What’s Wrong with the World

Pretty good little essay, Jeff.

What does a bloody papist know about the Brits? What a ridiculous essay.

Given that America's Protestant heritage, in its declension, is responsible, in large measure, for her religious indifferentism, one might inquire what most Protestants know about perpetuating a culture. What a ridiculous comment.

What is it with the commenters around here, of late?

Added the Kirk book to my wish list.

Think Michael Savage and the diabolical “music” with which he introduces his radio show.

Never heard his show and judging from the descriptions on a web search, I don't think I'm the worse for it. But, considering that Jeff thinks just about every kind of modern music is diabloical, I was taking wild guesses at what it was. Glen Miller? Buddy Holly? Bob Dylan gone electric? Ah, Metallica's Master of Puppets. Fair enough. Carry on. :)

I think you would like James Bowman's In Defense of Snobbery:

I remember once a friend telling me of a particularly trendy teacher taking this line about the revolutionary working class geniuses from Liverpool who overthrew the tired old musical establishment with fresh and original songs making serious social statements. He was in full flight to this effect when somewhere at the back of the room a voice could be heard declaiming in a bored monotone: "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah/She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah/She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!"

That’s rather how I feel when I hear my fellow conservatives commending such childish drivel as Iron Man or the new Indiana Jones movie in the belief — as I perhaps unworthily suspect — that this will make them sound cool, and hip and smart, the kind of sophisticated critics (for such they now seem to us) who can spot aesthetic merit in the very places where those already blessed with the fame and the money that comes with popular success would have wished them to find it. Well, doubtless I am blind to it myself, but such people should know that their opinions ally them to one of the most favored projects of the cultural left, which is to incorporate the heroic tale of the breaking down of distinctions between "high" and merely popular culture into a larger, triumphalist narrative of liberation from the moral and aesthetic constraints imposed by the panjandrums of high culture prior to the 1960s. The reception of the comic book and rock’n’roll into the artistic pantheon is another of the victories of the revolution of the 1960s.

Nicely done, Jeff.

Sidestepping the miasmic battle of papist vs. schismatic, I'll say that this is a great essay. I agree that it is necessary to recognize and draw upon the continuity of our culture with British culture.

I would suggest, however, that it is folly not to appreciate culture's dependence upon the land. American culture cannot be British culture because there is already a British culture that is attached to the British isles. It developed there as a consequence of the geography and history of the British people, a people that still lives there.

Our culture, even while recognizing its daughter-status, must be uniquely American* and built up as such because the land and people of America are particular and different from the land and people of Britain. We are with our own tendencies and horizons, temperaments and planes, strengths and weaknesses, traditions and empire. We ought to take responsibility, and the first is naming the boundaries of our land.

*I'm even way of naming the boundary as "American" because, as Montesquieu noted, it is difficult to see how such a large nation can maintain its cultural and political unity and integrity and avoid becoming an empire.

Whoops, "way" should be "wary."

Religious is not a race and you seem to mix this up man used to worship trees and the season and was more peaceful then till they began to worship man all religions are the Glorification of man by men that is why it goes to war. As for being British all whites came from Europe which Britian is part off it and Russia. They USA was owned by us and you all speak old English which is why we do not understand you you have only been going about 400 years and are a Nation of Rogues this is why you will invade other countries to steal from them and course trouble the British showed you how to do this we colonized many countries that you are now at war with its what the Brits do well being the Devil's Advocate what is happening the world does not trust either us or you and rightly so because they do not want white masters again they were rubbish last time.

The white west can not be powerful without robbing other countries usually black and brown faced countries. To me Israel is an USA army base and nothing else.

The USA Government are not powerful a black man in the White House is what nothing just not Busch lets call him what he is and his family look at his history and how his family backed Hitler and all the powerful knew, evil is always with us and we can watch it go into war again this will be the third time only this time the USA will have it on their land and their Govenment like the UK's will have brought it to the door of its taxpayers for what because war is made by the rich to cull the many keep the people down and under control.

