Though as long as we're making a pragmatic appeal to Christianity to secular conservatives, I can't help but think of the subject of women. All of these secular intellectual right ideas sound extremely male. Which is well and good when we're just sitting around discussing ideas with the boys, I like discussing ideas with the boys as much as anyone, but I *live* with a woman.
Christianity is an actual thing in the real world that real women participate in enthusiastically and will help train your kids to participate in enthusiastically. Not only that, but these women are generally more marriageable than the American median. Including, as an example, my own excellent wife. But the truth is if I weren't married to her, there's a surplus of single conservative Christian women of basically good character.
But I've never met a woman with Nietzschean sympathies. Ayn Rand was a woman, though it turns out not a marriageable one, even though she married. I'm sure some exist on Twitter, but there's probably a lot of grift and/or attention-seeking behavior going on there. In actuality, a man's personal Nietzschean or Evolian project sounds like something his wife -- if he has a wife -- is just going to roll her eyes at, unless she's one in a million. And I'm inclined to think that one in a million is likely to be weird and maybe a little crazy.
Yes - absolutely! I think a great test of an idea is whether it appeals to both sexes. Whatever slurs people throw at Christianity, ("Patriarchy" comes to mind") it continues to have appeal to both sexes.
Fascinating piece. A great article from National Affairs in 2014 (linked below) describes the five conceptions of liberty in the American tradition. It argues the intellectual right can still advocate for liberty, but a more communitarian/republican form of liberalism as it was understood around the founding, separate and distinct from natural rights liberalism. I think this secular communitarianism (with heavy, but not explicit, Christian influence) offers a third way in addition to your religious right and vitalist/ethnic right. Curious how you think about these various conceptions of liberty fitting into the framework you lay out above.
Can an argument be made that stakeholder capitalism (what we had in the postwar era) is more compatible with Christian teachings than the shareholder primacy (what we have had since 1980)?
It is related. I use stakeholder capitalism in a more technical sense as a label for the economic culture prevalent over 1940-80 compared to the shareholder capitalism prevalent since 1980 and before 1929. Here is a peer-reviewed paper I wrote on it in 2019.
Since then, I have developed it further in my substack relating shareholder culture to financialization and to the presence of periodic financial crises before 1933 and the potential resumption in 2008:
I think a word that is needed here is 'heresy'. The heresies that come from Christianity differ from those that arise from Judaism. But they are heresies, and should not be confused with the faith itself. In the book of Proverbs and the rest of the Old and New Testament we read a lot about what a Godly leader looks like. We are encouraged to follow the examples of David and Daniel, of Abraham and Solomon (early years :) ). And the examples we read in Christ's metaphors show a pretty 'strong' Godly ruler... wiping out people who refused to come to the wedding of his son.
So, let's use the word 'heresy' and clarify a good deal in this debate.
Yes, I think you could use the word "heresy." I think it's also good to recognize the content of Christian morality as something that people can retain while leaving behind Christianity. "Heretic" may not apply in such cases, but their morality is the morality of Christendom, ripped from its theological home. Nietzsche thought it couldn't survive on its own.
The Nietzscheans don't even have the Classical world to fall back to. Nietzsche's great enemy was never Jesus Christ or Christianity, his enemy was always Platonism. Christianity was just "Platonism for the masses." Socrates was the villain of history in his telling. And even Homer isn't the lover of unbridled strength and violence that people portray him to be. After all, the Iliad doesn't end with an act of vengeance or power, but an act of mercy. Hector's body is returned to his grieving family. And the Odyssey places home and non-martial virtues at the center. Achilles is not happy with his undying name. This is why someone like Evola, that thrice accursed old magician , decided to root his ideal in a mythical prehistoric world which never existed and in badly misinterpreted eastern religion.
Unrelatedly, I think we have a far too limited understanding of the meaning of western civilization these days. What exactly do we mean when we talk about defending the west? Ultimately, the west is the union of Greek Philosophy, Abrahamic Monotheism and Roman ideas about universal authority and law. And if that is the case, then the west does not end at the southern and eastern shore of the Mediterranean; the west ends at the Hindu Kush and gulf of Guinea. The Muslims are as much heirs of Greece and Rome as we are. Ibn Sina and Ibd Rushd are definitely working in the western tradition, if that idea has any meaning. The Ottomans even claimed to be the Roman Empire, although this claim became less important after they ceased the Caliphate from the Egyptian Mamluks, and the last Kaiser e Rum was deposed in 1922, not 1453.
