Abu Hatem أبو حاتم

In antiquity there was always a line drawn between what was considered uplifting, virtuous, chivalrous, honored, or sacred art and what was considered vane, profane, mundane, and sinful.  One of the chief problems with modernity is that this line has been thrown out for the leftist relativist Cultural Marxist idea that everything is art and that all art is good.  The forced subjective-view of beauty was something C.S. Lewis decried in his Abolition of Man, but even more so is something which cuts at the heart at the differences between modernity and antiquity.

Art affects human beings.  This is a common sensical axiom only denied by the most dogmatic of armchair epistemologists.  Art, like other stimuli, has automatic stimulatory effects on the human psyche.  This was recognized completely obvious by most ancient civilizations and thus art and beauty have been used in places as diverse as Medieval Christian Europe, the Islamic world, and ancient China to heal, uplift, spiritually encourage, and bring happiness to others.

I cannot speak for Christian aesthetics, because I simply do not know enough about it, but Islamic aesthetics was a spiritual science and philosophical field of much study particularly in Andalusian Spain in the 11th-14th centuries.  The purpose of Islamic aesthetics was to create art - music, poetry, calligraphy etc. - which spiritually uplifted the aesthete.  The heart’s attachment to beauty and its spiritual affects on the heart were told of by the Prophet Muhammad in his famous hadith that “God is beautiful, and he loves beauty.”

Thus one finds the strongest tradition of Islamic song not in stirring up fear of God, nor remembrance of the afterlife (although such were of course themes of many odes) but love of God and deep longing and love for his Beloved Prophet.  It was seen that song and poetry - when spiritual, beautiful, and loving - could stir up the heart and elicit positive attributes in the aesthete.

Yet with the realization that beauty could be used for good purposes, there was also the strong affirmation of the reality that false-beauty, and glittering vice, could corrupt and poision the soul.

Classical Muslim philosophers and theologians when discussing sama’ or poetic musical auditions told of the following effects of art, from the great Imam Ibn ‘Ajibah’s work al-Futuhat al-Ilahiyah or the Divine Openings:

And it is said, sama’ is like rain – if it falls upon dry earth it causes plants to sprout, thus is the purified heart – its beneficial treasures become manifest during sama’…

Dhul Nun was asked about sama’ and he said: “It is an overflowing of the truth which can make hearts take fright and run to God, and so whoever listens to it in truth attains realization, and whoever listens to it because of his self (nafs) will become a heretic.”…

It is also said that the people of sama’ are three: repentant, truthful, or steadfast, and that those who listen to sama’ are three: ones who hear by their Lord, ones who hear by their heart, and ones who hear by their self (nafs).

In fact, Muslim fear over the affect of viceful art sometimes went so far by some religious scholars and philosophers that the vast majority of muslical instruments were banned except for simplistic drums or tamborines because they were seen as distractions.  However, others such as the great Hujjat al-Islam or “Proof of Islam,” Islam’s greatest scholar Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, allowed musical instruments except for those which were connected to drunkenness.  The great Syrian Imam ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nablusi writes one of the best and most succinct statements on Islamic aesthetics in his great work Idah al-Alat wherein he states that the most correct opinion on the matter is that all musical instruments, song, and poetry is permitted by Islamic scripture except that which directly or indirectly intices towards vice or is in the company of vice.  Al-Nablusi writes of both the great benefits and harms of music depending upon its aesthetic nature.

The base assumption of this entire discussion is that the heart is moved by music, art, poetry, the whole 9-yards.  And the heart is moved in both good and bad ways.  The modern world does not seem to understand this in their politically correct enforcement of  relatavism even in the world of aesthetics.

Take an example: Michael Eric Dyson.  In the newest issue of the public policy magazine City Journal, we are given two opinions on rap music in the black community: one by Juan Williams (who I don’t usually like) and the other by Princeton leftist Michael Eric Dyson.  Dyson defends rap as a beautiful resistent almost neo-Aristotelien catharsis against the shakles of Anglo-European white oppression while Williams sees it as the absolute bastardization of the entire black race.

Dyson’s opinion:

 Cosby is at his most wrong, though, Dyson says, in his hatred of rap, which expresses the authentically black “gangsta” belief that “the lifestyle and ideology of the outlaw, the rebel and the bandit challenge the corrupt norms of the state, the government, and the rule of law in society.” So too with hip-hop fashion, with its “hats on backward, pants down around the crack” that Cosby deplored in his speech. “Fashion in black urban circles rises to performance art,” Dyson tells us. “The more daring their fashions, the less cooperative they are with bourgeois elegance, and the more they undermine bland conformism, the more likely black youth are to understand their bodies as battlefields of fierce moral contest.” Do their pants hang low? “This may be understood as sympathy dress,” an “overidentification” with relatives “who may have been caught up in a bloody urban drama. . . . It is a way of reclaiming the body of a loved one from its demobilized confinement and granting it, vicariously, the freedom to walk on the streets from which it has been removed.” And in truth, “many black youth who wear baggy pants may feel that they are already in prison, at least one of perception, built by the white mainstream and by their dismissive, demeaning elders.” Thus does the idle sophistry of armchair elites come to ratify cultural patterns once recognized as fatal to the poor.

