Posted on 07/07/2002 11:25:38 PM PDT by Askel5
|
|
|
Body of the thread from pp. 322-329.
Footnotes (which are fascinating but altogether about as long as the article itself) are available upon request.
The paragraphs you'll want to read begin here, I hope.
A couple other interesting links I found (there aren't that many) ...
A Comparative Understanding of American Educational Missions to Korea and Japan after World War II
At this point the American Education Mission to Germany influenced the on-going plan for sending an educational mission to Korea. After the Mission to Japan returned with a favorable impression, U.S. government authorities resumed discussing the issue of an Educational Mission to Germany. The National Education Association(NEA) played a constructive role in bringing about the Office of the Military Government (U.S.) for Germany's(OMGUS) official request for the Educational Mission on May 8, 1946. The Mission, with Dr. George F. Zook as chairman, left the U.S. on August 23 and stayed in Germany for about one month to study and observe the educational situation in the U.S. Zone. On September 20, 1946, they submitted their report to General Clay, Deputy Military Governor, and returned to the U.S. on September 26, 1946. As this brief schedule shows, the Education Mission to Germany was hastily carried forward after USEMJ, even though the idea of an educational mission to postwar Germany had first been suggested early in June 1945 by the National Education Association. A year of occupation elapsed without any basic policy change in educational reform in Germany under the four powers' ruling by division for a number of reasons. First of all, it was hard to arrive at a consensus among four countries with different political ideologies and educational traditions. Likewise, conflicting attitudes in the U.S. toward educational reform of Germany made it more difficult to reach an agreement. A positive attitude toward the imposition of the American educational ideology and system on Germany was coupled with the negative attitude that the U.S. should respect the German educational culture and system already in existence. The fact that the Soviet Union had the most comprehensive educational reform program in Germany also stimulated the U.S. to adopt an active program. The resulting solution was to invite a group of educational specialists from the U.S. as soon as possible.
Unfavorable impressions from the Education Mission to Germany likely had an influence upon the delay of the educational mission to Korea. Especially the subject of comprehensive schools sparked controversy. William Benton, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, expressed his personal dissatisfaction with the final report on some points and detracted the value. A few private citizens also challenged the validity of the mission report. OMGUS considered the report as only a supporting document or a supplement. The Mission's hesitant attitude toward occupied Germany resulted in passive and inarticulate policy recommendations. The mission to Germany made little impact on German education reform.
and last, but certainly not least ...
In the 1980s and again, in the 1990s newwaves of reform brought different challengesand a new awareness of changing demandsand expectations. Other commissions, councils,and committees would issue numerous, com-prehensive, and relevant reports addressingthe problems and issues of higher education-in an open, voluntary, and rapidly changing society.
Throughout the ensuing "stages" ofprotest, dissent, reform, renewal that characterized the postwar years, the influence of wartime experiences could be detected as "alive, if not in good health".
Despite many false starts, sudden changesof direction, periodic loss of momentum, roller-coaster ups and downs, and unpredictableweather, higher education has made remark-able progress. And despite the difficulty ofcharting their course of progress-and with the continuing problem of never knowingits destination-higher education, as it is known in the first year of a new millennium, can identify its "new departure" or "turningpoint" as "wartime experiences that encour-aged postwar planning."
(I'll have to read the whole thing -- to be fair, natch -- in order to decide for myself if that's a good thing ... =)
Regards, your friend the Delphic ... uh, something besides princess, eh?
Regards,
L
They're not exactly shy about saying exactly what they mean.
What was particularly fascinating about coming across this the other night was that my Dad (the Colonel) and I had gotten into it over the Nuremberg defense just the other night. Now I have the angle (one I've never appreciated before) with which to argue better my position.
So good to see you out and about. I trust all is well with you and yours.
Never, ever compete with a guy whose last name you can't spell I always say.
Regards,
L
He used to come to New Orleans and speak to a circle of friends of mine. I'm crushed I never got to hear him but one gets an idea of what his conversations must have been like, reading him.
One of their favorites stories was this. During the question/answer after one of his lectures (likely on the subject matter herein), one of the Xavier students from the black Catholic university here in town went chapter and verse on the tribulations of the Black Man in America. Keuhnelt-Leddihn paused a moment as he fixed him with a look and simply stated (in his aristocratic Austrian accent):
End of story.
Night, Lurker.
November and December 1997 Volume 7, Number 6
Christianity, the Foundation and Conservator of Freedom
Born in 1909 in Austria, Dr. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn is a prolific writer on the political theory of human freedom and has been published in National Review, Modern Age, and The Freeman, among others. His most recent English books include Leftism Revisited and Liberty or Equality. In addition, Dr. Kuehnelt-Leddihn is a gifted artist whose paintings have been widely acclaimed. R&L: You have often described yourself as an arch-liberal. The word liberalism has very different meanings in the United States and Europe. Could you explain the differences of those understandings of this term?
