I think there's something interesting about the split between Eastern and Western Christianity, which I've only recently undestood. Holland didn't cover this in his book, which only focused on the West. You (and he) are right that Western Christianity is revolutionary in some ways, especially after the Reformation (but not only then.) This is sort of Illich's point, I think: the attempt to 'immanentise the eschaton.' In the east, however, the faith developed differently, much more focused on the transcendent than the immanent, and so did not act 'in the world' to kick off revolutions in politics or culture. The revolutionary spirit comes from the West. I can't say why.
If Progress wanted peace, then the age of Progress - c1800 to 2000 - would have been a peaceful one. As Del Noce himself points out, it was in fact an age of catastrophic mass violence driven by ideologies which sought to create perfection on Earth. People were shocked by the Ukraine war but did not seem to be equally shocked by the West's wars on Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya, or the ongoing proxy wars fought by the US all over the world, or the ongoing war on nature which Progress fights daily in order to supply some of us with its tainted goods. We see what we are told to see, or what we choose to, now as ever.
One interesting about the East that for almost 1400 years now (give or take a few years and different areas) the heartland of Eastern Christian experience has been occupied by a hostile religion and culture. Constantinople has been occupied for 550 years now. Russia was occupied for several hundred years. The Orthodox experience has been different in that it has often been a minority religion or the religion of the non ruling class. In the West it was the religion of the Ruling class and then later the expanding powers. I wonder if this has something to do with this. I will have to think more on it.
This is a really key point. The same was true in Greece, which was under Ottoman occupation for centuries, and Russia under the Soviets, who killed tens of thousands of Christians and attempted to destroy the entire Church. The Orthodox Church is the only church that has been persecuted in this way systematically, and also never ran crusades or imperial missions as the Western churches did. I think it is crucial to this distinction.
Yes the East knows how to suffer where in the West we have only known "progress and victory" for the last several hundred years. Now of course parts of the West have been occupied but they were on the peripheries such as Spain and Portugal and Hungary. The core has maintained its independence and dominance
The catholic people, and the "eastern bloc" peoples, even when nominally and geographically west (and of course, incresingly westernized), are not exactly "of the West".
Which is why Spain and Portugal and Ireland are P.I.I.G.S (the ethno-racist term is not mere coincidence) and considered the "South" and the "periphery", both in economic terms, but also in the way the core West sees them culturally: as somewhat closer to "us westerners" version of those "pesky" savages of the Global South.
(The same schism in some degree exists within the bona fide West, e.g. southern and/or rural and Catholic populations in France and Germany, and in Germany there's also the "western" vs "eastern" Germany schism still, where the latter as inferior backwards poor cousins, even if that wont be said out aloud).
The Russian Orthodox Church has been joined to the hip of the Putin regime increasingly during the 21st century: Moscow Patriarch Kirill is an ex-KGB member, as are others who fill high positions in the ROC. The state and the Church seem to be equal partners in the application of the 'Russian World' (Russkiy Mir) strategy, which Putin has directly applied to Ukraine to justify an aggressive revanchism.
Related to the 'Russian World' are Moscow as the 'Third Rome' and the and the even more expansionist 'Eurasian' strategy, which aspires to a Russian empire from "Dublin to Vladivostok"; this last is perhaps most succinctly summarized in these words of Nicolai Patrushev, Chairman of Russia's Security Council: "Who controls eastern Europe, rules the Heartland. Who controls the Heartland, he commands the тАШWorld Island'. Who rules the тАШWorld Island,тАЩ he rules the world.тАЭ
We in the US, as well as our allies abroad, have rightly criticized, and continue to criticize, US involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. As it should be. My concern is that we are so accustomed to doing so that our first response to the war in Ukraine is, "But the US... ", including an added 'certain sympathy' for Putin: some reading, however, in the now dominant far right ideologies in and around the Kremlin will reveal much deeper roots to the invasion of Ukraine than 'NATO encroachment', and also much greater ambitions. Any of these key phrases I have mentioned above will bring up abundant further research.
This Russian 'traditionalism' (which it is anything but) serves, as Charles Upton has pointed out (Dugin against Dugin: A Traditionalist Critique of the Fourth Political Theory) as a 'right wing' counterpart to the 'end goal' of the 'left' (as the postmodern West), i.e. the destruction of the human form as Imago Dei on the plane of history -or pure chaos. The far right side of things works not on the horizontal plane but the on the vertical plane of hierarchy, but of a false, inverted hierarchy, in which the state/earthly ruler assume the role and authority of God (the state as Absolute). Upton likens these forces to the battle of Gog and Magog, in which both sides work to 'immanentize the eschaton'. He also issues an accompanying warning (in 2018) to the effect that: "Putin's Russia, however, cannot really function as the 'Third Rome' in any integral way. Adn i fth eRussian state elects to move -possiblty wit the help of Aleksandr Dugin -in teh direction fo becoming a renewd 'Holy Empire' .... then teh warning of Rene Guenon shall immediately apply", that warning in reference to "the idea of an organization that would be like the counterpart, but at the same time also the counterfeit, of a tradtional conception such as that of 'Holy Empire', and some such organization must become ... in the language of the Hindu traition, an inverted Chakravarti; universal king." And we can quote Dugin here as saying: "The end of the world will come, but not by itself.... The meaning of Russia is that through the Russian people will be realized the last thought of God, the thought of the end of the world." (in 'Political Theology: Aleksandr Dugin and the Fourth Political Theory", by Moseby, John C, 34-35
Indeed, the only place to be in these times is, the only place we can be, as Paul has rightly reminded us at the 'center of all things', in the full realization of the human being.
I had not intended to write such a long post. In the process I omitted the reference to Guenon: the quote is from his prophetic, Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times", while the whole quote is from Dugin against Dugin, p 16
Fascinating stuff. I've been reading a bit about this myself. You're right that the Russian state has 'appropriated' the leadership (if not the laity) of the church in recent years. I was watching this film recently which put it into historical context.