We have not had war in the UK for 60 years so we are due for one and as the USA has never had real war on its land all those who like to tell its own country to bomb and blow up others will think differently when it hit and no one can stop it till it has feasted this time being the third war with all the high tech it will kill many even those who think they can hide war does not know who is rich and who is poor and it lasts long after its ended.

I was born at the end of the last war and the UK did not get any were till about twenty years ago and people are still dying from what had happened 60 years ago. So all those of you who want war on others make sure it does not come to your calling.

I believe that the English language is a great uniter. Many of my anscetors were Norwegian and German, but within a generation, they learned English. We all grow up reading Shakespeare, King Arthur and all that, not Norwegian history. Our literary canon starts with Bede and Cademon. In a sense, we are all English due to the language we speak, which carries ideas in its very utterance.

Perhaps the advance of our un-culture is a good thing in the long term. It may prepare the world for a fresh wave of evangelism, much as Alexander's conquests paved the way for the initial spread of the Gospel.

much as Alexander's conquests paved the way for the initial spread of the Gospel.

Um, what? Alexander the Great? In the 300's B.C.?

A novel historical theory. At least, a new one on me.

Perhaps the advance of our un-culture is a good thing in the long term. It may prepare the world for a fresh wave of evangelism, much as Alexander's conquests paved the way for the initial spread of the Gospel.

You can always repeat a joke to a man who has had a lobotomy. Is that what you are saying? Christianity, no matter what some Protestants may think (and I don't want to misrepresent anyone), is based on an historical tradition, whether it be the history contained only in Scripture or Scripture plus the Church's memory. Language differences are not really a relevant issue in spreading the theology. This was the whole point of the Apostles speaking in tongues on the day of Pentecost. The Gospel can be spread in any language.

All of this being said, man is an historical animal and part of that history and social development is encapsulated in a language, but language is a slave to history, not the other way around. Lose the language, lose the tradition. Imagine what would have happened had a strange plague caused the world to lose the ability to read/speak Koine Greek after the last Apostle died. We would not have the culture of Christianity and probably a distorted teaching, as well. Language did not create the theology, but language codified the theology and the social interactions it caused, some of which, as the language have survived to this day. Every language that dies takes a culture with it. Alexander's conquest paved the way for the Gospel because Alexander help to fix the language and make it relatively universal. Fragmenting the language by local custom, such as is slowly happening in the United States, will pave the way for separatism and eventual dominance by one faction. Pentecost showed that the language of the Gospel is universal, even if the language of man is not. As long as the language of America stays one universal language, paradoxically, America will stay a country where cultures may coexist. When the language starts to fragment, so will America.

The Chicken

The Germans in America learned English and spoke English when they became persecuted upon America's entry into World War I. Actually, many already knew English, but they stopped speaking German due to the persecution. Being bilingual is after all anti-American.

Should say:

Alexander's conquest paved the way for the Gospel because Alexander help to fix the Greek language and make it relatively universal.

The Chicken

On something of a tangent, my favorite commentary on the English language is Henry Higgins's lyrical rant to Eliza Doolittle:

An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get.
Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.
In America, they haven't used it for years!

I would pretty much agree with this analysis, and with the pessimism.

But we must be hopeful - so what should we hope for?

If not expansion or rebuilding, then sheer survival:

From After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre - 1981:

"It is always dangerous to draw too precise parallels between one historical period and another; and among the most misleading of such parallels are those which have been drawn between our own age in Europe and North America and the epoch in which the Roman empire declined into the Dark Ages. Nonetheless certain parallels there are. A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will [my emphasis] turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead – often not recognizing full what they were doing – was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. if my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached the turning point. What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another – doubtless very different – St Benedict."

So, we need "the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us." Some equivalent of the religious orders of the Dark Ages and which enabled the Middle Ages.

Jeff,

Once again, let me say it is great to have you onboard here at W4. Since I'm probably the only self-identified neoconservative who hangs out here, I obviously objected to this:

To many traditionalists, there seem only two possible courses of action: drop out entirely and adopt a 100% reactionary posture, or capitulate and run with the neo-conservatives. Kirk could do neither. He argues that America still has an identifiable and redeemable culture, and that this culture is British in form and substance.

