Daily Archives: October 30, 2019

In 2015 Patricia Marcoccia and Maziar Ghaderi started filming a documentary about a little-known Canadian psychology professor named Jordan Peterson. They were a year and a half into the project when Peterson posted a viral YouTube video railing against political correctness, which quickly transformed him into a lightning rod for controversy.

Politically, Maz and I both come from a left-of-center place, so a lot of our friends and colleagues are also in that space, in the arts world, Marcoccia says in Episode 384 of the Geeks Guide to the Galaxy podcast. So it made it an uncomfortable situation in our social space, talking about what we were working on.

Marcoccia chose to set aside her initial projectwhich focused on Petersons friendship with indigenous artist Charles Josephand instead began documenting Petersons new life as a best-selling author and TV star. The resulting film, The Rise of Jordan Peterson, thoughtfully explores the ways in which Peterson has been both celebrated and reviled.

Im not interested in pursuing propaganda in my filmmaking, Marcoccia says. I think its most important for me to reflect back to society what Ive witnessed over these last few years.

Peterson is so radioactive in certain quarters that screening the film has been difficult, with several theaters refusing to show it or backing out at the last minute. Its a bit annoying, because people are talking about the controversy surrounding the distribution of the film and not the film itself, Ghaderi says. But on the other hand, weve gotten a lot of press, and weve also gotten support from people.

And while some theaters have been blunt that they dont want to deal with the backlash, others have made excuses, saying that nuanced films dont connect with audiences. Marcoccia says shes not convinced.

The responses that weve been getting, even when were in a room full of Jordan Peterson fans, they have really responded positively to the critical parts about Jordan in the film, she says. So I guess Im finding it hard to believe that its a market-driven decision, to say that nuance doesnt sell.

Listen to the complete interview with Patricia Marcoccia and Maziar Ghaderi in Episode 384 of Geeks Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Maziar Ghaderi on screening The Rise of Jordan Peterson:

In the United States weve partnered with Gathr, which is a cinema-on-demand platform where individual people can host a screening, and if a certain number of tickets are sold then the screening happens at a commercial cinema, and then they get to turn it into a bit of a social event. Its been a crazy ride with a lot of highs and lows. Right now were in San Diegowe have a screening tonightand weve done Vancouver, Toronto, and Portland. In Portland we got a threat from antifa. Portland of course is very left-leaning, and it was quite a violent threat that we got on Facebook. But in the end they didnt even show up. We had undercover cops there, it was a full crowd, but in the end nothing came of it, in terms of those threats. So things have been overall quite positive, and were looking forward to the next leg of the tour.

Patricia Marcoccia on young men:

[Jordan Peterson] has always had this kind of life-changing effect for students, because of the nature of the topics he would talk about in his classes. This is a topic thats been coming up on our tour a lot, and one of the conversations weve had is about how what it means to be a man is something that does need to be constructed, and its such a confusing time right now with regards to gender and masculinityto know what healthy masculinity looks like. I think a lot of men are being told to kind of step out of the way and make space for women, so where does that leave you, and what is your purpose? And Jordan is giving people a strong purpose, and saying, Take responsibility. Theres a lot of value that you can bring to the table.'

Patricia Marcoccia on the media:

If I knew nothing about Jordan Peterson, and when this controversy was coming out, and continuing to evolve, if I just read that New York Times article Custodian of the Patriarchy, and maybe, I dont know, a Huffington Post article, and I saw a Vice piece, what would I think about Jordan Peterson? And life is busy, theres a lot going on, I have other things to deal with, maybe I decide not to dig any deeper into it. I think a lot of us are guilty of that. So that would have painted a very different picture to me of Jordan Peterson. There are so many impressions that people get of Jordan, and in some ways its because you can just see any type of media out there, and just find other stories that will continue to reinforce whatever that impression was.

Maziar Ghaderi on polarization:

A lot of what Jordan talks about is similar to somebody like Jonathan Haidt, whos an NYU professor who speaks a lot about political correctness and partisanship. His recent book The Coddling of the American Mind kind of speaks to the new generation and how theyre having problems with free speech and being able to have viewpoint diversity, especially on campuses. But for some of these right-wing and libertarian types, they dont like how Haidts too soft. They like how Jordan is combative in these interviews. So then what happens is its even more polarized, because then [people] identify Jordan with the much more tabloid-y, inflammatory, unhelpful, name-calling cruelty thats becoming more popular with the populist right.

Go here to see the original:

The Rise of Jordan Peterson Doesnt Tell You What to Think - WIRED

The first thing one notices about R.R. Renos new book, Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West, is the dust-jacket photograph. Its a classical statue of a warrior-angel, sword in his hand. The message seems unmistakable: This is a heavy book about fearsome themes.

Yet anyone thinkingor hopingthat this book will be a hymn of praise for, say, the Roman god Mars, or Conan the Barbarian, will be disappointed.

As Reno writes, By strong gods I do not mean Thor and the other residents of the Old Norse Valhalla. Instead, he lauds the strong gods of love and devotion, the sources of the passions and loyalties that unite societies. Continuing in that irenic vein, Reno adds, Truth is a strong god that beckons us to the matrimony of assent, adding that strong gods can be traditionalthe American Founding is a strong god worthy of our devotion.

Yet at the same time, Reno concedes that strong godscan be destructive. In the twentieth century, militarism, communism, racism, and anti-Semitism brought ruin. So we can see that in the authors view, strong gods are prime moversthe demiurges that inspire us to take action, for good or ill.

Thus while Renos strong gods are beneficent, thats not true of all strong godsand none of them should be trifled with.

So as we weigh risk and reward, we might be tempted to ask: Do we want strong gods in our midst? Would weak gods be preferable?

Answering that question is the task Reno takes up, and it provides, yes, a brooding, even primordial, backdrop to his tome. Indeed, World Wars I and II serve as his cataclysmic predicate:

The violence that traumatized the West between 1914 and 1945 evoked a powerful, American-led response that was anti-fascist, anti-totalitarian, anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist. These anti imperatives define the postwar era.

Indeed, the world wars, and their associated isms, were so horrible that it evident that some sort of collective postwar course-correction was needed. And yet at the same time, we must remember that not everyone in the first half of the 20th century was guilty; there were plenty of good guys, as well as bad guys.

Thus we come to the heart of Renos argument: The Western elites went from correction to over-correction. And in that over-correcting, the virtues of the strong gods were lost, or at least exiled. Reno sums up the thinking, after 1945 and to this day, of the great and the good:

Their aim is to dissolve the the strong beliefs and powerful loyalties thought to have fueled the conflicts that convulsed the twentieth century.

And how will the elites go about dissolving the strong beliefs? The strong gods? With openness, thats how.

