Towards a True Economic Third Position

There are at present many efforts to create a third position in economics, most of which go from the spectrum of kooky voodoo economics such as Social Credit Theory on the right and Participatory economics on the left, and essentially socialists in third position clothing such as syndicalism and fascism. The goal of this essay is not to deconstruct these false third position models, but to offer a true third position. This will essentially be similar to distributism, though I have some objections to distributism as it is now popularly formulated. For more on that see my essay “Rethinking Christian Economics.”The Biblical Economic ModelWhen we discuss what economic model we should have we first need to discuss what is the nature and end of man. If man has no nature and/or no end, then any old system should work since man would be infinitely malleable and able to fit into any system with sufficient conditioning, ergo none would be better than another. This I reject. I agree with the Shorter Westminster Catechism that, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” I will not attempt in this article to give justifications for this assumption, merely assume it as the first principle of anthropology.If we accept this basic principle of anthropology, we then look to the Bible to see what end God directs us to. If we use biblical principles we see that many forms of economic action are condemned as sin. The most significant change would be the outlawing of usury. We see prohibitions in Leviticus 25:36-37; Nehemiah 5:7-10; Psalms 15:5; Proverbs 28:8; Ezekiel 18:8-17; Ezekiel 22:12. We see in Psalms 28:8 and Ezekiel 22:12 that God views usury as akin to extortion. There was an exception for Jews to lend money to gentiles at usury in Deuteronomy 23:20. I believe that Christ in his Parable of the Good Samaritan where the term neighbor is expanded to include not only Jews, but also gentiles closed that gap, since exchanging usury is not a form of love. We see in Luke 6:35 that Christ demands we do not lend expecting anything in return. With such evidences I think that the Gentile loophole has been closed to a complete prohibition on charging of usury.We see in Psalms 24:1 that God owns the earth which implies that property taxes are immoral since the government has no right to extract profit from what it does not own. Eminent domain (legalized state theft of property) is immoral where we see Ahab and Jezebel in 1st Kings 21 first murdering Naboth and then stealing his property, which was given to him as a trust by his father. As we see in Proverbs 13:22 that one should leave an inheritance for one’s children which would imply that the death tax and inheritance tax is immoral. We see in Numbers 36 the right of women to inherit property. From 1st Timothy 5:3-16, in which Paul exhorts families to take care of their elders and if the widow has no family or their family is unable to care for them then the church should do so, we can derive the principle of subsidiarity: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.” Socialism is fundamentally evil in that, insofar as it destroys private property and establishes a welfare regime, one is correspondingly less able to maintain one’s elders.Private property is the bedrock of civilization, as Aristotle observed, men take better care of what they possess and that private property facilitates two virtues: continence and liberality. Based on the principle that no man can live in isolation for only animals and gods can live self-sufficiently in isolation, Aristotle argues that people come together to form families and families come together to form states (in his case city-states). We see that in capitalism the individual is the focus of the economy, in socialism the collective, and in distributism the family. The family is the smallest self-sufficient unit in society and thus is the wellspring of society. The word economics comes from the two Greek words Oikos (Household) and Nomos (Law). We see that historically economics was concerned with providing enough for each household to take care of its needs. This principle of self-sufficiency is the foundation of further civilizational development and as such the economy should seek to encourage self-sufficiency. In Joshua 14 and 15 we see that God desires tribes (extended households) to have land to be self-sufficient. In fact that land is not to be sold; for with the implementation of Jubilee every 50 years and the story of Naboth, we see that God desired the dispersion of property not its concentration.How do we Get There?Clearly our current economic model is not distributism and is a mixture of capitalism and socialism with seemingly the worst of both. I propose three possible methods used individually or in conjunction that could allow a transition from our current mixed-economy to a distributist economy: (1) prosecuting firms for criminal action and restoring to the victims fourfold (Luke 19:8); (2) the example shown in the Peasant’s Land Bank, and (3) the Land-to-Tiller Program.I propose that firms that have engaged in criminal action be prosecuted and their assets be redistributed to the aggrieved parties fourfold, what I call the Zacchaeus Plan. This would work to divest the corporations of their ill-gotten gain and serve to chip away at concentrated wealth.The Peasant’s Land Bank was an effort by secretary of finance Nikolai Bunge to give the peasants access to credit to purchase land from the Boyars (nobles) and in conjunction with this effort Stolypin realized that the lack of a middle class would only aid in the fomenting of rebellion and economic stagnation. After seeing the Revolution of 1905 he correctly identified the need for agrarian form. Seeing that a middle class is founded on independent property holders they sought to purchase land from the boyars to distribute the land back to the peasants. While marred by corruption and inefficiencies the process was largely successful, and by 1913 the bank had helped the peasants acquire 46 million acres. For more on the Peasant’s Land Bank and other Russian agrarian reforms see Russian Peasants and Village Lands, 1861-1917: A Summary Compiled by Alan Kimball.In Taiwan’s Land to the Tiller Program, property was peacefully and lawfully transferred from the Chinese landlords to the peasants. Chaing’s land reform can be understood in four parts: (1) leasing to the peasants land owned by the government, (2) reduce rent to 37.5%, (3) selling government land to peasants, (4) Land to the Tiller Program. The Land to the Tiller program transferred land from the landlords to the peasants by compensating the value of the property from the landlords with 70% of the price being paid in rice and potatoes and the remaining 30% in stocks in rising government firms.There are many possible peaceful and lawful means by which to transfer property in a more equitable way to the people without the needless bloodshed demanded by lunatic socialists and anarchists.How Do We Stay There?I have basically two means by which this property regime can be maintained. Firstly, I accept Aristotle’s notion that while man’s desires are potentially infinite, the number of goods available in the world are finite, and that man’s desires should be curtailed by education. So we begin by educating people to be content with what they need. As a practical legal method I argue for a return of biblical Sabbath year and Jubilee. We see in Deuteronomy 15:1-6 that every seven years (Sabbath Year) the tribes of Israel were required by God to free slaves, admittedly only Hebrew slaves, and forgive debts. In Leviticus 25:8-12 we see that land should be returned to its original owner. In practical terms Jubilee could be modeled in using the concept of usufruct. I will use the Investopedia definition of usufruct:

“A legal right accorded to a person or party that confers the temporary right to use and derive income or benefit from someone else's property. Usufruct is usually conferred for a limited time period or until death. While the usufructuary has the right to use the property, he or she cannot damage or destroy it, or dispose of the property.”

If we consider limiting the time period to fifty years I think we have a rough approximation of usufruct-Jubilee contract.ConclusionI assert that third position economics on both the right and the left goes from either kookiness or socialism. I propose an alternative biblical/Aristotelian distributism model. I have provided a few possibilities by which our current property regime can be legally transformed into this new property regime, and how such a regime can be maintained, which is more than any anarcho-socialist on the Left or social credit theorist on the Right can do.

The View From Olympus: Europe Revolts!

The mudslide of Third World immigrants pouring over Europe would seem to mark that continent's end. They will come by the millions and tens of millions, so long as Europe's door remains open. Few will ever acculturate. Instead of becoming Europeans, they will turn Europe into a duplicate of the hellholes they are trying to escape.Europe's culturally Marxist elites are incapable of stemming the tide. Their ideology forbids them to do so. German chancellor Merkel, who appears to be as fervent a cultural Marxist as Walther Ulbricht was an economic Marxist, was quoted in the September 1 New York Times as saying, "If Europe fails on the question of refugees, if this close link with universal human rights is broken, then it won't be the Europe we wished for." If Frau Merkel's "universal human rights", which do not exist--rights belong only to a state's own citizens--triumph, there won't be a Europe at all.Given the lock cultural Marxism has on all of Europe's leadership, except perhaps Hungary's, it would seem to be game over. Cultural Marxism will attain the goals it set in 1919, the destruction of Western culture and the Christian religion, at least in the West's heartland.But I don't think that is what will happen. Instead, I think we are on the verge of a revolt against cultural Marxism and the elites by ordinary Europeans.That revolt has been underway for some time in Britain, France, and Scandinavia. It has manifested itself in the growing electoral strength of real conservative parties, such as the UK Independence Party, Marine le Pen's National Front, and the Sweden Democrats.But what of Germany? German law makes it difficult for any German nationalist party to rise. The Bundesrepublik is effectively an anti-German Germany, and most expressions of volkish loyalty are forbidden. All Germans are supposed to do is apologize endlessly for the whole of German history, not just the thirteen years of the Third Reich. Arminius, it seems, was also a Nazi, as his rejection of Varus and his fellow Roman immigrants shows.Lenin said that no revolution could begin at a railway station in Germany because the Germans would have to line up to buy tickets. It is true German culture is a culture of order. But it is precisely because of that i think this revolution, the revolution against millions of immigrants and the ideology that demands their entry, will really take off in Germany.Immigrants from places like the Middle East and Africa bring disorder with them. They come from places where the German virtues--honesty, forthrightness, cooperation for the common good, civic-mindedness, even basic cleanliness--are unknown or regarded as something for simpletons. In those cultures, the only rule is, "Grab whatever you can for yourself." Lying, cheating, stealing, all are perfectly fine, because you owe nothing to anyone who is not a family member. The world outside the family is Hobbesian. Push, punch, scream, and grab: that is the behavior these people have learned from birth. They will not forget it because they now live in an ordered, honest society.A few years ago, in Stockholm, I needed some pipe cleaners. I stopped in a shop and bought a pack for 30 crowns. I thought that was expensive even for Sweden, so I checked the price in a different shop: 13 crowns. Then the light bulb went on. I realized the man who charged me 30 crowns wasn't Swedish. He did not look Swedish, nor did he speak English with a Swedish accent. He was Middle Eastern. He had done what everyone does in his culture: cheat anyone he could. In Sweden it's easy because people do not expect to be cheated.This is now coming to Germany like a tsunami. The anti-German German government has told people to expect 800,000 refugees just this year. Again, so long as the door remains open, they will come in the millions and tens of millions, a tide of refuse covering Germany and the rest of Europe.I don't think the German people will stand for it. I predict a revolt. Already, Merkel is being booed and people are carrying signs saying "Volksverrater," "traitor to the people." How the German people will revolt, I cannot say; at the ballot box, perhaps, if given a Völkisch party to vote for. If that route is closed to them, they may take to the streets, tickets or no. They are not going to put up with Germany being turned into a place of dirt and disorder.If you haven't read Look Who's Back, you may want to.

