Read on Friday, December 13, 2024:
“We must assert out of transparent honesty that apart from a transcendent basis for public order’s self-conception of itself being rooted in the natural law, societies are confronted with a nihilistic abyss. In other words, a materialist society lacks the necessary limitations from preventing moral anarchy to engulf it.” Faithful Reason by Andrew Walker (2024), page 329.
“Even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45. From Truth for Life by Alastair Begg (2021) and the December 13 daily devotional, page 355.
Mea Culpa
To hedge my bets, I’ve already asked Santa Claus and President Biden for a Christmas pardon. And based on history, I like my chances much more with President Biden. Santa hasn’t let me up for air since 1964 (when I was nine), and the President, in contrast, has no standards whatsoever.
Why do I need a pardon? Well, for a whole host of reasons (besides, it costs nothing to ask), but the main one is Praxis Circle has promised for years in our worldview discussions to stay as far away from politics as possible, and we completely failed in 2024. Politics has been just too tempting to avoid. The captain must go down with his ship.
The reason the apple was too tempting this year (it’s not my fault) is America has maybe never produced two leading presidential candidates with such contrasting worldviews, personalities, life experiences, histories, pathways to office, and, what is produced at the end of all of this: political platforms.
Truly, the November Election was a competition between diametrically and deeply opposing worldviews brewing within culture wars for at least 30 years, described as unbridgeable by this most recent book, its author credited for inventing the term “culture wars.”
President-Elect Trump’s worldview is a pragmatic, traditional American worldview, largely supported by classical liberalism and Judeo-Christianity; Vice President Harris’ is an idealistic universal worldview, largely supported by Marxism (now cultural Marxism), postmodernism (going by many prior names), and identitarianism (formerly social justice-ism and recently wokeness).
In other words, 2024 was classical, bourgeois New York City versus futuristic, transhuman San Francisco. For us Boomers, to be more specific, maybe it was the Upper East Side (via Queens) versus Haight-Ashbury (via Oakland, Berkeley, and Montreal).
Given PC operates from an orthodox American Christian worldview, we couldn’t write anything about the Election and remain completely neutral by implication or by tone. For this, I’m deeply sorry. (Kinda.)
If neither Santa nor President Biden will accept this apology, perhaps you, dear reader, might do so. (You could signal such forgiveness by making a small, last minute, year-end donation to PC via this link. PC supports many women and children.)
In any case, an excuse I can live with (again, it’s not my fault) is that there’s really no way to apply worldview in the public square without assessing how to use persuasion, power, and wealth to do good and avoid evil (the First Principle of Practical Reason [FPPR]—see the quote at the top, Faithful Reason, which will be our featured Book of the Month next week).
That’s what politics is: assessing how to use persuasion, power, and wealth for the common good.
But “my bad” of straying into politics doesn’t mean I believe our two primary presidential candidates are not sincere and very well-intended people. No, they aren’t bad folks, really, and I certainly don’t hate either one of them. In any case, love or hate him, President-Elect Trump saved America from chaos for now.
On the other hand, I do think we will come to see the 2024 Election as representing a mandate or turning point that will play out over most of the 21st century. The mandate involves three ideas that do warrant a strong Humbug: conservatism, capitalism, and sex.
“Wait a minute!” you say. “Many quite brilliant people come to you, like the famous Virginia Rebel Rob Smith (our PC board member Walter Smith’s brother), and say, ‘Doug, you don’t truly hate conservatism, capitalism, and sex. You love them.'”
Well, to Rob (and you) I respond, “Yes, like you, a UVA Cavalier, don’t truly hate the UNC Tar Heels and women.”
So, being you might have good reason for confusion, particularly if a new reader, let me explain these important points coming out of the 2024 Election in the rest of this post while augmenting my need for a pardon (and improving my chances, at least with President Biden).
Please, wish me luck.
Conservatism
What you have in the 1:22 clip at top is Sir Roger Scruton, whom some recognize as “the greatest conservative philosopher since Edmund Burke,” explaining the meaning of conservatism.
