Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For October 14, 2020

 Sept 18

To Andrew Latham and his blogpost that accuses Marx and Engels as being racists and of early founders of Marx as embracing slavery. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

I cannot speak much to racism in Marx except to say that what is written above does not make him stand out from either most leaders in America or from people like Tocqueville. Whereas Marx saw in Germany the hope for the future, Tocqueville saw in Great Britain the superior society. In addition, Tocqueville wrote about Blacks and Native Americans in similar ways as is being attributed to Marx and Engels above. And yet that seems to not have been important enough for Latham to mention. And unlike Tocqueville, Marx did not get to witness what was going on in the United States.

But as for slavery, Latham fails to mention Marx's relationship with Abraham Lincoln. It has been summarized as one where they communicated and Lincoln learned from Marx without becoming a Marxist (see  https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/07/27/you-know-who-was-into-karl-marx-no-not-aoc-abraham-lincoln/  ). Marx spoke against American slavery in class terms. He corrected the perception that London's media presented of our Civil War which was that of a battle between protectionism vs free trade. Marx said that it was about slavery (see  'The North American Civil War (October, 1961) in   https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/internationalist/pamphlets/MARX-on-Slavery-OptV5.pdf  ). In Marx's congratulatory letter to Lincoln for winning a second term, he criticized the South by calling it an 'oligarchy of 300,000 slave holders and described the Southern cause as 'property against labor' (see   https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm ). In 1861, Marx called slavery a horror (see  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/10/11.htm ).

Yes, Marx made more than just mistakes with some of his views, though it is very debatable whether those who committed great atrocities while claiming to represent him were actually following what he  wrote. Rosa Luxemburg, a socialist contemporary of Vladimir Lenin criticized Lenin's regime as imitating a bourgeoisie dictatorship in its structure and operation. Why she said that is the real issue. For Lenin did everything to ensure that proletariat rule would not be his way of governing Russia (see  https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm ). In fact, none of the big 3 leaders of the Russian Revolution were Proletariats. Rather, they led a vanguard movement equating themselves with Marx's revolution. We should note that it was their vanguardism, not Marx's teaching, that led to their tyrannical rule in Russia and we could say the same of Mao in China. We should note that because our 2 major political parties portray themselves as vanguards as well.

So why was the above article written. My guess is that it was written to inspire people to view Marx in all-or-nothing terms and thus to reject anything associated with Marx. And if I am correct, by doing so, Latham is speaking as an authoritarian which is something for which we should all condemn Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, and Castro for ruling like one.

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Sept 24

To Sir Roger Scruton and his article that heavily criticizes the replacement of classical music with avant-garde. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

The only problem that occurs when discussing the classical tradition and avant-garde is when we try to force a false dichotomy between the two onto the listener. Just because avant-garde might, in many cases, better express the world in which we have been living doesn't mean that we can dispose of all of the music from the past. Likewise, just because of the magnificent contributions and works of the classical period doesn't mean that we should disregard boundaries crossed by avant-garde music.

While Scruton uses the views of the music critic Robert Reilly to make his case. And while Scruton tries to establish Reilly's musical authority to speak on such matters by presenting him as a kind of Renaissance man, I would like to think that Leonard Bernstein also possesses significant enough credentials to speak about music. He talks favorably about Schoenberg's explorations and achievements while telling us that we cannot escape the past (see  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olwVvbWd-tg  ).

We see 12-tone scales and other more exploratory approaches to music in some Jazz artists. Why? it is because they believe that the rules and new boundaries set are tools rather than goals. After all, music is first about communication rather than about techniques and tools. Music, like all of the arts, are to reflect life rather than try to meet some idealistic standard.

And in reflecting life, music is a barometer for where we are as a people. Rather than criticize avant-garde, I would hope that Scruton would spend his time on what the overly simplistic approach to music that we see in pop music tells us about people in general. How the rejection of complexity in music indicates that we have a population that believes that life must simple. And in so believing, we see more and more people becoming unable to see reality for what it is because they cannot tolerate complexity. And that is where avant-garde comes in.  It has simply introduced more complexity and is overly criticized by some because they cannot accept that complexity.

Thus, there is no reason to either reject classical music or avant-garde or any other approach to music that tries to adequately reflect the the complexity that is so much a part of life in every age.

