To beleive Christian Civilization, or more acurately Christian Culture, is important enough to support and attempt to restore, is to imply the superiority of Christian culture to other cultural forms. If this is true, how does one demonstrate this superiority in an empiricle argument that is not subject to criticisms of cultural bias?

If I understand him correctly, Mr. Smith assumes the conclusion: that there is some perspective independent of cultural norms from which to evaluate cultural norms. The traditionalist view is that we understand transcendent objective value through our particular culture and tradition. It isn’t a perfect epistemology, but it is the only one we’ve got. Attempts to deny moral epistemology-through-tradition inevitably lead to places like Auschwitz.

My question was rhetorical. I Understand that we create qualitative measures of cultural value within the blinders of our given cultural system. This being true, is there in fact some noble reason or higher purpose for the preservation of Euro-Christian culture in the United States? Or is the argument simply based on the premise, being a dwindeling majority, the members of Euro-Christian culture percieve cultural preservation as group preservation? If the latter is true what is the foundatiuon for this beleif?
As to Matt’s statement on the importance of Moral epistemology I agree completely, but the assimilation of cultures does not necessitate the end of morality. Changing and shifting morality certainly and with that change a potentialy dangerous period of moral flux such as we see at present, but doom and gloom is not inevitable.

I would disagree with the characterization of Western culture as “blinders”. Our particular culture and tradition are the physical eyes with which we gaze upon the transcendent. Any actual eyes are actual particular eyes with particular characteristics and made of a particular substance: these eyes rather than those eyes; but without them we are truly blind. So my own position on the matter is that cultural suicide also entails moral suicide, and if you aren’t in favor of the latter you have to fight against the former.

I think it is true, by the way, that liberalism gazes on the world out of empty eye sockets, having in this advanced stage gouged out her own actual eyes in an attempt to avoid cultural discrimination.

The question from Mr. Smith hasn’t been addressed. Whether western culture act as blinders, or the eyes though which we gaze upon the transcendent is an interesting question for which I have my own thoughts. But the question I find more interesting is “…is there in fact some noble reason or higher purpose for the preservation of Euro-Christian culture in the United States? I am interested because I posed the same question and Mr. Smith told me that Pat Buchanan addresses it in his latest book of which he could not remember the title.”

I had asked, “If Western Euro centric culture vanishes off the face of the earth, so what? Over the millennia different cultures and even different species have dominated the earth. Other then a Root-for-the-home-team esthetic what is inherently important about the continued legacy of WEC Culture?” I all fairness perhaps Mr. Buchanan answers the second question I asked which is not posed here.

Maybe no one has bothered answering Mr. DeMent’s question because it is so patently nihilistic that it doesn’t deserve a reply. One might as well ask: “Why should we mind if the human race is destroyed in a nuclear catastrophe? After all, lots of species have come and gone. Why do we really care about the survival of humanity, other than a root-for-the-home-team aesthetic?”

By the way, when I wrote the above line about “lots of species have come and gone,” I thought I was parodying Mr. DeMent. I had forgotten that he himself had actually said that.

But Mr DeMent, it is my culture, my race, my history and my tradition whose destruction is being spoken of here.

It’s not enough to philosophically say that it will all come to an end one day anyway. You could say the same thing about the lives of your wife and children, but that doesn’t stop you acting out of a special love and duty to preserve their existence.

I believe that it is part of our spiritual nature to identify in terms of ancestry, nation and culture (amongst other things). If you are strongly natured in this way you will be concerned to carry forward your own particular tradition for the benefit of those who follow you.

Mr. Smith’s question has been answered. One (but not the only) noble reason to purify and preserve Western culture is precisely the same as the noble reason why we purify and preserve our own actual particular eyes, mortal as they are, rather than digging them out with a screwdriver. It is more than analogy, if less than category. Someone incapable of seeing this has, as I mentioned, already assumed the nihilistic conclusion, and is already staring blankly at the world out of empty sockets. Another truism about liberalism in general is that by celebrating the relentless elimination of the relevance of particularity it embraces death.

