I read a couple of reviews and saw an advert in the
European Conservative Magazine, for Yoram Hazony's book 'Conservatism, A Rediscovery', so I ordered a copy from my local library and sat down to read
it. I was very happy to find him say in his Introduction, that "It is
possible for individuals to discover that they have been on the wrong course,
repent, and set out on a new and better course. And this is possible, too, for
families and congregations, tribes and nations." As this cuts across the
modern woke cancel culture mentality of, "once a sinner, always a sinner."
As a convert myself from paganism to Catholicism, I know there is hope for
everyone.
And so on to chapter one, pages seven and eight
where I found to my horror this,
"In the 1530s, King Henry VIII led his people in what became the
first modern movement for national independence. Regarding themselves as
restoring England's ancient freedom, Henry and his advisors cut the ties that
bound the English government to the pan-European bureaucracy of the Pope and
the German emperor, established the king as the head of the Church of England,
translated the Bible into English, and dissolved the monasteries that were seen
as hotbeds of papist sentiment. Henry's campaign for English independence was
followed by aggressive Protestant reforms under the brief rule of his son
Edward VI; and then by a desperate attempt to lead the country back into
Europe's Catholic political and religious order by Henry's daughter Mary, whose
husband Philip II of Spain, regarded himself as divinely appointed to return
England to obedience.
The stability, strength, and cohesion of Britain as an independent,
Protestant nation was secured during the forty-five-year reign of Henry's
daughter Elizabeth, who ascended the throne in 1558. It was Elizabeth who
eventually defeated Phillip’s Armada and attained a religious
"settlement" that established the Anglican church, while tolerating
Catholics and Protestant dissenters as long as they remain discrete in their
practices. Yet Elizabeth’s remarkable achievements were threatened by
Protestant radicals, who chaffed at her willingness to offer Catholics a decree
of accommodation and at her nationalist religious policies which stubbornly
refused to conform the Church of England to international accepted standards
for what reformation should look like."
I would need to write a book or two to point out how
wrong everything he has written hereis. Such books have already been written,
so I will merely observe, for example, that Henry VIII did not lead his people
to freedom, but just led a string of women, most of whom he was not married to,
to his bed-chamber! Henry dissolved the monasteries and gave their wealth to
his poor....advisors! For a real understanding of Catholic life under ‘Good
Queen Bess’, see John Gerards, The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest.
And so taking up the author's excellent offer, I
skipped the next 440 pages to really enjoy the final chapter and
conclusion.
As this young couple talked about the idea of a
better life they considered what they knew of a better past. She talked about
her grandparents strong presbyterian household, he talked about the solidarity
and radiance of his Orthodox Jewish Uncle and Aunt's home. They could see the
goodness in the traditional family and it's importance in the restoration of a
nation.
Princeton University in those days was clearly in a
state of moral decay, there were no responsible adults anywhere. "Here,
5,000 young men and women had been dumped into dormitories together and given
as much access to alcohol and drugs, sex, and party music as they could consume
and if they smashed the window in their dorm rooms, broke empty beer bottles in
the stairwells, or bashed in the street lamp with their heads while they were
drunk---all common occurrences---then nameless men in green uniforms would
appear and repair the campus to its prior, Edenic beauty, with no questions
asked."
Looking at economic conservatism and the free
market it is noted that Adam Smith like the American founders, had considered
that things in society would continue in such a way as to allow for free
enterprise. "In particular they took for granted 'organized religion,
traditional moral values, and the family'--- factors that had once been
powerful enough to constrain the market and channel it into productive avenues.
But now these things had become unsettled, controversial, artificial."
And the author says, looking at Kristol's
"discussion of pornography and censorship, we come face to face with the
religious foundation on which everything else in Kristol's politics was built:
For him, there was a real difference between what is worthy of human beings and
what is debased and corrupt. He was, in other words, invoking the biblical view
that each of us is made in God's image. According to this view, pornography is
wrong not only because it is built on enslavement and coercion. It is wrong because
it reduces men and women to beasts. This is true of those who make pornography
and it is true of those who consume it. And where it is allowed to spread, it
swiftly reduces the entire society to one without constraint, a society of
animals."
