CDXXIII – Rules for Catholics to Grow in Self Mastery (Pt 2)

On revisiting my previous article suggesting Rules for Self Mastery, I found the general theme to be focused on interior mastery, mastery of mind. One of the things I am working on right now is mastery of body. The previous version, if you follow it, will help you to be virtuous, thoughtful, and giving. Here, I hope to suggest rules for self mastery which will help you (and help me) to be mentally, spiritually, and physically tough. Please let me know what you think.

---

1.) Master the Fundamentals

I. Keep A Routine. Get into the rhythm of life. Have something to occupy every moment of your day. Examine your day and consider how you spend your time. Fill your day with good work and a smaller dose of healthy recreation. And keep this routine.

II. Keep Your Commitments. Do the things you say you will do. Become reliable and dependable. Be careful in what commitments you make, so you can be sure to keep them. Treat your commitments seriously, even (especially) the commitments you make to yourself.

III. Challenge Yourself. When you are making a routine and choosing commitments, Challenge yourself to do things that are outside your comfort zone, that stretch your capabilities, that push you to be more to more people. Make Christ your example, and push yourself prayerfully.

2.) Deny Yourself

IV. Endure Suffering. Suffering is sanctifying. Suffering is purifying. Suffering is growing. Your routine should include some productive suffering. Endure it, persevere, prove to yourself that suffering is not greater than you are.

V. Choose Suffering. Do not look at suffering as something that happens to you; look at suffering as something you choose. If you are working out, choose suffering until your work out is complete. If you are studying, choose to suffer through your studies until you have accomplished your goal. Choose to suffer, and choose it joyfully.

VI. Offer Your Suffering. Suffering is meaningful–if you choose frequent or intense suffering, offer it to God for reparation for your sins, or the sins of others; offer it to God as thanksgiving. Offer it to God to relieve the suffering of another. Suffering can help save you and can help save others.

3.) Humble Yourself

VII. You Deserve Suffering. Do not avoid suffering because you think it is beneath you. Do not avoid suffering because you feel you do not deserve it. Call to mind your many sins, and remind yourself that you do deserve to suffer. God willing, you can do some share of suffering now to shorten your wait in Purgatory before achieving the Beatific Vision. Consider suffering in this life as a foreshortening of purgative suffering in the next. You are not exempt–you will suffer the exact amount you are supposed to. Choose to endure it now, rather than then.

VIII. To Suffer Is Glorious. Suffering is an imitation of Christ, and that is a glorious thing. To be called to suffer, even in small ways, is to be called to the Cross by Christ Himself. Do not fear it, do not avoid it–embrace it, and see it as glorious. Christ endured everything that we might gain Heaven. Can you not endure this little suffering to gain a better future?

IX. To Suffer Is Helpful. Suffering makes us grow. It can make us stronger, tougher, better, more disciplined. Choose a routine, choose commitments, choose challenges which give you more opportunities to become stronger, tougher, better, and more disciplined. Know that while you suffer, you grow both spiritually and physically.

4.) Stay Grounded

X. God Sustains You Through Suffering And Through Consolation. Whatever you are enduring–be it good times or bad, suffering or joy–it comes from God. God sustains you through everything. Do not despair when suffering finds you. God is with you, and is doing the heavy lifting of your suffering. Give thanks to God when you are suffering, because it means He is closer to you. Give thanks to God when you are experiencing consolation, because it means He has blessed you.

---

AMDG

CCCLXXIX – The Edible Bits of the Rotten Fruit

Wood over at his excellent blog has been on a roll recently and I wanted to expand on some ideas he has introduced.

Trials and Tribe-ulations

One of these ideas is the idea of “tribe”. He has suggested that one of the things that makes the Catholic Church both special and functional is it’s function as a tribe, united by Christian love. The word “tribe” is evocative to me of early human society, based on family units and where all the members work to the good of the whole. The uniting feature of these ancient tribes was blood relation. The undisputed leader of the tribe was usually a paternal or maternal figure and every member of the tribe had some role to play.