Kuehnelt-Leddihn: The term liberal in its political connotation we owe to Spain, the nation that always valued freedom most highly if not excessively, and therefore also produced a great many anarchists in the last one hundred fifty years. Resisting the Napoleonic invasion, Spain proclaimed in the liberated south, in Cadiz, a liberal constitution whose supporters were called los liberales. (They denounced their opponents as los serviles.) In 1816 Southey used the expression liberal for the first time in England but still in its Spanish form, liberales. Sir Walter Scott adopted the French form libéraux. In 1832, in connection with the big parliamentary reform, the Whigs assumed the liberal label, the Tories the conservative one. Oddly enough, it was the liberal Chateaubriand who called his paper Le conservateur, a word he invented, but in that early period liberals and conservatives were not so far from each other.
In the United States I observe the perversion of the term liberal, which caused real liberals to call themselves libertarians. The large, hospitable house of liberalism kept all its windows and doors open, and thus the winds from outside could pervade the building. As a good liberal, one has to be open-minded, to respect the "signs of the times"and these, unfortunately, were leftist and collectivistic. Thus, self-
confessed liberals became illiberal. The American Mercury, then editorially managed by Eugene Lyons, published a series of "Creeds": the "Creed of a Conservative," the "Creed of a Reactionary," the "Creed of a Socialist," and then, separately, the "Creed of an Old-fashioned Liberal," and the "Creed of a New Liberal." Needless to say, the latter leaned toward socialism and the omnipotent state. When I speak in Asia, South America, Africa, Australia, or Europe, I have no trouble identifying myself as a liberal. In the United States, where time-honored expressions are so easily confounded, I have to begin with explanations. Its too bad!
In Europe we do not distinguish sharply any longer between conservatives and liberals. I consider myself to be a liberal in the European sense, or to be more precise, a Neo-Liberal, but I never call myself a conservative. Chronicles has accepted an article of mine titled "Conservative or Rightist?" I am for the word Rightist. Right is right and left is wrong, you see, and in all languages "right" has a positive meaning and "left" a negative one. In Italian, typically, la sinistra is "the left" and il sinistro is "the mishap" or "the calamity." Japanese describes evil as hidar-imae, "the thing in front of the left." And in the Bible, it says in Ecclesiastes, which the Hebrews call Koheleth, that "the heart of the wise man beats on his right side and the heart of the fool on his left."
R&L: Being, then, both a historian and a liberal, could you describe the history of the classical liberal tradition?
Kuehnelt-Leddihn: First, we have pre-liberalism, that is, liberalism from a time when people who were liberals did not call themselves liberals, and the word liberal was not used in an economic way or in any other way. For example, Adam Smith is a pre-liberal, as is Edmund Burke, who also is invoked by conservatives, which is very important. As democracy answers the question, "Who should rule?" with, "the majority of politically equal citizens either in person or through their representatives," liberalism answers the question, "How should government be exercised?" Liberalism answers that question by saying that government should be exercised in such a way that each individual citizen receives the greatest amount of freedom, but reasonable freedom with its technical and moral limitations. In other words, freedom is the principle of liberalism
Then we have Early Liberalism. I count Tocqueville, Montalembert, and finally, Lord Acton as very typical Early Liberals. (As you can see, these tendencies do overlap in time very widely; you cannot say where one stops and the other begins. After all, Tocqueville was born in 1805, and Acton died only in 1902.) These Early Liberals are little interested in economics, but they are Roman Catholics, bound by their religious faith, and alsowhich is quite typicalall aristocrats. The nobility always has been the most liberal-minded layer of society and the most sensitive opponents of autocratic government. Consider Runnymede in 1215 where the English barons tried to get more rights and to limit royal power.
The next stage is formed by the Old Liberals, but they unfortunately have a tendency toward philosophical relativism. And in their opposition against interference and limitations, they finally very often take on an anti-Christian, and specifically an anti-Catholic, tendencywhich, of course, is differently developed in various persons. This is the reason why we find a condemnation of liberalism in Article Eighty of the Syllabus, but, of course that condemnation is of Old Liberalism
In 1947 there was a very important event in the history of liberalismthe establishment of the Mont Pélèrin Society, which took place in the Mont Pélèrin Hotel. The founders of that societyLudwig von Mises, Friedrich A. von Hayek, and Wilhelm Röpkeproposed to call it the Tocqueville-Acton Society, whereupon Professor Frank Knight of the University of Chicago rose, banged the table, and said, "If you call this society after two Roman Catholic aristocrats, Ill quit." Well, they then decided to call the society not after any great men but after the hotel where they were meeting.