Reno thus warms to his theme: He starts with the emigre philosopher Karl Popper, who, in 1945even as the embers of war still burnedpublished The Open Society and Its Enemies. Poppers two-volume work is an extended attack on closed thinking, going back all the way to Plato. Such closedness, in Poppers view, was the prelude to intolerance, even totalitarianism. Comments Reno on Poppers gist: The imperative is bracingly simple: Never again. Indeed, given the enormity of the wars and the death camps, we can detect a note of sympathy in Renos voice.

Yet theres no sympathy when Reno sums up Poppers prescription: We must banish the strong gods of the closed society and create a truly open one.

In fact, to Renos distress, Popper went further, applying a materialist understanding to the course of events. Although history has no meaning, wrote Popper, we can give it meaning. And heres where Reno draws his brightest line, because he is an unabashedalbeit, at the same time, measureddefender of Western Civilization and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Thus words such as justice, truth, and transcendence dot his text.

Yet in the meantime, Reno chronicles Poppers dolorous influence: By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Poppers open society had evolved to include open marriages, open drug use, and a general conviction that open discussion of the most intimate details of life would bring greater happiness and self-acceptance.

And yes, Reno is fully mindful that Poppers ode to the open society inspired one of his students in London in the early 50s, George Soros. Upon leaving the academy, Soros became a speculator and made many billions; he is has since transferred much of his wealth to his many-tentacled Open Society Institute.

Reno further walks us through a terse but concise guide to other champions of openness, deftly weaving together such disparate figures as Albert Camus, Milton Friedman, Jacques Derrida, Friedrich Hayek, and Norman O. Brown. Of these, perhaps the most impactful has been Friedman, because the Nobel Prize-winning economist helped apply Popperian philosophy to the international economy. Reno argues that the result has been high economic growthbut at an even higher societal price.

To clinch the case that Poppers ideas have had consequences, Reno cites President George H.W. Bush, speaking to the United Nations on October 1, 1990: I see a world of open borders, open trade, and, most importantly, open minds. Those words might seem woozily utopian today, and yet at the time, Bush 41s rhetoric seemed perfectly unobjectionable and normaland thats Renos point: in the postwar era, the radical had been made to seem normal.

Indeed, in the three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the radical has become even more radical. As Reno describes todays zeitgeist: The one-sided extremism of the open-society consensuspunitive political correctness, undiluted liberalism, and unfettered free marketshas done great damage.

As one can gather from his disdaining reference to unfettered free markets, Reno is an old-line conservative. Such paleoconservatism is quite distinct from the liberalism and libertarianism that has predominated in the open era, even if the distinctions have oftentimes been fudged over. In fact, using vivid language, Reno has been at pains to disentangle conservatism from the fusionism that has sought to blend hawkish foreign policy and libertarian economic policyalong with, somewhere back in the caboose, conservative social policy. Fusionism might have made sense during the Cold War eraReno writes favorably, in fact, of William F. Buckley in his fusionist heydayand yet in the decades since, it has become a counterproductive god.

Yet while some paleocons might hanker for the truly old times, Reno inclines toward a distinctly mid-20th century policy vision, which he defines as markets moderated by government intervention and backstopped by social programs. Here we see the hand of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, not Thomas Aquinas or Opus Dei.

Of course, Reno is ultimately less concerned about policy; he is more interested in the metaphysical than the physical. He yearns for a return of the Western tradition [that] has championed as fitting objects of our lovenot only God, but the nation and our cultural inheritance, even truth itself.

Indeed, putting all his cards on the table, Reno adds, I am a Catholic. Id like to see a widespread revival of Christianity in the West. He argues that traditional faith can make religious believers stable and stalwart citizens, less likely to be inflamed by ideological causes that are surrogates for true religion.

Indeed, so true is Reno to his vision that he scorns not only the openness of liberals and libertarians, but also the certitudes of some others on the right. He derides those who draw their conservatism from the perverse gods of blood, soil, and identity, seeing them as a throwback to the pre-1945 era. And he also rips those who are too likely to reduce classical questions of truth, beauty, and justice to the play of economic interests or to speculate about the blind cleverness of selfish genes.

Yet here its possible to note a problem for Renos argument. Yes, hes obviously right in his basic thesis: that the openness of the postwar era has become an emptiness. And yet at the same time, there are plenty of strong gods still on the scene, albeit many of them of a new kind. These Reno acknowledges when he writes of the paradoxically totalitarian culture of openness and weakness.

Yes, theres that strong god of political correctness, and alongside it, all the associated devils of domineering and dictatorial thinking, made all the stronger by new kinds of technology. Indeed, this author has speculated that the next wave of tyranny will be rooted not just in the human mind, but also in the computer mind.

Can Renos strong gods withstand the onslaught of the cyber gods? Can the old gods repel the assault of the new gods of Silicon Valley? And beyond the fight against American techsters, will the old truths be able to thwart, say, the Chinese Social Credit System?

For the faithful, theres hope eternal. Yet between today and eternity, a great struggle looms. So as the tech hordes amass their might, believers must gird their loins, because the 21st century will bring trials to rival the 20th century.

James P. Pinkerton is an author and contributing editor atThe American Conservative. He served as a White House policy aide to both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

The rest is here:

Can the Old Gods Survive Liberalism's Furies? - The American Conservative

Derrick Tran, Contributing

Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella stressed the importance of pursuing universal democratic values and human rights in an emotional speech at the eighth annual David J. Bederman Lecture, held in the Tull Auditorium at the Emory School of Law.

Speaking on the state of international law, Abella described what she saw as an atmosphere polluted by bombastic anti-intellectualism, sanctimonious instability and a moral free-for-all, which she believes sets a dangerous precedent for the future.

Everyone is talking, and no one is listening, she told the audience. We are in danger of a new status quo where anger triumphs over indignity and indignity over decency.

A renowned human rights advocate, Abella pointed to recent events concerning the treatment of Syrian Kurds, which she described as the latest unconscionable global tragedy, as confirmation of her deepest fears that the relationship between international human rights law and justice is becoming increasingly dysfunctional.

Abella clarified that one cause of this increasing dysfunctionality may be confusion over the term rule of law, which she argued was used merely as a justification for the legitimacy of a perspective.

This generation has seen the rule of law impose apartheid, segregation and genocidal discrimination, she said.

Abella instead called for the universalization of democratic values such as due process and the right to religious freedom, which she argued were more important.

When we trumpet those core democratic values, we trumpet the instruments of justice, and justice is what laws are supposed to promote, Abella said.

