← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 14551 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2004-07-16
2004-07-16 11:34 | User Profile
Important insight from Thomas Fleming of Chronicles.
Walter
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
[URL=http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/hardright.cgi/2004/07/13/MCDONALD_S_AND_MOZA]MCDONALDââ¬â¢S AND MOZART [/URL]
Imagine you are a cultivated Catholic civil libertarian (no wisecracks, please) making your first to Rome. You walk from your hotel to the Spanish Steps and looking up the steps, expecting to see the beautiful Church of Santa Trinitàdei Monti, you are shocked by a huge and glaring ad for Lââ¬â¢Oréal cosmetics. Turning away in horror, you make your way to the Piazza della Rotonda to see the Pantheon, built originally in the reign of Augustus by his colleague and son-in-law Marcus Agrippa and rebuilt, after damage, by Hadrian. Instead of the Pantheon, there is only scaffolding plastered over with more advertising. Searching for a cup of coffee, you cross the piazza only to run into a McDonaldââ¬â¢s.
The communal government of Rome, it seems, not content with the enormous tourist revenues it takes in every year, is now selling advertising on the public monuments it owns, including historic churches like Trinitàdei Monti and the Pantheon (which serves as a royal chapel for the House of Savoia). The same cupidity has enabled McDonaldââ¬â¢s to spring up like so much bracket fungi around the eternal city.
It is not that the city government has never attempted to impose restrictions. One of the best Holiday Inns in the world is located in an historic palazzo next to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a stoneââ¬â¢s throw from the Pantheon. The company wanted to put up its usual ugly green logo, but after years of wrangling, Holiday Inn had to content itself with a dignified brass plague on the side of the building. By all accounts it is a great hotel that does not at all detract from the ambience of the beautiful and historic piazza on which it sits.
These cases raise a set of interlocking issues. A civil libertarian might well point out that this is a case of government permitting, even encouraging international companies to desecrate churches and historic monuments, and a Catholic civil libertarian might even realize that these monuments, which originally belonged to the Catholic Church, were appropriated by the Italian government and its subsidiaries. (In a unitary state like Italy, the concept of local and regional government was, until recently, applied only weakly.)
Civilized people who have not been taken in by the inventions of the 18th and 19th centuries (individual rights, freedom of expression, free trade, etc.) will not hesitate to condemn either monstrosityââ¬âlocating a McDonaldââ¬â¢s in the heart of ancient Rome, plastering churches with international advertising. And the vulgar libertarians who celebrate Big Macs as inexpensive nourishing food will, similarly, not waste much time in endorsing this victory for free enterprise and Big Market promotion. But what about the people caught in the middle? This group consists of, on the one hand, civilized libertarians, and on the other, traditional conservatives who are reluctant to use government to accomplish even legitimate objectives.
Where do they draw the line and on what grounds? It isnââ¬â¢t fair, I know, to pretend to write a column, even an internet column, that asks questions without providing answers. But I am genuinely curious.
We define ourselves by our priorities. I might like both chocolate ice cream and Mozart, but under most circumstances (unless I am starving, for example), I will attend a performance of Le Nozze di Figaro in preference to a gelato at Giolitti (not far from the Pantheon). Similarly I might prize political liberty and yet, yearning for a stricter moral order, prefer to see the liberties of pimps and pornographers abridged.
It is no good saying, as some people do, that in a free society one is free to select the ââ¬Ålifestyleââ¬Â one prefers, because some lifestyles exclude others, especially when they are protected by the forces of law and order. It is like the debate between birdwatchers on all-terrain vehicle users over the proper use of wilderness areas, national parks and forests. Allow the joy-riders to enter, and bird-watching (and many other quite recreations) are impossible.
Sometimes we simply have to chose, and in choosing we tell the world what we are ââ¬ÅFor where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.ââ¬Â And vice versa.
These cases are real-world cases, not the theoretical models used by political philosophers, but they could serve as the beginning point for discussing how principles, whether libertarian-liberal or ââ¬Åtraditionalistââ¬Â conservative, can be applied to the circumstances of everyday life. They can also serve as focal points for discerning the first principles on which people take their stand. If authorities are to be invoked, whether St. Thomas Aquinas or the beloved Murray Rothbard, please name the work and provide a brief quotation.
2004-07-16 11:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Sometimes we simply have to chose, and in choosing we tell the world what we are ââ¬ÅFor where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.ââ¬Â And vice versa.[/QUOTE]
Exactly.
The notion that we can all do our own thing as the libertarians among us would have is simply unworkable.
We must impose our will, or others will impose theirs on us.
Sorry, Christians, I know you don't want to hear that, but that's the way it is.
Walter
2004-07-16 12:36 | User Profile
Well, Wally, I consider myself to be a Christian and I am not at all offended by such notion.
(That is, I agree with you!)
Petr
2004-07-16 13:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Exactly.
The notion that we can all do our own thing as the libertarians among us would have is simply unworkable.
We must impose our will, or others will impose theirs on us.
Sorry, Christians, I know you don't want to hear that, but that's the way it is.
Walter[/QUOTE] Over the past year or so, I have become more and more convinced that this is, indeed, that case. The idea of a 'neutral' society, in which all groups can independently live their own culture, is a leftist siren song. Some cultures are simply incompatible, and their very presence will disrupt other cultures. Furthermore, true Christianity is more than church on Sundays; it is a holistic way of life, including spirituality, culture, morals, art, and even government and political economy. Because it provides richly in so many ways, it must have absolute primacy in society. If not, then something inferior will encroach upon it in one of these areas. The 'neutral' society idea is nothing more than a way to convince the Christian West to unilaterally disarm. It is a chocolate-coated suicide pill.
2004-07-16 15:47 | User Profile
To label this 'an important insight from Thomas Fleming' is just [I]laughable.[/I] This is basically a little post he stuck up in between say, making a sandwich and going for a walk with his dog. No great insights are involved--it's more a neat excercise in rhetoric.
Could someone explain how it is exactly that Fleming here offers some important insights--rather than explaining how they had some interesting 'insights' that they relate to to the Fleming piece?
2004-07-16 18:37 | User Profile
Darkstar, You are truly amazing, the way you can unerringly sniff out any thread deviating from the capitalist one true faith, and then pounce upon it in an instant. Almost like some Rothbardian jungle cat.
2004-07-16 21:35 | User Profile
Yes, Q., the heretics must burn..... Capitalism is reason, reason is the logos, the logos is Christ, QED deviations from capitalist thinking are deviations from the one true faith.
2004-07-23 09:53 | User Profile
[QUOTE=darkstar]Yes, Q., the heretics must burn..... Capitalism is reason, reason is the logos, the logos is Christ, QED deviations from capitalist thinking are deviations from the one true faith.[/QUOTE]
That is some of the most shocking blasphemy I've every read.
Those are the sort of words one answers for on the Last Day.
Repent of that, brother.
Walter