I don't think we in the West understand Russia (I don't) but my experience with people from eastern Europe has shown me that this part of the world is immensely complex and doesn't fit into our schemata. Putin and Kirill seem to be attempting to restore Russia as a great power and restore its dignity after its collapse, and the West's pillaging of its resources. And yes, the 'Third Rome' prediction, which is centuries old I believe, is definitely an influence, especially on the likes of Dugin. One reason for wanting Ukraine is that it was the birthplace of Orthodoxy in Russia. So there is a lot in the mix. I have a sense that both Russia and the Western powers see Ukraine as an existential battle.
Thank you for your reply -and for your consistently fine essays on important topics. I will watch the film you sent me the link to (but later :) I think you are correct in that we do not understand Russia in the West, and in that I include myself. I have done quite a bit of reading since the war began, as in Putin's address to the nation on 2/22 or 2/24 I thought I heard the voice of Aleksandr Dugin more than once, who I was only vaguely aware of. So I began some research and reading, discovering along the way the various ideologies and ideologues that are influencing Russian media, opinion, and eve the security council and Kremlin. Dugin is only one among many, but his philosophy/theology/geopolitics is perhaps the most often heard: he has been called 'Putin's brain'. So while I hardly can call myself 'knowledgable', I have learned enough to hold a very different view of Russia than I previously had. De Noce might have been right to see an effective resistance to the decay of liberalism as coming in the future from Russian, but in the last 15 years or so Russian politics has become increasingly infected with imperialist, ultranationalist -even fascist -ideology, to the point where where it seems to be now dominant. I am going to include a few links below to some short videos. Much can be found besides this in the way of articles and papers (see the Academia website) on these topics, including the Russian World, the Izborsky Club, and neo-Eurasia.
I shall sign off before I get going any longer! Thank you again for your insights into our times at the deeper, and most fundamental, levels. The first link is a longer video (about 1 hr)
This is all worth thinking about. What is also worth noting though is that 'ultra-nationalism' is also present in Ukraine, especially in its army and national guard. The hard right beliefs of the Azov batallion have been widely reported (if not in the mainstream anymore), but it's wider than that. As a member of the Romanian Orthodox church I've heard from a number of Romanian friends about how Romanian minorities are treated in Ukraine by these elements; I have read elsewhere about the same happening to Hungarians and of course Russians. It is not a lie that Russians have been persecuted in eastern Ukraine for eight years. None of which justifies invasion - but the politics are complex. And there's no doubt this is now a proxy war, with the West using Ukraine for its own ends too. Horrible all round.
It would be hoped that, if Ukraine were to draw closer to the West, all such behavior would be clamped down on within the country. It seemed to me that such an effort was already in place, but with much more to be done. There is only so much I know about Ukraine: I have heard that the far right obtained 2% of the vote in the 2019 (?) election. There has always been the fascist Azov battalion, yet also, now and during the last some years, a Russian fascist equivalent (the Russian Imperial Legion/Movement, declared a terrorist organization by the US in 2020) has been fighting there. The complexities of this war seem to have no end, yet familiarization with the far right leanings of Russia today are more worrisome in my view because they are closer to power, if not synonymous with it, dispose of a large nuclear arsenal, and seem to be shaping current Russian foreign policy.
I wouldn't be so hopeful about 'the West.' If the EU and NATO get hold of Ukraine, as they would like to, they will milk it for cheap labour and/or use it as a political football against Russia, which is clearly the plan. The US would not be spending such breathtaking amounts of money supporting the country if they didn't want something back. They have hardly just discovered an ethical objection to invading other nations for strategic benefit ..
As I understand it, far right support amonst the Ukrainian population may well be low, but the culture of law enforcement, and indeed some part of government, is a different matter. But as I said, this is a part of the world that does not fit well into Western categories. What we call 'far right' over here seems like widespread nationalism over there. And I think history looks very different in Eastern Europe. But I'm not inclined to believe the narrative I am being fed either by my own media or the Russians.
I believe you are completely correct when you say that things look very different from Eastern Europe, and that we in the West come into this knowing very little about it and understanding even less. Therefore, we need to do our best to become better informed, a difficult task in light of the extraordinary complexity of history in that part of the world. Until the last couple of months, I was as distrustful of you of our media, and leaned with sympathy towards Putin. What I have learned about Russia in the interim however -which is still precious little - has showed me a very different Putin and Russia than I had previously held. This is, I believe, the first time I think our mainstream media, overall, is 'right'; and that what fault should be assigned to it owes more to the lack of in-depth information than to the prevailing belief that Putin needs to be stopped in Ukraine: the Baltic states, Poland, Finland and Sweden evidently agree. There are some papers available on Academia -such as the one on "The Izborsky Club, the New Conservative Avant-Garde" or "Larger, Higher,
Farther North" that can provide some insight into Russia today. We who are trying to hold a 'traditionalist ground' today need to look around us in all directions, both within and outside of the West, in order to assess the situation in which we find ourselves and the various dangers posed.
> It would be hoped that, if Ukraine were to draw closer to the West, all such behavior would be clamped down on within the country.
It's rather the opposite: those elements were chosen, sponsored, and promoted by the West, precisely to clamp down on the Russian part of the population and to push for the non-reconcilliatory brand of nationalism, in a divide and conquer ploy to use the country in a proxy war (as it ended up happening). There was zero concern for the welfare of the Ukrainian people as a whole in all this (except of the crocodile tears variety).
In the event of war, and especially of a war that claimed hundreds of thousands on both sides, of course Russia would also turn to more millitaristic and into right wing culture, both as a Kremlin wish to mobilize people to the war effort, but also naturally from the sense of being forced to have that war (even though they invaded, one popular feeling would probably be of being forced to through the existential threat of enemy expansion in their direct borders and the loss of any buffer zone.
They'd also naturally turn more to right wing ideas when leftish fads are used as hammers geopolitically against them, in a similar way that they're used agaist the "deplorables".
