Friday, January 13, A.D. 2012

Traditionalist Manifesto

Christ is born!

Merry Christmas on this seventh day of the Nativity and happy birthday to my nephew, Austin. Many years and blessings to him! He was born on Friday the thirteenth of January (December 31 on the Church’s calendar), and so the cycle has revolved, again.

Yesterday, Lawrence Auster explained a bit more of his recent change in outlook in “Small moves away from liberalism are not going to turn around the society as a whole.” Auster states that he no longer thinks that our civilization will repent from its spiral toward nihilism and barbarity. He therefore counsels what we may do without falling into despair. The ever insightful Kristor adds the following comment:

Back in 1973, when I was a teenaged commie, I used to engage with my commie friends in political discussions that would go on for hours and hours. The only thing I remember from those discussions is a dictum that arose from within me one day, unbidden, yet fully formed, when we were talking about what it meant to be a radical: “To be a radical is to be forever unsatisfied with the content of history, yet reconciled to the process of history.” This attitude will be familiar to readers of VFR from the phenomenon here oft noted, of the fact that liberals understand there to be no limit, no stopping point, to the process of social reform. What has happened and is now happening, however many improvements there might have been, is totally unsatisfactory, and awaits the incipient onset of a gnostic New Age, in which every sordid thing that has come before will be repudiated and destroyed. Nevertheless, however, the ugly things that are happening now are the birth pangs of that New Age, and since birth is painful, it is to be expected that the process should make most of us quite uncomfortable (and even, many of us, dead); yet for the sake of that glorious New Age, we should not chafe at our discomforts of ugliness, but rather shoulder them cheerfully, happy with the way things are tending. That’s a radical: forever unhappy with things as they are, while delighted with the endless evolutionary/revolutionary process of history as it works its way toward a new utopian order.

It strikes me that this dictum is just as applicable to Traditionalist radicals as it is to those of the Left, albeit along a diametrically different vector; for the Traditionalist sees history as having Fallen from a Golden Age, and tending toward an ultimate, inescapable eschatological catastrophe, while the Leftist sees it as going the opposite direction. As pessimists about the prospects for a merely human project of saving the world, Traditionalists are more apt to respect and cherish the beauties it has so far produced, that are in the nature of things always eventually lost to the flux of time, and skeptical about their “new, improved” replacements. Until the Enlightenment, such was the prevalent attitude—the traditional attitude—in all cultures and throughout history. The hope added thereto by the Christian Gospel, of an ultimate, permanent, and total redemption of history at the eschaton, completed that vision, healing and correcting the despair that it had recommended to men, and nerving them to the creation of new and sublime creaturely beauties: cathedrals, songs, voyages, poems, discoveries, philosophies, enterprises of all kinds.

Our job then—indeed our duty—as Traditionalist radicals is, to name the uglinesses now pervading our world, not surrendering to despair thereat, but rather rejoicing nonetheless in the marvelous and orderly beauty that still, always, nevertheless surrounds us, and determined to enact such new beauties as may be within our poor powers. We are all of us engaged throughout our lives in a steady progress toward our own personal holocausts, in which every good thing we have loved will be immolated. Yet we may have confidence that, as all of history is an instrument and expression of Beauty Himself, so must that Beauty which is the source of all things eventually, utterly prevail in and through all things. We may therefore—indeed, we should—make our way toward our common doom, singing and rejoicing, if only to adorn this world’s everlasting resurrection. For, thanks to the Divine omniscience, no worldly good can fail of resurrection in the life to come.

And that, in the final analysis, is why we humans have children, and want to have children. It is why we want to preserve them, and to preserve our culture, and our lives. It is why we are ordered toward reproduction, survival, prosperity, enjoyment. Mere death makes all these things vain, empty, stupid. If death were the end of the story, none of these things would be worth doing, much; so that as our culture has come to believe in the ultimate finality of death, it has done less and less of them. But if death is not the end of the story, and the goods of this world are destined to permanent life in the world to come, then all these vital pleasures are objectively and immensely important—not all-important, to be sure, not first things, but important nonetheless.

