Politics & History - Lessons

 Two pieces from Englesberg Ideas are being mashed together in this post. Selected subconsciously or not, bear with me.

One looks at Europe and Russia; the other only considers China. The more Trump denigrates NATO and allies, the more I keep wanting to ask this question: who won World War Two?

Not us. The United Nations led by America, Great Britain, the USSR, and China won World War II. 

The red teams mentioned in the first essay should be applied to the maritime problems outlined in the second; the allies favored in the second are needed for the problem of Russia.

NATO’s 1937 moment  

This sense of a ‘prewar era’ has only become more urgent as senior officials and officers across the Euro-Atlantic community point to the possibility of a Russian attack on NATO within the foreseeable future. Primarily, the new approach has focused on increased defence spending. Thinking about the challenge, though, tends towards updates of the past, framing the broader picture either as a ‘return to the Cold War’ or revisiting the Nazi assault on Europe of the late 1930s, and the specific one of a Russian assault on the Baltic States. Very often, however, these are echoes and versions of debates that the Euro-Atlantic community has had for the last 20 years: a new Cold War. And all too often, the discussion about the late 1930s returns to the well-worn analogies of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

In fact, 1937 offers another apt reference point for lessons about evolving strategic challenges and deterrence and defence: this was the year that then-Colonel Arthur Percival, a well-connected, decorated and upwardly mobile British officer, wrote an ‘appreciation’ of a potential attack on Singapore from the Japanese point of view. Following on-site inspections in Singapore and Malaya, Percival observed that such tremendous change had taken place concerning the whole problem of the defence of the naval base at Singapore that it could no longer be considered an impregnable fortress. Instead, the base would be in imminent danger if war broke out.

***

‘Our 1937 moment’ means shaping an appreciation of a potential attack on NATO from the Russian point of view and acting on it. The long-serving baseline scenario of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States appears to be the most complex and potentially costly of options open to Moscow given the terrain and NATO’s defensive preparations. So, why would it work this way, and what are Moscow’s alternatives? How do Moscow’s changing international partnerships influence this, if at all? Answers to these questions will go a long way to mitigating the perennial Euro-Atlantic sense of surprise about Moscow’s actions, and to ensuring that deterrence and defence remain not just up-to-date, but ready for the future.

(Which should also seriously under the idea of a conspiracy underlying the Pearl Harbor attack - the British military made similar mistakes regarding Japan.)

Maritime allies are America’s superpower  

Realistically, building a commercial maritime-industrial base to compete with China’s would require vast sums of money. This would not be a one-time expenditure for retooling outdated shipyards and modernising crane factories. Grants and loans to manufacturers are only part of the story. Higher wages – which ultimately would be funded by larger public subsidies for commercial vessels – would be needed to attract workers into an industry they have shunned. Selling that industry’s products would entail a readiness to provide public-sector financing to shipowners – and to accept stunning losses when difficult economic conditions cause owners to default on their mortgages and leases. International collaboration to produce ships and maritime equipment at costs even remotely comparable to China’s cannot be taken for granted: shipyards tend to be large employers, and any government that will cede the jobs of well-paid workers represented by powerful labour unions is brave indeed.

Would approaching commercial shipbuilding as a collective venture diminish America’s standing as a great power? Hardly. Shipping is a thoroughly globalised industry, and no one worries about where a vessel was built. Nor would cooperation with friends and allies on maritime matters diminish the country’s ability to project force, deter adversaries and secure sea lanes. Nationalism has not served the maritime industry well, it is not likely to succeed in sustaining a defence against China’s challenge.

 sch 12/21

Nietzsche, Orthodox Christianity, Democracy - Swimming In the Deep Water

 I got distracted the other day with a question about how Orthodox Christianity deals with Nietzsche and vice versa. YouTube gave me a better answer than what I found elsewhere. What seems to be clear is that Orthodoxy contains ideas that have not been considered by Western philosophy.

An Unbelieving Age: Nietzsche’s Challenge & the Christian Response (Terry Eagleton, Commonweal, 2014)

 In Nietzsche’s eyes, truly noble spirits refuse to be the prisoners of their own principles. Instead, they treat their own most cherished opinions with a certain cavalier detachment, adopting and discarding them at will. It is what Yeats, who like many a modernist felt the influence of Nietzsche, and for whom opinions were fit meat for bank clerks and shopkeepers, called sprezzatura. One’s beliefs are more like one’s manservants, to be hired and fired as the fancy takes you, than like one’s bodily organs. They are not to be regarded as constitutive of personal identity, but rather as costumes one can don or doff at will. For the most part, as with kilts and cravats, it is aesthetic considerations that govern the donning and doffing. The left-wing historian A. J. P. Taylor once informed an Oxford Fellowship election committee that he had extreme political views, but held them moderately. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche scorns what he calls the “longing for certainty” of science and rationalism, an itch for epistemological assurance behind which it is not hard to detect a deep-seated anxiety of spirit. In his view, the compulsion to believe is for those who are too timid to exist in the midst of ambiguities without anxiously reaching out for some copper-bottomed truth. The desire for religion is the craving for an authority whose emphatic “thou shalt” will relieve us of our moral and cognitive insecurity. The free spirit, by contrast, is one that has the courage to dispense with “every wish for certainty,” supporting itself only by “slender cords and possibilities,” yet dancing even so on the verge of the abyss.