The Church is a tribe, united by the blood of the covenant which is thicker than the water of the womb. It is not uncommon to hear people referred to as “brothers and sisters in Christ”, which is both literal (by adoption) and figurative (by tribe). The Catholic Church today is riddled with many illnesses, and one of them is factionalism. But factionalism within the Church comes down to feuds between brothers over who serves Father best. The important thing is indeed serving Father, and if we were able to put aside our pride it would be a lot easier to do that. Remember–do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is both prescriptive (“I want you to treat me better, so let me show you how to treat me better through my treatment of you”) and aspirational (“I need money so I will be more giving with my own money, so the favor will be returned to me eventually”). This idea is sometimes rendered as the cliché “be the change you want to see in the world”. If you want to heal the Church then begin by healing the church as it exists around you.

A lot of the wounds of the Church are multi generational, so no one alive can really take blame for the problems nor credit for the solutions. We are all just trying to do the best we can with a mixed-bag inheritance. This is my segue into the discussion of what I will call “founding myths”.

Founding Myth Busters

We as human beings are very short sighted to our own lifetimes. We can sometimes directly experience two or three generations of our ancestors and we can sometimes live long enough to directly experience two or three generations of predecessors. And that’s about it–it’s hard for us to fathom anything else. Anything that transcends that timespan is incomprehensible to us and holds a status as something transcendent and mystical. The United States of America, we like to think, has always been the way we experience it now, and the way we experience it now is a modest improvement by the way Grandpappy experienced it, which was already quite good.

I’ll take a digression to talk about major corporations, of all things. I work for a large organization, the employees of which, if gathered into one place, would populate a small town. I remember realizing, slowly, that so much of what makes large organizations persist from one day to the next is sheer willpower. Our recordkeeping systems are fragile, our leaders are flawed, our technology is dated, but everyone keeps showing up for work. My employer, as with every employer, as with every government, as with nearly every institution, only persists because people keep showing up for some reason, and is only one bad day away from complete and utter collapse.

All that to say, if we were to actually look closely at the mystical and transcendent entities that cross our generations–they are much more fragile than we realize. They are also never ever as good as we have been taught.

I remember when I was in 5th grade, on 9/11, I lived close enough to some of the events that kids at my school had parents who could have been at risk. One of my friends mothers came to pick him up from school, but it was lunch time so she came to sit with us at the lunch table. I don’t really know how else to describe her than as a redneck. She was loud, she was unpolished, and she told it like it was. She announced to a table full of 5th graders that “Terrorists blew up the pentagon”. I didn’t believe her–that doesn’t make sense, this is America. That kind of thing isn’t possible here. When I got home from school I got to watch how possible it was on TV, replayed with immodest doom voyeurism for young and impressionable minds like mine to absorb and not understand.

The genius comedian, Norm Macdonald, has a funny quote Hambone shared with me recently: “Hey, it says here in the history books that the good guys won every time! What are the odds of that!”

Our founding myth is the comfortable lie we tell ourselves so we don’t question our base assumptions and can just keep on showing up and keeping the institutions we are a part of moving along from one day to the next. When I recently suggested in an inflammatory thread of my own devising that the American Revolution was an unjust and immoral secession from a legitimate sovereign, it popped some brains who questioned if I was even an American. Hearing this gets some people so utterly flabbergasted–it questions the most fundamental principle of their lives. The sun shines, birds fly, and God Bless America Forever. They look on the world with the same impressionable eyes that I had in 5th grade, and I was immodestly slapping the horse-blinders from their face and expecting them to thank me. Founding Myths are always a lie, because they have to be.

Bastard’s Apple

This is also true in a way of family history. Family Lore is a kind of myth we tell ourselves, to help us feel connected to all the generations we can’t experience. My family happened to make no bones about it’s hubris. My namesake and great grandfather left his wife and started a new family in the Netherlands when my grandfather was very young. It makes our genealogical records somewhat complicated because after a certain point it’s hard to tell where the lineage actually connects. Families and relationships are messy things, and so we smooth over the bad parts and feed our kids the edible bits of the rotten fruit so they get an idealized version of the story, and don’t learn about all the skeletons in the closet. The skeletons aren’t really valuable, but when we go digging and learn about our skeletons, it is always shocking–we have tasted the rest of the rotten fruit, the wormy, moldy bits that don’t sit so well in our stomachs.

