Confucius says
One may argue for years with a man who gets almost everything right, except the key point. Such has been the case with our Chief Texas Correspondent (see his various comments). Though surrounded by Catholic influences, he puts up a stand, reminiscent of the Alamo. He is in fact representative of the best in the USA “Tea Party” movement (that would be iced tea, in Texas). And we are generally well disposed towards the Tea Party types. They are, in the main, good-hearted “populists” looking back upon what they imagine to have been a populist Constitution.
It survived, largely intact until 1829, because it wasn’t. The U.S. Founding Fathers rightly distrusted The People, & therefore put checks & balances to restrain them. But they created an opening for mass market party politics, & the cart drove through. In a similar way, the Fathers of our Canadian Confederation tried to limit the inevitable horrors of democracy, by creating an appointive, backstop Senate & so forth. But they left the stable doors open, & the horses were soon at large.
The degeneration starts with pride, envy & covetousness; with the discovery that the government’s monopoly on force can be used to appropriate goods & services; to settle all the old scores by spite; to advance one’s class at the expense of another; to free the citizen from his moral obligations — all demands spoken in the name of the demos, the mob, The People, “equality” — from astride a tall wild horse.
The key point here is, strangely enough: God or Man? Will the order of a nation depend on God’s immutable commandments, or on “evolving” conceptions of right & wrong, & human decisions made day to day? From the start, in both countries, there was a tension between these two incompatibles. In United Statist terms, “One nation under God” was in play against “We the People.” To our view, in the end, the self-worshipping People have won; & perhaps Christ has left them to get on with it. Our theory is that Christ goes where He is wanted, & leaves when He is not. He has gone, perhaps to Africa.
We put it that way in the full knowledge that we will be treated as mad, by the atheist Enlightened. Their reaction might be, “Have you been to Africa lately?” To which we might reply, “Have you checked on those Vandals & Huns?” The Europe that was raised by the Church from savagery to the highest pinnacles of civilization started with unpromising tribal material. It took centuries to Christianize them; centuries through which heresy often flourished within the Church herself. Some centuries from now, we may look to Africa again, as the centre of our human world; to the magnificent cathedrals of Africa — Europe having returned to its barbaric condition, & America with Europe. Already, we are in more need of missionaries from Africa, than Africa is in need of missionaries from us.
Back here in the 21st century, let us not pretend that democracy can save us. The voice of The People is not the voice of God. Humility, not arrogance, offers the only way forward; meekness in the face of both God & our neighbour.
For “secular” political instruction, we could turn to the Chinese. Not, however, to those of the last few centuries, but to the sages of the Han, the T’ang, & the Sung Ch’ao. They were blessed with the wonderful Confucian doctrine that, when political life has degenerated, we need 正名. In English we call this a “Rectification of Names.”
That is, we must return to using words correctly, to mean what they mean, to infer what they infer. We must escape from the imperium of Humpty Dumpty, wherein words mean what we want them to mean. Proper use of language has in itself the power to restore customary order & relations between persons; & therefore obedience from below, & benevolence from above, within the natural human hierarchy; a place for everyone, & everyone in his place. Take such words as Confucius himself flagged. On marriage for instance: “husband” & “wife.” Then, “father” & “son.” Then, “elder” & “younger.” Then even, “ruler” & “subject.”
And let us recall, as Confucius himself, that the truth is liberating. For this we do not even need Christianity: only the will to rise out of our depravity again.
Well put. But your argument would have been stronger had you cited a few practitioners of non-democratic rule:
“Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.”
~ Benito Mussolini ~
“By rejecting the authority of the individual and replacing it by the numbers of some momentary mob, the parliamentary principle of majority rule sins against the basic aristocratic principle of Nature.”
~ Adolf Hitler ~
I have spent most of my life willing, as I have sworn, to give my life in defense of the Constitution.
I have also, within the span of my life, seen the Constitution so distorted, mangled and maimed that it has come to mean whatever the politicians of the day wished it to mean. The result is, it means nothing much to anyone.
America was not founded as a democracy, but as a republic. It will, however, end as a democracy. Socrates will again be given the hemlock by the mob. The Terror will again claim its victims, first the scapegoats, then the innocents, and finally its own masters and children.
God will return to America when our false gods have destroyed themselves.
Read R. Kiplings ‘The Gods of the Copybook Headings’ for prescient view of what our future holds.
I will say a prayer of thanksgiving tomorrow regardless.
Going beyond ways DW’s sermonette on my failings might be burnished, rhetorically, with a few quotes from anti-democratic experts, and after giving the matter additional thought, I see a category error is his musings. He has presented democracy as if it were in the same category as religion. He says:
“Back here in the 21st century, let us not pretend that democracy can save us.”
Who has ever pretended democracy provides, or should attempt to provide, a path to personal salvation? I certainly haven’t. Democracy provides a procedure for adjusting relations between citizens on matters of common concern, but it most certainly does not and cannot save an individual in any sense other than the material. So, he’s defaming democracy for a failure to perform an act it was never contemplated it would be capable of performing. There’s certainly nothing in the American Declaration of Independence from which it might be inferred the Founders viewed their creation to be a pathway to personal salvation. And, if we look at the First Amendment to the American Constitution, we see that Congress was explicitly prohibited from making any law establishing a religion.
DW might as well condemn a submarine because it cannot fly.
On our CTC’s lively attempt at guilt by association:
We should think a test of sincerity in an opponent of democracy is not to run for electoral office. By this standard, neither of his authorities quite escapes the charge of hypocrisy; & Herr Hitler further muddies his position as a mob leader decrying mob rule.
