But "conservative" has very different connotations in Europe, having to do with the conservation of throne and altar, and all that mystagogic nonsense that justifies the rule of the ruling class. In Europe conservatism often conserves self-serving magic, whereas in the US it mainly conserves commonsense.
And some people are so preoccupied with being perceived as an individual that they make it difficult to appreciate the universality of their message. In denying being part of any larger movement, they only assure their own practical irrelevance. I'm sure this is one of the reasons Voegelin never gained, and never will gain, any widespread acceptance beyond his fervent little cult.
As Sandoz correctly points out, "the unique is baffling." Yes, every human being is unique. However, the uniqueness can only be comprehended in the context of a universal human nature. Then again, human nature is complex and multifaceted.
To simplify, let's say human nature is comprised of 100 different facets. We put them into a tumbler, shake them up, roll them out onto the existential plane, and a new and unique individual is born, each having a different proportion, so to speak, of human elements.
Voegelin actually addresses this in his book on Plato and Aristotle. He doesn't just come out and say whether he approves of Aristotle's stance on the ultimate purpose of a political order, but I have no hesitation in saying that I agree with it 100%. But then, I'm not a scholar, just a blogger. At any rate, Aristotle is in agreement with what I just said about various admixtures of human elements:
All human beings have, indeed, the same structure of the soul, but differentiated according to the predominance of one or the other parts.... All must partake of them, but not in the same manner (Voegelin).
The best political order is simply the one which allows "the fullest actualization of human nature" and "the maximal actualization of human excellence." But if you believe in the existence of human nature and of objective human excellence, you are certainly not a leftist Democrat, rather, quite the opposite, whatever you wish to call it.
You may not like being called a conservative, but there you are. I too was uncomfortable identifying myself as one at first -- there are stages of acceptance, from non-leftist Democrat, to libertarian, to classical liberal, to Independent, to okay, f**k it, I'm a conservative, to HELL YEAH, I'M A GUN TOTIN', 'MERICA LOVIN', GOD FEARIN' REACTIONARY!
But here's the part I really like, for it is a variation of Jesus' wise crack about how the last-shall-be-first. It elevates slack-loving wise guys such as myself (and, one suspects, Voegelin) to the top of the cosmic heap!
The life in the best polis must be organized in such a manner that the actualization of the man of leisure is achieved.
Well, mission accomplished. I am an unapologetic Man of Leisure, but this must not be confused with the similar looking Lazy Man, or Layabout, or Antifa stoner living in mom's basement. I may be devoid of horizontal ambition, but I am insanely ambitious as it pertains to the vertical, ever striving to make myself utterly useless, especially to my readers. And you are no doubt too kind to tell me I've succeeded.
If education serves the necessary and useful only [read: horizontal]... then the full actualization of human excellence becomes impossible, because men will not know what to do with their free time that is supposed to serve leisure (Voegelin, emphasis mine).
I'll say it again... nah, just read it again, the italicized part, because that's the key to understanding and appreciating the Raccoon lifestyle. It is why the Raccoon is never bored except insofar as he must attend to horizontal obligations and nuisances.
For the average human, the primary escape from horizontality is via some more intense form of horizontality, e.g., skydiving, the once-in-a-lifetime vacation, the Dream House, the Street Demonstration, whatever. It never succeeds beyond the momentary, and like any drug requires an increasingly larger dose: bigger, faster, grander, looting an even larger TV screen, etc.
I am the last to deny the pleasures of the horizontal, but it's so much more interesting and less expensive to explore and homestead in the vertical. Establish a beachhead there, develop your own little plot of real estate, and it will soon surpass the overpriced and underperforming thrills of the horizontal. Moreover, you'll enjoy the horizontal diversions that much more.
For proof, aphorisms:
Men tend not to inhabit any but the ground floor of their souls.The modern aberration consists in believing that the only thing that is real is what the vulgar soul can perceive.
When their religious depth disappears, things are reduced to a surface without thickness, where nothing shows through.
We are saved from daily tedium only by the impalpable, the invisible, and the ineffable.
Religion is not a set of solutions to known problems, but a new dimension of the universe. The religious man lives among realities that the secular man ignores (Dávila).
But leisure isn't exactly analogous to playtime:
Play may be necessary after work in order to achieve a state of rest as the precondition of leisure, but it is no occupation for leisure itself.
Real leisure involves the pursuit of things "which serve no further ends and can be pursued for their own sake, as a way of life."
To summarize: "Political society is the field for actualization of human nature"; and vertical recollection must be counted as the highest and most useless actualization of all.
[L]eisured life is the purpose for which we undergo the work of our practical life....Of such a life we must say that it transcends the merely human level. Man can lead it only in so far as he is more than man, only in so far as something divine is really present in him. Since this divine part in the composite nature of man is nous, the life of the intellect is divine as compared with life on the merely human level of the practical excellences....
It is our duty to make ourselves immortal, as far as that is possible in life, by cultivating the activity of the best part in us which may be called our better or true self (ibid).
Challenge accepted.