My priest told me about this in the context of generational healing. It is possible and important to pray over our family tree. We exist today as the fruit of that tree and any rotten fruit has not fallen far from the tree. Often if we look back far enough we can see repeated variations of the same themes in our family. By praying for healing, we can graft our branch onto the tree of life, and baptize the tree for a while. It takes effort to keep the tree attached, but starting out strong can surely help. In my case, my family was not Catholic when I converted, but I am the only name-bearing male of my generation. Many past Scoot’s have not been Catholic, but every future Scoot of my line will be–at least for a while, God willing. I don’t know how far back I would have to go to find a Catholic member of the Scoot family but I am sure it would take me back to Europe in the 19th century or earlier.

The important thing, then, is not that our past is muddy and rotten and dirty and tarnished. That matters a lot less than the fact that our future can be baptized, healed, and glorified. This is the source of Hope, not just for us, but perhaps for well meaning souls of our ancestors who are waiting in purgatory for someone in their lineage to figure out the right path and pray for them to get over the hump and into heaven.

AMDG

CCCLXVIII – The New Political Topography

Before I get too deep, I just want to acknowledge an obvious objection. “Scoot, why do you keep talking about this? Didn’t you learn from the drubbing you received before?”

The answer is that, yes, I did–but I really like to over-analyze interpersonal conflict. I don’t know why this is a character trait I have, but it is. I’ve had a lot of really fruitful introspection from brooding on points of conflict, so I consider it helpful. That’s what this post is about–it’s less trying to shill for my particular position vis a vis authority, but more trying to understand where everyone else is coming from and why these topics are particularly inflammatory. This post is not intended then as a critique, but as a “Here’s the world as I understand it”–and I welcome insight from those who disagree with my analysis or believe I have incorrectly characterized their positions.

---

I really like building frameworks, dichotomies, and lists, long time readers may have noticed. Here I have a list of dichotomies that explain the sources of disagreement especially pertaining to authority.

The first dichotomy is between Political Reaction (R) and Entrenched Establishment (E). Political reaction I characterize as the movement opposite and away from Classical Liberalism. The Entrenched Establishment representing the manifestations of classical liberalism which command modern life. This dichotomy is a sliding scale–some reactionaries oppose the left-liberal establishment, some reactionaries go so far as to be monarchists. There’s room for everyone at the reactionary table. Entrenched Establishment includes party line republicans, party line democrats, radical progressives, things like that.

I would say that Political Reaction is the single unifying feature of the Orthosphere. While various contributors and commenters have varying degrees on the Reaction side of the scale, I believe it is fair to say that all of them are on the reactionary side of things. The next two dichotomies are going to be a little more contentious I think.

The second dichotomy is between Tradition (T) and Innovation (I). This is an important point of divergence. The Tradition side of the equation argues, in short, that there is nothing wrong with the old ways and if we doubled down on them then things would improve. The Innovation side of the equation argues that the world fell apart under the watch of the “old ways” and we need new ways to lead us into the future.

This is a logical calculus on both sides. Traditionalism argues that things fell apart when we departed from tradition, so the innovators would make things worse. Innovators argue that things fell apart because of tradition, so doubling down on it would make things worse. These are mutually exclusive positions, and it is easy to see why they are mutually incomprehensible.

The third and final dichotomy is between Institution (S) and Revolution (V). This is an important point of divergence too, and it mirrors somewhat the previous one but is less about beliefs and more about practice and physical manifestations of those beliefs. Institutionalists believe that the existing institutions can be preserved and perfected. Revolutionaries believe that the existing institutions are too far-gone and must be overthrown and new institutions established.

This is also a logical calculus, and more directly reflects attitudes towards authority. Institutionalists are generally more accepting of authority and believe it can be perfected given adherence to their preference on the previous two dichotomies. Revolutionaries believe that institutions that fail should be eradicated because they no longer serve their purpose and only serve the members or beneficiaries of the institution.

