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I’m back from Washington, and I have an announcement for readers of the blog: Eunomia will be shifting over to The American Conservative’s site here. This will be the last post at this site (the redirect will be set up soon), and all future Eunomia blogging will be at TAC.
Perhaps, but having a trio of “philosopher-bloggers” talk about the fortunes and future of the conservative intellectual movement is not blogging. I will be at CPAC for an ISI-sponsored Friday panel from 1:00-3:00 in Congressional Room A.
P.S. It appears that the President will also be coming to CPAC on Friday. That should be an interesting sight.
My apologies for the last few days. As you would have seen had you checked in the last few days, the site used up its bandwidth allowance for the month and was just re-set a moment ago. Elsewhere, I have some new posts. Specifically, at Taki’s Top Drawer I have three new posts on McCain, Huckabee’s foreign policy, and some random thoughts on that apocryphal “better to be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian” quote we have seen so often in recent months.
The latest TAC is online. In it Austin Bramwell has an utterly devastating review of Goldberg’s book:
Instead, lacking even the excuse of ignorance, he chose to sling the term “fascism” around as casually as the most vulgar leftist. It does not speak well of Goldberg that, by his own admission, he wrote his first book not to enlighten but to exact revenge.
You’ve waited for it, and now here it is: First Principles, ISI’s web journal, is online.
Considering how little of any real worth he contributes, I’ve never understood why Jamie Kirchick has been part of respectable conversation, but I haven’t made much of an issue out of it. If he would like to continue embarrassing himself with this pathetic obsession, that’s his business.
Since last May, Eunomia has added another 1,300 posts. Since the blog began over three years ago, I have been averaging about 1,600 per year. I hope you continue to find Eunomia worthwhile and interesting reading in the future, and I will strive to keep producing commentary worthy of your attention. Thanks to everyone who has helped make Eunomia a success, especially the regular readers and commenters.
Have I forgotten to mention that I have an article on the crazed primary schedule in this month’s Chronicles? If I have, I apologise. The current issue has some excellent contributions. I particularly recommend Dr. Fleming’s article on a politics driven by interests.
This may be my last post in 2007. As always with Eunomia, you can never be sure that a blogging hiatus will, in fact, be a hiatus, but I do intend to keep it to a minimum. Tomorrow I begin my trek home for Christmas, and I probably won’t be checking in while on break. This is what the blog-as-pastime has become: something from which sane people must take extended vacations. Ilyen az elet. Merry Christmas to you all, and Happy New Year! S Rozhdestvom i S Novim Godom!
Today has been a strange day. The day began with Mitt Romney, which was bad enough. (I am working on a column on the Romney/anti-Mormonism topic, so I am going to hold off on commenting on the subject for a while.) Driving to work, I was side-swiped by a van that was dodging out of the way of one of Chicago’s many horrible taxi drivers. Let’s just say that my car has looked better. As I walked in to lecture this morning, the seats of the lecture hall were festooned with Ron Paul brochures (and I had nothing to do with putting them there–the Revolution flourishes at UIC on its own). This afternoon I received an automated call from New York City telling me to apply for a Post Office job. Apparently, the Post Office is hiring in New York right now. I’ve heard of some pretty weird wrong numbers, but this is ridiculous.
We Magyars of the world are mighty disappointed. “Is France a country?” she asked. Well, yes, and in France they have people who are just as ignorant about other things.
Via Stephen Pollard
I wish all of my readers and colleagues a very happy Thanksgiving. There will likely be no more blogging over the holiday weekend, and at least for the next few days all of us should be doing something more edifying or at least more sane than blogging and reading blogs.
The latest TAC is now online. Articles available online are Kelley Beaucar Vlahos’ good cover story on private military contractors, Peter Hitchens on North Korea, Kara Hopkins’ devastating review of Gerson’s Heroic Conservatism, plus Leon Hadar and my column on Islamofascism.
Congratulations to my readers:
Not that I put much stock in these measurements of blogs, but of the blogs and sites I checked only The American Scene, What’s Wrong With the World, Dan McCarthy’s blog, the group blog Exit Strategies and The New Atlantis receive the same result. I hope this is at least partly a measure of the quality of Eunomia and not simply a function of my sometimes difficult and long-winded writing style.