What then ought we to do about the death of our culture? Do what is good, and beautiful, and virtuous. Nothing will be wasted, no good thing forever lost; everything will be remembered, and accounted for. From the good and virtuous things that we engender—children, mostly, but also our work, our charity, our thought, our art—something appropriate will arise. We may trust in that.

Kristor beautifully reminds us of the Christian hope and offers sage advice on how we may act as instruments through which the Lord transfigures the world into his perfected creation. Moreover, I found it more than a little ironic that Kristor begins his comment, “Back in 1973, when I was a teenaged commie,” in a thread about the hellish trajectory of the modern West. If a Communist can become what Kristor is now, then anything is possible! But, of course, we have always known this. The hagiographies of the saints remind us over and over of the power of repentance and of the transformation that God affects upon men and women who allow him to do so. Mary of Egypt and Moses the Black come to mind.

I had a friend in college who was raised in an extraordinarily pious Roman Catholic family. His mother appeared to me as the very incarnation of the traditional Catholic maternal presence. His parents and siblings would continually pray together; road trips would be opportunities to say the rosary as a family. Very Catholic! Then, one day, my friend told me about his parents’ youth. His mother was a radical feminist in college, rebellious against traditional society and the Church. The Lord works many wonders, and the human mind may be surprisingly resilient in struggling for truth in the midst of lies. Given such examples, it is reasonable to hope for the salvation of our civilization in time and not only in the eschaton.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, January 13, Anno Domini 2012
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Friday, December 2, A.D. 2011

Holiday Tree?

I recently received a message wherein an acquaintance mentioned a “holiday tree.” I wanted to respond by asking which holiday. Is it a Presidents’ Day tree? A Saint Patrick’s Day tree? How about a Halloween tree? Do we decorate this said holiday tree with Independence Day ornaments while we sing Memorial Day carols? Do we place Labor Day gifts under this tree?

I find it difficult to be a modern American. So much that is considered polite or decent in our society stinks of rank stupidity. The underlying reason for “holiday tree” appears to be a desire to be inclusive. However, who tells rabbinical Jews that they are not invited to Christmas parties? Do the Salvation Army Santas refuse to say “Merry Christmas” to Hindus? Are Muslims not allowed to partake of our gingerbread? The “exclusion” inherent in Christmas celebrations is only one of identity. It will remain exclusive in the sense that it is not something else as long as it continues to exist. To remove that exclusion, one has to destroy Christmas. Perhaps, that is the plan. Regardless, calling the feast or its trappings by a generic name does not remove this exclusive aspect. It only makes for ridicule. Imagine if a dormitory with an international student body decided that it would have an annual “national holiday” celebration for all the students to celebrate their respective nations. However, this “national holiday” always curiously landed on the fourth of July, when the dormitory would facilitate a cookout of hamburgers and hot dogs and sponsor an evening fieworks display. Obviously, Sousa would always be played. It sounds rather cosmopolitan and inclusive, no?

Earlier in the week, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh’s radio broadcast, and Limbaugh stated that he could not understand how any American could hate America. I honestly do not understand such rightwing conservative blindness. When America has largely become a society wherein most people will change their speech, behavior, and views—their way of life inherited from their ancestors—to accommodate a small, whiney, and wicked contingent of ne’er-do-wells, it is no longer very lovable. Conservatives like Rush ignore what America has largely become. It is repulsive, and it does not deserve to survive. Of course, there are many “Americas,” and the way of life that conservatives value continues to exist. However, it has long ceased to be dominant. Traditional America is now the counterculture, but its adherents refuse to accept that they have lost the country.

