Offsite Post: ‘French Culture and Resistance to Change’

 

Louisiana’s French heritage is a blessing in many ways, giving a unique quality to her culture – to the way her people speak, to her music, to her calendar, and so on with the rest.  But it also has its downsides, one of them being a resistance to necessary political reform.

A review of French history reveals why this is the case:  The higher economic classes in French society have always been extremely jealous of the fiefs they control and are loathe to relinquish any of the influence and power they wield.  In older times, this class was the feudal nobility, whose vast land holdings and numerous clients dependent on them gave them tremendous power in French politics.  Today in la Louisiane we would recognize them as special interests – local governments and organizations, universities, trial lawyers, and the like.  They have a different name than their medieval French counterparts, but their function in Louisiana politics is the same:  The large amount of financial resources they control and the crowds of people who depend on them in some way give them a lot of sway in Louisiana politics.

The selfish oligarchy have been content at times to allow the common good and even the unity of the French country itself decay and crumble to allow them to retain and/or enhance their own status.  An identifiable French country has come close to dying out on a number of occasions, only to be saved by a Providentially sent ‘revivalist’ (to use Scott McKay’s term again).  The latter years of the Merovingian dynasty was one of those times, when the central power grew weak and some of the nobility rose up against the kings, but France was united again and the uprisings quelled by Pippin III (8^th century), who began the energetic Carolingian dynasty.

Another episode occurred in the 15^th century during the Hundred Years’ War with England.  This time, much of the nobility had defected from the rightful heir to the French throne, Charles VII, and allied themselves with the English who occupied large swaths of France at the time.  But the sudden appearance of Joan of Arc reversed the fortunes of the French, King Charles was able to be properly anointed and coronated, and France was restored as a nation in Western Europe.

The worst showing of the French oligarchs came in WWII when the French government under Marshal Petain capitulated to the German Nazis and became their puppets.  Charles de Gaulle emerged at this time, who, with God’s help and few others’, slowly built up a resistance force that saved France from extinction.

Louisiana has faced moments like these.  Bienville kept the Louisiana colony afloat during its turbulent early years, when missteps by others with the Native Americans and with finances put her young life in peril.  The carpetbaggers and scalawags had turned Louisiana into a sewer of corruption during Reconstruction; Francis Nichols as governor cleaned much of that out.  And while his socialism and corruption are repugnant, Huey Long is also one of those leaders who was able to overcome powerful entrenched interests for the sake of (his distorted vision of) the common good.

A major complication in efforts to rein in the oligarchy in countries descended from France is the arrogance of the French upper classes, who see themselves as a chosen, privileged group of people.  The lower classes therefore have difficulty in finding champions to help them in resolving their legitimate grievances against any of the upper classes’ members.  This smug attitude was on clear display during the Hundred Years’ War, when some of the crossbowmen hired as mercenaries from Genoa to fight alongside the French knights were literally trampled down by the latter because of some casual remarks of King Philip VI on their way to a battle.  About six decades later, 6,000 volunteer crossbowmen from Paris were not taken into battle and were belittled by the French nobles who wondered ‘what they needed “these shopkeepers” for’ (Henry Myers, Medieval Kingship, Nelson-Hall, Chicago, 1982, pgs. 324-5).

However, though the French character is a powerful and defining factor in Louisiana politics, it is not the only one.  There is also the English heritage to consider, and it is nearly the opposite of the French.  For while the French are hampered by class divisiveness, the English are not.  There has been rancor between the two at times, but the upper and lower classes of England have been able to form a closer, friendlier bond.  This is expressed quite beautifully in the life of St. Edmund, King of East Anglia (martyred by the Viking Danes in 869 A.D.), who was the original patron saint of England prior to the Norman invasion in 1066 that overturned so much of Orthodox English life:

Edmund was tall, with fair hair, well-built and with a particular majesty of bearing. He was a wise and honest man, pious and chaste in all his deeds. In all things he always strove to please God and by his pure life and glorious works he won the respect of all his subjects. Edmund was very meek and humble: he knew that, becoming a king, he could never be conceited with his countrymen, but should only be on a par with everybody in the kingdom. Edmund was protector of the Church and a shelter for orphans, was generous to the poor and cared for widows like a loving father. All who pleaded to him for justice received help. It was said that even children could walk alone great distances in the kingdom without any fear for themselves under St. Edmund. The holy king corrected the stubborn and impious and led his country to repentance. He served his nation so selflessly that he even refused marriage, laboring wholeheartedly for the good of the people.

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2024/06/garlington-french-culture-and-resistance-to-change/.

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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!

Offsite Post: ‘Conservative Virtue Signaling over Frederick Douglass Is a Big Mistake’

 

Louisiana’s Superintendent of Education Dr Cade Brumley stirred up a bit of a tempest by recommending Prager U resources to Louisiana’s teachers as supplemental teaching material.  Encouraging teachers to use material outside the monopolistic, Left-leaning textbook racket is a good idea, and should be expanded, but Prager U should come with some warning signs for those who care about the faithful presentation of history.