November 5 wasn’t just an outstanding day for Ron Paul’s fundraising–it was also the issue date for the latest TAC. The new issue has Michael’s report on the New Atheists, James Bovard on Bush and torture, Dan McCarthy on Barry Goldwater, Jim Antle on Obama, my column on the genocide resolution and much more.
Incidentally, while I’m on a somewhat related subject I’d like to state once more that V for Vendetta was an absolutely terrible movie. The one downside for Ron Paul in having this fundraising effort on 5 November is that many news stories inevitably include references to Vendetta, which might give the impression that Ron Paul fans are also fans of really bad, dystopian pseudo-anarchist fantasies. We are not, or at least some of us are not.
Naturally, in keeping with Ron Paul’s excellent disinterest in mass media products, he hasn’t seen the movie.
But every time you are somewhere that means you are not somewhere else. ~Fred Thompson
Before it became a tourist trap for lunatics and sci-fi geeks, I used to live in Roswell when I was very young. Unfortunately, after the “incident” became fodder for crackpots Roswell eventually decided to capitalise on its odd reputation, and a “museum” was opened up (followed by a painfully non-New Mexican show on the WB that seemed intent on reminding us just how far removed from New Mexico the show actually was). Since taking the helm in Santa Fe, old Bill has made it something of a pet cause to “get to the bottom” of the “incident.” He has continued in this fine tradition:
If he wins his bid for the White House, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson may be just the man to get to the bottom of the 60-year-old Roswell UFO mystery.
My hunch is that Richardson is just trying to be his usual, crowd-pleasing, avuncular self in this case. Even so, he does keep talking about it often enough that you begin to wonder whether he’s serious.
Sullivan points out that the Atheist Alliance International has chosen a symbol for atheists:
Atheists Who Are, Unfortunately, On Earth
Atheists In Space!
The November Chronicles looks excellent, as usual. There are several good articles on conservation by Dr. Landess, Tobias Lanz and Gregory McNamee. Mark Shea has a fine piece on the miraculous and the materialist dogmatism of Matthew Parris. There is much more besides that, and I do also happen to have a book review of Colin Well’s Sailing from Byzantium in the same issue.
After an awful lot of genocide and genocide resolution blogging, I will fortunately be away from Eunomia for a while. Tonight the CSO is putting on a performance of Mahler’s 6th Symphony. It’s not exactly a symphony that inspires light-heartedness, but it is a promising diversion all the same.
P.S. The Wiki entry’s reference to the “shatteringly pessimistic…outcome” cheers me up a bit.
Call me a cynic, but it seems to me that the significance of winning the Nobel Peace Prize in these latter days bestows as much credibility and glory on the recipient as “winning” the Darwin Awards. That is, not very much at all. It is therefore strange that anyone should care that Al Gore has won the prize. For people who already admire Al Gore, this is a nice trinket that confirms why they admire him; for everyone else on earth, it is pretty meaningless.
Even so, this is a rather strange post, since it links to a page that records massive melting of the northern polar ice cap while also recording massive ice expansion in Antarctica. I suppose the upshot is that the two phenomena might seem to balance out, but if the goal is to say, “Global warming isn’t happening, la la la la la,” linking to this information doesn’t really get the job done. What the information seems to show is that global warming isn’t having the same effects at both poles at the same time (and skeptics, including myself, will note that it was only a few years ago that everyone was freaking out over the disappearance of the Antarctic ice shelf). That doesn’t necessarily mitigate or deny effects of climate change on countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Of course, what remains to be demonstrated for skeptics is why such change is inherently bad or worrisome.
Via Clark
And of course most bloggers are, um, not sunny and upbeat people, so it’s no surprise that a far more common approach is to ignore the “good” and hound the “bad.” ~Reihan
If I might add a characteristically gloomy and disgruntled addendum, the reason why bloggers ignore the “good” and hound the “bad” is, broadly speaking, the same reason why journalists “fail” to report the “good news” and tend to report the “bad news.” It’s all very well to encourage people on the right path, but it helps more if you keep them out of the ditch in the first place, and one way of doing that is to warn them off of the advice and counsel of those who have had an impressive record of being (in the opinion of the critic) very wrong. When error and injustice, or simply stupidity and ignorance, abound, it makes less sense to pat one another on the back in a mutual appreciation society and congratulate each other on our cleverness. Emphasising the ”good” has not been helped by the tendency of people with absolutely awful policy ideas to engage constantly in accentuating the positive (a.k.a., propaganda).
