Tag: Culture

CDXXXIX – What Year Is It?

I’m kind of a snob about not reading news. I’ll see some offhand remark about some worrying headline and I’ll slide over, put on sunglasses, say, “Oh yeah? I didn’t know cuz I DON’T READ THE NEWS” then I’ll pop confetti and run away.

This has been great for stopping me from worrying about silly things like Chinese Balloons, Political court cases, or climate change. It isn’t so great for things like the weather, local crime alerts, or having conversations with normal humans.

I do occasionally get accidental exposure to television. I was in the gym of all places today (yes, be on the lookout for a sweaty, frowning Scoot, residents of [my new state]!) and there are TV’s above the cardio section. A smattering of local news, Fox news, HGTV, true-crime dramas, and college sports were being broadcast.

I had this weird feeling like everything was reruns.

It’s not the first time I’ve had this feeling either. I was listening to the radio–there’s a catholic station [I] found–and it was broadcasting Catholic Answers Live, and there were live callers and Q&A and timely, topical questions and answers and discussions. For the life of me I couldn’t treat it as real. It was entertainment, my brain was processing it as if it was recorded weeks ago and rebroadcasting it now because some schmuck tuned in and they didn’t have anything else planned.

At the gym, it was the same: I couldn’t process anything that was on TV as a thing that was actually happening in real life. It was pre-recorded entertainment–all of it. Even the live TV.

I can’t quite put my finger on what it was about. Perhaps it’s a sign that I’m free–I’ve detoxed from television and now it feels alien and weird? Perhaps it’s a sign that I’m cynical–it feels like entertainment because it’s all scripted, even the news?

It doesn’t feel good though. It feels like the Truman Show. Like I am watching something that happened to someone else and they don’t realize they’re on TV. I feel like a time traveler. I feel like I don’t know what year it is. I want to ask people “When did this happen?”

I offer this for public comment or criticism.

AMDG

CDXXX – Utopia

Over at substack, there’s a writer I am following who writes, researches, and generally exudes enthusiasm for concepts of Utopia. I follow more for the “writing” angle than the “Utopia” angle, but nevertheless I have to deal with the one to get the other.

The writer recently shared a picture of a book cover, the book is called “Utopia for Realists” and has splash-highlights calling out “Open borders!” and “15 hours work week!” and “universal basic income!”

I don’t know how much of those splash-highlights are satirical or how much of those are treated as ideals to be sought after by utopian idealists. None of those things sound “realist” to me, but I am a curmudgeonly reactionary and these are the high-falutin’ dreams of strangers.

Nevertheless, if people actually want to make a better world, and actually think some of these things are ideals that would make the world better, then they are quite clearly missing a few things.

First–the whole idea of Utopia as a goal to be attained (“Utopia” is a stand-in for “heaven” for atheistic post-modern liberals) begs the question in favor of cultural homogeneity. Look at Europe and the European Union–their common currency is wildly unstable and politically polarizing. It requires a monstrous bureaucracy to maintain it and the bureaucrats have done a terrible job because their goal has been to grow it and not keep it strong.

Second–uneven distribution of resources, wealth, culture, infrastructure, etc needs to be addressed. Utopia begs the question in favor of even distribution of all of these things, because in a Utopia people need to stay where they are. But it stands to reason that people who live in corrugated tin shacks with no running water on dirt roads will seek to migrate to places that have well constructed housing with internal plumbing on paved roads. When people migrate, especially en masse, it unduly burdens the people residing in the recipient location. Even if we suppose the recipient population was philosophically willing to receive a mass migration, the infrastructure must be scaled to support them before they arrive because it will become much more difficult to scale and maintain infrastructure after they arrive.

The bottom line here–I don’t want to do a point by point takedown, the idea is patently ridiculous–is that idolization of Utopia misses the dirty, unpleasant, unwashed side of human nature and presupposes that a sufficiently large population of culturally homogenous people will be able to create a self sustaining paradise.

I know I’ve written about Scootland and that might seem like my own version of Utopia–but at least in my version I am doing my best not to beg too many questions. It is and will always be a thought experiment. Utopians are looking for a stand-in for Heaven, and on this side of the Eschaton they will be woefully disappointed.

AMDG

CDXXVI – Citizenship, Immigration, and Culture

More Adventures in Scootland

I discussed Citizenship previously with the aim of thinking about how lay-folk participate in government, and to what extent. Now, I want to think about Citizenship in the context of culture.