***

If religious faith were to be released from the burden of furnishing social orders with a set of rationales for their existence, it might be free to rediscover its true purpose as a critique of all such politics. In this sense, its superfluity might prove its salvation. The New Testament has little or nothing to say of responsible citizenship. It is not a “civilized” document at all. It shows no enthusiasm for social consensus. Since it holds that such values are imminently to pass away, it is not greatly taken with standards of civic excellence or codes of good conduct. What it adds to common morality is not some supernatural support, but the grossly inconvenient news that our forms of life must undergo radical dissolution if they are to be reborn as just and compassionate communities. The sign of that dissolution is a solidarity with the poor and powerless. It is here that a new configuration of faith, culture, and politics might be born. 

I Am a Traditionalist; Therefore, I Am (Public Orthodoxy, 2019) - has less to do with Nietzsche than the misuse of tradition. 

My thesis is very simple: the use of the word “traditionalist” and its derivative forms (“Orthodox morality,” “traditional values”) is philosophically untenable, i.e., it’s wrong. Why? Because we are all traditionalists. How? Because it is impossible to exist as a human being without tradition. Put another way, traditionless existence is impossible. Put yet another way, humans exist not simply in and through, but as tradition.

If this thesis is unexpected, what may be more shocking is the fact that it’s actually been around for a long time; I’m definitely not the first to articulate it. I’m simply repeating an axiom that has gained a fairly wide philosophical consensus and was probably most famously articulated by the philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre, whose work many of the so-called traditionalists appropriate. They do so selectively, because they fail to mention that for MacIntyre, everything is tradition, even the liberalism against which the “traditionalists” self-define. The fact that liberal democracy itself is a tradition sustained by particular civic practices was definitively shown by the Princeton philosopher, Jeffrey Stout.

***

One thing is for certain: the non-religious would, at least, consider me a traditionalist; but, their use of the term is simply the flip side of the bad religious use of the term. Again, it’s not about being a traditionalist versus a non-traditionalist; it’s about identifying what kind of traditionalist we are. For the record, I am an Incarnational traditionalist. I suspect those with whom I disagree on what is discussable in the Orthodox tradition share this epistemic presupposition. Our real debate is over the acceptable amount of diversity that can exist among those who share a common dogmatic tradition.

We should, thus, recognize our common presuppositions; affirm those common presuppositions, especially the dogmas, as ground rules for debate; and we need to stop using words like “traditionalist,” “traditional values,” and “Orthodox morality,” which only obfuscate what we share in common or, at worst, become rhetorical tools for  demonization. These words are conversation stoppers, which, for anyone who knows the history of Christianity, is actually antithetical to the living Tradition.

It is the loss of this commonality that is playing out in modern American politics. 

 Father Sergius Bulgakov: Personhood, Inequality, and Economics (Public Orthodoxy, 2020) - goes towards where Orthodoxy possesses ideas not addressed in Western philosophy.

Father Bulgakov’s training as a Marxist economist eventually led him to disavow its  anti-personalism and its suppression of human freedom. He described the Marxist economic concept of history as“a funeral dirge sung for the person and personal creativity” (Karl Marx as a Religious Type, 52).While returning to the Orthodox Church and subsequent ordination to the priesthood, Bulgakov sought to articulate a philosophy and theology of economics that refuted the Marxist concept of homo economicus while placing economics within the realms of Christology, sophiology and eschatology (Philosophy of Economy, especially pages 123-156). This meant economics should not be studied either in isolation or as the basis upon which all aspects of human life depend. Rather, economics had to be placed within a theological context that eschews the extremes of hedonism and asceticism (see  “The Economic Ideal”). For Bulgakov, it is the Church that navigates between these extremes along with their derivatives – luxury and involuntary poverty – and provides the concrete grounding for how economics can be used as an agent for restoring the culture and spiritual integrity of a local community and/or a nation. 

 ***

 The “battle for the rights of the human spirit” is synonymous with the battle for human freedom. Working to articulate a via media that avoids the anti-materialism of asceticism and the hedonism of materialism, Bulgakov draws attention to the relationship that “human value and spiritual expansion” have with acquiring the necessary material demands for living that in turn allow for the development of democracy.