Posted by Joseph on Friday, December 2, Anno Domini 2011
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Wednesday, November 9, A.D. 2011

Gynocracy and Liberalism

I recently discovered an entertaining, old View from the Right thread about “gynocracy” and liberalism. It features some frank discussion on what “feminism” has wrought in the West. Among other worthwhile aspects of the post, Auster once again shows his knack for analyzing the Left:

Liberalism means seeing the world as a single collection of individuals, all possessing the same rights, and distinguished only by their “individual worth.” Liberalism rejects, as a fundamental principle, the idea that individuals may belong to different categories—categories not chosen by the individual himself—that may affect the individual’s rights. So, from the point of view of liberalism, there is no reason why women cannot be, say, soldiers or police officers, so long as the women in question can “do the job.” This leads to a few women, who have the requisite qualifications, becoming soldiers or police officers, which in turn leads to changes in the institution to adjust to those women (e.g., separate bathrooms and sleeping quarters, the elimination of hazing at VMI), and thence to an attack on the “culture of masculinity” in those institutions and to never-ending demands for ever more women to be admitted and to be promoted at the same rate as men. Starting with a liberal individual-rights paradigm aimed at the non-discriminatory inclusion of qualified individuals, we end up with cultural radicalism aimed at transforming or destroying the institution itself.

In the area of immigration, U.S. immigration in 1965 was opened up equally to immigrants from all countries on the basis that the only criterion for admission should be the “individual worth” of prospective immigrants, rather than their nationality, race, or religion. But since these notions of individual worth were necessarily minimalistic (since the very purpose of the law was to eliminate group discrimination, not to admit high quality immigrants, an impossible task in any case when you’re talking about mass immigration), the people we permitted as worthy individuals in fact carried cultural differences with them that inevitably have changed American culture and created demands for far more sweeping changes, in the process also leading to the prohibition of any criticism of these changes. Once again, pure liberal individualism, based on “individual worth,” leads to cultural radicalism and the loss of an institution’s or a whole society’s legitimate liberty to govern itself.

By contrast, traditionalism acknowledges that we as human beings are not just individuals possessing rights and desires, that there are things about us that matter that do not come from ourselves. Our nature as men or women is not created by ourselves; it is a given that comes from outside ourselves and that structures our existence. From the point of view of traditionalism, such larger categories as sex, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and race (not to mention species) matter. How much they matter varies. In some cases they may not matter at all, and the issue can be determined on a pure basis of individual rights; in other cases they may matter very much, and liberal rights must take a back seat to other considerations. How much they matter in any case is something to be determined by prudence. As President Kennedy once said about brains, there is no substitute for prudence.

Therefore the proper role of women and men in society is a legitimate topic of political discussion. But liberalism denies that it is a legitimate topic, because liberalism denies the existence, or at least the importance, of those larger categories or essences.

Of course I am not denying the evils that have been done in the name of putting people into determined categories of race, class, sex, and so on. Liberalism is however an extreme solution to that problem which creates horrible problems of its own. The result of denying that group categories can ever matter socially or be a legitimate topic of discussion can be seen in the paralyzing political correctness that controls Britain and other European countries at this moment, with the U.S. not far behind.

May Auster keep writing and enlightening for many, many years!

Posted by Joseph on Wednesday, November 9, Anno Domini 2011
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Monday, November 7, A.D. 2011

Looking at the Left: Occupy Denver

Last week, Auster linked to a fascinating photographic article by El Marco of Looking at the Left. You may see the motley crew whose images he captured in “Evil Clowns and Radical Ringmasters of the Anti-Capitalist Revolution in Denver.” After reading about these Occupy Wherever types, I often wonder what they would be like in one on one conversation. I have known many “radicals,” some personally pleasant and some reprehensibly foul. Foolish political and anthropological views do not necessarily correspond with vice, and there are many sweet souled anarchists and socialists on the American campus. As my friend Andrew often remarks, the reason that democracy is mad is the same reason that we ought not to hold political opinions against their adherents. It is unreasonable to expect everyone to be a philosopher or to have been raised and educated by the sane and the wise in contemporary America.

