In many ways
the United States are nothing more than a dreadful lump of decayed matter
seething with spiritual confusion. It
would seem as though there were no hope for their recovery of a normal, healthy
human life of body and soul. But no one
is without hope; repentance, a new beginning, is always possible. And even with the States, the seeds of their
revival exist even now, although they are obscured by the disorders of the
present day.
But before
we explain what they are, we must first remind ourselves about the normal hierarchical
order of human society. It is
tripartite, as René Guénon reminds us in his slim book, Spiritual Authority
and Temporal Power, consisting of the most important – those who pray (the
priests) – then those who fight (the warriors), and after them those who labor
(farmers, craftsmen, merchants, etc.).
This holds true for all societies, whether of the West or the East. Mr Guénon is quite fond of the Indian
classification of these classes or castes, so we will use them also in what
follows for the sake of consistency.
According to Indian usage, the three classes correspond to the Brahmins,
Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas, respectively (transl. H. Fohr, edr. S. Fohr, Sophia
Perennis, Hillsdale, New York, 2001 [1929], p. 31).
Now, what is
peculiar about the United States is that each of the major cultural regions –
New England, Dixie/the South, and the West (this is includes all the areas
outside New England and the South: the
old Midwest/Rustbelt, Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, desert Southwest, and West
Coast (Alaska and Hawai’i are special cases that fall outside this analysis)) –
match extremely well with a different one of the classes: New England with the Brahmins, Dixie with the
Kshatriyas, and the West with the Vaishyas.
The Yankees
in New England have always been the most inclined to theological explorations
and expositions of the (non-Orthodox) European settlers in the U. S. It should come as no surprise that one of the
nicknames for some Yankees is ‘Boston Brahmins’. The most characteristic Yankee figures in her
history have been precisely theologians:
the famous Congregational pastor Jonathan Edwards and the Unitarian
pastor Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Southerners
are the warrior class. Professor Richard
Weaver, following John Randolph of Roanoke, said of Southerners that they were
fitted especially ‘to lead men, whether in the field or in the Senate chamber’
(The Southern Tradition at Bay, eds. Bradford and Core, Regnery Gateway,
Washington, D.C., 1989, p. 56) – i.e., Southrons are men of the military or men
of politics. The famous figure of
General and President George Washington is the most iconic of Southerners,
followed closely by General Robert E. Lee.
The caste of
knowledge and the caste of action: This
is how Guénon describes the spiritual power (Brahmins) and the temporal power
(Kshatriyas) (p. 25), which, again, correspond well to New England and the
South respectively. Michael Oakeshott
reinforces this dichotomy in his description of two moralities. One he describes as ‘a reflective application
of a moral criterion’ (for the thinking caste) and the other as ‘a habit of
affection and behavior’ (for the active caste) (Rationalism in Politics,
London, 1962, quoted in Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember,
Cambridge UP, New York, 1989, p. 29).
Once again, it is not difficult to discern the Yankee spirit in the
first and the Southern spirit in the second.
But there is
still the third class in the United States, the laboring class. These are all the blue-collar workers –
miners, farm laborers, factory workers, and so on – and white-collar workers –
the researchers and deskmen of Silicon Valley – who populate the vast western
lands of the U. S. Their most striking
representatives are populist politicians like William Jennings Bryan and Robert
La Follette, as well as the many agricultural workers who organized strikes
during the Great Depression. One may
easily see in this class the Third Estate of the French, and Guenon certainly
does (p. 30, note 8).
These, then,
are the most basic characteristics of the three great cultural regions of the
U. S. If they are recognized, then there
is hope for a better future for the peoples of the States. With their recognition it will be possible to
reform the political system so that it resembles a pre-Enlightenment,
pre-Modernist, system: the system of the
three estates (the priests/theologians, warriors, and workers), which we have
just alluded to – a system built around developing unity and consensus by
calling for unanimous agreement amongst the estates/classes before a law is
enacted; by giving each estate a veto to protect its interests from
encroachments by the other two. This is
what the fine Southern statesman John C. Calhoun had in mind with his
concurrent majority, and it can be put into practice by giving each of the
three super regions of the U. S. such a veto over acts of the federal
government.
Despite the
promise offered by such visions and reforms, there will be no deep,
long-lasting unity and harmony outside of the Orthodox Church. Her
faithful sing on the great feast of Holy Pentecost:
‘When the
most High came down and confused the tongues, / He divided the nations; / but
when he distributed the tongues of fire / He called all to unity. / Therefore,
with one voice, we glorify the All-holy Spirit!’
Without the
Holy Spirit, we will all remain more or less in post-Fall, post-Flood,
post-Tower of Babel chaos and confusion.
However, just as we saw with St Brendan of
Clonfert and the North Atlantic countries, there is also an Orthodox saint
from the Western European lands of their ancestors who embodies and expresses
the spiritual ideal of each of the three regions in the U. S., who can pray for
them and help them attain that ideal, which means, ultimately, the full
acquisition of the Holy Ghost.
For Brahmin
New England, St Felix of East Anglia seems the best fit for a Patron. Among other things written about
him by Mr Dmitry Lapa are these pertinent lines connecting him with the
spiritual life:
. . .
The rest is
on this page:
https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/returning-spiritual-sanity-united-states
Or here:
https://katehon.com/en/article/returning-spiritual-sanity-united-states
--
Holy Ælfred
the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to
the Union!
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