---

You will notice I put letters next to the dichotomies so that I can refer to them in Shorthand. We have The R/E dichotomy, the T/I dichotomy, the S/V dichotomy. We can characterize different archetypes based on different combinations of these dichotomies.

I consider myself more of the RTS type. As a reactionary, I am in opposition to classical liberalism and modernity. As an institutionalist I believe the Church is the foremost institution and she must be preserved and defended and perfected. As a Traditionalist I believe the best preservation and defense of the Church is the Church’s own traditions.

The “romantic christians” as they are sometimes referred to, would be RIV types. As reactionaries they are also opposed to classical liberalism, but believe in innovating new solutions to the problems of classical liberalism and modernity. As revolutionary, they feel that some new structures are needed and old structures ought to be put to rest.

Most modern classical liberals would be EIS types. As Establishment, they favor the current classically liberal order. As Innovators, they believe in bringing to bear some new paradigm that is suitable for modern living. As institutionalists, they favor using their institutions–largely political institutions– to push these innovations to the masses. Republicans or conservatives might be considered ETS types, since they favor the established classically liberal order but only as it has been, and oppose new political innovations.

I have observed in comments some people I would characterize as an RTV type. As reactionary and traditionalists, they agree that the current classically liberal order is bad and that tradition holds the best answers, but believe that new political institutions (or perhaps even religious institutions) are required to bring about the reactionary-traditionalist vision.

You can contemplate on your own or in the comments the rest of the archetypes which three dichotomies suggest.

---

These dichotomies are valuable because they tell us about the new political topography. We should not draw allies and enemies based on whether you’re RTS or EIV. But these dichotomies help us to zero in on the point of disagreement–and the point of agreement. These dichotomies are also valuable to illustrate why so many oppositional interlocutors at the Orthosphere are incredibly wrong when they characterize that space as ubiquitously “republican” or “conservative” or “right-wing”.

Like I said, it is the reactionary attribute that seems to unify writers and commenters and thinkers at the Orthosphere. This is valuable to know because discussion centered around reactionary ideas will gather broad agreement. When discussing specific traditions, or discussing specific institutions, these will generate a lot of controversial discussion.

What do you think? I welcome your constructive feedback on this framework.

AMDG

CCLXXXVII – High Bloodline Pressure

There’s a new blog I discovered in my poking about wordpress, the Catholic Monarchist and it’s author JackYankton, who has been writing an interesting series on the virtues and values of Monarchy. I don’t know if he realizes he is a traditionalist reactionary, but I encourage those of you interested to check him out and I hope he finds his way to the broader traditionalist reactionary circle which inspires my writing here.

His latest article led me to comment about the stability of bloodlines, which connects to a thought I’ve been considering for a long time, regarding how to prevent a monarchy from devolving into tyrannical despotism.

First, regarding bloodline driven transfers of power. The least stable time in any government is always the transfer of power. In America they have become decreasingly peaceful over time, and in Medieval times they were almost always perilous (as I understand it). The important thing when any transfer of power happens is 1) That the incoming sovereign has a legitimate claim; 2) that the incoming sovereign is seated using valid forms; 3) that the incoming sovereign is seated using licit forms. Legitimacy, Validity, Licity, are the three pillars that make for a stable transfer of power. The popular acclaim will accept a new sovereign only if he has all three. If any one is questionable, there will be instability. This is true of any political system.

The advantage of a bloodline based system is it creates unambiguous legitimacy. Either you are or are not the child of the previous sovereign. Questions arise when a monarch has no children–then you turn to siblings or other more distant relatives. But there is a definitive hierarchy: if the previous sovereign was the eldest child, and is himself childless, then rule transfers to the sovereigns next youngest sibling, or their child. This is all made much more simple if the sovereign is a Perfectly Formed Catholic (PFC), as mistresses, divorce, and the like make determining the hierarchy confusing. If the Monarch behaves, then bloodline can be an extremely stable source of legitimacy.

Coronation Mass is a very stable form of ensuring a Valid and Licit sovereign. Once Legitimacy is established, the throne must be claimed following the prescribed rites and then the transfer of power is complete. In the biography of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain, St. Joan refused to acknowledge Charles as King until his coronation, until that point referring to him as “The Dauphin”.