Abella related to the audience a narrative of American legal history, which she argued was synonymous with liberal democracy, and how attitudes towards individual rights were in part responsible for rights discrimination, a reality that was not confronted the aftermath of the Holocaust.

We were so far removed from what we thought were the limits of rights discrimination, Abella explained. [After 1945], we had no moral alternative but to acknowledge that individuals could be denied rights not in spite of, but because of their differences.

Abella reckoned that we have since relapsed into individualistic thought with regard to human rights, rationalising it with terms such as political correctness, cultural relativism and domestic sovereignty.

These are concepts that excuse intolerance, she said. Silence in the face of intolerance means that intolerance wins.

Abella identified recent incidences of religious terrorism in Pittsburgh, New Zealand and Sri Lanka as evidence that the horrifying spectacle of group destruction had returned.

We have also had, among others, the genocide of Rwanda, the massacres in Bosnia and the Congo, the repression in Chechnya, child soldiers in Sudan, Zimbabwe, China, Myanmar, Pakistan and more, Abella continued.

Abella also cited the fact that, since 1945, 40 million people have been killed as a result of military conflicts.

Nevertheless, Abella did recognize the great success of several UN agencies in their efforts since 1945. However, given the enormous capacity for constructing legal systems and institutions to advance international human rights law, Abella noted her disappointment in the overall lack of progress in the area, particularly when compared to progress in international economic law.

What states have been unable to achieve in 65 years of international human rights law is up and running after 25 years of international trade regulation, Abella said. I find this dissonance startling and unsettling.

Although Abella did admit she had no solutions, she elucidated that her ideas were not purely hypothetical but also based largely on her experiences.

To me this is not just theory, she explained. I am the child of Holocaust survivors.

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1946, many of Abellas relatives were killed in the Treblinka extermination camp in German-occupied Poland.

My father was the only person in his family to survive the war, Abella disclosed.

Abella came to Canada in 1950, shortly after the publication of the Nuremberg principles, a set of guidlines for determining what constitutes a war crime. She admitted that the publication of these principles provided little consolation for her family.

Im sure that they would have preferred by far that the sense of outrage that inspired the Allies to establish the military tribunal at Nuremberg had been around many years earlier, before the events that led to it ever took place, she explained.

Abella made history in 2004 when she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, becoming the first Jewish woman to ever do so. Abella was also the youngest and first pregnant judge in Canadian history when she was appointed to Ontario Family Court in 1976.

Speaking on her own life and career, Abella revealed that it had never occurred to [her] to be anything but a lawyer.

My life started in a country where there had been no democracy, no rights and no justice, she said. It created an unquenchable thirst in me for all three.

Abella also revealed that the best advice she could give law students was to not listen to anyone.

Dont take anybodys advice! she quipped. If I had, I would not be a lawyer, and I certainly would not be serving on the Supreme Court.

Abellas elegiac lecture was received tremendously by the Emory community, who gave her a standing ovation at the lectures conclusion.

Link:

Canadian Supreme Court Justice Disappointed by Lack of Progress in International Human Rights - The Emory Wheel

By Christina Myer

Poor Whitney Cummings. Never heard of her? She tried to boost her profile a bit recently by appearing on a late-night talk show to discuss her roots. Those would be here in the Mountain State, by the way.

What she managed was to prove that often for celebrities it is more important to make a spectacle than to demonstrate any real knowledge; and that political correctness isn't about making sure EVERYONE is treated fairly, only the demographic groups in fashion at the time.

Sadly, those of us living in Appalachia, and particularly West Virginia, are still fair game when it comes to "jokes" that would be considered scandalously insensitive were they applied to anyone else.

Cummings, it seems, was appalled to find out after her father's death that he was not from "Western Virginia," as she had always believed, but from West Virginia. When the British host of the talk show said he was not familiar with West Virginia, she said "there's a big difference between Virginia and West Virginia, like four chromosomes difference, it's like the skin tag of Virginia." She used other, more vulgar terms for our relationship with Kentucky, and lamented finding out she has "hillbilly DNA."

There is no appropriate reaction to such a performance other than to feel sympathy for someone so undereducated and in need of attention. Those of us who understand having "hillbilly DNA" is a point of pride cannot help but to offer a "bless her heart," to someone so deprived.

Surely the education she received growing up in Washington, D.C., included mention of the Civil War, and the only state born of that horrific period because its residents did not want to remain under the thumbs of those who were willing to fight and die to preserve their right to own slaves. Does that mean comedian, actress, producer, writer and director Cummings was disappointed to learn she did not have roots in the same state that as recently as two years ago hosted a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, which featured the waving of Confederate battle flags, Nazi flags and tiki torches?

Unfair to lump all Virginians into that category? Of course it is.

It's tempting to think Cummings should know better, given most celebrities' reactions to what they deem slurs and derogatory generalizations. What a shame that she does not.

Christina Myer is

executive editor of The Parkersburg News & Sentinel.

Read the original here:

Comedian earns the wrath of Appalachia - GrafWV.com Entertainment, the arts, alternative news for W.Va. - Graffiti

For some college students, its a parody that hits way to close to home. When The Babylon Bee ran asatirical news storyabout a motorcyclist identifying as a bicyclist to set a new record, a group of runners at the Big Sky Conference understood all too well. In their conference, boys dont just compete as girlsthey get honored for it!

Two years ago, Jonathan Eastwood dominated the mens competition. In 2019, hes dominating something else: the womens field. Eastwood, who now goes by June, finished second in a field of 204 runners at the Santa Clara Bronco Invitational and helped the University of Montana finish seventh as a team.

For that, school officials decided, hes been named the Womens Cross-Country Athlete of the Week, edging out eight otheractualfemales for the title.

Not surprisingly, Bill Zwerger noticed, the 6-foot, 5-inch male fared quite wellagainst his weaker and slower female competitors this season, finishing first at the University of Montanas Invitational and second (by one second!) at the most recent Bronco Invitational. But thats only to be expected, seeing that he was a top runner for the U of M Grizzlies men X-C and track and field teams as recently as 2017.

I have the sneaking suspicion that his latest second-place finish was due to him letting off the gas toward the end of the race, seeking to minimize the negative publicity his winning yet again would have garnered, along with the outrage his female opponents must feel in having a male win every race against them.

When The College Fix contacted the university, it asked why the school didnt disclose the fact that Eastwood identifies as a transgender. Spokesman Joel Carlson insisted there was no subtext.

Good luck convincing the rest of the sport, which is struggling to survive this fatal infusion of political correctness.

Even now, the NCAA has no answers for girls track, admitting, The NCAA does not have a maximum testosterone level for its current policy. The current policy is being reviewed by our membership.

In the meantime, womens high school and college programs are desperately trying to cope as girls lose more races, team eligibility, and scholarships to biological men.