First of all, none other than Gertrude Himmelfarb herself (married to the father of neoconservatism, rest his soul) has written an excellent book of essays about "The Moral Imagination" and I think any fair look at the record of the neocons over the past 30-40 years would show they stood up for the defense of traditional American values and what you call America's British culture. They love the founders and English literature and the Bible, etc. and denounce the silliness of multiculturalism in print and in the broader culture (let's not forget that it was Irvining Kristol's son William, who was an advisor to Dan Quayle, when Quayle made his infamous speech about the moral rot on TV). So as usual, I'm not sure why the cheap shot is thrown in here other than to somehow contrast and compare the good Kirk against the evil neocons.

Secondly, since I'm in the middle of reading "Albion's Seed" it is worth mentioning the book's main thesis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion's_Seed

which is that there is not one American British culture but FOUR. Now since these four cultures have significant differences between them there are going to be inevitable clashes between the cultures (e.g. between New England Puritans and Virginia Cavaliers -- or to get down to brass tacks, the differences between John Winthrop and William Berkeley will produce very different styles of governing and mores). So I'm not sure it is fair to say all four of these cultures were religiously indifferent (I KNOW it is not fair to say about the Puritans) and I'm not sure which of the four cultures (or which aspects of the four cultures) you want to return to or restore.

Peter Hitchens, the conservative journalist and brother of Christopher Hitchens, once said on C-SPAN that America now feels more British than Britain. He was on an edition of Book Notes at the time, I believe, and was speaking about his book The Abolition of Britain. His point was that the virtues once associated with the British - respect for the rule of law, a certain sort of liberalism and personal independence - are now much rarer than they were before, and often seen as vices, I'd say. (I'm afraid to say it, Jeff, but there aren't many Brits who know how to queue nowadays, and as for civility in public discourse, it's a rare thing to walk down a high street and not hear the F-word used in casual conversation and in the presence of children.) However, these virtues still feature prominently in the U.S., even if they are waning there, too.

As for the remark about papists' knowing nothing of Britain, it was A. P. d'Entreves, if I remember rightly, who argued that English law is substantially based upon natural law, and Lord Acton who called Aquinas the first Whig.

Bill and Paul: Hey, thanks. It could use more polishing though.

Afu: ... nevermind.

Scott: LOL. I think Glen Miller passes as non-diabolical, not sure about the others. And you're right, the Bowman quote was dead-on. Thanks for posting it.

Albert: As an aspiring agrarian, I don't disagree with you at all. I think Kirk's argument was rather a first-things-first approach. But there should be - indeed there are - many American variations on the theme.

Bgc: Good quote from Alasdair MacIntyre, which sums up my own views as well.

Jeff Singer: Many thanks for the welcome. I admit that the term neo-conservative is often less than helpful, and it does overlap with other categories. Now and then I'm tagged as a neo-conservative myself. But in this context, I mean someone whose objections to the social, cultural, and political status quo are in degree but not in kind - talk radio, National Review, etc. And I'm glad you brougt up "Albion's Seed", a scholarly work which I own and have read (mostly). The book actually strengthens Kirks argument. All four of the "folkways" make up the original tapestry of American culture - it's not a matter of choosing only one of the four. I prefer the Virginians myself. As a Catholic, of course, I would insist that each of them have their natural virtues but are missing something rather important.

Albert, you wrote:

I would suggest, however, that it is folly not to appreciate culture's dependence upon the land.

Normally, yes. But American civilization is comparatively new, so the land hasn't made as strong a mark upon American culture as it has elsewhere. What is worse, the American people have always been highly mobile in comparison with others, even before the automobile. There are some regional exceptions to this but in general it holds true.

American culture cannot be British culture because there is already a British culture that is attached to the British isles. It developed there as a consequence of the geography and history of the British people, a people that still lives there.

Come to think of it, I can't quite agree with the way you have framed the issue. British culture can exist anywhere there are Brits and those civilized by Brits. Does it change over the generations in different lands and among people whose origins are non-British? Absolutely it does. Culture is not a static thing. Kirk doesn't hold British culture to be monolithic anywhere, not even in Britain (as Christine and Henry Higgins remind).

