The Unity Con

The following might seem a bit scattered, because the theme I plan to address has quite a lot of facets. Please bear with me as I try to stitch them together.

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The emergence of the great, multi-polity domain once known as Christendom proceeded from a relatively compact set of formative influences:

1. The coalescence of regionally dominant military powers, each capable of defending its borders against comparable aggressors;
2. The development of aristocracies generally trustworthy at maintaining peace and order within their domains;
3. The Peace of Westphalia, which provided the basis for the modern concept of national sovereignty and self-determination;
4. The perfusion of Europe, including its royal and noble houses, with Christian ethical norms.

Not one of those ingredients could have been removed. All were vital to the formation of Christendom, the largest generally successful political project in the history of Man. From the Westphalian treaties of 1648 to the outbreak of the First World War, it made Europe the source of virtually all technological, economic, and social advancement. Mind you, it wasn't an unblemished entity; it knew various periods of warfare, and miscellaneous varieties of institutional evil. But it stands head and shoulders above all other, similarly large political undertakings.

Why? Or rather: How? What made Christendom such a relative success?

Hold that thought. We'll get back to it.

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Regard closely this bit of reportage on Barack Hussein Obama's recent trip to Northern Ireland:

President Obama wasn't kidding in March of 2012 when he told then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that he would have "more flexibility" after the election. We got a chilling look at what Obama meant by that during a speech in Northern Ireland for the G8 Summit when he declared religious schools divisive:

If towns remain divided—if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden—that too encourages division and discourages cooperation.

Note that Obama singles out Catholic and Protestant schools, and not Islamic schools.

Leftists like Obama loath parochial schools because they put children outside of the reach of government. The left sees public schools as breeding grounds–the place where they can insert themselves into their favorite spot: between parent and child.

It is all about influencing our kids–Borging them into conformity in an environment void of Bibles and trans-fat but loaded with condoms and victimhood.

The author of the above, John Nolte, has discerned an important aspect of modern left-liberalism: the drive to homogenize beliefs and attitudes through universal subjection to conformity-inducing institutions such as the "public" schools. "Division," you see, is the left-liberal's enemy...especially a "division" on political subjects. Left-liberalism is innately hostile to political dissent -- and to the Left, all things are political.

Given that Obama feels so obviously hostile toward Christian educational institutions, one must wonder how he feels about homeschooling...and what he would like to do about it, were he able.

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The great Gilbert Keith Chesterton emitted many an incisive statement, but the one dearest to me is this:

“There exists… a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I do not see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer, “If you do not see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it…”

Some person had a good reason for thinking (the gate or fence) would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. … The truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served.

But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion…” [from The Thing]

Tradition has been described as "the democracy of the dead:" the less-than-formal means by which those who have preceded us have passed down what they think they know, for our edification and protection. Edification of a sort that cannot be arrived at through the "ivory tower" style of abstract contemplation; protection, in the all-important domain of protection from our own vagrant impulses and failures of humility.

Man has done much erring over the millennia. Yet his accumulated mistakes have left a residuum of wisdom...wisdom conveyed to us largely in the form of traditions.

Mind you, not all traditions are utterly sound and to be cleaved to without thought. Traditions deserve to be reflected upon, their origins studied, and their practice supplemented or modified when appropriate with more recently acquired knowledge and experience. But they are not to be cast aside heedlessly, as would the "modern type of reformer" in Chesterton's statement above. History teaches that we're more likely to suffer than prosper from such radicalism. Besides, the dead wouldn't like it.

Each thing exists for a reason...including our differences.

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Porthos: You know, it strikes me that we would be better employed ringing Milady's pretty neck than shooting these poor devils of protestants. I mean, what are we killing them for? Because they sing psalms in French and we sing them in Latin?
Aramis: Porthos, have you no education? What do you think religious wars are all about?

[From Pat Wollaston's screenplay for the Four Musketeers.]

Note that in an earlier segment I referred to Christian ethical norms. The Peace of Westphalia was in large measure an effort to end internecine warfare that arose from religious differences among Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists.

Those four divisions of Christianity differed on many things, some of them so sharply that they were unable to discuss them in civil tones. But they agreed on the core of Christian ethics:

Then someone came up to him and said, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" And He said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." He said to Him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and your mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself." [Matthew 19:16-19]

Christendom would not have been possible, had the various Christian sects differed on any of Jesus's commandments to the "rich young man." For it is these that make peace and public order possible at all. A nation in which "tolerance" (rapidly becoming one of my least favorite words) is extended to persons who differ with the Savior on those essentials, whether generally or with reference to certain groups, is doomed to vanish, "in a spread of ruins and slaughter." [Ayn Rand]

It is possible to form great and peaceable assemblages conducive to human flourishing only on the basis of Christ's instructions above, which are sometimes called the Noachite Commandments. Christendom functioned well only while it maintained coherence around those six absolutes. In the early Twentieth Century, when the nations of Europe began to discard them in a quest for territory, profit, prestige, colonies, or what-have-you, Christendom itself ceased to exist. Fragmentation and the concomitant violence became inevitable. Only America, separated from the ensuing turmoil by two great oceans, retained any prospect of cohesion in general peace.

Europe's present-day turmoil, as the "post-Christian" EU teeters and staggers toward its doom over international tensions and divisions, is a reminder that among peoples who differ on all else, the commonalities that flow from the Noachite Commandments are indispensable.

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Frank Burns: Normality is everyone doing and thinking the same thing.
Trapper John: But what about individuality, Frank?
Frank Burns: Individuality's fine...as long as we all do it together!

[From the TV show M*A*S*H.]

We cannot agree on all things. Indeed, it's Satan's whisper that we should try. For what does it imply?

• That there are final answers to all questions;
• That there is a coterie of absolute authorities among men who deserve utter deference on all things;
• That dissent from any of those authorities' dicta amounts to treason against humanity, harmony, and knowledge itself.

We are all human, and therefore must agree on those things that experience has proved utterly necessary for social peace and species survival. But individuals are designed to be individual: to differ in many ways, some critical to their health and well-being. Beyond our mandatory agreements, divergence is essential and must be respected and protected.

There will be many episodes in which our differences will seem both critical and irresolvable. I maintain that it is at those exact moments that the Unity Con -- that we must agree on something beyond the Noachite Commandments -- is most dangerous. No other agreements are vital; accordingly, no other agreement should be allowed to incur a cost in blood, even in potential. When politics is invoked in an attempt to forge such an agreement, a sword hangs over our heads regardless of whether we can sense it. They who would wield that sword are unlikely to respect anyone's convictions or opinions except their own.

Pray.