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Thursday, August 4, 2022

Offsite Post: ‘Returning Spiritual Sanity to the United States’

 

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

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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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