Posted by Joseph on Monday, November 7, Anno Domini 2011
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Monday, October 24, A.D. 2011

The End of the Future

Earlier in the month, billionaire genius Peter Thiel published a short essay in National Review, “The End of the Future.” It makes for an interesting and sobering read. Thiel notes that the current political and social orders in Western countries depend on easy economic growth, which requires constant technological innovation. Thiel investigates the state of technology and shares some frank and rather unpleasant commentary about the near future.

Posted by Joseph on Monday, October 24, Anno Domini 2011
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Wednesday, October 19, A.D. 2011

A Glimpse of Syria

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon of Chicago and several other American citizens traveled to Syria recently on behalf of Antiochian Metropolitan Philip to ascertain the conditions of civil life in light of the country’s recent troubles. Fr. Patrick recounted his impressions on the Antiochian American Archdiocese’s site. From having read many of his articles and sermons, I highly respect Fr. Patrick. I am wont to believe him when he describes the Syrian situation so differently than how it is portrayed in the American press. That is not to say that I approve of Syria’s regime. Yet, any government in the Middle East must rule quite differently than a Western government would—with its European or European descended citizens. Arabs may have conquered enough of the Greco-Roman world to know better political arrangements, but their fundamentally tribal tendencies and the dominance of divinely given human law (as they see it) have kept them from developing politics beyond the clannish stage. Assad may be brutal at times, and he certainly does not play nicely with American politicians, but he may be the best possible man for the job. As I wrote in “Egyptian Woes” during the “Arab Spring,” sometimes we should root for the autocrats.

Being no democrat myself and noting the likelihood of what “freedom” would mean for Egyptians, I think that a regime change would be quite ugly. Secular Arab nationalism has been problematic for the West, but at least it held Communism and jihadism at bay. For the most part, Copts in Egypt and Christian minorities in Syria and in Ba’athist Iraq have enjoyed far more freedom and security than their coreligionists elsewhere in the Dar al-Islam. Arab dictatorships were never truly friends of Western nations, but they have been allies of common interest in various conflicts. After imperial European rule, secular Arab nationalist regimes might be the best that we can get in the Mohammedan Middle East. If Egypt’s regime topples, its replacement will be worse.

If Fr. Patrick’s depiction of Assad, Jr. is accurate—not that Fr. Patrick would obfuscate, but I mean if his impression matched reality rather than following from a false but well staged p.r. event—the Syrian people are quite blessed. Politics is the art of the possible, and practical measures always limit the beneficence of a regime. Kings would probably like to show mercy and compassion most of the time, but such soft measures often precede regicide. Unruly mobs require harsh treatment, but too heavy of a hand likewise leads to insurrection. To rule men is a perilous vocation. May the Syrian president rule wisely.

Posted by Joseph on Wednesday, October 19, Anno Domini 2011
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Wednesday, October 12, A.D. 2011

Leftist Pessimism

Reactionaries typify pessimism; we consistently and clearly see the timeful truth of the Latins’ sic transit gloria mundi. Leftists devote themselves to their delusions of progress; theirs is the lot of the optimist. It is humorous, therefore, to meet a radical Puddleglum, but that is what we find in an interview by Thomas Rogers on Salon: “How conservatism conquered America.” Rogers asked Corey Robin about his new book, The Reactionary Mind, wherein Robin notes that the American Right has won every battle that it has fought.

Now that you have cleaned up your spilt beverage and wiped the computer screen of splattered drink and saliva, let us ask how someone even as bonkers as an unreformed Marxist could state such. First, it is possible that Robin strategically lies in order to shift the balance of politics. The history of American politics for over a century has been a slide leftwards, which moves the centrist, moderate mainstream to the ideological area once occupied by the previous generation’s radicals. Leftists see such a movement as a necessary historical process, and conservatives have facilitated it through what View from the Right calls the Hegelian Mambo. There, Lawrence Auster notes:

. . . Since the left has become so extreme that it no longer supports national self-defense against our mortal enemies, conservatism has been reduced to the support of national self-defense against our mortal enemies. That which is not actively or passively treasonous is “conservative.”