In America, instead of bloodlines we have elections; instead of coronations we have inaugurations. Both serve the same purpose–establishing legitimacy and creating a rite which ensures the popular acceptance of the new leader. Elections are more ambiguous than birthright, so inherently introduces an element of instability which can fester and grow. We saw this throughout the Trump presidency–around that time I stopped paying attention to politics, so I don’t know if anyone is making similar agitations about the current president (please don’t tell me if they are–ignorance is bliss).

There is a natural question which follows from this: Once a leader has taken power and received popular acclaim, what stops him from descending into tyranny? We know as sovereign his filial obligation binds him to a duty of custodial care. But what if he ignores that duty? Really–what can we do if our father is a violent abuser? We have recourse to the Mother, she in prudence separates for a while to protect the health and wellness of herself and her children. In a Monarchy, it is really only the Queen Mother who plays that role (like Mama Mary). That is not a great control because the Queen Mother is as likely to be tyrannical as the Sovereign. The American Revolution felt that tyranny must inherently be overthrown, and took the attitude that all monarchy was tyrannical–this is too much of a reaction, as well.

There are three protections for the subjects from a bad sovereign. First is Tradition, which limits the sovereign in behavior and custom. Second is formation, which inoculates the sovereign against being tyrannical by forming him in the first place to have strong and positive values. Third is agitation, which is when the peasantry voice their discontent to the sovereign in varying degrees of peacefulness. Argument is a natural part of a family life, sometimes it is normal that a husband and wife should argue, or that children should argue, to ensure their demands are heard whether they are reasonable or not. The sovereign is not required to oblige every demand voiced, but the sovereign cannot address a problem he does not know about. A sovereign who is confronted with the ill fruit of his decisions on a daily basis must necessarily come to realize that he is the source of that fruit.

If a sovereign does not value tradition, is not formed with strong values, and is protected from hearing the vox populi, he will surely become a tyrant. This is true in a democracy as much as it is in a monarchy. Once a tyrant becomes a tyrant, we must pray for a change of heart, obey his lawful commands, and wait for him to die a natural death, and pray that his issue are more just than he is.

AMDG

CCLXXI – Apologetical Skeleton Keys: La La La I Can’t Hear You

There’s this idea that has been popping up in the comments of various articles critiquing modernity, that the dual vices of modernity are irrationality and distraction.

The core concept at play here is conversion. I approach this idea without arriving at it in my previous Apologetical Skeleton Key: Conversion is when someone makes a definite, positive declaration of some truth, and do so with full knowledge and consent of the will. Before someone is converted, they are neutral. It is rather like magnetism. Raw iron requires some input to take on magnetic properties–magnetism must be applied to it.

This is how we get “Catholics in Name Only”–most people are not challenged to make positive declarations of faith, even among Catholics. People are born Catholic, raised with or without a religious education, go through the motions– they are lukewarm. They haven’t woken up to their own inclinations, they haven’t made a positive declaration of faith.

When people haven’t made a positive declaration of faith, they structure their lives around what they passively believe to be true. They have good intentions, so they want believe they are meritorious of whatever passes for their idea of Heaven. After all, if you think you are in the clear, you won’t be motivated to change anything. The first Skeleton Key gets at this point: they will reject ideas that attack their idea of eternal paradise, whatever it is.

Another way of thinking about why people reject attacks on their idea of Heaven is that they don’t like thinking that it is possible to run afoul of the rules, even their own rules. This is the first vice of modernity: irrationality. Unconverted hearts and minds–the masses of lukewarm–will not follow their beliefs to their conclusion with reason, with rationality.

And why would they? The aspiring Apologist ought to recognize that their minds will reject such attacks like the body attacks a virus. The aspiring apologist will likely be frustrated, because if we don’t talk to people how will we convert them?