The two Prager U videos about Frederick Douglass that Scott McKay included in his story are good examples.  The videos portray Mr Douglass as a peace-loving, non-violent abolitionist content with incremental efforts to end slavery within the established constitutional system.  More specifically, they imply that he is the opposite of folks like the George Floyd protesters, who sated themselves with murder, arson, and looting in 2020.  This is not historically accurate; Mr Douglass’s words and associations betray this portrayal of him.

Mr Douglass’s speech on 3 December 1860 in honor of John Brown is a case-in-point.  John Brown was one of the vilest Yankees (may God have mercy on his soul), determined to stir up a murderous slave revolt in the South.  He gave it his best shot at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, a venture planned and funded by some of the most wealthy and influential men of the North (the Secret Six), but it failed:

 

On Sunday, October 16, 1859, Brown and his army shifted into action. They entered Harpers Ferry and captured several hostages, while a second group abducted Lewis Washington, a descendant of the American Cincinnatus, plundering his home for good measure. Among the family heirlooms stolen were a pistol that had been given to our first President by the Marquis de Lafayette and a dress sword given by Frederick the Great of Prussia. Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart were dispatched to Harpers Ferry, where, within less than 36 hours, Brown’s attempt at fomenting a mass slave insurrection was brought to its ignominious end. By the final assault, ten of Brown’s terrorists were killed, with another seven later arrested and executed. One Federal soldier was killed, as were six civilians, including Mayor Fontaine Beckham. Though John Brown did not accomplish his mission on that October day, the war that he had hoped to spark was little more than one year away.

One would expect Mr Douglass, if he were the sort of man shown in the Prager U videos, to have denounced this heinous act, but he did the opposite.  Here are his own words from 1860 praising John Brown and encouraging acts of violence and terror against Southerners:

 

From my heart of hearts I endorse the sentiment expressed by Mr. Phillips, of approval of all methods of proceeding against slavery, politics, religion, peace, war, Bible, Constitution, disunion, Union–(laughter)–every possible way known in opposition to slavery is my way. But the moral and social means of opposing slavery have had a greater prominence, during the last twenty-five years, than the way indicated by the celebration of this day–I mean the John Brown way. This is a recent way of opposing slavery; and I think, since it is in consequence of this peculiar mode of advocating the overthrow of slavery that we have had a mob in Boston today, it may be well for me to occupy the few moments I have in advocating John Brown’s way of accomplishing our object. (Applause.)

 

 . . . We must, as John Brown, Jr.–thank God that he lives and is with us to-night! (applause)–we must, as John Brown Jr., has taught us this evening, reach the slaveholder’s conscience through his fear of personal danger. We must make him feel that there is death in the air about him, that there is death in the pot before him, that there is death all around him. We must do this in some way. It can be done. . . . The negroes of the South must do this; they must make these slaveholders feel that there is something uncomfortable about slavery–must make them feel that it is not so pleasant, after all, to go to bed with bowie-knives, and revolvers, and pistols, as they must. This can be done, and will be done–(cheers)–yes, I say will be done. . . .

 

I say, sir, that I want the slaveholders to be made uncomfortable. Every slave that escapes helps to add to their discomfort. I rejoice in every uprising at the South. Although the men may be shot down, they may be butchered upon the spot, the blow tells, notwithstanding, and cannot but tell. Slaveholders sleep more uneasily than they used to. They are more careful to know that the doors are locked than they formerly were. They are more careful to know that their bowie-knives are sharp; they are more careful to know that their pistols are loaded. This element will play its part in the abolition of slavery. . . .

 

Something is said about the dissolution of the Union under Mr. Lincoln or under Mr. Buchanan. I am for dissolution of the Union–decidedly for dissolution of the Union! . . . In case of such a dissolution, I believe that men could be found at least as brave as Walker, and more skillful than any other fillibuster, who would venture into those States and raise the standard of liberty there, and have ten thousand and more hearts at the North beating in sympathy with them. I believe a Garibaldi would arise who would march into those States with a thousand men, and summon to his standard sixty thousand, if necessary, to accomplish the freedom of the slave. (Cheers.)

 

 . . . The only way to make the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter, is to make a few dead slave-catchers. (Laughter and applause.) There is no need to kill them either–shoot them in the legs, and send them to the South living epistles of the free gospel preached here at the North. (Renewed laughter.)

