But Brooks does not see trans, abortion rights, etc. as “destroying our lives and liberties”. He is preoccupied with everyone not getting along, lack of trust, civil relationships. For him, and other liberals (and RINOs), individual consent is the irreducible good, whatever the outcome. So while abortion is “regrettable”, if it is the outcome between two consenting adults, so be it.
"So while abortion is “regrettable”, if it is the outcome between two consenting adults, so be it."
That is not what individual consent means or is about. Consent means that someone can't groom a child, molest them, and then claim that it was consensual. We have a jackass in prison here in South Dakota who claims that "consensual incest" (he molested his adopted daughter for years) is no different than adultery, which is not illegal, and so he should be released. And yes, he's a former GOP politician rancher from a small town - Joel Koskan. Feel free to look the sob up.
Yes, I agree. So-called “consent” by children is the next battleground. I have said it before: if the law affords legal protection to 10 year olds to remove sexual organs, the law will protect their right to have sex with adults. It is inevitable. This is why consent-based ethics, which permeates just about everything, is incoherent and incompatible with protecting the weak.
Re: So-called “consent” by children is the next battleground.
As I have said before, I very much doubt that. Out culture is more anti-pedophilia than when I was a kid. Neither "Pretty Baby" nor "The Blue Lagoon" could be made today, at least not without a firestorm. Pedophiles occupy a place somewhere lower than racists in public opinion. I don't see this attitude changing.
Our next cultural throw down will be over some species of polyamory-- and as I have warned before we may well see polygamy legalized on the basis of religious liberty (e.g., for Muslims and anyone else who insists their religion OKs plural marriage)
Our puritanical society is horrified by Pretty Baby, and perhaps rightfully so. The male attraction, despite the age difference, is heterosexual, which is, of course, deplorable.
But switch the attraction to same sex and today's elites become celebratory. Witness the accolades and critical acclaim of Call Me By Your Name (2017), where it-boy Timothee Chalet has a sexual relationship with an adult. No one raised an eyebrow because, hey, it's edgy and cool.
Chalemet's character was of legal age. Europe often has a lower age of consent than we do in the US-- which is their prerogative of course. (Hungary's is 14! But again: Hungary gets to have its immigration laws-- and its age of consent. No matter what others think within very broad boundaries)
I've told the story here before of my co-worker at a job I had a few years ago, a fat gay man in his 50s who told all of us within earshot about how he liked to go down to DuPont Circle in DC on Friday and Saturday nights to pick up gay Hispanic teenagers, because he liked, as put it, "the confused little Latin boys." The office...chuckled.
Now imagine a 50-something straight man announcing that on Friday nights he likes to drive by high schools to try to score with 15-year-old girls in their JV cheerleading uniforms because he's into virgins.
No one's gonna chuckle at the latter example, nor should they. But homosexual desire is considered cute and amusing among upper-middle-class liberals, so it gets a pass, and those who know in their hearts it's creepy for a middle-aged man to being going after teenagers, period, are peer-pressured into not saying so.
This co-worker was one of two gay men I've mentioned before at that job site who had photos of naked men on their cubicle walls. When I posted about that on Rod's old TAC blog, a couple people thundered that they didn't believe me, but that if it is was true, I should "go to H.R." I didn't. I had cordial working relationships with both of these colleagues that would have been spoiled, and in the gay-friendly office culture of that company I would have been branded a "homophobe."
The LGBT Alphabet People have certain special privileges in affluent "blue" areas—not just being treated like anyone and everyone else, but repeatedly getting a pass for things other people can't or shouldn't do. I'm sure they don't have those privileges in other places, but they sure as hell do here, in places that set sociopolitical trends on the left side of the political spectrum.
I have never heard a single liberal or adult of any decency say that children or animals can consent. I have heard convicted pedophiles say it. And rapists say it. Consent based ethics is neither incoherent or incompatible except for those who plan to rape someone, whether adult or child, and are looking for the means to justify and get away with it.
The groundwork has already been laid. Here is the playbook: First, they medicalize it. No longer pedophiles, these people are now labeled minor-attracted persons, or MAPs. Then pedos are treated as a historically marginalized group and granted victim status by academics, media, NGOs. The use of the term is deemed “insensitive”. At the same time, childhood sexuality is normalized (e.g. “Cuties”), especially post-pubescents. Then the press runs a big story about a pedo getting beat up by a MAGA supporter. Public Sympathy is generated since the sexual desire “is only natural” and sexual taboos have no place in a free country where people should “be able to do what they want”. The media then reminds us that minors have rights, and some minors are more mature physically and emotionally than others, so they can reasonably consent to a “healthy fulfilling relationship” with an adult. They will find a charming, attractive, 16-17 year old female. The sex part will be downplayed. The public will consume it uncritically. When a parent objects, a liberal judge will look at legal precedent, see that minors are already permitted to have abortions and sex changes, and strike down the statutory rape law down as unconstitutional (this assumes the state’s DA even bothers to file charges against the adult). Wash, rinse, repeat until everything is permitted.
Well, Sailor, the truth is child marriage is currently legal in 41states (only Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont have set the minimum age at 18 and eliminated all exceptions), and 20 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, with a parental or judicial waiver. Nearly 300,00 children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018. The vast majority were girls wed to adult men, many much older. You may note that the states which have banned it are in New England and Minnesota... mostly liberal states.
Meanwhile, "In Wyoming, Republican lawmakers circulated a letter to constituents earlier this year that argued that preventing children from marriage could discourage teen parents from being able to raise their children under one roof. The lawmakers concluded that the marriage age should align with the age in which children become physically capable of having their own children. In Tennessee, Republicans temporarily sought last year to eliminate any limits on marriage entirely. And in Missouri, a Republican lawmaker earlier this year defended child marriage, supporting parents’ right to choose whom their children marry and when. In West Virginia, a Republican spoke out this year against a proposed child marriage ban because he was a teenager when he was married and worried that young people who wanted to get married would simply travel out of state to do so." https://19thnews.org/2023/07/explaining-child-marriage-laws-united-states/
Child molestation is just fine in this country, and always has been, as long as it's little girls.
At times I think it’s this obsession with civil relationships and being nice that’s part of the problem now. We have to be nice to the point of validating the delusions of the ill.
Well, if you could go back in time to when most people were peasants or serfs, you could try being rude to those above you and see what would happen. Nasty, brutish, and short. There's a reason for civility, and 90% of it lies in the fact that men are not angels.
Wat Tyler got rude with Richard II and received William Walworth's sword in his chest for a reply. That's when London's mayors were manly unlike today's.
Wat Tyler and his rebels had some very legitimate complaints, and the folks who were supposed to defend Richard, who had taken refuge in the Tower, ran away and left a fourteen year old boy to deal with the biggest peasant revolt in British history.
Tyler was mostly right. And the aristocracy tried to upend the advantages the peasants gained from the Black Death. But supply and demand won out and the remnants of feudalism died out in England.
Rod graciously suggests that Brooks thinks and broods over the breakdown that besets us, but that he doesn’t see certain things—that, for instance, he misreads Orban, or he “misses” the jist of Deneen’s argument, etc.
The truth is otherwise. Brooks neither thinks nor broods. He’s not a thinker, but a typist. A very well-paid typist who knows what must be typed to keep being “clubbable”.
Brooks doesn’t see Orban differently, rather he willfully misrepresents Orban because that’s what he knows he must do.
Brooks is a house pet for the liberal-left aristocracy, they keep him around for the same reason Emperors of the past kept eunuchs in their courts: they are no threat, can never create anything on their own, and it feels good to cast eyes every day on someone you've completey emasculated yet who is still happy to wash your chamber pot.
Brooks allows the aristocrats of the NYT to imagine themselves as tolerant and open-minded,and to convince themselves that they allow a full range of perspectives.
Brooks would never raise a peep against the globalist Social Justice agenda—he doesn't want to lose his corner office or country club pass—he just wants the ownership class to apply some soothing morallistic lube while they rape the globe.
“Was going to buy a suit at Brooks Bruders, but they didn’t brood. Not a bruder in the shop. They prattled on like it was JC Penny or something. I was outa there.”
The important question is not "why did liberalism fail?" (assuming it has), but rather "Why has Christianity failed?" Now, when I say that I do not mean to imply that Christianity fails at its core purpose: to open the way to salvation and be a conduit for divine grace. That works just fine. But why has Christianity failed to hold its cultural dominance? I don't have any pat answers to that-- but I believe it is the conversation we need to have.