We have to understand the reason why people don’t just passively come around to truth. The reason is the second vice of modernity: distraction. People don’t want to be irrational, no one wakes up in the morning and decides to accept phony beliefs. People tend to sincerely have good intentions and a desire to do and be good. The reason they don’t think too hard about it is because they also keep themselves distracted. Technology facilitates this: How many people keep screens in front of their face, keep wireless headphones in their ears, devote their lives to work, devote their nights to partying, devote their efforts to material satisfaction. These things take a lot of work. God doesn’t compete for air-time, if you aren’t listening you won’t hear what He has to say. If He really wants your attention he will demand it and will get it whether you like it or not. I don’t know if I’ve talked about my conversion experience overmuch but maybe I ought to try sometime–let me just say that God turned my life upside down and I had to learn that I needed His help because I couldn’t help myself. It is through silence that our brains start to think about things, that our conscience begins to stretch and wake up, that God begins to whisper to us.

This is a very, very uncomfortable experience for people who are not used to it. If your mind is anything like mine, it is also difficult. The discomfort and difficulty make it easier to stay distracted than to try to carve out some silence.

The aspiring apologist, in understanding this, can take an approach of pacing and leading. First, recognize whether an interlocutor is lukewarm or converted. Someone who is converted against God will require a different strategy, I might write about that later. Someone who is lukewarm cannot accept information they are not prepared to accept, so to pace them the apologist must attempt to try to see the world from their point of view, and understand how they see things. Then, to lead them to Christ, the apologist must not aggressively assert truths, but ask probing questions.

The example that came up in the comments somewhere was abortion. The consequence of abortion being the murder of human persons is that the abortion advocate has supported and encouraged the perpetuation of the biggest mass murder in human history. That is a heavy burden to lay on someone’s shoulders. A simple way to try and lead them away is to ask, “What if that is actually a person?” and see how they respond. Their irrationality will reject that abortion is murder because they have good intentions and don’t want to lose their idea of heaven. Their distraction means they maybe have never thought about the fact that abortion is murder, or have never thought that “clumps of embryonic cells” are people.

The other way the apologist can pace and lead is by maintaining a good relationship with someone, so that if and when God turns their lives upside down, you can be there with the light of Christ and help them navigate the stormy seas.

AMDG

CCL – The Enemy Knows Our Name (But Not Who We Are)

I want to connect a few dots I’ve seen recently.

1. The Addams Family animated movie (2019)
   • A major theme of the movie is individualism, cinematically juxtaposed against “tradition”. Tradition, according to the movie, is the way our ancestors did things, and doesn’t make us happy because it doesn’t allow us to do things our own way.
2. Klaus animated movie (also 2019)
   • A major theme of the movie is that tradition is bad, illustrated by the longstanding feud between the Krums and Ellingboes. They don’t know why they fight, they do because of tradition. This tradition has kept their town poor and angry and resentful; only when the tradition is cast off can the town be illuminated with kindness and fellowship.
3. A roadsign by a gas station in Britain which is famous for Humorous quips
   • The sign said “Tradition is peer pressure from dead people”. It’s framed as a negative: Don’t let dead people bully you into doing something you don’t want to do.

What stuck out to me about these three data points is that Tradition is called out by name. The enemy is attacking Tradition, generally. But they don’t know which tradition or any specific things about the tradition which will save the world–the Christian tradition.

So that made me realize that the Enemy knows our name insofar as they know something about Tradition is worthy of their big-budget condemnation; they don’t know who we are insofar as they don’t know which tradition to condemn or what about it they don’t like.

CCXLIV – Christian Civilization

Western Civilization is held up by some as the fortress which must be defended from infiltrators and adversaries. Western Civilization has come to mean anything good that has come out of Europe. Sometimes, thanks to the association with Rome, Christianity gets lumped in with the rest as a fruit of Western Civilization.

Looking at “Western Civilization” right now, it feels like the fruit is rotten, and morally depraved. Westernizing a nation usually means ruining their moral character and plundering their resources. The West and Christianity used to be aligned, but they are not anymore. As I put it in an offhand comment recently, the West has ceased to be Christian and Christianity has ceased to be confined to the West. The good things about the West really come from Christianity, so it really ought to be called Christian Civilization.

The great thing about Christian Civilization as a concept is that it frees the idea from Eurocentrism. There are Catholics around the world who share more in common with me than your average millennial European. Africa of all places is a sanctuary of traditionalism. So there’s no reason why the West necessarily needs to be the last bastion of Christendom. In fact, it is probably Christianity which will save the west rather than the other way around.