The reason why someone like, say, Joe Klein earned contempt of the netroots in the beginning is that he consistently advocated and espoused ideas that they regarded as absolutely terrible. From the perspective of the critic, it is not incumbent on him to make nice to someone who has routinely demonstrated bad judgement, but rather it is the latter’s job to make up for his past errors. Maybe the person in question is not going to be budged from his views–all the more reason to not waste any time trying positive reinforcement with an implacable opponent.
Critics aren’t parole officers who are overseeing the target’s rehabilitation. Indeed, in some sense, most blogger critics are not even trying to win over the target of their scorn (obviously), but are trying to persuade everyone else to stop listening to the person they are ridiculing. It’s just like heresiology: the goal is not so much to persuade the heresiarch that he has gone astray, since he has already been condemned for his stubborn persistence in error, but to alert everyone else to the danger of the heresiarch’s false teachings. We don’t read out the Synodikon just to give Nestorios a few posthumous kicks, but to remind the people to steer clear of his mistakes. On a much more mundane, much less significant level, blogging critics aren’t really concerned with vilifying this or that pundit or journalist–they are trying to warn other readers away from someone whose track record on the issues these critics care about is dreadful.
P.S. Reihan says at the end of his post:
Because Matt has an ironic sensibility, he understands why this approach fails.
But does it really “fail”? It doesn’t persuade the target of the criticism, but that was never the purpose of the criticism. No one engages in polemics as a means of persuasion of the target of the invective. Polemic is a device for rallying the faithful and demoralising the opposition. It is a device used to win over the undecided and the uninformed to one’s own side. The last thing that the polemicist–which is what many bloggers are–wants is to bother with winning over his opponent. First of all, he doesn’t think it very likely that this will happen, and more to the point the polemicist isn’t even speaking to him (even when he seems to be addressing him directly). The polemicist speaks to the audience watching the dispute: persuading them is what matters. To the extent that a Joe Klein (or a Michael O’Hanlon or whoever else) is regarded as less authoritative or worthy of attention by a larger number of people, this method not only has succeeded, but it has achieved exactly what it set out to achieve.
My mother is not an illegal immigrant. ~Sam Brownback
The GOP has unveiled the convention logo for next year:
Apparently the GOP is going to try to destroy 2008 before 2008 can destroy them. They’re taking Giuliani’s message to heart–stay on offense!
Is the message of this logo that the Republican Party is drunk (the stars)? Depressed (hence the blue)? Insane? Perhaps the message is that the party’s being chopped to pieces, or gradually erased from existence and disappearing into the background?
Past GOP convention logos have never been what anyone would confuse with aesthetically pleasing, but no recent one has been quite so ridiculous. Consider ‘04:
While it does appear as if the elephant is possibly threatening to step on the Statue of Liberty’s head, the elephant itself appears quite normal.
2000 was a year of a tame, sane blue elephant, which was nonetheless trampling on the flag:
While the year itself loomed overhead, the ‘96 convention had a much more subdued, reasonable-looking elephant.
I wasn’t able to find images for 1992 in Houston or for the 1988 New Orleans convention logo, but I did find this description for ‘88:
It consists of the stylized three-star elephant used by the Republican National Committee since 1968, with its back reshaped to represent the Superdome where the Republican delegates will gather next August.
It doesn’t sound that great, but almost anything would be better than the blue rampaging freak of nature on display this time.
Apparently, I’m Lucius Vorenus, which makes a lot of sense.
TAC’s 9/10 issue is available online, including my column on Obama and foreign policy. Also online are Jim Pinkerton’s cover essay on a revived Christendom, Michael’s article on Huckabee, and Fred Reed’s column. The print issue has some very good pieces as well, such as Clark Stooksbury’s review of Elites for Peace and Trita Parsi on the causes of U.S.-Iranian rivalry.
And I thought I had trouble when I was a kid with people who couldn’t spell my last name properly. This is just bizarre. Good to know that the Chavistas are tackling the crucial problems of the day.