The Mont Pélèrin Society suffered a severe schism when the Neo-Liberals walked out in 1961, a move led by Wilhelm Röpke with Alexander Ruestow and me. We called ourselves the Neo-Liberals as opposed to the Old Liberals. Many of the outstanding Neo-Liberals were Germans and Austrians who had experienced the Third Reich and saw the importance of looking for eternal values in the Christian message. They were very conscious of the Early Liberals and, like them, believed very strongly in moral limitations and were convinced that Christianity was a very powerful factor in establishing freedom.
After all, eleutheria, which means "freedom," is mentioned again and again in the New Testament, but isotes, "equality," is not.
R&L: In what way is Christianity a factor in establishing freedom? Or perhaps in other words, what is the relationship between religion and liberty?
Kuehnelt-Leddihn: The Bible teaches us that man is created in the image of God, in spite of original sin, as in Genesis 8:21, "Mans mind from his childhood tends toward evil." Of course, God is very different from man, but not totally. See, if we are like God, then God is like us in some ways. God is the Creator; we are also creators. If you paint a picture, or write a book, or plant a garden, or even make a pair of really first-rate shoes, then you are a creator. Animals create, yes, but automatically. Think of an ant-heap, if you like; this kind of activity is automatic, but mans is different. He is a creator.
Christianity has a personalistic theology, which is very important. The word person comes not, as Jacques Maritain thought, from per se, meaning "by itself," but from the Etruscan word phersú, which was the mask of the actor. The mask gave a specific role to the actor on the stage. So, life is a grand game, a great play of God (I am citing here Hugo Rahner, who is the more gifted brother of Karl Rahner and who has written about the playful God in his book Man at Play) in which we are actors. We play with God. We have a responsibility to play our roles, which God might have chosen, but which we are acting with our own lights, on our own behalf, prayerfully trying to comply to His great game and fulfill our destiny and our task here on earth.
Now, if man is a creator and a persona, he needs the possibilities to exercise his creativeness, and for that he needs freedom. Here, then, is the demand for freedom. This is a discovery that Hayekwhom I knew very well, indeedmade very much at the end of his life. In his last book he suddenly sees that religion has something to do with freedom, a discovery that Mises did not make. The realization that religion can make a demand for freedom is very important.
R&L: Would it be fair to say, then, that the principle of the Imago Dei is the foundation upon which freedom rests?
Kuehnelt-Leddihn: Thats right; we have been created in the image of God.
R&L: What then is Christianitys role in the preservation of freedom? If Christianity provides principles that establish freedom, how does Christianity conserve freedom in a society?
Kuehnelt-Leddihn: Christians should speak out when they see measures that unnecessarily restrict freedoms; they should protest publicly in the name of freedom and in the name of the Christian faith. I must here emphasize that the formula is as much freedom as is reasonably possible, but only as much intervention as is absolutely necessary, you see, with the maximum of the former and the minimum of the latter.
The difficulty is doing that in a democratic framework where the vast majority of people live very materialistically and therefore choose interventions from abovefrom the statewhich bring them advantages. In such a system, the people say to the parties, "We will vote for you if you give us material advantages (which might be handouts) and if you give us freedoms (which might be totally immoral, like abortion and so on)." In other words, the people blackmail the parties, and the parties are eager, eager, eager to get the majoritys votes, votes, votes. And it goes the other way around, with the parties bribing the people and declaring: "If you vote for us, youll get that and were committed to this." Its what I call the BB gunbribing and blackmailing, blackmailing and bribing. This leads us nowhere.
We must always keep in mind Romans 12:2, "Do not conform to the aion" and aion means the "world and the spirit of the period." As Christians we have to resist the spirit of the time. Chesterton made a wonderful remark: "The Catholic Church is the only thing which protects us from the degrading servitude of being a child of your time." In other words, we do not give in. We stay our own course, which is not the course of the flow of the time in which we live. The church, therefore, always has been a stranger in this world, but at this present time, the church is more of a stranger than ever in the past. We can make no compromise at all with the spirit of this time.
R&L: What is the spirit of this time? What is it that the church must resist?
Kuehnelt-Leddihn: Anthropolatry, the worship of man. Saint Augustine wrote The City of God and a group of American agnostics wrote The City of Man, published in 1940. We are in the period of the worship of man and the corresponding idea that God created the world as "Supreme Architect" but then retired, and it is now up to man to build the city of man. That is blasphemous. We have to keep in mind the City of God, of course, not the city of man.
R&L: What form of government, then, provides the soundest moral basis for freedom?