Citizens have an obligation–one they can’t help but fulfill–to immerse themselves in their nations culture. One of the challenges of America is that there is no ubiquitous culture, but there is a coalition of lots of little cultures all trying to make peace in a shared legal framework. It occasionally flares up but is mostly peaceful in most parts of the country due to the social forces of politeness.

In Scootland, it is imperative that Citizens appreciate their native culture, and that there is some mechanism for educating citizens about that culture. You can’t love something you don’t know, so it would be important for there to be celebrations for cultural features of state that are distinct from religious feasts which are celebrated for religious reasons.

A cultural tradition is something that you come to love because you’ve done it, your parents have done it, your grandparents have done it–it gives continuity between your present and your past, all under the loving umbrella of your people. It creates also bonds of fellowship between fellow citizens. In the Philippines, there are neighborhood and City celebrations for the “feast day” of that neighborhood or city. These are a distinctly religious feast–if your neighborhood was founded on the feast of St. John the Baptist, then the celebration would center around some devotion to St. John the Baptist–but the whole neighborhood or city comes out for the celebration. It is an excuse to party, but also to thank God and ask for the intercession of the patron saint.

Immigration

Because Scootland is a Catholic Monarchy under the Pope, it is of utmost importance that all citizens are Catholic as well. This should be compulsory, but not without catechesis. The Church is, after all, responsible for education in Scootland, so there is no way you could get away with avoiding the influence of the Church. Immigrants would have to be Catholic or willing to become Catholic before naturalization. The common faith helps bind the common culture of Scootland. Naturalization would take place in the context of a Mass, and perhaps once the Mass is complete would involve an oath of fidelity, service, and obedience to the Monarch, but also a reciprocal promise of fidelity, service, and custodial care from the Monarch. It would be cool if naturalization services take place once per year and are attended by the King for this purpose.

There are many reasons why one may need to issue Visas for temporary visitors. Visitors would need to affirm that none of their actions during their stay undermined the King or his subjects; visitors would need to stay for some specific purpose and then leave.

Emmigration would be an equally serious thing. It would require renouncing ones oath of fidelity to the King of Scootland, which is required to be removed from tax rolls and draft-eligibility records. Essentially, if you move to another country and fail to close the loop on your oath of fidelity to the Sovereign of Scootland, you are still technically considered a lapsed citizen. Renouncing the oath must be done in person before a Judge or other magistrate, so there’s a bit of a humiliation factor there as well. I want to make it painful to formally leave Scootland. Then you are relieved of your oath and must depart with all haste. If you want to return, I am sure there is some way to rub your nose in it a little more, without outright rejecting you. Perhaps there’s an “oath breakers tax” that can be paid so that former citizens can return and “reconcile” with the King.

This is a lot of minutiae but I think it illustrates that citizenship is a sign of both a duty to the King and a sign of having received the care and protection of the King. These are not things lightly put away, nor lightly taken up. Treating citizenship seriously also helps instill a sense of importance about the culture one is entering, and hopefully creates a desire to immerse oneself in that culture and internalize it as ones own.

AMDG

CCCLXIV – Cool Story, Bro

Or, 10 Rules for the Catholic Reactionary

All this stuff with the society of Scootland is interesting but I’ve said here and elsewhere that I’m not going to suggest we advocate for Monarchy, so what is the point of all this? What can we take away and bring with us to real life?

  1. Don’t Vote
    • Secede from Liberalism, stop voting. Help change the culture to one centered on virtuous values and truth, rather than performative political gestures and populism.
  2. Advocate for a Just system of taxation
    • Taxation can be evaluated by mechanism, by amount, and by calculation method. Advocate for justice in all three.
  3. Respect & Obey Authority
    • Zippy: Obedience is Voluntary. Obedience is Mandatory. Both/and, not either/or.
  4. Live imaginatively in your home, and serve your community with the intent of bringing your imaginings to reality.
    • Love your country and your community and see the good and seek to emphasize the good, true, and beautiful.
  5. If you have land, use it productively
    • Self sufficiency is always good and always cheap. Do what you can to use your land productively.
  6. As a matter of self mastery and self improvement, seek training in defense. Be a defender to your household, and a defender to your community.
    • It’s just a good thing to do. Be useful, and be a protector of justice. God willing you won’t need to fight for Justice, but be ready just in case.
  7. Write letters to your representatives
    • This is actually probably better than voting. It is direct, personal association with leaders and allows you to represent your ideas to them. They may never read it but if you want to do something, that is a perfectly valid thing to do for a politically aware reactionary who doesn’t want to content himself with merely not voting.
  8. Be involved in your children’s formation in religion, politics, and all areas of education
    • If practicable, send your children to the parish school, do not send them to public schools. Be involved in your parish and in bringing the best out of your parish.
      • If you don’t like your parish, then change your parish.
  9. Understand Tradition, ritual, and precedent, and bring those things into your home, bring them (if they are not already abundant) into your parish.
    • These things give a certain predictable regularity to life and become joyful milestones everyone looks forward to.
  10. Consume the cultural output from your culture and avoid the cultural output that is contrary to your culture.
    • We are talking about political or religious culture first and foremost. If you want to read the news, read news that is biased the way you are biased. Look at art that promotes your culture, read books that share your values. Understand that variations of these exist that seek to undermine your culture and it is best for your good and the good of your household to censor things that are contrary to your values.