And now Juan Williams:

But most of all, he hears rap. Pumped out from CDs, videos, and television (especially Black Entertainment Television), which black kids watch even more excessively than white kids, “nihilistic glorifications of ‘thug life’ ” and celebrations of gangbangers, drug dealers, and pimps “as black heroes” constantly wash over him, says Williams. “Black rappers, dressed for every video in convict style, posturing with menacing faces, hands flashing gang signals, their heads wrapped in prison-issue do-rags, pants hanging down in the convict style, and gangland tattoos covering their bodies” do their part “to promote black identity as the criminals’ identity.” Rap, says Williams, markets the idea that “violence, murder, and self-hatred” are “true blackness—authentic black identity.” It is “an open sewer throwing up the idea that black men are most genuine, most in touch with their power, when they are getting vengeance with a gun in hand.”

We know that this message reaches its listeners, says Williams, when we see ghetto kids “dress like rappers . . . and act hard-core, using nigger, cursing, and fighting on the way to school, in school, and after school—assuming they are still in school.” And we know it as well from the crime statistics.

We know that rap’s message about sex also hits home. Its cartoon-simple sentiment, says Williams: “All black women are sexually crazed, lack discrimination about men, and deserve to be treated as mindless bitches—dogs.” In rap, Cosby once said, there is “nothing about I care for you, nothing about may I go for a walk with you . . . just I’m hot, I’m leaking, I’m dripping, come on, and I know you want it too”—or, as the title of one rap song has it, “Face Down, Ass Up, C’mon.” There is something tragic, Williams says, about poor black girls “trying to find a way to feel good about their identity in a culture that gives little reinforcement to black women” being asked to dance to music that describes them as whores and bitches. “Rap’s pumped up message to them is to get naked and shake it before giving it up to do the wild thing,” he says. And many will do just that, bearing another generation of doomed innocents, who, despite the evil done them, grow up to be responsible for their own acts.

Peter Hitchens rightfully points out that the affect of postmodern nihilism goes far further than aesthetics:

The destruction of adult authority, knowledge, morality and order has been the aim of the radical Left for ages, and after four decades of burrowing into our establishment these Marxoid maggots are close to final success. If they just shut the remaining grammar schools and make independent schools so expensive that only plutocrats can afford them, they will have won. Not long now, then.

And they wonder why stabbings are becoming commonplace on the streets.

If what is celebrated as beautiful, and listened to over and over and over again is misogony, profanity, theft, murder, drugs, and the life of convicts, then civilization has a lot to fear.  Of course I am not saying such “art” need be censored or fought against by government “wars,” - private organizations would do a much better job of cleaning it up - but simply that nihilism and relativism, in all of their forms, mean the death of traditional values whether in Vermont, London, Beijing, or Damascus…

Share This

One good thing about being a traditional limited government antiwar conservative is that you are the ultimate moderate. Let me be clear, I am not a “purist,” there are places I do depart from traditional conservatism, however few. Yet, the traditional conservative seems to agree with everyone and disagree with everyone at the same time. The good thing about being a traditional conservative is that you can have your cake and eat it too, and if you reject political parties - like I do - you will find that your democrat, republican, green, libertarian, and independent friends all have something in common with you.

Case-in-point, while watching my favorite cable TV news program, Morning Joe, which is often very mainstream in its political opinions, I find that I agree with both the conservative Joe and the liberal Mika often. For instance, whenever Joe discusses lower tax rates or opposes socialized healthcare, I find myself in full agreement. His arguments are usually my arguments - both natural law based and utilitarian although they don’t use those terms obviously. And whenever Mika begins discussing our civil liberties being taken away in the war on terror, or how the Iraq war was a huge mistake, I find myself in full agreement. Her arguments are both natural law based and utilitarian although she doesn’t use those terms either obviously.

On economic issues it is the same as well. When the left discusses how corporate welfare, corporate lobbyists, government contracts, and government interventions benefit corporations on behalf of the consumer, I am the first to agree. This is what Ludwig von Mises, the great economist, called soft fascism, and is a government-industrial complex. Its greatest modern manifestation was in the bail out of Bear Stearns, the failed Wall Street investment bank, by the Federal Reserve last March. Why modern conservatives support such acts for “stability in our markets,” to quote Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson or “keeping the markets running,” true traditional conservatives see it what it is - injustice and oppression of the poor through transgressing their liberty and property rights.

When the right begins discussing bloated spending, increasing tax rates, and a progressive income tax wherein the top 5% of earners pay 53.25% of the taxes, and the top 50% pay 96.03% of the taxes, making saving extremely difficult and making working one’s way out of poverty (in conformance to the conservative belief in the natural order) difficult - then traditional conservatives are the first to agree. Some may say because the very rich often manipulate legislation through intense lobbying receiving government protections and benefits, they deserve these draconian tax rates, the French classical economist Frederic Bastait refuted this years ago saying that when government injustices are used by the rich to exploit the poor, and then the poor to exploit the rich, one has a “web of injustice,” and nothing else. Traditional conservatives would also use the arguments of Robert Nisbet, the great traditional conservative sociologist, who wrote of how when government becomes the benefactor you have a very unnatural society which weakens the power of intermediate groups such as communities and religious organizations instead relying on centralization of power. Alexis De’Tocqueville once wrote that when government is the sole social engineering benefactor, one has a very cult-like society wherein religion is weak.