Agree on that first point - I think there might be a distinction though between Platonism and the kind of classicism that vitalists extol. Socrates and Plato anticipate the cross; they contrast strongly with the "might makes right" of Thrasymachus and Nietzsche. The kind of violence Tom Holland encountered reading about the Roman greats is what some vitalists want to recover, übermenschen. Let's keep philosophy and Christianity, and temper the vitalism!
Well said! Thinkers like Jonathan Pageau, Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland, Paul Kingsnorth, Mary Harrington and even Russell Brand make one wonder if the intellectual tradition of Christianity might slowly have a central place in public discourse once again (even for non-Christians, which applies to half those folks). Trouble is none of those names are American, haha. Will it be harder here in the shadow of our more fundamentalist/Baptist history of the religious right? Guys like Russell Moore and David French seem to be paving the way in reaction to that. But sadly, reaction is precisely not what we need. Which reminds me of this from Lewis:
“For my own part I hate and distrust reactions not only in religion but in everything. Luther surely spoke very good sense when he compared humanity to a drunkard who, after falling off his horse on the right, falls off it next time on the left. I am convinced that those who find in Christ’s apocalyptic the whole of his message are mistaken. But a thing does not vanish—it is not even discredited—because someone has spoken of it with exaggeration. It remains exactly where it was. The only difference is that if it has recently been exaggerated, we must now take special care not to overlook it; for that is the side on which the drunk man is now most likely to fall off.”
Awesome piece, Joel. Articulates, refines, and extends inclinations I’ve had too. Will be very interested to see more thoughts on policy implications--what aspects of progress towards this vision get allocated to State, market, or community; what’s culturally incentivized vs. more rationally/explicitly, etc.. Thanks
Good thoughts.
Though as long as we're making a pragmatic appeal to Christianity to secular conservatives, I can't help but think of the subject of women. All of these secular intellectual right ideas sound extremely male. Which is well and good when we're just sitting around discussing ideas with the boys, I like discussing ideas with the boys as much as anyone, but I *live* with a woman.
Christianity is an actual thing in the real world that real women participate in enthusiastically and will help train your kids to participate in enthusiastically. Not only that, but these women are generally more marriageable than the American median. Including, as an example, my own excellent wife. But the truth is if I weren't married to her, there's a surplus of single conservative Christian women of basically good character.
But I've never met a woman with Nietzschean sympathies. Ayn Rand was a woman, though it turns out not a marriageable one, even though she married. I'm sure some exist on Twitter, but there's probably a lot of grift and/or attention-seeking behavior going on there. In actuality, a man's personal Nietzschean or Evolian project sounds like something his wife -- if he has a wife -- is just going to roll her eyes at, unless she's one in a million. And I'm inclined to think that one in a million is likely to be weird and maybe a little crazy.
Yes - absolutely! I think a great test of an idea is whether it appeals to both sexes. Whatever slurs people throw at Christianity, ("Patriarchy" comes to mind") it continues to have appeal to both sexes.
Fascinating piece. A great article from National Affairs in 2014 (linked below) describes the five conceptions of liberty in the American tradition. It argues the intellectual right can still advocate for liberty, but a more communitarian/republican form of liberalism as it was understood around the founding, separate and distinct from natural rights liberalism. I think this secular communitarianism (with heavy, but not explicit, Christian influence) offers a third way in addition to your religious right and vitalist/ethnic right. Curious how you think about these various conceptions of liberty fitting into the framework you lay out above.
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-five-conceptions-of-american-liberty
I’ve been very discouraged at the amount of antichrist attitudes and ideas here in the Substack rightosphere. Yours is a breath of fresh air.
Thank you, Dustin! I’m trying to jump into the fray without losing my soul
Can an argument be made that stakeholder capitalism (what we had in the postwar era) is more compatible with Christian teachings than the shareholder primacy (what we have had since 1980)?
For a discussion of the two see
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-economic-culture-evolves
I think so. I’m not wrong that that’s the same term now in use by the WEF, right?
Anyway, moral concerns and the common good should intrude into political economy, yes.
It is related. I use stakeholder capitalism in a more technical sense as a label for the economic culture prevalent over 1940-80 compared to the shareholder capitalism prevalent since 1980 and before 1929. Here is a peer-reviewed paper I wrote on it in 2019.