AMDG

CCCLXI – Addressing Some Open Questions

In our previous article, where we introduced a conceptual social model under the framework of the fictional kingdom of Scootland, there were some questions which were open and which were raised by commenter David the Barbarian. Let’s tackle some of them.

Question 1: What happens to the Suburbs?

To answer this, let’s try and understand why suburbs exist today. Suburbs exist around cities, and generally are oriented towards cities. Cities contain jobs, suburbs contain people, and transit allows the people to get to the jobs in a reasonable amount of time. The suburbs allow for people to own a decent sized plot of land yet still have all the convenience and benefits of city life. Suburbs are only possible in areas that do not use the land itself for income (as in the Rurlands), and are only possible where transit is achievable to and from the City. That is to say, there is some distance from the city beyond which the commute is impractical and within which it is more profitable for developers to build homes than to work the land.

David’s comment says:

The distinction between Urban and Rural is very mixed up, turned upside down in some ways, in our time. Traditionally, the rural estate, from the crofter to the plantation, is a mini-city, a great deal of its goods are produced by itself. The monocultural agro-business and the suburb are mostly a product of technology, as well as social and economic factors, of modernity.

So, what I now see this thought experiment as affecting is making suburbs, exurbs and ruralish areas much more urban and rural in different ways. They would have to be more compact and more self-sufficient. The commuter town would just not work. That all would probably be more good than bad.

The incentives in the Rurlands are for self sufficiency and efficient land use. Because the Land Tax penalizes acreage, the priority in the Rurlands is to get bang-for-your-buck. If you can provide for all your necessities, and do so cheaply, then you won’t need to compound your tax burden with sales tax, and you could even multiply your income by selling the surplus of goods you provision for yourself.

The incentives in the Cities are for income maximization per acre, because the Sales tax penalizes economic activity. If you can build a high quality, low maintenance apartment building, you will earn more income than you pay in taxes both Land and Sales. Commercial properties would likewise want to maximize inventories available for sale to people, and the service economy would want to maximize revenue-generating employment per acre.

So lets say I am a citizen of Scootland and I have a white collar service job near the city but I don’t want to live in the city.

The land use outside of the city would not be efficient because it would not be producing anything from the land; neither would it be income maximizing for anyone but the banks in the form of mortgages, but again the ideal use per acre is for multi-story high density housing or low cost high inventory commercial real estate. So Suburbs just would not be an efficient use per this tax structure, not to say they wouldn’t exist but they would be much smaller.

Edit: It just occurred to me that we would get a series of wealthy countryside villas, because only the wealthy would be able to afford land that doesn’t need to be worked, and they could build a nice and/or luxurious compound on a small enough plot to get recreational use out of it. This mirrors what I believe we saw in the ancient times.

This introduces another problem I hadn’t thought about, so let’s look at that next.

Question 2: Roads and Highways

The incentives in both the Rurlands and the Cities are essentially income maximization per Acre, but using different methods. The Rurlands method is maximizing income by self sufficiency; the Cities method is maximizing income by density. Surface Area becomes a hot commodity to the sovereign–the Sovereign’s goal is maximizing tax revenue generating surface area of his Kingdom. So let’s look at roads and highways for a moment.

  • They are expensive to maintain
  • They consume a lot of surface area
  • They increase the efficiency of transit between the Cities and the Rurlands.

To put it briefly: Roads present a tradeoff between the movement and sale of goods within the kingdom and income generating surface area.

To my mind this tradeoff incentivizes highways between population centers and is another mark against suburbs, because suburbs consume a lot of surface area without being self sufficient or income generating. We would end up with a system of villages oriented around specific economic activities and highways between them stretching over undeveloped commons. You want quick and efficient transit and you don’t really want a sprawling road system–you just want to get people and goods quickly and easily from point A to point B.