Several points in response to Matt. First; you establish a metaphor in which we obviously are not in agreement (more on that later) then you present your argument strictly within the frame-work of that metaphor thereby avoiding any direct discussion of the nature of Culture while at the same time precluding a dissenting opinion unless it utilizes the metaphor and therefor the rules you have established. It is necessary then for me to return to my “blinders” in order to explain my Metaphor.
I view culture not as the eye’s through which we view the transcendent, that role falls to our subjective perception. No instead culture is the primary means by which we shape and analyze our perception. Culture then is best described as a working model of our total environment. A system of thought to which our experiences can be applied in order to achieve norms of thought and behavior. As in any model, culture has definite boundaries and specific dimensions. Without these limitations it would be no system or model only chaos. My point of the blinders is to examplify those boundries. Because it is beyond these specific cultural boundries where we find the distinctions between cultures.
All this said I do not see where the merging of culturese necessitates cultural suicide. Instead it is a potential catalyst to cultural evelution. An example from history. Before the 5th century BC judaism was a very localized tribal culture practicing an early form of monotheism heavily steeped in pagan ritual such as animal sacrifice and burnt offerings. from the 5th to the 1st centuries Judaism came in to heavy contact with Greek, Babylonian (under less than ideal conditions) Persian and Roman cultures. It was through these exposures they developed a complete system of metaphysics (still accepted by christianity today), the philosphical systems of charity and social benevolence, the Platonic notion of a transcendent God, Aristotalian rationalism and a universal divinity in a state of competitive strif with evil. (This last from the Zoroastrian) All of these concepts are foundational to the current Euro-Christian cultural model and yet would not be without the cultural contamination that took place 2,500 years ago in a small Levantine backwater.
I hope I have made my position clear enough to again ask my earlier question “This being true, is there in fact some noble reason or higher purpose for the preservation of Euro-Christian culture in the United States?” No offence Matt, but the use of limiting metaphors or similes to restrict the argument does not serve to answer my question.

Mr. Smith begins by asserting that to believe that the Christian culture is worth preserving is to believe that it is superior to other cultures, and then goes on to ask for a proof of that superiority.

But surely it is not necessary to believe that a culture is superior to others in order to want to preserve it. As Mr. Richardson so eloquently pointed out, it is enough that it is *my* culture and that I want to preserve it in the same way I want to preserve the lives of my family.

Even if our desire to preserve our culture does involve some notion of its superiority, this is usually not a judgment established from the kind of detached, culturally impartial (and, I think, practically impossible) viewpoint implied by the demand for proof. It is a judgment more like the one that leads me to believe that my children are more important to me than yours.

From a formal, logical viewpoint my fondness for my own children and my own culture is indeed a kind of “bias”. But, so what? Is a man not allowed to love his children or his culture, unless he can prove to all hypothetical doubters that they are worthy of his love?

So, Mr. Smith, I must ask you, who are the judges whom you feel we must satisfy by producing an impartial, empirical and universally acceptable demonstration that Christian culture ought to be preserved? Who is it that is telling us we have no right to hold these things dear unless we can produce such demonstrations?

Mr. Smith begins by asserting that a desire to preserve a culture implies a belief in the superiority of that culture, and then goes on to demand of proof of that superiority.

But surely it isn’t necessary to believe that one’s culture is superior to any others in order to want to preserve it. As Mr. Richardson eloquently pointed out, it’s enough that it is *my* culture and that I want to preserve it in the same way I want to preserve the lives of my children.

Even if our desire to preserve our culture includes some notion of its superiority, this usually isn’t a judgment which is made from the kind of detached, culturally impartial (and, I think, practically impossible) viewpoint implied by the demand for proof. Instead, it’s more like the kind of judgment which leads me to feel that my children are more important to me than yours.

From a strictly logical point of view, my fondness for my own children and my own culture is indeed a form of “bias”. But, so what? Is a man not allowed to love his children or his culture, unless he can prove to all hypothetical doubters that they are worthy of his love?

So, Mr. Smith, I must ask you: who are the judges whom you feel we must satisfy with unbiased, empirical and universally-acceptable demonstrations that Christian culture ought to be preserved? Who is it that is telling us we have no right to hold these things dear, unless we provide such proofs?