I believe that Dostoevsky is key here. There is great truth in his critique of Western liberalism, which can be appropriated without necessarily falling into his error of Russo-centrism. What Dostoevsky implies is that the fundamental idea of liberalism -- freedom -- is indeed good, perhaps "the" good, but that outside of Christ this freedom inevitably becomes corrupt and as a result, tyrannical. Del Noce opines that in the West a similar conclusion was arrived at by Rosmini, whom I have yet to read.
One difference is that for Russia all that is the equivalent of old wives tales and daydreaming of niche nationalists (Dugin is as relevant to what they do strategically as some Dark Enlightment guy would be for what Trump does, i.e. not at all). The western powers on the other hand have been expanding (nato) all the way to their borders, and of course, have invaded, bombed, controlled, and still do, countless countries all around the world, making their bases and threats anything but idle. It's not even the pot calling the kettle black, it's the pot calling a banana black.
Eastern Christianity also developed in close proximity to where the Dharma was taught, lived, and flourished. Heck, it even appropriated the Buddha and his story, changed his name, and made him a saint.
Jack often posts concepts (and links) from Eastern Christianity, and when I look into them, I see how close they are to Buddhist concepts/approaches. I have never had this experience with the concepts of Western Christianity, which always seem to be more influenced by Greek thought.
Whether or not that legend is true, you're right to say that there are similarities in approach in some ways between Buddhism and Orthodoxy that are not found in the West. It's not necessary to claim that Buddhism influenced the Church, or that the Buddha was 'appropriated', to see this. As I've said before, Hesychasm and Zazen have similarities, but it's closer to the truth to say that both traditions see the necessity of detachment. Of course, they're not the only traditions to see this - it's not as if the Buddha invented it. I prefer to see a situation in which, for whatever reason, the West went its own way, and saw its religious soul subsumed by the will to power, which is now consuming the world.
"It's not necessary to claim that Buddhism influenced the Church, or that the Buddha was 'appropriated', to see this."
Agreed, but there is no harm in speculating that Christianity in its Eastern manifestation was influenced by Dharmic teachings. And the Church did appropriate the Buddha's story. Christianity, like many religions, is syncretic. Justin Martyr incorporated concepts from the Stoics, and declared Socrates and Plato partial Christians in order to get necessary ideas into Christian thought during its formative years.
"I prefer to see a situation in which, for whatever reason, the West went its own way, and saw its religious soul subsumed by the will to power, which is now consuming the world."
The reason is clear. Western Christianity declared itself a universal truth, higher and more complete than any other. A pure power move. The will to power that has subsumed the West came from within Christianity itself.
'The will to power that has subsumed the West came from within Christianity itself.'
This is simply not true, however much you repeat it. There is no 'will to power' within Christianity - the founder of the faith teaches precisely the opposite: surrender to God;'s will and service to others. It's explicit and, as I said above, in other parts of the world (India, Africa, the Orthodox countries) Christianity does not manifest this way. The real question is why Western Christianity manifested in such a way that the will to power sometimes (though by no means always) corrupted the faith.
And doesn't Buddhism also declare itself 'a universal truth, higher and more complete than any other'? You have been doing a lot of that here! Most religions in fact tend to do this. I think there's another another explanation, more tied up with specific European history.
A will to power can be found in Christianity's sacred texts:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion"
Power move.
"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
Power move.
"Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord."
Power move.
In your own post, you say the founder taught surrender to God's will.
Power move.
Look at the words: dominion; subdue; submit; surrender. It is about power, and who commands and who obeys.
"in other parts of the world (India, Africa, the Orthodox countries) Christianity does not manifest this way."
In Africa, India, and Orthodox countries, Christians are part (and sometimes leaders) of efforts to suppress and harm queers--in some cases, trying to change centuries old cultures/traditions which are not anti-queer into ones that are. Again, an exertion of power.
"And doesn't Buddhism also declare itself 'a universal truth, higher and more complete than any other'?"
In part. Buddhism also declares that all other paths are equal to it--so in a way it is not higher, and both complete and incomplete.
"I think there's another another explanation, more tied up with specific European history."
I would also look to Greek and Roman thought. Someone in Rod Dreher's community posted something that stuck with me: if European culture is thought of as a house, then Greek ideology is its foundation, and Christian ideology are its walls.
Whatever one thinks of Alan Watts (and I know in your case, Paul, that's not very much) he does in this lecture illuminate two very different ways of thinking of Christ, one common and one effectively obfuscated by the Church. Those ways are, first, as a singular, extraordinary being/event, or second, as a mystic showing the way for any willing to follow.
If in fact this second, mystic Jesus, is the correct understanding of the "Good News", your conversion experience was perhaps not a call from Christ, but rather a Christ-like or Christ-experience:
"The revolutionary spirit comes from the West. I can't say why."
The West prioritizes desires and their fulfillment. Whoever has most toys wins. There is nothing in the West comparable to the Dharmic notion of unattachment. The West is all about attachment to self, the self's desires, and the tumult/revolution that results from trying to fulfill them.
Also, the West developed the notion of the "tragic," which never developed in the East (see Yuk Hui on this):
According to Hui, the Western culture/ideology is based on the concept of tragic discontinuity--Oedipus and the rest of humanity struggle against fate--existing in a perpetual state of revolution of one sort or another. In the East, while there is opposition, continuity and harmony are emphasized--there is not the struggle to break free, but the effort to harmonize and become one with.
I highly recommend Hui's "Art and CosmotechnicsтАЭ--beautifully written and brilliant.
Yes, but why is 'the West' - this small part of the Europe - the place where this tendency developed so powerfully? It's a question that fascinates me. Possibly you're right that attachment is the key. Eastern Christianity does focus on askesis and 'death to the world' in a way that the Western traditions don't - though even here there is a long Christian tradition of monasticism and sacrifice. It remains a mystery to me.
