Regular posts will resume shortly. In the meantime, I wanted to recommend this essay by James Kalb at SydneyTrads, “Dissolving the Black Hole of Modernity“. It’s good.
I’m not sure of the author’s mind on this point, but I notice that the implicit audience for the essay is men, and not people. Something to ponder.
Things that We have Heard and Known 
>”but I notice that the implicit audience for the essay is men, and not people”
Should be pretty obvious why. Women could have stopped the Feminist march a long long time ago. They’re the only ones who can stop it now. Time and again, they have failed men.
“while I was still searching but not finding– I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.” -Ecclesiastes 7:28
interesting, reading about Confucian teachings via a Christian post.
The author believes that the key to changing the State, is by first working on self.
But 2 questions:
1. >”Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons.” – Ok, so say an individual got his life totally spot on. How is he gonna regulate his family to think as he does? We don’t live in Patriarchal times anymore. Mass media and social media has more control on our family’s lives.
2. >”Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families.” – Ok, say we somehow got our family values and ideals entirely in line with ours. If we’re still in the minority, what’s gonna change?
Besides, what’s the end game?
>”For that reason our task is to hasten and help influence the form of an inevitable transformation, and defend intelligence and civilization in the face of growing stupidity and brutality.”
So… we just keep doing what we’re doing and wait??
I fail to see the end game of this article. Perhaps I’m missing something.
Otherwise the rest of the article makes great points. Especially the one regarding the need for alternative, non-economic institutions. I wonder how feasible would a Christian military Order be, in modern times.
As Protestant I fully welcome the notion of a Catholic government. Protestant States always screw up. We lack the ability to form consensus, and therefore lack the ability to govern. Or preferably Orthodox, Catholics won’t let me divorce my wife for adultery lolz
There is a place for negative and positive apologetics. For a very long time we conservatives have been playing negative apologetics expecting the world to agree with us an exclaim God exists! However, what actually needs to take place is positive apologetics. We need to tell people why our vision of the world is superior in all avenues.
The author of the essay seems to still be playing at negative apologetics. I’d prefer he tell us what society ought to look like instead of throwing out vague concepts like, “regulating your family well”, etc. What does that even mean? I can guess what he means by it. However, that is because I am on his side of the fence.
Thanks for commenting. I should mention that I’ve responded to White’s comment at Sydney Trads.
The implicit audience is men because the discussion starts with the personal and familial, and those things are somewhat different for men and for women, so different things have to be said. Also, it deals with fundamental issues of social order, and dealing with complex and rather impersonal systems is a primarily masculine concern.
The assignment for the symposium was to discuss practical strategies for traditionalists. So it’s not an apologetic piece. It naturally takes general goals as given and concentrates on how to deal with the opposition. It doesn’t attempt to demonstrate the existence of God, truth of the Catholic faith, content and binding character of the natural law, necessity of respect for tradition for any tolerable way of life, etc.
I remember an amusing quote from a few years’ ago:
‘Life is a bear market, with ever smaller rallies’.
Well, the Christian faith and Truth are much the same. The bear market started at the Fall, and continued when Rome captured the early church and the only notable rallies were Christ’s arrival and His life, and the Reformation.
And now we have two popes (nah, you’re only allowed one, and it’s still Ratzinger).
I’m curious as to what Kalb was before he converted.
His whole article struck me as soft controlled opposition, much like Vox Day and Cernovitz.
The usual suspects want a right/left conflict, they want another faked war, like WW1 and WW2. They want to spot the trouble-makers.
Keep your powder dry for two decades, be ready for the collapse.