As others see us

Writing from Czechia, after an evening with the family of Vaclav Benda:

At one point, we were talking about the atmosphere of militant progressivism in the West, and how hard it is for Czechs to understand what’s happening in American universities. One of the Benda family friends, an academic, asked me if I had heard of Jordan B. Peterson. Yes, of course, I said.

“He is a miracle!” said this man.

Someone present explained that under communism, underground Christians looked with admiration to the West. But now they see so much decadence in the West, and don’t want it ….

(Rod Dreher)

UPDATE:

I keep having a slightly unnerving experience here, both in Hungary and the Czech Republic. People cannot understand the insanity coming from America, the UK, and the EU on LGBT and gender theory. It is literally incomprehensible to them. Just this morning I was talking to a seminary professor of moral theology who said that his thesis on alternative sexualities was laughed at; his colleagues could not believe that anyone would take this stuff seriously. This professor is no advocate for alternative sexualities, but he had lived and taught in the West, and he knows they are going to have to be dealing with this stuff here sooner or later.

I keep telling the people I talk to about this that they should not simply laugh this stuff off as incomprehensible. Several agreed with me that 40 years of communism served as a vaccination against susceptibility to ideological extremism, and that this might be why even atheists (most Czechs are atheists) find the gender theory types to be crackpots. But then, if you had told a lot of Americans in 1998 what would be mainstream in our country on this front in 2018, they would have laughed like the Czechs and the Hungarians laughed. But now look.

(Another Dreher blog installment)

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It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.

A man … is only a bigot if he cannot understand that his dogma is a dogma, even if it is true.

(G.K. Chesterton) Be of good courage, you who are called “bigots” by those who are unable to conceive seriously the alternatives to their dogmas.

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Evangelicals and Donald Trump

My criticism of “Evangelicalism” (my own former Christian tradition) has been so consistent that even I have felt abashed by it at times.

But two articles in Atlantic — one by Emma Green, the other by Michael Gerson — make me want, for some reason, to mount a bit of defense, if only because Evangelicals and Roman Catholics tend to define the visible Christian landscape in America and many find that landscape, especially as ploughed and re-ploughed by the press, pretty bleak.

It is widely touted that 81% of Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump and that loyalty remains high. Apropos of that:

There are racial minorities in the U.S. who fit comfortably in the Evangelical definition who are not Trump fans. I doubt that they are counted in that 81% or in the 19% remaining for that matter. Perhaps they eschew the politicized term “Evangelical” now in a perverse feedback loop.
Probably more important is how the “Evangelical” identity is determined. In most polls, it’s determined by self-identification. That’s a problem because we’ve reached a point where many self-identified “Evangelicals” are unobservant and ill-formed — “Christmas & Easter Evangelicals,” so to speak. I even suspect that many who have rarely entered and never joined an Evangelical church will now identify as “Evangelical” rather than “Protestant” if asked for their religious affiliation. (That’s a pyrrhic victory for Evangelical self-promotion.) More careful polls find strong differences between regular church-goers and nominal Christians of various traditions, including Evangelical. It’s only when regular churchgoers profess something startling that you’re got a really good religion story.

So I suspect that the people who ask “are we Still Evangelical?” are among the more serious and observant members of that tradition, and that, lacking any objective criterion by which to say that others are falsely claiming the label, it would be a good idea to zoom in on those folks to see what real white Evangelicals believe. I think there’d be a least a slight shift from incandescent red toward the bluer end of the spectrum.

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It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.

A man … is only a bigot if he cannot understand that his dogma is a dogma, even if it is true.

(G.K. Chesterton) Be of good courage, you who are called “bigots” by those who are unable to conceive seriously the alternatives to their dogmas.

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Fraud on the courts?

Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, … justified the birth-control decision by saying, in part, that Catholic tradition requires respect for “the conscientious decisions of members of our community.” Of course, Notre Dame community members can exercise their consciences without receiving university-provided contraception. And there is also the serious possibility that Notre Dame abused the legal process when it sued the Obama administration for relief. If the university had standing on religious-freedom grounds, how can it now explain its decision to facilitate coverage of birth control?