Hello?!
Clearly, regardless of your politics, this classic PC clip is worth the time. Having known Roger and studied him carefully for 20 years, I can say conservatism is about creating, sustaining, and preserving what community loves in a world where the good is difficult to produce and easily destroyed (social entropy being a natural phenomenon). It’s about truth, justice, and natural law, among other well-tested and understood goods.
So, why do I “hate” the word conservatism? Because the Far Left in the West has co-opted the world in an abusive fashion (like it did the word liberal) and turned it to serve its own regrettable purposes.
It pains me most when on the UNC-Chapel Hill or UVA campuses (my two schools) to hear students and faculty label themselves conservatives in order to survive the group conversation. It reminds me of Jews being forced to wear the yellow Star of David in Germany in the late 1930s. It’s why so few students (except those on the Left) will speak their mind in class or in public on campus. This is what happens when universities recruit nothing but Leftward, social justice-oriented faculty and students continuously for 20 to 30 years. The cultural atmosphere on campus and elsewhere in the public square is demeaning; it was inconceivable when I was a student.
The reason why we didn’t need to label ourselves in the 1970s? We were in the clear majority and regarded as normal people then. My interpretation of the 2024 election is that this remains true, though the gap has narrowed. The American middle class broadly defined across almost every identity group is increasingly recognizing this by continuing a ten-year trend of shifting its political allegiance.
“Conservatism” means nothing more than doing the right thing and being as moral as possible according to Classical Judeo-Christian (CJC) natural law and practical reason. (Again, see the book noted at top, Faithful Reason), maximizing and maximally spreading human happiness and wealth by centering life and civilization on the family and the creation of home in hearth and country (“human flourishing”), and accomplishing these goods via limited government through republican democracy, with a bias toward slow change to avoid dislocations and bad, unintended consequences.
Of course, “conservatism” always follows the virtue of prudence (it tries to follow all virtues and avoid vices), and, therefore, it allows for fast, radical change when necessary.
Since the 1960s, the Far Left has skillfully used its now vastly oversized cultural power to change the meaning of the world conservatism in the West’s public mind to mean something like “the elite, aristocratic, fascist, Far Right’s bourgeois ideology cloaked around Christian dogma that’s primarily intended to preserve its own power and wealth, oppress powerless minorities, and block the People’s move into a perfectly just and pleasurable future. You know, Reagan’s trickle down thing.”
The 2024 election shows the American public has wised up to this con.
Of course, these two definitions of conservatism are mutually exclusive (as were the Trump vs. Harris political platforms).
I submit my definition of conservatism is true; again, the exact opposite of the Far Left’s definition. I would also submit that there is a definitional truth out there in objective space (like definitions for heroism and murder), and, again, that Western Europe and the American public is completing the process of realizing—with the 2024 presidential election being one further piece of evidence—that I am correct and the Far Left is wrong.
I believe CJC as manifested in the West over the last 2000 years is unlocking the power of the ages, and it continues to do so. How can “unlocking the power of the ages” be conservative? It is indeed traditional America that now represents the cool rebel alliance.
Make no mistake, the forces of the most good in America must and will continue to retake the cultural high ground, recapture its own language, and reshape the national narrative with new thinking based on what all America knows to be true now that was unknown back in the 1960s and 1970s.
The evidence is in, the sides have rested, and the verdict is clear.
Capitalism
if I find use of the word conservatism merely situationally irritating and too defensively apologetic, I truly hate the word capitalism. I will not use much space here because we have written much on this topic in the past. Suffice it to say the historical epoch we find ourselves in today as Western Christians and the free economic system we employ to flourish is not founded upon financial capital (or even “profits”) as a first priority.