On the Texas gay couple, I don't think we should criticize the desire to have a child-- it's the most normal desire there is, and it isn't strange gay people would feel it too. Maybe criticize outré means (by straight or gay people) but not the desire itself.
The Christianity that ascended to cultural dominance in the West is itself one of liberal individualism. Since that is the antithesis to Christ’s original intent, it was destined to fail.
I don't think Christ intended to set up a political order, certainly not one giving divine imprimatur to rule by autocrats. Nor to establish a politically powerful clergy- that sort were the folks who crucified Christ. "Liberalism" is much criticized for things incidental to it, things that are much more the fruit of our atomizing modern technology than anything inherent in our political order. At its core liberalism is A) religious freedom B) since the "enlightened despotism" model failed, government by the consent off the governed C) a market economy unimpeded by arbitrary restrictions and D) the rule of law and not of men.
All things solely of this world are destined to fail as "cunning Time" devours everything eventually.
I'd say you have the answer (at least partially)to both the failure of liberalism and Christianity to maintain their cultural dominance. They're both difficult and require trust and a willingess to risk self-interest (although in the case of Liberalism vs Progressivism there's an element of risking the self-interest of others) in the name of the greater good. They also both require the awareness to acknowledge when they are failing.
>>On the Texas gay couple, I don't think we should criticize the desire to have a child-- it's the most normal desire there is, and it isn't strange gay people would feel it too.
There's something to understanding one's place in the world. Understanding that for whatever reasons, one is constitutionally unfit for certain roles, and the best course is to forever close certain doors, forego the aspiration. Forever. And two flamboyant, hyper-sexualized gay men are constituionally unfit to be fathers. But we can't tell that to Americans. No, no, no. Be all you can be, dive for every ball....... What collossal immaturity.
There's no good way to criticize any couple who are raising kids and want to have a loving family. Pandora's box.
It's the grimy details: the frozen embryos, recruiting a host, disposal of the brown-eyed male when we wanted a blue-eyed female. It's not a topic you can broach politely.
I coached little league for 2 years with a man who was in this situation; a nice guy who was not flamboyant and a good athlete. The topic was never going to come up. Discussing this on the internet, having the debate and pointing out the moral implications is a different story.....with a hundred "what-abouts" we could insert. I'm sure there are many adopted babies, in these situations who have been saved from abusive or dangerous situations.
We are so far down the road from sanity, and ethical debate and behavior that we cant have open discussions in this country without the potential for cancelation due to "hate".
Ideal family situations= white supremacy apparently, and preferring an ideal is hate. Wholesale acceptance is love.....as the frozen embryos stack-up.
Agreed. As with many progressive slogans, it's an ambiguous throwaway comment. Where is the line drawn for people that believe "love is love"? Do they believe a 30-something man can properly "love" a 14 year old boy?
For people who can't see that you are right, ask a mother. A baby and a mother are referred to as a dyad. To create a baby to be torn from it's mother at birth is wrong, and puppies are treated better.
Thanks, Hope, a good reminder about basic sanity. And I liked the commenter above who noted that we must accept it when our circumstances simply rule out certain options (trans people who are trying to have a surrogate child). It's not all about me and my desires.
I regard surrogacy as moral fraught (though not maybe completely out of bounds) no matter who is doing. And combined with any sort of eugenic embryo selection it becomes a major ethical red flag.
A same-sex couple recently wanted the surrogate to abort after she developed cancer. The mom wanted to keep the bay and underwent chemo but unfortunately miscarried. The same-sex couple took legal action to abort; after spending thousands, they wanted a return on the investment, i.e., a healthy baby. And that's what this was about: a legal transaction, not the miracle of birth conceived in the time-honored way.
I don't think the "same sex" part was crucial to this story. I can easily see a straight couple having the same mercenary attitude. It's a main reason why I said I regard surrogacy as morally fraught.
I agree: it's a contract, and often, if the baby isn't "perfect", they (whether same-sex or hetersexual couples) want the surrogate to abort.
Very famous case of a heterosexual couple who wanted the surrogate to abort after the fetus was revealed in an ultrasound to have multiple problems, and sent her a letter from an attorney reminding her that her surrogacy contract required her to get an abortion in the case “of severe fetus abnormality.” The lawyer told her that if she did not promptly get an abortion the no-longer-wannabe-parents would sue her to get back the money they’d paid along with the money they’d spent on her medical bills and legal fees.
“During our current moment of global populism, the liberal tradition is under threat. Many people have gone economically nationalist and culturally traditionalist. Around the world, authoritarian moralists promise to restore the old ways, the old religion, national greatness.”
“I don’t think Brooks opposes “family, nation, God,” certainly not when opposed rhetorically to “I, me, mine”. It’s just that he finds Viktor Orban distasteful.”
How do you reconcile the first quote from Brooks with your second one? I do not think Brooks holds much stock in God as reflected in traditional religion nor the nation. As far as family, that is part of the "old ways." Thus, rather than being slander, his take on Urban is a logical conclusion.
In 2019 down at Walker Percy Weekend David Brooks, invited there by Rod, spoke about his conversion to Christianity. I can't say it was inspiring-- Brooks is not an inspiring sort. But it did sound quite sincere.
If Brooks is going to rant about autocrats I would suggest to him that Vlad the Invader is the more iconic example.
Not one to question his conversion and Rod may no better the specifics of his beliefs. I know many a sincere Christian who is not orthodox (small O, old religion.). I know some who are quite sincere about their Christianity as well as their support of the LGBTQ agenda etc.
Having recently become familiar with Orthodox Holy Day observation traditions, I do not feel odd about it at all. You put it on a different place on the calendar. Same holiday, same observance and meditation upon this singular miracle to mankind, witnessed by history. Either way, Sunday is coming.
I rather deplore the separation of our dates for Easter-- especially when we are five weeks apart like this year. Many of us at the East have families in the Western tradition and we have to handle the awkwardness of Easter dinner and the like with family when it isn't our Easter.
Nothing is stopping you from having dinner or engaging in the prayers, Jon. Regardless of the difference on the calendar, you are observing the same occassion/event.
Of course I'm doing dinner. One of my reasons for moving down here to FL was to be close to family. But I'll be keeping it fairly vegetarian (I'm contributing green beans with garlic)
I think this is probably the worst point about Orthodoxy: aside from the misalignment, it also makes no sense to have Easter that far away from the vernal equinox.
I love the separation. It means I can spend time with my non-orthodox loved ones on their Easter and spend time at church on Pascha. Same with Christmas.
Most Orthodox in the US use the reformed calendar for fixed feasts (the OCA*, Greeks and Antiochians all do). At Chsritmastime the commercial hullabaloo over Christmas occasionally makes me wish I could have an Old Calendar Nativity free of such gaudy and crass cultural accretions.
* A very few OCA parishes have special permission to continue on the OC.
Why is it awkward? What is wrong with celebrating Easter / Pascha twice a year, as long as we do it together as best we can? I mean, EVERY Sunday is a celebration of Easter / Pascha in a way, that's why we don't follow the Sabbath rule.
I was told the “the kids are not okay” because in my teenage bands I teased my long hair and wore eye liner. As I’ve said before, we used to try and attract girls with the hair…not be a girl. Any, yes, it worked. I’m a married priest…
In regard to Tarkovsky's comments about art: At my parish we recently started a rosary group to make rosaries for the missions. However, we use plastic beads because it's affordable; a plastic rosary is better than no rosary. For me, using a plastic rosary is a penance. Whereas, a beautiful yet simple rosary inspires me to pray. I've purchased my own supplies to make knotted rosaries for the missions because I'm certain the poor love beauty, too.
Brooks' first couple of sentences are accurate but he is dishonest when he writes about a "bigoted and brutal strongman methods." What is the evidence? Hungary is not run by a brutal strongman. Italy is not. Even Trump's four years in office had no evidence of fascism or thug government.
One of liberalism's errors is that it is constantly on the march. Nothing is permanent, nothing is allowed to stay the same, nothing is sacred. So liberals like Brooks move on to the new fad while a conservative doesn't change. That is bound to cause tension. Liberalism has galloped into new fields of degeneracy and Brooks finds fault with conservatives for not joining the parade. Liberalism can't die soon enough. What a repellant political system liberalism is.