Via The Plank
Below are belated links to many articles that will be of interest to regular Eunomia readers:
Now online from recent TAC issues:
From the current online issue: Prof. Kurth’s fine article on the effects of demographic change on foreign policy and international order, Nicholas von Hoffmann on Clinton, Michael on the Christian Zionists of CUFI, Paul Belien on the effects of past immigration amnesties in the Netherlands, Claude Salhani on Chinese electronic and satellite warfare and Pat Buchanan on the “ideological war.”
From the previous issue: John O’Sullivan on immigration politics, Caleb Stegall’s much-discussed review of Deep Economy, Paul Robinson on the “surge,” and James Bovard on legal challenges to administration detention and torture policies. I have previously mentioned Michael’s article on Rick Santorum and William Lind’s argument for rapprochement with Iran, but I’ll list them again anyway.
New in the last couple of weeks at the Chronicles’ site:
Dr. Trifkovic has a new article on the demographic impact of current immigration levels, another on Pakistan, another on Kosovo, and another on the current situation in Iraq. Mr. Buchanan writes on U.S. de-industrialisation, and writes here on the Newark killings and here on Karl Rove. Paul Craig Roberts writes on China and U.S. media hyping “the China threat.” From the August issue, Fr. Hugh Barbour has an article on Josef Pieper and liberality as the basis of culture. Here is Tom Piatak on Harvey Mansfield’s “Straussian piffle.”
Strange but true: the Stars and Bars adorn this Pakistani fruit-seller’s stand (via Cliopatria). What’s Urdu for Deo Vindice?
Take two from the world-famous Miss Teen South Carolina:
Personally, my friends and I, we know exactly where the United States is on our map. We don’t know anyone else who doesn’t, and if the statistics are correct, I believe there should be more emphasis on geography and our education, so people will learn to read maps better.
We already know that Reihan doesn’t like Ramachandra Guha’s new book, so what would he make of his utterly bizarre op-ed (via Chapati Mystery) from a couple weeks ago? His op-ed told me that Mr. Guha does not much care for Punjabi landlords or crowds of Pakistani Muslims. Very enlightening.
For those keeping track, another August 22 has passed without any sudden world-ending apocalypse, just as it passed without incident last year. I’m sure that comes as a relief to all of us.
ChroniclesMagazine.org is having their fundraising drive. Support the outstanding work they do there and help cover up Frum’s face.
Is it just me, or is this Yglesias post about his first ever visit to West Virginia this weekend really strange? I suppose it’s really not that important, but it strikes me as a little unusual that someone who has been living in D.C. for years would have never gone to, or at least through, West Virginia at some point at least once. This jumped out at me since I have driven through WV at least six times in the last ten years, and I was usually starting a bit farther away than Washington. A New Yorker-inspired joke might be appropriate at this time.
Poulos’ predicted showdown now has a soundtrack and video starring Obama Girl (via Sullivan).
Intensive Arabic has been going pretty well, but as we are now on Day 18 of 45 I have started to feel a little run down. In fact, after reading a short article about a Dubai Islamic studies graduate student today, I just so happened to find a UAE dirham in my pocket that had been given to me in change for my tea earlier that day. The single dirham coin is the same shape and colour as a quarter, so it might easily pass for one if the cashier didn’t look closely enough. When I first saw it, I thought I had started hallucinating Arabic writing on money. That may give you a sense of my state of mind. The good news is that I can make out everything on the coin.
Tomorrow we finish the equivalent of one nine-week quarter of elementary Arabic. Subhan’allah. It has not been as overwhelming as I expected, but it will be getting more demanding as we go forward. My initial promises of no blogging were a bit premature, but they were not entirely false. There is a class I have to start preparing for the fall, dissertation chapters to write, plus the column. I will try to keep my different blog homes updated as and when I can, but I can make no guarantees about the regularity of posting.
Regardless, go take a look at my first column (not online) in the July 2 TAC.
I have some new Scene posts on: Alan Wolfe’s attack on Russell Kirk, the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, Bill Bennett’s ideas about history teaching. In addition, there are my post on foreign policy traditions, my two most recent criticisms of the Fred Phenomenon, comments on consolidation, a post on the Pashtuns, a Fourth of July week reflection on the Loyalists, and my remarks on an article in Foreign Policy on the “ideology of development.”