I have previously mentioned Fr. John Strickland's series Paradise and Utopia: the Rise and Fall of What the West Once Was. It is written for broader audience (i.e., not academic), and traces this exact theme. The last volume of the series, probably due out later this year, is about our own times, "The Age of Nihilism". The whole series is worth a look.
It seems to me that at some point Western Christianity moved away from askesis and towards something more legalistic. When and where that occurred I don't know -- it seems likely that it happened at different times in different places. But one thing that seems pretty certain is that the Reformation and Counter-Reformation gave the marginalization of asceticism in the West a sizable push.
Along those lines I'd highly recommend Brad Gregory's The Unintended Reformation, which lays out in great detail how some major traits of modernity are traceable as unintended effects of certain key Reformation ideas, while in no sense downplaying the problems in the Catholic Church of the time that prompted the reformers.
I think that what lies at the root of this Western "problem" is a deep-seated difference between Eastern and Western Christianity's respective understandings of the nature of human freedom. Dostoevsky was certainly onto this, but I've yet to come across anything that examines the issue in a systematic way.
Brad GregoryтАЩs The Unintended Reformation is outstandingтАж let me also push an essay recently recommended by Patrick Deneen that gives a very different reading on the Reformation:
Cavanaugh argues that what we call тАЬThe Wars of ReligionтАЭ were primarily political wars conducted by elites looking to expand their power and not actually wars fought over conflicting Christian beliefs.,
I have long thought that it is the latent Roman Imperial spirit, coupled with the discovery of Aristotle. Hans Boersma, an evangelical protestant, but an unusual one wrote of these philosophical shifts in his book on what I would call 'the unmaking of Creation' (Also to echo Iain McGilchrist). Boersma - who is interested in the work of the ressourcement Catholoic theologians, who renewed Catholic interest in the patristics - listed the rise of nominalism, voluntarism and univocity. The thing that hit me from his account was how the key events - eg the rise of the doctrine of transubstantiation - occurred in the immediate aftermath of The Great Schism, an event he doesn't reference . . . It is as if 'the head' disconnected from 'the heart', or the wider body. In McGilchrist's terms the disconnection between the left and right hemisphere of the brain which led us to Descartes and The Modern World. Or to use a Thomist account, once you believe their is such a thing as 'natura pura', all bets are off and Nietzche is our destination. Apologies as this is incredibly rambling and disconnected, but as an inheritor and indeed a member of the Western Ecclesial Heirarchy, I think I'm qualified to criticise the Western Church :-)
Thanks for this Eric. The more I read, think and experience the more I understand that the Schism - an event I barely even knew about a few years back - was a massive break in our history, and a big reason for our unique course. There is much to ponder on that.
I have a friend a retired bishop. He once wrote a blog post on тАШall the church things that people blame the current state of the world onтАЩ. When I told him that heтАЩd missed out my favourite/ The Great Schism - he repliedтАШWhatтАЩs that?тАЩ So youтАЩre not in bad company
IтАЩve been a Christian from birth but only 20 years ago began to wake up to Orthodoxy.
BTW Paul - in answer to your question 'What does Progress want?', I suggest a very simple answer - 'More'. It is indeed the insatiable Spirit of Moloch. As a priest I hear everywhere the unspoken question, 'why is it never enough?'. Two further references and then I'll return to my contemplation :-) First have you come across Scott Alexander's extended 'Meditation on Moloch'? Worth a look in this regard. Second - Progress - The Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry . . . The pursuit of 'The objective' is a journey form nowhere to nowhere. There are no reference points - every love unloved etc. Blessings on your day!
This is all very cerebral analysis. Simplifying the various strains of emphasis: philosophy, technology, art, harmony vs power/discontinuity, organic relationship-- can we include the commons and community into right relationship and organic techniques such as permaculture and biomimicry to reunite humanity to its place in snd of nature. This is true art in living, orientation to the ground of being and itтАЩs highest expression on earth. As we continue to destroy the nature of things we get further and further from the unitive and cooperative ways that is creation. There are ways to offer and express these principles that number to infinity and keep our humanity intact
From a Buddhist standpoint, humanity is already united with its place in nature. The problem is that people forget this fact, and then undertake efforts at reunification, which fail since you can sew back on a finger that has not been severed. The first step of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right View, and all that is needed is a grounding in it and the subsequent path, and the unity that already exists will become apparent.
"As we continue to destroy the nature of things we get further and further from the unitive and cooperative ways that is creation."
Because people valorize self and desire fulfillment.
Yes indeed, a dangerous turn away from cooperation with our world and its abundance, a part of the whole or holy, as opposed to apart from the whole, alienated, frantic, and competitive
I had this fun pet theory, that the real bad influence in the West came from the peoples that brought Rome down, and expanded and ate everything (whereas the Greeks, Romans, and Celts are ok in my book). Germanic tribes, the normans, the "Holy Roman Empire", those that ended up pushing protestantism, the idolatry of trade and industry, all the way to today.
IтАЩve read half of Del NoceтАЩs тАЬCrisis of ModernityтАЭ and find him insightful. Have you read Paul StricklandтАЩs тАЬAge of..тАЭ series? It covers the western trajectory from an Orthodox lens.
I agree. The birth of christianity was a revolution and that revolutionary zeal to spread the word created endless stream of standard bearers for change from the crusaders and Protestants to modern day islamists and I suppose environmentalists and technologists. Everyone needs a cause to rally round and it all started with Christianity and the requirement to go out and bear witness. ItтАЩs a namshub
I think there's something interesting about the split between Eastern and Western Christianity, which I've only recently undestood. Holland didn't cover this in his book, which only focused on the West. You (and he) are right that Western Christianity is revolutionary in some ways, especially after the Reformation (but not only then.) This is sort of Illich's point, I think: the attempt to 'immanentise the eschaton.' In the east, however, the faith developed differently, much more focused on the transcendent than the immanent, and so did not act 'in the world' to kick off revolutions in politics or culture. The revolutionary spirit comes from the West. I can't say why.