Question 3: Military and The King’s Peace

I decided to combine considerations of national defense and domestic peace enforcement. The King ought to have a small professional army deployable immediately in case of an invading, aggressive neighbor, but it ought to remain small. the domestic peace enforcers would serve as the next line–trained for combat but deployed to keep the King’s Peace within the national borders. They would be deputized by the Sovereign and be charged with ensuring peace and apprehending people who violate that peace until the Justice system can evaluate their case. In times of military crisis they would be deployed with the army.

The third line would be a pool of volunteers, like the national guard, who train periodically but are otherwise considered civilians. The fourth line would be drafting military age men, let’s call these Irregulars. To reiterate:

  • Small professional army, sized appropriately to effectively mitigate risks of immediate military danger.
  • Modest force of law enforcers, whose immediate priority is the King’s Peace but as martial men are also prepared for national defense.
  • A substantial force of Volunteers, who train periodically for some term but are otherwise considered civilians.
  • A huge pool of irregulars: military-age, able bodied, civilian men who are draftable in times of crisis, but not otherwise engaged in military activity.

The sovereign’s responsibility would be to avoid deploying them aggressively, as unjustified use of the populace would be immediately unpleasant to all the subjects; and to keep this military pool large enough to deter aggressive neighbors.

Law enforcement would be funded locally as much as possible, and it would be the responsibility of the Nobles to ensure they are well staffed and supplied. It would be the responsibility of the Sovereign to ensure law enforcers and national-guard volunteers are trained and equipped for combat if necessary.

Question 4: Education & Universities

I like the idea of education being an ecclesiastical responsibility. This ensures that education is linked to the search for truth and that science, rhetoric, history, are all validly joined as aspects of God’s creation. There would already be a Church in every town and village, so why not include parochial schools as part of that? Tithes both from subjects and from the Sovereign (The sovereign being subject to the Church and not in competition with it) would fund pastoral duties as well as parochial schools.

Advanced studies would take three different tracks: Professional/Vocational schools, Seminaries, and Philosophical universities. Professional/Vocational schools would train students for work in a trade, in a profession, in a service, whichever. I went to school for Accounting, I would have gone to a professional school for accounting. Seminaries obviously would train both Priests and teachers. Philosophical universities would be for the truly advanced and learned men and women who are studying and advancing the search for truth. Seminaries would be funded by the Tithe, Professional and Vocational schools would be funded by private tuition and professional sponsorships/apprenticeships, and Universities would be something of a patronage model, like the arts. A learned man would receive a patronage to conduct his studies at a place of learning in some quest for truth. The patronage would pay for his necessities and a fee to the university to allow him to live there and access the academic resources of the university.

Question 5: International Trade

We’ve already built out a model for this, somewhat. The policy would be that products would not be permitted to leave the country so long as some domestic need is unmet. For example, if there are starving people anywhere in the country, the King would not permit exporting food. If there was a lumber shortage in one part of the country, we would not export lumber from another. Exporting is for surplus after needs are met.

Foreign investment would be tightly controlled as well. Again–foreign companies wanting to manufacture goods would not be able to export raw materials–raw materials would never be exported, because they must be used to serve domestic needs first. Neither could manufactured goods be directly exported unless domestic demand for them was fully satisfied. Effectively, anything produced and extracted, all economic activity, would be geared first towards satisfying domestic needs, and then be permitted to exit the country. It is the failure of this that leads to a permanent third world and exploitation of resources and workers in other countries. No matter what riches are offered, the most prudent thing is always to ensure domestic needs are met first. This creates an incentive in foreign nations and in domestic manufacturers to ensure domestic needs are met so that they can export to their hearts content.

Importing foreign goods would only be to supplement unmet demand internally. If population exceeds food supply, for example, we would need to import food, but we would not import food after the food supply caught up, because then the cheap import would serve as a disincentive for domestic production. This system would be balanced with tariffs.

That’s all for now. What else did I miss? In the next installment I think I am going to start exploring defects in the system using other states to illustrate when things don’t work according to the ideal.

AMDG

CCCLX – The Commons, Feudalism, and Psychogeography

Property Taxes as a subject lies tangent to so many interesting areas. So let’s build a model here and include as much of it as we can.

We have to start with a country. Let’s call it Scootland, which is an island nation. It is proximate to Hambonia, Orthonesia, and Zippia–in case I need other examples.

Scootland is a Kingdom, with King Scoot on the Throne. This is basic context, we are going to turn now to the bottomest level and work up and see how that looks.