Kuehnelt-Leddihn: That is a very large question. According to Plato, there can be no good government unless the philosophers are kings and the kings philosophers, by which he does not mean Ph.D.s and crowned heads. What he does mean is the rule of those well-informed and knowledgeable. But do not forget there are two aspects to this: There is knowledge, and there is experience, and they have to go together. Knowledge alone is insufficient; practice alone is insufficient. To be a good ruler, one needs the combination of knowledge and practice to which has been added moral principles. Now, you had such a form of government in China with the Mandarins. The man who became a Mandarin was one who passed the examinations, and they were frightfully difficult, taken over the course of days. I had the privilege to talk to Dr. Sung-Fothe son of Sun Yat Sen, the founder of the Chinese Republicwho was the director in Taiwan of the examination board for the civil service. He told me, "We dont look to see if youre from Princeton or Harvard. That means nothing; here you must pass the examination." And if you passed, then you were accepted as an administrator, as a civil servant, and these people were highly respected by the population because they knew they were great scholars.
Well, Keuhnelt-Leddihn's my latest crush, of course (and one day I'll be able to spell his name without looking) ... but INDEED one MUST read the monsters.Are either of you saying here that you consider Keuhnelt-Leddihn to be one of the monsters?
If so, I find that surprising.
Thanks very much for the excerpt. I'm going to be sad when I do finish the book ... the next one I ordered is coming from overseas (only place I could find it) and who knows when it'll get here.
He's on my short list of folks I hope to meet one day (if all goes well on my end) and eternity permits him time.
I think we've been doing the dirty work of the Soviets for a long time, actually.
I think it's possible, though, that during my first sustained fascination with communism (beginning about 6th grade), I ignored or glossed over such atrocities as somehow warranted by war. My thinking's grown more consistent since then, thank God, and it's time to revisit the truth.
Those that don't study history are doomed to repeat it.
I wonder how I missed putting him together with Mont Pélèrin Society (having heard my friends talk about him for years) ... perhaps the spelling of his name, I guess, threw me.
R.I.P. 1909-1999
We've enabled all of that and simply looked the other way.
Why?
Why such a deafening silence from the academic world regarding the Communist catastrophe, which touched the lives of about one-third of humanity on four continents during a period spanning eighty years?Another reason can be added in distinction to the West in general: American optimism. Among the mature, our American confidence in trouncing the enemy in WW II has turned a benign eye to the danger of evil; among the adolescent, seriousness would be handily dealt with a fast joke to ensure contempt and ridicule.Why is there usch widespread reluctance to make such a crucial factor as crime--mass crime, systematic crime, and crime against humanity-- a central factor of analysis of Communism?
Is this really something that is beyond human understanding? Or are we talking about a refusal to scrutinize the subject too closely for fear of learning the truth about it? [such as, "Time and again the focus of terror was less on targeted individuals than on groups of people."]
The reasons for this reticence are many and various. First, there is the dictator's understandable urge to erase their crimes and to justify the actions they cannot hide . . .
. . . Not satisified with the concealment of their misdeeds, the tyrants systematically attacked all who dared to expose their crimes and victims grew reluctant to speak out . . .
As is usually the case, a lie is not, strictly speaking, the opposite of the truth, and a lie will generally contain an element of truth. Perverted words are situated in a twisted vision that distorts the landscape . . . Like martial artists, thanks to their incomparable propaganda strength grounded in the subversion of language, successfully turned the tables on the criticism leveled against their terrorist tactics . . . Thus they held fast to their fundamental principle of ideological belief, as formulated by Tertullian for his own era: "I believe, because it is absurd."
Like prostitutes, intellectuals found themselves inveigled into counterpropaganda operations . . . confronted with this onslaught of Communist propaganda, the West has long labored under an extraordinary self-deception, simultaneously fueled by naivete in the face of a particularly devious system, by the fear of Soviet power, and by the cynicism of politicians . . . this self-deception was a source of comfort . . .
there are three more specific reasons for the cover-up of the criminal aspects of Communism. The first is the fascination with the whole notion of revolution itself . . . Openly revolutionary groups are active and enjoy every legal right to state their views . . .
The second reason is the participation of the Soviet Union in the victory over Nazism . . .
The final reason . . . the Communists soon grasped the benefits involved in immortalizing the Holocaust.
--Stephaen Courtois, "Introduction" The Black Book of Communism
Among the educated, our optimism confidently rides the raft of reason, convinced that the life of reason effectively excludes the reality it is meant to understand.
Another reason why is because knowledge of other facts is limited. Probably self-confidence is the cause of that limitation as well.
More can be added.
Would that Covenantor and Coyote were here as well.
The time of the old-fashioned cabinet wars is over, war has become total, partly because technology gave us staggering means of destruction, partly because, due to the withering away of religion, totalitarian ideologies capable of mobilizing the masses and fanaticizing pragmatists, have filled this void.I never have taken you for one who is big on pragmatists. As a matter of fact, I have always considered you to be somewhat disdainful of people like me who tend to take a more pragmatic view about what can be done about issues such as abortion and such.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.