When libertarians and the left begin discussing the need for freedom, you will find traditionalist conservatives fully agree. However, freedom also includes, traditional conservatives would retort, that states have the right to regulate matters within their own states. Thus, if a state or even better - a local community - seeks to make illegal matters which the constitution permits them, then they should have the right.

When conservatives begin noting the need for state coerced morality, such as banning prostitution and other things which go against the natural order, the traditional conservative will agree but will fear the dangers of centralization and increase of government power. Instead of doing such things at a federal level, they should be done at the level of the states to prevent the dangers of a unitary executive.

On the illegal immigration issue you will find traditional conservatives, historical and modern divided, another example of moderation. While traditional conservatives have always sought legal immigration and accepting others onto our shores throughout American history, some have sought a loosening of immigration rules while others have seen the need for tightening.  The classical liberal and libertarian wing of conservatism seeks inclusion and a multicultural society while the more traditionalist seek conservation of culture. One can find examples for both sides of the debate in American history and in the traditional conservative movement’s writings. The issue is not as clear cut as some like to make it. Like in all questions, there is a strong traditionalist branch of the traditional conservatives who held on to conserving culture, while there is a strong libertarian (with a small-l) branch of the traditional conservatives who held on to increasing liberty.

This is the traditional conservative way which has long been forgotten. It was the tradition of the late 1800s Bourbon Democrats such as the late great president Grover Cleavland, and others such as democratic presidential candidate Sam Tilden. It is the tradition of republicans such as former Senator Robert Taft.

In the United Kingdom the traditionalist conservative tradition has been strongest, notably because the Whig (or classical liberal) and Tory (classical conservative) parties combined in the early 19th century against socialist Labour. While the antiwar anti-imperialism strand of American traditional conservatism was and is not as strong in the United Kingdom, they too had the marriage of liberty (Whiggism) and tradition (Burkeanism) so much so that the late economist Friedrich von Hayek who adopted Britain as his home called himself a Burkean Whig.

On American shores this marriage occurred at the hands of political thinker Frank S. Meyer who’s In Defense of Liberty called for the fusion of classical liberal means with traditionalist ends. Traditional conservatism he argued was the fusion of tradition and liberty. This moderate balance defines traditional conservatism’s moderation.

It is interesting to note however that before the Whigs and Torries combined in Britain, and before Frank S. Meyer’s writings on fusionism, traditional conservatism was always defined by these two marks and American Catholic Russell Kirk attempted to integrate the view of traditionalism into the American conservative consciousness. Bourbon Democrats in the United States were not absolute social libertarians in the modern sense, and they held on to state right’s of regulation. Moreover, even further historically, the father of all classical conservatism, Edmund Burke himself was a Whig and advised many economically classical liberal views in his Notes on Scarcity. Yes, the same Edmund Burke who harshly opposed “abstract theory,” said that an abundance of politics signified a “sick society,” and who rejected philosophical discourse on natural rights.

The uneasy relationship, and often tension, between Burkeanism and Whiggism, between tradition and liberty, between classical conservatism and classical liberalism itself is what signifies the moderation of “traditional conservatism,” or whatever modern nomenclature we give it. This coupled with conservatism’s inherent disgust for rigid ideology, radicalism and the revolutionary mentality, make traditional conservatism simply a synonym for moderate.  In fact, I found the following diagram in a standard college government textbook the other day which vindicated my point about American traditional conservatism, it had “American conservatism” in the middle of the political spectrum and overlapping with “moderate” while European more classical conservatism was in the far right.

It is wise here to recount the words of Russell Kirk, as quoted by fellow blogger The Western Confucian:

Ideology—that is, the manmade formulations and doctrines of both the right and the left in modern American politics—is the enemy of true conservatism, as it is the enemy of the Gospel, which rests on revealed, propositional truth. Russell Kirk, the great Catholic thinker whose writings have so influenced me over the years, said that ideology is “the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers.” Most tend to be utopian and end up serving not the welfare of the people, but the interests of power-seekers.

Conservatism, on the other hand, is not a set of doctrines, but “a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.”

Indeed, conservatism is not an ideology. Conservatism is a state of mind and way of looking at ideas. It is one that I think is inherent in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition and worldview, as well as many more such as Eastern Confucianism. It recognizes the natural order and moderation is an integral aspect of the natural order. From the Ancient Greeks who called “temperance” one of the four cardinal virtues, and Chinese, to the musings of Islamic mystics, moderation has always been seen as a virtue. The great Imam Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad (may God bless him and give him peace) once said that “justice is putting everything in its proper place.” Another word for justice or ‘adl in Arabic is “moderation.” As the Prophet himself said, “Do not go to extremes in religion,” and, in another hadith narrated by Bukhari says “So aim for what is right, follow a middle path, accept the good news of the reward for right action, and seek help[for your goal] in the morning, evening and some of the night.”

Hence instead of calling me a traditional conservative, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that I am the ultimate moderate.

Share This

Kudos to J.H. Huebert of the libertarian political blog LewRockwell who writes about the recent ruling of a French court on annulling a marriage contract because one spouse breached contract by deceiving her husband about her virginity. Liberty necessarily entails, and classical liberal theory affirms whether one is a libertarian or not (and I certainly am not) that mutually agreed un-coerced contracts must be enforced unless they break laws or entail an injustice. Huebert writes:

All hail France! Or at least one French judge, for treating marriage for what it is, a contract — and finding a breach where the would-be bride misrepresented herself as a virgin.