Girlslike Selina Soulehave been adamant that they just want a fair shot. But thats virtually impossible now, she says, on an unlevel playing field. In her complaint to the Department of Education, she argues that womens sports cant compete in an age when biological men can line up and take her trophies.

In Connecticut, where Selina competes, the reality is particularly harsh. The competition board allows boys to race against girls, even without undergoing any sort of hormone therapy.

Olympians like Sharron Davies are furious that the standards are so low now that men can compete against women no surgery required no hormones no medical diagnosis just self-ID and reduced testosterone to a level [still] x5 the highest average (98%) of [real] females.

Its madness, she argues. The whole reason we have mens and womens sports, she points out, is because we are biologically different. Performance 100% confirms that. The reason steroids (including testosterone) are on the banned list is because using them give[s] you an advantage.

And yet, the extinction of womens sportsand the uniqueness of women in generalis exactly what the Democratic Party is championing.

Under the radical Equality Act passed by the House, every school would beforcedto accept men like Eastwood into girls athletics. Its a policy so near and dear to the 2020 candidates that Joe Biden promised that if he was elected, [the Equality Act] will be the first thing I ask to be done.

If there is a silver lining to this politically correct lunacy, its that more people are starting to see the quandary thats created by policies and decisions that arent based in anatomical realities but emotional whims.

If biological sex doesnt matter in sports, where does it matter? Good question. One that most liberals cant seem to answer.

Members from both sides of the aisleespecially those who claim to be pro-woman and pro-childrenneed to stop this devastating legislation. The future of womens rights, privacy, protection, and athletic potential depends on it.

Originally published in Tony PerkinsWashington Update, which is written with the aid of Family Research Council senior writers.

More:

Biological Male Wins Women's Athlete of the Week Award - Daily Signal

Kanye West at Paris Fashion Week in 2015(Charles Platiau/Reuters)Hes just the figure to bring a needed message that our society should reconsider what it deems praiseworthy.

On Friday, anyone with a pulse would have seen the news of the release of Kanye Wests newest album, Jesus Is King. It comes after months of news stories about Wests very public conversion to Christianity, a Christianity that bears no resemblance to the vague spiritualism of Moral Therapeutic Deism that is often associated with celebrity conversions.

The lyrics to each song in Jesus Is King are shockingly Christian. It is not an album of feel-good Christian spirituality aimed primarily as a message of uplift. West co-wrote and sang the hit Jesus Walks on his debut album The College Dropout (2004), but Jesus Is King is different. Throughout the whole of the new album, West is in many respects deeply critical of modernity and cultural progressivism. There are calls for a focus more on the family than on individual glory. He seems to applaud Chick-fil-A, which in our age is tantamount to endorsing bigotry. Social-media obsession should be exchanged for family prayer. Fatherhood is characterized as a virtue. Materialism is pilloried. Calls for worshiping Christ redound to such effect that Wests first Christian album is arguably more Christian than what most contemporary Christian artists could similarly muster.

But in the media rollout of Wests album, its worth paying attention to other statements hes made. Hes criticized abortion and believes that the African-American community is getting played by Democrats. He remains defiant in the face of political correctness. A man of evolving identities who has struggled with mental illness in his past, he told Zane Lowe during a two-hour long Beats 1 interview that during the planning of the album, he insisted that those around him fast and abstain from premarital sex. In the interview with Lowe, West has the anthropology of C. S. Lewis, the economics of Wilhelm Rpke, the cultural mood of Wendell Berry, and the defiance of Francis Schaeffer. In Jesus Is King and in interviews, we see a Kanye West upholding what Russell Kirk referred to as the Permanent Things.

Hes rejecting the hyper-sexualization of culture that he admitted he helped create. In an ode to the Niebuhrian Christ-and-culture typology, he said hes now living his life for Christ and ostensibly against culture.

In a word, Kanye West is now a cultural reactionary by the standards of our society, and could be, in time, a cultural wrecking ball that dislodges so much of the assumed, comfortable, and unchecked cultural liberalism that dominates the most elite sectors of our country and mocks anything resembling traditionalism and social conservatism. In an age of libertarian sentiment, when the currency of American society appear to be glamorization and the notion that consent is the only reasonable moral standard, West is calling for restraint and limits.

To that end, I wish him success. Hes just the figure, given his massive iconic cultural status, to bring a needed message that our society should reconsider what it deems praiseworthy. To that end, his religious conversion could spark a revolution in morals, similar to what the conversion of 19th-century abolitionist William Wilberforce helped foster in England.

If I were a cultural progressive, West would now be on my enemies list. Hes daring to name the forces that eat away at human happiness, and, given his unpredictable nature, theres no telling what he will not be willing to confront. Hes a figure with just enough audacity and celebrity to get people to reconsider their lives.

Time will only tell of what will come from his radical conversion to Christianity. But in the wake of this news, I have one message of warning to my fellow Christians about West: There will be a temptation by well-meaning Christians to make him a champion of Christianity. Christians could easily impute their own cultural insecurities onto West, who is the very definition of a cultural icon. Lets not do that.

The Apostle Paul warns in the New Testament about vesting too much hope and confidence in new converts, fearing they would be puffed up with pride (something, lets be honest, Kanye has no problem exuding). We need to let Kanye be a Christian Kanye without making him into a Christian celebrity.

Read more from the original source:

Kanye Wests Conversion Could Be a Cultural Wrecking Ball - National Review

(NOTE: The following is an update version of an essay I wrote some years ago)

And Yaktan sired Hatzarmavet(Genesis 10:26)

Rashi: According to Aggadah (Bereishit Rabbah) after the name of his location

* * *

A century ago the global game was imperialism; there were the Ottoman, British, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian empires. In our time the game is unification: The United States, the UN, the Arab League, The European Union.

The difference between the two is simple. Empires are the forcing of the will of a single nation over other, less powerful nations. Unification is the willing participation of different nations or states in an effort at unity and shared purpose.

From my perspective unification is infinitely more dangerous, especially when it is imperialism posing as unification. And most especially when it is, yet again, Germany, this time clad in the sheeps clothing of a European Union, attempting for the third time in a century to dominate its continent, if not the world.

But let us discuss lesser scoundrels first. Has there ever been a more corrupt, mendacious, resource-wasting, unbalanced organization than the UN? Having been established with the best of intentions, it has degenerated to where today under the guise of unity, democracy and fairness it has become the chief instigator of pernicious injustices, and provides an umbrella of legitimacy for the most inexcusable and oppressive regimes.

Can anyone be blind to the veryraison detreof the Arab League, an organization whose overriding obsession since its inception has been the undoing of the State of Israel? Can one point to a single program or project undertaken by this unifying League to enhance the quality of life, health, education and welfare of Arabs anywhere?