Now to be fair to Mussolini, we think he failed his own anti-democratic principles as a candidate for the Italian Chamber of Deputies on only the one occasion (in 1921). In all his other political intercessions he restricted himself fastidiously to violent intimidation.
We must incidentally contest his assertion that democracy is beautiful in theory. The attempts we’ve seen to present democracy as theory have struck us consistently as awkward & slovenly.
On our CTC’s attribution of a category error:
Oh come now, read some political speeches. The present inmate of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue North-West has never been shy about using salvation language. Since time out of mind, political hucksters have been making this category error from the other side.
Now, you’re saying Obama’s category error excuses yours.
There must be some use for the guy.
Democracy is one avenue, inter alia, by which authority in a state is constituted. But it is not the source of authority. Yet by its nature it tends to the impression that it is in fact the source of authority.
I believe that Mr. Warren believes that this impression is what leads to the great defects of the democratic “avenue” to authority. I believe that his Chief Texas Correspondent believes that democracy is not at all the “avenue” but is indeed the source of authority.
This is their argument and I am honoured to be able to present it here.
Democracy is just herd stupidity with presumption.
There is no evidence that groups of idiots are any more apt to be right and moral than individual idiots.
People must amend their lives before anything substantive will change for the better.
The notion of democracy as salvific is an especially powerful heretical temptation in the US given our founding rhetoric as a City on a Hill, our expansionist Manifest Destiny, our sense of a common civic religion that is (was) representative democracy in republican constitutional form and shared sovereignty among virtuous, religious, reasonably informed citizens, etc. etc. But when we decided that all of this was good because of us (and that we are
entitled to it with no reciprocal duties) and not because of a God to Whom we are accountable — the current end state of which is captured in “we are the ones we have been waiting for” — then we are become a mob as Aristotle and DW would define it. The category error is in post-Teddy Roosevelt US politics, not in Idleness. Still, we can and should say even in these days, Happy Thanksgiving stateside.
My Lord, this is not about “impressions” emanating from democracy; nor is it about “sources of authority.” This is about ambits of authority. Religious authority occupies the arena of personal salvation, while democracy and other governmental forms hold sway over public policy (“adjusting relations between citizens on matters of common concern”). Not only must we “return to using words correctly” (see “Confucius says,” above), we must keep our categories straight. An apple isn’t an orange and should not be criticized for lacking citric acid.
DW says:
“The key point here is, strangely enough: God or Man? Will the order of a nation depend on God’s immutable commandments, or on ‘evolving’ conceptions of right & wrong, & human decisions made day to day?”
He ignores direction he has previously been given: “”Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
If democracy were to be rejected, it would still be necessary to have some procedure for adjusting relations between citizens on matters of common concern. Is he advocating theocracy? If so, he should come right out and say so.
Questions for DW:
Can we agree on the the proposition that humans have moral liberty? That they have the freedom to choose between good and evil? And, isn’t this central to Catholic doctrine?
If we can so agree, then isn’t your real complaint with the people, rather than with democracy as an institution? Doesn’t your disaffection rest with those who have placed their faith in democracy as a means of personal salvation? And, of course, with those politicians who tout it as such?
Here’s the clinching question: Should the people, by force of law or constitutional directive, be denied the freedom to choose their form of government? If that were done, wouldn’t it amount to a circumscription by Caesar of their moral liberty? Namely, just the sort of persecution from which Christianity arose?
Where in the doctrine to which you subscribe is the authority for abolishing democracy and replacing it with something else?
CTC,
I’m not sure I know what you mean by “ambits” of authority. If you mean that religious and political authority are to be separate, then what is your justification for this rather artificial divide?
Viva Cristo Rey
(No smiley face this time . . . in your honour)
My Lord, it’s not my divide, and I cannot understand why you would consider it artificial.
”Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
We see that we are now beyond Impressions, & Sources, & into the Ambits. The replies our CTC demands are so encyclopaedic, that they must wait upon our main posts.
But to the most immediate point: we have written before on popular, non-Christian misconceptions of what Christ’s “Give unto Caesar” remark might mean. Here once again is the first clue: He could not possibly have been suggesting that we must “serve two masters.”
Much farther down the hint list, but still decidedly on it. In addition to instructing, Christ set examples. Look now at the context of this quotation, in a spirit of Christian (or even Socratic) irony. His worldly enemies had put Jesus on the spot, & thought they had him cold. Then he out-manoeuvred them. Note well: Christ had actually out-manoeuvred Caesar. Do thou likewise; as indeed Christendom did, through a thousand years when the spiritual authority of the Church took precedence over the material authority of the State; & that, throughout a very large geographical area.
If one renders something to Caesar, then he has served that master. Likewise, if he renders something unto God. So, applying the principle that we should use words correctly and infer what they infer, it is obvious service to two masters was implied. But service to each only within the appropriate ambit of each master’s authority.
So that’s the Ambit Gambit — by which I acquired four new masters today, while grocery shopping.
I don’t get it. What does this mean? Did you render cash to four different stores? Or did you render cash for four different items? Perhaps the ingredients for a Caesar salad?
What is Caesar’s?
What is Caesar’s? Apparently everything in our secularized liberal democracies.
Religion today is something to be chuckled about and not spoken of seriously. Sort of like old Aunt Myrtle’s picture of the Holy Family over her sofa and her opinions against shacking up before marriage.
If I recall correctly, the man on horseback was the end result of the decay of democracy in the old Stagirite’s scheme of things. Democracy would insensibly slide into mob rule, as when the Athenians learned they could vote to give themselves money from the treasury of the Delian League. This would lead to a champion to arise to promise law and order to ease the chaos and maldistribution of wealth. Not all such tyrants are jackbooted. See Pericles.