There are three kinds of land areas in Scootland. There’s the Cities, which are marked by high populations, dense construction, lots of economic activity and domestic and international trade. There’s the Rurlands (I don’t know a better term for Rural areas that is as succinct as the word City), which are marked by low, dispersed populations, agrarian economies and domestic trade. Lastly, there’s the Commons–undeveloped land that is rich in natural resources but the development of which includes certain challenges, challenges which include the development costs, clearing the land, accessing the natural resources; but some geographical challenges, like deserts or mountains or other obstacles. The Commons are available but in some cases not easy to develop.

The people of Scootland have birthright citizenship, but Scootland as a Kingdom follows a feudal model. Scootland is divided into Duchies which are administered by Dukes, Counties which are administered by Counts, and Baronies which are administered by Barons. Any political division smaller than a Barony is organized locally and follows locally defined rules. Each level of the Feudal system owes a duty of fealty to the level above, and a duty of custodial care to the subjects below. To be clear, Dukes and Counts do not have nothing to do, they each have a demesne to personally administer, but the rest of the territory is delegated to a subordinate noble.

Each Duchy includes all three types of land areas: City, Rurland, and Common, in varying proportion.

Question 1: Can we enclose the Commons?

The proposal I have seen approaches this topic a different way, so let’s provide some background. The Commons, you have heard from the oft-invoked “Tragedy of the Commons”. The Tragedy of the commons is the idea that there is unowned communal property and if everyone exploits it in self interest then the commons is degraded and unproductive for everyone involved. Enclosing the commons involves essentially ending the concept of the commons. It is no longer communal property and so can no longer be exploited for self interest. The commons becomes assigned. The proposal linked above effectuates this assignment by the use of corporate style shares. It gives the public responsibility for and custodianship of the commons, which incentivizes it’s careful use.

Scootland is a Kingdom, and the whole realm is the personal demesne of the King, delegated in part to the Duchies and other feudal hierarchs. Because the whole realm is subject to the King, there’s no need to enclose the Commons, it is already assigned–assigned to the Sovereign. The sovereign can delegate the commons to a subject for any reason, but there is no need for a special mechanism. Kristor’s proposal leverages Corporate structures, but as I pointed out to David the Barbarian in a comment on my previous article, the language of Shares implies a level of authority and control greater than mere ownership. The analogy is that if you own 51% of the shares of a company, you own the company; if you own 51% of the land area of the Kingdom, you are still subject to the Sovereign.

Question 2: How does the Sovereign provide for the needs of the Kingdom?

Taxes. There are two kinds of tax. The first tax is a Land tax, apportioned at some number of Scootbucks per Acre. It is the same for all land, regardless of type, productivity, level of improvement. The tax represents a rent–an acknowledgement that this land is delegated to me via ownership from the King. However, the Land Tax disproportionately affects the residents of the Rurlands, because their homesteads and farms are on the main a greater area than any given property in the Cities. This is offset by a flat Sales tax. The Sales tax applies the same rate to all sales transactions. This means that a property owner in a City will have one acre but build a 10 story apartment building. This owner will pay very little in Land Tax, but operating an apartment building is expensive work and so will pay proportionately more in Sales taxes on all of his transactions. A homesteader in the Rurlands will pay far more in Land Tax, but as a homesteader will be very self sufficient and need to pay very little in Sales Tax. These two taxes should be balanced against each other.

These two taxes provide a steady stream of income to the King, who can then use them to manage the budget, provide public projects, and have a standing army.

Question 3: What about local taxes from the Feudal Hierarchy?

All taxes would be collected at the most local level, and passed up the chain, each level taking a bite of the apple to fund their administrative budgets. A Baron would collect taxes directly, and pass some proportion (the majority) up to the Count, who would take some and pass some proportion (the majority) up to the Duke, who would take some and pass some proportion (the majority) up to the King. Everyone gets a cut, but always the lions share goes to the King.

Question 4: Why is a Feudal Hierarchy necessary?

Because the chain of authority is clearer and the responsibility for the deeds (or misdeeds) of government is more apparent. This is the benefit of a King, and so it makes sense that Delegations from the King would follow the same model.

What’s that word “Psychogeography”?

I read an article on Substack that introduced me to the concept and I immediately saw a connection to these ideas of Commons and Feudalism. It’ll be a bit of a walk, so bear with me. The article quotes this, in answer to the question “Why does no one ever notice [that Glasgow is a magnificent city]?”

‘Because nobody imagines living here…think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he’s already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn’t been used by an artist not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively.’