A Ruling Class Hissy Fit

The reaction of the ruling elite and their minions in official conservadom to the Donald Trump surge is best characterized as a hissy fit, an extended temper tantrum that the GOP base isn’t doing what they want them to. The elite and their gatekeepers can’t seem to figure out why Trump is surging and why the peons who support him won’t listen to their betters. What is more puzzling is why they didn’t see this coming and why it hasn’t happen sooner. The writing has been on the wall for a while.Anyone who wants to understand the Trump phenomenon should read the book The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It by Angelo Codevilla. It was first published as a rather longish essay in the American Spectator magazine. It was so well received that American Spectator updated it, added an introduction by Rush Limbaugh and published it as a book.At first glance, Codevilla perhaps seems like an unlikely candidate to write such a book. Arguably a member of the ruling class himself, he was first an influential government employee before moving on to the Hover Institute think tank and then to Boston University as a professor of international relations. With a Ph.D from the Claremont Graduate School and a history of foreign policy hawkishness, he was also perceived as at least somewhat neoconish. My impression is that he may have backed away from his hawkishness a bit in the last few years, but where exactly Codevilla stands on foreign policy is beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say that regardless of Codevilla’s own shaky credentials as a pitchfork-wielding man of the people, his insights in the book ring true and are much appreciated.Whether Codevilla intended it as such or not, The Ruling Class has been praised as a brilliant example of elite class analysis. According to Dr. Paul Johnson of Auburn University, elite theory suggests that:

American politics is best understood through the generalization that nearly all political power is held by a relatively small and wealthy group of people sharing similar values and interests and mostly coming from relatively similar privileged backgrounds. Most of the top leaders in all or nearly all key sectors of society are seen as recruited from this same social group, and elite theorists emphasize the degree to which interlocking corporate and foundation directorates, old school ties and frequent social interaction tend to link together and facilitate coordination between the top leaders in business, government, civic organizations, educational and cultural establishments and the mass media. This "power elite" can effectively dictate the main goals (if not always the practical means and details) for all really important government policy making (as well as dominate the activities of the major mass media and educational/cultural organizations in society) by virtue of their control over the economic resources of the major business and financial organizations in the country.

Well, you don’t say? This observation is a “no duh” to Trump supporters. A bear does what in the woods?According to Codevilla, Democrat voters are much more satisfied with their party because they see it as serving their interests. On the other hand, Republican voters, who are mostly middle-class yokels in flyover country, are not happy with their party because they see it as asking them for votes every two years then promptly going to Washington and serving the interests of someone else, the primarily bi-coastal elite donor class.For example, “Fast Track” trade legislation was recently rammed through Congress at the behest of the Chamber of Commerce set thanks to the yeoman efforts of Republican legislators to salvage it following a legislative setback. This was despite polling data and an overwhelmingly disproportionate number of calls, letters, and emails that indicated their base was extremely hostile to it. And then party leaders and Conservative Inc. gatekeepers scratch their heads and can’t figure out why some people are so angry and supporting Trump. Trump is the chickens coming home to roost.I have no use for the Republican party leadership, but I don’t doubt that some of the conservative gatekeepers are well intentioned. Trump is not a check-all-the-boxes conservative to say the least, and he certainly says things that shock the sensibilities of small-government and free-market advocates. I’m sure many are sincere in their attempts to safeguard the Republican brand and conservatism as they understand it, but the gatekeepers too often come off as apologists for said fat cat elites, often to the point of parody. Unlike political hobbyists, most voters are not ideologues. Many people vote viscerally and appearances and general impressions matter to them. Which candidate really cares about me? If that’s the question for the angry GOP base, Trump crushes ¡Jeb!It is not impossible to mix free-market orthodoxy with populism. Ron Paul was able to walk this fine line with some success. In fact, as Codevilla points out in The Ruling Class, popular sentiment has increasingly come to be characterized by “leave me alone and get out of my business” attitudes as the government has expanded and become more and more intrusive, but you can’t come off like the guy on the Monopoly board either. If the leadership of the Republican Party and Conservative Inc. want to reconnect with a base they are quickly losing, I suggest they pick up a copy of The Ruling Class, and give it a read. I doubt it will do much good, but maybe they won’t be so baffled.

Counterattack!

A modern military defense, as first developed by the German Army during World War I, is based not on rigidly holding a line but on the counterattack. If the enemy initially penetrates, so much the better; it is all the easier for the counterattack to destroy him.Unfortunately, in politics, conservatives' defenses remain pure trench warfare. The strategic result is slow but steady defeat. What if instead we began counterattacking? How might this work?The cultural Marxists' recent victory on the the gay "marriage" issue--such a marriage actually remains impossible, because it is not what the word "marriage" means--provides an example. This victory, enabled by an ideologically-driven four-vote block on the Supreme Court that sees itself and acts like a revolutionary tribunal (and is thus illegitimate) merely sets up the cultural Marxists' next attacks. They will be directed against any institution that continues to reject gay "marriage", including churches that will not perform such ceremonies (their tax exemptions will be threatened) and private wedding-related businesses that will not serve gay weddings; the latter we have already experienced, in the form of lawsuits against such businesses.Here is a perfect example of a situation where conservatives could counterattack. If the law will not offer a conscience protection clause for such businesses, we can make the Left regret the absence of such protection. How? Examples include:

• Go to Jewish bakeries and order cakes decorated with the swastika.
• Order cakes decorated with the Confederate battle flag from black-owned bakeries.
• Order cakes from gay-owned bakeries decorated with the words, "God hates queers."
• Go to gay-owned florists and order flower arrangements for rallies against gay "marriage".

I am certain other conservatives can come up with more ideas along these lines. The goals is to put members of the cultural Marxists' coalition in the same position as Christians who own wedding-related businesses. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Two can play at this game.We might do well to make that phrase, "two can play at this game," the motto for a conservative strategy of counterattacking instead of just trying to fend off the Left's attacks. Conservatives have sufficient creativity to come up with specic ways to counterattack in many situations. What is lacking at the moment is the concept of a counterattack-based defense. We need to make that concept central to our efforts to protect what is left of our traditional culture. The alternative is a strategy that only influences how quickly we lose.

The View From Olympus: News Flash! Air Force Gets First Victory in "War on Terror"

After just fourteen years of combat, on Friday, August 21, the U.S. Air Force scored its first victory in the "War on Terror", history's first war against an emotion. Not surprisingly, the victory had nothing to do with aircraft. It was won by an enlisted airman who courageously took on a heavily-armed would-be terrorist on a train from Amsterdam to Paris. With help from two other Americans, one a National Guardsman, and two European civilians, the airman saved many innocent civilian lives. Far from being equipped with the latest bombs and missiles, the airman, Spencer Stone, and those assisting him were unarmed.There are some important points hidden in this otherwise minor incident. First, the U.S. Air Force won what it has been incapable of winning thus far in 4GW, a victory at the moral level. The moral victory came because the American airman was an unarmed man confronting another who was well armed. This reversed the usual situation. In all other 4GW to date, the Air Force has been the heavily armed party fighting against people with few or no air defenses. What Martin van Creveld calls the power of weakness guaranteed that no matter what the Air Force accomplished physically, it lost.Second, the Air Force's victory came not be cause of its vast command and control system, with its many layers of headquarters and endless complex procedures, but because one enlisted man took the initiative and acted to get the result the situation required. He exhibited Third Generation behavior in a Second Generation system. He was only able to do that because he was on leave.Third, Airman First Class Spencer Stone, his two friends, one a civilian, and the two European civilians showed how an effective defense against random, loner 4GW attacks works. It cannot depend on the National Security State. Even with its vast (and unwelcome) growth, the NSS can only cover a small fraction of a society's vulnerable points. Effective protection in 4GW depends on a citizenry that will act in its own defense.What the situation requires is in effect an updated form of a universal militia, a militia for Fourth Generation war. Unlike past militias, this one will not be a formal organization. There will be no uniforms, ranks, drill, or weapons. It will consist, ideally, of every male old enough but not too old to fight. Its members will pledge themselves--the pledge may be explicit or implicit--to act as Airman Stone and his helpers did on the train to Paris. When a "terrorist" (or just a nut case) shows a weapon, everybody jumps him. Some may die. On the train to Paris, those who acted said later they expected to die. But no loner or small group of shooters can hold off lots of other men coming at them, even if they are unarmed. Once would-be terrorists know they will be opposed and overrun, some will be deterred. Those who go ahead anyway and open up on civilians will lose at every level. Physically they will get stomped. Mentally they will fail to terrorize, because their actions will be met not with terror but with courage. Morally they and their cause will suffer a heavy defeat because they will be fought and beaten by those weaker than themselves, i.e., people without weapons. They will lose for the same reason the U.S. Air Force lost every previous engagement in the "War on Terror": Goliath always loses.For those of us who do not welcome the National Security State, a universal 4GW militia offers a way to provide security with liberty. The NSS is and will always be a threat to liberty, because it represents ever-greater government intrusion into our lives. A militia poses no such threat. Unarmed and purely defensive, it does not threaten liberty, it exemplifies it. It shows how a free people replies to danger: through individual initiative. 

The View From Olympus: A Voice From the Past

Last year, friends gave me a splendid Christmas present in the form of all ten volumes of Samuel Pepys' diary covering the years 1660-1670. (As if that were insufficient, they accompanied it with a richly decorated chamber pot for the Imperial Library). Pepys, a civilian, was primarily responsible for developing the first modern naval administration, which turned a collection of ships into the Royal Navy.The diary's entry for July 4, 1663, touches on a broader matter. After visiting a general muster of the King's Guards, Pepys wrote,

Where a goodly sight to see so many fine horse and officers, and the King, Duke (of York) and others come by a-horseback . . . (I) did stand to see the horse and foot march by and discharge their guns, to show a French Marquesse (for whom this muster was caused) the goodness of our firemen; which endeed was very good . . . yet methought all these gay men are not soldiers that must do the King's business, it being such as these that lost the old King (Charles I) all he had and were beat by the most ordinary fellows that could be.

Pepys' theme, the defeat of parade-ground armies by "most ordinary fellows", is an old one. It appears to be unknown to our own military, or, more likely, they know it but cannot conceive it applies to them.But it does. With all their vastly expensive equipment, they can put on a wonderful show, shows such as Gulf War I and the initial phase of Gulf War II. But once they no longer face another king's Royal Guards and come up against those ordinary fellows, they lose. The U.S. Marines, who put on a show all the time, and a very convincing one, are now 0-4 against guys in bathrobes and flip-flops armed with rusty AKs. Pepys' age-old theme repeats itself.This faces us with two problems, one difficult, the other impossible. The first is how to turn a parade ground military into one that can fight war as it is, not as they want it to be, and win. We know the basic answers: reduce the number of officers above the company grades to a fraction of their present number, fire the contractors, get rid of up-or-out, adopt a regimental system and a true general staff, and change the type of people we promote. Do the intellectual work necessary to understand Fourth Generation war, and revise doctrine and training accordingly. Dump the hi-tech weapons useful only for parades. Most challengingly, get rid of the U.S. military's 2GW culture with its inward focus and adopt the Third Generation's outward-focused culture.All that would be hard enough. But before we can attempt any of it, we must confront the impossible problem: finding national political leadership willing to put enough chips on military reform to make it happen.If we survey the current crop of presidential candidates, we find not a one who even knows what military reform means. Most of the Republicans just howl for yet more spending on the Pentagon, to make the parade ground military even bigger. The Democrats, as usual, know nothing about defense and could not care less about it. Three candidates might--might--listen to someone who does know what military reform means: Trump, Sanders, and Rand Paul. The only reason to think they might have an interest is that they are anti-Establishment. The mice who are the remaining candidates squeak and twitter with fear at the notion of changing anything. A hint they might do so would be enough to endanger their Establishment membership.When Trump says the problem is that our current politicians are dumb, he is half right. Most show intelligence at only one task, promoting themselves. But the other half of the problem is that they are cowards. They will risk nothing for the good of the country.The reason Trump and Sanders are surging is that both have shown not only some sign of a brain, but also guts. The American people know something is drastically wrong with our country's direction, and they are desperate to find a leader who will change our course. Most of our soldiers and Marines know the same about business as usual in their service. Where are real military leaders, men with brains and courage, to come from? Nowhere, so long as the politicians who choose our senior commanders and service chiefs remain mice.