If Progress wanted peace, then the age of Progress - c1800 to 2000 - would have been a peaceful one. As Del Noce himself points out, it was in fact an age of catastrophic mass violence driven by ideologies which sought to create perfection on Earth. People were shocked by the Ukraine war but did not seem to be equally shocked by the West's wars on Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya, or the ongoing proxy wars fought by the US all over the world, or the ongoing war on nature which Progress fights daily in order to supply some of us with its tainted goods. We see what we are told to see, or what we choose to, now as ever.
One interesting about the East that for almost 1400 years now (give or take a few years and different areas) the heartland of Eastern Christian experience has been occupied by a hostile religion and culture. Constantinople has been occupied for 550 years now. Russia was occupied for several hundred years. The Orthodox experience has been different in that it has often been a minority religion or the religion of the non ruling class. In the West it was the religion of the Ruling class and then later the expanding powers. I wonder if this has something to do with this. I will have to think more on it.
This is a really key point. The same was true in Greece, which was under Ottoman occupation for centuries, and Russia under the Soviets, who killed tens of thousands of Christians and attempted to destroy the entire Church. The Orthodox Church is the only church that has been persecuted in this way systematically, and also never ran crusades or imperial missions as the Western churches did. I think it is crucial to this distinction.
Yes the East knows how to suffer where in the West we have only known "progress and victory" for the last several hundred years. Now of course parts of the West have been occupied but they were on the peripheries such as Spain and Portugal and Hungary. The core has maintained its independence and dominance
So maybe what we are going to be taught now is how to suffer too ...
The catholic people, and the "eastern bloc" peoples, even when nominally and geographically west (and of course, incresingly westernized), are not exactly "of the West".
Which is why Spain and Portugal and Ireland are P.I.I.G.S (the ethno-racist term is not mere coincidence) and considered the "South" and the "periphery", both in economic terms, but also in the way the core West sees them culturally: as somewhat closer to "us westerners" version of those "pesky" savages of the Global South.
(The same schism in some degree exists within the bona fide West, e.g. southern and/or rural and Catholic populations in France and Germany, and in Germany there's also the "western" vs "eastern" Germany schism still, where the latter as inferior backwards poor cousins, even if that wont be said out aloud).
The Russian Orthodox Church has been joined to the hip of the Putin regime increasingly during the 21st century: Moscow Patriarch Kirill is an ex-KGB member, as are others who fill high positions in the ROC. The state and the Church seem to be equal partners in the application of the 'Russian World' (Russkiy Mir) strategy, which Putin has directly applied to Ukraine to justify an aggressive revanchism.
Related to the 'Russian World' are Moscow as the 'Third Rome' and the and the even more expansionist 'Eurasian' strategy, which aspires to a Russian empire from "Dublin to Vladivostok"; this last is perhaps most succinctly summarized in these words of Nicolai Patrushev, Chairman of Russia's Security Council: "Who controls eastern Europe, rules the Heartland. Who controls the Heartland, he commands the тАШWorld Island'. Who rules the тАШWorld Island,тАЩ he rules the world.тАЭ
We in the US, as well as our allies abroad, have rightly criticized, and continue to criticize, US involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. As it should be. My concern is that we are so accustomed to doing so that our first response to the war in Ukraine is, "But the US... ", including an added 'certain sympathy' for Putin: some reading, however, in the now dominant far right ideologies in and around the Kremlin will reveal much deeper roots to the invasion of Ukraine than 'NATO encroachment', and also much greater ambitions. Any of these key phrases I have mentioned above will bring up abundant further research.
This Russian 'traditionalism' (which it is anything but) serves, as Charles Upton has pointed out (Dugin against Dugin: A Traditionalist Critique of the Fourth Political Theory) as a 'right wing' counterpart to the 'end goal' of the 'left' (as the postmodern West), i.e. the destruction of the human form as Imago Dei on the plane of history -or pure chaos. The far right side of things works not on the horizontal plane but the on the vertical plane of hierarchy, but of a false, inverted hierarchy, in which the state/earthly ruler assume the role and authority of God (the state as Absolute). Upton likens these forces to the battle of Gog and Magog, in which both sides work to 'immanentize the eschaton'. He also issues an accompanying warning (in 2018) to the effect that: "Putin's Russia, however, cannot really function as the 'Third Rome' in any integral way. Adn i fth eRussian state elects to move -possiblty wit the help of Aleksandr Dugin -in teh direction fo becoming a renewd 'Holy Empire' .... then teh warning of Rene Guenon shall immediately apply", that warning in reference to "the idea of an organization that would be like the counterpart, but at the same time also the counterfeit, of a tradtional conception such as that of 'Holy Empire', and some such organization must become ... in the language of the Hindu traition, an inverted Chakravarti; universal king." And we can quote Dugin here as saying: "The end of the world will come, but not by itself.... The meaning of Russia is that through the Russian people will be realized the last thought of God, the thought of the end of the world." (in 'Political Theology: Aleksandr Dugin and the Fourth Political Theory", by Moseby, John C, 34-35
Indeed, the only place to be in these times is, the only place we can be, as Paul has rightly reminded us at the 'center of all things', in the full realization of the human being.
I had not intended to write such a long post. In the process I omitted the reference to Guenon: the quote is from his prophetic, Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times", while the whole quote is from Dugin against Dugin, p 16
Fascinating stuff. I've been reading a bit about this myself. You're right that the Russian state has 'appropriated' the leadership (if not the laity) of the church in recent years. I was watching this film recently which put it into historical context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b32qav9QrYU
I don't think we in the West understand Russia (I don't) but my experience with people from eastern Europe has shown me that this part of the world is immensely complex and doesn't fit into our schemata. Putin and Kirill seem to be attempting to restore Russia as a great power and restore its dignity after its collapse, and the West's pillaging of its resources. And yes, the 'Third Rome' prediction, which is centuries old I believe, is definitely an influence, especially on the likes of Dugin. One reason for wanting Ukraine is that it was the birthplace of Orthodoxy in Russia. So there is a lot in the mix. I have a sense that both Russia and the Western powers see Ukraine as an existential battle.
