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

CXLVI – A Light Burden for a Blind Horse

A little learning is a dang’rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,And drinking largely sobers us again.

-Alexander Pope

My taste for politics has reached an all time low. None too recently I tasted the sweet nectar of political awareness. Unaware that they were merely intoxicating shallow draughts, filling me with unwarranted optimism.

The more I’ve come to understand politics, the less it has appealed to me. Yes, I will still talk about political machinations and I will probably still delude myself that I can have some kind of positive influence if I can think of a good enough idea. But my actual belief (if I remove all delusion) is that I have no influence whatever. The Greeks called people who withdrew from civic life idiotes, and perhaps that word is apt. I keep reminding myself of the story of the Apostles on a ship during a storm, afraid, and Christ asleep on the ship, unworried. If I put blinders on, and keep that image in my mind, I will be untroubled by this world.

The cliche goes that you should live every day as if it was your last. I would argue instead that you should live every day as if it was your only day in existence. Treat each day like a new set of circumstances. What are the things you will worry about? Politics only draws people’s attention because we humans like to think abstractly into the long term. If today was your only day in existence, you probably wouldn’t worry so much about politics, so much as what food you need to get through your 24 hours of life; cultivating relationships that enrich your fleeting experience, and doing everything you set your mind to as best as you can possibly do it, so that when you give an accounting of your 24 hours*, you can say you lived it to the fullest, multiplied your talents, and practiced virtue faithfully. It’s not hard to think about what that life might be like. After all, Christ himself said the yoke is easy and the burden is light. If I successfully blind myself to the arbitrary political concerns of the world, and accept this light burden, I believe I will accomplish far more than if I were to wring my hands about the state of the world and where it’s all headed.

I’m not sure the extent to which this will affect the subject matter of my blog, and my political delusions will surely persist for some time. But lets keep things in perspective. Christ is asleep–why should we trouble ourselves?

AMDG

---

_{*This part isn’t part of the example. We all will have to give an accounting for every 24 hour span of our life, and every moment therein. If that doesn’t cause a chill to creep up your spine, I don’t know what will. That is why they say we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling.}

CXX – The Fall of the Fellaheen

That Fellaheen Feeling is an excellent article by JMSmith, go read it. I was thinking about this today in response to an article by WM Briggs about an Excess of Educated Men. (The connection between the two I cannot explain. The fruits of the connection are below).

JMSmith opens with this quote by Kerouac:

“This fellaheen feeling about life, that timeless gaiety of people not involved in great cultural and civilizational issues.” 

And he has this to say about it:

There is no reason to suppose that the fellahin are especially given to anything that Kerouac would have recognized as “gaiety,” for most are by habit pious and austere, but the old dharma bum said they were gay because they were “timeless,” and he said they were timeless because he believed they had laid the burden of civilization down.

It seems to me that perhaps those sympathetic with the fellahin are allowed to lay down the burden of civilization; but it also strikes me that the burden of civilization must be borne by someone.

As the burden comes to be borne by fewer and fewer, the strain becomes greater. The challenge with a “social movement” like the beatniks, is that it creates a fad of laying down the burden of civilization. Suddenly a huge portion of society scorns the burden.

So those who carry the burden must necessarily act with greater severity to preserve civilization, lest Atlas shrug.

Thus: the fewer people there are who support “the burdens of civilization”, the more likely it is that those who do will become authoritarian and monarchical (in the rule-by-one sense).

Withdrawing from the “great cultural and civilizational” issues then seems to me like disclaiming responsibility for those issues. The disinterested become the chattel of the interested, who fight over the ability to push and pull those “timeless and gay” people how they please.

All this to say that withdrawing from civilization only withdraws one’s inputs into it’s direction, but does not prevent the outputs of civilization from affecting one’s daily life.

Condensing further: The Fellaheen Feeling is an absolute absence of control, an absolute obedience to being controlled.

Which JMSmith acknowledged at the conclusion of his article, with this quote from Rodman:

“Look at these Fellahin,
Cinders of men, poor over-roasted snipe,
Fuel for their fat masters”

XCI – A Collection of Ideas

I have a few article ideas in my queue that I’m sitting on. They are empty frames that need rigging to turn them into seaworthy ideas. Here’s a sampling of their draft titles:

• “Letting Go of Politics”
• “Apologetics of Indifference”
• “Citizenship”
• “Churchstate and Statechurch”

The common thread that links all of these is the idea of what things belong to the realm of politics (“render unto Caesar”), and what things belong to the realm of God. I planned to explore our relationship relative God, and was going to touch on some issues facing the Church right now. There’s a lot going on and I can’t claim to have answers but maybe I can help assemble a lot of disparate information in a coherent and useful way.

I saw an article that outlined “Rules for Catholic Radicals” and I think it’s a coherent way of approaching all the articles I’ve been stewing on above.

The basic premise is similar and congruent to the “Unite the Clans” concept. How can Catholics live and speak in a consistent way that allows us to effectuate the restoration we all desire?

So this article doesn’t get into any of that. I just want you to know that I’m thinking about this. Praise God that He has chosen us to live in such times!

AMDG

III – Idealism vs Pragmatism

Idealism vs. Pragmatism

I’m an idealist. That’s why i’m writing here: I believe that at some point, someone will read this and get something out of it. No one is reading it right now. But in the future, someone might. I consider my idealism to be borne out of the same part of me that held on to Faith through the years and the wax and wane of my fickle predilections. So, very naturally, I connect Faith and Idealism together.

However! There is another part of me that is very practical. When I finish asking “How should things be?” I tend to ask how to bring it into reality. My conversion to Catholicism was a very idealistic event, up until the big day. Then it became practical, and the character changed entirely. I had to shift gears from ‘learning’ about Faith to living faith. I had to really grok what it means to be Catholic. That took another period of some months and I suspect may never actually end.

This has all been very well and good, and has been very edifying. But where Pragmatism and Idealism collide in a–to me, so far–irreconcilable way, is politics.

Politics of Faith

Zippy has explained better than I ever could how Liberalism is a scourge^[1]. So how can it be corrected? An idealist would say we need a different system. A pragmatist would say we need to use the current system to adopt pieces of the ideal system. The former is not actionable and the latter is not consistent with ideals.

I still haven’t quite reconciled the two. I think the best answer comes from Scripture^[2]:

Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?
Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.

That is to say, when I begin to start thinking too big, I should ask these questions: Am I loving God with my whole being? Am I loving my neighbor as myself? Too often politics becomes divisive and tribal, and enacting these big changes doesn’t allow for one’s neighbors to correct themselves.

Advocate for the Truth, always. But don’t sacrifice loving thy neighbor for ideological consistency. By which I mean: Doing nothing because it doesn’t comply with how things should be is a political ‘Benedict option’ in which I would have to withdraw myself from political society because it is Liberal. That’s keeping your Gold piece hidden until the master returns, and not making an effort to multiply it. But we also cannot accept certain aspects of our society, which is abortive, homoerotic and usurious. Knights run into the breach, not away from it. So when I say don’t sacrifice loving thy neighbor for ideological consistency, please don’t mistake me for asking you to soften your stance for social convenience. I am saying your neighbors need you to lead by example.

AMDG

---

[1] Note: Liberalism, here, is not to be confused with American Leftism, but rather the overarching philosophical umbrella in which all American politics operate. American rightists and American Leftists are both different flavors of Liberal. ‘Classical Liberal’ I think would also be appropriate.

[2] Matthew 22:36-40