Of course many French people are outraged, as they so often are when private property and contract rights trump “secular” (that is, socialist) values.

Huebert sounds like the great French political theorist Frederic Bastiat and his arguments, in front of a tidal wave of French opposition, for private property rights. France has never been the same since it suffered the birth pangs of the Enlightenment in the French revolution. Every political ideology that exists today has its roots in the French revolution; and every revolution since the French revolution has gone through its steps.

“Secular values,” moral relativism and socialism characterize France now who still revere the odious John Jacques Rousseau to this day. Those who oppose this marriage contact’s annulment oppose freedom. The step children of Rousseau would rather have a theocracy of their nihilistic and atheistic postmodernism than true liberty and justice. This attempt at replacing true spirituality with obedience to State power bears great resemblance to Rousseau’s notion of the civil religion.

But if the French to this day want to find aids in removing the stench of Rousseau, they will find no better advocate for liberty than Frederic Bastiat who despised the forceful government imposition of secular moralities termed “progress” or “modernity” over a century ago, and instead said try liberty! Bastiat writes:

Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations. This is so true that, if by chance, the socialists have any doubts about the success of these combinations, they will demand that a small portion of mankind be set aside to experiment upon. The popular idea of trying all systems is well known. And one socialist leader has been known seriously to demand that the Constituent Assembly give him a small district with all its inhabitants, to try his experiments upon.

In the same manner, an inventor makes a model before he constructs the full-sized machine; the chemist wastes some chemicals — the farmer wastes some seeds and land — to try out an idea.

But what a difference there is between the gardener and his trees, between the inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his elements, between the farmer and his seeds! And in all sincerity, the socialist thinks that there is the same difference between him and mankind!…

While mankind tends toward evil, the legislators yearn for good; while mankind advances toward darkness, the legislators aspire for enlightenment; while mankind is drawn toward vice, the legislators are attracted toward virtue. Since they have decided that this is the true state of affairs, they then demand the use of force in order to substitute their own inclinations for those of the human race.

Open at random any book on philosophy, politics, or history, and you will probably see how deeply rooted in our country is this idea — the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism. In all of them, you will probably find this idea that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and prosperity from the power of the state. And even worse, it will be stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Conventional classical thought everywhere says that behind passive society there is a concealed power called law or legislator (or called by some other terminology that designates some unnamed person or persons of undisputed influence and authority) which moves, controls, benefits, and improves mankind.

Those that wish to nullify mutually agreed un-coerced and fully volitional contracts due to the vacuous cause of contradicting “modern secular values,” want a secular theocracy by the secular religion and values they propose. Instead, why not try liberty France? If the French truly believe they have “progressed” vis-a-vis the rest of the world, then they won’t oppose simple freedom.

Share This

Over at The Monarchist blog which I found one day browsing Taki’s Mag I found this very good blog entry describing the political ideology of “the revolutionary.” Being that one of the recurring themes of this blog is that the very definition of a traditionalist conservative entails being a counter-revolutionary, it is interesting to see his take:

The second most perverted mindset across the psychological spectrum of politics and governance is that of the revolutionary. It is the mind of the revolutionary and his fanatical need to correct some perceived injustice, even if it means murder on a large scale to achieve his political ends, that yields the next most repressive form of government.

Mindset: “Personal trauma has caused an abnormal personality disorder in me. I spend most of my waking hours focusing my hatred and anger from this past event upon a perceived ‘political’ enemy and wrapping my uncivil criminal and violent agenda in a sanitising cloak of ‘a people’s political cause’. The immediate result of my revolution ranges from social deconstruction and balkanisation to anarchy and genocide. The governments I may form rely on fear, intimidation and tyranny to control dissent to my authority.”

Model of Government: Totalitarian Dictatorship (One Party Rule) after a short period of Mob Rule and Provisional Government.

Intellectual: The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Rights (Jean-Jacques Rousseau), The Rights of Man (Thomas Paine) debunked by Edmund Burke following Reflections on the French Revolution, The Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels), State and Revolution (Vladimir Ilyich Lenin), Giovanni Gentile, etc. History has completely debunked these latter intellectuals, and much of this debunking was accomplished by the insight and intelligence of one man - George Orwell (1984).

Notable Results: The Reign of Terror, The Great Purge, The Holocaust, The Great Leap Forward, The Killing Fields, Al Qaeda Sep 11th…

The Monarchist blog is hardcore classical conservative in every sense in the world (unlike the more usual traditional conservatives, paleoconservatives, paleolibertarians, and other “fusionists” of the movement) and so his ideas are not in complete sync with the majority of (American) classical liberal type conservatives. Yet his analysis of the “revolutionary” mindset is right-on-the-money.

This is a good time to review Burke’s views of revolution, for all of those supposed “conservatives” nowadays who instead adopt the New Right neoconservative fantasies of empire building, benevolent hegemony, and democratic imperialism.  The following are some notes I took in an advanced political theory class concerning Burke’s response to the French revolution, abridged for relevance, concerning the flaws of revolutions and revolutionaries:

Burke is not against everything that is called a revolution. He supported the American revolution because he believes that they fought for rights that they had that others had tried to take away. Rather than destroying their old government and imagining and creating a new government based on things they imagined, Burke said the Americans were creating a government based upon rights they already had. The origin of the right of no taxation without representation is our right as Englishmen. “Revolutions only in the sense of reaffirming rights you already had, trying to protect traditional rights and liberties as Englishmen.”