While I appreciate the time Mr. Smith took to respond, it seems to me that the reason the discussion is not getting anywhere is because of a fundamental disagreement as to first principles, which I indicated at the outset. He seems to want me to suspend the traditionalist view and provide justification for revering Christian culture based on some other unspecified view. As I said at first, he has assumed the conclusion: that is, he has assumed that the traditionalist view of culture and tradition as the necessary tangible actual epistemic mediator of our understanding of morality specifically and the transcendent in general is false. It is not an analogy, it is a basic understanding prior to further discussion.

Clearly neither I nor any traditionalist will agree with his initial premise, so asking me to go along with it for the sake of argument might be interesting but any such discussion won’t be exploring anything that I actually think. It will from my perspective be a flight of fancy into irrationality, rather like asking someone who understands Einstein’s special theory of relativity to talk about physical reality from the perspective of Michaelson and Morley’s ether.

In short, I believe I said at the outset that Mr. Smith assumes the conclusion — that is, he assumes the traditionalist perspective to be false. He then asks for justifications of defending Christian culture that follow from that premise. Obviously he can’t expect any such justification from a traditionalist.

I appologize if I offended and obviousley I am not a traditionalist. On that point Matt is correct.

To both Matt and Charlie, I am not trying and never intnded to judge Euro-Christian culture. I had originnaly attempted to discover the reason for the cultural reverance. Is it subjective or objective. That was settled much earlier in this discussion with Matt’s original response. I thought I had made my understanding clear in my second statement.

The traditionalist argument is cetainly not metaphor, but the use of the eye’s as a discription of cultural functioning certainly is.

I have still further tried to discover why it is the introduction of alien culture in to our own means our cultural demise? To that question I have yet to receive an answer. Is there no possibility other than death? In light of my Judaic historic example I beleive the answer is no. If I am wrong please enlighten me.

It seems to me one can discuss the relative standing of religions, cultures or whatever on grounds that do not simply repeat the premises of one culture or another, but the discussion would demand a huge amount from the participants, much more than one can expect in an Internet discussion. Still, crude observations are possible, for example that people in other parts of the world imitate the achievements of European Christian culture and try to move to places where it prevails.

As to cultural mixture and the Jews, their difficult history has no doubt led to great achievements but it’s been very hard on particular Jews and similar events have destroyed other peoples. Further, part of the Jewish response has been the drawing of lines to reduce mixing and so preserve Jewish identity. That being so it seems clear that the Jews themselves have viewed the introduction of alien culture in their midst as a threat, although one that at least until recent years they had found effective ways to counter.

Another point, Charlie talks about his built in bias regarding his children. This bias to me is self-evident and needs no explanation. But I would be biased towards my children. As long as those biases don’t conflict we are fine. The problem arises when the biases do conflict. Personally I ask for no proof of the superiority of Western Christian Eurocentric Culture. Nor do I deny that there is a strong instinct to preserve ones way of life that is difficult to articulate. But if the traditionalist (or anyone supporting a philosophy or world view) wants to do more then simply preach to the converted, it is essential that what is accepted as axiomatic be accompanied with some supporting logic. I asked, not so much for proof that WCE culture was superior, only for an explanation of why it was important that it be preserved. Indeed I will admit that I had assumed, perhaps erroneously that the reason was based on its superiority and I do appreciate Charlie and Matt for setting the record straight in that regard.

Mr. Smith offered a contradiction to the traditionalist viewpoint that the merging of cultures necessitates cultural suicide. I could offer countless examples throughout history and in the world that directly contradicts many of the basic tenets (as I understand them) of traditionalist thought. But my thinking is limited so I seek to understand further Charlie asks, “…who are the judges whom you feel we must satisfy with unbiased, empirical and universally-acceptable demonstrations that Christian culture ought to be preserved? Only those you seek to persuade. If you don’t care that others accept your view then you can continue to believe anything you want and you will have no burden of explanation or rebuttal. For those of us who hold a different worldview and who seek better understanding of yours, it’s essential to the discussion.

There must be some reason, beyond the root-for-the-home-team esthetic that explains why traditionalists regard the preservation of WCE culture is so inherently important. And in light of Mr. Smith’s example doesn’t the idea of cultural evolution have merit? Even that which is identified as traditional WCE culture is the product of change over a period of hundreds of years. The selection of any definable standard is, at the heart of it, arbitrary and at its worst reflects not the noble preservation of an enlightened worldview, but rather that of pedestrian self-interest. But I have little concern for those who hold a traditionalist view out of pure self-interest; rather I am interested in the ideas of those who hold the true faith.