The question of how much change a culture can undergo without losing its essence, its core, is an interesting one. As Tony W. points out, it's quite possible that even the British themselves aren't culturally British anymore, and the same might be said for many Americans.

One of the great barriers to an historical awareness is that much of historical Britishness and Americanness are unacceptable nowadays to the various minorities excluded at points in our history, and not merely because of multicultural ideologues and ancestor-bashing WASPs/SWPLs. Were I fullblooded Irish, rather than 3/4 or so, I would be raving incoherently about British perfidy at this point.

Our troll afu may have a point: if Catholics know what was being done to recusants in Elizabethan England, their understanding of Shakespeare and his successors will be quite different.

So much 19th century literature took black inferiority for granted that I suspect many great authors are stigmatized on account of this. Not even a great song like Kingdom Comin', authored by a committed abolitionist, can be sung without looking over one's shoulder to see if anyone is watching.

The ruptures may be too deep for your kind of British-American traditionalism to be more than antiquarian.

Regarding religious indifference, how deep a characteristic has this truly been of our country?

The forces of religious sectarianism included the Know Nothing Party and the Ku Klux Klan. Since they lost, they are treated as a roadbump to Progress but the "sectarians" may have been more representative of America than is recognized.

Historically, religious indifference was a necessary condition for the social advancement of Catholics and Jews. Perhaps this is why careerist Catholic colleges are so indifferent. Catholics of a traditional mindset are in the bind of lamenting indifference while benefiting from its action. Many of our co-religionists are still in "Let's stick it to those stuffy WASPs!" mode, confusing Evangelicalism or indeed practicing Catholicism with the old WASP establishment.

Kevin, you wrote:

Our troll afu may have a point: if Catholics know what was being done to recusants in Elizabethan England, their understanding of Shakespeare and his successors will be quite different.

So much 19th century literature took black inferiority for granted that I suspect many great authors are stigmatized on account of this. Not even a great song like Kingdom Comin', authored by a committed abolitionist, can be sung without looking over one's shoulder to see if anyone is watching.

The ruptures may be too deep for your kind of British-American traditionalism to be more than antiquarian.

I understand the visceral reaction. I lent my copy of Kirk's book to a good friend of mine by the name of Murphy, and he would concede absolutely nothing to the argument. But the fact is that my friend, an English wordsmith par excellence, is the very embodiment of British culture in America (albeit with some Irish spunk). He's simply in denial.

Who were the recusants? Englishmen. Shakespeare himself was likely a Catholic. English Catholics were the best generals in the Cavaliers. As for the black African slaves, their descendants are now legitimate heirs to Anglo-American civilization. That is simply a fact. The same is true of American Catholics whose ancestors may have been victims of the Know-Nothings or the KKK. Culture isn't something we choose for ourselves: it is something we receive, in whatever manner it comes to us.

I deny that British-American traditionalism is antiquarian. Those of us born in the twilight of our civilization can still make out the shadows, and those shadows are British. For what would we exchange this inheritance that is ours? Many of our neighbors imagine they can just make up their own "culture" as they go through life, but culture doesn't work that way. We must deal with reality, with what exists apart from ourselves, with the slice of humanity in which God has placed us for His own reasons.

Historically, religious indifference was a necessary condition for the social advancement of Catholics and Jews. Perhaps this is why careerist Catholic colleges are so indifferent. Catholics of a traditional mindset are in the bind of lamenting indifference while benefiting from its action.

That's a very good point, if "social advancement" is understood as truly benefiting American Catholics. I'm not so sure about that, and most American Catholic universities are "Exhibit A" as to why I have my doubts. I do think that religious indifference is a by-product of religious pluralism in lands where trade and commerce is a priority. While it definitely has temporal benefits, in the long run it just isn't sustainable.

Many of our co-religionists are still in "Let's stick it to those stuffy WASPs!" mode, confusing Evangelicalism or indeed practicing Catholicism with the old WASP establishment.

Ain't that the sad truth!