And what of the UN Human Right Council a club of primarily third world thuggeries obsessively committed to perpetrating an ongoing gang-bang against Israel with the tacit, if not active, approval of major Western European democracies.

Then there is UNESCO, a purportedly benign, education and cultural association, now almost pathologically dedicated to rewriting history in service of he most retrograde Islamist interests.

Taking the cake, of course, in the European Union, a seemingly benign attempt to dilute the identity of Europes various nation states in order to foster greater democracy and economic fairness. The EU is the result of an apparently compassionate post-nationalist desire to level the global playing field. Here the intentions seem good, even as they pave the road to hell, leading to the predictable day when Europe will have good-willed its way to oblivion under a yoke of murderous Islamic totalitarianism.

For make no mistake, the Islamic demographic invasion of Europe is not something apart from European unification, it is a result of the same enlightened thinking: Alle menschen wurden Bruder,all people are brothers; there are no better or worse people, no superior or inferior cultures. We are all G-ds children except that for the politically correct there really is no G-d. What should have raised a red flag from the get-do was that all this nostrum about universal brotherhood was being peddled by a post-Holocaust Germany. Who in their right mind would trust the German Volk with anything? And yet

Even the United States, the first unifying amalgamation under the banner of freedom, has democratized itself to the point where its protective walls have been breached, and the nefarious, malignant and irreversible invasion has begun all fully sanctioned by a delusional belief in the good intentions of all peoples. Fortunately under the Trump administration some brakes have been applied to this willful national suicide. But considering what waits in the wings should the Republicans lose in 2020, the free world must prepare for catastrophe.

With all this circle-dancing of unification, the world has become a vastly more dangerous place. This liberal, well-intentionedAlle Menschen wurden Bruderthinking inevitably results in a political correctness that, at its best, ignores real and present dangers and, at its worst, endorses and supports them.

Yes, it runs counter to our intelligence to believe that cooperation and unity between disparate ethnic, political and linguistic groups is dangerous. But it does not run counter to our instincts. And the empirical evidence is clear unifying/cooperative efforts have brought our world to the brink of doom, and it will take a miracle to turn the clock back.

This, I believe is the message of the story of the Tower of Babel which appears in this weeks Torah reading, Parshat Noah.

At first glance, the inclusion of this story in the Torah makes no sense. For traditional Jews, the Torah is not a history book its primary importance is legal, didactic and exegetical. Which begs the question as to why the story of the Tower of Babel is included altogether.

The existence of many languages is a given. Indeed earlier verses in this very Parsha mention the diversity of languages. In Genesis 9:10 we read;From these, the islands of the nations separated in their lands,each one to his language, according to their families, in their nations.. Clearly the Babel story itself whether actual or mythical must contain a message for the generations.

(11:1) )And the land was of one language and devarim ahadim(which means singular words, but could/should be read as unifying words)

(11:4)And they said, Come, let us build for us a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make ourselves a name(reputation),lest we become scattered across the face of entire land.

(11:6) And the Lord said; Lo one people who have one language, and this is what they have commenced to do, . The latter part of this verse is generally understood (according to Rashi) as questioning: ie.Now will it not be withheld () from them all that they have planned to do?

I would respectfully suggest another reading of this verse entirely.

The conventional understanding of the Babel story is that the people who settled in the land of Shinar (verse 2) were defying G-d. Their purpose in constructing the ziggurat known to us as the Tower of Babel was an attempt to reach G-d in the heavens and challenge His dominion.

Can this possibly explain why G-d sowed discord through a babel of languages? Was G-d afraid of this challenge? Did He need to nip the project in the bud lest the people actually achieve such a goal?

If we accept Rashis understanding of the tale, the translation of the closing phrase of verse 6; Now will it not be withheld () from them all that they have planned to do?is necessary if somewhat forced.

I would suggest, however that yibatzer does not mean witheld, and this phrase is not a question but a statement a statement by G-d describing how he is planning to rescue these people from a terrible fate the inevitable destruction that is the result of too much unity.

The word is akin to the word which means fortification. Hence, the verse is saying that a consequence of a single language and singular purpose would result in;and nowas a consequence( ) they(the people of Shinar)will not be protected from them(i.e. outside enemies)by all that they(the people of Shinar)have planned to do.

G-d understands that by creating the false sense of security that comes from the apparent unity and glory of a powerful city and a tower, they are achieving the very opposite result namely rendering themselves vulnerable to incursion by destructive outside forces.

Indeed the story must be understood in an entirely different way. It is hardly a negative reflection on the people who settled in Shinar. On the contrary:

As I see it, a large population of Noahs varied descendants settled in Shinar. Relying on their intellect, they decide to build a utopian society united by common language and culture; a society that would be centered in a strong city surrounding an awe-inspiring tower.

They believe that without this unity of purpose, without a shared language and culture, they would become vulnerable to outside forces and end up exiled and dispersed.

Human intelligence, when shared by people with decent intentions, inevitably leads to a benign vision of a world that is hardly benign; a vision whereby outsiders would be welcome to this utopian society, and would be so impressed with its culture and its architecture and its skyscrapers that they would only desire to become part of the noble vision, certainly not plot to destroy it.

And so, G-d saves the day by dividing the population of Shinar into a multiplicity of different cultures, each with its own language,preciselybecause it is this disunity that augurs best for human survival contrary to what we might think with our brains.

By dividing the people through language, G-d replaces intelligence with instinct. Humankind develops an instant need to survive through the delicate balance between the limited and necessary unity on a small ethnic scale, and the disunity of humankind through the establishment of borders and distinct cultural identities.

Yes, there would be tensions, suspicions and occasional skirmishes, but these would be minor by comparison to the utter devastation that would result when a mighty, seemingly impregnable unified nation-state believes, naively, that everyone even those who are not part of this society are inherently benign and have good intentions. Because that is when the society becomes careless, and exposes isAchilles heel so that it can be easily toppled, as happened to the Greek and Roman empires.

The flood of Parshat Noah did not cover the entire planet earth. It covered a large swath of what was the cradle of our civilization and the birthplace of monotheism.

G-d had other plans and uses for India, China and Japan (the Sinites referred to in Noah are likely not the Chinese) which not now or ever were centers of monotheism and belief in the one G-d.

Eretz, the land, referred to in Parshat Noah and in the story of the Tower of Babel has its perimeters defined trough the names of Noahs progeny. On the one extreme we have Ashkenaz, which is central Europe. On the other extreme with have Hatzarmavet which the Midrash says is a place, which indeed it is. The utterly inhospitable end of Yemen in called Hadramaut (in Hebrewheder-mavet) which means the almost the same, i.e. courtyard of death. Few people dare enter this forbidding desert, and for most it seems like the very end of the earth.