The key idea I want to take away here is “living there imaginatively”. This idea is tangent to but not the same as patriotism. The peasant, noble, and sovereign all must equally love the land and imagine themselves creating it into the best version of the country they love. The nation everyone loves lives in the collective imagination of the people; it is distinct from the nation everyone sees and the collective imagination blinds people to the reality they see. Because they see potential, even through the actual.

The Sovereign must love his country and imaginatively occupy it and see the consequences of his actions as taking reality closer to the beautiful imaginings. The Nobles and the peasants must do the same. That also ensures the effective exploitation of the commons.

So how do you incentivize this imaginative occupation of the kingdom? In one sense, by rituals and culture; in another sense by social checks and balances (social, not governmental); in a final sense by faith in God and an understanding that the beauty, goodness, and truth of the kingdom comes from God–it is borrowed, which makes us take better care of it.

Question 5: What are social checks and balances?

These are the social customs that control behavior. We’ve talked about how “politeness” precedes law, and this idea of social checks and balances taps into that. Social mores ensure stability between subjects and neighbors, but it is threats of conflict and tension that help ensure the Sovereign behaves properly and the people stay in line. The Sovereign has the advantage of authority, the people have the advantage of numbers. The Sovereign wants to keep the people happy, and if the Sovereign behaves badly then the people will be angry and want to hold the Sovereign accountable. If the people are behaving out of line then the Sovereign ought to bring a just and moderate exercise of authority to bear and restore order. It is a challenging balance but essential for an orderly society. It begins with a common understanding of social mores.

Question 6: Doesn’t all this sound pretty idealistic?

Yes, absolutely. Reality includes lots of variables and human behavior is very unpredictable. Controlling for multigenerational nobility and transfers of power, controlling for the political inclinations of humans and the quest for power, it is all very difficult. These do not represent a complete model for society, nor does it represent a proposal for our present society. The idea of all this is to explore the intersection of different ideas we have developed and to see how they work together. We aren’t developing a policy proposal, but a coherent model for how such a thing could work.

I’m going to leave this off here, because this is an expansive article that covers a lot of ground. Let me know what you think! I’m enjoying developing these thought experiments.

AMDG

CCCLI – Ritual Politics & The Peasant

Let’s talk about Ritual. Ritual here is a culturally important action which is bound up in ceremony, habit, and performance.

The important elements then are:

  • Cultural Importance – things that are not culturally important are not preserved in ritual
  • Ceremony – things that are rituals are surrounded with pomp and circumstance befitting a culturally important matter
  • Periodicity – rituals are observed at prescribed times of year
  • Performance – rituals are performative, proper observance of rituals are pleasing to the public and give the performer a pleasing association in the eyes of the public.

Liturgy is a description of Catholic rituals. Liturgy is culturally important because it pertains to worship of God; Liturgy is Ceremonial because it is surrounded with pomp and circumstance appropriate for worship; Liturgy is periodical because it happens every Sunday (every day even), with grander and more expansive liturgies reserved for grander holy days; Liturgy is performative because priests must perform the liturgy properly to afford proper worship to God, and a “good priest” is one who gives due respect to God through his liturgical performance.

This is a very antiseptic way of describing Catholic rituals, but you get the point, I hope.

There are political rituals as well. You know some of them as cliches: The Mayor holding big scissors at a ribbon cutting ceremony; the “breaking ground” ceremony where men in clean suits step on a shovel in a patch of pre-turned earth. Inaugurations of Presidents are highly ritualized political events.

There are two kinds of rituals, political or otherwise: Vain, and Purposeful rituals. Purposeful rituals fulfill some purpose and have some definite reason for existing. Mass is an act of worship, and so is a very purposeful ritual. The ritual helps to lend some universality to the Mass, so that one can go anywhere in the world and still recognize the elements of the Mass. Vain ritual has a purpose that satisfies the performer, rather than the people. The ribbon cutting ceremony is for the publicity of the Mayor, not for the edification of the people. He wishes to be seen doing things in public, so he obliges the ritual for his own purposes, not for any real public purpose.

In my previous article, I assert that voting is a ritual observance in America.

  • It is culturally important that people vote, people call it a “civic duty”
  • It is wrapped up in ceremony–the private act in the ballot box and the grand results parties for the politicians in question
  • It is periodic, happens in November every year, with a major ritual happening every 2-4 years.
  • It is performative, in that the act of voting has very little in the way of practical effect but it makes us feel good to wear an “I voted” sticker, and offers legitimacy to the politician who ends up winning the vote.

In the previous article, I leave essentially unanswered the question of why we should not vote, because I offered that politics is a tool at the disposal of the modern peasant.