As many of you may already know, this week Ross will be blogging from the “Ideas Festival” in Aspen whose content I hope is not nearly so odd as its name. He tells us that the main events begin tonight and continue thereafter. Many of the participants whose names are familiar don’t seem that interesting to me (I do so anxiously await hearing about the contributions from Rahm Emanuel and Jim Wallis), but perhaps the gap will be filled by the others. Queen Noor might give a stemwinder about Palestine, which would at least make for some fireworks.
The “blog rating” system, using the categories of the MPAA, provides some amusement, though its standards are so rigorous that all but the most fastidious would be likely to have some number of objectionable words in them. For instance, National Review’s The Corner received an NC-17 rating. Meanwhile, Eunomia and The American Scene both received G ratings.
At the Scene, I have some new posts on Kurdistan, the continuing diversity debate, and finally one in which I attempt (apparently to no good effect) a joke about trite political rhetoric.
From George Ajjan and another commenter at the Scene, I have learned that the Arabic for blog is mudawwinah. You never know when a piece of information like that may be useful.
The new American Scene is up and it is looking good (or tayyib, to use a word I have heard about 100 times in the last week). My first posts there should be up before too long.
Starting tomorrow, a massive group blog headed by the one and only Reihan will take over where the team of Douthat and Salam left off at The American Scene. The site will be redesigned, there will be a cast of thousands (okay, more like a dozen or so) and, most importantly, it will still retain Reihan’s idiosyncratic and fun style. Along with many far more worthy, entertaining and interesting colleagues, I will also be joining the Scene. Some of the faces, or rather names, will be familiar to you, and some will be relatively new or unknown, but I think it should be a very good mix. In his characteristically broad and eclectic way, Reihan has drawn in friends and associates from across the spectrum and from across different areas of interest. The new American Scene–it’s not just for policy geeks and indy rock fans anymore!
Well, don’t I feel stupid! The Rumi referred to in my Arabic workbook is Ibn al-Rumi, a fact which I completely ignored as I was writing my earlier post. That would explain why they refer to him as being of Byzantine background, because Ibn al-Rumi was of Greek descent and did live in the 9th century.
In fairness, this Ibn al-Rumi was, as I have discovered, a native of Baghdad and has a rather indirect connection to Rum in any case. This makes the claim about a “Byzantine background” for him a little odd. Next time, I’ll be a bit slower to jump to conclusions. Such are the perils of the blog.
Young Zeitlin continues to impress (even though I suspect Ms. Franke-Ruta will not be pleased with the comparison).
Am I only the only blogger/writer/person with a pulse in America who has never watched a single episode of The Sopranos? It seems to be the case. However, I have been unable to avoid the avalanche of post-series finale commentary, which seems to be literally everywhere. From all of this I have gleaned that David Chase is very clever, the show was apparently well done and I have absolutely zero interest in watching it in the future. Michael gives his impressions here.
Meghan O’Rourke didn’t have to do much to convince me that the diamond engagement ring tradition is a sham, since I have come to instinctively, viscerally loathe diamond sellers and their horrible, manipulative marketing. (Yes, all marketing is manipulative by design, but there has to be a limit somewhere.) Forget all of the elaborate talk of gender equity–it’s a scam, pure and simple, and the fewer people who are parties to it the better. It seems to me that buying a diamond ring signals to the woman not so much everlasting devotion as it announces to her and anyone else around, “I am easily conditioned and will do what the people on TV tell me to do.” Perhaps this is what prospective brides are looking for–how should I know?
WORK FOR THE HARDEST-HITTING MAGAZINE IN AMERICA!
Chronicles is seeking a full-time, on-site assistant editor/editorial assistant.
Successful candidates will
—possess superior grammatical skills
—have some experience with copyediting and/or proofreading
—be familiar with Chronicles
—not be offended by the rich smell of pipe and cigar smokeSend résumé to:
Assistant Editor Position
Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture
928 North Main Street
Rockford, Illinois 61103Applicants may also send letters off inquiry and résumés via e-mail to: jobs@chroniclesmagazine.org.