…the increasing sense of human value and the spiritual expansion of personality inevitably express itself in the expansion of material demand: we have a good example of this in the whole contemporary movement towards democracy. (“Economic Ideal,” 48)

The democracy Father Bulgakov prophesizes envisions an economics that does not systematize poverty but creates a culture that allows and protects the development of the person by avoiding the communitarianism of socialism and the individualism of capitalism. This is the difficult path Bulgakov sets before the Orthodox Church. This is the path that places the Church in a vulnerable position as it upholds the freedom, honor and glory of the human person.

 Which is why I remain a democrat - it values humanity.

Eastern Orthodoxy vs Nietzscheanism Debate with Uberboyo is long, comprising several interviews, but it does leave me thinking that Nietzsche would have done well to read Orthodox writers.

Nietzsche, Žižek, to Christ: A Philosophical Journey to Orthodox Christianity 

 

sch 12/21 

 

Phenomenology - Nietzsche - Heidegger: YouTubing and Beyond

 Phenomenology

Nietzsche & Psychology:

Supernatural Polemics: Reason, Wonder, and Science with Carlos Eire & Peter Harrison:

I think (pun intended) this gave me an insight into Heidegger: I am, therefore I think – how Heidegger radically reframed being.

sch 12/19 

Essaying Montaigne  (Englesberg Ideas)

And this I think gives us a new understanding of Montaigne’s title: Essays. Essays are, in Montaigne’s French, not yet ‘essays’; they are assays, trials, tests, experiments. Take away belief, whether in philosophy or religion, and what do you have left? What you have is your own enquiring mind. Montaigne is the first modern because he is the first (although there were some classical precedents) to find himself without belief, at which point man becomes the measure of all things, endlessly trying and testing but never finding an eternal foundation. Montaigne is, in Richard Rorty’s language, the first anti-foundationalist. It is precisely because he is not a believer that Montaigne is constantly in movement, always adding, revising, rewriting, unable to settle. Had Montaigne been a pious Catholic the Essays would never have been written; they are, as it were, the record of his failure to believe (except, of course, in friendship). They are also a guide for readers, readers whom Montaigne assumes will be pratiquant but not necessarily croyant. (He is impatient with those who practise Protestantism while believing in the truth of Catholicism, or vice versa; there is no similar condemnation of those who practise without having any belief.)

To chronicle himself, Montaigne, the most conservative of thinkers, invented a new literary form. Malcolm Smith writes wonderfully about him, but he thinks and writes like a Roman censor, albeit a highly civilised one; to do Montaigne justice one would have to write like Montaigne, one would have to assay the Essays. And perhaps that too, like Montaigne’s constant, quiet distinguishing between belief and practice, can only be done indirectly, as in Carlo Ginzburg’s wonderful essay ‘The Soul of Brutes’, where Montaigne’s famous line ‘When I am playing with my cat how do I know that it is not rather she who is playing with me?’ is of course present even though it is, like Montaigne’s Jewish ancestry in the Essays, never mentioned.

Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, et quae sentias dicere licet. (Tacitus) ‘Happy the day when you can think what you like and say what you think.’ It’s comparatively easy to write about authors who think what they like and say what they think. The Essays presents itself as such a book; it isn’t, which is why it is difficult to write about it. In my yard the pools of water have sunk into the Suffolk sand. And yet ‘There are figures from the past that time seems to bring closer and closer to us. Montaigne is one such figure.’ (Ginzburg) Writing about Montaigne is difficult, but surely not, in these times of conflict and uncertainty, impossible.

I need to get back to reading Montaigne, just as I need to get away from this computer!

sch 12/21 

 

Chess Records, Rock and Roll From The BBC, Weird AL

 

sch 12/8

Indiana Clickbait

 Just proof I am not immune to the manipulations of the internet.

10 No-Frills Restaurants In Indiana Locals Say Have The Best Comfort Food In The State (Family Destination Guide) has the usual weight given to Indianapolis and Hamilton County. It warmed the cockles of my heart to see The Steer-In still exists (Mom took us there when we kids) and the Mayberry Cafe looks even sprucer than it did 20 years ago.

10 Indiana Buffets Locals Cant Stop Going Back To (My Family Travels) presents something interesting. Yes, there is the concentration on Indianapolis, but it presents a dichotomy that would not have existed 15 years ago: we have Amish buffets, and we have Asian buffets. Glad to see MCL, that Indiana institution, remains; although, I would call it a cafeteria. Cafeteria style eating had a long history here. But what of Wellievers?

15 Indiana Tenderloin Joints That Prove The Hoosier State Makes The Best Sandwich In America (Decor Hint) - ah, The Mug and Bun! King's Ribs! Nice to see the list gathered from outside of Indy. I am not such a good Hoosier - the breaded tenderloin is something I have avoided.

