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Notes -
GK Chesterton and MAGA
Chesterton personifies the paradoxes he loves to pursue in his writing. A member of the Fabian (socialist) party, he is remembered primarily as a bulwark of conservatism. Deeply immersed in early 20th century high British society and culture, he was Catholic rather than Church of England. Writing prose and poetry on the transcendence of family, he never had children.
A populist, he writes a warning to MAGA.
To be sure, Chesterton does not shy away from condemning progressive society. In one memorable anecdote he tells a relativist that in a functioning democracy, the relativist would be burned on a pyre. In his pithy essay "The Return of the Barbarian" (1934), Chesterton states "I do not mean that any of that sort of liberty or laxity or liberal-mindedness has ever had anything to do with civilization." Yet Chesterton writes the essay not as a warning against Liberalism, but to identify the rising Nationalist Socialism of Germany as the true enemy of civilization. Even though the civilization may be decadent, flabby, and decayed, civilization must still fight for civilization. For barbarism is an uncontrollable beast. It contains no introspection, no self-corrective. Chesterton ends the essay in his typical incisive style:
"There are many marks by which anybody of historical imagination can recognize the recurrence: the monstrous and monotonous omnipresence of one symbol, and that a symbol of which nobody knows the meaning; the relish of the tyrant for exaggerating even his own tyranny, and barking so loud that nobody can even suspect that his bark is worse than his bite; the impatient indifference to all the former friends of Germany, among those who are yet making Germany the only test—all these things have a savor of savage and hasty simplification, which may, in many individuals, correspond to an honest indignation or even idealism, but which, when taken altogether, give an uncomfortable impression of wild men who have merely grown weary of the complexity that we call civilization." [Emphasis added].
As a confirmed MAGAt myself, I feel a distinct discomfort reading this warning. There is a cold nihilism and gleeful cruelty in the MAGA intelligentsia. The rank-and-file MAGA populists cower from modern complexity, preferring the comfort of totalizing and simple narratives. If MAGA feels less barbaric than the Brown Shirts it may only be because our civilization doesn’t have the will or vitality to produce real barbarians.
Yet what is else is the solution when faced with Weimar problems? Chesterton lived in the relatively prudish Britain, and did not need to directly confront the debauchery of Weimar Germany. Easy for him to work within his civilization to promote his conceptualization of the common good. What would he have suggested when faced with the ubiquitous celebration of buggery or an importation of an alternative "civilization"?
But, of course, Chesterton (or rather, custom and common sense as channeled by Chesterton) does have the solution. In his essay "On the Instability of the State" he counters the prevailing notions of the Total State by satirizing the ephemerality of modern nations. In contrast, true societal stability is only found in the Family, the bedrock on which all civilization stands. And while the modern assault on the Family threatens to break civilization as assuredly as any barbarian uprising, it is still an institution that takes only two willing companions and the providence of God to initiate. And it is on this rock that the next great civilization will be built. "In the break-up of the modern world, the Family will stand out stark and strong as it did before the beginning of history."
Honestly, this resonated with me in the sense that a lot of left-leaning people I've talked with are OK with:
Meanwhile, someone on the left could make their own list of what right-leaning people are doing:
I think our nation is broken and I'm sad about it. I do not know how to restore a sense of common brotherhood between the blue haired Karen and the MAGA HVAC repair guy. If we're lucky we'll get attacked from the outside and band together against a common threat. If we're unlucky I think we'll just struggle against each other until one group loses all hope of pretense to power.
The history of stasis- which is what we're going through- shows us that mutual deescalation is the only way out. Key word- mutual. Obviously Trump needs to deescalate. But so does the blue haired Karen(I thought these were different archetypes?). The Biden admin's approach to the 'war on domestic terror' was exactly wrong too.
Now this isn't, probably, going to happen, on either side. But Trump is term limited out in a way the blue-hairs(I remember a time when this meant something different) aren't. Ignoring Trump, backing down on the #resistance, running normal democrats without controversy, and letting cultural conservatives be has to be the start, simply because Trump will, for better or worse(and I suspect it will be, and can be, worse), is gone in January 2029. I don't know that they're capable of it, but it's a necessary start.
The best solution to an iterative prisoners dilemma was to alternate Tit-for-tat with cooperation, regardless of what the opponents strategy is. MN ICE is perhaps a suitable tat for Biden's tit of purposefully bringing in millions of immigrants. But it has to have a limit and then Conservatives need to try cooperation.
Edit: Blue hairs grew up and are now acting like insurrection Karens with law enforcement. Sorry if it's not the right descriptor, but I think you understood what I meant anyways.
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Of course, one of the big issues with the ‘Trump is a fascist’ narrative is that no, he’s not. Trump is not a palingenetic ultranationalist, he’s not a totalitarian, he doesn’t seem to have much ideology to begin with, really. Words have meanings.
Trump is running on economic populism, strong executive, and (in practice very mild)retrenchment from the eastern hemisphere.
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For my part, I can kinda see what you mean, if I squint. Otherwise it's hard to tell if this is supposed to be a criticism of Trump / populists, or our current establishment.
Yeah... Look, I'm a big fan of the "clean your room" approach to life and society, but it's a bit hard to gloss over the "modern assault on the Family" bit, the way you did. Are we supposed to smile and nod as it's happening? Is every rebellion an assault on order and civilization? If not, what specific lines has Trumpism crossed to make it unacceptable to civilization 'n order enjoyers?
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