Thanks to the invitation of Dr. Ralph Luker, in the near future I will also be starting blogging at History News Network’s Cliopatria. It is a group blog of historians and history students, who cover all manner of topics from the strictly academic to the contemporary political scene, offering an historical perspective on current events. I am looking forward to it.
Finally, after all these years of hard work and sacrifice…a break! ~The Writer/Comedian (Bill Murray), The Lost City*
Later this summer, I will have a review of Colin Wells’ Sailing from Byzantium in Chronicles. Here is the table of contents for the May issue, which has, in addition to many fine meditations on the importance of property rights and the dangers to them, a good Joe Sobran piece on George Will and the state of conservatism and Joseph Fallon’s article on the military buildup for a potential attack on Iran. The June issue considers the phenomenon of Americanism. In that issue, Dr. Fleming smashes a number of standard “conservative” idols in his “Establishing Christian America”:
If America were, in fact, a basically Christian or moral nation, Hollywood would be out of business, and so would most colleges and universities.
Among many other excellent contributions, the June issue also has an article by George Ajjan on the question of “foreign fighters” entering Iraq and Iraqi and American border security.
TAC has its new May 21 issue out, which is now online. The following issue will have a piece I have written on neoliberalism (as well as Michael’s profile of Ron Paul), and the issue after that one should see the beginning of my regular column there.
*Like The Writer/Comedian, I am kidding about the hard work and sacrifice.
Since some liberals have (only half-jokingly) sometimes spoken of Obama in messianic terms, and his childhood associations with Islam have become fodder for discussion, it is probably not helpful to him to talk about him by using Muad’Dib references. (Link via Yglesias)
Young Zeitlin has some interesting thoughts on liberaltarianism. He is also wise beyond his years.
As a young fogey who supports the aspirations of whippersnapper bloggers (isn’t that a redundant description?) to trouble the more esteemed and well-known pundits, I point you to the blog of Matt Zeitlin:
I’m a high school student in Oakland, California. I have zero qualifications to write about anything of importance besides the fact that I have a computer, internet access and spend too much time reading. I am Mickey Kaus’ Worst Nightmare.
In the way it is often used, whippersnapper carries the connotation of obstreperous youths showing no respect to their elders, and this is how Kaus has used it, but the word often actually refers to someone of no importance (at least in the eyes of the person labeling him a whippersnapper) presuming to have a certain importance. It is in one sense a perfect word to use for all bloggers, who are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty insignificant and who also presume to hold forth on matters great and small, but it might just as well be applied to all columnists and pundits. An important part of good blogging, it seems to me, involves reminding better-known pundits and columnists that they are not necessarily all that important and authoritative and that they have no monopoly on driving the debate.
Since August 2006, Eunomia has increased by over 1,900 posts. That’s an average of 250 posts per month since last August. Since Eunomia began in December ‘04, it has averaged 120 posts per month. Here’s to the next 3,500.
My colleagues continue to do fine work at What’s Wrong With The World, and I am pleased that my initial effort over there seems to have been generally well-received. Thanks to that post, Mark Shea and Ross have proposed a showdown between me and Christopher Hitchens. Actually, I think Douglas Wilson is doing just fine without any help from me, and makes the crucial point (the one that atheists will contend against until their last breath because they know a large part of argument hinges on it) that if the atheists are right about God then there is no transcendent moral order, no imperatives of justice or requirements of conscience that are any less subjective or arbitrary or more authoritative than the “man-made religions” Hitchens ridicules. Morality is then not only purely conventional and contractual, but inevitably exists only as a function of social control by the few over the many for the benefit of the former. Hitchens has in no way remedied the control of thought and act that he finds so obnoxious in religious societies, but has simply denied the religious legitimisation of this control.
Hitchens’ exquisite moralistic outrage at the crimes of the religious or at least the nominally religious is all very interesting, until you consider the problem that there is nothing authoritative or meaningful or ultimately important about the morality he claims to defend (not that this devotion to this morality stops him from backing wars of aggression and lionising communist murderers, but, hey, nobody’s perfect). Men who do not fear God, because they think He does not exist, will usually have no compunctions against committing the most horrific atrocities, along with a whole range of crimes, if they believe they have sufficient self-interest to do so. If atheists were right, and there is very often no justice here below, the morality that condemns the genocidaire and praises the almsgiver is as ephemeral and ultimately meaningless as the religious rites they regard as absurd. In such a world, one man’s genocidaire becomes another man’s national hero and, if the atheist is right, there is nothing to which men can appeal as an ultimate authority against such depredations (except to the entirely arbitrary conscience of other people, who would feel no sense of moral obligation to help anyway).