The stated willingness of “conservatives” to abandon all conservative principles except for the principle of keeping ourselves alive is perhaps the greatest example so far of the Hegelian Mambo (a coinage invented by VFR participant Matt in this discussion, as a corollary of the Unprincipled Exception). In the Hegelian Mambo, as the left become more left, the right, in defining itself in opposition to the ever-more threatening extremism of the left, and not in terms of unchanging principles of its own, abandons its prior positions and moves ever further leftward itself. Thus, for example, at the rate we’re going on the life-style front, in ten years’ time a conservative will be a person who disapproves of sexual intercourse between humans and animals, and in fifteen years’ time a conservative will be a person who disapproves of marriage between humans and animals. The moderate position will be to support civil unions.

Robin could be following this well tread leftist path by calling the Right’s continual losses victories. Doublespeak and ceaseless deception help to maintain the illusion that the radicals have not been successfully transforming America for generations.

Second, it is possible that Robin speaks sincerely because he allows perfection to be the enemy of the good, or, more appropriately in this case, he allows his aim of social desolation to be the enemy of mere civilizational decline. The revolution that the Left has achieved pales in comparison to the Marxist utopia after which Robin and his ilk yearn. Therefore, in that we still have marriage, in that most Americans still cling to their “heteronormative” instincts, in that white people still breathe, we know that we have not yet reached the Promised Land. The Right has won, in Robin’s eyes, because Americans have not yet completely thrown off the shackles of natural law.

Third, ideologues thrive on struggle. They find meaning in the Great Fight. Robin might find it psychologically pleasant to imagine that his army is temporarily defeated, that his people are oppressed for the time, but that soon dawn will come again. As the Left privileges victims and the oppressed with special virtue, worth, and wisdom, relegating oneself to such status ever remains a temptation for the righteously self indulgent.

Fourth, success and power bring responsibility. If Robin admitted that his radical cohorts now controlled most of the government, the educational establishment, the non-governmental organizations, and the media, then he would have to ask why the happy times have not arrived. Leftist policies are ruinous, inhuman, and destructive; yet, Leftists always blame the problems that their ideas cause on their ideological enemies. They cannot learn.

Aside from Robin’s bizarre claim that conservatives have won their battles, the interview is interesting, and Robin freely exhibits the leftist drive for totalitarian control:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton famously asked why it is that these guys were so resistant to the franchise to women in the public realm. She argued it’s because they didn’t want to give up power in the home and I think she was absolutely right. There’s something about the intimacy of control in the private realm — the home and the workplace — that has always been central to conservatism. After the 2010 elections the first thing they did was to go after labor rights, and not just in Wisconsin. Something like the order of 35 states have some version of the Wisconsin plan. The Times just had a piece on the onslaught on reproductive rights, also in about 35 states.

The left as a whole segregates the issue of reproductive rights as if it’s separate. But it is absolutely critical and central to the conservative project because it is about man’s control over women in the home. Go back to the French revolution and Louis de Bonald, who is one of the great theoreticians of the counterrevolution — he was obsessed with the liberalization of divorce because he saw a connection between the emancipation in the family and of women and the whole revolutionary project.

Robin is absolutely correct that the issues are related; de Bonald had profound insights into the destruction that the Left would cause. Yet, Robin sees it in terms of competitive power. For him, there is no order, no proper spheres, no natural duties and responsibilities—simply Hobbesian war of all against all. Somehow, given this amoral and nihilistic outlook, the Left curiously privileges equality and then seeks to bring about the “justice” of equality in society.

Of course, conservatives who object to governmental intrusion into the private sphere do so because they stand against such justice; they want to keep their womenfolk in bondage, you see. Decent people obviously realize this, and that is why there is no good reason for the state not to intrude upon the private sphere in whatever manner appropriate to expand “social justice.”