As an aside, for Roman Catholics it is Good Friday, a permanent thing. Three hours at prayer at church starting at high noon. And Lent ends at noon tomorrow. It will be time to feast.
Derek, I defined liberalism (in the broad enlightenment sense, not the narrow US politcal sense) above. I'll briefly repeat that here:
Religious freedom
Government by popular consent
Free (but not omnipotent) markets
The rule of law.
Conservatives ought to be on board that train too as the lessons of history are very clear about the evils of the opposites of those things.
Liberalism is not our problem. An atomizing technology that frees our every desire, good, bad or indifferent, from constraint is the problem. Rich folk in ages past always had the freedom to be more or less debauched. Nowadays that's all of us.
By the narrow political definition, yes. But not the older, broader philosophical sense of the term. Autocracies can be debauched too: the Ancien Regime in France raised libertinism to an art form. And today's Russia has appalling stats on moral issues like abortion. And needless to say, churches with great sins can also be moral sewers- the Renaissance Church, or for that matter the Russian Church in that same era.
Totally. And I do think liberal ideas brought us some good in the past; liberation of women, gays, minorities was all needed (now all are.being taken to excess but that's a different story). But now liberal ideas are so destructive.
No, liberalism is a rejection of tyranny, of the proposition that some folk are born with bridles and harnesses and others booted and spurred to ride them (Jefferson). It insists on the dignity and worth of all humankind, not just of some self-important elite who mistake the gifts of fickle Fortune for their just deserts, a license to deify themselves.
I tend to agree that classical, enlightenment liberalism was a positive force for civilization. For some reason though it has become fashionable among the smart set to trash liberalism and blame it for the extreme libertine society we now have. I think the Marquis de Sad made exactly this argument in his introduction to the 120 days of Sodom. If you make tolerance your highest value, you end up having to tolerate some horrific things.
I think part of the problem drives from the Romantic era that merged in and followed the late Enlightenment. It was the Byronic hero who made the strong claim to the individual will as the supreme value. Enlightenment philosophes may have cast a dark eye on traditional Christian practice (though there was a Christian Enlightenment too) but they did believe in public virtue and social solidarity, with the latter surviving in the liberal nationalism which the Revolution and Napoleonic reforms let loose, and also in the moral reformism of the 19th century (which got under way initially in religious movements like Methodism in the 18th century).
I don't object to Brooks as much as many do here. I think that he tries to lay out a middle ground where liberal and conservative ideas can meet.
And he did a good piece recently outlining the choices Israel has going forward against Hamas in Rafah. Not just spouting opinions but well researched, nuanced, "no easy answers" piece aimed more at informing than persuading (or so I thought).
And Brooks' passage that Rod quotes above is good:
"President Biden tried to win over the disaffected by showering them with jobs and economic benefits. It doesn’t seem to have worked politically because the real absence people are feeling is an absence of meaning, belonging and recognition."
Was reminded just today though that I need to pull my head out of the culture war and start putting more pure Christian thought into it. Nothing here is eternal.
You're right that Brooks's analysis of why Biden hasn't won people over—because they want meaning, belonging, and recognition—is a good observation, and I think I true one. But then Brooks says this:
“During our current moment of global populism, the liberal tradition is under threat. Many people have gone economically nationalist and culturally traditionalist."
It's the "culturally traditionalist" part that jumped out at me. What does Brooks see as the alternative? Partisan politics? Netflix? Everyone Who's Anyone doing the New York Times crossword puzzle? We used to have common cultural touchstones, and it wasn't conservatives or "traditionalists" who destroyed them. Even a hack comedian like Jay Leno played it down the middle; now the late-night shows are all just vehicles for progressives. Hell, even very liberal people I know are falling back into "traditional" activities to find contentment and meaning, like the couple I know who run a community garden. Brooks doesn't make clear why he thinks "culturally traditionalist" is bad.
I just can't understand why supposedly reasonable, supposedly moderate, supposedly sober, supposed centrists like David Brooks and Damon Linker defend this regime. It's absolutely nuts
"A row has erupted in Australia after a women's football tournament was won by a team containing five transgender players, one of which had been accused of breaking a rival's leg. Flying Bats FC won all of their games during the Beryl Ackroyd Cup in Sydney and claimed a $1,000 (£514) prize for lifting the trophy."
Part of it is because they tend to be very genial, easygoing people; those types are very mild mannered and happy to go along with the culture.
Now that transgender ascendancy has hit the mainstream, they're more than happy to not rock the boat, and instead will tut-tut more vocal conservatives for speaking out
"There’s glory in striving to add another chapter to the great liberal story — building a society that is technologically innovative, commercially daring, with expanding opportunities for all; building a society in which culture is celebrated, families thrive, a society in which the great diversity of individuals can experience a sense of common purpose and have the space and energy to pursue their own adventures in living."
Okay, but what culture? Western? Islamic? DEI? What is a family? Many competing definitions unfortunately. And in that "great diversity of individuals", what is the common link between them? Religion? Culture? Family? Though for me he fails given his positive quote from Zakaria:
“The greatest challenge remains to infuse that journey with moral meaning, to imbue it with the sense of pride and purpose that religion once did — to fill that hole in the heart.”
So moral meaning without religion? No God? What is that source of moral meaning?
No answers from Brooks that I can discern other than Trump and Orban are bad.
Rod once compared Pope Francis and Trump. He had a point. Both are "monkey kings", filled with the spirit of confusion, addled of wit, wrecking without sense or foresight.
(In the Ramayana, Hanuman is the monkey king, who built a bridge from India to Sri Lanka so that Rama could go rescue his wife, who had been kidnapped by a demon.
That bridge is known as the Ram Sethu—yes, like my name, which means bridge.)
I have less of a problem with Trump's selling Bibles than Biden continually passing himself off as a "devout Catholic," except that the current bishop of Rome seems to agree with Biden.
Brooks fell asleep in Church a decade ago and doesn't know that his sacred space is now a mall, where anyone can come and go, where there's not much to do but shop, and where the closest thing to culture is the food court.
Don't wake him, he was having a really nice dream about a dead world where he was very well-compensated for being a PR agent for people who hate him. If he wakes up, he may die from cognitive dissonance.
Good spotting of the Zakaria quotation. I live in a largely secular area full of basketcases, adults and kids in therapy, and teens in despair. Everyone says they have anxiety and depression. Not that religion is an automatic cure-all, but from what I've seen, nothing but religion can fill that religion-shaped hole in the human heart.
"This is nothing but a business transaction, so these men can have a baby as a lifestyle accessory."
I have to push back on this. Living just outside of NYC and being in public service, I get to interact with quite a few gay families. Some are undoubtably freaks and it breaks my heart to think what their kids have to endure for the sake of their nuclear family fantasies. But this is the exception. Most are devoted, stable, supportive, and loving. You can certainly make the argument that despite all that, a gay family is not the best environment for a kid to grow up in. I agree. But it's pretty damn cynical to generalize that most of these kids are nothing more than purse pooches. Yeah, that couple pictured looks pretty friggin weird. But you don't know them personally. And for what it's worth, I can still probably guarantee that their kid will have a better childhood than a kid living with a meth addicted mother playing musical beds with an endless stream of abusive men. And don't even get me started on "urban" parenting.
And cut these people some slack. They're disordered and probably miserable, but only because the culture failed them, their parents failed them, and their churches failed them. They have no blooming idea of what other options are available. It's entirely alien.
Having worked with both meth addicted mothers and professional, dual income gay couples, I can promise you that there is no equivalence. Rick Rubin is not Dylan Mulvaney.
False dichotomy. There's a big difference between a child being born to a mother who is unfit (and who will be removed by social services) and creating a designer baby who will have no mother. Even the UN believes the latter is a violation of the rights of the child, and a violation of the dignity and humanity of women. Also, meth use is much more common among gay/bi men than any other group. Odds are good that a gay couple use / have used meth. Unfortunately there's no drug test required for the person who hires a surrogate.
Brooks conflates liberalism with one of its opposites, progressivism. I'm a liberal who believes in strong borders, national economies, and cultural traditions. Because I'm liberal, I believe all those things are open to question and reevaluation. For the progressive, there are no questions.
That’s a bit odd, considering that Mr. Zimmerman expressed a certain fondness for Barry Goldwater in an old Rolling Stone interview; compared him to Tom Mix, if I recall correctly. I suppose he was writing for his audience in this song.
