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Yeah.
There's a saying that "EVERYTHING is Political" and I vehemently disagree with it. There are many things one can do and enjoy without there being any political valence to it whatsoever.
But the problem is... You can add politics to anything. so "Anything CAN BE Political" is a statement I do agree with.
And so the asshole types who say "Everything is Political!" are using that, functionally, as an excuse to inject politics into everything, then using the existence of politics in the space to retroactively prove their original statement.
And my point is "no, you're not uncovering a feature of the scene that everyone was studiously ignoring, you are intentionally adding this feature that everyone was very happy was absent, then getting up in arms that people don't like you changing the ground rules without so much as a discussion." Gatekeeping such persons out is critical but also difficult because the motivation for them to smuggle in the politics is substantial and you only have to let one or two in for things to derail.
I think it’s a feature of our ideas about legitimacy. Since our idea of legitimate government is democracy and consent of the governed, the people who want to govern must “launder” their ideas into the culture, and thus it becomes imperative to capture any institution that imparts ideas to the public (which is, to be blunt, all of culture). Then you can firehose out your agenda in every way the cathedral can get a message out, and eventually, unless you are an extreme contrarian or opt out of most of mainstream society, you’re very likely to get caught up in the zeitgeist of the media culture you saturate in.
I consider it late-stage democracy. Democracy cannot function unless the public goes along with good ideas. Which means that you can’t just let the public form their own organic culture or community which is likely to have the wrong sorts of ideas. Instead the elites have to make the culture over to their tastes and if you can’t take over the institution, it must be discredited or destroyed.
That's pretty insightful, especially the need to launder politics through culture in order to manufacture consent. Hadn't thought of it in those terms.
Related to the "You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you" point.
Any culture that's not under control of the political edifice is, potentially, a method for alternative systems and resistance to organize and arise. The state would see this as an intolerable possible threat to sovereignty. On top of that any popular cultural outlet or gate can be turned into a propaganda organ, can't expect them to ignore that.
I've arranged my immediate affairs so that I have as few as possible intersections with political authority. Quite literally, I chose the location of my house in large part because it has the fewest political bodies with jurisdiction over its physical location (i.e. it is outside of the nearest city's limits in unincorporated territory, has no HOA, and has extremely permissive zoning).
And yet, AND YET I know that I can't afford to ignore politics because the political-minded will constantly seek to bring me and my property under their ambit, and it is NOT enough to just retreat, run, and try to stay outside their grasp, it requires active, intelligent resistance and even then its not guaranteed b/c the state has infinite patience.
I agree with that, but I’m more thinking about cultural organs as well. Things like religion, particularly organized religion, the family, education, clubs, etc. are potentially points of resistance. I see this as a weak point of the Benedict option. Unless you’re living in a commune owned by a church and have no cell phones and filtered internet, the chances of keeping your community intact and fairly pure are small. Zoning laws, school testing requirements, nondiscrimination laws, and so on will conspire to force you to conform, and entryism will be tried.
It would work just fine if you have a king who respects (not fears) your group and deigns to let them alone for good. But when the king is eventually replaced that favor may not transfer.
In a Democracy, the incentive to bring such a group into the political structure and override their norms with the preferred default is strong and constant.
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The Benedict option worked pretty well for the Amish, the Hasidim and the SSPX, and the Hasidim even know how to use state power to their advantage. It doesn't work very well for normie conservatives trying to live in the world.
Are politically active, hold normal careers in secular employment, use the regular suite of technology, consume normal popular culture(albeit less of it), have social media, and explicitly oppose withdrawing from broader society.
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Who managed to blow up any remaining goodwill for them and are now excommunicated, meaning they can dwindle into yet another schismatic tiny sect out there competing in the marketplace of religion, just like any American non-denominational ministry where the founder decides he is now a bishop, demands to be addressed as such, and needs all your donations for his private jet.
Well yeah but that's entirely their own fault. The FSSP shows the church would have let them exist and be trads just fine.
Yes, so long as they accepted oversight. They insisted on "eff you" and this is what happens.
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So? They have respectable numbers, and from what I understand, they're growing.
Maybe-ish.
First off, we don't know how many people go to the SSPX. They probably don't either. I would guess that their average Sunday attendance is 350-400K, based on their claim of a priest/people ratio of 1:500(this number sanity checks off of priest assignments to individual chapels very well). 600,000 is almost certainly an overestimate; even the SSPX admits this.
Growing isn't clear. We know that when the tradcath community in a given area is growing, the SSPX is usually part of that growth... but usually slower than regular union chapels. Nobody really disputes that pre-July '26 they were growing, but the sources of that growth are in strong dispute(high fertility vs adults joining). It's not clear whether the growth trend has continued- there's plenty of evidence that it has at least curbed.
One thing that is worth saying is that the SSPX leadership is not the same group as the bishops. Yes, this is weird, but they're led by a priest, not a bishop, elected by the general chapter(also of priests, not bishops). This is probably an intentional move to make their canonical status less clearly schismatic. The SSPX is also poor by tradcath standards; SSPX bishops and senior priests would make significantly more money if they joined a regular diocese. Typically in areas with multiple TLM options, the SSPX one has the lowest average income among the attendees. The SSPX as an institution also faces real financial constraints and regularly has to shelve projects due to funding(the FSSP almost never does this- they will raise the money for things they genuinely need to do. The ICRSS raises the money a bit faster. The diocese would just take on debt).
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Well yes, but the Amish and the Hasidism have huge barriers to entry. To be Amish, you have to move to that region, get baptized into the Amish Mennonite Church, and agree to live by these rules. There’s something of a language barrier as well. Hasidism have similar barriers: Yiddish, becoming a Jew, and living by the rules of Hasidic law. In principle, a lot of those things could be mapped onto a Christian commune system. If you create a church owned commune you can require that the person join the church to live there, you can establish rules, you can vet both residents and tech to limit entryism. But short of that, it’s going to be impossible to keep the community Christian long term.
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