And if Christianity still means anything to conservatives in the States, they might also want to know that Mr Douglass venerated two rather questionable German thinkers – Ludwig Feuerbach and David Strauss (busts of those two rested on his fireplace mantle).  About Feuerbach, it is said that he

 

was a German anthropologist and philosopher, best known for his book The Essence of Christianity, which provided a critique of Christianity that strongly influenced generations of later thinkers, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx,^[6] Sigmund Freud,^[7] Friedrich Engels,^[8] Mikhail Bakunin,^[9] Richard Wagner,^[10] and Friedrich Nietzsche.^[11] An associate of Young Hegelian circles, Feuerbach advocated atheism and anthropological materialism.^[1] Many of his philosophical writings offered a critical analysis of religion. His thought was influential in the development of historical materialism,^[6] where he is often recognized as a bridge between Hegel and Marx.^[12]

Strauss wasn’t any better:

 

Strauss's Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined) was a sensation. While not denying that Jesus existed, Strauss did argue that the miracles in the New Testament were mythical additions with little basis in fact.^[3][4][5] Carl August von Eschenmayer wrote a review in 1835 called "The Iscariotism of our days", a review which Strauss characterised as "the offspring of the legitimate marriage between theological ignorance and religious intolerance, blessed by a sleep-walking philosophy." The Earl of Shaftesbury called the 1846 translation by Marian Evans (George Eliot) "the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell."^[6][7][8][9] When Strauss was elected to a chair of theology in the University of Zürich, the appointment provoked such a storm of controversy that the authorities decided to pension him before he began his duties and effigies of Strauss were burnt during Zurich's Shrove Tuesday festival.^[10] Strauss donated the pension, 1000 Swiss Francs per year, to the poor.^[11]

This isn’t the first time that Prager U has been dishonest about the past.  They have posted videos about slavery and its role in the misnamed Civil War and about Reconstruction that have also told some exceptionally grand whoppers.

For those who might think all this fussing about the past doesn’t amount to very much, they need to think again.  There is a direct line from Northern abolitionist thinking to modern insanities like homosexual marriage and trans rights.  Neil Kumar gets the ball rolling:

 

Religious apostasy combined with political fervor in the North to forge the new faith of militant abolitionism. New England was long a hotbed of heresy, as the grandchildren of the Puritans drifted into Unitarianism, denying the divinity of Jesus Christ and openly scorning the inerrancy of the Scripture, deconstructing the Word of God into tattered “mountains of footnotes, denials, and arguments.” Abolitionism infused with Unitarianism cloaked itself in the language of Christian rhetoric, in which slavery was rendered a “sin,” and Southerners incorrigible, unrepentant “sinners,” fit for nothing short of the fires of Hell.

Rod O’Barr adds important details:

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.reckonin.com/walt-garlington/conservative-virtue-signaling-over-frederick-douglass-is-a-big-mistake.

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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!

Offsite Post: ‘My Kid Sister Just Died’

 

Art has a powerful effect on people, particularly those works that tell stories.  There are many who can recount how they literally wept when they finished reading a particular book, or watched the final episode of a long-running television series.  The characters in those narratives become part of our lives in some mysterious way, and we feel like we are losing something terribly important to us when we have to say Goodbye to them.

Having spent quite a few hours watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer in my younger years, it was a blow to learn that Michelle Trachtenberg has died at the young age of 39.  Buffy’s little sister became in a sense my little sister over the course of so many episodes.

This comes at an auspicious time.  Lent, the Great Fast, is nearly upon us.  This season of joyful sorrow is an opportunity for us to unite more closely to God and to show more love for our neighbor.  We should view it as a gift, not a punishment, and try to make the most of it.

Abbess Christophora of the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, offers good advice on how to do that:

‘Mother speaks of prayer during Lent as an essential practice of stillness in our hectic world, recommending a personal connection with God through the Jesus prayer, meditation, and attending weekday Lenten services with their special hymns. Prayer should engage the whole body through prostrations and kneeling, fostering humility. Without prayer, Mother Christophora warns, “fasting is a dead end.”

‘She describes fasting as challenging yet transformative, changing “our body, our mind, our hearts.” Fasting was the first Divine commandment in Eden, she notes, emphasizing its spiritual significance. Mother discourages viewing fasting as optional, instead framing it as medicine prescribed by the Church. She also recommends communal fasting through shared church meals and notes that America’s abundance of produce makes fasting foods readily available.

‘In terms of almsgiving, Abbess Christophora redefines the term as sharing oneself rather than just money. Quoting Fr. Roman Braga, who used to say, “Salvation is easy—give somebody a piece of bread,” she emphasized simple acts of kindness over financial charity. In our isolated society, almsgiving might mean offering “a smile, a nod, a gentle hello.” Mother advocates for spontaneous kindness through visiting people, writing letters, or making calls—small actions that combat loneliness and express genuine compassion’ (‘Abbess Christophora offers talk on Lenten spiritual disciplines (+VIDEO)’, orthochristian.com; to watch the Abbess’s talk, which runs about half an hour, follow this link to YouTube).

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/02/garlington-my-kid-sister-just-died/.

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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!