Thank you for your reply -and for your consistently fine essays on important topics. I will watch the film you sent me the link to (but later :) I think you are correct in that we do not understand Russia in the West, and in that I include myself. I have done quite a bit of reading since the war began, as in Putin's address to the nation on 2/22 or 2/24 I thought I heard the voice of Aleksandr Dugin more than once, who I was only vaguely aware of. So I began some research and reading, discovering along the way the various ideologies and ideologues that are influencing Russian media, opinion, and eve the security council and Kremlin. Dugin is only one among many, but his philosophy/theology/geopolitics is perhaps the most often heard: he has been called 'Putin's brain'. So while I hardly can call myself 'knowledgable', I have learned enough to hold a very different view of Russia than I previously had. De Noce might have been right to see an effective resistance to the decay of liberalism as coming in the future from Russian, but in the last 15 years or so Russian politics has become increasingly infected with imperialist, ultranationalist -even fascist -ideology, to the point where where it seems to be now dominant. I am going to include a few links below to some short videos. Much can be found besides this in the way of articles and papers (see the Academia website) on these topics, including the Russian World, the Izborsky Club, and neo-Eurasia.
I shall sign off before I get going any longer! Thank you again for your insights into our times at the deeper, and most fundamental, levels. The first link is a longer video (about 1 hr)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh09OfNCT5E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cr6oqHPrKo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnGcbxxOMwE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9MSV9Bp35Y
This is all worth thinking about. What is also worth noting though is that 'ultra-nationalism' is also present in Ukraine, especially in its army and national guard. The hard right beliefs of the Azov batallion have been widely reported (if not in the mainstream anymore), but it's wider than that. As a member of the Romanian Orthodox church I've heard from a number of Romanian friends about how Romanian minorities are treated in Ukraine by these elements; I have read elsewhere about the same happening to Hungarians and of course Russians. It is not a lie that Russians have been persecuted in eastern Ukraine for eight years. None of which justifies invasion - but the politics are complex. And there's no doubt this is now a proxy war, with the West using Ukraine for its own ends too. Horrible all round.
It would be hoped that, if Ukraine were to draw closer to the West, all such behavior would be clamped down on within the country. It seemed to me that such an effort was already in place, but with much more to be done. There is only so much I know about Ukraine: I have heard that the far right obtained 2% of the vote in the 2019 (?) election. There has always been the fascist Azov battalion, yet also, now and during the last some years, a Russian fascist equivalent (the Russian Imperial Legion/Movement, declared a terrorist organization by the US in 2020) has been fighting there. The complexities of this war seem to have no end, yet familiarization with the far right leanings of Russia today are more worrisome in my view because they are closer to power, if not synonymous with it, dispose of a large nuclear arsenal, and seem to be shaping current Russian foreign policy.
I wouldn't be so hopeful about 'the West.' If the EU and NATO get hold of Ukraine, as they would like to, they will milk it for cheap labour and/or use it as a political football against Russia, which is clearly the plan. The US would not be spending such breathtaking amounts of money supporting the country if they didn't want something back. They have hardly just discovered an ethical objection to invading other nations for strategic benefit ..
As I understand it, far right support amonst the Ukrainian population may well be low, but the culture of law enforcement, and indeed some part of government, is a different matter. But as I said, this is a part of the world that does not fit well into Western categories. What we call 'far right' over here seems like widespread nationalism over there. And I think history looks very different in Eastern Europe. But I'm not inclined to believe the narrative I am being fed either by my own media or the Russians.
I believe you are completely correct when you say that things look very different from Eastern Europe, and that we in the West come into this knowing very little about it and understanding even less. Therefore, we need to do our best to become better informed, a difficult task in light of the extraordinary complexity of history in that part of the world. Until the last couple of months, I was as distrustful of you of our media, and leaned with sympathy towards Putin. What I have learned about Russia in the interim however -which is still precious little - has showed me a very different Putin and Russia than I had previously held. This is, I believe, the first time I think our mainstream media, overall, is 'right'; and that what fault should be assigned to it owes more to the lack of in-depth information than to the prevailing belief that Putin needs to be stopped in Ukraine: the Baltic states, Poland, Finland and Sweden evidently agree. There are some papers available on Academia -such as the one on "The Izborsky Club, the New Conservative Avant-Garde" or "Larger, Higher,
Farther North" that can provide some insight into Russia today. We who are trying to hold a 'traditionalist ground' today need to look around us in all directions, both within and outside of the West, in order to assess the situation in which we find ourselves and the various dangers posed.
> It would be hoped that, if Ukraine were to draw closer to the West, all such behavior would be clamped down on within the country.
It's rather the opposite: those elements were chosen, sponsored, and promoted by the West, precisely to clamp down on the Russian part of the population and to push for the non-reconcilliatory brand of nationalism, in a divide and conquer ploy to use the country in a proxy war (as it ended up happening). There was zero concern for the welfare of the Ukrainian people as a whole in all this (except of the crocodile tears variety).
In the event of war, and especially of a war that claimed hundreds of thousands on both sides, of course Russia would also turn to more millitaristic and into right wing culture, both as a Kremlin wish to mobilize people to the war effort, but also naturally from the sense of being forced to have that war (even though they invaded, one popular feeling would probably be of being forced to through the existential threat of enemy expansion in their direct borders and the loss of any buffer zone.
They'd also naturally turn more to right wing ideas when leftish fads are used as hammers geopolitically against them, in a similar way that they're used agaist the "deplorables".
I believe that Dostoevsky is key here. There is great truth in his critique of Western liberalism, which can be appropriated without necessarily falling into his error of Russo-centrism. What Dostoevsky implies is that the fundamental idea of liberalism -- freedom -- is indeed good, perhaps "the" good, but that outside of Christ this freedom inevitably becomes corrupt and as a result, tyrannical. Del Noce opines that in the West a similar conclusion was arrived at by Rosmini, whom I have yet to read.
