Thursday, May 9, 2013

Ed Peters on the Perpetual State of Collapse

Ed Peters provides a useful antidote to the pessimism that Rod Dreher wallows in, and it's based on historical perspective as well as Christ's promise about the Gates of Hell. Excerpt:

Consider: Dreher ably traces the unraveling of Christianity in America, as represented in a special way by the battle over “gay marriage”, to a 1993 article in The Nation, springing from forces formally noticed in a 1966 book, in part unleashed by the Enlightenment in the late 18th century. He paints a plausible scenario. But why stop at the Enlightenment?

What was the Enlightenment except an exploitation of the disorder sowed by the Protestant Revolution? What was that religious revolution except a misdirected reaction to corruption in the medieval papacy? What was that papal corruption except a pernicious consequence of Papo-caesarism? What was that unbalanced ecclesiology but a short-sighted way to protect the Church against invasion by civil rulers? What was that regal invasion but . . . and so on and on and on—all the way back to Adam’s choice to believe what was nothing less than Satan’s Lie?

Simply put, the world is always in a state of collapse. Century after century after century. Catholics, or at any rate the Catholic Church, know this.

Then Peters goes on to say that capital-C Christianity isn't threatened by all the gay nonsense and that our marching orders to remain faithful are clear-cut, never mind the odds. Peters attitude is that of the soldier, and it's the one I'm trying to live. It's hard; pessimism is easier. Throwing in the towel is much easier than continuing to throw punches. Peters concludes:

Toward the end of his essay, Dreher holds out some hope for a recovery of moral senses, but it’s not much hope, and it is easy to miss his point. So let me sum up my way: things don’t always turn out as badly as we think they will turn out, and even if they do, so what? Our job is to shoulder on.

12 comments:

  1. Excellent. We need a pep talk once in awhile, especially in the sewer that is our modern culture.

    Reminds me of this stanza from an old poem:

    Then out spake brave Horatius,
    The Captain of the Gate:
    "To every man upon this earth
    Death cometh soon or late.

    And how can man die better
    Than facing fearful odds,
    for the ashes of his fathers,
    And the temples of his gods."


    P.S. Here's a glimmer of hope. A self-proclaimed atheist claiming to have some level of philosophy training tosses out a utilitarian view on the abortion question at a secular mostly-libertarian website. And the combox EXPLODES at him (your humble correspondent included), exposing his shallowness, and embarrassing the author into retorting with insults. Good stuff.

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  2. Dreher is just paving the way for his Coming "Evolution" on the Gay Marriage Question.

    Apparently this is a growing phenom among youngish converts to Orthodoxy, based on their highly tendentious / polemical / bigoted rejection of "Western" Natural Law theory. It's a capitulation to the Zeitgeist based on the tortured argument that the secular and heterodox cannot be expected to behave like Those of Us Who Are Illumined by the Light of Christ...so what the hey, let's throw in the towel on Western Civilization; let the dead bury their dead. The same arguments are popping up at Gabriel Sanchez's blog, Opus Publicum. Linkies to come.

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  3. Maybe there's something wrong with my perspective but I don't see this as pessimism by Dreher. I see it as cynical opportunism tarted up with his usual Cliff's Notes philosophizing.

    His conversion to this mopey fatalism coincides exactly with his blog becoming at least half gay friendly liberals and with the writing of his book. Big advance or not he's still got a lot of family expenses ahead and no matter how much he's pals with the big shots at TAC they're not going to keep him if he alienates half his readership there.

    So he turns to the centrism of Pontius Pilate. Hey right wing guys, technically I'm still against everything I'm supposed to be against, but hey left wings guys what can I do against The Inevitability of History but wash my hands clean of the problem? So you see I'm on both you guy's sides: I'm technically against it, but now harmlessly so.

    BTW, both of you guys: did you know that for an additional price you can get a full sized print of the book lining showing where all the hobbits live? Now let's all put our differences aside for awhile us and buy my stuff.

    Keith

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  4. Keith, I believe you have totally NAILED it.

    Now he can have his alleged Christian Conservatism and his buudy-buddy relationship with Andrew Sullivan, too. Win-win.

    I see it as cynical opportunism tarted up with his usual Cliff's Notes philosophizing.

    YES!! Eggzackly. Thank you.

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  5. Hey right wing guys, technically I'm still against everything I'm supposed to be against, but hey left wings guys what can I do against The Inevitability of History but wash my hands clean of the problem?

    Yep. This.

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  6. Ultimately it's very dualistic...and extreme dualism is not Christian. Bubba is onto something, methinks.

    Kind of ties in with that whole Benedict Option Thing, I think. Of course, as a Catholic, I recognize the case for a Fuga Mundi...but relatively few Christians are called to be cloistered monks or nuns; most of us cannot, in good conscience, wash our hands of our social responsibilities just because society appears to be going to Hell in the proverbial handbasket. We are called to fight. Speaking of Hobbits...isn't that the whole point of Aragorn's various hortatory speeches in the LOTR flicks?

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  7. I see it as cynical opportunism tarted up with his usual Cliff's Notes philosophizing.

    Keith, I see no reason why it cannot be both pessimism and opportunism. And we could throw in laziness and cowardice while we are at it. Add a dash of rage when his blood sugar gets low and voila! you have Dreher, or half a dozen other paleocons who scribble nonsense for amconmag.

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  8. No of course not though pessimism always seems to me to mean a more rational intellectual conclusion based on the sort of rational analysis Ed Peters gives us, which obviously ends up at a different destination than pessimism. So I guess I think of Dreher's congenital mopeyness that the reason he's not as beloved as Big Bird must surely reveal a Major Deformation in Civilization Itself as something much less intellectual and way more psychological than I usually think of "pessimism". Sullen mopey petulancism or something. But that's just me. Of course having too many rigid principles means that that many more people won't like you and then you'll be that much mopeyer, so he needs a way around that too. I think that pretty much defines Dreher's "intellectual" journey for me: what oh what can he ultimately profess and write about that will leave the fewest number of people thinking he's nothing more than a self-important little turd?

    Speaking of, I sometimes think it might be funny if someone made a blog celebrating What Rod Dreher Ate Yesterday and linked to every time he worships putting something into his gullet. Except this blog would feature charming and artistic generic pictures of the results instead. "Le Gratin Dauphinoise" = Plud. "The Best Smoked Boudin" = Ploppy.

    Sorry. I'm sorry.

    Keith

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  9. ...pessimism always seems to me to mean a more rational intellectual conclusion based on the sort of rational analysis...

    Yes, but Rod is a great general contractor. He subcontracts the analysis from others because he can't do it himself, and throws together a facade which looks and feels like a rational conclusion. Then he fluffs and buffs it and presto! Out comes the McMansion version of a well-reasoned argument for pessimism, localism, ruralism, etc.

    So, fast-food McArguments are his stable in his writings. "Do you want fries with that?" The comments from the cheerleaders in his blog posts are the French fries.

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    Replies
    1. Don't forget the Dreherian shorthand of assertion-by-name-dropping. Gives him the facade of being erudite, while letting him skip the hard part of actually supporting his point. With a bonus of making the reader feel ignorant when the name is unfamiliar.

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    2. With a bonus of making the reader feel ignorant when the name is unfamiliar.

      Which, most of the time, it is completely unfamiliar if not unknown.

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  10. Bang. Exactly.

    Keith

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