Thinking about a new generation of Conservatives, he
says there are young men and women brilliant intellectually, they have a lot
going for them, but they don't really understand the proper weight or
significance of things. "Imagine a young man in his 30s, living with a
woman year after year, deferring marriage and children, engaging in the life of
no congregation, reading no scripture, and keeping no sabbaths. I won't go so
far as to say that such a person is Godless and entirely without a moral
compass, although one could make that argument. Rather, he is a man who has
inherited no sense of what is to be honoured and in what degree. Because of
this all things look good and fruitful to him, and no obligation seems
especially pressing. He feels that no great harm would be done if he fails to
commit to marriage and raising children, to join in a congregation and keeping
the Sabbath for another 10 or 15 years. Here's the kind of man who is not
overly troubled by the fact that he has in effect, left God sitting in the
waiting room with a stack of Conservative magazines to look at. What does such
a person know about conserving anything? He copies conservative words from
others, but his life is that of a liberal. He thinks his influences over others
are his words. But he doesn't have enough experience in life to know that his
true influence is being exerted by his deeds. Everyone around him knows how he
lives. And for this they understand what is weighty and significant in his eyes
and what is not. To the extent that others honour and respect him, they learn
from him that they should lead a liberal life, just as he does.
What would he do differently if he was determined
to bring about a change in the order of the world around him?
He would begin living a conservative life---a life
that is built around the restoration and conservation of things, not just in
his fantasies, but in reality, this would require locating an actual
conservative community in which the tradition still lives and is being handed
down to new generations. It would require presenting himself to this
community."
"And so, whenever we hear a conservative
speaking warmly about the conservation of our national, religious, and moral
inheritance, it is reasonable for those within earshot to ask what this
particular person has done for the actual conservation of national and
religious tradition where this is entirely within his power--- which is to say,
in his private life. Has he taken the necessary steps to construct a
conservative life for himself and his posterity? Is he yet another sorry
example of the general dereliction that we face?"
I cannot possibly finish this without mentioning
the third year of the publication of 'The Princeton Tory' magazine that had been
handed over to a group of Protestant and Catholic students. "In February
1988, they published an issue at the magazine with the words 'Is God Dead? We
Think Not' splashed across the cover. I was proud of them for doing it. That
issue of the Tory made plenty of people angry. But it did something that needed
to be done, directly taking on the implicit consensus everyone and everything
at Princeton had to be moving towards overthrowing received ideas and
traditions, no matter how important." I had to include this in my review
because my own contribution to conserving the things that matter is making
'God's Not Dead' button badges.
I make no apology for the fact that this review
contains more quotes from Mr Hazony’s book than it has of my views, as most of
the bits of the book that I did read, were very good and well worth quoting at
length. Should you wish to read the 440 pages that I skipped, please do so,
with my blessing.
And do I feel at all guilty for having skipped the
vast bulk of this book? Not really, as the author invited me to do so, and
although Sir Roger Scruton said, "a teacher must repeatedly acquaint
himself with books that he would rather eat than read." I am not a teacher
and nor would I particularly like to eat this book. The book came from the
library and needs to be returned, I have hundreds of other books around the
house waiting to be read and I am in fact reading a number of them at this
time. I felt slightly guilty in that I am reading some essays by Scruton at the
moment and in one of them he says, "Now that [Thatcher] has gone from us,
however, and no longer poses a threat to all the ambitions that her presence
once obstructed, she will surely be acknowledged, even by those who conspired
to remove her, as the greatest woman in British politics since Queen Elizabeth
I." As it is a collection of essays and I own the book I will, in spite of
this positive comment about the evil queen read on.
