THE INCOHERENCE OF THE LEFTIST ATTITUDE TOWARD PROPERTY

The link between the ego and its property is much stronger in the German tradition. Max Stirner's Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, for example, makes the connection explicit. In translation, Stirner's title is The Ego and Its Own, which sounds slightly antiquated. A vestigial trace in English remains in such constructions as "I own that he is an excellent athlete," in which one reluctantly admits the possession of knowledge (usually) to one's own detriment; but the idea of positive and willful possession, which is in Stirner, is an unfamiliar concept in English.

The leftist suspicion towards property appears to be a holdover from the early work of social theorist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon opened his career with the infamous denunciation of property contained in the publication in 1840 of Qu'est-ce Que La Propriété? His startling equation -- that property is theft -- is still widely quoted. And yet upon closer examination there is a curious evolution in Proudhon's thought. Some thirty years pass before the publication of Théorie de la Proprieté (1871). In this posthumously published volume -- which he was still laboring over at the time of his death (1865) -- Proudhon had dialectically sharpened some of his youthful opinions. Now he sees in private property a stay against the state's omnipotence. He sees in individualism the possibility of radicalism. "Certains esprits ... ont posé l'individualisme comme l'antithèse de la pensée révolutionnaire: c'était tout bonnement chasser de la république le citoyen et l'homme" (130) [Certain minds ... have posed individualism as the antithesis of revolutionary thought: this is to completely chase the citizen and the human being from the republic.] Positioning the state's power against that of the individual, he writes: "...si l'Etat, avec la division et la ponderation de ses pouvoirs, nous est apparu d'abord comme le régulateur de la société, la propriété à son tour se manifeste comme son grand ressort, à telles enseignes que, elle supprimée, faussée ou amoindrie, le système s'arrête; il n'y a plus ni vie ni mouvement" (172-173). [...if the State, with the division and balance of its powers, appears to us at first as the regulator of society, property in its turn shows itself as its great engine, which teaches us that, suppressed, falsified or diminished, the system stops, there is no longer either life or movement.] As a Christian, Proudhon is against both communist lethargy and feudal servitude. He comes out instead for individual ownership. "Propriété, -- Etat, tels sont les deux pôles de la sociétée" (239). [Property, -- State, these are the two poles of society.] For the later Proudhon, there must be individual ownership in order to have the motor of exchange, which binds a community and sets it in healthy motion, allowing some aspect of Caesar's realm to belong to each individual in order to make it functional.

Yes to Locke, No to Marx

As I see it, the problem as we look at it right now is Locke Vs. Marx.

It's very very simple.

With Marx you have the apex of resentment politics. In his work there is the evil bourgeoisie and the charming proletariat. His solution is to kill the bourgeoisie leaving the charming proletariat. Result: paradise.

This simple prescription however, based as it was on an erroneous description, only destroys the society that takes it up. If you kill the bourgeoisie you kill the goose that lays the golden egg. A good entrepreneur is worth much more than a good worker. An excellent entrepreneur along the lines of Bill Gates is one in a million and is worth billions. The worker is nothing without a job. There must be cooperation between classes. There should be unions, but they should not kill their employer or ruin them with excessive demands. What are unions without jobs?

Destroy your entrepreneurs and you have an imploding economy and starvation. From Stalin to Kim Il Sung the results are clear. Famine.

We must not march lock-step to Marx as contemporary radicals would have it. Their idea is to kill the "exploiters" -- the bourgeoisie. But these are often also the entrepreneurs.

Instead of this stupid bloodletting we should march to Locke. We must get back in step with Locke. Locke is the golden key. Locke-step! should be our rallying cry.

"Life, health, liberty and possessions." A good government protects these, and an evil government does not, according to Locke. These four are God-given rights. Kennedy still had it right and spoke about these four as God-given rights in his acceptance speech. Today the likes of Dean and Kerry have lost sight of Locke and they speak instead in Marxist terminology.

Bush is in step with Locke. It's unfortunate that there is so much Calvin in his framework, but it hasn't locked out Locke.

The left would kill the functional half of the population and turn America into Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge.

We must Locke them out of the White House until they go back to the spirit of JFK and Senator Paul Simon, the Founders.