…

Notre Dame’s leadership has embarked on a campaign to put the university on the same footing as the nation’s other elite schools. In so doing, it often has renounced its obligation to shape the moral landscape of the society it inhabits, and, more importantly, to form its own community properly.
The Catholic Church is never more effective than when it when it acts as a countercultural force. It offers the modern world a radically different vision of human sexuality from the one most young people are taught. With the decision to provide birth control, Notre Dame has forfeited its chance to stand in moral opposition to a utilitarian sexual culture. It has chosen to stop speaking to the kind of life that makes people whole.

…

When the administration recently announced that undergraduates would be required to live on campus for at least six semesters, Father Jenkins defended the rule by saying the university makes no apologies about being a place of faith. “If that’s what they want, they should come here, but if that’s not what they want, there are many other places—great places—to go to,” he said.The connection between Notre Dame’s Catholic identity and its campus-residency rules is tenuous. But Father Jenkins still imposed this rationale on students who dislike the new policy. Why, then, does he refuse to assert Catholic identity as grounds for refusing to cover contraception?

(Alexandra DeSanctis in the Wall Street Journal, emphasis added)

Let me unpack the “possibility that Notre Dame abused the legal process.” I assume that Ms. DeSanctis is alluding to some sort of claim that Notre Dame could not, without violating its religious convictions, provide insurance coverage for contraceptives. Now it’s saying, in effect, “Oh. Never mind. Catholic tradition requires respect for ‘the conscientious decisions of members of our community,’ and that requires us to cover contraceptives.”

I sure as heck can see her point.

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It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.

A man … is only a bigot if he cannot understand that his dogma is a dogma, even if it is true.

(G.K. Chesterton) Be of good courage, you who are called “bigots” by those who are unable to conceive seriously the alternatives to their dogmas.

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Jordan Peterson again

This link was sent from an old teacher, now friend. I’ve modifed it to start with the “red meat” of Peterson’s religious stance. Prepare to be engrossed for maybe 27 minutes.

I don’t know whether Peterson gives an answer or just dances around the subject brilliantly. My friend and I seem to have differing interpretations.

Although I won’t try to distill Peterson’s position, I find this far saner to contemplate than “privilege checks” or insane intersectional tweets from feticidal maniacs.

* * * * *

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.

A man … is only a bigot if he cannot understand that his dogma is a dogma, even if it is true.

(G.K. Chesterton) Be of good courage, you who are called “bigots” by those who are unable to conceive seriously the alternatives to their dogmas.

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Megan Barry – for the record

The @CBMWorg‘s so-called “Nashville Statement” is poorly named and does not represent the inclusive values of the city & people of Nashville

(@MayorMeganBarry, 8/29/17)

Article 2
WE AFFIRM that God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity
within marriage.
WE DENY that any affections, desires, or commitments ever justify sexual intercourse before or outside marriage; nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality.

(Nashville Statement)

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry resigned Tuesday after pleading guilty to a felony that stemmed from an investigation into an affair she had with an officer on her security detail.

(Wall Street Journal 3/7/18)

* * * * *

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.

A man … is only a bigot if he cannot understand that his dogma is a dogma, even if it is true.

(G.K. Chesterton) Be of good courage, you who are called “bigots” by those who are unable to conceive seriously the alternatives to their dogmas.

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Deferring to the data gods

Once upon a time, when we had a problem that was convoluted and unsettling to deal with, we’d figure out some way to medicalize it, sending it off to the doctor-god.

We’re doing that with Artificial “Intelligence” now. Welfare, homelessness, child protection, all have been cast as data-crunching problems.

The doctors are relieved. Hoi polloi are amused until AI gores their ox — as when Google photo recognition algorithms identified people of African ancestry as gorillas. Or when mom got kicked off Medicaid (Mitch Daniels’ folly — gosh, was it that long ago? 2006?!).

Google fixed its problem by eliminating gorilla as an option. I think they should have sent it off to somebody else’s AI farm.

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson, improbable cultural “rock star,” has been on a tear, and the Christianosphere is talking. Heck, the Babylon Bee even got into it.

There is no neutral standpoint, so it is legitimate to ask “where’s Jordan Peterson coming from?”