Burke was not opposed to all revolution and change. “A society without the means to change itself is without means of its own preservation.” The only revolution Burke supported is reaffirmation, when government goes astray. Burke liked change if it is evolutionary and not revolutionary.

Using reason to create something that has not existed ever in history is very dangerous and unreasonable.  For Burke we should not rely on reason as much as experience of things being tried. If nobody has ever tried it before, its because it probably would not work. We must listen to the wisdom of the ages.   If something has been done a certain way for a thousand years then it probably works.  If it didn’t work it would have been changed and evolved out of existence some how.  Burke discusses the monarchy, overtime it lost power, but it was never kicked out.  It evolved.  When the monarch was kicked out for a period, Cromwell’s dictatorship resulted.  There is a lesson here.

English politics has always been based in pragmatism.   While the French were and are based in ideology.  Even today, political scientists consider British political cultural as “consensual” while French political culture is a textbook example of one that is “fragmented.”   People based in ideology will follow reason. People based in pragmatism will follow their experience, i.e. common sense, tradition, etc.

Burke says that a society that is always theorizing about politics is a sick society. If politics works well, be thankful. If you are always talking about politics and stirred up, then this is a sign of a sick society. Politics is only one aspect of life it is not the whole. A society that is obsessed with politics is a society that is in trouble. In modern society we tend to assume that every time we have a problem we solve it through government and politics. This reflects the idea that politics is not just part of life it is all of life. This is not to say that we cannot solve some problems through politics.  Burke told his fellow Englishmen that we ought to do away with the slave trade, and promote religious toleration, and we ought to be giving people their rights.

For Burke, the French revolution was on the side of bad change because it was caused by people who just threw out the old and came up with a totally new way of doing things based on their reason rather than following the wisdom of the ages and allowing things in France to evolve to a better situation than that of the past.  When Burke wrote this book there were many people in England said, “We need to have the same kind of thing here!”  Burke wrote his book to disagree with this and stop this idea.

Burke was an Anglican and his mother is a Roman Catholic. He takes a very negative view of the religious aspects of the French revolution.  The worst of those aspects haven’t happened yet at the time he was writing.  Many of the British were against Roman Catholics and the Anglican Church and Burke just cannot accept that. Burke is against anything that weakens religion. Burke believes that religion is one of the pillars of state and society. “A state in which religion is weak is unlikely to be a good state.” It may be a strong state, since religion challenges and weakens government - but it will not be a good state.

Burke, in his analysis of the follies of revolutions was able to predict what is going to happen in France. Burke makes the argument that sure things were not as good in France as they were in England but at the very least the Frenchmen still had a constitution. Even Louis 16th, an absolute monarch, had asked the parliament to come when he had to tax people. He even had to call the Estates General into session. He was limited by the un-written ancient constitution of the French.

“We are building on the shoulders of our ancestors” we don’t have to start at zero at each generation. If we build on the wisdom of the ages, we increase our wisdom, we are better than those before us. If we throw everything out, we are back at zero. It is like the child that touches the stove and has to burn their hand to understand it being bad.

English political philosophy is different than French political philosophy. It is a very different type of social contract theory than the French. Locke defends the current order with his social contract theory. Roussaeu starts a new order.

Despotism of the people’s origins is during the French revolution, J.L. Talmon called Roussaeu’s work “The blueprint for a totalitarian democracy.” It is an absolute government by the people. The most terrible forms of government in the 20th century have been totalitarian democracies. The reign of terror was a totalitarian democracy. The despotism of the multitude, according to Burke, is extremely bad. There is a middle way between the despotism of the monarchy and the multitude.

Instead of using their experience, the French tried theory. They used abstract ideals and created a new government based on theory and absolute ideals which had never been tried.  “Whilst they the French are possessed by these notions, it is vain to talk to them about the practice of their ancestors, of the fundamental laws of their country, of their constitution which is strengthened by experience of the ages and tradition. They despise tradition and thus they are going down to ruin. “ 

If you build a regime on reason and on theory then nobody has experience to lead.  Nobody has experience with how a government actually works. Men of theory accept the theories of social contract theories such as Rousseau.  We must destroy all of the old rituals, according to the French Revolution, because we must test all things by the scientific method and reason and do away with superstitions which keep us ignorant.

But Burke believes in “convention,” that there are certain things taken for granted in different societies. Burke has a real different view of nature from the French revolutionary leaders and Rousseau and social contract theorists. French Revolution says we must break away from society, why, because they all assume it makes us bad and unnatural. Society is unnatural to them. Burke says, if we divorce ourselves to society and the law then we are beasts we are like wild animals. If that is natural then I don’t want any part of it.

For more on the counter-revolutionary see here, here, and here.