Nightmare on Elm Street

Here in Delhi there is a street called Orchard St. but the orchard is long gone. There is another street called Elm Street but the elms have vanished leaving just one stump. The few remaining elms of the northeast are due to be wiped out this summer owing to a new strain of Dutch Elm's Disease.

Coffee makes me tough.
Toffee makes me cough.

Argument

The few great poems -- Sandburg's cat, Williams' wheelbarrow, Arlington's Corey -- have nothing personal in them at all.

The Orders of Society and Their Rehabilitation by Lutheran Surrealism

In the 1960s a massive attack occurred similar to the Tet Offensive, but it was even more offensive than Tet. The basic institutions of American society -- family, church, and government, were touted as rotten from the ground up -- founded on an originary vioence that rendered them imperialistic. Family was "patriarchal," and wives were de facto prostitutes and all heterosexual intercourse was rape. Children were therefore an abomination to be aborted. The church was considered to be imperialistic founded on "sky-gods"and had to be dismantled. The words "Father" and "Son" were considered patriarchal and were to be replaced by Sophia and gender-neutral terms. Government with its war in Vietnam was considered imperialistic. The basic orders of society were therefore considered evil. This is now the substance of most teaching in the academies of which Ward Churchill is not so much an anomaly but a symbol.

Family, church and government in the Lutheran tradition are "orders" that stretch between heaven and earth. Of course they can be corrupted. Because no one is pure they are never without some kind of taint. The "matriarchs" however believe that they are pure. That they are holy. (They are so holy that in the 60s they didn't even think they needed to wash!)

If it's true that all institutions are founded on an originary violence (Girard) then the possibility of trust in any given institution is ill-founded. That trust must be reestablished is obvious.

One way to do this is comparative thinking. Was the American government so much worse than that of North Vietnam? Was communism really so much better than capitalism? Are women really morally superior to men? Is the Christian church really so much worse than other religions around the earth? These are some of the basic questions that Lutheran surrealism asks. Imperialistic communism was much worse in the countries it took over than was imperialistic capitalism (the proof is that so many tried to get out of those countries and they had to build walls to keep people in). Is imperialistic feminism so much better than imperialistic patriarchy? At least under patriarchy the laws of logic still exist. Feminism simply undoes them, and argues that power is everything. Patriarchy at least in principle argues that there are principles that supersede whimsical desire. The Christian church -- overturning the madness of Rome, and slowly building the idea of human rights, of resistance to earthly rulers, and arguing that it is the meek that shall inherit the earth -- seems far better than such third world religions as voodoo or Buddhism. Voodoo actually allows for power in exchange for human sacrifice. Buddhism turns the population into such a variety of peace-heads that they are easily controlled by manipulative tyrants.

Our institutions if inspected alongside those of others around the world can be seen to be solid and to allow for trust both in them and in the God who gave them to us after the Fall.

"Two natures in one person." -- Tertullian

Suicide is bad for you.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

The bicyclist falls in the path of a train.
The train derails and falls on a boat.
The boat explodes & singes a hang-glider.
The hang-glider survives but goes nuts on a bus.
He kills the bus driver and drives the bus into a train.
The train derails and hits a boat.
The boat explodes and a particle of fire
Touches a zeppelin that explodes.
An airplane is touched by the flame
And falls like a shooting star into a lake of milk.

"Looking at literature -- can help us to look at complex problems and to think about good & evil."

-- Susan Nieman

Our daughter Lola (age 5) was told that she could have her own room eventually. Presently she shares a room with her younger brother (age 3). She said, "I want a pool, a Christmas tree, a kitten, & lots of paper."

When I lived in Seattle it struck me how little mirth there was in the people. And even less wit.

Now that I'm back in New York State the contrast is even more apparent.

Perhaps it's that the people I knew in Seattle were not religious. Could it be that the dialectics between the ideal of the next world and the reality of this world creates a sense of humor?

The totalitarian materialism of political correctness versus a spirit of forgiveness and community. It's become apparent to me slowly that I could only laugh with a few people in Seattle and they were transplanted Jews or French people from Paris or Lyon. Almost everyone else seemed to have forgotten what laughter is or was, and found it suspect. But if it did happen mostly the response wasn't anger but non-recognition. It wasn't that it was forbidden. It just didn't occur to anybody. It's like finding a long-lost tribe in some jungle somewhere that had never heard of God.