This comes, without shame, from the folks who repeatedly whine that the state cannot legislate morality! It makes me ask whether Leftists are incorrigible liars or simply mad from their lifelong abuse of logic.

Posted by Joseph on Wednesday, October 12, Anno Domini 2011
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Wednesday, October 5, A.D. 2011

Leftist Self Mastery

Earlier in the week, a commentator on View from the Right expressed an insight that I really appreciated. The post, “The truth that liberalism prohibits, even as it exploits it,” concerned a reader’s puzzlement concerning leftist promotion of homosexual “marriage.” Another reader then provided the following gem (with Auster’s comments bracketed in bold, as is his custom):

S. writes:

. . . The liberal psychologist Jonathan Haidt has done fascinating research into the moral psychology of liberals and traditional conservatives. He acknowledges that even many liberals find homosexuality deeply repulsive. He claims that liberals typically react by assuming that they are the one with the problem, and that they need to overcome their “bigoted” reaction by repressing the natural reaction of disgust. They see this as virtuous because they are allowing their “rational” egalitarian impulses to overcome their “irrational” and “bigoted” moral impulses. I think this partly explains the recent push towards the normalization of ever more bizarre forms of sexual expression like transsexuality. The more disgusting some deviant behavior is, the more the liberal can practice the virtues of tolerance and non-discrimination by accepting and promoting it. If the behavior is truly perverse and revolting, it is a heroic act to tolerate it and accept it, an act of liberal supererogation, as it were. [LA replies: That’s a new variation on Auster’s First Law! Under liberalism, the more vile and perverted an act is, the more virtuous it is to tolerate it.]

In the traditional morality of virtue, one attempts to exercise control over one’s baser desires and animal passions. One eventually learns to tame these passions, thereby achieving the kind of self-mastery that is necessary for spiritual development. The liberal, on the other hand, achieves a different kind of self-mastery. He learns to control and suppress his natural moral passions, so that he can forge a society in which all people are free to indulge their baser desires without fear of social censure.

LA replies:

Excellent comment. It’s often been said that liberalism inverts traditional morality. You have shown more precisely how this is the case. The traditionalist, in order to become a better person, restrains his baser behaviors. The liberal, in order to become a better person, restrains his belief in morality.

S. replies (before he saw my bolded response to him making the same point):

This phenomenon dovetails nicely with your theory that in a liberal society, the worse a designated victim class behaves the more forbidden it is to criticize it. The more obvious it becomes that some minority group is transgressing the bounds of decency and morality, the more heroically virtuous it is to tolerate their transgressions and to punish those who speak the truth.

S. continues:

Come to think of it, this phenomenon may lend some measure of credence to Steve Sailer’s “status competition” theory of liberal insanity. In any group of people with shared values and norms, there will be ideas about virtue and vice. Those who most embody the virtues will have enhanced social standing. Hence, in liberal society, the more tolerant and permissive you are of vile and revolting behaviors, the more you distance yourself from the benighted non-liberal and the more you demonstrate your virtues to your peer. If you can accept even outrageous offenses against decency and nature, you are the liberal version of Aristotle’s great souled man, able to expect much and receive much.

S. demonstrates in this comment how a degenerate form of Kantian morality perverts human nature. From what I have witnessed of our upside down contemporary world, I believe that S. analyzes finely.

In case you were wondering about Auster’s First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society, you may wish to read “Clarifying the First Law.”

Posted by Joseph on Wednesday, October 5, Anno Domini 2011
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Tuesday, September 27, A.D. 2011

Moral Greed

On George Michalopulos’ site, Monomakhos, readers have been arguing about yet another confusing and boring topic involving ecclesial politics in the O.C.A. I sometimes attempt to follow these discussions for the interesting tangents that appear in the threads. Just so, comments in the recent post about Bishop Melchizedek referred to the Pokrov crew. Pokrov is a web site that publicizes accusations of clerical impropriety. It claims to be “a resource for survivors of abuse in the Orthodox Church.” Though such a ministry seems beneficial, the witch hunting tendencies of Pokrov remind me of the politically ambitious district attorneys who ginned up sexual abuse cases against the childcare industry decades ago in order to appear as protectors of the people. Commentator Helga wrote:

My experience of reading “Pokrov” is that they are attention-seekers who feed off of strife and upheaval. . . .