Donald Trump vs. Davos Man

Coined by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, the term "Davos Man" was meant to refer to members of the global elite who view themselves as completely international. They have no need for the term "nationality" and feel that governments are merely shadows of time past to be used as facilitators in their global operations. ~ Akash ArasuThe pundit and activist class can’t seem to figure Donald Trump out, but as I have attempted to argue elsewhere, Trump’s politics are not really as inscrutable as all that. Trump is that guy at the barbershop who says "We need to run the US more like a business. What America needs is a CEO, not another President." Trump just happens to have a lot of money and the credentials to be that CEO himself. The theme that the US is getting out negotiated on the international stage and we should start acting more in our own economic best interests have been there since Trump first became a public figure in the 1980's. Trump, for example, opposed NAFTA before opposing trade deals was the cool thing to do on the right. The consistency of this message suggests that it is sincere, regardless of whatever one might think about the Trump phenomenon that has erupted since he announced his campaign. This economic nationalist message is the key to understanding Trump’s politics. All the rest is noise.Due to their confusion about where Trump is coming from, an argument that I have encountered frequently in social media and the conservative blogosphere is the contention that Trump is actually himself just another member of the Establishment. Therefore, his anti-Establishment supporters are misguided and being played. But if Trump is just another member of the Establishment, why does he have the Establishment so panicked? There is more to being a card carrying member of the Establishment than being rich, hobnobbing with stars and giving money to politicians in both parties. People who mistake the trapping of wealth for Establishment status are allowing the details to distract them from the big picture.In fact, Trump’s economic policies and theoretical framework challenge the Establishment’s basic operating assumptions to the core. The Establishment economic policy is globalist neoliberalism. They want to decrease the importance of national borders and national sovereignty in order to make the world safer for international finance and commerce, hence their support for mass immigration and sovereignty-compromising “free trade” deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.Trump’s opposition to “free trade” deals and open borders and unabashed advocacy of economic nationalism directly challenges the Establishment consensus in a way that no other candidate does. All the major candidates in both parties with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders actually take Establishment neoliberal presumptions for granted.I wince a little when I hear Trump says that America’s leaders are “stupid” and are being out-negotiated by the more clever leaders of Mexico, Japan, China, etc. This is grating and potentially unhelpful. What is really the issue here is not smarts but priorities. The leaders of these other nations negotiate with the economic interests of their own countries in mind, while the US negotiates on the basis of fidelity to some imagined set of international rules of fair play, which just so happen to perpetuate the current system that enriches the global elite at the expense of national integrity. But regardless of Trump’s less than ideal formulation, who else is saying this?Trump is ultimately a patriot who loves his country and wants to restore it to its former glory, as suggested by his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.” Imagine that. But this chauvinistic attitude is contrary to the rootless cosmopolitanism of the global elite.  If you’re still struggling with Trump’s place in relation to the Establishment, ask yourself this: “Would Trump fit in at the World Economic Forum?”  Trump is not Davos Man described in the introductory quote. He is the antithesis of Davos Man. He is a red-blooded American patriot from Queens, New York who just happens to have a really big bank account. Criticize Trump’s policies and ways if you must, but let’s not have any more of this nonsense that he is just another member of the Establishment. If you don’t see the fallacy of this claim, you don’t get why Trump’s rise represents such a fundamental challenge to the ruling order.

The View From Olympus: President Obama is Right

Real conservatives hate war. War is the most expensive activity the state can engage in. Its outcome is always uncertain. Only revolution is a more powerful agent of social and cultural change, change conservatives exist to oppose (and war may be a prelude to revolution). Large standing armies are both an enormous expense and a threat to the rule of law. No wonder Edmund Burke, when Parliament was debating a possible war in the Low Countries, exclaimed, "A war for Antwerp? A war for a chamber pot!"President Obama was thus right in both senses of the word when he said on August 5th of his deal with Iran, “Let's not mince words: The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy and some sort of war--maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon."The President was right because, in the end, we have two choices: a deal with Iran, or war with Iran. There is no evidence we could negotiate a better deal than the one the Obama Administration got. All the (well-financed) debate you will hear and read over specific terms of the deal are irrelevant. If we reject it, for whatever reason, we are on course for yet another war in the Middle East.If Congress rejects the Iran deal, Iran will see no path to removal of the economic sanctions that hurt not just the regime but the Iranian people. The Iranian public will agree with the radicals that American enmity is implacable. The regime and the people will come together in favor of a greatly expanded nuclear program, one that will include numerous nuclear weapons and delivery systems for them. They will be able to purchase both the know-how and the systems themselves from Noth Korea, which has them now and would probably be happy to sell them tomorrow. That could reduce Iran's "break-out time" to weeks.Given the (unwise) statements by American political leaders across the spectrum, including President Obama, that the U.S. will not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, such action on Iran's part would mean war. None of our leaders has the courage to say that an Iranian bomb is no threat to the U.S. and that we are not going to start yet another war on behalf of a certain small Middle Eastern country. The current leadership of that country and its agents here are always happy to fight to the last American soldier.Some voices in Washington will argue that a war with Iran would be a naval and air war, which we could win easily at small cost. That assumes the Iranians are stupid enough to play our game. I doubt they are. We have thousands of American troops within easy reach of Iran, in Iraq and Afghanistan. One phone call from Tehran to the Shiite Iraqi militias would be enough to round up the roughly 3000 American soldiers in Iraq tomorrow and turn them into hostages. American troops in Afghanistan would be a longer reach, but one that would be easy enough if Iran were to make a deal with the Taliban, which so far it has fought against. An alliance with a lesser enemy against a greater is an old strategic gambit. The world's oil supply would be another American hostage: plan on oil at $300 a barrel if you can get it.President 0bama's deal with Iran is right diplomatically and strategically. It is also on the right politically, i.e., it is conservative. No real conservative can want another Middle Eastern war, especially after we have lost two. That may point to the likely outcome of a third. The Pentagon has learned nothing from its failures.Meanwhile, Jeb Bush just announced that he has learned nothing from his dumb brother's failures and would like to repeat them. According to the August 12th Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jeb said he would fight ISIS in Syria by uniting

the moderate forces fighting IS in that country and for U.S. troops to "back them up as one force.""And we should back that force up all the way through -- not just in taking the fight to the enemy, but in helping them form a stable, moderate government."

Why not? It worked so well in Iraq.Ironically, Jeb made his modest proposal of turning Syria into Switzerland in a speech attacking Hillary, who is equally enthusiastic about "humanitarian intervention".Obama has stayed out of Syria, except for the usual bombing, and out of other Middle Eastern wars, at least after the debacle in Libya. Perhaps he learned from that blunder. Bush, Clinton et. al. seem incapable of learning, even from many blunders. At least when it comes to questions of peace or war, Obama is the real conservative.

The View From Olympus: Will the Real Military Please Stand Up?

Several weeks ago, something very important in the development of Fourth Generation war happened. On our own soil, the U.S. "military" had to be protected by civilian volunteer militiamen.The protection of U.S. military recruiting offices by armed volunteer militiamen occurred in response to the Islamic attack on two recruiting centers in Chattanooga. The Defense Department soon asked the militiamen to cease and desist, which they did. The fact that a militia's defense of the U.S. "military" lasted only briefly does not undo its significance. The sort of thing we are used to seeing in hollow states such as Lebanon happened here.The militia's action was not required, let me stress, because the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who man our recruiting stations are incapable of defending themselves. The can do so, and would be happy to do so (well, the men anyway). Accounts of the Islamic attack suggest many of the recruiters behaved bravely, risking and sometimes giving their lives to protect others. They could not defend themselves because they are not allowed to be armed.Here is where the importence of this incident to the development of 4GW on American soil, something we should greatly fear, is to be found. The reason our military personnel are not allowed to be armed is two-fold. Both point to the essence of 4GW, the emptying out of the state of its content, at the moral level.The first reason is that too many of our servicemen's superiors, both generals and civilians (including their ultimate superiors, the politicians) are moral cowards. They live in terror that an incident could happen where they might be held responsible, endangering the thing they live for, personal career success. Armed servicemen might lead to--horrors!--shots being fired. Murphy's Law dictates that if enough shots are fired (even though we are talking very few), a civilian might get hit. The press will howl, "Who is To Blame?", crying women will be interviewed on television, and "successful" people may find themselves in an unwelcome spotlight. Better to leave our "military" disarmed. The casualties will only be little people who don't count.The second, and related, moral hollowing-out of the state we see demonstrated by not allowing our servicemen to carry weapons in the womanizing of the culture, concerning which I have written before. Women are genetically programmed, by evolution, to seek safety. Guns strike most of them as unsafe. The general or politicians who dared to say, "

Courage, people. Freedom requires taking risks. Yes, there may be some shoot-outs as our military personnel protect themselves and others from 4GW attacks, and yes, civilians may get hit in the crossfire. That is part of the price we must pay for liberty,

would end his career. The general would be fired, and the courageous politicians would be defeated at the next election as the women's vote went to his opponent, who would no doubt to promise to "keep women safe."There is yet another wrinkle, one that plays both to womanizing the culture and "leaders" who flee responsibility. If we arm our servicemen, does that include gang members or other servicemen with non-state primary loyalties? Both have already shot and killed other American servicemen. The answer, obviously, is no. Should people with likely non-state primary loyalties be allowed to join and serve in the U.S. military? Again, no.Then rise the shrieks and howls of the cultural Marxists, screaming "discrimination!" The moral cowards among our "leaders" have been conditioned to crawl and grovel before any accusation of political incorrectness, while those womanizing the culture are part of the culturally Marxist coalition.A state that wishes to survive in a 4GW world will learn to discriminate. Its military leaders will be chosen for their Verantwortungsfreudigkeit, joy in taking responsibility. Its political leaders will be men who put the good of the whole over the long term first and themselves a long way second. What is the chance America will do or have any of those things? The same as its chance of surviving as a state.