"in this context, I mean someone whose objections to the social, cultural, and political status quo are in degree but not in kind"

I once heard Mark Henrie describe a neo-conservative as a conservative who's made peace with modernity. But there are, of course, different levels and different aspects of that capitulation.

Re: Michael Savage and his music, I think that he uses that ugly music largely as an ironic attention-grabber. If you listen to one of his shows when he's actually discussing and playing music, it's usually 50's doo-wop or Cuban salsa-type stuff, occasionally even Coltrane and other jazz.

I can't really call myself a fan of Savage, but I find him interesting as an example of an "independent conservative." The other night he was lambasting the type of 'conservative' who thinks that the answer to all America's problems lies getting the GOP back in power ASAP. It was actually a very funny bit.

I don't have a lot to say to back this up, but I do think there is, or has been, a distinctively American culture which is not simply British. As one very small example I would offer the tremendous importance of the game of baseball in two of the best American novels I know, Chaim Potok's _The Chosen_ and Marilynne Robinson's _Gilead_. You could never get the diction of _Gilead_ or the use she makes of baseball in a British novel. I'm myself usually much more partial to British than to American literature. In fact, I'm pretty ignorant generally about American literature. (I've never read _Moby Dick_. Don't tell anybody.) But I have been struck about how these two novels that I admire so greatly are quintessentially American. Perhaps not coincidentally, both are set approximately 50-60 years ago.

It seems to me too that (and perhaps this will not sit well with everyone writing in this conversation) the freedom that Americans consider so important, in particular the impatience with petty bureaucracy, has been instrumental in the fact that so much that was good in British culture is now preserved in America. I've mentioned before the way that it seems that after WWII the British increasingly accepted tyrannical restrictions on their freedoms as the sort of thing they just had to put up with with a "stiff upper lip" in the service of the common good. Americans with their guns are now ridiculed in Britain as in Europe. But I just read yesterday that in the late 1950's C.S. Lewis's wife used to patrol their property with a gun to scare off "teddy boys" (that's what the writer called them) and their girlfriends who had been overrunning their wooded lot. It's true that Lewis's wife was American, but the gun rights at that time were British. She certainly wouldn't be allowed to do that today in Britain! The British used to have a staunch sense of what we in America would call 2nd Amendment rights. It's all gone now. And I think they are right to say that there is something distinctive about Americans that resists giving that up. That "something distinctive" has been a good thing and, I think, is bound up with the preservation in America of so much that is good that we have inherited from Britain.

In short, it may be necessary to have a strong sense of independence, which is an American distinctive, to be able to preserve anything that is good from the ravages of the totalitarian liberals of the present day.

The erosion of traditional British culture under multiculturalism should be a warning to us Yanks that the same thing can happen here if we're not careful. We are on the same track that the Brits are, just not as far along (this despite the fact that multi-culti is largely an American export -- the Europeans have in effect taken our ball and run with it). For conservative discussions of UK multiculturalism, see Scruton's England: An Elegy and T. Dalrymple's Not With a Bang But A Whimper, as well as the above-mentioned book by Peter Hitchens.

I recently looked into that amusing story about C.S Lewis's wife patrolling The Kilns with a gun to repel trespassers.

It is true, and there is a photo to prove it; but (after comparing various versions) I believe that the gun was actually a large 'air rifle' rather than a shotgun (although the shotgun does make for a more amusing anecdote).

However, your main point is quite correct that it is now all-but illegal for ordinary British people to defend themselves against assault or intrusion - and even things like tasers and telescopic batons are also forbidden here.

A sense of independence is absent. There are no indigenous institutions remaining which are independent of the government - all have been assimilated to the state. It is hard to recognize descriptions of England from even 30 years ago, and George Orwell's classic essay is utterly obsolete:

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye

bgc, tell me if you think this is correct: The regulation of private schools in Britain--the fact that parochial schools do not count as institutions truly independent of the government--has been a result of their taking public money and being thus considered a sort of off-shoot of the government. But the money was originally taken in the naive assumption that the schools would be allowed to preserve their distinctiveness.

