natural world through good stewardship.  Loving family is a time honored conservative theme, because it too, quite literally, preserves and conserves our  species.  Even religion, which has been an important part of my life for a long time, entails conforming ones life to an often ancient code and deposit of tradition.

    So.  There it is.  Radical leftist in politics.  Conservative in many of the areas about which I’m most passionate.  What’s that?  They’re categorically different uses of the word?  Well, maybe, but I think the underlying theme suggested in the Walker Brochure tries to argue for a universal conservative impulse, one oriented toward stability and fear of social chaos, yes, but also toward preserving the best of what we have learned, of what we have come to believe important.

    Here is my current thought.  While I love art, nature, and family and will and do act to protect and nourish them, conservative intuitions, I also recognize that not all folks have equal access to art, to the natural world, even to stable families.  Those of us who have “created and built” must understand that all wish to do so.  That the culture and the families we love must see to it that others have that privilege, too.

    We also must recognize that while we cherish certain institutions and achievements, others have them, too, often ones we have not recognized.  Jazz is a good example.  So is the native american’s delicate dialogue with the natural world.  So is the rich extended family life of the Latino culture.  They wish to conserve the things they have created and built just as much as we of the middle-upper and upper classes want to conserve ours.

    It is this tension between what could be and what it is that drives the difference between the radical and the conservative.  And ever will.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Faith and Spirituality Humanities Politics 📎and tagged

  • Stay In It

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                    Waning Bloodroot Moon

    As winter loosens its grip on our state, the legislature begins to tighten theirs.  In the last half of the first session of the 2011-2012 legislature, budget bills dominate the news.  From my perspective as both a liberal and an environmentalist, the news is grim.  Environmental permitting, a public process designed to tease out and prevent negative impacts, has been weakened.  A bridge over the St. Croix, negotiated to a smaller, less intrusive version, has suddenly come back to life, bigger and more expensive than ever.  Up until the Japanese disaster, the nuclear moratorium in the state seemed headed for repeal.  Last night, in what must be one of the more peculiar–not to mention outrageous actions–an amendment passed attaching to an omnibus environmental budget bill a provision to fund state parks by cutting down black walnut trees in two of them, White River and Frontenac.   Let’s see, cutting down trees to save the state parks.  Like selling the children to support the family or auctioning off the planes to save the airlines.

    Since the halcyon days of the 60’s, it’s been tough for those of us with liberal to radical political sympathies.  Victories have been few and defeats numerous.  It is possible to despair, to wonder if a sense of communal responsibility will ever again influence policy; but, it is in precisely these circumstances where those of us with a historical perspective and active engagement must not allow despair to over run our convictions.  To shuck off politics now is to insure that the field is left to those whose politics create the need for us.

    No, as the conservative hand closes around the gavel in state after state and in Congress as well, those of us in the opposition must be more vigorous, more active, more vocal.


    📂This entry was posted in Commentary on the news Faith and Spirituality Great Work Politics US History 📎and tagged

  • No Title

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    8  bar rises 30.11  0mph WNW  windchill 4   Samhain

    Full Moon of Long Nights    Day  8hr  47m

    I hear you saying often that you’re not turned on to politics. Well let me bring to bear the lessons of history. If you’re not turned on to politics the lesson of history is that politics will turn on you.—Ralph Nader, Countdown

    Yes, Nader is right, but I wish he’d take his own lesson to heart.  Quixotic campaigns that drain the vote of the left and left independents have had their day.  Until or if the left can mount a credible candidate we should support the Democrats.

    In this and many other ways I can tell I have reached old fogey status.  Twice in the last couple of weeks I’ve sent notes to the Sierra Club’s legislative committee that reveal, to me later, and probably to each member at the time, my more conservative approach.  With a $5+ billion budget deficit I think we should pitch our stuff in light of savings to the state budget.  Instead my colleagues queue up to decide which expletives are more appropriate for sulfide mining.

    Used to be me.

    We’ve had a cold December so far, considerably below normal.  This is the weather most of us here yearn for and miss as the winter’s have grown warmer.  The snow stays on the ground; the air is crisp.   Sleeping becomes a treat, a warm bear-in-the-den snuggle.

    I have finally caught up, again, with my various chores including all the outside ones.  That feels great, but it does mean I have to reorient my daily activities and I’m still in the in-between place about that.  Soon.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Politics Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • A Liberal and a Conservative Walk into This Bar

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    35  92%  35%  1mph  windroseSSE  bar falls  dewpoint33  First Quarter of the Snow Moon     Holiseason

    There is a puzzle in me, one that come to light when I worked at Unity Unitarian in St. Paul for a brief time.  It was a difficult and painful time for me, but I liked Roy Smith, the minister, and admired his intellectual grasp of the liberal faith tradition.  We had many conversations about theology, especially the work of Henry Nelson Weiman.  As we talked, I realized I had twin intellectual/emotional currents, perhaps running in opposite directions.

    While my training in anthropology and philosophy made me sensitive to the plural and often conflicting belief and faith systems among the world’s many cultures, it also made me yearn for something with a center, a place to stand, as Martin Luther said.  An initial enchantment with the surprising (to the post-college me) intellectual rigor of Christian thought led me into a fruitful and often mystical 20+ years beginning in Seminary and ending when I left the Presbytery to write in late 1991.  As I pulled away from the institutional life of the Christian faith, my commitment to it weakened and finally broke.  In retrospect it’s more wonder I lasted so long. 

    Systems of thought with certainty and exclusive claims like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Marxism, and Capitalism did not fare well when attacked at their base by philosophical analysis or the comparative method of anthropology, and I was only too happy to go at them.  The chief problem is the notion of permanent truth.  When looked at from, say, the Taoist living in X’ian none of these have any claim, with the possible exception of Marxism, but Marxism, looked at from the perspective of the American mainstreet, has no claim.   These universal claims, especially the religious ones with their cosmic implications, fail on the face when confronted by others who simply don’t agree. 

    Capitalism and Marxism compete in the political and economic arena, but their mutual demands for faith–the invisible hand and the rational allocation of capital on the one hand and the inevitably of class struggle on the other–rely on large blind spots, i.e. the victims of Capitalism whose boats not only don’t float, but get swamped; and, the victims of Marxism, the millions in the USSR, Cambodia, and China who died that class struggle might prove triumphant.

     This mode of thinking leads me into the liberal faith tradition which raises a question mark, a big question mark, whenever claims of certainty are made.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, most often lacking.

    And I’m happy there.

    Yet.  There is this other river.  The classics inform my writing and my life.  Carl Jung, whose psychology I feel drawn to, looks within for the collective, archetypal elements shared across individuals and generations.   Classical music is the form of music I enjoy most.  My journey in the arts has led me back into the distance reaches of the human experience, not quite as far as the search for the origin of Homo sapiens, but at least as far back as Lascaux and the small stone amulets of big breasted, fertile women.  I love Dante, Ovid, Rembrandt, the bronze artisans of the Shang dynasty and the misty landscapes of the Southern Song. 

    This is a conservative flow, a search for permanent things in a world of impermanence and diverse cultural history.

    Both of these rivers, I’ve come to realize, are about equal in their pull on me.  It gives me a sense of two different people, perhaps one the German intellectual and the other a Celtic traditionalist; or, one the German Romantic and the other a feisty Celt ready to go a round or two with anyone over anything.  

    It may be that this last third of my life will find these two rivers finally join, creating an intellectual and spiritual and aesthetic place I do not yet know.  I hope so since this last third is all I have left.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Faith and Spirituality 📎and tagged