On Cities and Community

I presume to believe that I am not alone among traditionalists and conservatives in having a distaste for the modern city. Not only are they dirty, loud, obnoxious, crime-ridden, vice-infested, and often have the sanitary rating of a septic tank, but they tend to be places that bring out the worst in their residents. The larger the city, the worse they seem to be. It is almost as if cities act as focal lenses for the innate sinful nature of mankind, taking it and amplifying it synergistically whenever huge numbers of people are aggregated together in such close proximity.Yet, as a classically-minded student of Western history and civilization (I would classify myself as a “Neo-Ciceronian” if I absolutely had to identify with an “ideology”), I find this view to be at odds with how our forbearers thought of cities.For instance, in his oft-quoted but ill-translated dictum, Aristotle said that “man is a political animal.” This translation is unfortunate because it gives the modern observer, especially Americans who are often and unfortunately ignorant of classical thought, an incorrect sense of what Aristotle meant. He did not mean that man is at his fullest when he’s arguing about abortion on an internet forum or voting for which candidate from the Republicrat Party will (mis)represent him in Congress. A more correct translation of Aristotle’s statement would be that “man is a creature of the polis.” The polis, often called the “city-state,” was the focal point of classical Greek life. As such, it was more than just a location in which people aggregated to live their separate lives. Instead, the polis was a living, breathing organism. It was a community in which man not only lived his private life, but in which he was practically compelled to lead a public existence as well. In classical Greece, a man who refused public participation and led an exclusively private life was looked down upon. He was an idios, from which we derive our own term “idiot.” People who did not have a poleis culture, which included many of the peoples that the Greeks thought of as barbarians, and even rustic Greeks like the Thessalians, were viewed as being malformed and incomplete.The Romans had a similar view of things. Cicero (and surely his opinion must count for a lot!) lauded cities as beneficial and fulfilling for mankind, for much the same reasons as did Aristotle and other Greek thinkers. To be a citizen of a city of free men (municipia) made you a fuller person than the rustic provincial non-entity. And ultimately, this was why the highest aspiration for the upward-mover in the Empire was to be able to participate in the legal fiction of being a citizen of the city of Rome, even if one never actually laid eyes on it during one’s lifetime.This dichotomy in my own mind – a distaste for the cities I see around me, but the reverence for “the city” in our classical heritage – has gnawed at the back of my mind for quite a while. But then the resolution of these contradictory impulses came to me. The difference between the two lies in their differing aspects of “community”, the one being based upon our Traditional sense of community and identity, the other being directly opposed to it.As should be inferred from the comments above, classically-speaking, cities were not simply large aggregations of people. They were viewed as communities. They shared a commonality not only of culture and language and religion, but of purpose and direction and will. Or at least that was the idealized view of them, even if ancient cities departed from this to varying degrees in practice. What one person did for the community affected everyone else. The heroes like Pericles provided benefits to all the citizens of Athens. The traitors like Alcibiades caused great harm to them all.As Jeff Culbreath said (even if in a bit different context), “The nature of tradition is that it is lived in community.” Traditional life requires community because that is what allows individuals to live together without resorting to become wards of the external state or becoming competing elements within a society that only serve to rip it apart from the inside out. Community is what allows the family to prosper. Community engenders bonds of loyalty, purpose, and reciprocity. Community is what allows society to enjoin the “gentle persuasion” of stigma and social pressure against those who deviate too grossly from traditional modes and patterns, instead of using the “violent persuasion” of the force and power of the state. Community is what allows each member to work with and persuade others towards a common end without falling either into dictatorship of ochlocracy. It is not surprising that the most successful genuine republics (among which the United States would not be included, for we ceased to be a genuine republic by 1865) have been those with a strong sense of community and common purpose.It is exactly this that is missing from the modern American city. Think about what our cities are today, even the relatively well-functioning ones. They are simple aggregations of large numbers of people who are yet largely disconnected from each other. The people of Boston or San Francisco or Atlanta have no commonality of purpose. They have no unspoken yet very real bonds of loyalty and affection uniting them. They are the very essence of the idiotes of classical Greece, men and women whose sole loyalties are to themselves and their immediate families and the instant gratification of their desires, with no thought of their communities as a whole. Even in cases where ethnic enclaves may exist which create a small semblance of community, this extends only so far as the ethnic boundaries lay – they certainly do not unite these cities into “political” wholes in the Aristotlean sense.As such, it is little surprise that such cities are riven with crime (after all, you don’t rob or murder people you feel bonds of love and loyalty toward). No wonder these cities need the heavy hands of militarized police to keep their denizens in check. Are we surprised that they’re dens of iniquity and vice, when there are no social pressures from any community of Tradition to govern the baser impulses of these people?How did this aberrant style of city come about? It occurred as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the social upheavals in labor and the movement of populations from the countryside to the cities that happened as a result. People left their traditional communities – places where their grandparents had lived where their grandparents had lived – to become atomized cogs in the industrial machinery that drove the rise of automated, bank-financed corporatism. Cities in the classical era and the Middle Ages existed, and many were quite large, but within them, everyone who was not a criminal or an outcast had a place of dignity and relevance and respect and worth. In the industrial city, man became an expendable gear; if one breaks, replace him with another one who just floated in from the countryside. Ultimately, the problem is not the advance of the technology itself, but of the failure of social man to guard against the commoditization of human beings in a way that never could and never did occur in traditional society.The question then is, what can we do about this, if anything? Really, there’s nothing we could do about the state of our cities, short of nuking them and starting over. But as Traditionalists, we can seek to regenerate outlets for traditional society within the machine, at a demotic level. Start with the family, not just the nuclear, but the extended family. Work to create a sense of community with your neighbors. Seek to drive toward common purpose with those of a common culture. Build this around the churches, which in addition to meeting the spiritual needs of the people, have also served the practical roles of transmitters of social purpose and organizers of traditional society. Understand that, unlike what many of the libertarian “rugged individualists” may say, “community” does not mean “communism”. Community is not a dirty word. Community is the heart of our traditional culture. We can recover that culture when we recover that community.

The View From Olympus: Chattanooga

Fourth Generation war visited Chattanooga last week at the cost of four Marines and one sailor dead. It was not the first instance of 4GW on American soil, and it will not be the last.The killer was, again, Islamic. Islam is by no means the only non-state entity to which people may give their primary loyalty, but it is one of the more dangerous.To diminish the risk of 4GW posed by Islam, we need to take two actions. The first is to stop Islamic immigration into this country, and not only Islamic immigration, but immigration by anyone who is likely to refuse to acculturate. All immigrants who refuse to become culturally American provide a base for 4GW.The culturally Marxist Establishment insists on keeping the border open to such people because they help it attain its two main goals, first set by Gramsci in Italy and Lukacs in Hungary in l9l9, destroying Western culture and the Christian religion. Protecting ourselves from imported 4GW is "discrimination" in cultural Marxism's vocabulary. In a 4GW world, any state that wants to survive will discriminate very carefully in terms of who it lets in.The second action we need to take is to stop messing around in other peoples’ parts of the globe. So ong as we keep hitting them with drone and air strikes, they will try to hit us back on our own soil. What else should we expect? That war is waged only by one side? Here, the problem is not the cultural Marxists but people who call themselves "conservatives". They are not. Desires to rule the world and cram Brave New World down everyone else's throat are anti-conservative. At root they are nationalist, and nationalism arose on the left, not on the right. Russell Kirk was no friend of nationalism.Most interesting to me was our response to the Chattanooga killings. As in previous such cases, from the president on down we responded with anguish, with weeping, with great sorrow for this terrible tragedy.That is the response of a womanized culture. A masculine culture responds by getting mad and hitting back, hard.Of course the deaths of five servicemen were tragic for their families, friends and communities. But the pathetic spectacle of President Obama again mourning a "national tragedy” but doing nothing is not how a state that wants to live would act. (Note that few if any of the Republican candidates would behave differently.)A womanized culture is soft. Its reaction to anything bad is to weep, hold hands, put up memorials of flowers and teddy bears and generally dissolve in a puddle of tears. The world is seen as a boudoir, and the manners of the boudoir are carried into the real world. The real world chews them up and spits them out. As any student of history knows, softness is a society's last condition before it is swept away.An America with a masculine culture would have replied to this and other incidents with what 4GW theory calls the "Hama model". The President would have gone on television within a matter of hours to say to the nation, "As I am speaking, hundreds of American bombers are wiping the city of Raqqa off the map and killing every living thing in it. I warn all civilians in any other territory under the control of ISIS to flee. The same thing can happen to you." Not only would this have hit ISIS hard physically, it would have deprived it of its base, a much more serious injury. If no civilians would remain in any area controlled by ISIS, ISIS could not function.But presented with this alternative, our womanized culture again wrings its hands and weeps. "Oh, oh, women and children would be killed, so would poor, innocent animals. We would become war criminals. Oh, oh. Blub, blub."The Hama model does not contradict what I said earlier about our war of endless pinpricks. On the contrary, not doing "precise" air and drone strikes is part of the Hama model. It says, in effect, "Leave us alone and we will leave you alone. If you hit us, we will annihilate you. The Hama model is over fast.Instead, we will continue to wage a losing war of little, indecisive actions, the kind of war women wage on each other in their offices and clubs. Not content merely to womanize the general culture, Washington is now womanizing the military itself. I don't know which is laughing louder, Heaven or Hell.

The View From Olympus: WTF?

Marine General Joseph F. Dunford, who has been nominated to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is by reputation one of our best and brightest generals. Friends who have worked with him tell me he's great. In his short tenure as Marine Corps Commandant, he moved to end much of the nonsense that had gone on under his predecessor, including suppression of dissent. Virtually all the Marines I know let great hosannas ring when he took over.So how, in his recent confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, did he get it so wrong?According to the July 10 New York Times, General Dunford told the committee,

Russia's aggressive behavior and its nuclear arsenal make it the single greatest national security threat faced by the United States...Throughout the hearing, when asked about threats, General Dunford returned repeatedly to Russia..."If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I'd have to point to Russia," he said. "And if you look at their behavior, it's nothing short of alarming."

Where did this come from? If General Dunford just meant that the size of Russia's nuclear arsenal means they could threaten our national existence, he is technically correct. But the same could be said of Britain, France, China, and Israel, all of which could drop enough nuclear warheads on us to destroy the country. We don't consider those countries threats, because we know they don't plan to do that. Russia doesn't either.If General Dunford means that Russia's actions in Ukraine so threaten us that they make Russia our number one enemy, that is also nonsense. The U.S. has no interest at stake in Ukraine, and General Dunford suggested we should send weapons to the Ukraininans to fight the Russians. Russia has no troops in Mexico or Canada, nor is she considering sending arms to the Taliban, ISIS, Mexican drug cartels, or anyone else we are fighting. Just who is the threat to whom here? Most fundamentally--and I am going to write this in big letters--THE WORLD HAS CHANGED!The main threat to the United States is not any other state. The main threat is spreading statelessness and the Fourth Generation elements that fill the resulting space. What the U.S. and the international sate system need is an alliance of all states against non-state forces. The two allies we need most, the only two strong enough to do us some good, are China and Russia. The only way Russia would be likely to become a threat to us is if the Russian state were to disintegrate. That was a real possibility under President Yeltsin. President Putin's great achievement has been strengthening the Russian state. For that, we should thank him. Instead, the incoming JCS chairman has pronounced Russia our number one threat.General Dunford's flight into fancy did not stop with Russia. According to the Times,

Asked whether the military had the ability to destroy Iran's nuclear program, General Dunford was unequivocal. "My understanding is that we do, senator," he said.

