Religions are institutions. Not just institutions, but the old counsel 'thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God' wholes true; you can't expect God to bail out your organizational deficiencies and institutional defects.
Then again, I don't think institutions are just institutions either. God knows them and can and does work through them. True, most secular institutions are wicked these days. But so are most religions.
I think it means that I disagree to some extent with the corpus of your post. At least I thought that's what I was doing. But based on your reaction, I am not so sure now.
30 October 2013 at 16:32
asdf said...
The secular right assumes that people are evil, but proposes that there exist some set of legalistic arrangements such that all of that evil is cancelled out/positively channeled.
The religious right believes that there exists no such system.
Let's use Lewis' distinction between Enjoyment and Contemplation. The way you describe them, Neoreactionaries are contemplating religion without enjoyment but at least in this post I get the impression that you are calling for enjoying religion without contemplating it, which is also insufficient.
Neoreaction (secular right, alt-right etc) focuses on social institutions - indeed, neoreaction regards institutions as primary.
Neoreactionaries say the problem with modernity is in the social institutions - (e.g. corruption by Leftism of The Cathedral of elite media, civil administration, educational organizations).
(Neoreaction regards religion as an institution, like any other.)
To fix modernity, the neoreactionaries say: first, fix the institutions.
They say: nothing good can happen unless we first fix the institutions.
They say: if (somehow, and that somehow is a major focus of discussion) we can fix the institutions - then things can, and probably will, improve.
*
Reactionaries (that is Religious Reactionaries) focus on religion.
Reactionaries say the problem of modernity is apostasy - the abandonment of religion.
We say: none of the above will happen without, first, religion.
Reactionaries say that religion is absolutely and unavoidably necessary (but not sufficient) to fix modernity.
*
Neoreaction disagrees because they see religion as an institution (just like any other) and corrupted by Leftism (just like any other), therefore: first fix the institutions.
*
Reaction regards religion as hierarchically-above other institutions, and something which cannot therefore be fixed by other institutions; but only by religion.
Reactionaries say: to fix the institutional basis of corrupt religion, we need real (not corrupt) religion, therefore: first, religion.
"Neoreactionaries versus (Religious) Reactionaries"
5 Comments -
Religions are institutions. Not just institutions, but the old counsel 'thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God' wholes true; you can't expect God to bail out your organizational deficiencies and institutional defects.
Then again, I don't think institutions are just institutions either. God knows them and can and does work through them. True, most secular institutions are wicked these days. But so are most religions.
30 October 2013 at 14:37
@AG - What you say seems true line by line; but I'm not sure what it means overall!
30 October 2013 at 14:49
I think it means that I disagree to some extent with the corpus of your post. At least I thought that's what I was doing. But based on your reaction, I am not so sure now.
30 October 2013 at 16:32
The secular right assumes that people are evil, but proposes that there exist some set of legalistic arrangements such that all of that evil is cancelled out/positively channeled.
The religious right believes that there exists no such system.
30 October 2013 at 18:06
Here's another stab at it:
Let's use Lewis' distinction between Enjoyment and Contemplation. The way you describe them, Neoreactionaries are contemplating religion without enjoyment but at least in this post I get the impression that you are calling for enjoying religion without contemplating it, which is also insufficient.
1 November 2013 at 15:17