Share This

Donald Devine, the head of the American Conservative Union, and an official in the Reagan administration offered a striking critique of the neoconservatives and their desire for empire before the war in Iraq even began. Devine, like Paul Craig Roberts another Reagan administration official, and other antiwar traditional conservatives, have been drowned out by pro-war neocon voices within the Right. Devine is highly educated in political theory and so his comments are always poignant. Here are some of Devine’s comments right after the war in Iraq:

Intellect abhors a vacuum as much as physical matter. So “national greatness” neo-conservatism soon replaced limited government as the ideal and filled the pages of the journals on the right, very much including NR, which at one point even called for a revival of colonialism under U.S. auspices and the building of an American empire. Bill Buckley himself was forced to repair to the pages of rival Human Events-which remained faithful to the original ideals but saw its role as a news magazine rather than as a journal of opinion—to condemn empire-building as incompatible with American conservatism. With the Weekly Standard message boosted by the TV stardom of its editor Bill Kristol—who recently boasted, “If people want to say we’re an imperial power, fine”—neo-conservatism became the dominant public face of the movement. The alternatives were the paleo-conservative magazines, Chronicles and the American Conservative, which were equally disdainful of mainstream conservatism.

Empire or National Interest? For a movement that began uniquely united in opposition to communism, it is strange that the conservative split would become most profound on foreign policy. From its founding document, the Sharon Statement, conservatives had agreed that all foreign policy had to be justified on the criterion—was it in “the just interests of the United States”? Communism was the “greatest threat” to those interests, so it had to be opposed. Iraq was not so simple for the question was empirical, not principled—was that war in the U.S. interest or not? Was it necessary to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and control terrorism or was Iraq not a threat unless the U.S. invaded and stirred up Mideast terrorism? Buckley and many others calculated war was necessary but still opposed empire building. Philosophically, either he was right that building an American world empire was against conservative principles or Bill Kristol, Max Boot and Paul Johnson-with some NR and the Wall Street Journal support—were correct that a new American colonialism was required to bring peace and democracy to the world. Even President Bush had said: “America has no empire to extend or utopia to establish”-but neo-conservatives were still trying to push him there anyway.

The New York Times reports Devine’s (incorrect) wishful thinking about a Bush-led Iraq war withdrawal after the 2004 elections:

A few months ago, Donald Devine, a vice chairman of the American Conservative Union, publicly apologized to Mr. Bush after it was reported that in disgust at the war he had failed to applaud a presidential speech. But in a column shortly before the election, Mr. Devine wrote that conservatives should vote for Mr. Bush precisely because he was likely to withdraw from Iraq sooner than Senator Kerry would.

Arguing that the president had dropped hints like a quickly retracted statement in a television interview about the impossibility of winning a war against terror, Mr. Devine argued that “the president’s maddening repetition of slogans” about the war was the “only politically possible tactic for a candidate who has already made up his mind to leave at the earliest reasonable moment.” He added: “The neoconservatives will be devastated.”

And in 2005, the Asia Times reported Devine said that “The only solution is for the US to exit before the whole thing comes apart.”

Devine is no saint traditionalist conservative, but at the very least him and Mickey Edwards and others part of the American Conservative Union are speaking out against empire, preemptive and aggressive war, and American support for oppressive regimes.

Share This

Abraham Maslow, Eric Voegelin, Friedrich von Hayek and many others were very critical of what Max Weber called “the value free science” that is scientism, or knowledge which ignores universal moral values and recognizes nothing else but science itself. Voegelin and Hayek’s analysis was that a “value free science” was not even really possible, and that when one set of values was taken away, another was implicitly taught. Maslow wrote that taking morality or even religion out of science separated “two things which must be together” and created a societal pathology.

Here are a few examples from two textbooks (published 2006, 2008) on the value imposition and normative assertions of the sciences (business law and economics). All of the following quotes contain words of value or normative assertions which describe subjectively how things should be disguised as fact:

• Price controls are “good“
• “Unfortunately, we do not have a world government”
• In explaining ethical legal theories all deontological theories are rejected, including natural law theory, because “there is no compelling reason to act in this manner.” While relativism, legal positivism, and consequentialist theories such as utilitarianism are only criticized in that they are “difficult” to “implement” and “often cannot achieve their ends.”
• A “successful” anti-poverty program contains “regulations,” and “welfare programs” at the very least.
• “Business laws should be judged on the basis of their economic efficiency and in some cases social justice.” (You know, instead of natural God-given human rights which respect human dignity and grounded in natural law - such “fact” blatantly rejects natural law and disguises it as fact and not opinion).

Now I do not mind. I, nor the vast majority of students, will become statist utilitarian efficiency maximizers who look to the “state” to simply seek the aggregate “social welfare” and efficiency without regard to any intrinsic natural rights with “no compelling reason” to follow even if they did exist. But, this is just an example of modern scientism. For an even more amoral anti-natural law example see modern international relations theory wherein the “state” should “seek regional hegemony” or “a balance of power” and that yes, in the words of one textbook “morality has no place in international politics.”

C.S. Lewis was right in the Demolition of Man when he said that when school children are not even allowed to know the difference between simple right and wrong then there is a major problem. Ron Paul in his The Revolution is the only candidate who discussed the importance of liberty, not simply for its own sake, but because we respect every human being’s inherent dignity. Respect for human dignity seems to be something that must remain unspoken…

Share This

Bastiat summarizes conservatism (well, precisely the natural right classical liberalism school of it) thus at the very end of his great work The Law. This succinct sentence wholly describes the natural and spontaneous order:

God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well as a human form. And these social organs of persons are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!

