Auditioning

Note taken.

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Perhaps! We may have reached essentially Stalinist conditions, where the answer would be something like, "don't be a counter-revolutionary wrecker, and as for what that is, you'll know when we come knocking on your door..." They aren't quite saying this yet, and if they open with "common sense," one can point out what a hegemonic, raced and gendered concept that is. The point might be to get them this specific, because they really don't want to say this--that's why the system is so Byzantine.

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So, it seems the question is whether the power institutions genuinely want secure power, because unsecure power seems to be their path to more power. But the destructive power exercised against other countries will eventually be "turned on herself." If my assumption that the power institutions want secure power is the "personal judgment" you're referring to, that's more of a deduction from absolutist theory than a judgment of mine. Some institutions must want secure power more than other institutions. Now, you refer to a perspective from the American military, and perhaps it is, but I don't see that as military strategy--perhaps a strategy for domination, of a very uncertain kind. However the Persians and the Mongols ruled their empires, I'd bet it wasn't like this; the Romans, I'm not so sure, although they were undoubtedly far less reckless and more competent in some fundamental ways. Well, if the means of cultural destruction are turned on the US itself (which must, really, have been the first target anyway), and that leads to re-settling the government as a monarchy, then maybe that is what it will take. But it won't happen by itself. It may very well be that some of those power institutions will need to be very sharply curtailed, to say the least.

Of course, I'm not sure that I'm getting your meaning at all.

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I don't know enough about it, but I've heard it portrayed that way (I wouldn't be able to remember where). If so, would it be a high-low alliance that led to long term beneficial change (assuming one sees Christianity that way, as I do)? How else, in terms of absolutist theory, would we account for such fundamental transformation? I think we'd have to be very careful in applying concepts that have been derived from a study of the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity to very different social orders and historical processes. This is really a new field of study.

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OK, I think I'm getting closer to understanding. I'm thinking in terms of "the United States," but "the United States" isn't thinking in those terms. I'm familiar wth MM's chinese elm analogy, and it certainly goes a long way toward explaining Anglo-American domination. It does seem to me that the elite stratum works through control via disruption (using equality, democracy, liberty, consumerism, etc.) but it's a very uncontrolled strategy--I don't think it's nearly as disciplined as traditional divide and rule tactics, which did not aim, I think, at dramatically transforming the conquered societies. It doesn't seem to have worked in Iraq, which now seems to be half controlled by Iran, and the other half by ISIS. But, more broadly, yes, these are global powers that are certainly trying to destroy the sovereignty of nation-states. But they're much better at destroying than ruling. What is their endgame? Are they so shortsighted and undisciplined as to not have one? Regarding the abominations attributed to the elite stratum lately, I'm not really sure--whether the claims are true, but also how much difference it makes. Their interests are what they are either way.

"Structure of government" is not a simple problem. Trump has apparently not yet even proposed replacements for 85% of the bureaucratic positions he needs to fill. I take this to indicate a severe lack of candidates for such positions that are both competent and (maybe especially) loyal. The problem is "staffing" the restoration, and it is a problem we have barely begun to address. How to introduce the necessary "antibodies" into a sufficient proportion of the population--and without stupid factional fighting amongst ourselves? But it will also be necessary to have significant portions (not necessarily a majority, or even close) of the elite stratum capable of seeing the sheer destructiveness of the current course, and wanting something else.

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The "staffing problem" is a question of getting the imperatives properly aligned. And that will involve sorting out those who see "the US" as sovereign from those who don't. But I certainly agree that some unpacking is in order.

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Aquinas certainly is an arch-liberal, based on the passage you quote here, but it's the only one referring directly to politics (the Psalm advises us not to have faith in princes, presumably because they can't "save" us--it says nothing about disobeying or rebelling against them).

If we think about Christianity (and let's restrict ourselves to the passages here) in anthropological terms, we can see this higher, apparently universal, love, does two things. First, it encourages people to resist the urge to vengeance, which is to say governance by vendetta. This is absolutely essential for the establishment of central government. Second, it enjoins upon us resistance to the extremely powerful human impulse to scapegoat, to find a victim whose death will restore unity to a divided community. "Love your enemy" is just an extreme or perhaps vivid way of saying "don't rush to attack whoever has been designated the one everyone has to attack." Implicit in this injunction, though, is that a central government will decide on questions of "good" and "evil." And the resistance to vendetta and scapegoating, i.e., to immediate reaction to any injury, does create the possibility that today's enemies will become tomorrow's friends. And that doesn't imply anything about social equality, civil equality, or the erasure of borders. On the contrary, as a good Christian you are to leave those things to Caesar. You can treat a wayfarer decently without offering him citizenship and welfare benefits.

I'm less sure about the "bringing a sword rather than peace" passage, but I would say that this refers to the "violence" of the conversion process, which will often require the courage to stand up to those closest to you, and even those with authority over you. One is to love Christ more than even the most beloved individual, but that will turn them into your enemies (if Christ were urging his follower to take the inimical stance, i.e., to initiate rather than anticipate hostility, I would remain puzzled--but I would also suspect that there are people out there who could enlighten me).

All of this requires and contributes to the kind of discipline required for a civilized order. I also think that the imagining of such a deity (first of all the "I AM THAT I AM" of Exodus) requires a stance outside of any particular normative, political and ritual structure. This is a much bigger issue, and I may take it on in my next post, but it seems to me the kind of God not necessarily required (the East Asians have obviously gotten along without it) but highly favorable to complex, layered, hierarchical, secure order could only have been discovered under nomadic conditions.

None of which means that Christianity, in some of its manifestations, may not have been politically problematic.--certainly, there have been extreme egalitarian readings of the Gospels from the Middle Ages on that have caused a lot of upheaval, and they can't all just be "misreadings." They are narrow and partisan, though.

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I can understand martyrdom, where an individual would feel compelled to resist the command to violate some essential religious interdiction, but in even such cases there's no justification for encouraging rebellion against the king. The Church and King should always strive to co-exist peacefully, especially since it is overwhelmingly likely that faith will make for better citizens. Still, only one can be sovereign. Otherwise there can only be conflict. Who adjudicates between king and bishop? Anyway, you don't seem to be interested in the anthropological issues I raised--you seem to want to argue that Christianity is good because it's libertarian, like you, I presume--but what makes libertarianism good? Christianity?

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Once I arrogate to myself the right to replace the king by someone I expect to be less supportive of heresies then there are no grounds for not removing any king for any reason whatsoever--in fact, you incentivize the discovery of heresies. Rather than incite disorder and create social chaos I wold suffer persecution or flee if possible.

You think there are such things as "rights," so you must assume that humans are beings that bear those "rights," so you have an anthropology, just not one you want to make explicit.

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Conflict is inevitable unless it is clear who the ultimate source of power is.

You don't believe in rights because you put scare quotes around it and, yet, what is "tyranny" if not a usurpation--of what, exactly?If there's no "right" to absolute property or sovereignty, well why not? Or what word would be more appropriate than "right"?

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The or else is left to the heavens. No one on earth is qualified to say for whose good the sovereign rules.

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Why?