The consensus is that he’s not Christian, and I suspect that he’s on record to that effect. That’s not to say that Jordanism is altogether incompatible with Christianity. I don’t think it is, but you’ll soon see that there’s dissent on that.

An uncontroversial description of Peterson, so far as I’ve seen, is “Jungian.” A more controversial one is “stoic.”

One Charlie Clark, Writing at Mere Orthodoxy (which is thoughtful, reformed-leaning Evangelicals, not Orthodox — I know; it’s confusing) says Peterson is stoic, and it

is too bad then that the backbone of his whole program is what C.S. Lewis called “the Great Sin.” Peterson is, in fact, precisely the character that Lewis describes in Mere Christianity, one of those teachers who,

“appeal to a boy’s Pride, or, as they call it, his self-respect, to make him behave decently: many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity—that is, by Pride.”

For Lewis, “to beat down the simpler vices” by means of Pride is a cure far worse than the disease. And this is precisely Peterson’s strategy throughout 12 Rules for Life.

Clark also sees Peterson as effectively “Pelagian” when translated into Christianese:

Theologically, the expression of Pride is Pelagianism, the belief that you can save yourself without relying on God’s grace. This is precisely what we find in Peterson’s work. Consider what Peterson says Rule 2 (“Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.”):

Heaven, after all, will not arrive of its own accord. We will have to work to bring it about, and strengthen ourselves, so that we can withstand the deadly angels and flaming sword of judgment that God used to bar its entrance…. Once having understood Hell, researched it, so to speak—particularly your own individual Hell—you could decide against going there or creating that. You could aim elsewhere. You could, in fact, devote your life to this…. That would justify your miserable existence. That would atone for your sinful nature, and replace your shame and self-consciousness with the natural pride and forthright confidence of someone who has learned once again to walk with God in the Garden.

Of course, Peterson, not being a Christian (nor perhaps even a theist), does not intend any of these statements in their theological sense. Nevertheless, the posture he is advocating excludes grace. As Peterson would have it, no one has come to rescue you and no help is on the way.

I like the lads at Mere Orthodoxy. I really do. And caution about any cultural “rock star” is warranted.

But I think the balance lies in another direction, described by an Anthony Bradley article that Clark linked. I’d encourage you to read it for yourself, but I’m going to try soaring up to 30,000 feet to give a meta-summary, including a concept the author doesn’t directly mention: So profoundly has the Augustinian idea of original sin, of people guilty and hell-bound from the moment of conception (perhaps this is later Calvinist gloss), shaped western Christendom, that Christianity as winsome toward feminism has for 50 years or so been savage toward men, and young men have known nothing but shaming as a consequence. To shamed and beaten-down young men, Peterson is a prophet.

Is he a false prophet? Where Evangelical Clark sees Pelagianism, Orthodox Tipsy hears echoes of synergism, with which Orthodox Christianity, rightly so-called, is comfortable to that point that we’re often mistaken for Pelagians. (I’m not about to claim Peterson for Orthodox Christianity, but I know he has at least slight familiarity with it from his interactions with iconographer Jonathan Pageau, for instance here and here.)

So, young Evangelical man, let me prescribe this:

Go ahead and listen to Jordan Peterson, inspired and lifted by his words.
Remember that he’s not coming from a Christian place and there is no neutral place. Be careful. It’s a jungle out there and the enemy of your enemy may not ultimately be the friend you need.
Be aware that the Sunday morning place that continues the beatings you get during the week is a sect (Evangelicalism) of a schism (the Protestant Reformation) from a schism (the Patriarch of Rome breaking from the other four Patriarchs of the first-millennium Church) — and that Augustine and Original Sin are not part of Christian consensus world-wide, even if they dominate in the world Catholicism built.
Get Thee to an Orthodox Church to put Peterson’s message in historic Christian context. Unless the Priest is a convert with original sin notions still lingering, the beatings should cease. Even if the priest is still crypto-Protestant, the Liturgy knows better. God is gracious and loves mankind, you’ll hear again and again and again.

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Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Progressives’ final, Pyrrhic victory

As the days remaining on my New York Times subscription dwindle down to just a few, I cherish each remaining David Brooks and Ross Douthat column. This one from today should generate some serious thought, though tribalism may not allow it.