And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.

For the nation which came up with the awful Rousseau, it is indeed refreshing that the French are also home of De’Maistre and Bastiat (combine the two and you get a traditionalist conservative!).

Share This

So after posting the earlier speech I had read in The American Muslim magazine I googled Robert Crane, Former US Deputy Director (for Planning) of the National Security Council under President Nixon and converted Muslim, and I realized that Crane was a Burkean Kirkian conservative traditionalist! Crane discusses natural law, natural order, traditionalism, conservatism, et. al. Crane tells Islamonline:

The traditionalists among the Whigs, led by Edmund Burke in England, were like the paleo-conservatives of modern America, who want to maintain the principles of good governance and economic justice as the framework for all public policy. They are called principled conservatives, and their movement differs little, if at all, from the classical liberalism of 19th century America and from enlightened Islam.

I use the term “traditionalism” because it has the least baggage in American political parlance. Conservativism is a bad word, because it smacks of reaction. And classical liberalism, nowadays, has come to denote either intrusive governmental control of all life or else libertarian anarchism.

Traditionalism therefore exists only as a movement, and probably should remain in this mode for the foreseeable future. For Muslims, traditionalism could be the name for an Islamist movement in America. But it would be an unusual Islamism because its goal would not be direct political power but rather the transformation of thought and imagination.

Traditionalism really is a vision of the future based on restoration and creative renewal of the wisdom of the past. It is a vision of justice, order, and freedom based on a transcendent source of values. This would contrast with any vision not so based.

My thinking and writing reflect the wisdom accumulated among the giants of traditionalist thought. Perhaps the greatest of the contemporary traditionalists is Russell Kirk, who has written an entire bookshelf of volumes addressing your question. In his epochal work, The Roots of American Order, Russell Kirk writes, “The good society is marked by a high degree of order, justice, and freedom. Among these, order has primacy: for order cannot be enforced until a tolerable civil order is attained, nor can freedom be anything better than violence until order gives us laws.”

Positivism as taught in American law schools is known as “the command theory of law.” It is the epitome of secular fundamentalism, and has destroyed every civilization in which it took root. “Positivism arose in opposition to the classical natural law theory, according to which there are necessary moral constraints on the content of law. The word ‘positivism’ was probably first used to draw attention to the idea that law is ‘positive’ or ‘posited,’ as opposed to being ‘natural’ in the sense of being derived from natural law or morality.”

 

The denial of any transcendent source of law constitutes a denial of the very roots of Western civilization and, indeed, of any true culture. Legal positivism denies the long history that gave rise to the Great American Experiment, and aims to eliminate the very possibility of bringing the wisdom of tradition to public life and public policy.

This is amazing. I always knew that Crane was a conservative, but not that he was a traditionalist. I wish he would discuss economic freedom more in-depth like Dr. Imad ad-Deen Ahmad of Minaret of Freedom. But, yes, you find new things through google everyday.

Share This

Eric Voegelin (d. 1901-85) was a major figure in the history of American conservative intellectualism. While not himself a classical conservative, Voegelin discussed the main theme of classical conservativism which was totalitarian movements and the revolutionary mentality.

Classical conservatives have always noted that the revolutionary mentality has never brought anything except evil. The intentions of revolutionaries to improve society are almost never realized. The French revolution brought Robespierre and Jacobin tyranny followed by the political instability of five French republics and two empires. The Russian revolution brought about the communist Lenin and the worst tyrant in the history of the world in Stalin. There are other countless examples - those who have attempted to establish revolutionary change such as Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s fascist Italy, and others have generally caused great distress.

The opposition to revolution is the bedrock of classical conservatism, nothing more and nothing less. Unlike other political persuasions, conservatism is not an ideology aiming to establish any type of perfect society. Conservatives are marked by their opposition to revolutionary change in favor of gradual and organic evolutionary change shaped by the mechanism of tradition.

Voegelin discussed the origin of totalitarian movements and the origin of such pathological ideologies as had been evident during the second world war. In his studies of totalitarianism, Voegelin found the problems of ideology as spiritually rooted in nature and that the pathologies of modern ideologues and revolutionaries beared great similarities to the Christian heresy of gnosticism. Voegelin’s analysis cannot only be applied to other countries and past and present movements, but also to the modern idea and modern mindset itself. Indeed, many have seen the neoconservative fervent urge at spreading democracy and free markets throughout the world as exactly the type of gnosticism which Voegelin referred to.

A note on Voegelin: Voegelin taught the current Pope Benedict amongst others. However, Voegelin made one major error which the conservative movement has universally condemned him for: he believed that it was impossible for man to know the truth about God (he said each society constructs its own order to make meaning, this is relativist type thinking which was universally rejected!).

Voegelin’s analysis of the gnostic is that the gnostic mentality went through many stages. Because God has created this worldly existence imperfect, and has challenged the believer with upholding the tests of faith, man experiences what Christian theologians such as Blaise Pascal amongst other Western thinkers called “the tensions of existence.” The tensions of existence were a central theme of Voegelin’s. Muslims do not truly have the same concept of the “tensions of existence,” to my knowledge, yet there is a similar concept the hardship of the believer’s living in this world, as the Prophet Muhammad said “this world is the prison of the believer.”