7 Most Idyllic Small Towns In Indiana (World Atlas) - yeah, but do you want to live in them?

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Let's Do Some Politics

 I was told yesterday by the fellow running the group session, that the Epstein news is all white noise to him. He is mid-thirties, not just college educated, but may have a Master's. What are we to make when such a person turns off the wider world?

KH and I have been discussing JD Vance; I think he is more dangerous than Trump, and that he will turn on Trump as soon as Peter Thiel orders it. Therefore, Who Is JD Vance? (No, Seriously. Who Is He?) (The New Republic) interests me.

It wasn’t the most grotesque statement Vance has made—there are plenty of contenders for that—but it exposed his twisted priorities. Here was the vice president defending the administration’s vile immigration policies in a way that fundamentally degrades the experiences and traditions of his own family, of people he is bound by vows—vows that should be sacred to a Christian—to love and protect. It sums up Vance’s journey into public life and politics: There is nobody he won’t betray, and no principle he won’t cast aside, in his quest to accrue more fame and power.

***

Vance has championed a hard right turn on many other fronts as well, promoting pro-natalism while dismantling the safety net that protects children and families, and trying to sell lies about the administration’s disastrous handling of the economy. He does all of this as an ally to those who have helped his rise, from Christian nationalists to tech billionaires. But Americans aren’t fond of Vance: Roughly half the country disapproves of him. Maybe that’s because they see him as a cynical shapeshifter, changing identities based on whatever he thinks will resonate most—so he can accrue yet more power. That’s how he won over Trump, and it paid off handsomely. But if Vance decides to run for president—as he is almost certain to do, given that he’s already landing high-profile endorsements—there will be no more coattails to ride. Who will he pretend to be then?

Is it confirmation bias if there is evidence to support the opinion? 

And somewhat in line with the "pro-Christian" Vance is our Nigerian campaign to save Christians: Nigeria Clarifies What Really Happened With Trump’s Airstrikes (The New Republic)

 The issue with right-wing claims of Christian genocide in Nigeria is that terror groups and militias are killing everyone, Christians and Muslims alike. The Nigerian government, which says it provided intelligence to the Trump administration before the strikes, clarified what they were really about.

“Nigeria reiterates that all counter-terrorism efforts are guided by the primacy of protecting civilian lives, safeguarding national unity, and upholding the rights and dignity of all citizens, irrespective of faith or ethnicity,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a statement. “Terrorist violence in any form whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security.”

Nigeria has spent months attempting to clarify this point, as the right has spent months attempting to justify violent U.S. intervention to protect Christians—with Trump threatening to enter Nigeria “gun-a- blazing” just last month.

What are facts to the frightened herd?

Incandescent anger (Aeon Weekly)

Tucker Carlson, a prominent Right-wing television host and former Fox News anchor, has no shortage of enemies. On his shows, he has condemned gender-neutral pronouns, immigrants, the removal of Confederate statues, mainstream media, the FBI and CIA, globalism, paper straws, big tech, foreign aid, school curricula, feminism, gingerbread people, modern art – and the list goes on. Each item is presented as an existential threat or a sign of cultural decay. Even when conservatives controlled the White House and the US Senate, he presented those like him as under siege. Victories never brought relief, only more enemies, more outrage, more reasons to stay aggrieved.

***

This dynamic isn’t unique to the United States. Leaders like Narendra Modi in India, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil have built movements that thrive on perpetual grievance. Even after consolidating power, they continue to cast their nations as under siege – from immigrants, intellectuals, journalists or cultural elites. The rhetoric remains combative, the mood aggrieved.

Figures like Carlson and Trump don’t pivot from grievance to resolution. Victory doesn’t bring peace, grace or reconciliation. Instead, they remain locked in opposition. Their energy, their meaning, even their identity, seem to depend on having an endless list of enemies to fight.

So there’s an interesting dynamic: certain individuals and movements seem geared toward perpetual opposition. When one grievance is corrected, another is found. When one enemy is defeated, another is sought. What explains this perpetual need for enemies?

Okay, does claiming a Christian genocide in Nigeria whip up more grievances, anger, thoughtless action?  

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Listening to Zadie Smith

 If any of you have been reading my posts, you should know I am enamored by Zadie Smith. She is intelligent, and humorous. There is also her perspective, or her perspectives, about class and identity. That she finds herself stupid about so many things sounds like me. She also teaches - and I suspect she does it very well, she is doing this while on what is essentially a book tour. I spent two hours yesterday with her voice in my ear, listening to her deflate oligarchs, the bondage of slavery, identities, frauds, and writing. In the end, she is a person of good sense.

For Americans, she has lived and taught here. What she has to say about America deserves our attention.

 

Zadie Smith is good company, whether in these videos or through her prose. 

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