Of course, our economic system existed well before the word capitalism was first employed by the Marxist enemies of the CJC West to control the narrative with the hope of destroying it (capitalism to Marxists being an historical epoch of time). Like Chesapeake Bay’s rock fish, the West swallowed Marxism’s word capitalism hook-line-and-sinker and ran with it, yet we continue to wonder why we end up cooked on the Marxist broiler.
If not about capital, then, what is “capitalism” about?
The answer is within the four corners of this document: Its purpose is to serve good human needs to the greatest extent possible, not to be served by the oppressed. There are thousands of books on Christian ethics and systems, and you can pick your favorite. (My recent favorite is The Art of Principled Entrepreneurship by Andreas Widmer, published in 2022.)
However, no good ones suggest the “bottom line” aggregated year-after-year is the standard of a good nation or business. This has never been true, but certainly not since our modern social system began to blossom after the Reformation. The irony is, however, if we serve the basics of the common good well, financial success often results. (And this is exactly what one would expect from man following God.)
Having harped again on the word capitalism, I need to turn this discussion back toward “conservatism.” While the 2024 presidential election definitely endorsed free market capitalism over an increasingly corrupt, totalitarian state, it was much more about a still prior civilizational requirement: the absolute public need for law and order to achieve the common good.
Beyond the family, it’s impossible to have a flourishing society without a government assuring law and order oriented toward maximizing justice. As the Founders understood all too well, only virtuous, rational politicians (elected by citizens with the same characteristics) who follow good first principles can accomplish this. The reason is a government powerful enough to enforce law and order is also powerful enough to destroy a good life.
In our newsletter last week, we offered content from a diverse source of media that addressed the issue of the fate of the Democrat Party. In an earlier post, I declared the Democrat “progressivism” officially dead. The public recognizes the DP’s progress results in a mushrooming state that bribes and will bankrupt the public, while destroying human character, fabric, family, wealth, efficiency, happiness, and love. The real question for today is whether it’s already too late to do anything about it.
To quote President-Elect Trump, “As I was saying, we’ll see what happens.”
Earlier this year in our PC interview, Jonathan Haidt described the moral foundations of American politics. The key clip appears below. He describes six moral foundations and recognizes that it’s actually only “conservatives” who consider and balance all six. In my opinion, this is a function of the close connection such a balanced view has to its Judeo-Christian heritage, natural law, and the totality of human experience. You can never watch this clip or review Haidt’s classic book The Righteous Mind (2012) too much.
Sex
In closing we turn to my and Rob’s favorite subject, and that is sex. First, I should say we do not like to think and do not believe that we are pigs or toxic men. Instead, though flawed individuals via ancestors dismissed in Genesis from the Garden (as Adam says, it’s not our fault), we strive to be gentleman, always, though we might not succeed. In other words, we seek to be among the best friends any good woman could have. We believe this natural male Western tendency animates modern civilization as much as any other natural fact.
Furthermore, by “sex” what I mean is the entire laundry list of social and moral issues touching on sex/”gender” so contentious they often produce one-issue voters, like JD Vance’s famous “cat women” who look to Washington for financial security and vote only on the abortion issue (as framed by Democrats).
In its coverage and subsequent analysis of the 2024 election, more so than in any prior election in my lifetime, the American media has highlighted the voting differences across all human identities and ages between biological males and females.
The majority of men won this time, often not the case since the 1960s.
In my opinion, the mandate here was that normal Americans believe sex is a biological given (by God, if religious), producing real differences between the sexes on average that cannot be changed by man, other than “cosmetically.” This is the true science needing to be followed. The national vote indicated a clear desire to reinforce traditional marriage between one man and one woman where each child has the right to have and know a Mom and Dad. (Today, of course, most are tolerant of other forms of committed, two-parent family life.)
Joint bathrooms extended to men in woman’s showers and biological men playing in woman’s sports are clear political losers. Most important, parents will not tolerate teachers and schools controlling their children and advocating for principles they regard as deeply immoral or crazy.
I read two books by Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution this year, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It (2022) and Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That is a Problem, and What to Do About It (2017). These are excellent, well-researched books, and either could have been a PC Book of the Month.