Ah, fair enough: I'm too young to really get what Goldwater meant at that time. I can safely say I agree with the first two lines, and that the surrealist swerve of the rest makes me laugh.
Also, I figure that nothing Bob Dylan says in an interview should be taken at face value.
Thanks to Rod for a column which was truly a blessing on this Good Friday.
Small thing “My father was of a later generation, but he had very strong spiritual connections to Dostoyevsky.” Well, yes, I was saying Dostoyevsky, even over Tolstoy :) I leave this matter to Tarkovsky figlio and Rod. (Ha)
I wondered, <<<“He goes on to say that whatever your profession, you should think of it like a prayer addressed to the Creator.” >>> I make money day trading stocks – and while doing that post on this Substack plus read good things while I am at my computer trading. I wonder how to make that a prayer. I know the funds will go to both charity and to my Budapest apartment rent so as not to drain saving. I can pray when the charity goes out – but it is hard to be spiritual about this. I will have to consider it. In the meantime, my interactions with so many people I know and meet here in Budapest are definitely a prayer.
One of the beautiful parts of today’s Substack was this: << “Art is a manifestation of hope. Any art that does not offer hope, in Tarkovsky’s view, is not true art, because it has been unfaithful to ultimate reality.”>> Well, yes, this Substack is art, written art, and will continue to offer hope.
<<<”Look at El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. He’s unquestionably an autocrat and a strongman — yet he is overwhelmingly supported by his people. Why? Because he ended the tyranny of the gangs, who had made El Salvador the most murderous country on earth.”>>>
I am off tomorrow for a nine day tour of former Communist countries – Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo I hope to learn a lot, though the amazing Bosnia & Herzegovina trip was once in a lifetime. I won’t post too awfully much while gone, I think. But…a rare mention of Latin America today!
A great hope for our future is in the 3rd World. Rod hasn’t been there. It is full of people who believe in Christianity. Yes, I know, a large number of their governments are corrupt, whether left or right. I approve of Bukele, whose speeches I listen to several times a year. His approval rating in El Salvador are consistently 91%, 92% - but drill down and listen to interview with the people of El Salvador on You Tube. Those people are Christians! They thank God, mention Jesus, and also say they approve of Bukele. And I’ve spent a lot of time in El Salvador’s neighboring country of Honduras, as well as time in Ecuador. So many Christians. Not at all post-Christian societies
So this is what I am working on after the European Conservative article. My thoughts have not gelled at all. But – the article and other writings seem to imply that illiberalism would be a possible way to approach things – not definitely advocating it but certainly seeing how it should be considered. My unformed thought: Bukele is illiberal. It worked in El Salvador. Some degree of it works in Hungary, which is not really post-Christian in culture. Can it work in a post-Christian country – countries of Western Europe, Oceania, the USA & Canada. I think maybe not. I think maybe the degree of Christian foundation (and they all have some left – read Tom Holland) has to be greater than it is now.
I think perhaps illiberalism from the right could not be successfully implemented in the countries I mentioned. These thoughts are still gelling - I am not ready to defend them to any great extent - they are not complete.
Christianity is very strong in the Third World, where in its various forms, it attracts the same people who were attracted by the Gospel back in the 1st century: the poor, the downtrodden, the hopeless, the 'not nice'. And the churches can be HUGE: The largest church in the world is the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussukro, capital of the Ivory Coast. 320,000 square feet, and it can hold 18,000 worshippers.
Of the Evangelical churches in Africa, Nigeria has the largest:
The Glory Dome, in Abuja, which can hold 100,000 worshippers, which belongs to the Dunamis International Gospel Centre. Apparently they have their own TV network which can be streamed internationally. We saw this one on Ade Adepitan (British wheelchair basketball star and sportscaster) in Episode 1 of Africa With Ade Adepitan (Prime Video). They provide social services as well as spiritual, as well.
Christ is there. But few people in the West pay attention.
I do! And thank you so much for this post, Eve. Let's rejoice that the world is not post-Christian everywhere. If you could know the Sprit I have experienced in Honduras and El Salvador and the Sprit I experience with the 90 percent African Catholic choir here in Budapest.
The more mission oriented churches do. I know the Lord is leading me to the Navy as well as some other things. The mission field (as an aircraft mechanic) may be where I go after that. Or, being a part of the budding aviation program at the college I work for as a radio announcer, I may help new mechanics and pilots who believe along that route, for that is a need.
I'll be both a flier and trained aviation tech (as well as an experienced chaplain), but because of legal strictures,I'll be too old to fly for them. But I can turn a wrench and I can minister.
Stoney, perhaps you can go to Romania to service to promised F-16s being delivered to Ukraine. From what I've read, the airframes are worn out and need maintenance.
Linda, do you have any thoughts on Daniel Ortega? The Sandinistas had an open row with the Catholic Church, specifically John Paul II, but paid lip service to the liberation theology of the era. Some of the leadership were priest or former priests. Today, Daniel Ortega 2.0 has imprisoned clergy who've opposed the regime.
I do not know a lot about Nicaragua. Ortega is a leftist. President for many years, in two different periods. I am not sure of the extent to which he is a dictator but even Amnesty International objects to him. Ortaga did go through a time when he tried to do more pro-business things, and also tried to make up with the Catholic church. Yes, in about 2022 he resumed repression and has imprisoned a prelate.
I don't know why the USA in particular and English speaking plus Western European countries have been as free from corruption as they have (present USA Regime excepted, they seem as bad as anyone). Anyway, we have been the exception. I pray leaders like Bukele and Millel will make a lasting difference, they surely don't seem corrupt, and I do have real hope, plus Ecuador is starting to implement some Bukele style reforms.
Beautiful post on (for this Anglican) Good Friday. Thank you, Rod.
As for David Brooks, he is too blind and busy blaming those deplorable populists to see the real causes of the current swift decline of liberal democracy.
Brooks is a little mad that most conservatives don't get on board the liberal program.
But Brooks does not see trans, abortion rights, etc. as “destroying our lives and liberties”. He is preoccupied with everyone not getting along, lack of trust, civil relationships. For him, and other liberals (and RINOs), individual consent is the irreducible good, whatever the outcome. So while abortion is “regrettable”, if it is the outcome between two consenting adults, so be it.
"So while abortion is “regrettable”, if it is the outcome between two consenting adults, so be it."
That is not what individual consent means or is about. Consent means that someone can't groom a child, molest them, and then claim that it was consensual. We have a jackass in prison here in South Dakota who claims that "consensual incest" (he molested his adopted daughter for years) is no different than adultery, which is not illegal, and so he should be released. And yes, he's a former GOP politician rancher from a small town - Joel Koskan. Feel free to look the sob up.
Yes, I agree. So-called “consent” by children is the next battleground. I have said it before: if the law affords legal protection to 10 year olds to remove sexual organs, the law will protect their right to have sex with adults. It is inevitable. This is why consent-based ethics, which permeates just about everything, is incoherent and incompatible with protecting the weak.
Re: So-called “consent” by children is the next battleground.
As I have said before, I very much doubt that. Out culture is more anti-pedophilia than when I was a kid. Neither "Pretty Baby" nor "The Blue Lagoon" could be made today, at least not without a firestorm. Pedophiles occupy a place somewhere lower than racists in public opinion. I don't see this attitude changing.
Our next cultural throw down will be over some species of polyamory-- and as I have warned before we may well see polygamy legalized on the basis of religious liberty (e.g., for Muslims and anyone else who insists their religion OKs plural marriage)
Our puritanical society is horrified by Pretty Baby, and perhaps rightfully so. The male attraction, despite the age difference, is heterosexual, which is, of course, deplorable.
But switch the attraction to same sex and today's elites become celebratory. Witness the accolades and critical acclaim of Call Me By Your Name (2017), where it-boy Timothee Chalet has a sexual relationship with an adult. No one raised an eyebrow because, hey, it's edgy and cool.
Chalemet's character was of legal age. Europe often has a lower age of consent than we do in the US-- which is their prerogative of course. (Hungary's is 14! But again: Hungary gets to have its immigration laws-- and its age of consent. No matter what others think within very broad boundaries)
You're right, Paul.
I've told the story here before of my co-worker at a job I had a few years ago, a fat gay man in his 50s who told all of us within earshot about how he liked to go down to DuPont Circle in DC on Friday and Saturday nights to pick up gay Hispanic teenagers, because he liked, as put it, "the confused little Latin boys." The office...chuckled.