Back to that in a minute.

The people pushing for gun restrictions have basically done the exact opposite of what I thought was wise. Instead of depolarizing the issue they have massively polarized it. The students from Parkland are being assisted by all the usual hyper-polarizing left-wing groups: Planned Parenthood, Move On and the Women’s March. The rhetoric has been extreme. Marco Rubio has been likened to a mass murderer while the N.R.A. has been called a terrorist organization.

The early results would seem to completely vindicate my position … The losing streak continues.

Yet I have to admit that something bigger is going on. It could be that progressives understood something I didn’t. It could be that you can win more important victories through an aggressive cultural crusade than you can through legislation. Progressives could be on the verge of delegitimizing their foes, on guns but also much else, rendering them untouchable for anybody who wants to stay in polite society. That would produce social changes far vaster than limiting assault rifles.

Two things have fundamentally changed the landscape. First, over the past two years conservatives have self-marginalized. In supporting Donald Trump they have tied themselves to a man whose racial prejudices, sexual behavior and personal morality put him beyond the pale of decent society.

While becoming the movement of Dinesh D’Souza, Sean Hannity and Franklin Graham, they have essentially expelled the leaders and thinkers who have purchase in mainstream culture. Conservatism is now less a political or philosophic movement and more a separatist subculture that participates in its own ostracism.

Second, progressives are getting better and more aggressive at silencing dissenting behavior. All sorts of formerly legitimate opinions have now been deemed beyond the pale on elite campuses. Speakers have been disinvited and careers destroyed. The boundaries are being redrawn across society.

As Andrew Sullivan noted recently, “workplace codes today read like campus speech codes of a few years ago.” There are a number of formerly popular ideas that can now end your career: the belief that men and women have inherent psychological differences, the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, opposition to affirmative action.

What’s happening today is that certain ideas about gun rights, and maybe gun ownership itself, are being cast in the realm of the morally illegitimate and socially unacceptable …

Conservatives have zero cultural power, but they have immense political power. Even today, voters trust Republicans on the gun issue more than Democrats. If you exile 40 percent of the country from respectable society they will mount a political backlash that will make Donald Trump look like Adlai Stevenson.

(David Brooks)

Be sure not to gloss over that last paragraph. What Brooks describes — cultural power and political power even more sharply out of sync and at war with each other — would have been hard to imagine not long ago, but we’re already, in the age of Trump, getting a taste of what it would be like.

I’m not in “the movement of Dinesh D’Souza, Sean Hannity and Franklin Graham,” but don’t bet I won’t choose that as the (probably) lesser evil if push comes to shove.

Down at the southern tip of Manhattan where Wall Street lies, Peggy Noonan, without engaging David Brooks, has a considerably sunnier view I’d be remiss to omit:

This country is tired of tragedy, of the weeping president and the high-toned speech. Mr. Trump doesn’t do that because he can’t, and doesn’t know how to mourn. Just as well: We’re all tired of moist and empty vows. Do something …

Mr. Trump, God bless him, doesn’t know enough about the facts to be fatalistic about them. But he got the big picture right—at least the larger context of voters frozen along battle lines.

His presentations were stream-of-consciousness—undisciplined, scatty. And as always the question is whether he meant any of it. His opinions rest on impulses. He likes to say words. You never know which you can believe, which makes deal-making hard.

But of all recent presidents he is the one who can give cover to congressional conservatives, work with Democrats, and get something done.

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Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Unintended consequences

One of the minor irritants in my life is the tacit equation of “discrimination” simpliciter with “invidious discrimination,” as when people prattle about “ending discrimination” without any qualifiers.

That’s idiotic. By itself, discrimination can be synonymous with discernment. And I don’t have to make up examples, because WalMart and Dick’s Sporting Goods are going to get schooled on that by some aggrieved 18-year-olds in some of the 18 states plus the District of Columbia that ban discrimination based on age in places of public accommodation.

So feel-good discrimination bans bump up against feel-good corporate policies approved mostly be the same sorts of folks that loved the discrimination bans. Whatever else this day may bring, knowing that little irony is a silver lining.

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Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.