Human dignity quickly evaporates when man becomes concerned with survival and naked interest, as men usually will when they have no vision of the eternal before their eyes, whether it is a Dean Barnett talking about “getting our hands dirty” or a Stalin talking about making omelettes. Monistic materialism, which is the inevitable destination of an atheist, cannot invest man with any special dignity; theoretically, he would be no more morally significant than the bacteria we kill off with disinfectant. The paths to a thousand genocides are opened, because men are already prone to such deeds and without some confidence that these things are not only absolutely wrong but the cause of damnation the temptations of power will very often win out over what native goodwill may reside in fallen, unilluminated men. To this the atheist, if he is honest, will happily agree and say, “That’s just the way it is. Get used to it.” But not only does no sane person want to live in such a world, our very natural horror in the face of such things tells us that a world entirely without meaning cannot be the reality.
It is not precisely the purpose of revelation to bring ethics to the world (though the life of virtue is tied together with participation in divine Life), and it was certainly not the main feature of Christ’s life and work to be an ethics instructor, but to bring life to the world, yet without God ordering the cosmos and giving men the just fruits of their works in eternity there is no particular reason to regard one ethos as more desirable than another, except by some arbitrary and equally man-made standard that can be challenged, deconstructed and subverted by means of the reason that built it up. Paradox and mystery stand beyond the ken of reason, and so offer man the hope of meaning that cannot be emptied of content.
Take a look at the newly redesigned Chronicles website, including Dr. Trifkovic on the recent French presidential election, Dr. Wilson’s latest, Dr. Fleming on the war, and the table of contents for the May issue.
In America, even the Satanists embrace triangulation. ~Reihan
Viewed another way, though, this might be the ultimate confirmation that triangulation is just the sort of diabolical method that some of us have always considered it to be.
At first, I thought my improved rank in the TTLB ecosystem had something to do with the greater attention Eunomia had received lately (and, of course, all the fine content that you are being provided). It seems that I was kidding myself. The entire ranking system seems to have gone haywire. I was alerted to just how wrong things were when I noticed a few impossibilities: Don Surber was in the top ten, and Instapundit, Michelle Malkin and The Corner had all dramatically dropped into insignificance. Goodness knows we all hope for such a day, but I think we have to assume that there was a major glitch somewhere.
In future, keep an eye on the new group blog to which I will be contributing. It is called What’s Wrong With The World, and it is the successor of Enchiridion Militis.
Update: My first WWWTW post, responding to the first excerpt of Christopher Hitchens’ atheist/anti-religious tract, is now up.
Many thanks to both Dr. Ralph Luker and Peter Klein for kindly tagging Eunomia with the Thinking Blogger Award. Each named Eunomia as one of the “five blogs that make me think” on the same day. It is gratifying to know that Eunomia has such respect as a worthy and interesting blog in the eyes of the readers. The award began here. It is now my turn to tag five other blogs. For those I tag, the rules are:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).
In no particular order, I tag: James Poulos’ Postmodern Conservative, The American Scene, Gene Expression, In Media Res and Leon Hadar.
Thinking Blogger: Not necessarily a contradiction in terms!
I am reminded of that memorable line from Cameron Crowe’s Singles when I look at the breakdown of my readership. According to Alexa, Jordan, Egypt and the UAE still provide approximately one-fifth of my readers, and Bulgaria provides another 6%. It was encouraging to find in a set of other statistics for the site that I had received visits from such diverse places as Ethiopia, Armenia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, the Maldives and French Polynesia (and, yes, Belgium and Italy, too). You are all most welcome.