One difference is that for Russia all that is the equivalent of old wives tales and daydreaming of niche nationalists (Dugin is as relevant to what they do strategically as some Dark Enlightment guy would be for what Trump does, i.e. not at all). The western powers on the other hand have been expanding (nato) all the way to their borders, and of course, have invaded, bombed, controlled, and still do, countless countries all around the world, making their bases and threats anything but idle. It's not even the pot calling the kettle black, it's the pot calling a banana black.
Eastern Christianity also developed in close proximity to where the Dharma was taught, lived, and flourished. Heck, it even appropriated the Buddha and his story, changed his name, and made him a saint.
Jack often posts concepts (and links) from Eastern Christianity, and when I look into them, I see how close they are to Buddhist concepts/approaches. I have never had this experience with the concepts of Western Christianity, which always seem to be more influenced by Greek thought.
You're going to have to back up that Buddha claim! I want to see this!
David Bentley Hart wrote an article about тАЬSaint SakyamuniтАЭ for First Things a while back:
Saint Sakyamuni
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2009/09/saint-sakyamuni
Thanks for this Jacob. I was unaware of it.
Whether or not that legend is true, you're right to say that there are similarities in approach in some ways between Buddhism and Orthodoxy that are not found in the West. It's not necessary to claim that Buddhism influenced the Church, or that the Buddha was 'appropriated', to see this. As I've said before, Hesychasm and Zazen have similarities, but it's closer to the truth to say that both traditions see the necessity of detachment. Of course, they're not the only traditions to see this - it's not as if the Buddha invented it. I prefer to see a situation in which, for whatever reason, the West went its own way, and saw its religious soul subsumed by the will to power, which is now consuming the world.
"It's not necessary to claim that Buddhism influenced the Church, or that the Buddha was 'appropriated', to see this."
Agreed, but there is no harm in speculating that Christianity in its Eastern manifestation was influenced by Dharmic teachings. And the Church did appropriate the Buddha's story. Christianity, like many religions, is syncretic. Justin Martyr incorporated concepts from the Stoics, and declared Socrates and Plato partial Christians in order to get necessary ideas into Christian thought during its formative years.
"I prefer to see a situation in which, for whatever reason, the West went its own way, and saw its religious soul subsumed by the will to power, which is now consuming the world."
The reason is clear. Western Christianity declared itself a universal truth, higher and more complete than any other. A pure power move. The will to power that has subsumed the West came from within Christianity itself.
'The will to power that has subsumed the West came from within Christianity itself.'
This is simply not true, however much you repeat it. There is no 'will to power' within Christianity - the founder of the faith teaches precisely the opposite: surrender to God;'s will and service to others. It's explicit and, as I said above, in other parts of the world (India, Africa, the Orthodox countries) Christianity does not manifest this way. The real question is why Western Christianity manifested in such a way that the will to power sometimes (though by no means always) corrupted the faith.
And doesn't Buddhism also declare itself 'a universal truth, higher and more complete than any other'? You have been doing a lot of that here! Most religions in fact tend to do this. I think there's another another explanation, more tied up with specific European history.
"There is no 'will to power' within Christianity"
A will to power can be found in Christianity's sacred texts:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion"
Power move.
"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
Power move.
"Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord."
Power move.
In your own post, you say the founder taught surrender to God's will.
Power move.
Look at the words: dominion; subdue; submit; surrender. It is about power, and who commands and who obeys.
"in other parts of the world (India, Africa, the Orthodox countries) Christianity does not manifest this way."
In Africa, India, and Orthodox countries, Christians are part (and sometimes leaders) of efforts to suppress and harm queers--in some cases, trying to change centuries old cultures/traditions which are not anti-queer into ones that are. Again, an exertion of power.
"And doesn't Buddhism also declare itself 'a universal truth, higher and more complete than any other'?"
In part. Buddhism also declares that all other paths are equal to it--so in a way it is not higher, and both complete and incomplete.
"I think there's another another explanation, more tied up with specific European history."
I would also look to Greek and Roman thought. Someone in Rod Dreher's community posted something that stuck with me: if European culture is thought of as a house, then Greek ideology is its foundation, and Christian ideology are its walls.
Whatever one thinks of Alan Watts (and I know in your case, Paul, that's not very much) he does in this lecture illuminate two very different ways of thinking of Christ, one common and one effectively obfuscated by the Church. Those ways are, first, as a singular, extraordinary being/event, or second, as a mystic showing the way for any willing to follow.
If in fact this second, mystic Jesus, is the correct understanding of the "Good News", your conversion experience was perhaps not a call from Christ, but rather a Christ-like or Christ-experience:
https://youtu.be/avN_gQ7NC0I
"The revolutionary spirit comes from the West. I can't say why."
The West prioritizes desires and their fulfillment. Whoever has most toys wins. There is nothing in the West comparable to the Dharmic notion of unattachment. The West is all about attachment to self, the self's desires, and the tumult/revolution that results from trying to fulfill them.
Also, the West developed the notion of the "tragic," which never developed in the East (see Yuk Hui on this):
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/technology-after-hegemony-on-yuk-huis-art-and-cosmotechnics/
According to Hui, the Western culture/ideology is based on the concept of tragic discontinuity--Oedipus and the rest of humanity struggle against fate--existing in a perpetual state of revolution of one sort or another. In the East, while there is opposition, continuity and harmony are emphasized--there is not the struggle to break free, but the effort to harmonize and become one with.
I highly recommend Hui's "Art and CosmotechnicsтАЭ--beautifully written and brilliant.
Yes, but why is 'the West' - this small part of the Europe - the place where this tendency developed so powerfully? It's a question that fascinates me. Possibly you're right that attachment is the key. Eastern Christianity does focus on askesis and 'death to the world' in a way that the Western traditions don't - though even here there is a long Christian tradition of monasticism and sacrifice. It remains a mystery to me.