In that article, we broke the practice of politics into three categories: Theory, Practice, and Ritual. Political practice involves two subdivisions: Governance and Plebiscite. Governance means the decision making actions of an individual in carrying out the duties required by the office he is elected into. Plebiscite means the decision making actions of a mass of people in answering questions put to them by the Governors. This includes questions such as “who should my successor be?” or “should we raise taxes in 10 years or now?” or “should moral degeneracy be legal or not?”

Let’s imagine ourselves as a peasant and consider all five aspects of politics then.

Ritual – A peasant must be aware of the rituals and customs associated with a people. This awareness helps him to cultivate his livelihood. But a peasant must be extremely selective about which rituals he participates in. The rituals we participate in reflects us and reflects what we consider important. It is impossible to cast a vote dispassionately–the ritual of voting inextricably ties us to the outcome of the vote, and even if we want to be dispassionate, we have not acted in a way that is dispassionate, and involvement in politics will become a priority to us. Likewise, participation in the Mass inextricably ties us to the worship of God. It is impossible to attend Mass, whether receiving Eucharist or not, and not become involved in Worship. Repeated involvement in the Mass will inevitably become a priority to us. Remember, a peasant has three projects: Spiritual, Personal, and Communal, in that order. If a given ritual helps the community but does not help the spirit, it should be avoided. Voting, then, should be avoided because it is a chiefly communal act but it is deleterious to our spirit.

Plebiscite – A peasant must be aware of the decisions being put up to plebiscite, but must not participate in it. A peasant’s chief focus should be his three projects, and the Plebiscite does not fall under his domain unless the peasant is in the position of authority. An authoritative peasant must be aware of the decisions too but has an obligation to exercise his authority in justice. It is exceedingly difficult for a peasant to remain a peasant when in a position of power in a liberal society; the exercises of authority are much blurrier. So while I would discourage a peasant from seeking power, a person in power may seek to do so with justice and a peasantly outlook, at which point he must simply be very careful.

Governance – A peasant typically would not even be aware of political acts of governance, but again supposing a peasant was in a position of authority, these acts are simpler and easier to understand how to carry them out in conformity with the spiritual project of the peasant. Authoritative peasants have a duty to act morally and for the custodial good of their subjects, and political acts of governance must be evaluated with this foremost in mind.

Theory – A peasant, regardless of position or project, has little need for political theory, unless such an education aids the pursuit of his projects. An authoritative peasant may need to understand how people think in masses and how to leverage that for the success of some just and good act of governance. It is exceedingly difficult but not impossible. A non-powerful peasant shouldn’t need to know the difference as long as he understands the duty to obey authority and act morally.

You see how democracy makes the life of a peasant more challenging? Politics introduces complications and obstacles to a simple, spiritual, peasantly life.

AMDG

CCCXLIX – Complicating The Model For Peasantly Life

Thank you, everyone, for reading, and for commenting. I love throwing ideas around and I especially love when you make points that broaden my view. David the Barbarian, in my previous post, added some great clarifications that inspired me to connect some dots with ideas we have already explored.

Let’s dig in.

David makes two points in his comment which stick out to me and, to me, go together:

(…) proper care, in addition to proper attitude and proper attention to higher things, is as warranted as working for our daily bread. (…) Everyone, even the peasant, has a part in the sustaining of the city’s continuance, part of which is politics.

I am going to go off the path for a minute but follow me and you’ll see how it connects, I hope, by the end of this.

There are three projects for a peasant, and there are three positions a peasant can find himself in.

A peasant’s three projects are:

  • Spiritual
  • Personal
  • Communal

The spiritual project of a peasant is primary–it is his union with God, his connection to the sacraments. The peasant is and ought to be chiefly worried about his soul, all other concerns come second.

The personal project of a peasant pertains to his livelihood. He must provide for his necessities, put food on the table, clothe himself and his family, provide a shelter for himself and his family. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs kind of stuff.

The communal project of a peasant pertains to his community. I have often ignored this because I treated it as a given, but it is worth discussing specifically and clearly to avoid confusion. A peasant is a part of a community. This could mean a parish, could mean a town, what-have-you. A peasant has a duty to that community to help it to provide for its members and to help the community as a whole flourish. If a peasant’s needs are met, he goes to the community to make sure the needs of the community are met.

And his three positions are:

  • Isolated
  • Populated
  • Powerful

The isolated position is what I have kept in my mind the most–this is the classic image of the remote farmer peasant, far from society and self reliant.