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9x36913k
Since then, I have developed it further in my substack relating shareholder culture to financialization and to the presence of periodic financial crises before 1933 and the potential resumption in 2008:
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-capitalist-crisis
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-american-secular-cycles
I think a word that is needed here is 'heresy'. The heresies that come from Christianity differ from those that arise from Judaism. But they are heresies, and should not be confused with the faith itself. In the book of Proverbs and the rest of the Old and New Testament we read a lot about what a Godly leader looks like. We are encouraged to follow the examples of David and Daniel, of Abraham and Solomon (early years :) ). And the examples we read in Christ's metaphors show a pretty 'strong' Godly ruler... wiping out people who refused to come to the wedding of his son.
So, let's use the word 'heresy' and clarify a good deal in this debate.
Yes, I think you could use the word "heresy." I think it's also good to recognize the content of Christian morality as something that people can retain while leaving behind Christianity. "Heretic" may not apply in such cases, but their morality is the morality of Christendom, ripped from its theological home. Nietzsche thought it couldn't survive on its own.
The Nietzscheans don't even have the Classical world to fall back to. Nietzsche's great enemy was never Jesus Christ or Christianity, his enemy was always Platonism. Christianity was just "Platonism for the masses." Socrates was the villain of history in his telling. And even Homer isn't the lover of unbridled strength and violence that people portray him to be. After all, the Iliad doesn't end with an act of vengeance or power, but an act of mercy. Hector's body is returned to his grieving family. And the Odyssey places home and non-martial virtues at the center. Achilles is not happy with his undying name. This is why someone like Evola, that thrice accursed old magician , decided to root his ideal in a mythical prehistoric world which never existed and in badly misinterpreted eastern religion.
Unrelatedly, I think we have a far too limited understanding of the meaning of western civilization these days. What exactly do we mean when we talk about defending the west? Ultimately, the west is the union of Greek Philosophy, Abrahamic Monotheism and Roman ideas about universal authority and law. And if that is the case, then the west does not end at the southern and eastern shore of the Mediterranean; the west ends at the Hindu Kush and gulf of Guinea. The Muslims are as much heirs of Greece and Rome as we are. Ibn Sina and Ibd Rushd are definitely working in the western tradition, if that idea has any meaning. The Ottomans even claimed to be the Roman Empire, although this claim became less important after they ceased the Caliphate from the Egyptian Mamluks, and the last Kaiser e Rum was deposed in 1922, not 1453.
Agree on that first point - I think there might be a distinction though between Platonism and the kind of classicism that vitalists extol. Socrates and Plato anticipate the cross; they contrast strongly with the "might makes right" of Thrasymachus and Nietzsche. The kind of violence Tom Holland encountered reading about the Roman greats is what some vitalists want to recover, übermenschen. Let's keep philosophy and Christianity, and temper the vitalism!
Well said! Thinkers like Jonathan Pageau, Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland, Paul Kingsnorth, Mary Harrington and even Russell Brand make one wonder if the intellectual tradition of Christianity might slowly have a central place in public discourse once again (even for non-Christians, which applies to half those folks). Trouble is none of those names are American, haha. Will it be harder here in the shadow of our more fundamentalist/Baptist history of the religious right? Guys like Russell Moore and David French seem to be paving the way in reaction to that. But sadly, reaction is precisely not what we need. Which reminds me of this from Lewis:
“For my own part I hate and distrust reactions not only in religion but in everything. Luther surely spoke very good sense when he compared humanity to a drunkard who, after falling off his horse on the right, falls off it next time on the left. I am convinced that those who find in Christ’s apocalyptic the whole of his message are mistaken. But a thing does not vanish—it is not even discredited—because someone has spoken of it with exaggeration. It remains exactly where it was. The only difference is that if it has recently been exaggerated, we must now take special care not to overlook it; for that is the side on which the drunk man is now most likely to fall off.”
Awesome piece, Joel. Articulates, refines, and extends inclinations I’ve had too. Will be very interested to see more thoughts on policy implications--what aspects of progress towards this vision get allocated to State, market, or community; what’s culturally incentivized vs. more rationally/explicitly, etc.. Thanks
Wow, striking photos!
Thank you, dear!
For those who desire a traditional spiritual orientation, I recommend Julius Evola.