Now imagine a 50-something straight man announcing that on Friday nights he likes to drive by high schools to try to score with 15-year-old girls in their JV cheerleading uniforms because he's into virgins.
No one's gonna chuckle at the latter example, nor should they. But homosexual desire is considered cute and amusing among upper-middle-class liberals, so it gets a pass, and those who know in their hearts it's creepy for a middle-aged man to being going after teenagers, period, are peer-pressured into not saying so.
This co-worker was one of two gay men I've mentioned before at that job site who had photos of naked men on their cubicle walls. When I posted about that on Rod's old TAC blog, a couple people thundered that they didn't believe me, but that if it is was true, I should "go to H.R." I didn't. I had cordial working relationships with both of these colleagues that would have been spoiled, and in the gay-friendly office culture of that company I would have been branded a "homophobe."
The LGBT Alphabet People have certain special privileges in affluent "blue" areas—not just being treated like anyone and everyone else, but repeatedly getting a pass for things other people can't or shouldn't do. I'm sure they don't have those privileges in other places, but they sure as hell do here, in places that set sociopolitical trends on the left side of the political spectrum.
I have never heard a single liberal or adult of any decency say that children or animals can consent. I have heard convicted pedophiles say it. And rapists say it. Consent based ethics is neither incoherent or incompatible except for those who plan to rape someone, whether adult or child, and are looking for the means to justify and get away with it.
The groundwork has already been laid. Here is the playbook: First, they medicalize it. No longer pedophiles, these people are now labeled minor-attracted persons, or MAPs. Then pedos are treated as a historically marginalized group and granted victim status by academics, media, NGOs. The use of the term is deemed “insensitive”. At the same time, childhood sexuality is normalized (e.g. “Cuties”), especially post-pubescents. Then the press runs a big story about a pedo getting beat up by a MAGA supporter. Public Sympathy is generated since the sexual desire “is only natural” and sexual taboos have no place in a free country where people should “be able to do what they want”. The media then reminds us that minors have rights, and some minors are more mature physically and emotionally than others, so they can reasonably consent to a “healthy fulfilling relationship” with an adult. They will find a charming, attractive, 16-17 year old female. The sex part will be downplayed. The public will consume it uncritically. When a parent objects, a liberal judge will look at legal precedent, see that minors are already permitted to have abortions and sex changes, and strike down the statutory rape law down as unconstitutional (this assumes the state’s DA even bothers to file charges against the adult). Wash, rinse, repeat until everything is permitted.
Well, Sailor, the truth is child marriage is currently legal in 41states (only Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont have set the minimum age at 18 and eliminated all exceptions), and 20 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, with a parental or judicial waiver. Nearly 300,00 children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018. The vast majority were girls wed to adult men, many much older. You may note that the states which have banned it are in New England and Minnesota... mostly liberal states.
Meanwhile, "In Wyoming, Republican lawmakers circulated a letter to constituents earlier this year that argued that preventing children from marriage could discourage teen parents from being able to raise their children under one roof. The lawmakers concluded that the marriage age should align with the age in which children become physically capable of having their own children. In Tennessee, Republicans temporarily sought last year to eliminate any limits on marriage entirely. And in Missouri, a Republican lawmaker earlier this year defended child marriage, supporting parents’ right to choose whom their children marry and when. In West Virginia, a Republican spoke out this year against a proposed child marriage ban because he was a teenager when he was married and worried that young people who wanted to get married would simply travel out of state to do so." https://19thnews.org/2023/07/explaining-child-marriage-laws-united-states/
Child molestation is just fine in this country, and always has been, as long as it's little girls.
I have in fact heard the argument that since humans don’t ask animals for consent before killing them, we can also . . .
Eww.
At times I think it’s this obsession with civil relationships and being nice that’s part of the problem now. We have to be nice to the point of validating the delusions of the ill.
Well, if you could go back in time to when most people were peasants or serfs, you could try being rude to those above you and see what would happen. Nasty, brutish, and short. There's a reason for civility, and 90% of it lies in the fact that men are not angels.
Wat Tyler got rude with Richard II and received William Walworth's sword in his chest for a reply. That's when London's mayors were manly unlike today's.
Wat Tyler and his rebels had some very legitimate complaints, and the folks who were supposed to defend Richard, who had taken refuge in the Tower, ran away and left a fourteen year old boy to deal with the biggest peasant revolt in British history.
Tyler was mostly right. And the aristocracy tried to upend the advantages the peasants gained from the Black Death. But supply and demand won out and the remnants of feudalism died out in England.
Rod graciously suggests that Brooks thinks and broods over the breakdown that besets us, but that he doesn’t see certain things—that, for instance, he misreads Orban, or he “misses” the jist of Deneen’s argument, etc.
The truth is otherwise. Brooks neither thinks nor broods. He’s not a thinker, but a typist. A very well-paid typist who knows what must be typed to keep being “clubbable”.
Brooks doesn’t see Orban differently, rather he willfully misrepresents Orban because that’s what he knows he must do.
It’s tedious stuff, and hardly merits response.
You make no excuses, brother. I like it.
Brooks is a house pet for the liberal-left aristocracy, they keep him around for the same reason Emperors of the past kept eunuchs in their courts: they are no threat, can never create anything on their own, and it feels good to cast eyes every day on someone you've completey emasculated yet who is still happy to wash your chamber pot.
Brooks allows the aristocrats of the NYT to imagine themselves as tolerant and open-minded,and to convince themselves that they allow a full range of perspectives.
Brooks would never raise a peep against the globalist Social Justice agenda—he doesn't want to lose his corner office or country club pass—he just wants the ownership class to apply some soothing morallistic lube while they rape the globe.
Brooks and David French meet for a beer. Write the dialogue.
yikes!
i can't say im sufficiently familiar with either to do it well, but it sounds like "Waiting for Godot" rewritten by Peggy Noonan.
Hey, this is a family forum.
Brooks doesn't brood. No brooding for Brooks. Brooks babbles like a brook?
“Was going to buy a suit at Brooks Bruders, but they didn’t brood. Not a bruder in the shop. They prattled on like it was JC Penny or something. I was outa there.”
Brood on, bruder.
I think he (Brooks) is delusional.
The important question is not "why did liberalism fail?" (assuming it has), but rather "Why has Christianity failed?" Now, when I say that I do not mean to imply that Christianity fails at its core purpose: to open the way to salvation and be a conduit for divine grace. That works just fine. But why has Christianity failed to hold its cultural dominance? I don't have any pat answers to that-- but I believe it is the conversation we need to have.
On the Texas gay couple, I don't think we should criticize the desire to have a child-- it's the most normal desire there is, and it isn't strange gay people would feel it too. Maybe criticize outré means (by straight or gay people) but not the desire itself.
The Christianity that ascended to cultural dominance in the West is itself one of liberal individualism. Since that is the antithesis to Christ’s original intent, it was destined to fail.
I don't think Christ intended to set up a political order, certainly not one giving divine imprimatur to rule by autocrats. Nor to establish a politically powerful clergy- that sort were the folks who crucified Christ. "Liberalism" is much criticized for things incidental to it, things that are much more the fruit of our atomizing modern technology than anything inherent in our political order. At its core liberalism is A) religious freedom B) since the "enlightened despotism" model failed, government by the consent off the governed C) a market economy unimpeded by arbitrary restrictions and D) the rule of law and not of men.
All things solely of this world are destined to fail as "cunning Time" devours everything eventually.
I'd say you have the answer (at least partially)to both the failure of liberalism and Christianity to maintain their cultural dominance. They're both difficult and require trust and a willingess to risk self-interest (although in the case of Liberalism vs Progressivism there's an element of risking the self-interest of others) in the name of the greater good. They also both require the awareness to acknowledge when they are failing.
I have written a book about that. I recap the argument in my upcoming book. It's not one or two reasons, but a number of them, working together.
I look forward to your new book.
>>On the Texas gay couple, I don't think we should criticize the desire to have a child-- it's the most normal desire there is, and it isn't strange gay people would feel it too.
There's something to understanding one's place in the world. Understanding that for whatever reasons, one is constitutionally unfit for certain roles, and the best course is to forever close certain doors, forego the aspiration. Forever. And two flamboyant, hyper-sexualized gay men are constituionally unfit to be fathers. But we can't tell that to Americans. No, no, no. Be all you can be, dive for every ball....... What collossal immaturity.
Against the backdrop of history, we're a joke.