If this is correct, I think all American advocates of school vouchers should take note.

Mark Steyn had an article called "Bold as Brass" which I can't find, but described the problem of scrap metal thieves in Britain. It wasn't that doorknobs were being stolen right off residence's doors in broad daylight that was sobering, but that criminals were stealing stuff right off the courthouses. It's only a few steps removed from being unable to jail people because someone swiped the cell doors.

I couldn't get the article, but I found an excerpt I blogged about some time ago:

And everywhere but America, where any metal thief who attempts to steal your doorknob risks staggering away with at least as much metal lodged in his vital organs as in his swag bag, the state doesn’t trust its citizens to defend their property and in doing so uphold what’s right.

Britain’s metal crime is a poignant image of social disintegration: The very infrastructure of society – the manhole covers, the pipes, the cables on the transportation system, the fittings of the courthouse – is being cannibalized and melted down. When there’s no longer a sufficiently strong moral consensus and when the state actively disapproves of a self-reliant citizenry, what’s left is the law. And law detached from any other social pillars is not enough, and never can be.

"Certainly the turmoil of the 16th century unleashed many complex forces resulting in the present crisis."

What was so great about the 15th century?

"American-style democracy is envied and imitated around the world, while it ruthlessly erodes the traditions and culture of the American people."

Referring to our current dysfunctional politics (one party is clueless and gutless, the other is insane and nihilistic, and most citizens are mis or under-informed) or more basic structural matters?

@Lydia "The regulation of private schools in Britain--the fact that parochial schools do not count as institutions truly independent of the government--has been a result of their taking public money and being thus considered a sort of off-shoot of the government."

I'm not sure what you mean by parochial schools. There are some religious schools - such as CEVC (Church of England) and RC schools where the Church owns the land and (I think) buildings, and a priest is head of the school governers - but the teachers are paid by the government and they adhere to the (dreadful) National Curriculum.

These are run pretty much exactly as state schools although with a mild Christian flavour, and usually somewhat better discipline and greater power to expel/ exclude disruptive pupils (which makes them relatively popular). But I would say they are just as PC as the rest of the state sector.

Well, yes, it was the religious schools I had in mind. I didn't know that the teachers are paid _directly_ by the government. That's even worse than I thought. I pictured something more like government subsidies to the schools.

Surely it hasn't always been this way in religious schools in Britain, though. It would be an interesting thing to trace how they got here.

Don't you have any fiery fundamentalist Baptists who run tiny, out-of-the-mainstream Christian schools that take no government money and don't adhere to the National Curriculum? Or is that not allowed? (It was exactly those sorts of oddballs, bless them, who got the Christian school movement really going in the United States in the 1970's.)

Kevin J. Jones:

Historically, religious indifference was a necessary condition for the social advancement of Catholics and Jews. Perhaps this is why careerist Catholic colleges are so indifferent. Catholics of a traditional mindset are in the bind of lamenting indifference while benefiting from its action.

How are you defining "indifference"? If the simple fact of the state no longer being confessional, that is surely modern-American, but was surely NOT early American, so I don't know that it qualifies as what distinguishes American culture as such.

If it is the much more modern push to rid the public square of religion, that is still under contention, and while it has the majority of public institutions upholding that approach (i.e. public schools and courts), it only has a very slight majority (and sometimes not even that) of the people explicitly in favor of that approach.

Do you refer instead to that indifference that was (and is) common among mainstream Protestant churches for much of the 20th century, where they say "it is ok to be Methodist or Lutheran or Baptist, as long as you are Christian"? Don't forget the other half of that comment: "and whatever you do, don't marry a Catholic ('cause they aren't Christian)." That sort of indifference is rather insular, isn't it: I don't mind if you stray a few tenets from home, but don't go any further - as if religion were mainly a matter of maintaining the bulk of one's heritage and rule-set, with indifference as to exactly which parts of that bulk any individual keeps. But I don't know as that sort of indifference really helped Catholics and Jews all that much, except insofar as gradually basic ordinary Joes who lived next to (or worked next to) a Catholic or a Jew could see that such an attitude is irrational, and so eventually gave up on it - i.e. insofar as it led to its own demise.