Clearly, men are hurting from decades of social abuse resulting from feminist attack. Feminism has moved through four political stages over the last 150 years: getting the vote, achieving equality in the work place, attacking masculinity itself as toxic, and, most recently, serving up sex itself as pure social construct. Today, feminism has gone off the rails and is losing popularity with women. In its current state, I think feminism is spent.
In addition, again, clearly, with equality achieved for decades now inside the family and well into the business world, the private sector generally, and the public square, women want men to act like men again and are most attracted to those who do.
In my opinion, self-labelled, somewhat left-of-center Mr. Reeves is arguing for a new definition of fatherhood, one that I believe asks men to become more like women (though in rather minor ways) and for society to treat them that way. In addition, I don’t think anyone is hoarding anything. It’s not wrong to create a successful home, family, and career. In fact, that’s what all normal people want to do.
I would be interested in whether Mr. Reeves would revise any of his observations as more data hits the real world’s social science laboratory. I think most men are doing just fine in their own minds (a comical male trait!). Early signs could be that for the first time in long memory men (Millennials and Gen Zs) are leading us back to church.
Beyond that, it seems men are reasserting their role in a nation that had gotten way out of control during the pandemic. And they’re doing more jobs perhaps only men can do. In my opinion, women are increasingly seeing the wisdom of the truism first noticed from Anthony Esolen (my translation): “Only men can control violent and evil men.”
In other words, over the last four years, America flirted yet again with chaos and nihilism across the social board and the American public concluded in November 2024, one more time, that anarchy is no less than terrifying. Furthermore, much of the Democrat Party’s platform has proven a long, fifty-year walk off a short pier.
Not that the DP can’t and won’t win in 2028. Politics is extremely fickle and situational. Nonetheless, “progressivism” has proven itself an oxymoron. Most of the social evidence in Europe and the U.S. is telling us that. A metamorphosis might be in progress with the DP suddenly recognizing itself as in a shambles and lost in the wilderness.
My advice you didn’t ask for: DP elites, listen to the average American without your pre-conceived, Far Left-dominated dogma getting in the way.
Love
Should we rename conservatism, capitalism, and marriage “lovism”? I can’t help but laugh at that one on several levels! So, there’s your answer.
But let’s keep scratching our heads. Whether voting for Trump or Harris, Orthodox Christians need better ways to distinguish their worldview and social system from the materialist varieties that since the 1960s had painted us into a corner by last month. Some of future success will involve also just showing up, listening well, and having the courage to speak out in a hopefully kind and honest way. (And try to avoid “mansplaining,” though a tough one for half of us. Also, humor helps.)
In 2025 Praxis Circle will continue to focus on worldview basics across worldviews, worldview narratives, increasing cultural fascination with enchantment and the paranormal, Christian nationalism, postliberalism, earned success, new terms like creastruction, normalism, and masculinism (those three my words, lacking others), and key social trends that worldviews influence and influence worldviews. As the worldview concept becomes increasingly appreciated and accepted (a clear trend over the last ten years), we’ll also try to highlight where the best worldview conversations in America are happening.
At my annual Christmas Christian men’s group breakfast on Wednesday, the Executive Director of the city-wide Christian business-oriented organization Needle’s Eye Ministries handed out his gift to us, Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality by David Brenner (2015). I look forward to reading it in 2025.
My first thought was that we’ve been handing out similar books and letters since Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and John Paul II. God’s truth, goodness, and beauty never changes, and it’s that beautiful time of the year in America.
Our Scrooge-like nation seems awake and alive again the morning after the three ghosts appeared. Most important, there’s really no need whatsoever, come to think of it, for either Santa or President Biden.
Due to the manger baby’s birth, we’re already pardoned and need only step forward on His behalf with His help.
PS – And thank again to All-World cartoonist and friend Steve Kelley for permission to use his cartoons in PC posts. Steve is one of the best students of humor out there. We need much more!
