Tag: Don Colacho

CCCVII – Harsh Doctrines

A harsh doctrine practiced with kindness: this is not a formula for hypocrisy, but the secret of all ancient, rich, and mature civilizations.
-Nicolás Gómez Dávila (Don Colacho)

48 I am the bread of life. (…) 52 If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.

53 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. 55 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. 56 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.(…) 59 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.

60 These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum. 61 Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it?

62 But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you? (…) 64 It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life. 65 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that would betray him. 66 And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.

67 After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him.
– John 6:48-67

18:20 And the Lord said: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha is multiplied, and their sin is become exceedingly grievous. 22 (…) but Abraham as yet stood before the Lord. 23 And drawing nigh he said: Wilt thou destroy the just with the wicked? 24 If there be fifty just men in the city, shall they perish withal? and wilt thou not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just, if they be therein?

(…) 26 And the Lord said to him: If I find in Sodom fifty just within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.

(…) 31 Seeing, saith he, I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord. What if twenty be found there? He said: I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.

32 I beseech thee, saith he, be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more: What if ten should be found there? And he said: I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.

19:24 And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. 25 And he destroyed these cities, and all the country about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all things that spring from the earth. 27 And Abraham got up early in the morning and in the place where he had stood before with the Lord, 28 He looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha, and the whole land of that country: and he saw the ashes rise up from the earth as the smoke of a furnace.

29 Now when God destroyed the cities of that country, remembering Abraham, he delivered Lot out of the destruction of the cities wherein he had dwelt.
–Genesis 18:20 to 19:29

7 But increase you and multiply, and go upon the earth, and fill it.

8 Thus also said God to Noe, and to his sons with him, 9 Behold I will establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you: 10 And with every living soul that is with you, as well in all birds as in cattle and beasts of the earth, that are come forth out of the ark, and in all the beasts of the earth. 11 I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall be no more destroyed with the waters of a flood, neither shall there be from henceforth a flood to waste the earth. 12 And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I give between me and you, and to every living soul that is with you, for perpetual generations. 13 I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me, and between the earth. 14 And when I shall cover the sky with clouds, my bow shall appear in the clouds: 15 And I will remember my covenant with you, and with every living soul that beareth flesh: and there shall no more be waters of a flood to destroy all flesh.
–Genesis 9:7-15

14. Certainly many remarkable authors, adherents of the true philosophy, have taken pains to attack and crush this strange view. But the matter is so self-evident that it is superfluous to give additional arguments. It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth Itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members. For we have a surer word of the prophet, and in writing to you We speak wisdom among the perfect; not the wisdom of this world but the wisdom of God in a mystery. By it we are taught, and by divine faith we hold one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and that no other name under heaven is given to men except the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth in which we must be saved. This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church.
–Ubi Primum, Pope Leo XII, 1824

AMDG

(Previously)

CXXXIX – Rights or Sovereignty

Either man has rights, or the people is sovereign. The simultaneous assertion of two mutually exclusive theses is what people have called liberalism.

Don Colacho

This probably seems somewhat irrelevant now, in the aftermath of Coronavirus. As Bonald so clearly put it, we’re fighting a dead beast, and uncontroversially so. Nevertheless, the timeless wisdom of Don Colacho is not to be ignored, so lets explore this idea a little bit.

Left is Right and Right is Wrong

We’ve talked about Rights before so lets recap. In the United States, the public treat Rights as something we have and which the government cannot take away. “I have rights!” is the refrain. What they are saying is “I have the ability to speak freely!” or “I have the ability to own a gun!” and the government is disobliged–metaphysically incapable–from mitigating those rights in any way. This is also what people mean when they talk about things that aren’t explicitly enumerated rights: “Healthcare is a human right” or “We need to give so-and-so full rights”.

There are obvious exceptions to this claim. “I have the ability to speak freely!” except when what you say is “fire” and where you say it is a crowded theater. “I have the ability to own a gun!” except if it’s fully automatic. I am sure none would find those limits controversial. We agree that shouting “fire” in a crowded theater would be disastrous; that restricting ownership of automatic firearms is sensible. So when we are talking about rights we are really talking about operating within a fence the government has made for us. “I have rights!” translates to “I have the ability to speak freely!” which now means “I agree to abide by restrictions on my ability to speak as long as they appear sensible!” which doesn’t make a great rallying cry. We could push this just a little bit further to say that the government disagrees that shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is a good thing to do; therefore when I say “I agree to abide by restrictions on my ability to speak as long as they appear sensible,” what I really mean is “I agree to only say things the government approves.”

How rapidly “I have the right to free speech” becomes “I agree to government sanctioned speech”. The word “Rights” is charged with the value of natural law. A true right, in the sense that we intend it when we usually talk about rights, is something which God has given us and which is inseparable from our being. This is why the Declaration of Independence went with “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and why the constitution went with “Life, Liberty, and Property.” Our Government holds no claim over our lives, they are ours, given to us by God. We have Free Will, something inherent to us as people. Our Free will cannot be restricted except by our own complicity. These illustrate best what we think we are saying when we declare that we have rights.

A Royal Cup of Sovereign Tea

I’ve spent a little bit of time exploring the idea of sovereignty, though not quite as thoroughly as rights. We know enough to be able to frame it as a paradox. We can use the old parable of Themistocles, who said “My infant child rules my wife, my wife rules me, and I rule all of Greece. Therefore, my infant child rules all of Greece.”

Themistocles is the sovereign of all of Greece, but he answers to his wife, who in turn answers to his infant child. By “answers to“, I mean two things: He is surely mindful of the needs of his wife, seeking to please her and keep her happy. But he also obeys her prerogatives. So the Ruler of Greece is the person whose prerogatives are ultimately obeyed, and of whose needs others must be mindful; yet who owes no reciprocal obligation.

So here’s the paradox: The President of the United States would typically be considered sovereign, because he is our head of state. Yet he is mindful of the needs of the people. He obeys the prerogatives of the Legislature to the extent they are able to enforce them. The legislature are also mindful of the needs of the people, and more directly must obey the popular prerogatives. The people are not obliged to be mindful of the needs of the legislature or the executive, but they must obey their prerogatives too. So the people, the Executive, and the Legislature all impose prerogatives of each other, but only the Executive and Legislature need to mind anyone’s needs.

So who is sovereign?

The Crown’s Virus

American political theory asserts that the public have rights and that the people are sovereign. In the first section, I demonstrate that rights just means that the people are obliged to obey the prerogatives of the elected officials. In the second section, I demonstrate that the elected officials are obliged to obey the prerogatives of the people. The people cannot both have rights and be sovereign. This is especially clear in our Governments reaction to Coronavirus.

The First amendment includes the freedom of assembly, which as I’ve explained means we agree to assemble in a manner in which the government approves. The first response of the Government was to restrict our freedom of assembly. This is seen clearly in the infamous picture from North Carolina where the police are informing protesters that protesting is a non-essential activity. As a consequence, our government is less and less obliged to obey our prerogatives, nor to mind our needs.

That’s part of what makes this so unnerving. Society is, in part, held together by the comfortable lie that the people have both rights and sovereignty. The pretense has been done away with: We obey the government, it’s for our own good.

There’s a part of me that likes it this way. The pretense made it hard to discern what was good or bad about our government. If they begin to rule by decree, well, it becomes much plainer. It doesn’t matter if they have a mandate from the electorate or not, it only matters what they are doing at the time they are doing it. I can judge a man’s actions if I see them, but it’s more difficult if he says he was obeying a mandate from the electorate.

All illusion is gone now. I just wonder how long we’ll pretend things haven’t changed.

AMDG