The People who settle in Shinar believe they inhabit a safe world. They are either oblivious to the existence of alien nations or assume that these alien nations are benign at best, or, at the very least, would be so impressed by the Shinarian culture, economy, architecture and civilization, they would never think of causing any trouble.

Babel is happening today, in real time. A powerful United States of America can have its most visible symbol of global importance, the Twin Towers, leveled in minutes by a handful of savages. Does America learn its lesson? Hardly. Islam is labeled a religion of peace. Muslim immigration continues unabated. A president like Obama goes and bows to the monarch of the very country, the worlds most retrograde feudal state, which incubates global terror. We allowed a Gadaffi to remain in power decades after he had blown an American jetliner out of the sky. We twiddle out thumbs as Iran goes nuclear. After all,Alle Menschen wurden bruder,how bad can those folks really be?

Europe has its head even deeper in the ground than America. Hell bent in its fever of politically correct post-nationalism on unifying its disparate and historically un-fraternal nations, the enlightened Europeans convince themselves that Islamists are people, just like any other, who wish to join their melting pot and become like all other Europeans. After all,Alle Menschen wurden bruder,how bad can those Muslim folks really be?

This suicidal political correctness is in lockstep with a G-dless and egocentric belief in human intelligence. The instinct for survival is disappearing from the western DNA, as evidenced by the attempt to erase borders, language barriers, currency differences etc. the very things that keep smaller nation states in a state of wary self-preservation.

Purely on instinct a majority of Britons woke up a few years ago and decided to rescue themselves from this impending disaster. Time will tell if Brexit was not too little, too late.

In fact the only western national state in which a majority still espouse the need for particularism and even parochialism is Israel. Because, at least the Jews who live here not all, but most have learned what international brotherhood inevitably leads to.

Any wonder that Europe would love to see us disappear? Any wonder that we will be around long after they are done for?

More here:

Parshat Noah: The EU, Tower of Babel Redux - The Times of Israel

Halloween is one of Americas favorite yearly activities. Unfortunately, Halloween can be Americas scariest too, especially for those of us seen as costumes you wear rather than the human beings that we are.

Asian Americans, Native Americans, blacks, Muslim women in burqas, hijabs and Muslim men in turbans with beards, are frequent targets of race-themed costumes. Whites donning blackface was commonly accepted misbehavior that dates back long before it was disclosed months ago that the present Virginia governor, Ralph Northam, once went in blackface as Michael Jackson in the 1980s.

With anti-immigration sentiment toward Mexicans evident with the mass shooting in El Paso, there will be some Halloween revelers mocking this racial group. However, those not intended to mock or to mimic yet dress up in Mexican serape and hat or in the Little Mexican Amigo Toddler Costume sold on Amazon will hit racial landmines, too.

We are a country that doesnt want to confront race. Halloween, an activity thats masked with tricks and treats and playful mischief, ironically unmasks the face of Americas troubled history with race.

Its hard not to make the connection with contemporary topics, themes and people trending in news and culture to Halloween costumes worn that year. For example, a year after Trayvon Martins murder, a rash of Trayvon Martin Halloween costumes appeared with white people wearing hoodies, carrying Skittles and sporting gunshot wounds. That same year, in 2013, Julianne Hough, a judge on ABCs "Dancing with the Stars," wore blackface as her favorite character Crazy Eyes in the Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black for Halloween. Award-winning Nigerian American actress Uzo Aduba portrays the character Crazy Eyes.

This year we see Halloween decorations of lynching across the country. In Chesapeake, Virginia, a figure was found wrapped in black trash bags hanging from a tree. In Brooklyn, a Halloween decoration displayed children hanging from nooses. Now gone, the display was across the street from an elementary school. Here in Andover, just a 30-minute drive from my home in Cambridge, a McDonalds apologized for a Halloween decoration displaying a person hanging from a tree by the neck.

In this racial climate of a resurgence of white nationalism, its not hard to connect President Trumps recent comment about lynching to some of the lynching-themed Halloween decorations popping up across the country. In a tweet, Trump compared the Houses impeachment inquiry to a lynching.

So some day, if a Democrat becomes president and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the president, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here, a lynching. But we will win, Trump tweeted.

The horrific act of lynching is a form of domestic terrorism and social control. Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African American male teen lynched in the Mississippi Delta in the summer of 1955, became this nations iconic image of the cowardice acts of white supremacist terrorism. In 2018 the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial, opened to commemorate the thousands of recorded black bodies lynched in the 18th and 19th centuries. Trumps use of the racial trope essentializes and erases the particular history and context of black struggle in America.

Our present-day fight is to pass legislation to make the act of lynching a federal hate crime in this century. Also, in this climate to Make America Great Again, Trumps use of the racial trope of lynching sadly might encourage some to taunt, jeer, frighten and even act violently toward non-white, non-Christian and LGBTQ+ Americans.

Even with the best intentions, Halloween hangings displaying the act of lynching ought not to bring joy nor laughter -- whether intended to cause harm or not. Dany Rose just recently learned this lesson. Roses home window display of brown cutout paper dolls hanging by their neck immediately prompted community outrage and protest. Rose, the co-director of ArtShack Brooklyn, who recently resigned from her post, offered the following apology: The images were based on the horror movie 'Annabelle,' but because they were made of brown kraft paper and hanging from nooses, they were deeply racially offensive I understand that ignorance is no excuse and apologies are not enough, but nonetheless I want to apologize sincerely to my neighbors and community.

Some feel Halloween no longer brings joy and laughter in a woke culture where the tyranny of political correctness and identity politics police behavior. However, if you feel youre rocking your Halloween outfit instead of mocking an ethnic group or cultural practice, please keep these thoughts in mind: wearing the traditional clothing of another culture is not a costume. Donning blackface is not a mask. Dressing as a homeless person isnt funny. Adopting someone elses dialect for the evening is not cool. Purchasing the Disguise Womens Dragon Geisha Costume from Amazon is not okay.

Halloween is a Celtic festival. People lit bonfires and wore costumes to ward off ghosts. We can do the same without dredging up the ghosts of Americas racism.

Cambridge resident Rev. Irene Monroe is a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Monroe also does a weekly Monday segment called All Revd Up on WGBH, a Boston member station of National Public Radio.