Again, this may be technically correct. We may be able to destroy most Iranian nuclear facilities. But we cannot destroy the knowledge Iran has, knowledge which would enable them to rebuild quickly. After such an attack, Iran would unquestionalbly move to build a bomb, something it is not doing now. And Iran would respond on the ground using allied Shiite militias to round up all the American troops in Iraq and probably attacking those in Afghanistan as well, with plenty of help from Afghans.So what gives? How could one of, by reputatioon, our best generals get it so wrong? He did not appear to be doing as the White House bid; it distanced itself from his remarks. Was he nervous before the committee? Had someone coached him with answers intended to please committee chairman John McCain, who wants war with Russia and everyone else?There may be one clue to an answer. If, when interviewed by the White House, a candidate for the JCS nomination said what I said, namely that wars between states are obsolete and the real threat we face is 4GW, he would not be nominated. Too many rich rice bowls in Washington depend on preparing for wars with other states. Only "peer competitors" seemingly justify the vast defense budget and huge weapons programs. Against 4GW opponents, they are useless or worse.Perhaps General Dunford does know that the world has changed. Perhaps he is just playing the role he must in the usual kabuki until he gets the JCS job. At that point, he will try to move Washington to confront reality. I have thought that before about senior Marine generals about to move up. So far, I have been disappointed.

The Not-So-Dark Ages, Part II

In my previous essay, "The Not So Dark Ages", I attempted to dispel certain myths and misconceptions about the Church’s relationship to science in the medieval and classical eras. The focus was primarily on the West. Now I shall be turning to the East. The atheist polemics nearly always deal with the Catholic church during this period, the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire centered in Constantinople and the Eastern Orthodox church which also resided there is so unknown as to not even be fodder for a polemic is a sign of the sad hand Byzantium has been dealt by history. The Eastern Roman Empire survived for another thousand years after the fall of the Western Empire. I will henceforward refer to the Byzantine Empire as the Roman Empire, since the Byzantines themselves never saw themselves as anything other than Roman and I will not use the term Eastern either since there was only one Roman Empire, even in 395 it had two joint emperors. It preserved much of the classical knowledge that was lost in the West and in its fall the last line of ancient Romans fled to Italy, and in the process aided the nascent Renaissance.There is a pernicious falsehood that has been circulated by modern liberal scholars that it was the enlightened and scientific Saracens who in the dark ages gave learning to the rude and uncouth West. While there is some truth in it, that through the Arabic philosophers in Spain much learning was gleaned by the West and aided in the rise of Scholasticism, it is only a half-truth. For while the Saracens themselves were rude and uncouth barbarians pillaging the Roman Empire and the remains of the once proud Sassanid Dynasty, Constantinople, the seat of the Roman Empire, still was the leader in scholarship, its twin in the south, Alexandria, had a long history of Christian, as well as pagan scholarship. Furthermore the Persian imperial capital at Ctesiphon held the last remnants of the ancient pagan academy (in 529 AD the Emperor Justinian closed the academy and its scholars fled to the court of king Khosrau I). So with the vast ammount of pagan and Christian learning from Alexandria and Ctesiphon it was the Saracens who were the students and the Christians the teachers. If in later centuries the Saracens repaid their debt in scientific, philosophic, and mathematical discoveries let us not forget that they first paid homage to the scholars of Constantinople.Before I discuss the great minds of the Eastern Church I feel compelled to explain a little of the importance of the Medieval Roman Empire and why it is so little regarded. The Medieval Roman Empire served two vital roles among many in service to the west: (1) it protected the nascent West from barbarian invasion and (2) preserved the light of learning in the sea of night brought on by the Germanic and later Saracen invaders. The number of invasions and invaders that assaulted the Medieval Roman Empire are too numerous to tell here, but suffice it to say there were three major enemies of the West that were either thwarted in their endeavor or as in the case of the later, succeed in a time when the West was strong enough to offer its own defense. The study of Byzantine history was quite popular in Bourbon France and 18th century Europe. It was the work of mean minds such as Voltaire and Gibbon, who in casting away the heritage of Christianity, spent their vitriol on defaming the Medieval Roman Empire. What was inaugurated by Deists was finished by Atheists, to such an extent that popular knowledge of the Medieval Romans is all but nonexistent.In the 7th century a titanic class between Romans and Persians occurred in the near east, a war of such a scale had not been seen since the Punic Wars of republican Rome. The Persian armies at their apogee had overrun all of Roman Asia and Egypt. Though ultimately defeated by the military genius Heraclius and the stout defense of Constantinople, a formidable foe was prevented from threatening the weak and young West. The next foe would arise out of the ashes of the old, the Saracen threat would plague both the Roman Empire and the West for centuries to come, but the heaviest blows occurred on the stout walls of Constantinople where in 674-78 and 717-18 the Saracen armies were scattered in no small part due to the new weapon of Greek fire, which I will refer to later. Lastly the Turks who came in the 11th century and would ultimately overcome the Roman Empire, were delayed for centuries, which in turn bought time for the Hapsburgs to develop enough strength to rout the Turks at the gates of Vienna.The second debt owed to the Eastern Christians is their preservation of ancient texts. We must not forget that there never was any dark age in the eastern Christendom. The Roman Empire continued on as it always had. It might not have had the luster and glory of Old Rome, but their love of the classics never abated and was safely persevered until its transmission to the West in 1453.I will divide this period into three eras: the Lighthouse 476-867, the Macedonian Renaissance 867-1261, and the Palaeologean Renaissance 1261-1453. This is a somewhat coarse classification but I believe it fits the broad contours of Eastern Christendom’s scientific and philosophical contributions. The first period was simple enough: when all the lights of learning went out in the West and East due to two barbarian invasions, Constantinople alone stood as the beacon of light and learning to the western world. The second period includes not only the Macedonian Dynasty, but subsequent dynasties as well; the classification was more of an intellectual one than a dynastic one. The last period focuses on the last flourishing of Roman thought with the Palaeologeans until the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453.

Before the Fall

As a preface to the latter scholars two Eastern luminaries who thrived before 476 deserve mention Anatolius of Laodicea (died July 3, 283 AD) and Nemesius a fourth century thinker.Anatolius, an inhabitant of Alexandria and later Bishop of Laodicea, was gifted in mathematics, geometry, philosophy and astronomy. Due to his erudition, a request was made by the Alexandrians for him to start a peripatetic school in their city. Eusebius reports that during the siege of the Pyrucheium or Bruchium, Anatolius was able to negotiate with the besieging Romans to allow the women, the children and the elderly of the rebels to withdrawal from city unharmed. These were rebels who had supported the Arabian queen Zenobia in her uprising against Rome. We see the triumph of Christian charity over the barbarities of war. He is noted for his use of astronomy in calculating the precise date of Easter. It is notable that the neo-platonic luminary Iamblichus was a pupil of Anatolius.Nemesis of Emesa, the city of which he was bishop, is notable for his early description of the nature of the circulation of blood. He appears to have anticipated the work of William Harvey by 1,500 years. Yet the imperfection of his knowledge and the ignorance of the importance of his discovery led it to fall into obscurity.

The Lighthouse 476-867

When the last Roman Emperor of the West was displaced by his master of arms, Odoacer, the last vestige of Roman political rule was gone and the long night of barbarism began. I have previously recounted the heroic efforts of isolated scholars in the West to stem the tide, but in the East there was no loss of learning. In fact classical learning, flourished in the Roman Empire of the 5th and 6th centuries.Six luminaries of this period deserve mention: John Philoponus of Alexandria, Kallinikos of Hieropolis, Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles, Hunayn ibn Ishaq and Qusta ibn Luqa.John of Philoponus was an Alexandrian polymath who studied philology, Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology. His scientific work can be divided into three areas: (1) broad scientific theory, (2) the study of space, and (3) the study light. According to David C. Lindberg in his Science in the Middle Ages Philoponus based his scientific inquiry on three axioms (1) one God created the universe, (2) the heavens above and the earth below operate on the same basic principles, and (3) the stars are not divine. These principles would also have been shared by Jewish and later Islamic scholars. Philoponus’ surviving works indicate that he might have studied the world on the principles of the scientific method even using controlled experiments. Using such methods Philoponus concluded that the velocity of a falling object is independent of its weight, which predated Galileo by a thousand years. Philoponus rejected the standard Aristotelian definition of motion. Aristotle argued that an object moved only under two conditions: (1) a source of imparted motion to that object and (2) that source must be in physical contact with that source. Aristotle hypothesized that the air itself must impart motion to a flying object such as a stone or arrow. Philoponus reject this notion and argued that motion of an object could be imparted motion by the motive source, and that motive energy as it is dissipated propels the object forward. In this scenario the air hinders the motion of a flying object rather than aiding it. Philoponus disproved Aristotle’s view that objects of different weight fall at different velocities by performing the same sort of experiment that Galileo would uses a millennia later.Philoponus disagreed with Aristotle on the plausibility of a void. Aristotle believed that a void was impossible in principle. Philoponus argued that the void might not be possible in nature, but was an essential postulate in order to explain motion in a plenum. On a related topic Philoponus argued that space should be viewed in three-dimensions. His work on light hinted at some of the discoveries of Maxwell and Einstein as his work on space had hinted on the discoveries of Galileo. Philoponus’ work was largely forgotten as a result of his nemesis Simplicius who condemned him for his monophyiste views, which in 681 got Philoponus anathematized, another victim of the religious infighting that plagued the Roman Empire.Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles should be as famous as Michelangelo and Da Vinci, but falling down the Orwellian memory hole first constructed by small minded deists like the rest of the Middle Ages they are not. These two engineers constructed the greatest architectural wonder of their age, Hagia Sophia (the Church of Holy Wisdom). Isidore was taught geometry and physics in Alexandria and later Constantinople, he was the first to organize Archimedes’ work into one complete volume. Anthemius was a geometrician and architect. Not only were these men gifted geometricians, but they were also master logisticians who were able to manage the tremendous logistical feat of bringing the materials necessary for constructing the church from around the Roman Empire and organizing the labor force to construct it. The finished church was the largest domed building in the world at that time.Kallinikos of Heliopolis was a Syrian refuge who fled to the court of the Roman Emperor and offered his secret of what would later be known as Greek Fire, but was known to the Romans as Sea Fire. There are numerous explanations as to the chemical nature of Sea Fire, but we do know that naphtha was a key ingredient. This medieval “Napalm” would serve a vital role in repelling the Saracen siege of Constantinople in 674-8 and 717-18. This closely guarded state secret rendered Constantinople unconquerable by sea and by implication land (since it could never be starved into submission), until the Crusader siege of 1204 where the Venetian’s fleet of wooden galleys were coated with canvas and leather soaked in vinegar (one of the few means to retard Sea Fire, the other two being sand and urine) captured the city.Hunayn ibn Ishaq a 9th century Assyrian Christian in the service of Caliph Al-Mutawakkil as the Caliph’s personal physician is notable for his study in ophthalmology and the translation of the works of Galen into Arabic. Ishaq’s Book of the Ten Treatises of the Eye was the most systematic account of eye and its functions yet given. He relied heavily on the works of Galen and contains the earliest known description of the anatomy of the eye. As personal physician to Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, Ishaq had his loyalty tested when the Caliph asked him to develop a poison for uses on the Ishaq’s enemies. Ishaq refused and was imprisoned for a year. When released, the Caliph confronted him again and threatened death if he did not perform the action. Ishaq still refused. The Caliph then revealed he had been testing the loyalty of his physician. The Caliph then asked Ishaq why he preferred death to creating the poison. Ishaq stated that he swore the Hippocratic Oath “to do no harm” and that his religion taught him to love enemies. We see again the triumph of Christian compassion in a dark age of barbarism and war. Ishaq’s voluminous translations of Greek philosophical and scientific texts in to Arabic garnered him the title of “Sheik of the Translators.”Qusta ibn Luqa, a contemporary of Ishaq, a Melkite Christian and a master physician and translator was a key element of the Greek-to-Arabic translation that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries. While he translated into Arabic many Greek works on medicine, mathematics and geometry, he also wrote many original treatises of his own. Luqa’s De Differentia Spiritus et Animae was one of the few works not written by Aristotle that was on the reading list of natural philosophers in the University of Paris in 1254. The Islamic scholar Ibn al-Nadim says of him: "He is an excellent translator; he knew well Greek, Syriac, and Arabic; he translated texts and corrected many translations. Many are his medical writings." As we saw in the west with the Irish and Anglo-Saxons so we see in east with Syriac Christians that it was the servants of Christ who exerted the greatest effort in preserving the classics.The Medieval Roman Empire was the first political system to have institutionalized medical services. The first hospital was created by St. Basil in the 4th century. The church as always led the way in this effort. As I noted in my previous essay the Monastic institutions played an invaluable part in propagating hospitals and medical institutions. While it is true that classical Rome had medical institutions they were primarily military in nature and service. With the Christian system it was open to all. At first the urban centers were where the majority of these hospitals were located, but by the 9th and 10th centuries such institutions had become common in the rural areas as well. We see an organized process of education of physicians from the University of Constantinople. These hospitals were run on relatively ‘modern’ principles; physicians were required to wash their hands, patients were given private beds and instructions were given to keep the patients warm. By the 12th century separate rooms for outpatients and surgery were present. Of all Medieval Roman institutions that most resembled modern ones, the hospital system was that institution.