There's no good way to criticize any couple who are raising kids and want to have a loving family. Pandora's box.
It's the grimy details: the frozen embryos, recruiting a host, disposal of the brown-eyed male when we wanted a blue-eyed female. It's not a topic you can broach politely.
I coached little league for 2 years with a man who was in this situation; a nice guy who was not flamboyant and a good athlete. The topic was never going to come up. Discussing this on the internet, having the debate and pointing out the moral implications is a different story.....with a hundred "what-abouts" we could insert. I'm sure there are many adopted babies, in these situations who have been saved from abusive or dangerous situations.
We are so far down the road from sanity, and ethical debate and behavior that we cant have open discussions in this country without the potential for cancelation due to "hate".
Ideal family situations= white supremacy apparently, and preferring an ideal is hate. Wholesale acceptance is love.....as the frozen embryos stack-up.
I've had enough of "love is love" bull$hit.
Agreed. As with many progressive slogans, it's an ambiguous throwaway comment. Where is the line drawn for people that believe "love is love"? Do they believe a 30-something man can properly "love" a 14 year old boy?
Slogans like that are meant to short-circuit thought; you'd be wasting your time to take it as an actual proposition.
For people who can't see that you are right, ask a mother. A baby and a mother are referred to as a dyad. To create a baby to be torn from it's mother at birth is wrong, and puppies are treated better.
Here's a round up of five cases where things are already worse than that, of buying babies for abuse. https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/22/meet-5-accused-pedophiles-who-bought-kids-through-surrogacy/
Pray for this unborn child, that CA law doesn't have it end up with bad people. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13241501/chicago-veterinarian-dog-judge-charged-child-porn-sexually-assault.html
Thanks, Hope, a good reminder about basic sanity. And I liked the commenter above who noted that we must accept it when our circumstances simply rule out certain options (trans people who are trying to have a surrogate child). It's not all about me and my desires.
I regard surrogacy as moral fraught (though not maybe completely out of bounds) no matter who is doing. And combined with any sort of eugenic embryo selection it becomes a major ethical red flag.
A same-sex couple recently wanted the surrogate to abort after she developed cancer. The mom wanted to keep the bay and underwent chemo but unfortunately miscarried. The same-sex couple took legal action to abort; after spending thousands, they wanted a return on the investment, i.e., a healthy baby. And that's what this was about: a legal transaction, not the miracle of birth conceived in the time-honored way.
I don't think the "same sex" part was crucial to this story. I can easily see a straight couple having the same mercenary attitude. It's a main reason why I said I regard surrogacy as morally fraught.
I can't see any court compelling an abortion.
I agree: it's a contract, and often, if the baby isn't "perfect", they (whether same-sex or hetersexual couples) want the surrogate to abort.
Very famous case of a heterosexual couple who wanted the surrogate to abort after the fetus was revealed in an ultrasound to have multiple problems, and sent her a letter from an attorney reminding her that her surrogacy contract required her to get an abortion in the case “of severe fetus abnormality.” The lawyer told her that if she did not promptly get an abortion the no-longer-wannabe-parents would sue her to get back the money they’d paid along with the money they’d spent on her medical bills and legal fees.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/10-000-abort-surrogacy-case-reveals-moral-holes-bioethicist-says-flna1c8736008
And another, this time over Down's Syndrome:
https://nationalpost.com/holy-post/couple-urged-surrogate-mother-to-abort-fetus-because-of-defect
I saw a small article that 'Downs had been cured!' The cure turned out to be abortion.
Great comment. Our culture has become too focused on me, me, me. In an unenlightened way that detracts from one's soul health.
“During our current moment of global populism, the liberal tradition is under threat. Many people have gone economically nationalist and culturally traditionalist. Around the world, authoritarian moralists promise to restore the old ways, the old religion, national greatness.”
“I don’t think Brooks opposes “family, nation, God,” certainly not when opposed rhetorically to “I, me, mine”. It’s just that he finds Viktor Orban distasteful.”
How do you reconcile the first quote from Brooks with your second one? I do not think Brooks holds much stock in God as reflected in traditional religion nor the nation. As far as family, that is part of the "old ways." Thus, rather than being slander, his take on Urban is a logical conclusion.
In 2019 down at Walker Percy Weekend David Brooks, invited there by Rod, spoke about his conversion to Christianity. I can't say it was inspiring-- Brooks is not an inspiring sort. But it did sound quite sincere.
If Brooks is going to rant about autocrats I would suggest to him that Vlad the Invader is the more iconic example.
Not one to question his conversion and Rod may no better the specifics of his beliefs. I know many a sincere Christian who is not orthodox (small O, old religion.). I know some who are quite sincere about their Christianity as well as their support of the LGBTQ agenda etc.
Having recently become familiar with Orthodox Holy Day observation traditions, I do not feel odd about it at all. You put it on a different place on the calendar. Same holiday, same observance and meditation upon this singular miracle to mankind, witnessed by history. Either way, Sunday is coming.
I rather deplore the separation of our dates for Easter-- especially when we are five weeks apart like this year. Many of us at the East have families in the Western tradition and we have to handle the awkwardness of Easter dinner and the like with family when it isn't our Easter.
Nothing is stopping you from having dinner or engaging in the prayers, Jon. Regardless of the difference on the calendar, you are observing the same occassion/event.
Of course I'm doing dinner. One of my reasons for moving down here to FL was to be close to family. But I'll be keeping it fairly vegetarian (I'm contributing green beans with garlic)
It's Fla.
Actually "Floriduh" some days.
I think this is probably the worst point about Orthodoxy: aside from the misalignment, it also makes no sense to have Easter that far away from the vernal equinox.
I love the separation. It means I can spend time with my non-orthodox loved ones on their Easter and spend time at church on Pascha. Same with Christmas.
Most Orthodox in the US use the reformed calendar for fixed feasts (the OCA*, Greeks and Antiochians all do). At Chsritmastime the commercial hullabaloo over Christmas occasionally makes me wish I could have an Old Calendar Nativity free of such gaudy and crass cultural accretions.
* A very few OCA parishes have special permission to continue on the OC.
Why is it awkward? What is wrong with celebrating Easter / Pascha twice a year, as long as we do it together as best we can? I mean, EVERY Sunday is a celebration of Easter / Pascha in a way, that's why we don't follow the Sabbath rule.
Prolly cuz the Orthodox are in the middle of their Lent, with strict fasting obligation. That Easter ham might be pretty tempting ...
Ah, got it. So they abstain from meat even on Sunday?
Yup. It’s basically going vegan.
I was told the “the kids are not okay” because in my teenage bands I teased my long hair and wore eye liner. As I’ve said before, we used to try and attract girls with the hair…not be a girl. Any, yes, it worked. I’m a married priest…
Big Tarkovsky fan, btw. His science fiction films are mindblowing. The remake of Solaris was astounding as well.
In regard to Tarkovsky's comments about art: At my parish we recently started a rosary group to make rosaries for the missions. However, we use plastic beads because it's affordable; a plastic rosary is better than no rosary. For me, using a plastic rosary is a penance. Whereas, a beautiful yet simple rosary inspires me to pray. I've purchased my own supplies to make knotted rosaries for the missions because I'm certain the poor love beauty, too.
Brooks' first couple of sentences are accurate but he is dishonest when he writes about a "bigoted and brutal strongman methods." What is the evidence? Hungary is not run by a brutal strongman. Italy is not. Even Trump's four years in office had no evidence of fascism or thug government.
One of liberalism's errors is that it is constantly on the march. Nothing is permanent, nothing is allowed to stay the same, nothing is sacred. So liberals like Brooks move on to the new fad while a conservative doesn't change. That is bound to cause tension. Liberalism has galloped into new fields of degeneracy and Brooks finds fault with conservatives for not joining the parade. Liberalism can't die soon enough. What a repellant political system liberalism is.
As an aside, for Roman Catholics it is Good Friday, a permanent thing. Three hours at prayer at church starting at high noon. And Lent ends at noon tomorrow. It will be time to feast.
Derek, I defined liberalism (in the broad enlightenment sense, not the narrow US politcal sense) above. I'll briefly repeat that here:
Religious freedom
Government by popular consent
Free (but not omnipotent) markets
The rule of law.
Conservatives ought to be on board that train too as the lessons of history are very clear about the evils of the opposites of those things.
Liberalism is not our problem. An atomizing technology that frees our every desire, good, bad or indifferent, from constraint is the problem. Rich folk in ages past always had the freedom to be more or less debauched. Nowadays that's all of us.