Christianity is the great unifier. No matter how different two people are, a common worship of God–properly understood–can build more bridges than simply being steeped in the culture of the West can.

CCXLII – Orthosphere and the Political Right

I like to throw peanuts from the back row of the comments section of the Orthosphere sometimes, and another commenter likes to throw walnuts and while Kristor ably advises him on the virtues of peanuts, I occasionally am tempted to give this commenter a piece of my own mind.

On two recent occasions, the commenter has made the claim that the Orthosphere operates within the umbrella of the political right: First in a peanut-throwing contest with me, and more recently in a more educated way with Kristor. Both exchanges are nearly identical so I will quote it once:

Your site has a quote from de Maistre at its head [“Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists”]; that is as Right as it is possible to get. You are obsessed with authority and submission, that is also as Right as it gets.

Regular readers will know that I have forsworn discussions of politics in this space but I am inclined to allow this because it’s less politics and more political philosophy–why we think the way we think about political affairs.

---

The left/right divide is a feature of liberalism. This means classical liberalism. The apellation “classical” signifies that this is not liberalism as the political buzzword we hear on the news–it is the older political theory that emerged from the French Revolution. “Liberalism” then refers to freedom. Classical liberalism then is the idea that Freedom is the chiefest virtue of a people. Liberal government is one which tries to balance the necessarily implicit restrictions on freedom that come with governing with the priority of maximizing the freedom of the people subject to that government. Left and Right are ways of categorizing how this balance ought to be struck. Left-Liberals tend to maximize the authority of the state, while Right-Liberals tend to maximize the authority of the individual. This might seem counter intuitive because the narrative seems opposite from what we see on the news cycle but every left-liberal regime has led to a consolidation of power in the apparatus of government, and every right-liberal regime has tried to slow or reverse this consolidation.

The typical political ideology chart has “political freedom” crossed with “economic freedom”, which serve as proxies for this dichotomy. Political freedom represents the authority of the government; economic freedom represents the authority of the individual. The combinations of these two axes give us everything contained in the umbrella of Classical Liberalism.

The Orthosphere are traditionalist reactionaries, if I had to apply an ideological label to them. Traditionalist insofar as tradition informs our shared virtues. Reactionaries, insofar as it is a reaction for the affluence and excess of our modern day and age.

The commenter hears “traditionalist” and thinks “rightist” because that is the meme–rightists are, to paraphrase Obama’s description, “gun-clinging bible thumpers”. So tradition just makes the meme-ridden political edgelords think of the bible, and the connection is made.

As traditionalist reactionaries, the Orthosphere doesn’t really have skin in the game of American politics. Those who vote, vote in conformity with their conscience, but not because the Orthosphere has a stated policy position on how to vote on certain issues. Orthosphere generally doesn’t get into the nitty gritty of specific issues except where it crosses into the confines of Traditionalist reactionary thought. And this is the crux of the confusion which the commenter seems to have.

Left vs. Right politics is like a bunch of hyenas fighting over a water-buffalo carcass. Everyone wants to control the carcass but at the end of the day it’s just a rotting dead piece of flesh. The Orthosphere isn’t interested in fighting over that carcass, and that’s why the Orthosphere doesn’t fit neatly into the left/right dichotomy. Orthosphere seems to me to be chiefly concerned with what happens when there’s no more meat on the bone, what then? What comes next? Or, what would be better now? The Orthosphere is not interested with taking power–I can’t speak with personal knowledge but I can say it is unlikely that any contributor or like-minded commenter wants a political revolution with Orthospherian ideals.

Honestly, the Orthosphere is not really the stuff of political revolutions anyway. It helps us cope with whatever the political winds happen to be, and prioritize our citizenship in heaven.

If you understand these points I’ve just laid out, you understand why it is so bizarre when the commenter refers to the Orthosphere as an agent of the Right. You might as well call the ticket collector the main event of the circus–doing so completely misses the point of both the ticket collector and the circus.