The Macedonian Renaissance 867-1261

While not as self-consciously organized as the Carolingian Renaissance, the Macedonian renaissance marks a flourishing of Medieval Roman art, literature and science. Under the patronage of the Emperors Leo VI “The Wise” and his son Constantine the arts flourished. One could say that Patriarch Photius I the teacher of Leo was the originator of this revival in learning and with him we shall begin our study. We shall also discuss Leo the Mathematician and Michael Psellous.Photius I was one of the most influential patriarchs in all of the history of Constantinople; his erudition and philosophic learning have been marred by power struggles and theological disputes culminating in the Photian schism, his episcopacy and the schism named after him are not our present concern, but rather his invaluable contribution to the preservation of the classics. His magisterial work was the Bibliotheca or alternatively titled the Myriobiblos. The Bibliotheca is a collection of fragments and reviews of classical and Christian works that Photius read and preserved. Thanks to Photius’ preservation what we have of the works of Ctesias, Memnon of Heraclea, Conon, Diodorus Siculus, and Arrian we owe in part or in whole to him.Leo the Mathematician was a 9th century polymath adept at philosophy, mathematics, geometry and medicine. He was considered a national security asset, so when Caliph Al-Ma'mun asked for Leo to study in Baghdad, the Emperor Theophilous granted Leo a school in the Magnaura (a philosophical school) in order to prevent him from leaving the empire and serving its enemies. Leo was a teacher of Aristotelian logic, a collector of a wide variety of scientific and philosophical works. His practical accomplishments were a series of signal beacons he designed in Asia Minor in order to warn of impending Saracen invasion and a series of mechanical devices placed in the imperial palace to inspire onlookers.Michael Psellos was an 11th century scholar who wrote works of history, grammar, philosophy and rhetoric. His work the Chronographia is a historical account of the Roman Empire in the preceding century. His love of Platonism was so great that it led people to question his orthodoxy, which required his public profession of it to sway them. He restored a certain level of rigor in philosophical studies that had been lacking. He wrote on astronomy, music and medicine.

Palaeologean Renaissance 1261-1453

The actual origins of the Palaeologean Renaissance are debated; it is generally seen to have been precipitated by the re-conquest of Constantinople from the Crusaders. When in 1204 the Fourth Crusade sacked and conquered Constantinople, the Roman Empire was divided into two regions, the Despotate of Epirus and the Empire of Nicea. For nearly sixty years the Crusader Latin Empire looted what was left of the Roman Empire. When the Emperor of Nicea Michael VIII Palaiologos re-conquered Constantinople in 1261 the Roman Empire was restored and the newly invigorated people entered into their last cultural flowering. This new Palaeologean culture was focused on theological mysticism, more realism in paintings and the study and preservation of classical Greek texts. We shall discuss the work of two Palaeologean scholars, Nicephorus Gregoras and Maximus Planudes.Maximus Planudes, a 13th century scholar, was known for his accomplishments in literature and mathematics. Unique among the Palaelogean scholars, Maximus was fluent in Latin. He translated Augustine’s City of God and Caesar’s Gallic Wars into Greek and many other classical and medieval Latin works, and his edition of the Greek Anthology was widely renowned (a collection of epigrams from classical and medieval Greek sources). Maximus two works on mathematics are The Great Calculation According to the Indians was a treatise on Hindu numerals in their Persian form and a commentary on Diophantus (a 3rd century AD Alexandrian mathematician) “Arithmetic.”Nicephorus Gregoras was a 14th century scholar whose accomplishments were in the realm of theology, history and astronomy. His career and legacy were marred by his opposition to the dominant theology of Hesycasm and he was at odds with Queen Anna and Emperor John VI Cantacuzene. He later retired as a monk still attacking what he considered the Hesycasm heresy. His work “Roman History” was a work divided into 37 books covering the period between 1204 and 1359. Due to certain deficiencies in the work, it should be read alongside John Cantacuzene’s own works of history. His astronomical work pertains to the dating of Easter, the use of the astrolabe and prediction of solar eclipses.

Conclusion

We have seen the rich intellectual history of Eastern Christianity and that far from destroying classical civilization as the ilk of Carl Sagan would have you believe, it was the bosom in which classical civilization was preserved. The Italian renaissance was greatly enriched by the Greek emigres after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. With the fall of the “City of the World’s Desire”, the last bulwark against Islam had fallen and in the succeeding centuries Turkish forces would spread fire and sword from Austria to Ukraine. The influx of Greek emigres did not, as was formerly thought, initiate the renaissance, but their erudition and learning certainly enriched it. It all comes full circle; the ancient Roman civilization that survived in Constantinople sent its own back to Italy and in the process greatly aided in the work of rediscovering the classic texts and improving upon them.

The View From Olympus: The Moral Level

John Boyd argued that the three traditional levels of war, strategic, operational, and tactical, intersect with three previously unrecognized levels of war, the physical, the mental, and the moral. Of these, the physical level was the weakest and the moral level the most powerful. I would add that, just as with the three traditional levels, a higher trumps a lower. In other words, if you win at the physical level but lose at the mental or moral, you lose. We have seen this truth play out in most of America's recent wars.Boyd's theoretical work applies not just to war, but to conflict of all sorts. Much work has been done to apply his lessons to business. Obviously, they apply to politics as well.All this was illustrated in events in this country over the past few weeks. After the moron Dylan Roof murdered nine black Christians who were met in a church for Bible study, he thought he had scored a victory in his quest to start  a race war. But he considered only the physical level. At the moral level, his action was a catastrophe for everything he said he represents. Why? Because Charleston's black Christians replied at the moral level, as Christians should. Instead of rioting or making demands, they forgave the murderer and mourned their dead, knowing they still live in a better place. Instead of sharpening racial antagonisms as Roof wanted, their response drew massive white support, within and beyond Charleston. The moral level trumped the physical level.Another situation made the same point. Again, the blacks' response in Charleston gave them huge moral capital. In contrast, the reply of Baltimore's blacks to what was in comparison a minor situation drove a wedge between blacks and whites, diminished the blacks' moral capital, and, in the end, hurt themselves. Whites saw the riots there as just one more iteration of the usual black act, i.e., looking for any excuse to loot and make "demands".Like Roof, Baltimore's blacks thought of conflict as just physical action. They had no concept of the mental and moral levels. Those who make that mistake lose, regardless of what color they are or what side they are on.Ironically, the best way to learn this fact may be to look at the U.S. military. Having now been beaten four times by Fourth Generation opponents, its usual comment is that it did not lose, because it could take any piece of ground it wanted to in any of those wars. That is true. But what it shows is the weakness of the physical level of war, exactly as Boyd postulated. We were beaten at the higher mental and moral levels, and a higher level trumps a lower.I suspect we will shortly see this reality play itself out again in the offensive to retake Ramadi. As usual, we will be relying heavily on air power against opponents who have none, giving them a large moral advantage. We are making the Iraqis follow our rules, which means their one effective ground force, the Shiite militias, will not take part. The Iraqi state armed forces know that once again they are being bossed by the Americans, who they hate. They will have all the fight in them most Quisling armies have. While our side will have all the advantages physically, the moral balance, as calculated not by Washington but by the locals, will favor ISIS. Light cavalry armies such as ISIS are more capable on the offensive than on the defensive, but even so, the moral imbalance may give ISIS another win.Meanwhile, a suggestion to all those, left and right, black and white, who seek to disrupt the order the American state provides (such as it is): if you fail to think your actions through on all three of Boyd's levels, understanding that the physical level is the weakest and the moral level the most powerful, you will get results opposite to those you intend. Of course, as a conservative, I would like to see the American state restore its own moral authority and do what the state arose to do, provide order. With cultural Marxism dominating both political parties, there is little chance that will happen.