Read the original:

FAITH IN ACTION COLUMN: Halloween unmasks our troubled history with race - Wicked Local Cambridge

The legendary English musician performs the music of Soft Cell this Halloween night in Boston

Here in America, we tend to see Halloween as a celebration of things that are scary and morbid; but viewed more generally, the excitement of the season, the reason that, for certain people, its their favorite holiday of the year, is due to the way that it combines general merriment with a sly subversion of what a celebration is supposed to be. We eat candy, dress up, and throw elaborate parties, but at the same time we throw the spotlight on death? Fear? Sadness? Existential dread?

Well, okay, so maybe your conception of Halloween differs from mine; that said, we can all agree that when you are peeling a bowl full of grapes so that unsuspecting rubes will mistake them for eyeballs in the dark, you are feeling the thrill of inappropriateness, making light of the dark while darkening the light. And perhaps you might find yourself doing just that Thursday night (October 31) whilst belting along to the early-80s anthems of Leeds synth-pop pioneers Soft Cell, when singer Marc Almond appears, along with Hercules & Love Affair and DJ Chris Ewen, as part of Los Angeles party doyen and Lethal Amounts honcho Danny Fuentes Sex Cells blowout at the Paradise Rock Club.

Here in the States, Almond is primarily known for his Soft Cell hits (and for turning Gloria Jones early-60s Ed Cobb-penned Northern Soul b-side Tainted Love into a global synthtone smash); in the UK however, he is a legendary artist with a four-decades-and-going run that has seen him sell 30 million records whilst being appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire all achieved with an ear for a great tune and a finely calibrated ability to hone in on heartbreak and dread at the center of a song.

Vanyaland had the opportunity to pick Almonds brain on what Halloween means to him, and how darkness and subversion can make a great pop song greater.

Daniel Brockman: Were very excited because youre going to be playing Boston on Halloween, as it turns out. Should be very exciting do you have anything special planned for the show?

Marc Almond: Umm, I picked a set to do that I think fits in with one of Dannys parties, so I dont know really, I cant say, Im not going to wear a witchs costume or anything though! [laughs]

Right, I was curious because in America, Halloween is such a big deal, not sure if its as much a big deal for you.

Well, I do know that over here Im considered a bit gothic, I suppose; a bit of electro-gothic is my contribution to Halloween I think. So I think itll be a set that fits in with that, and Ill try and be as gothic as i possibly can.

I was thinking about that when I was thinking about you playing a show on Halloween, because at least in America, the way people view the 80s and the way we slot in the hits of Soft Cell hits with goth or goth culture is kind of odd how do you feel about that, does that make sense to you?

I dont really mind, because over the years I mean, Ive been making music for over 40 years now, and Ive done lots of different genres from electro, to kind of post-punk, to rock, to big balladry, to Russian folk, so people are going to hook onto a genre or a period Ive always picked kind of dark subjects for my songs, written dark love songs, so I guess I get fitted in to that kind of gothic genre I suppose. I dont really mind, really, I dont really mind, but Im not a big fan of labeling things. People do that but it doesnt bother me. I think gothic fans are fantastic, I love people expressing themselves how they want to, I think thats absolutely wonderful.

This tour is a real party atmosphere, and I feel like in a weird way that kind of ties in a lot of what youve done over the last 40 years; even when your music has been serious or dark, youve always kept a party atmosphere.

Ive always loved pop hits; even whenever Im in the midst of one of my more artistic projects, I always wind up coming back to pop music, I really love pop music, I grew up from when I was a young kid listening to pop music. I had young parents who the radio on all the time, I watched all the pop shows. I always come back to that, I like things with a dancey beat and a catchy chorus. And I especially love how pop music can be quite subversive you can have dark lyrics but hide it behind a catchy chorus and a dance beat. Im a great believer in the classic pop song and I always kind of come back to that.

I really agree, especially on the subversive angle of pop music did you pick up on that as a kid?

Yeah, I mean, Ive always been more of a Rolling Stones fan than a Beatles fan, if you know what I mean, when I was a kid, because I liked things that were edgy and tapped into things that were a bit darker and a bit esoteric. When I was a very young kid, watching black and white shows on TV, I was always attracted to the darker things; I grew up in the 60s and I loved the whole psychedelic era, and then the 70s with David Bowie and T. Rex and Iggy Pop and Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground so Im always drawn to those things. But again, its all about great songs, they all had great songs, didnt they? But with a little bit of darkness in their lyrics, and that was always what I was drawn to.

When I started buying records in the early 70s, I actually kind of started with prog rock, and I actually liked that a lot; but then David Bowie came along, and for me and a lot of people in my generation, he spoke to a lot of different things. He really kind of educated me, more than my teachers in schools! David Bowie taught you that there was another life out there, beyond this little town in the north of England, and you have to go and find this other life. And Lou Reed taught you about this other life in New York, and it was thrilling and exciting. Youd hear a song like Walk On The Wild Side, singing about drag queens and hustlers and things, and it was so subversive.

Now, thats considered a bad song, because its not very politically correct and now its kind of its not a good way of expressing things, but I think its a fantastic song, and for me, to hear that song played on the radio at number one, with nobody really listening to the lyrics was just an amazing thing. Things like that really inspired Soft Cell when we started making music, like how you can put a little bit of darkness into a pop song.

Do you feel that people nowadays dont need that sense of desperate liberation from a pop song? Or is it a different type of liberation that they get from a song? Or do they just get it from somewhere else?

I think that everythings become quite subversion has become quite mainstream now, so people nowadays are making all sorts of interesting things but its all sort of referring back to something that has already been made. Its like a return to vinyl, isnt it? People want to get some of that revolutionary thing that happened in the 60s and 70s and early-80s; the early-80s, really, might have been the last great age of truly subversive pop, original pop.

We love the artists of the early-80s who took their inspiration from the artists of the 70s: David Bowie, T. Rex, from punk music, from early electronic music, things in Germany like Kraftwerk. I think people are really desperate to catch some of that feeling now, and I think its very hard to be I mean, it was genuinely shocking back then to hear David Bowie sing songs from Aladdin Sane, for example, and it was genuinely shocking at the time to watch Top of the Pops when Bowie put his arm around the lead guitarist I dunno, it was just Wow!, it just wasnt done on television! And you cant explain to people the shock that that was for people at the time.

***

I think people want to get that back, and its very hard to get that back because musics kind of a photocopy now, its a bit of a photocopy of a photocopy, its been watered down so much to reach the mainstream. Now its more like people do interesting variations on this material, giving it a twist or mix it up with something else in an interesting way its hard to get that back without it being merely a nod to the past.

Theres such a political correctness now as well; you just cant say things like you used to, like people say that Walk On the Wild Side is a bad record and shouldnt be played anymore, because it doesnt talk about people in the correct way, uses terms for drag queens and its just very hard, were just really bound and have to say the correct things now. I get it, but I think its a shame, in a way.