The ISI/Liberty Fund colloquium for graduate students on federalism and constitutionalism held at the Russell Kirk Center in Mecosta was a great time. We had two fine discussion leaders in Profs. Carey Roberts and Jim Bond and an interesting mix of law, history and political philosophy students to work through some choice readings from The Federalist, Anti-Federalist writings, the Hayne-Webster debate, Calhoun and more modern texts (sections of the European Constitution and several Court rulings of the past decade or so). I had the privilege and honour of meeting Mrs. Kirk at the Center, and she was good enough to have us into her home on a couple of occasions. She is a charming and engaging lady, and a great hostess. The Center certainly keeps her busy–she was in Indianapolis last week, where Rod Dreher, Max Goss and others spoke, and as I understood it she will be at another ISI event next week as well.
As a Byzantinist, I was something of the amateur among those who did their work on political theory and American history, but I enjoyed being part of the discussions both during and after the sessions. I also made a trip over to the used bookstore there in town, finding a few nice volumes, including the reminiscences of Anna Dostoevsky and a Defoe title I had never heard of before. The weekend was very pleasant, and I look forward to a chance to do something like that again, though I will be glad to be through with the conference season in a few weeks. All of the events I have gone to this year have been excellent, but I will be glad to be traveling a little less after next month.
I’ll be away from Eunomia for a bit. Between work that needs to get done and another few weeks of traveling hither and thither, there just isn’t time right now for any more posting. There should be some interesting things to report from an ISI/Liberty Fund conference up at Mecosta later this week. We will be talking about federalism and constitutionalism. Regular posting may resume sometime next month, or perhaps a little sooner, depending on how quickly I can get some things done. Right now I have to get ready for my Sayat Nova session.
Update: Ross and Reihan will have lots of interesting things to say while they and Megan McArdle substitute for Andrew Sullivan during his vacation, so go read them while I’m away.
My traffic rankings in the UAE and Egypt are excellent, and my readers from there evidently currently constitute almost one-fifth of my readership. Is it the result of all the Nawal al-Zoghbi links I have been putting up lately? I don’t know.
This was good to see.
Update: It is also worth noting that today Pope Benedict shares a birthday with my mother. Happy Birthday, Mom!
Today I retrieved my car from impound, which is so far to the south that it is actually beyond the Southside and in that empty gap past the point where the two highways that previously made up the Dan Ryan split off from each other. The actual retrieval process was fairly easy, as such things go, though the possibilities for Kafkaesque delay were everywhere. Strangely, the cop who had issued me the ticket had told me that I needed to present proof of ownership to access my car at the impound, which was rather difficult…since my registration was in the car that had just been towed away. Fortunately, this guy was either just having me on (thinking that I was some New Mexican tourist because of my license plate) or enjoys misleading people or was himself confused about the procedure, since I needed no such proof, as I learned from the people at the lot when I called. Anyway, that little episode is over.
To help unwind at the end of the evening, I therefore offer this combination of Lebanese pop and salsa, which at least Michael should find amusing.
There’s no telling what you will discover in the world of foreign blogs. For instance, here is a striking post from a Syrian blog (via a link at George Ajjan’s blog) that revealed to me the existence of the Arabian oryx, a creature that I normally associate only with Africa and one that I honestly didn’t know existed.
What else do you not know about Syria?
Just try listening to Newt Gingrich as he butchers the Spanish language with one of the worst Yanqui accents you have ever heard. If you can endure more than a minute, you are truly heroic. As someone who has an appreciation for foreign languages properly spoken, and who strives to avoid hideously bad accents like this, I think Hispanics should regard this little display as far more insulting than any loose talk about ghettoes that prompted this painful speech. This display of horribly pronounced Spanish might convince all Hispanics that they should accept English as the official language of the United States, if only to make sure that they do not have to suffer more Anglo politicians attempting (and failing) to speak their language properly.
On the bright side, at least he didn’t cite Castro and talk about how inspiring a commie slogan was!
So I will leave this post as the tombstone for this ugly little blog that brought out the vilest in me and has now left me in deep shame for the rest of my life. ~Ilkka Kokkarinen, c. September 2006
Apparently, he got over the vileness and the shame, since he has been regularly blogging for the last month here beginning with this random post. I don’t hold it against the guy that he came back to blogging–she is a powerful mistress, as I well know–and I don’t mind that one of the sharper bloggers has returned to regular posting, but I do find it a bit odd that he departed from the ’sphere with the huffy self-righteousness of a grand opera prima donna who has screamed at the conductor that she would no longer work with such mediocri