Decadence And The Failure Of The State: A Checklist

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2997 ^ | William M. Briggs

[mattstat]

Decadence: a falling away; a decay; a deterioration; a failing of heart; a focus of self, on the here and now; the emergence of “What’s in it for me?” as a national philosophy; the lack of a goal; the disappearance of a shared sense of purpose.

Russell Kirk was fond of quoting from C.E.M. Joad’s Decadence: A Philosophical Inquiry (1948). Here is Kirk in The Politics of Prudence:

"Professor Joad wrote that a society or an individual that has become decadent has “dropped the object”; or, in terms less abstract, in a decadent state people have lost any aim, end, or object in life; to decadent folk, life has no significance except as mere process or experience; they live as dogs do, from day to day…

Joad sets down certain characteristics of a decadent society: luxury; skepticism; weariness; superstition; preoccupation with the self and its experiences; a society “promoted by and promoting a subjectivist analysis of moral, aesthetic, metaphysical and theological judgments.”

Reads like a checklist of modern life, no? Incidentally, philosophy, especially epistemology (and its sub-branch probability), has been fighting a losing battle against an invasion of barbarians who insist all knowledge is a figment; that the stories we tell to ourselves is all there is. These anarchists would have each of us proclaim, “I am a king of infinite space! For I create what is by mere thought.” And they don’t mean dreams. But more on that on another date...

[vanilla swirl]

if you try to pin down libs to express their core values they have no idea how to answer.

[IronJack]

Our country is failing to the degree it has deviated from the original intent of its founders. Its survival is incumbent on a return to the ideology enshrined in the Constitution, and a strict adherence to the spirit of that charter as well as its letter.

[Stirner]

“if you try to pin down libs to express their core values they have no idea how to answer.”

I disagree. most liberals I know would quickly say that their core value is to help those in need. As a conservative, I also have that as a core value. What separates liberals from conservatives is not the abstract ends they seek (general human flourishing, minimizing of pain), but the means each believes will lead to those ends. Liberals want to help people by providing for their needs. Conservatives want to help people by helping them become self-sufficient, able to meet their own needs.

[Oceander]

You make a good point; however, I think another point of distinction is that liberals define what other people need in terms of what they themselves want, without regard to what the objects of their "affection" really want or need; conservatives, on the other hand, believe that wants and needs are a matter mostly of subjective judgment, and that each person should be left alone to determine his or her own wants and needs, and to design the best means to achieve those ends, within very, very wide boundaries (e.g., no murdering just to get enough money to buy that flashy new porsche you cannot otherwise afford on your service industry wages).

That, of course, is more or less one of the defining differences between socialists-cum-fascists on the one hand and freedom-lovers on the other.

[Stirner]

Good point, Oceander. We are all familiar with the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you). But the Golden Rule assumes that those others want the same things that you want, and people’s desires do differ. A harder rule, which we might call “the Diamond Rule”: do unto others as they as they want to be done to, just as you want them to so do unto you.

[Oceander]

I completely agree. Another recasting of the Golden Rule that I think makes more sense is this: do not do unto others what you would not have done to you. It’s not quite as strong as your formulation, but it does put a little more emphasis on the primacy of the wants and needs of the individual as s/he defines them, and a little less on the transference of one’s own wants and needs onto others.

[PeterPrinciple]

I have often thought the golden rule was a nice saying like “God helps those who help themselves.”

But as I recently rediscovered the original source for the Golden Rule(not titled that though) is the Bible.

Mat 7:12 Therefore all things, whatever you desire that men should do to you, do even so to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.

It is the second part that about it being a summary of the law and prophets that gives it a lot of authority. Quote being from Jesus doesn't hurt either.

[JudgemAll]

Love your neighbor as yourself... but then came the question: what is a neighbor, and it was not a liberal, I can tell you that.

When libs talk about helping others, it’s only them they have in mind, it’s also bleeding heart “justice” devoid of respect of chivalry but full of neglect.

It’s like the chick who always explains that “he cheated on me and I went to jail for it”... playing the victim game make believe story.

Another good one is when a muslim tells you he loves America, as a pervert staring at a vagina, that is. There is no wish to care and preserve in these people’s mind, but humanistoid homosexualoid tendencies to forget all about honoring and caring for what has been built. It’s the great original confusion in Genesis that liberals and communists bank on every day in order to conceal the real meaning of their languages and strange assertiveness. They know what good thinks and manipulates it to make good believe they think alike...