Jehoshua
Catholic
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2009
- Messages
- 7,284
Firstly we already have a solidified hierarchy of people. The iron law of oligarchy inevitably leads to the development of an elite leadership cadre in any group larger than say a small family unit. This is why we have political families and politics is effectively the rotation of factional control within the political elite. So an objection on monarchy or aristocracy (although I am not so much of a fan of a landed aristocracy as Kaiserguard) on the basis of (an elite is bad) is nonsensical. Power is already concentrated in the hands of the upper class and always has been, the difference now is that the upper class constitutes the higher echelons of the corporate world, certain inheritors of old money, academia and the political classes rather than an aristocracy based on landed title and a system of obligations and dues to the crown and the lower orders.
As to concentrating power in the hands of a King (single man) at least in my case it would be no more or less power than that granted to a president, and most likely it would be more circumscribed by balancing institutions such as a hereditary upper house like the House of Lords was before it was made a joke by unlimited political appointments in which legislation must pass, and who's members similarly to the monarch owe no debt to anyone to their position and thus have greater independence from party or other influences. (a lower house proposing the laws I'm fine with, be it elected or appointed via other means, such as say through appointment by the states in an Australian context)
de Maistre, de Bonald, Le Play, Tocqueville and Burke are all writers who I find interesting, in addition of course to the thoughts on politics of Montesquieu and Aristotle. More modern writers would include Roger Scruton and his "The Meaning of Conservatism" (although I find his anthropological thoughts and study of sociological depths problematic) as one example. As to the question of organic change that's actually a hard question to answer, since ordinarily I would agree that radical change and an organic development of society in harmony with tradition (in opposition to revolutionary propositional change) is the proper way for society to develop. Yet at the same time much of the west is under the detrimental reign of revolutionary ideology, and is increasingly descending towards greater tyranny and egregious and restrictive rule. The question then is, is counter-revolution valid despite the inherent distaste for revolution (from my perspective) since the failure to resist in such a way facilitates the further degradation of social order, or is the systemic underpinnings of western society already so deep into liberalism that its best to just keep the can kicking in the anticipation that its own contradictions will eventually facilitate the restoration of a more traditional order. That's a question I don't really have the answers too (albeit personally I'm not inclined to counter-revolution, nor do I think its practical or a positive thing. I think the way forward from a traditionalist perspective is cultural, that is in challenging the cultural presumptions of liberalism and perpuating the traditional view, down through ones own progeny and in the public sphere).
As to the USA, the problem with the United States of course is that its been rotten to the core ideologically from its very foundation. Being rooted on propositional liberal principles, and only tangentially maintaining an Anglo-Saxon traditional cultural underpinning (which is now totally gone). That said if the ciceronian political cycle is valid, I think the United States will eventually find its way to a system which is either explicitly monarchical ( if it isn't already. David Starkey the historian would say the US is already an elective monarchy) or not depending on whether the propositional narrative which underpins it and the current dominance of liberalism doesn't fall flat due to inherent contradictions (presuming the US doesn't split apart or anything like that, something I think is increasingly likely over the next century or two due to the "national" basis of the US being completely wiped out. A simple "American idea" is a very flimsy base for maintaining civic union. It obviously seems impossible now, but one must be careful of hubris and thinking that things will always be as they are now)
Mechanicalsalvation said:
The Catholic religion, instantiated in/as and inseparable from the Catholic Church.
In political terms of course a state can run on traditionalist principles vis a vis religion with another religion as the established crux of order, within the hierarchy of authority from the divine to human levels. Indeed this has been the case everywhere in history from the Tenno to the Ottoman Caliphate to Anglican theocracy (nominally still so in England) in Britain.
That the west, over the last century or two, has lost a sense of its historic tradition and underpinnings (confidence in itself if you will) with resulting moral decline or perhaps because of it (epitomised by the great apostasy of vast multitudes from Christianity, which is partly the churches fault for giving in to the same liberal ideological trends that are systematic of this loss of tradition and inner confidence in western heritage). Now all sin of course has tangible material consequences, and so as has been the case in other historical times moral decline leading to indolence is precipitating economic decline as rich and poor become indulgent and greedy. Short sightedness and unwillingness to resolve festering problems is heading to an increasing gulf between the higher and lower classes as well. This I think after ever more increasing resentment will likely result in a third stage (after moral and economic decline) eventuating, political chaos and weakness. At this point a civilisation then is either conquered by a stronger civilisation more firm in its values (such as rome from the barbarians it allowed into its empire, which likewise saw moral preceeding economic and political chaos, or perhaps us via mass immigration from culturally different groups that don't share the western heritage) or undergoes a restoration into a more efficient and self-sustaining social order. Now of course don't get me wrong here, little in history repeats itself except the phrase. But I think a conceptualisation of history as a spiral, moving onwards and yet containing patterns that perpetuate themselves (be it through tradition, or in more macro-scale tendencies like the one I described) is a reasonable generalisation to make.