More importantly, I am curious as to how a society would implement the Catholic doctrine of freedom of religion as stated in Dignitatis Humanae without opening themselves (to arch-conservatives) to the charge of religious indifferentism.

but was surely NOT early American

I'm not sure that I wholly agree with you there, Tony. It depends on what you mean by the state's not being confessional. There were states that had established churches, but there were also those that didn't. (e.g. Rhode Island and, I believe, Pennsylvania. I'd have to research to see which of the original thirteen states did and didn't have established churches.) Certainly the First Amendment was a clear indication that the federal government would not be confessional in the sense of having a specific established church, though that didn't in any way support what we rightly deplore as the attempt to move God out of the public square. (Far from it.)

So I think I would say that anti-establishment-ism is in a very real sense early American, adopted by some of the states, though not required of the states at that time. (Its being so required is, I gather, a result of the questionable doctrine of incorporation, though I doubt we could ever disentangle that one from American jurisprudence at this late date.)

Perhaps I was forgetting the perspective here: before Maryland and Pennsylvania explicitly avoided being confessional (at least initially - eventually Maryland went confessional), were there ANY states out of Christian origins that were non-confessional? Maybe not, in which case you make a very good point that the non-confessional arrangement started in America and certainly strengthened here.

When did the last of the American states cease to be confessional? Was it before the Civil War?

Rhode Island was famous for never having had any established church, even as a colony. That's because it was founded by Baptist Roger Williams who was persona non grata with the Puritans. The Baptists were always staunchly against an established church--kind of a signature thing for them. It was such a novel idea that it was talked about even in Britain--a civilized jurisdiction with no established church. What a thought!

I don't know when the last state stopped having an established church.

FWIW, according to Wikipedia, Delaware Colony, Pennsylvania, and West Jersey (which I gather eventually became part of New Jersey) had no established churches. That would square well with what else I know of Pennsylvania: Quaker founders would be very unlikely to set up an established church.

Looks from the same article like all the state churches were disestablished by 1833.

Tony, the indifference I meant was more social than legal. Catholics faced disabilities such as compulsory Protestant religious education in public schools, discrimination in employment, organized boycotts and even riots.

Kevin, thanks for the clarification. That helps.

"Certainly the turmoil of the 16th century unleashed many complex forces resulting in the present crisis."

What was so great about the 15th century?

A united Church and Empire in Europe?

"American-style democracy is envied and imitated around the world, while it ruthlessly erodes the traditions and culture of the American people."

Referring to our current dysfunctional politics (one party is clueless and gutless, the other is insane and nihilistic, and most citizens are mis or under-informed) or more basic structural matters?

More basic structural matters ... and ideas. The insanity of "one man, one vote". Democracy's reflexive anti-authoritarianism. The fact that democracy, as America's reigning ideology, tends to create and foster resentment and discontent with traditional customs and institutions. The absence of effective brakes on the "will of the people", whether real or imagined. The notion that morality - indeed, even reality (e.g., the same-sex "marriage" wars)- is something determined by popular vote. Etc.

is something determined by popular vote

To be fair (and I hope this isn't changing the subject), if it had been left in Massachusetts to be determined either by popular or by representative vote, that particular pernicious legal fiction wouldn't be in place in MA. The ideological left is very happy to use an elite group _rather than_ popular vote to bring about its attempted reality changes when popular vote won't do its job for it. In fact, as a contingent matter (though I think there is probably a reason for this), such radical changes _tend_ to be more easily brought about in the smaller and less representative parts of government _or_ at the higher levels of government more removed from the people (e.g., federal rather than state). Again, this isn't a universal truth, but a tendency. I don't think representative democracy as a form of government is some sort of universal ward against evil. For that matter, my side just lost a referendum vote in our own town on a very radical ordinance. But I do think we shouldn't attribute the rise of homosexual "marriage" to democracy, because for the most part, that hasn't been the case. I would say about that one, rather, that the activists seem to believe reality can be determined by law or by whatever ersatz (court opinions, for example) for law they can get people to bow to, and they will bring about the legal state of affairs they want in the quickest way possible, often circumventing popular vote where that won't do their work for them.