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Sept 24

To G. Shane Morris and his blogpost that claims that it is progressives, not evangelicals who are obsessed with sex. This appeared in the Troubler of Israel blog on Patheos.

IMO, the above article indicates that Morris is too defensive to understand the complaints made about us religiously conservative Christians. Here is the complaint, that in terms of legislation and politics, many religiously religiously conservative Christians are obsessed with controlling the sexual practices of fellow citizens, especially those who are unbelievers, while we say nothing about America's immoral wars and support the cutting of social safety nets by the government.

If we can disagree with other religions while fully supporting their right to meet and practice, how is it that we are unable to to disagree with the sexual practices of unbelievers while allowing them the freedom to follow their own sexual mores? The concern from many unbelievers isn't about us agreeing with their sexual practices and relationships. Rather it is about us imposing our sexual mores on them. For the most part, religiously conservative Christians have fought tooth and nail against full equality for the LGBT community. And we have done so partly because such equality would cause us to have more contact with them than we care to.

At the same time, many of us religiously conservative Christians express no qualms when our nation separates kids from parents and locks everyone up. Many of us show no concern about the cutting or reducing of social safety nets nor do we want to admit that there is systemic racism in our nation. We even cheer the sending of our troops into harm's way while sharply condemning as being unpatriotic those who oppose, or even question, our wars.

Certainly some of us believe that the Church should be in charge of helping the needy. But America's conservative Church has no such interest in helping everyone. Don't we understand why many conservative churches move out of urban areas into the suburbs? And yet some of us want the conservative Church to take care of all who are in need.

In addition, the note by Iain Lovejoy noted the problem with the field hospital.

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Oct 6

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that accuses CRT of suppressing dissent. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Odd that Clark would take one school's attempt to accommodate CRT and attribute that to CRT as a whole. I suspect that Clark's real objection is the basic tenet of CRT: that this nation was founded on and still revolves around white supremacy. I think that Clark denies that the nation is still based on white supremacy, as well as some other supremacies. The inclusion of other supremacies comes with the addition of Intersectionality.

In addition, CRT says that because of the current systemic racism that exists in this nation, we do have to review and even redefine some of our basic institutions.

Part of CRT is based on the works of Martin Luther King Jr. And here we should note that  King battled against a large white supremacist culture that, with the help of laws, enforced that white supremacy on this nation. Thus, racism wasn't only an individual sin, it was a corporate, societal sin. The response of color blindness forgets the disadvantages that systemic racism brought to many people of color. Thus color-blindness and meritocracy only furthered those disadvantages and inspired those who hold to hyperindividualism to continue to believe in white supremacy because they overlooked the disadvantages from which many people of color were performing with. Many liken all of that to a race where the starting line for those with privilege is significantly closer to the finish line than the starting line for those who have been marginalized. To then judge people based on when they cross the finish line might seem fair, but it is far from fair.

Thus, one has to question whether a person who opposes racism as an individual but does not oppose systemic or institutional racism is still adequately opposed to racism.

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Oct 13

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that celebrates the removing of the Pulitzer Prize from and criticism of the 1619 Project. This appeared in Heidelblog.

The key problem with  the 1619 Project was not with facts but the interpretation of the facts. It employed all-or-nothing thinking by reducing the founding of America to the issue of slavery.

The conservative reaction to the 1619 Project by some religiously conservative Christians often employs the same type of thinking. And the reason for that is partial conflation of Christianity with American Patriotism. This is seen in their use of the parallel of America's founding fathers to America with the Apostles to the Church. And in doing so, they put America's founding fathers, and America itself, on too high a pedestal.

As for why the American Revolution was fought, there was no one single issue. That the British were interfering with the colonialists westward expansion that would take land from the Native Americans is certainly  one reason. Defense of slavery was another reason why some of our founding fathers sought independence from England. How the Sommerset case was reported, especially with how the judges words about how slavery was not consistent with English law was taken out of context. Thus,, many wrongly thought that his decision spelled the end of slavery in England and the colonies. So it is quite reasonable to see that continued belonging to the UK posed a threat to slavery and thus provided another, but not the only, reason why some of the founding fathers, many of whom were slave owners, wanted to break away from England.

Of course those two reasons alone break the idealistic parallel that many religiously conservative American Christians want to maintain between the role that our nation's founding fathers played with the creation of American and the Apostles' role in establishing the Church.