The tensions of existence are described as the hardships of man at enduring in the imperfect world which he lives. Since the world is a mix of both good and bad, and is not a heavenly afterlife, the tensions of existence are felt from time to time by those who experience this world, especially its hardships. We Muslims would say that the hardships and tensions of existence are a manifestation of God’s attribute of jalal or majesty and if patiently endured would be the gateway to Divine Love and Beauty as well as humbleness of the self. Voegelin described the “tensions of existence,” as arising in gnostic pathologies from the difficulty which occurs from enduring in this world.

Unable to be patient through the tensions of existence, the gnostic escapes through self-delusion. He does not blame his own sinful soul for evil and problems but instead blames God or the world. The Christian gnostics were angry for God for creating the world this way. The modern gnostics are angry at the state of the world as well. They attempt to do what Voegelin called immanentizing the eschaton or making real that which is transcendent. They would like to create heaven on earth and achieve their Utopian goals and dreams. The gnostic creates the delusion that one can achieve the “perfect society” the “heaven on earth” which they desire in this world. In the process and quest of creating heaven on earth however they create hell on earth.

The gnostic self-delusion which relieves them from the tensions of existence becomes a force for immense evil in the world. The gnostic constructs his own reality, believes in his own political and secular religions, and attempts to achieve his Utopian dreams. This what we find manifested throughout modernity - Voegelin strongly rebukes the spiritual death of man which results from his gnostic desire to achieve temporary spiritual relief. Perhaps the strongest example of modern gnosticism is in the abhorrent legacy of communism which constructed its own reality and in the quest for achieving what Marx called “communism,” led to the destruction of society, religion, property, and the killing of millions. The sad chapter of history named communism will be forever known as the paramount example of the gnostic delusion.

The Holy Father Pope Benedict has discussed this as well. When still Cardinal Razniger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict claimed that two pathologies were destroying the world: nihilism and fundamentalism. Nihilism in its rejection of truth itself, while fundamentalism is the arrogance that one has the authority to sin against others in the cause of the truth. Both extremisms are gnostic pathologies. In the modern world today we find soulless modernity believing in no sense of morality except for the efficiency and utility of social engineering in providing others happiness; religion is fought against and rejected because it takes the place of utilitarian social engineering. On the other side we find extremists in religion, so-called “revolutionaries” who in their quest for the perfect Godly state on earth endorse unjust and sinful methods.

The neoconservatives in the quest for a perfect peaceful liberal democratic order fall into the gnostic fantasy. The Christian fundamentalists who urge war on all Muslim states to achieve a Christian world, or as Ann Coulter says killing their leaders and converting them to Christianity, fall into the gnostic fantasy. The Jewish extremists who urge genocide in the quest for a perfect Jewish Israeli state fall into the gnostic fantasy. Muslim extremists who attempt to achieve the perfect Utopian “Islamic state” through suicide bombings, and terrorism, fall into the gnostic fantasy.

It is for this reason that the classical conservatives have always opposed revolution. There may be tyranny in the world, but I will take a tyrant leader any day than one led by a gnostic revolution. It is appropriate here to repeat the counsel of the venerable Joseph De’Maistre, “The Counter-Revolution will not be a reverse revolution, but the reverse of a Revolution.”

To be sure there is much good in the world, and being good and using good means can spread goodness in the world. Conservatives have always understood this. Burke said famously that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” However good means must be used to achieve righteous goals and the natural rights and inherent dignity of all human beings must be respected. The Islamic maxim states “good means must be used to establish good ends.” Conservatives have long found gradual evolutionary change to be more beneficial than revolutionary change. Specifically if change is established through sinful means than expect it to be unblessed. Muslims would say that such change loses its barakah or Divine blessing which accompanies good. And lastly, peaceful and good change is a different thing altogether than attempting at establishing Utopia. Don’t fall into the gnostic self-delusion!

Share This

Dr. Robert Crane, a Muslim convert and former foreign policy adviser to President Richard Nixon, gave a speech three days ago concerning the “Transcendent Law and a New Paradigm of Civilizations.”  Crane looks favorably at Ibn Khaldun, and discusses his influence on Toynbee and others who studied civilizations and the natural order.  Crane affirms the need of society to conserve the natural order saying:

The balance to be maintained in every civilization as embodied in every world religion is among order, justice, and freedom.  This paradigm of balance teaches that order, justice, and freedom are interdependent.  When freedom is construed to be independent of justice, there can be no justice and the result will be anarchy.  When order is thought to be possible without justice, there will be no order, because injustice is the principal cause of disorder.  When justice is thought to be possible without order and freedom, then the pursuit or order, justice, and freedom are snares of the ignorant.

Without consensus on the proper nature of order, and of justice and freedom as essential parts of a single whole, rather than as independent pursuits, no civilization can continue to exist.  The twin roles of religion in all of its traditionalist manifestations, including the monotheistic and “revealed religions”, and especially Islam, are the spiritual well-being or happiness of every person and the maintenance of consensus on the responsibilities and rights necessary to live in an ordered society.

Crane is good at merging the ecumenic and universal concept of the natural order from all angles, whether in the Muslim mystic Rumi, Ibn Khaldun, or Toynbee.  Since the issue of the natural law, natural order, liberty, and tradition are dear to me, Crane’s exposition within an Islamic context finds in this blogger a highly receptive audience.

Share This