Clearly it would be incorrect to take the traditionalist view as saying that assimilation is impossible and change never happens. On the contrary, when there is immigration assimilation is absolutely necessary; and respecting and carrying on for your parents, in part by treating their traditions and culture as authoritative, doesn’t make you identical to them.

I guess I should point out also that a traditionalist denies that the selection of a definable standard (presumably Mr. DeMent means moral standard?) is arbitrary. Morality is no more arbitrary than physics. All of our knowledge of all things is mediated by actual objects, actual experiences, actual authorities, and actual other persons.

The postmoderns take this universal subjective mediation to imply that truth is just a narrative output from arbitrary wills. I agree that arbitrariness is an inevitable result of presuming arbitrariness at the outset, but I don’t see why Jacques Derrida and Michael Foucalt see profundity in that result.

I on the other hand don’t fall for the notion that because I can’t look at the world in any way except through my own particular eyes that therefore what I see is all illusion. I also don’t fall for the notion that I can become more objective by getting rid of my own unique pair of eyes. So in the end there is a common sense rejection of the ridiculous behind my own personal traditionalism. Modernism and its close cousin postmodernism have become self-parodies, reductio-ad-absurda of themselves, so I am left simply believing my own eyes.

I would argue that morality is no more arbitrary then physics but that is another discussion entirely. When I mentioned the standards I was referring to, not only the moral code, but the folkways, customs and everything else that defines cultural tradition. It is this that, presumably, that traditional conservatives are trying to preserve. Since changes occur in all traditions from generation to generation, it seems that it is necessary to identify what static set of components we are trying to preserve. It is this selection that I find arbitrary. My thought was that in order to “go back” to a tradition that our culture might have “gotten away from”, you have to be able to identify what it is you want to go back to. . (Of course I may be missing the while point in which case I apologize for my considerable thick headedness.)

Also when Matt talks about the tradition of your parents and then acknowledges that progeny are not identical to the parents is he acknowledging that certain aspects of the tradition change? If so which elements are required to remain static in order for the tradition to be preserved? And the fundamental question remains. Is their no other reason to actively engage in the effort to maintain and promote the preservation of Western Eurocentric culture other then “…because it’s ours?”

Mr. Klab points out that other people seek to imitate the achievements of European Christian culture and try to move to places where it prevails. Is Mr. Kalb suggesting therefore that preservation of ECC is important because of its inherent superiority or, at least because it results in a higher level of achievement? The assumption here, of course, is that economic development and the high standard of living that it offers are a direct result of ECC. Of course this is true but from a historical perspective this is a development of fairly recent vintage. Arab culture went through its golden age, as did Chinese culture. Of course many cultures flourished for thousands of years while the people that would become Europeans were still tribal bands. But Mr. Kalb is correct, as interesting as all this is, much is beyond the scope of a discussion board.

The scientific and economic superiority of Christendom isn’t all that recent. The West pulled together after the various invasions and disruptions of the early Middle Ages in the 11th c. or thereabouts and within a couple of hundred years it was in advance of the Muslim world although the Ottoman military machine did pose a serious threat until the 17th c. Besides, to say European Christian culture is worth preserving or even European Christian culture is superior is not to say that Europeans have always had a culture superior in all respects to any other.

In any event, it’s not just money that draws foreigners and attracts their imitation but also a freer and more orderly public life. But as mentioned “how do people vote with their feet” is a crude measure. My basic point is that “which culture and civilization is best” is something that can be discussed rationally but it’s a big topic and takes some doing, so internet debates are probably not the place. It involves point-by-point comparisons among civilizations, which is a difficult and lengthy task.