Also, Pokrov seems to glory in creating scandal where none exists . . .

My friend Andrew coined the condition that the Pokrov women suffer “moral greed.” It consists in eagerly anticipating scandal so that one may exercise outrage and disgust. For it is in railing against whatever abuse or “social injustice” the morally greedy encounter that they find their happiness and self actualization. It is Manicheism for the Lifetime Channel, though the fastidiousness of these righteous ones curiously only applies to a narrow spectrum of proper behavior. The hypocrisy and prelest of the Puritans of yore have been passed down to their post-Christian heirs who manifest that old hallowed sanctimony in The Vagina Monologues, Shantytowns, and P.E.T.A. antics. With Pokrov, it is not as bad. The Pokrovettes are more like Nancy Grace in a Russian shawl.

Lusting after power and prestige has often accompanied social reformers and crusaders for progress, from the Gracchi to that patchouli smelly girl on campus who refuses to shave her armpits lest she capitulate to the phallocracy. Whether these folks pander to the masses or score self righteous street cred among fellow radicals, many who claim to seek the betterment of mankind are simply competing for status and gain among their peculiar peers. Even a brief sojourn with leftist activists will teach you all that you need to know about the character type. True love of virtue and true charity for mankind are much rarer, and the bearers of such qualities typically improve the world without making their chief focus the shortcomings of everyone else.

There is obviously a need for muckraking in this fallen world, and the weak will always require champions on their behalf. However, there is a temptation that follows such good work, wherein one aquires a taste for righteous indignation and thereafter greedily sets off in search of offenses to fight and victims to protect. As such, we should be thankful for the good work that Pokrov has done. We must not tolerate clerical abuse. Consider the Roman Church’s problems from the past few generations; disease was allowed to fester, and the rot damaged many lives. A “watchdog” for clerical abuse performs a good service for the Church. However, the overreach and hysteria of Pokrov demonstrate that even well intentioned paths might lead to peril. There are predatory clerics, but there are also predatory laymen who realize what power they can wield through false accusations. Pokrov enthusiastically enables such folks, and their mission may have perverted them by making them hostile to traditional hierarchy and authority in the Church. They label Orthodox monasticism cultish, and they have whored themselves out to modernists who despise traditional Orthodox praxis and doctrine.

In the midst of those who truly labor for justice there is a mighty crowd of busybodies who have discovered a guise for their vice that earns them praise, respect, and money. Among them are mediocre, passive aggressive souls who nevertheless seek status and dominion over others. They lack the typical traits of leadership that result in such, but they have tasted a parasitic form of power by bringing down the exalted and proud. And they hunger for more. They are the high priestesses of slave morality.

Posted by Joseph on Tuesday, September 27, Anno Domini 2011
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Friday, September 23, A.D. 2011

Strokey the Penguin

We have long known that Washington is full of leftist idealogues, but I did not think that the current climate approached the peculiar depravity of the Clinton era. Even with all the anti-white racial Marxists in power, even granting the outré views of Obama’s appointments like Kevin Jennings, I did not expect to see the second coming of Joycelyn Elders. Lo, ChoiceUSA gives us Strokey the Penguin to excite support for new rules from the Department of Health and Human Services:

Read about Strokey in Roll Call, “Strokey for Safe Sex.”

Once, the Left was composed of Fabians, Bolsheviks, Progressives, and New Dealers. Now, we have Code Pink, Tinseltown ninnies, and the brilliant libertines behind Strokey’s funk. And still conservatives are unable to defend their civilization!

Posted by Joseph on Friday, September 23, Anno Domini 2011
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