40 % illegitimacy and 50 % divorce and 800,000 abortions a year is on liberalism .
By the narrow political definition, yes. But not the older, broader philosophical sense of the term. Autocracies can be debauched too: the Ancien Regime in France raised libertinism to an art form. And today's Russia has appalling stats on moral issues like abortion. And needless to say, churches with great sins can also be moral sewers- the Renaissance Church, or for that matter the Russian Church in that same era.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1034529/russia-total-number-of-abortions/ The rate of abortion in Russia is WAYYYYYY down. (Overall I agree with your point, Russia has moral problems of its own)
Yes, I should have acknowledged things have gotten better since the nadir of the Yeltsin era. But still remain fairly fraught.
To be fair if you already were aware of that you were ahead of most people. :)
Totally. And I do think liberal ideas brought us some good in the past; liberation of women, gays, minorities was all needed (now all are.being taken to excess but that's a different story). But now liberal ideas are so destructive.
Liberalism is, at its core, a call to "Do as thou wilt"
The enlightenment era classical liberals had enough residual orthodox upbringing to mask the more insidious effects of liberalism.
But the more secular we trend, the clearer it becomes that liberalism is an anti-Christian mode of living
No, liberalism is a rejection of tyranny, of the proposition that some folk are born with bridles and harnesses and others booted and spurred to ride them (Jefferson). It insists on the dignity and worth of all humankind, not just of some self-important elite who mistake the gifts of fickle Fortune for their just deserts, a license to deify themselves.
I tend to agree that classical, enlightenment liberalism was a positive force for civilization. For some reason though it has become fashionable among the smart set to trash liberalism and blame it for the extreme libertine society we now have. I think the Marquis de Sad made exactly this argument in his introduction to the 120 days of Sodom. If you make tolerance your highest value, you end up having to tolerate some horrific things.
I think part of the problem drives from the Romantic era that merged in and followed the late Enlightenment. It was the Byronic hero who made the strong claim to the individual will as the supreme value. Enlightenment philosophes may have cast a dark eye on traditional Christian practice (though there was a Christian Enlightenment too) but they did believe in public virtue and social solidarity, with the latter surviving in the liberal nationalism which the Revolution and Napoleonic reforms let loose, and also in the moral reformism of the 19th century (which got under way initially in religious movements like Methodism in the 18th century).
I don't object to Brooks as much as many do here. I think that he tries to lay out a middle ground where liberal and conservative ideas can meet.
And he did a good piece recently outlining the choices Israel has going forward against Hamas in Rafah. Not just spouting opinions but well researched, nuanced, "no easy answers" piece aimed more at informing than persuading (or so I thought).
And Brooks' passage that Rod quotes above is good:
"President Biden tried to win over the disaffected by showering them with jobs and economic benefits. It doesn’t seem to have worked politically because the real absence people are feeling is an absence of meaning, belonging and recognition."
Was reminded just today though that I need to pull my head out of the culture war and start putting more pure Christian thought into it. Nothing here is eternal.
You're right that Brooks's analysis of why Biden hasn't won people over—because they want meaning, belonging, and recognition—is a good observation, and I think I true one. But then Brooks says this:
“During our current moment of global populism, the liberal tradition is under threat. Many people have gone economically nationalist and culturally traditionalist."
It's the "culturally traditionalist" part that jumped out at me. What does Brooks see as the alternative? Partisan politics? Netflix? Everyone Who's Anyone doing the New York Times crossword puzzle? We used to have common cultural touchstones, and it wasn't conservatives or "traditionalists" who destroyed them. Even a hack comedian like Jay Leno played it down the middle; now the late-night shows are all just vehicles for progressives. Hell, even very liberal people I know are falling back into "traditional" activities to find contentment and meaning, like the couple I know who run a community garden. Brooks doesn't make clear why he thinks "culturally traditionalist" is bad.
I just can't understand why supposedly reasonable, supposedly moderate, supposedly sober, supposed centrists like David Brooks and Damon Linker defend this regime. It's absolutely nuts
https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1882752/Women-transgender-football-team-Flying-Bats
"A row has erupted in Australia after a women's football tournament was won by a team containing five transgender players, one of which had been accused of breaking a rival's leg. Flying Bats FC won all of their games during the Beryl Ackroyd Cup in Sydney and claimed a $1,000 (£514) prize for lifting the trophy."
Three are pretty easy to spot. Not sure about the other two.
Part of it is because they tend to be very genial, easygoing people; those types are very mild mannered and happy to go along with the culture.
Now that transgender ascendancy has hit the mainstream, they're more than happy to not rock the boat, and instead will tut-tut more vocal conservatives for speaking out
I guess you're right - I have many friends and family like this. But still... WTF?
Apparently it's "misogynist" for women not to want to get their legs broken playing soccer against men.
From Brooks' column:
"There’s glory in striving to add another chapter to the great liberal story — building a society that is technologically innovative, commercially daring, with expanding opportunities for all; building a society in which culture is celebrated, families thrive, a society in which the great diversity of individuals can experience a sense of common purpose and have the space and energy to pursue their own adventures in living."
Okay, but what culture? Western? Islamic? DEI? What is a family? Many competing definitions unfortunately. And in that "great diversity of individuals", what is the common link between them? Religion? Culture? Family? Though for me he fails given his positive quote from Zakaria:
“The greatest challenge remains to infuse that journey with moral meaning, to imbue it with the sense of pride and purpose that religion once did — to fill that hole in the heart.”
So moral meaning without religion? No God? What is that source of moral meaning?
No answers from Brooks that I can discern other than Trump and Orban are bad.
Trump is no kind of moralist. He;s more an "authoritarian fraud" or "amoral grifter"
So you mean every politician in history? At least Trump has the balls to buck the party line when he wants.
Regardless, if polls hold out he's your next president too
Rod once compared Pope Francis and Trump. He had a point. Both are "monkey kings", filled with the spirit of confusion, addled of wit, wrecking without sense or foresight.
Hey, don't talk about Hanuman that way. . . .
(In the Ramayana, Hanuman is the monkey king, who built a bridge from India to Sri Lanka so that Rama could go rescue his wife, who had been kidnapped by a demon.
That bridge is known as the Ram Sethu—yes, like my name, which means bridge.)
I was thinking of the Chinese monkey king, a being of disorder and chaos. Mao sometimes took the title.
I should read that one of these days. The Ramayana is renowned throughout SE Asia, not just India. Ankor Wat includes reliefs from the Ramayana.
Trump's a BINO. Billionaire in Name Only. Real billionaires don't hawk Bibles.
That last line sounds like a bumper sticker.
Saw a Facebook meme yesterday: A truly devout billionaire would be giving Bibles away, not selling them for his own gain.
I have less of a problem with Trump's selling Bibles than Biden continually passing himself off as a "devout Catholic," except that the current bishop of Rome seems to agree with Biden.
Real billionaires have billions. Simple math and in the description. There is no "code according to Eve" they are obliged to observe.
Exactly: only BINO's hawk everything they can to raise money.
But seriously, Tee - just ignore me, and your blood pressure will be much better.
Brooks fell asleep in Church a decade ago and doesn't know that his sacred space is now a mall, where anyone can come and go, where there's not much to do but shop, and where the closest thing to culture is the food court.
Don't wake him, he was having a really nice dream about a dead world where he was very well-compensated for being a PR agent for people who hate him. If he wakes up, he may die from cognitive dissonance.
Just praised him above but think you are correct.
In fact that's our whole culture now. Just a mall where we are all buying what will make us "happy". Boring and lacking in meaning.
Good spotting of the Zakaria quotation. I live in a largely secular area full of basketcases, adults and kids in therapy, and teens in despair. Everyone says they have anxiety and depression. Not that religion is an automatic cure-all, but from what I've seen, nothing but religion can fill that religion-shaped hole in the human heart.
"This is nothing but a business transaction, so these men can have a baby as a lifestyle accessory."
I have to push back on this. Living just outside of NYC and being in public service, I get to interact with quite a few gay families. Some are undoubtably freaks and it breaks my heart to think what their kids have to endure for the sake of their nuclear family fantasies. But this is the exception. Most are devoted, stable, supportive, and loving. You can certainly make the argument that despite all that, a gay family is not the best environment for a kid to grow up in. I agree. But it's pretty damn cynical to generalize that most of these kids are nothing more than purse pooches. Yeah, that couple pictured looks pretty friggin weird. But you don't know them personally. And for what it's worth, I can still probably guarantee that their kid will have a better childhood than a kid living with a meth addicted mother playing musical beds with an endless stream of abusive men. And don't even get me started on "urban" parenting.