It is also a part of the traditionalist perspective that you can’t comprehensively make explicit what is eternal and what is not. Attempts to make creation static are tantamount to attempts to kill it. Compare this with the liberal element in Protestantism that gave rise to modernism and then to modern liberalism. _Sola Scriptura_ in its most comprehensible form attempts to definitively answer Mr. DeMent’s question in the form of a textual canon, but it ultimately fails even at the level of basic logic: Godel’s Theorem guarantees that any attempt to simultaneously require completeness and two-valued logic will fail. So even at the level of basic mathematics and logic I think the answer to Mr. DeMent’s question is that his question is malformed, although there is unquestionably a relentless modern tendency to ask it.

Mr. Kalb and Matt have made some very interesting comments and their indulgence is very much appreciated. I would tend to agree that the question of the objective superiority of one culture or another is malformed, but that is not, for me, the interesting question. Is their no other reason to actively engage in the effort to maintain and promote the preservation of Western Eurocentric culture other then “…because it’s ours?” Perhaps this is the question that Matt feels is malformed or perhaps it has been answered and I simply do not posses the intellect to comprehend the answer. Ether way this has been an enlightening exchange for me.

As for the economic superiority of European Christian Culture, in terms of human history it is a recent development. Whole cultures rose, flourished and were covered over by dust for 1000 years before Christ was born.

Well, the specific question I thought was malformed was this one:

”[…] which elements are required to remain static in order for the tradition to be preserved?” (Mr. DeMent)

There is a long-standing tendency in Western thought to attempt such a definition in order to emancipate us from everything but the minimal requirements. The attempt to use the Bible canon alone is perhaps the most prominent example. What I attempted to say is that the question is irrational; it is literally (and even provably) impossible to explicitly define this minimal set of propositions. So asking the question of how to define it is like asking how to draw a round square on a flat sheet of paper. We can say the words but they don’t really mean anything, leaving aside the Zen consideration that we can think about shape while contemplating a self-contradictory specification of a shape.

I think it is eminently reasonable to compare traditions in various ways. Optometrists can study the appearance, structure, and utility of eyes as long as they have properly functioning ones themselves. It is even possible to study eyes without having any yourself, but only in greatly diminished capacity.

With regard to a point at the end of Mr. Auster’s original posting, I question whether it is a good idea to put laws on the books without intending to enforce them, as an “expression of the community’s moral code”. Isn’t this likely to encourage widespread lawbreaking and contempt for the law? It also gives the state excessive discretion in the use of its coercive powers: homosexuals can be punished if they also happen to be political dissidents, etc. It also encourages the proliferation of official prohibitions whether these are morally justifiable or not. I have the impression the current tendency to use the law as a moral code, with mountains of widely ignored regulations, would have been regarded as a sign of decadence by earlier legal thinkers—the result of the disappearance of other moral authorities. Victorian England (for example) had a strict but unofficial code without legal penalties for such activities as opium smoking.

I think the difficulty Mr. Hare points out is intrinsic to a formulation of morality in the form of “rights”. Our specification of what is legal and what is moral can never be complete, so in a world of particulars we will always be faced with clearly explicitly defined cases and more ambiguous cases. The area between the prohibited and the required is the interesting part, where all of the political conflict occurs. This morality-space can be viewed from a perspective of assertive “rights” or of responsible “thou shalt nots”, and there are consequences for adopting the former perspective over the latter.

One idea behind classical liberalism was that traditionally governments had assertive “rights,” and that their possession of such rights led to tyranny. The liberal answer was to shift perspective from the rights of the sovereign to the rights of the individual.

I don’t think that works in the long run. The problem of practical justice is not a problem of extreme cases, but exactly those cases that lie between. Judeo-Christian tradition had a long-standing habit of formulating morality in terms of “thou shalt not”, so that encroachment on the space between was something to be justified. If the liberal reformers had adopted this model and applied it to governments, rather than adopting the model of assertive “rights” and applying it to individuals, then we might have a quite different world. A self-assertive modern man wandering the wilderness with his “rights” can do anything that is not explicitly proscribed. His default posture is not that he has to justify his actions, but that any interference with his actions must be justified. The same for a government that has “rights” rather than the responsibilities implied by “thou shalt not”. It may be possible to force “thou shalt not steal” into the box we call a “right to property”, but the affect of so doing on our concept of justice in general is troublesome. One of the affects of that troublesomeness is the tendency to legally codify morality in the _between_ space even though we may have no strong intention to enforce.