I have previously mentioned Fr. John Strickland's series Paradise and Utopia: the Rise and Fall of What the West Once Was. It is written for broader audience (i.e., not academic), and traces this exact theme. The last volume of the series, probably due out later this year, is about our own times, "The Age of Nihilism". The whole series is worth a look.
It seems to me that at some point Western Christianity moved away from askesis and towards something more legalistic. When and where that occurred I don't know -- it seems likely that it happened at different times in different places. But one thing that seems pretty certain is that the Reformation and Counter-Reformation gave the marginalization of asceticism in the West a sizable push.
Along those lines I'd highly recommend Brad Gregory's The Unintended Reformation, which lays out in great detail how some major traits of modernity are traceable as unintended effects of certain key Reformation ideas, while in no sense downplaying the problems in the Catholic Church of the time that prompted the reformers.
I think that what lies at the root of this Western "problem" is a deep-seated difference between Eastern and Western Christianity's respective understandings of the nature of human freedom. Dostoevsky was certainly onto this, but I've yet to come across anything that examines the issue in a systematic way.
Brad GregoryтАЩs The Unintended Reformation is outstandingтАж let me also push an essay recently recommended by Patrick Deneen that gives a very different reading on the Reformation:
http://www.jesusradicals.com/uploads/2/6/3/8/26388433/wars-of-religion-and-the-rise-of-the-state.pdf
Cavanaugh argues that what we call тАЬThe Wars of ReligionтАЭ were primarily political wars conducted by elites looking to expand their power and not actually wars fought over conflicting Christian beliefs.,
Yeah, that's a great essay. Cavanaugh later expanded its argument into a book, 'The Myth of Religious Violence.'
Thank you for the new book recommendation!
Thanks for these. I wrote about Deneen's book, and Gregory's, in some previous essays. I agree that they really fill in some gaps.
I have long thought that it is the latent Roman Imperial spirit, coupled with the discovery of Aristotle. Hans Boersma, an evangelical protestant, but an unusual one wrote of these philosophical shifts in his book on what I would call 'the unmaking of Creation' (Also to echo Iain McGilchrist). Boersma - who is interested in the work of the ressourcement Catholoic theologians, who renewed Catholic interest in the patristics - listed the rise of nominalism, voluntarism and univocity. The thing that hit me from his account was how the key events - eg the rise of the doctrine of transubstantiation - occurred in the immediate aftermath of The Great Schism, an event he doesn't reference . . . It is as if 'the head' disconnected from 'the heart', or the wider body. In McGilchrist's terms the disconnection between the left and right hemisphere of the brain which led us to Descartes and The Modern World. Or to use a Thomist account, once you believe their is such a thing as 'natura pura', all bets are off and Nietzche is our destination. Apologies as this is incredibly rambling and disconnected, but as an inheritor and indeed a member of the Western Ecclesial Heirarchy, I think I'm qualified to criticise the Western Church :-)
Thanks for this Eric. The more I read, think and experience the more I understand that the Schism - an event I barely even knew about a few years back - was a massive break in our history, and a big reason for our unique course. There is much to ponder on that.
I have a friend a retired bishop. He once wrote a blog post on тАШall the church things that people blame the current state of the world onтАЩ. When I told him that heтАЩd missed out my favourite/ The Great Schism - he repliedтАШWhatтАЩs that?тАЩ So youтАЩre not in bad company
IтАЩve been a Christian from birth but only 20 years ago began to wake up to Orthodoxy.
BTW Paul - in answer to your question 'What does Progress want?', I suggest a very simple answer - 'More'. It is indeed the insatiable Spirit of Moloch. As a priest I hear everywhere the unspoken question, 'why is it never enough?'. Two further references and then I'll return to my contemplation :-) First have you come across Scott Alexander's extended 'Meditation on Moloch'? Worth a look in this regard. Second - Progress - The Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry . . . The pursuit of 'The objective' is a journey form nowhere to nowhere. There are no reference points - every love unloved etc. Blessings on your day!
This is all very cerebral analysis. Simplifying the various strains of emphasis: philosophy, technology, art, harmony vs power/discontinuity, organic relationship-- can we include the commons and community into right relationship and organic techniques such as permaculture and biomimicry to reunite humanity to its place in snd of nature. This is true art in living, orientation to the ground of being and itтАЩs highest expression on earth. As we continue to destroy the nature of things we get further and further from the unitive and cooperative ways that is creation. There are ways to offer and express these principles that number to infinity and keep our humanity intact
"This is all very cerebral analysis."
Analysis often is cerebral.
"reunite humanity to its place in snd of nature."
From a Buddhist standpoint, humanity is already united with its place in nature. The problem is that people forget this fact, and then undertake efforts at reunification, which fail since you can sew back on a finger that has not been severed. The first step of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right View, and all that is needed is a grounding in it and the subsequent path, and the unity that already exists will become apparent.
"As we continue to destroy the nature of things we get further and further from the unitive and cooperative ways that is creation."
Because people valorize self and desire fulfillment.
Yes indeed, a dangerous turn away from cooperation with our world and its abundance, a part of the whole or holy, as opposed to apart from the whole, alienated, frantic, and competitive
I had this fun pet theory, that the real bad influence in the West came from the peoples that brought Rome down, and expanded and ate everything (whereas the Greeks, Romans, and Celts are ok in my book). Germanic tribes, the normans, the "Holy Roman Empire", those that ended up pushing protestantism, the idolatry of trade and industry, all the way to today.
IтАЩve read half of Del NoceтАЩs тАЬCrisis of ModernityтАЭ and find him insightful. Have you read Paul StricklandтАЩs тАЬAge of..тАЭ series? It covers the western trajectory from an Orthodox lens.
I agree. The birth of christianity was a revolution and that revolutionary zeal to spread the word created endless stream of standard bearers for change from the crusaders and Protestants to modern day islamists and I suppose environmentalists and technologists. Everyone needs a cause to rally round and it all started with Christianity and the requirement to go out and bear witness. ItтАЩs a namshub