The populated position is the idea of a city-peasant. Peasant life is an attitude towards living, not necessarily a specific work. A city-street-side baker can be a peasant if he focuses on his three projects the same way as an isolated farmer does.

The powerful position is the idea of a peasant in a position of authority. A King can be a peasant–but it can be more difficult with the level of authority. As a King, your family is just bigger–it is a family of subjects, you must provide for their necessities and aid their progress in their spiritual project. The higher the authority the greater the responsibility.

David helpfully offers a distinction for when we talk about politics. We have political theory that governs, shall we say, the philosophy of politics. And we have practical politics, that governs naturally the practice. Political theory is the domain of political philosophers, thinkers who try to understand how and why people behave the way they do. Political practice is the domain of politicians, responsible for the facts of governance.

There’s a third aspect to this, which occurred to me as I was jotting down notes. There is a ritual component to politics–customs, ceremonies, etc. This is like cultural politics. You have to know who to bow to, who to shake hands with, who to smile at. Cultural politics varies by population and locality.

A peasant (regardless of position) needs to have fluency in cultural politics, awareness of practical politics, and does not need a deep study of theoretical politics. Cultural politics will allow a peasant to make connections, sell wares, are provide for his livelihood. The rituals and customs between the rural society and the urban society are important for the peasant to know. Awareness of practical politics is just an awareness that it happens, but a peasant need not participate in it.

A point tangent to this is that political participation itself can be a ritual or custom, kind of like how voting has become a ritual for us here in America. It is serving a cultural and ritual role, rather than a positive, pragmatic effect. This is why so many people have a hard time with not voting, and why the idea is so mind boggling and repugnant. It’s a cultural idiom of America, one of the few that all Americans share in common. Choosing not to vote is a rejection of that cultural idiom, but which satisfies a pragmatic understanding of practical politics. Choosing not to vote is changing the culture of ourselves and those around us.

So we cannot conceive of a peasant independent of the city. Even if a peasant’s position is isolated, it is just primarily isolated, not exclusively. Interaction with the city is a necessity for an isolated peasant, just as interaction with the farmers is a necessity for the populated peasant, and interaction with both is necessary for the powerful peasant.

Now the question becomes, what is the proper order of things?

As David says, everyone has a role to play in sustaining the city, this is part of the communal project of a peasant. I think cultural politics helps us to zero in a bit closer to the proper order of how a peasant relates to the political apparatus. The political apparatus is a means to the peasants ends, which are first spiritual and second personal and third communal. Cultural politics is then the first recourse of the peasant, practical politics is then second, and if absolutely necessary theoretical politics is the last resort. This because a peasant shouldn’t need to know the nuances of the Hegelian Mambo to work a crop or sell baked goods, but if somehow it gets to the point that not understanding the Hegelian mambo is preventing the peasant from satisfying his projects, then he has to understand it.

So I am not offering any specific action or rules of thumb, but I am offering that politics is a tool which can be turned to the advantage of the peasant.

“So why shouldn’t we vote? Voting helps us make sure we are protected and looked out for!”

Because voting as an act interferes with and is detrimental to the spiritual project. A peasant should not seek power for the same reason, but if he finds himself as a community leader he should remember that it changes his position.

I think probably further clarification is needed on this nuance of the topic but I covered a lot of ground so let’s let fly this post and solicit feedback.

God bless you all!

AMDG

(i) – How to Change the Culture

Step 1– Unite yourself unfailingly to Truth

Step 2 – Get married, have lots of kids, teach them to do the same

Step 3 – Wait 500 Years

A lot of people have a problem with #1, because defining truth is hard because truth by definition excludes untruth.

A lot of people have a problem with #2, because transmitting information across generations is difficult. Leading by example is difficult, even for well intended and well formed people. This step is hard work.

Another problem people have with #2 is that there is an inordinate focus on other people and what they are doing that we don’t like. We can’t change other people, focusing on other people will only lead to frustration.

A lot of people have a problem with #3, because they want to see change in their lifetimes. An advantage the Chinese have, culturally, is a long cultural memory. They feel an intimate connection with a history dating back thousands of years. That is unfathomable for most Americans, and even many Europeans have been intentionally debasing their culture to erode the connection with their deep antiquity. But it’s an advantage because it allows for patience. Don’t try and force a solution through. You have to be OK with losing now and have that ironclad commitment to imbuing your offspring with the same union to truth and the same long view.

These are the basic ingredients for changing a culture. Any deviation requires an asterisk or two: How to change *other people’s Culture *In our lifetimes.

AMDG