And cut these people some slack. They're disordered and probably miserable, but only because the culture failed them, their parents failed them, and their churches failed them. They have no blooming idea of what other options are available. It's entirely alien.
All the slack gets us to the meth-addict parenting. How much more slack do we need?
Having worked with both meth addicted mothers and professional, dual income gay couples, I can promise you that there is no equivalence. Rick Rubin is not Dylan Mulvaney.
*Dave Rubin
False dichotomy. There's a big difference between a child being born to a mother who is unfit (and who will be removed by social services) and creating a designer baby who will have no mother. Even the UN believes the latter is a violation of the rights of the child, and a violation of the dignity and humanity of women. Also, meth use is much more common among gay/bi men than any other group. Odds are good that a gay couple use / have used meth. Unfortunately there's no drug test required for the person who hires a surrogate.
Musical beds. . . . An impressive coinage.
Never heard that one? My grandmother used to say that about her neighbor all the time. That and how she had saloon door legs.
Haha, wow—even better.
Good nuance, thanks.
Brooks conflates liberalism with one of its opposites, progressivism. I'm a liberal who believes in strong borders, national economies, and cultural traditions. Because I'm liberal, I believe all those things are open to question and reevaluation. For the progressive, there are no questions.
You have hit a nail on its head. We use one word "liberalism" to mean two rather different, and not coherent things.
The word liberal is one of the right’s few victories in the language wars—they turned it into a pejorative.
Given what's happened since, that was one Phyrric victory
I'm with Bob Dylan:
"Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree
I want ev’rybody to be free
But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I’m crazy!
I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba"
That’s a bit odd, considering that Mr. Zimmerman expressed a certain fondness for Barry Goldwater in an old Rolling Stone interview; compared him to Tom Mix, if I recall correctly. I suppose he was writing for his audience in this song.
Ah, fair enough: I'm too young to really get what Goldwater meant at that time. I can safely say I agree with the first two lines, and that the surrealist swerve of the rest makes me laugh.
Also, I figure that nothing Bob Dylan says in an interview should be taken at face value.
That last is absolutely true. The man just enjoys screwing with journalists.
Thanks to Rod for a column which was truly a blessing on this Good Friday.
Small thing “My father was of a later generation, but he had very strong spiritual connections to Dostoyevsky.” Well, yes, I was saying Dostoyevsky, even over Tolstoy :) I leave this matter to Tarkovsky figlio and Rod. (Ha)
I wondered, <<<“He goes on to say that whatever your profession, you should think of it like a prayer addressed to the Creator.” >>> I make money day trading stocks – and while doing that post on this Substack plus read good things while I am at my computer trading. I wonder how to make that a prayer. I know the funds will go to both charity and to my Budapest apartment rent so as not to drain saving. I can pray when the charity goes out – but it is hard to be spiritual about this. I will have to consider it. In the meantime, my interactions with so many people I know and meet here in Budapest are definitely a prayer.
One of the beautiful parts of today’s Substack was this: << “Art is a manifestation of hope. Any art that does not offer hope, in Tarkovsky’s view, is not true art, because it has been unfaithful to ultimate reality.”>> Well, yes, this Substack is art, written art, and will continue to offer hope.
<<<”Look at El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. He’s unquestionably an autocrat and a strongman — yet he is overwhelmingly supported by his people. Why? Because he ended the tyranny of the gangs, who had made El Salvador the most murderous country on earth.”>>>
I am off tomorrow for a nine day tour of former Communist countries – Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo I hope to learn a lot, though the amazing Bosnia & Herzegovina trip was once in a lifetime. I won’t post too awfully much while gone, I think. But…a rare mention of Latin America today!
A great hope for our future is in the 3rd World. Rod hasn’t been there. It is full of people who believe in Christianity. Yes, I know, a large number of their governments are corrupt, whether left or right. I approve of Bukele, whose speeches I listen to several times a year. His approval rating in El Salvador are consistently 91%, 92% - but drill down and listen to interview with the people of El Salvador on You Tube. Those people are Christians! They thank God, mention Jesus, and also say they approve of Bukele. And I’ve spent a lot of time in El Salvador’s neighboring country of Honduras, as well as time in Ecuador. So many Christians. Not at all post-Christian societies
So this is what I am working on after the European Conservative article. My thoughts have not gelled at all. But – the article and other writings seem to imply that illiberalism would be a possible way to approach things – not definitely advocating it but certainly seeing how it should be considered. My unformed thought: Bukele is illiberal. It worked in El Salvador. Some degree of it works in Hungary, which is not really post-Christian in culture. Can it work in a post-Christian country – countries of Western Europe, Oceania, the USA & Canada. I think maybe not. I think maybe the degree of Christian foundation (and they all have some left – read Tom Holland) has to be greater than it is now.
I think perhaps illiberalism from the right could not be successfully implemented in the countries I mentioned. These thoughts are still gelling - I am not ready to defend them to any great extent - they are not complete.
Christianity is very strong in the Third World, where in its various forms, it attracts the same people who were attracted by the Gospel back in the 1st century: the poor, the downtrodden, the hopeless, the 'not nice'. And the churches can be HUGE: The largest church in the world is the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussukro, capital of the Ivory Coast. 320,000 square feet, and it can hold 18,000 worshippers.
Of the Evangelical churches in Africa, Nigeria has the largest:
The Glory Dome, in Abuja, which can hold 100,000 worshippers, which belongs to the Dunamis International Gospel Centre. Apparently they have their own TV network which can be streamed internationally. We saw this one on Ade Adepitan (British wheelchair basketball star and sportscaster) in Episode 1 of Africa With Ade Adepitan (Prime Video). They provide social services as well as spiritual, as well.
Christ is there. But few people in the West pay attention.
I do! And thank you so much for this post, Eve. Let's rejoice that the world is not post-Christian everywhere. If you could know the Sprit I have experienced in Honduras and El Salvador and the Sprit I experience with the 90 percent African Catholic choir here in Budapest.
Wonderful!
Eve - I miss you so much. Are you OK? I'm lindaelane at gmail if you are no longer subscribing
The more mission oriented churches do. I know the Lord is leading me to the Navy as well as some other things. The mission field (as an aircraft mechanic) may be where I go after that. Or, being a part of the budding aviation program at the college I work for as a radio announcer, I may help new mechanics and pilots who believe along that route, for that is a need.
I'll be both a flier and trained aviation tech (as well as an experienced chaplain), but because of legal strictures,I'll be too old to fly for them. But I can turn a wrench and I can minister.
Stoney, perhaps you can go to Romania to service to promised F-16s being delivered to Ukraine. From what I've read, the airframes are worn out and need maintenance.
Linda, do you have any thoughts on Daniel Ortega? The Sandinistas had an open row with the Catholic Church, specifically John Paul II, but paid lip service to the liberation theology of the era. Some of the leadership were priest or former priests. Today, Daniel Ortega 2.0 has imprisoned clergy who've opposed the regime.
I do not know a lot about Nicaragua. Ortega is a leftist. President for many years, in two different periods. I am not sure of the extent to which he is a dictator but even Amnesty International objects to him. Ortaga did go through a time when he tried to do more pro-business things, and also tried to make up with the Catholic church. Yes, in about 2022 he resumed repression and has imprisoned a prelate.
I don't know why the USA in particular and English speaking plus Western European countries have been as free from corruption as they have (present USA Regime excepted, they seem as bad as anyone). Anyway, we have been the exception. I pray leaders like Bukele and Millel will make a lasting difference, they surely don't seem corrupt, and I do have real hope, plus Ecuador is starting to implement some Bukele style reforms.
11 pastors sentenced to12 to 15 years in prison. Google Mountain Gateway Pastors.
"In the documentary, we hear Tarkovsky saying that culture cannot exist without religion, nor can religion exist without culture."
Bingo. Hence why, with few exceptions, Hollywood can no longer make movies, apart from superhero films, and endless sequels and remakes.
Beautiful post on (for this Anglican) Good Friday. Thank you, Rod.
As for David Brooks, he is too blind and busy blaming those deplorable populists to see the real causes of the current swift decline of liberal democracy.