That record, for decades, for generations, kept exposing people everywhere to a world that theyd never have firsthand experience with, and in that sense its such a crucial record, besides the fact that its an amazing song. I guess its hard for pop musicians to keep showing people a new world over and over again.

Yeah that is the challenge.

SEX CELLS: MARC ALMOND PERFORMS SOFT CELL + HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR + DJ CHRIS EWEN :: Thursday, October 31 at The Paradise Rock Club, 967 Commonwealth Ave. in Boston, MA :: 8 p.m., 21-plus, $45 in advance and $50 day of show :: Event page :: Advance tickets

Read more:

Interview: Marc Almond on darkness and subversion in pop music - Vanyaland

This essay is an excerpt from R. R. Renos new book Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West.

In every political culture, the we touches upon sacred things. Human beings are by nature social animals. But the particularity of the we is always a gift. Patrimony comes unbidden. I was created in the image and likeness of God, a noble heritage I share with every other human being. But in that universal inheritance I did not receive my distinctive patrimony as a Reno. That came by accident.

If I were from another family, I would still enjoy all the dignity of the humanity I share with others, but I would not be a Reno. And yet I do not feel the contingency as a diminishment. My parents, grandparents, and ancestors before them are in a real sense far more necessary to me than my generic humanity, so much so that Im far more likely to sacrifice my life for my blood relations than for someone outside the family circle, however equal he may be in the eyes of God. This is at once an obvious point about human natureblood is thicker than water, as folk wisdom puts itand something remarkable. The miracle of the we turns contingent familial solidarity into something more precious than our universal humanity. It is so powerful that it can overcome genetic differences, which is to say nature herself. Marriage creates a we. Adoption can expand the we. There is something thicker than bloodthe union of shared loves.

The miracle of the we infuses political solidarity with sacred significance. We are not created American or English or Polish, but our native languages are beloved. Its not simply a metaphor to speak of our motherlands and fatherlands. Here as well the power of the we transcends biology. Nations unite clans and tribes, villages and provinces. They can incorporate newcomers by naturalizing them, a process of civic adoption, as it were. And, of course, religious communities manifest the sacred sources of we as well, for they come from a divine source.

The solidarity found in the we is always political in the broadest sense. Because the we is not naturalthat is, it is not simply a consequence of our shared humanity or a biological dynamic of genetic connectionits particularity requires intentional effort to create, guide, and sustain. In short, the we does not just happen. I must form a domestic bond with a woman and have a child to perpetuate my family name. The civic realm needs to be defended; its history must be passed down, and the native language has to be taught. All this and much more must be done if a we is to have a future. Revelation and tradition have to be passed down and children catechized to sustain the religious we.

In every such endeavor, individuals must exercise their freedom. The we is not the product of a calculation of utility, nor is it simply given in racial or any other genetically determined identity. The we is an end in itself that asks us to do what is necessary to sustain and promote our shared loves, all of which harken to the call of strong gods. Governance, therefore, is integral to the we. In the intimate affairs of domestic life, it is obvious that the decisions and initiatives of the husband and wife allow the family to flourish. Let us leave aside religious leadership, which is explicitly ordered to the service of the divine, and focus on political leadership and the sacred sources of the civic we.

In its classical definition, a republic is not merely a system of government. It is that which is held as a common good among a particular people, a res publica. The resthe common thing that is the object of a shared loveis often many-sided. The French cherish their language and assign to their public institutions responsibility for maintaining its integrity and purity. The English are loyal to their free institutions, their history, and their countryside. Postwar Germans are disquieted by their own uncertainty about whether they have a right to be proud of their history. One could go on and on describing national characters. Better, however, to adopt a more general definition of the shared thing. In his massive account of world history,The City of God, Augustine defines the we as an assembled multitude of rational creatures bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love.

The postwar consensus is, at root, fearful of love. Formed by the decades of catastrophe, the generation so ably represented by Popper and Hayek recognized that loves passions can lead to destructive devotions. Love enflames ambitions, some of which impel us toward evil ends. Love inspires sacrifices, some of which are misguided and self-destructive. At their worst, perverse loves can beckon us to sacrifice others.

Our consensus in favor of openness seeks to prevent these dangers by depriving us of loves objects. Its techniques of disenchantment and weakening try to banish the strong gods or at least make them too weak to rouse our hearts. The postwar consensus critiques, deconstructs, and deflates a great deal of what the Western tradition has championed as fitting objects of our lovenot only God, but the nation and our cultural inheritance, even truth itself. By certain measures, the postwar consensus has been remarkably successful. It has brought calm to the West and great wealth as well. Since 1945 there has been but one war in Europeon the margins, in the Balkansthe consequence of passions and collective grievances stirred up by the collapse of the artificially imposed unity of communism. Its destructive, tribal passions seemed to vindicate the love-weary skepticism of Popper, Hayek, and the rest.

An open-society calm continues to dampen dangerous upsurges of discontent in the core nations of the West. Protesters regularly march through Paris. Italy can seem ungovernable. Germany anguishes over its history. Populism roils elections. Yet no paramilitary organizationsno Black Shirts, Brown Shirts, or Red Brigadesare taking to the streets. Anti-globalization riots in Hamburg in 2017were softened by an atmosphere of protest tourism rather than earnest rebellion. Local residents fed protestors sandwiches. Governing authorities seemed vaguely sympathetic. After all, in the atmosphere of the postwar consensus, street protests are presumptively beneficial. They remind us of the virtues of the open society, which are worth the broken windows and burning cars. After Trumps election, the people who took to the streets were overwrought women in ridiculous hats. Vattimo is right: There has been a great weakening. These days the occasional episodes of street violence are often the work of anti-fascist gangs who relish the rare opportunities our age allows for strong actions insofar as they target whatever remains of the historical enemies of the open societypolitical correctness with cudgels.

But the project of peace without love cannot go on much longer. Man was not created to be alone. We do not desire calm, not even when satiated by countless pleasures. We yearn to join ourselves to others, not only in the bond of matrimony but in civic and religious bonds as well. The we arises out of love, a ferocious power that seeks to rest in something greater than oneself. In the first half of the twentieth century, perverse loves destroyed a great deal in the West, not just lives and buildings, but cultural legitimacy as well. It is not surprising that Poppers open society and Hayeks spontaneous market order gained the upper hand. Nevertheless, the death camps, gulags, atomic bombs, and killing fields, however horrible, did not destroy human nature. Our hearts remain restless. They seek to rest in loyalty to strong gods worthy of loves devotion and sacrifice. And our hearts will find what they seek.

R. R. Reno is editor ofFirst Things.

Read this article:

The Miracle of We | RR Reno - First Things