So here’s something I just posted on their site to rile them up:
Postmodern conservatives aren’t first wave liberals and are anti-Cartesian in the spirit of Maritain/Percy/Deneen/MacIntyre, while thinking Maritain himself is too Kantian and Deneen/MacIntyre are too Marxist. So the latter think that the abstraction “capitalist” invented by Marx refers adequately to some real-world way of life and so are too hostile to the blessings of freedom, including even religious freedom. (M’s practical judgments are characteristically silly, while D is always too worked up about peak this or that.) PCs affirms the Declaration of Independence in the spirit of Chesterton in WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA (which I hear Pat likes) or the unjustly neglected Bruckberger, who saw that the legislative compromise between Calvinists and atheists produced a kind of Thomism that was better than intention than either of the factions. So we agree with Brownson (or my bizarre interpretation based on what he actually wrote) that our “providential constitution” shaped the statesmen who wrote our written Constitution–which is why what they accomplished practically was better than (and even qualitatively different from) their predominately Lockean theory. We also don’t use Voegelian words like “egophanic,” thinking them modern deformations characeristic of a highly abstract world divorced from the language of common sense. No Straussian thinks I’m a Straussian, although there’s A LOT to learn from him (as Pat can tell you) and it’s hardly a point of pride not to have read him. What’s wrong with most Straussians is that they think that the fundamentally impersonal LOGOS of Aristotle is true, and the personal LOGOS of the early church fathers is false–a point made eloquently by our present philosopher-pope.
June 26th, 2009 | 11:09 am
[...] #39 on the comment list, I thought I’d post it here. Lawler has responded below that, but also posted his response over at PoMoCon today. Re: his tweak at my “Marxism,” what I wrote (and maintain) was that Marx was a [...]
June 26th, 2009 | 11:36 am
What critique might a PoMoCo make of Straussians with regard to historical context?
June 26th, 2009 | 3:31 pm
Agreed, Peter, even if I’d put it in a less Roman Catholic way, and even if I’m not sure I understand what you/Brownson (and others) mean about a “providential constitution.” I’m definitely with the newly rereleased Bruckberger book, and its way of reading the Dec/founding.
Oh, and while I know what you mean by calling Deneen too Marxist, since i agree with you about “capitalism”, the man really does not deserve any association with the M-word.
As for the Strauss-stuff, I wonder how the quite Straussian Dr. Ceaser understands his alliance-with/membership-in the pomocons, whom in the past he has referred to as the “faith-based Straussians”(although he likes to jokingly add that most of these are French!).
June 26th, 2009 | 9:52 pm
[...] Lawler again: Postmodern conservatives aren’t first wave liberals and are anti-Cartesian in the spirit of Maritain/Percy/Deneen/MacIntyre, while thinking Maritain himself is too Kantian and Deneen/MacIntyre are too Marxist. So the latter think that the abstraction “capitalist” invented by Marx refers adequately to some real-world way of life and so are too hostile to the blessings of freedom, including even religious freedom. (M’s practical judgments are characteristically silly, while D is always too worked up about peak this or that.) PCs affirms the Declaration of Independence in the spirit of Chesterton in WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA (which I hear Pat likes) or the unjustly neglected Bruckberger, who saw that the legislative compromise between Calvinists and atheists produced a kind of Thomism that was better than intention than either of the factions. So we agree with Brownson (or my bizarre interpretation based on what he actually wrote) that our “providential constitution” shaped the statesmen who wrote our written Constitution–which is why what they accomplished practically was better than (and even qualitatively different from) their predominately Lockean theory. We also don’t use Voegelian words like “egophanic,” thinking them modern deformations characeristic of a highly abstract world divorced from the language of common sense. No Straussian thinks I’m a Straussian, although there’s A LOT to learn from him (as Pat can tell you) and it’s hardly a point of pride not to have read him. What’s wrong with most Straussians is that they think that the fundamenAdd New Post ‹ Around The Sphere — WordPresstally impersonal LOGOS of Aristotle is true, and the personal LOGOS of the early church fathers is false–a point made eloquently by our present philosopher-pope. [...]
June 29th, 2009 | 5:41 pm
[...] contribution to this argument, and which I still believe a few days of comment-tracking later, the back-and-forth snarking about Marx–with attendant commentary from many others–is actually [...]
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