Until the commenter can step outside the left/right box just a little bit, he will continue to be bewildered by the Orthosphere and the Orthosphere will continue to be unable to communicate with him effectively.

AMDG

CCXXVI – Rules for Catholics to Grow in Self Mastery

1.) Master the Fundamentals

I. Pray Often. No matter how much you pray, you can pray more. Make it a habit. Make it important. Pray like your life depends on it. Understand that your life does, in fact, depend on it.

II. Fast Regularly. Or practice self mortification, as appropriate or as advised by your spiritual director. Deny yourself little things, consistently. Train yourself to sacrifice, and train your mind to remember the purpose is Holy.

III. Avail yourself of the Sacraments. Go to Mass. Go to Confession. Be involved in your parish. Worry about your soul, and the souls which are daily around you.

2.) Invite God into your Life

IV. Acknowledge God in your Successes. All good things come from God. It is a privilege to experience success in this earthly life–we could all very well be tested the way Job was tested, we are blessed to experience anything else.

V. Invite God into your Failures. God can help us. We don’t have to go it alone. God knows the help we need better than we do. Ask God for help, and quiet your heart to hear his answer.

VI. Protect your Peace. Never let the daily highs and lows of life divert you away from the narrow path. You will be tempted by good things: Train yourself to decline them. You will be discouraged by bad things: Train yourself to see God working in them.

3.) Give your Life to God

VII. Find some way to work for the Church and do it. Forget yourself in the service of others. Train yourself to give sacrificially of your time and effort. Self Mastery is to ignore your own inclinations until you forget your own inclinations.

VIII. Detach from mere Things. Give sacrificially of your money and possessions in the service of God. Accumulate your treasure in Heaven, give away your treasure on Earth. Things are just things, souls are eternal.

IX. Ask your Priest what he needs. Support your priest, and offer your services to him. He will know best what problems exist in the community, or what problems exist in the parish. Find a way to help.

4.) Point to God through your Life

X. Treat your faith like it is important, and encourage those around you to do the same. Sometimes your example will be enough. Lead people to Christ, through your every thought, word, and deed. Practice your faith joyfully, never apologize for it, be willing to suffer socially for it. Stick out. People will notice, and ask you why you seem different.

AMDG

CXLVIII – In the Shadow of Mount Doom

I have an afterthought about this idea of changing names and tearing down statues. I realized that there is nothing stopping us from changing every name of every feature. Every mountain, valley, river, city, and building can be renamed, and there’s literally nothing stopping us. So why do we change names, historically? Why do we keep them?

The function of names of features is, at it’s simplest, to identify features so that everyone can identify them, such as on a map or in conversation. If I call the big mountain “Mount Pleasant” and you call it “Mount Doom” we would not be able to communicate about the mountain. Likewise if my tribe calls it Mount Pleasant, and your tribe calls it Mount Doom, they would be able to communicate internally but would have trouble communicating between each other. Generally speaking, different tribes tend to agree on the name of geographical features for this reason, because they are fixed points for navigation. So the key things here are that a common culture will agree on a name, as well as those in a common geographical area. A named point is a reference point that tells everyone they are of the same or similar culture. If I speak to someone and they refer to the mountain as Mount Pleasant, I know they are my people. The Mount Doom people are foreigners.

Names do sometimes change. When the Normans invaded Anglo Saxon England, historians were able to trace the cultural movement because the names of towns would change but the names of the rivers would not. The Towns were occupied by a different people and so were given different names; the rivers were navigational reference points and so their names were preserved. Historically, human civilizations will preserve names of water features, probably for that very reason. The names will change when a new culture arrives, or when an invading nation arrives. An existing culture will rarely change names because that changes reference points. Names will change as a lagging indicator on a culture change, because the culture has to already know both the new and old names.

When Alexander was subjugating the Greeks, he conquered the city-state of Thebes, and rather than occupy it, he tore it to the ground and erased it from memory. The city is in ruins to this day. Names change after the conquest by a new culture. The old reference points don’t matter any more, people are already navigating by the new map of the world.

This movement to remove statues and change names is a sign that the culture has already changed. Whether you like it or not, you live in the foothills of Mount Doom now.

AMDG