← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · texoma
Thread ID: 5035 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2003-02-15
2003-02-15 18:52 | User Profile
In three parts....long, but I thought some of you guys would find this interesting.
A Debate on Conservatism and Traditionalism
[url=http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/001150.html]Read this first[/url] (Jim Kalb's article)
[url=http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Gottfried/OpinionsComplaints.html]Read this second[/url] (Paul Gottfried's response to Kalb)
[url=http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/001197.html]Read this last[/url] (Kalb's reply to Gottfried)
I swiped this off [url=http://www.karendecoster.com/]Karen DeCoster's website.[/url]
2003-02-15 19:20 | User Profile
"In any case I do not believe that ideas can prevail in socially and politically unfavorable circumstances. It is to me unclear how one can infer much of anything about 'tradition' without looking at the authority structure that supports a particular manifestation of tradition. And if insisting on this makes me a 'relativist,' perhaps I should plead guilty to that charge. On the other hand, I do recognize right from wrong and consider at least some of the moral positions taken by Jim Kalbââ¬â¢s municipal and state governments as unspeakably heinous. But it remains to be shown how conversations about 'values' that have been selectively extracted from long dead societies and overthrown authorities will change the situation that Jim deplores. The reason that anti-tradition has become 'Tradition' is that it is the preferred idea of the present ruling class, composed of public administrators, mediacrats, and multinational corporate heads. Despite his futile attempts to link the notion of 'hegemonic ideology' to the Marxist class struggle, Antonio Gramsci was right about the power of those on top being able to shape the minds of those below. Most people in most times express the pre-packaged 'values" of political and social elites. More specifically, they reflect the ideas of those who otherwise control their lives.
"For conservatives to deny "elitism" is doubly out of character. Conservatives supposedly believe in natural human inequality, unless they are neocons who are not conservative in any sense. Moreover, it is simply ridiculous for those who pride themselves on being without democratist illusions to imagine that questing individuals arrive at metaphysical truths on their own. Some cerebral individuals raised in particular families may; the rest of the human race depend for their truths on intact authority structures and on what Edmund Burke called 'prejudice,' inbred moral sentiment inculcated by kings, magistrates, clergy, and families. Although Jim is addressing serious questions, I havenââ¬â¢t the foggiest as to where he intends to draw his armies of social-moral rearmament. Certainly not from network TVââ¬ânor from the classes I teach."
[Emphasis mine, NN]
2003-02-22 02:40 | User Profile
Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Feb 15 2003, 19:20 [Emphasis mine, NN]
Thanks NN for drawing out a core of dialectical sharpness to what otherwise does need seem to be a particularly sharp or focused exchange.
Gottfried seems to be somewhat of a pessimist concerning American society and culture. As much as I can see, that's the basis for what initiated this exchange.
I suppose being a college teacher can make anyone be a pessimist ;)
2003-02-22 17:14 | User Profile
Indeed. The excerpted passage would seem to reflect Gottfried at his most perceptive.
Boyd and Richerson show that "Virtually any behavior can become stable within a social group if it is sufficiently buttressed by social norms." This is discussed in Sober & Wislon's Unto Others (p. 152). In his review of The Culture of Critique for The Occidental Quarterly, Hugh Perry correctly observes that the "culture of critique" cited by MacDonald was a "war against the religious, moral, aesthetic, and behavioral norms of gentile groups."