Lydia, what comes to mind is the fact that with legal positivism, we have undergone a revolution in ideas that is effecting a revolution in culture, mores, etc. People literally think that a law making something permitted under the law means that thing is allowed under morality. And thus morality is defined by the vote of the majority.

Worse yet, in other context "the law" is viewed as the inherently just framework for effecting the "will of the people" but that "will" considered only in some theoretical and procedural sense. What ever happens under that framework, even if it should be under that framework only by a twisting and malodorous abuse of the framework as long as they can CLAIM that the forms were followed, is procedurally under the law, and therefore ipso facto just as being the expression of the will of the people. So a judge's ruling that the abortion law is null is considered to constitute justice merely on account of the fact that the judge apparently followed procedure. So instead of the people saying "no, that does not express our will", and instead of the legislature removing the judge for "bad behavior" (hey, he followed procedure!), and instead of the legislature telling the judge "this subject is a matter for legislative action, not for judicial review", and instead of the executive saying "I cannot follow that ruling and remain a moral executive, that ruling shall have no force in my administration", instead they all bow down and give it status it should never have.

The last state with an established church was Massachusetts in 1833, although it had not been truly confessional for at least a generation before that; it fell apart in large part because of infighting between Trinitarians (ancestors of Congregationalists and eventally the UCC) and Unitarians.

Oh, I think democracy must take its share of the blame for the rise of same-sex "marriage" and homosexualist politics. As Tony alluded, democracy and public attitudes about morality in general are of a piece. Furthermore it is only democracy, broadly speaking, that makes such perversions even thinkable as a matter of policy.

If by 'democracy' we mean 'government by the people', then I don't think that there's anything in this principle which necessarilly entails any sort of anti-realism with respect to morality. This is because one can have constitution (the American naturally jumps to mind) in which the vote of the people protects the natural rights of that very same citizenry against the excesses of the government. In such a case, the citizen would vote against an unfair gun ban, say, on the basis that this would be a violation of his natural right to self-defence. However, I think Tony is right in his analysis with respect to legal positivism. I get the impression that far too many people assume that democracy itself entails subjectivism in ethics, as if questions of morality are to be decided by taking a poll of people's preferences, because to do otherwise would be somehow undemocratic. The question arises, then, of how well a Western democracy can function when it lacks the cultural and moral consensus which it once had.

This article starts out well - I love the opening paragraph - but I doubt even Kirk, were he alive today in the age of Obama, would believe his own recommendations. The fact of the matter is that demographics are destiny. The call of the ancestral is overwhelming. Why would someone of non-Anglo ancestry, or even non-European ancestry for that matter, want to cherish Anglo culture? I cherish Anglo traditions because they are the traditions of my forbearers, not because I necessarily think them superior.

I'm reminded of the recent incident concerning Mark Sanchez, citizen of the U.S. and quarterback for the NY Jets. In a recent press conference he said:

“I need to learn more Spanish because I want to talk with the Mexican fans that have supported me much. I am 100% Mexican”.

In other words, although a native English speaker, he still identifies more with his own mestizo ancestry and mestizo traditions.

To be honest, I really don't see anything wrong with this. It only shows how naive culturism is. As I say above, the call of the ancestral is powerful. The Greeks and Romans realized it. We have forgotten it - at our own peril.

Regarding the ancestral vs. culture, he's a piece I wrote on it last year:

http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/down_with_culture/

It seems British culture today is about self-annihilation whilst American is self-debasing by removing what sets it apart morally to do business with immoral regimes. As seen in the 1930s, it is fascism in the form of China today that is calling the shots and showing the vitality and confidence lacking in those who we expect to save our civilisation.

As our self-proclaimed new 'elites' rapidly lose what credibility they had due to incompetence, arrogance, rapaciousness, and their ominous totalitarian instincts the scene is being set for change...

Would that the myriad descendants of the Anglo-American founders stepped forward now to begin to reclaim their inheritance. We are not accustomed to foreign domination and it will not last.