10 comments:
Synchronicitous:
... I came to call myself not a conservative but a Tory, and now call myself a Reactionary to be clearer. We do not, as it were, “stand athwart history, yelling Stop,” but are the knights who say, “Backwards!”
And not to any particular point in time, such as the American Constitution or Magna Carta, but to the “originalist” salvific, Christological manifesto, in all its love and defiance. It is an absolutist, cosmological conception, of a relation between God and man, unrevised and unrepented. Evil must be opposed because it is evil, good must be advanced because it is good, and the wise can know the difference. There can be no glib, superficial “progress”; only a way to Heaven, and a way to Hell. “We walk to heaven backwards.”
Is this position unpopular at the moment?
Who effing cares?
Well said, Mr. Warren.
[L]eisured life is the purpose for which we undergo the work of our practical life....
A lot said in that little observation...
The telos of the six weekdays is the Sabbath. If it's good enough for God....
For me, a “conservative” is more than just one who conserves, otherwise the Dixiecrats were conservatives bc they wanted to maintain the thread of slavery through Jim Crow laws. A genuine conservative wants to conserve what history has shown *to work*; or at least work better than other ways and means. This requires some knowledge of history and a grounded insight into human nature, the nature of which never changes.
Slack *works*. Let’s conserve it.
will
Yes, the extremes people go to these days for their slack time - its like the book and film Fight Club where guys pound on each other just to feel *alive* for once in the tech-driven humdrum gray world they live in. That’s not really slack or leisure; it’s a temporary adrenaline boost.
People in John Adam’s day, without electricity, antibiotics, food delivery service, etc., etc., were perfectly capable, maybe more capable than we are, of living productive, complete lives, and they had their slack times, which were also probably more productive than ours
And man, could those guys imbibe their alcoholic beverages. I mean, barrels-worth.
w.
>> We are saved from daily tedium only by the impalpable, the invisible, and the ineffable.<<
Peak agreement. I think that’s why children up to a certain age and still capable of sensing the ineffable, are never bored, and why when they reach the age that they began to lose that sense, are very easily bored.
At very least, we can always use periods of nuisance and boredom to strengthen our spiritual forbearance. (tedium is a real thing, hard to shake - no one’s ever go to write a book titled “The Sacredness Of Tedium”). Great story from Padre Pio when someone once asked him what his greatest spiritual challenge had been, the one which most stimulated his spiritual growth. Pio’s answer was maybe not what you’d expect from a monk who had endured near-medieval privations and who was often beset by serious demonic attacks - it was when Pio would take his daily hour break from a very busy, strenuous schedule to wander at will around the monastery’s garden grotto, and he would be pestered by an old monk who loved to talk all the time and about nothing that wasn’t essentially frivolous. Pio said that tolerating this tedious stream of babble was his greatest spiritual challenge, and victory.
w.
Will, that was beautiful, thank you.
Conservatism was once a fine philosophical tribe to belong to. Self-reliance, honest competition, more freedom less taxes, family values, sticking to what works... What wasn't to like?
But I parted company with modern conservatism because it’s become as labile as taxy-spendy progressivism, especially when it comes to their leadership. It’s developed a loose association with things like facts and results and basic common sense, all in the name of political correctness.
Modern conservative thinking goes no further than explaining that police must kill criminal suspects from a race all too full of criminal suspects. I think it should also include thinking about the killing of criminal suspects from any race without any trial, lest you know, authoritarianism happens.
Modern conservative thinking goes no further than explaining that climate change is perpetrated by scientism for the sole purpose of grant money. I think it should include explaining why Exxon admits to its existence, after denying it, once their carbon capture technologies began to be economically viable.
Modern conservative thinking goes no further than to excuse anything globally corporate as business as always as usual. I think it should also include explaining why education and health care and shelter have gotten so damned expensive so quickly, in what's supposed to be an honestly competing capitalism.
Modern conservatives are supposed to be self-reliant enough to know a boiling pot whenever it sees one, instead of just rationalizing that it’s just a hot tub full of fellow sinners and go jump into that one over there if you don't like this one.
Anonymous, you seem to be describing RINOS, not conservatives. As a conservative, I have nothing to do with Repubs.
w.
Well, Democrats are even worse. Pandering to illegals and gays and women is a ruse for not standing up to dominant white male sociopath bullying. Dems are mostly on the take from them.
I'd concluded that honest 'new wild idea' progressives being fact-checked-held-in-check by honest 'old proven behaviors' conservatives, in a world headed into uncharted technological and overpopulation territory, was the way to go. That's how I'd run my company. I'd always want a loyal devils advocate to be watching my blind spots.
Like a reasonably functional family. If both parents are too irresponsibly spendthrifty and immoral the family risks ruin. If both parents are too austere then family life is a grind the kids want to run away from. IMO, America needs to be more like the Grizwald family. Maybe Clark has all the wild vacation and family fun ideas, but Ellen keeps the family solvent with her fiscal and moral sensibilities. Yet no matter the predicament they'll instantly unify to defend the family from external threats.
America's current 'parents', our political and corporate PTB, seem to care nothing about their American family. They only care about appearing to care while the kids squabble all the time.
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