tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842286.post7733602401010477233..comments2024-02-26T09:30:54.111-06:00Comments on Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!: Might Makes "Right," or Fascism KillsFr. Philip Powell, OPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14970857401221305221noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842286.post-10617922948972435272013-12-28T14:07:15.010-06:002013-12-28T14:07:15.010-06:00Augustine, amen and amen. . .exactly! Well said. ...Augustine, amen and amen. . .exactly! Well said. <br /><br />"Never in the history of the West has it been more important to recover a realist hermeneutic. Fortunately, it seems to me that it's a matter of going back to the Western roots in Aristotle, especially through interpreters like St. Augustine (a neo-Platonist in theory, but an Aristotelian in practice), and St. Thomas Aquinas. On this front, the Dominicans are more than qualified to pick the ball up and run."<br /><br />Here I will have to disagree. . .at least in part. The Order in most of the world has abandoned T.A. and adopted all sorts of therapeutic, modernist alternatives. In the U.S., only the Eastern Province and to some degree the Western Province continue to hold T.A. in esteem and teach his work as serious theology. My own studium years were bereft of Thomism (with the sad exception of the occasional photocopied piece of the Summa trotted out as an example of primitive thinking). There's a revival going on in some European provinces, but overall, we've bought into the Spirit of Vatican Two nonsense that infected the Church post-1968. Fortunately, I read history so I know that these declines are usually followed by a renewal. Fr. Philip Powell, OPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14970857401221305221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842286.post-69445235967709875452013-12-28T12:41:53.454-06:002013-12-28T12:41:53.454-06:00Both fascists and socialists swear by the idea tha...Both fascists and socialists swear by the idea that the state is the ideal organization for realizing a society’s and an individual’s potential economically, socially, and even spiritually. In years past, the trait that distinguished them was the role of the state in the economy; while fascism cartelized the economy, socialism statitized it. <br /><br />More recently, since the bankruptcy of the USSR, socialists abandoned their economic tenets to adopt those of fascism and to focus on society and it's culture. In other words, when Gramsci won and Trotsky lost. <br /><br />However, both fascists and socialists are anti-realists by definition, differing merely in what man ought to be molded into, yet agreeing on collectivizing man and on suppressing the individual, for otherwise neither could justify the use of the state's coercive violence. <br /><br />In practice, there is no debate but only agreement on the economic regime between the forces vying for state power virtually anywhere in the world: the fascist economy. This is particularly true on the last few years when banks and other companies were bailed out and the Fed gave money away to hundreds of foreign companies and governments. The world's economy is cartelized, it's fascist. <br /><br />In this aspect, the Holy Father was right in describing the current status quo, but unfortunately erred in its description. Capitalism is no more and hadn't been at least for thirty years. But I digress. <br /><br />The real immediate danger relies not so much on realism or on anti-realism, but on the implicit popularity of the idolatry of the state. Without the state's monopoly on violence, anti-realism cannot win over commonsensical realism. Supposed realists then naively assent to the assumption of anti-realists in consenting to the state a commanding role in society. So-called realists then commit the great mistake of corrupting the republic alongside anti-realists by turning the state into a self-serving institution and away from its serving the people, by the people and from the people. This is the error of conservatives, who idolize the state all the same and merely believe that it's a matter of whom is in power. In other words, unbeknownst to them, they believe in will to power; conservatives are in practice anti-realists. <br /><br />The sad reality (pin intended) is that the major political forces at play in America today are anti-realists. I think that this has happened because conservatives were vulnerable to cultural Marxism and now share the same hermeneutics with progressives. I think that their vulnerability, their impotence in countering the progressive onslaught, lied in their fundamentalism, the lazy man's reaction to modern deconstruction (subtle destruction) of the Truth. <br /><br />Never in the history of the West has it been more important to recover a realist hermeneutic. Fortunately, it seems to me that it's a matter of going back to the Western roots in Aristotle, especially through interpreters like St. Augustine (a neo-Platonist in theory, but an Aristotelian in practice), and St. Thomas Aquinas. On this front, the Dominicans are more than qualified to pick the ball up and run. <br /><br />On the other front, that of disarming those willing to impose their command through sheer power, the political philosophy of the state has to be changed. In my opinion, the only viable modern alternative is found in Murray Rothbard. This ball has the name of libertarians written on it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842286.post-44362172295523157502013-12-28T12:02:47.905-06:002013-12-28T12:02:47.905-06:00You're right. I do think that adolescents are ...You're right. I do think that adolescents are idealists. . .but their idealism only serves to undermine those institutions that threaten the power of the cultural and political elite. The idea is to destroy any authority or power that the elite cannot control. With those authorities/powers gone, the only thing left is raw power.Fr. Philip Powell, OPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14970857401221305221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18842286.post-4990490284469487642013-12-28T10:29:45.122-06:002013-12-28T10:29:45.122-06:00A theory: Anti-realism works in the political aren...A theory: Anti-realism works in the political arena because it works in the cultural arena, and it works in the cultural arena because, among other reasons, people like the way it weakens the past. What is in the past? Our parents, our teachers, our churches, our governments, with the authority they hold over us as children. Adolescents like to see all these things weakened, even if the power isn't transferred to themselves. The typical pattern is for their peer group to assume the authority they no longer invest in their parents and other adults; nowadays, with adolescence continuing into old age, the peer group is pop culture generally. Pop culture has to exist in the now; otherwise the past has some authority. And of course the manufacturers of pop culture are happy to pump it full of anti-realism, since it means more money and power for themselves.<br /><br />It's often said that adolescents are idealists. As though that's a good thing.Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.com