The Missed Lesson of Greece's Financial Crisis

On Sunday, 61% of Greek voters rejected the European bailout referendum. The Greek financial situation has led many American conservatives (and neoliberals) to point to Greece as an object lesson in the failures of socialism. Focusing only on Greece’s spending habits, however, misses the underlying issue, and American conservatives need to understand this if they ever want to address the fundamental problem that besets ours and the world’s economy. For the record, I’m not sure the problem is solvable at this point, but we need to at least understand what it is if we hope to fix it, and the problem will not be fixed by just spending less and “living within our means.”There are no good guys in the Greek situation. Conservative critics of Greece’s socialistic ways are correct that it is not realistic for a country and its citizens to expect to continually live beyond their collective means. Excessive portions of the Greek workforce are employed by the government, and Greece allegedly cooked the books initially to make their economic situation appear better than it really was.However, what too many of Greece’s critics are failing to point out is that the world monetary system encourages debt because debt is how new money comes into the system. Every new Euro/Dollar requires debt. So the system wants manageable debt, rather than unmanageable debt, but it most certainly does not want no debt or large scale “living within our means.” Such would grind the system to a halt. So the system essentially wants the debt can kicked down the road at a slower pace than Greece is kicking it, but you still can’t avoid the ultimate day of reckoning.It is a bit rich for U.S. conservatives to finger wag at Greece for living beyond her means. While American conservatives say they want to cut spending and balance the budget, they act indignant when Democrats suggest they want to cut this or that popular entitlement or spending program, and they want to perpetually increase spending on defense because they apparently think it is the God-ordained duty of the United States to make the whole globe safe for democracy. The reason the U.S. isn't where Greece is is because we have our own central bank, but the printing press is the 800 lb economic gorilla in the room and our time is surely coming. A wag might conclude that the superficial lesson from the Greek crisis is to have your own central bank and printing presses.The take home point is that it is not enough to lecture the Greeks for being profligate Socialists, while ignoring the fact that our unsustainable monetary system actually encourages debt (national and otherwise) and can’t run without it. This is a built-in feature of the modern banking establishment, but the last major candidate who attempted to make this an issue got labeled a kook by a lot of mainstream conservatives for his troubles. So please spare me the morally superior posturing regarding the Greeks’ spendthrift ways. Our time is coming, and no one will be able to say we weren’t warned.

The Confederate Flag

I have a piece of real Confederate battle flag. It was captured by my great-grandfather, Sergeant Alfred G. Sturgiss, 177th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, at an engagement at Town Creek, North Carolina in February of 1865. I also have his musket, some other pieces of his kit, and his Grand Army of the Republic veteran's ring, which I wear. All of which is to say that I come of solid Union stock.I also know that the cultural Marxists' rabid assault on the Confederate flag and other Confederate symbols has nothing to do with the Civil War, slavery, or the massacre in Charleston. What it represents is an attempt  by the Politically Correct to move to a higher level of ideological Gleichschaltung, forced conformity.Not so long ago, thirty years certainly, probably twenty, Americans would have reacted with outrage to ideological attempts to rewrite history. Banning symbols important to previous generations, renaming public places to obliterate the past, disinterring historical heroes--as reportedly is to be done with Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the best tactician on either side, who beat my uncle, General Samuel Sturgis, at Brice's Crossroads--were things that happened in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, not here. Now, cowed by endless psychological conditioning, Americans are silent as these things do happen here.While the assault on Dixie is motivated by the desire of ideologues to seize more power, it is justified by the demand that we all condemn slavery as the worst moral evil in the history of mankind. A few facts are in order.First, slavery was an almost universal human institution, going back as far as history itself and no doubt deep into prehistory. It is unlikely there is a single human being alive today who did not, at one or probably many times, have an ancestor who was a slave. The ancient world ran on slave power, and slaves were as likely to be Germans or Britons as Africans. The Bible, which was written in the ancient world, does not make an issue of it.Second, slaves were simply people who were captured in war but not killed. War, again through all of history and back into prehistory, was not fought in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. When you defeated someone, you took everything he had, including his person. If he or she could be ransomed (an escape only available to the rich) or sold as a slave, they were kept alive. Otherwise, they got their throat cut. Presumably, most people preferred to become a slave.Third, turning specifically to American history, the captured Africans who were sent to this country as slaves were fortunate compared to others who were sent to places such as Haiti, where there were almost no slave women and a third of the slave population was worked to death every year. What was it like to be a slave in the American south? As with almost everything in a premodern society, reality was local. Some slaves were treated badly, and others were treated well. Sergeant Sturgiss, a fervent abolitionist (his father was a Methodist minister), married the daughter of a slave owner, William Wagner of Morgantown, my great-great-grandfather. After the war, his slaves stayed with the family. Why? As house slaves--Mr. Wagner was a townsman--they were part of the family. Attempts to look at the past through  the present-day lens of wide uniformity of conditions, uniformity often forced by government, is to misrepresent history in a fundamental way.Finally, American blacks whose ancestors were brought here as slaves should count their lucky stars. Had they not been brought here--few would have been able to come on their own--their decedents would be living not in the very comfortable United States but in west Africa, one of the worst hell-holes on Earth. The whole "African-American" business is nonsense. American blacks are Americans, period. Their lives have nothing in common with life in Africa, as those who go there quickly find out.Again, none of this matters to the cultural Marxists. To them, the massacre in Charleston is simply a peg they can use to move this country one step closer to ideological conformity. But to people who prefer history to ideology, the history of slavery, and the history of the Confederacy, are not simply matters of black hats vs. white hats. As always, real history offers a more complex picture.   PS: The Okhrana has informed me that some readers of these columns were puzzled by my call to ban violent video games. I was not talking about real war games, e.g. Waterloo, Jutland, or playing squad leader on the Eastern Front. Nor did I mean games full of goblins and dwarves, i.e., a visit to Capitol Hill. Dave Grossman's work clearly shows that some first-person-shooter games, including one where the player kills police officers, duplicate the methods the military developed after World War II to overcome men's natural reluctance to kill other humans. Those games, I repeat, should be banned, especially for young people. How to ban them, given the ease with which electrons move, is another question. I do not want the federal government doing it; presumably, that would mean banning all games about the Civil War because someone would play as the Confederates (and maybe win). But no conservative can approve games that psychologically condition young people to kill, nor games where the "player" targets cops. Libertarians, maybe; conservatives, no. Go read Hobbes.

Mormons and Jihadis: Parallel Revolts Against the Modern World

We have all become familiar, at this point, with the doctrines of groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda. The theological underpinnings, the history of Salafism and Sayyid Qutb, the crucible of 1980’s Afghanistan, have taken on tremendous significance as our existential battle with Islamism grows.What we know less about is the culture of the Islamists, the daily lives of Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and Chechnya and the deserts of Syria. This is starting to change however, as writings on the subject begin to emerge. Thomas Hegghammer recently gave a speech in which he discussed the question of “What jihadis do in their spare time”.¹ Hegghammer spoke about the love of poetry that exists within their ranks. The New Yorker recently published a similar article, describing ISIS fighters relaxing after battle, sitting around reciting poetry and songs to each other.²Hegghammer also spoke about the tendency of Islamist fighters to weep openly, an action mirroring their tendency to declare their “love” for their brothers.³ He writes: “It is curious, for example, that Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi should be known simultaneously as al-dhabbi (the slaughterer), and al-baki (he who weeps a lot).” He continues that “These ‘soft’ activities pose a big social science puzzle, in that they defy expectations [of groups such as ISIS]”.Beyond this question of “hard men doing soft things”, as Hegghammer calls it, such behavior also calls to my mind an interesting parallel, as it reminds me greatly of the Mormon patriarchs I grew up around, who were equally given to such proclamations, and equally comfortable with crying publicly.In a 2012 article on Mormon men, Kristine Haglund discusses their propensity for weeping at church services, where they articulate their thankfulness for their family and friends.⁴ She states that “They cry standing at the pulpit, speaking of their wives and children and of Jesus. They cry when they describe their friendships with the men they do volunteer church work and play basketball with.” Haglund describes the poetry of such moments, the heartfelt speeches that Mormon men give about their lives and their culture, in prose that mirrors that of Hegghammer and the New Yorker when they are describing the puzzling “softness” of Muslim jihadis.Rather than being random, I think this similarity exists for very specific reasons. Most men in our modern society do not weep openly, and there is a certain irony that it is these two groups that are the exception. Men in the West are routinely castigated by feminists and liberals for being “emotionally shut off” and “overly aggressive”, and are urged to get in touch with our feelings. Yet the only two groups of men that seem to be doing this, Mormon men and twenty-something ISIS killers, are in just about as diametric opposition to our modern liberal nation-states as any two groups can get.In a kind of round-about agreement with feminists, I concur that men must be quite confident in their masculinity to weep openly in front of other men. However, this kind of confidence does not come from a wholesale rejection or “rethinking” of masculinity, as our liberal contemporaries constantly harp on, but rather from an embracing of masculinity. When you have fought other men with your bare hands, when you have looked down the barrel of an opponent’s gun, when you have sired eight children, when you have a close-knit group of male friends who respect you and your prowess as a man, that is when you feel confident enough in your masculinity to weep openly.Many of my closest friends have been and are Mormon. I have found them, as a whole, to be loyal, dependable, solid, respectable people, and I think extremely highly of them. At times in the past there have been parts of me that wished I was a Mormon man.In regards to Islamism, I consider the practices of groups like ISIS to be repellant, and should Europe descends into civil war in a few years time (a likely prospect), I would be proud to die fighting against the Islamists to keep Europe free and European. At the same time I have had a large exposure to Islam and Islamism. I have argued with Muslims, been in fights with Muslims, and have researched jihad extensively through literature and media. I must, however, admit that though I view them as enemies, I can understand and appreciate the attraction their groups hold for young men.Therefore despite the fact that I am not Mormon, and do not believe Joseph Smith was a prophet, and despite the fact that I would gladly fight and kill ISIS members if I had the chance, I also feel, in other ways,  a certain respect for each group.I respect them because they are attempting to live a sacred life in our profane world. Amidst the overwhelming consumption of our industrialized and corporatized global culture, each is trying to create something.  They are not worshipping Nike. They are not blindly spoon-feeding themselves reality television. They are not cheering on the destruction of their race and society like suicidal European multiculturalists. They are sacrificing to effect movements and rituals that they view as sacred. They are sublimating their own desires for what they feel is the good of their descendants. Whether or not I agree with them, such a focus is highly refreshing and inspiring.As Lee Harris states in The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam’s Threat To The West, “While we think little further than our retirement, they think in terms of centuries--what, however, do centuries mean to us anymore? In the long run, we’re all dead--so who cares about the long-term fate of the West? Finally, while we raise our children to have contempt for the very traditions that created the Western cultures of reason, they are raising their children to be willing to die to keep their traditions alive.”⁵I also respect these two groups of men because they are each a rare representation of masculinity in our feminized modern world. In a society that actively despises normal heterosexual men, each group is a rare connection back to our ancestors’ notions of manhood, and to qualities that our modern culture is bereft of.  While, to paraphrase Jack Donovan, I do not consider the Islamists “good men”, they are, just like Tony Soprano, “good at being men”--they possess strength, courage, mastery, and honor, even if they use these attributes in the service of beheadings and suicide bombings.⁶As Bill Maher so controversially said in the days following 9/11, the hijackers might have been evil nutjobs, but they most certainly were not “cowards”.⁷ It takes courage to fight jihad and die shahid. It takes a less martial but still significant kind of courage to retain belief in Mormonism in the face of our secular society. It would be easy for Mormon men to give it all up for the sake of becoming “rational” and enjoying casual sex, but honestly, does it really take courage to become an atheist anymore? Does pre-marital sex take courage? Such is now the route prescribed to us in public school.  Retaining one’s faith in Mormonism, raising large families, stating openly in 2015 that you, as a man, have a unique and immutable connection to God that women do not possess; all of this makes Mormons far more manly in my book than your average liberal atheist or Evangelical, and for these reasons I salute them.As groups who believe in traditional notions of masculinity and gender roles, Mormons and jihadis are both in opposition to our modern world. Multicultural-corporatist society has deemed masculine young men the enemy. But unlike other young men, who deal with this existential crisis through a focus on alcohol, pornography, video games, and other forms of consumption and debauchery, young Mormon and Islamic men stand fast to their values, and in doing so stand in firm opposition to society.As the jihadi Isa Sa’d Al ‘Awshan writes in his poem Epistle to the Scolders: “The Age of Submission to the Unbelievers is over… I do not desire money nor a life of ease”. What can this be called but a wholesale rejection of modernity? An excerpt from a recent Nashid (poem) from ISIS reads:

Oh Istanbul!You consented to profanity in your streetsYou filled the streets with haremsWhat happened to you that in such a short timeYou yielded to despots, oppressors, and infidelsOh Istanbul!⁸

Such laments echo the refrains of Mormons, who also reject the decadence of modern life. It is this rejection that is so crucial to why Mormonism and Islam are the two fastest growing religions on Earth.Young men across North America and Europe suspect or know that the modern West is deathly ill. They likewise understand at some level that their normal urges for brotherhood and aggression put them at odds with modern society. With this being the case, is it any wonder some flock to the Middle East? The jihadis, whatever else they may be, are the only group on earth actively trying to tear down modernity.The more aware members of the Western intelligentsia understand that they are threatened by groups such as these. They are threatened by the greater birthrates of Muslims and Mormons, which mean that an increasing share of the population will hold what are to them “backward” beliefs. Whether they want to admit it or not, they (and we) are also threatened by the guns and knives and bombs of the Islamists, and the masses of “regular” Muslims who tacitly and not-so-tacitly support such violence. Yet such members of the political elite seem to think that with enough exposure, our “freedoms” will convert such groups to “our” way of life. Under this thinking, exposure to the consumeristic and sexual and entertainment opportunities of the West will cause Muslims and Mormons and other religious groups to slowly let their religiosity and conservatism fade away. Never mind the fact that this requires more and more of our children to grow up to be prostitutes, strippers, homosexuals, and investment bankers. What is even more pressing is the basic moral premise this brings--that we should pin our hopes on pleasure, decadence, consumption, and weakness.With such a strategy being the increasing modus operandi of Western nation-states, I will take my cue from the Mormons and jihadis, and embrace a life of procreation, heritage, guns, and poetry. My version won’t be Muslim or Mormon, but the constants are the same. And when the civil war does start in Europe, I and those like me will actually have lives worth fighting for.  Can the liberal multiculturalists say the same? Julian Langness is the author of the upcoming memoir Fistfights With Muslims In Europe: One Man’s Journey Through Modernity, Culture, Masculinity, and Violence, coming out in the fall of 2015. To receive excerpts and updates, please email fistfightsbook@gmail.com to be added to Julian’s mailing list.

1. Hegghammer, Thomas. “Why Terrorists Weep”. Paul Wilkinson Memorial Lecture. University of St. Andrews. 16 Apr. 2015.  Web. 16 Jun. 2015. http://hegghammer.com/ (PDF)
2. Creswell, Robyn and Bernard Haykel. “Battle Lines”. Newyorker.com. 8 Jun. 2015. Web. 16 Jun. 2015. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/08/battle-lines-jihad-creswell-and-haykel
3. Nasiri, Omar. Inside the Jihad. Basic Books. 2006. Print.
4. Haglund, Kristine. “Why Mormon Men Love Church-ball and are Scared of Homosexuality”. Religionandpolitics.com. 10 Sep. 2012. Web. 16 Jun. 2015. http://religionandpolitics.org/2012/09/10/why-mormon-men-love-church-ball-and-are-scared-of-homosexuality/
5. Harris, Lee. The Suicide Of Reason: Radical Islam’s Threat To The West. Basic Books. 2007. 260. Print.
6. Donovan, Jack. The Way of Men. Dissonant Hum. 2012. Kindle.
7. Raphael, Chris. “Politically Incorrect: A Eulogy”. Thebigstory.org. Undated. Web. 16 Jun. 2015. http://thebigstory.org/ov/ov-politicallyincorrect.html
8. Creswell, Robyn and Bernard Haykel. “Battle Lines”. Newyorker.com. 8 Jun. 2015. Web. 16 Jun. 2015. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/08/battle-lines-jihad-creswell-and-haykel

The View From Olympus: The Charleston Tragedy

Charleston, South Carolina, is one of my favorite cities. I spent some time there in February of this year, fleeing the Cleveland winter. The history, the architecture, and the food combine to make it everything a city should be. Not surprisingly, it is a model for the New Urbanism, a movement I have been involved in almost from its beginnings. No city or large town could go far wrong by patterning itself after Charleston.Another nice thing about Charleston, perhaps in part a product of its beauty, is that race relations seem good. During my several visits there, I have never felt endangered by crime, nor encountered any hostility from blacks. Quite the opposite: black Charlestonians have been just as friendly and welcoming as whites.The murder of nine black citizens of Charleston in their church during Bible study by a young white male is thus especially hard to take. Of all the places where something like this should not have happened, Charleston heads the list. Unless, of course, the killer was motivated to hit Charleston because black-white relations there are good. If so, that makes the act all the more appalling.As Thomas Hobbes perpetually reminds us, life's first and most basic social requirement is order. Order is what the state arose to provide, and it remains the state's most important function. Conservatism, too, has order and safety of persons and property as its most important goal, something Russell Kirk made clear over and over again.Any strike against order is therefore something conservatives deplore. When it comes in the form of a massacre of innocent people, whether in Charleston or in Colorado or in Norway, conservatives do more than sorrow. They rightly raise the question of why the state did not do a better job of providing order. That includes preventing nut cases from getting a hold of guns. The Founding Fathers did not intend the right to keep and bear arms to apply to the inhabitants of Bedlam.The fact that the target in Charleston was a black church and its members added another dimension to the assault on order. The best hope the black urban community has of replacing the culture of instant gratification now prevalent among many young urban blacks with a functional culture, a culture that promotes rather than undermines order, is the black church. That means whites should be just as interested in the health and well-being of black Christianity as should blacks. The lack of safety of persons and property in the black inner city hurts all Americans, regardless of color. It imposes massive costs on our society.All these considerations come together to raise the question of whether the Charleston massacre was an act of Fourth Generation war. As we have seen elsewhere in the world Fourth Generation elements fighting the state often use mass murder as a tool, because the murder of a lot of innocent people shows the state as impotent and thus undermines its legitimacy. In the Charleston case, the facts that the violence was interracial, and apparently racially motivated, and that the target was a church, a source and symbol of order, makes the question all the more acute.We do not yet know enough to answer it. It may be that the killer is simply nuts. He fits a pattern we have seen in other such mass shootings, of a nerdy, isolated kid who loses touch with reality and becomes a monster. It would not be surprising to find he was addicted to violent video games, as was Breivik in Norway and a number of other shooters. Conservatives should be in the lead in asking whether such games should be banned.But if Roof had thought out his crime in Fourth Generation terms, then it is a warning sign that matters are moving in a wrong and dangerous direction. The U.S. government's top national security goal must be preventing 4GW on our own soil. As we are seeing in Charleston, it may be that the church rather than the state is the institution best able to damp down the emotions that feed 4GW and, more broadly, disorder. So, fervently, should we pray.

The Frankfurt School Meets Brave New World

Like the fog, Brave New world continues to creep in on little cat feet. I was unexpectedly enveloped in a bank of it while reading, of all things, the Science Times supplement in the June 2 New York Times. The piece, titled  "Study Suggests Sleeping One's Way Past Bias", begins,  "It may be possible to reduce biases regarding race and gender while a person sleeps. . . "These "biases" are actually the recognition of facts. The two facts which are to be removed from people's brains while they sleep are, in this case, the fact that men and women are different and the fact that both races and ethnic groups within races, taken as wholes, have different characteristics. Thesa facts are, of course, Politically Incorrect^TM.The short Times piece goes on to describe the techniques of psychological conditioning that appear effective in obliterating  these facts.

Research had shown that biases could be reduced with a technique called counterstereotype training. . .Study participants were shown images . . . of women  and African-American men. When participants were shown images of women alongside scientific words, and African-American men alongside pleasant words, they were asked to press a button labeled "Correct" (i.e., Politically Correct). A sound followed.

Then, while study participants napped, the sounds were played back to them, and after their naps the hapless saps so bombarded  “showed a reduction in bias," i.e., a loss of ability to grasp reality.This wonderful discovery comes straight out of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, where humans were reduced to mechanisms through a combination of genetic and psychological conditioning. The conditioning techniques are sufficiently effective that very few people escaped them. They were also all-pervasive.But someone else was on to psychological conditioning in the 1930s, when Huxley wrote his book. Who? None other than the men of the Frankfurt School, those bright folks who gave us cultural Marxism, aka Political Correctness and multiculturalism. Realizing that their Marxist ideology had little future if it depended on reasoned argument, they decided that psychological conditioning would be their weapon of choice. Their disciples now practice endless conditioning techniques on us all, through the schools and universities, through the video screen media, and, it seems, through "scientific" experiments reported in the New York Times. Directors of North Korean prison camps, take note.The cultural Marxists believe their ideology can, with enough conditioning behind it, overcome reality. It will not any more than other ideologies did. But the attempt has already done vast damage to Western societies, leaving them unmoored, forgetful of who they are and unable, on the moral level of war, to defend themselves. When reality returns, it will do so with a crash.But what is repellant about the Times story is not just the ideological claptrap being shoved into the study's subjects' brains. What repels us, or should, is the whole idea of conditioning itself.Conditioning is fundamentally dehumanizing. Man was created to be a reasoning creature. Reason may be the ability that makes men most like God. Conditioning cuts reason out  of the loop. Someone who has been sucessfully conditioned cannot reason about the content of his conditioning. His own mind prevents him. A powerful feeling of doing something wrong, something bad, rises if he begins to question what has been planted in his head--in the case of the experiment reported here, even while he slept.We see again why conservatism is the negation of all ideologies, and with them the hideous methods adopted for their inculcation. Conservatives know that truth is attained only through a combination of faith and reason. We believe that schooling and culture should teach people how to reason, how to reach valid judgments based on facts. It should not surprise us that all ideologies suppress facts and forbid reason at least on certain matters. It should surprise us that the New York Times welcomes another step toward Brave New World.

This is the World You Chose: Episode 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZyxqu9oIDkIf this were set in North America, it could be a trailer for the film adaptation of Victoria. Although the U.S. is not quite as far along, we are certainly on the same path to collapse as Europe. Learn as much as you can about 4GW now; our mastery of the art is the only thing that can propel us to something better.