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Russell Kirk , great American writer, historian and conservative thinker ended his Conservative Reader anthology by including this pithy comment on modern folly: "The totalists say that the old order is a corpse, and that man and society must be fashioned afresh, in grim fashion, upon a grim plan."
Essential poststructuralist mumbo jumbo: The paths to advancement and enlightenment that humankind has followed serendipitously over the ages are all a manifestation of a giant conspiracy by the 'establishment.'
Cross-posted at the Western Standard.
Ayn Rand's tautologies are just as 'religious' as the scriptures and bibles of conventional worship.
Morality is a function of group humanity.
To elevate atheism to some plateau above conventional religion is no more than preferring your own advice to that of other worshippers.
'Making My Day'
Belinda Stronach takes a desultory stroll
Across the hallway
Into the sinecure-laden den,
Making her day.
M. Jean stops her media career
In mid-flight sanctimony,
To be a Governor General
Full of patriotic androgyny.
Mysteries? No.
Just statist adjustments.
Like in the Sun King's court,
Courtiers maneuver, some ascend.
Victor Hanson writing in the National Review / Digital - March 14, 2005 has this to say about the state of the American academy:
" In other words, Ward Churchill’s plight gives us a glimpse into the strange world of the contemporary postmodern university of tenured ideologues, where professed identity politics, ethnic or gender chauvinism, and a disbelief in empiricism allow a con man to bully his way to guaranteed lifetime employment, and a handsome salary, and the right to say anything at all, no matter how inflammatory."
A similar situation maintains in Canada at our sclerotic national newspapers where bombastic purveyors of anti-American drivel continue to enjoy regular publishing privileges. The Globe's Heather Mallick provides reason to believe that journalistic tenure is being stretched to the limit of reader's tolerance.
The sceptical magic that is Western civilization is a humanitarian gift. Its concepts of the self and the individual are both honoured and doubted by Western thinkers but on the whole this gives the West the transcendent power that we know as classic liberalism. Freedom, individuality and the limits of both in the community are in vivid contrast to absolutist alternatives. John Derbyshire's piece in the December 13, 2004 print edition of the National Review, "Our Crisis Of Foundations" goes from Tom Wolfe to David Hume in a reaffirmation of the majestic juxtaposition of magical belief and healthy doubt.
National Review/Digital December 13, 2004
"Perhaps we shall come to our senses and stop trying to analyze and deconstruct our humanity down to the bitter end. Perhaps we shall realize that in order to get on properly with life, as with mathematics, a great many things just need to be taken for granted."
