"What would (Southern Agrarians like) Donald Davidson or Allen Tate think about this?"
Well, none of us are on their intellectual level, so they would have considered us to be pretty amateurish. But I think that they probably would have had some appreciation for our lengthy discussions on various Greek and Latin words, what they mean, and how they were used in various works -- such as the discussion that Annalex, HarleyD and I have been having about the word "epiousios" in the Lord's Prayer.
I certainly think that John Crowe Ransom would have approved. Read "God without Thunder," and you will read someone who would have fit in on this thread very nicely. And I think that most of us would agree with Davidson's "intense disgust with the spiritual disorder of modern life...."
As to Tate, well, he would aloofly have intellectually eaten us all for lunch with room left over for dessert -- had he condescended to speak with us. But I think that had he dived in, he would have found, in the discussions between Orthodox Christians and Catholics and Protestants, some things of great interest, given the fact that he, perhaps more acutely than any of the Agrarians, saw the deep internal contractions and conflict in the Western European mind -- between scientific rationalism and Western forms of Christian dogma. As he wrote in "Religion and the Old South:" "This was the peril of the European mind and the medieval Church knew it." Tate saw that the "Russian or eastern European mind" was very different, but thought it was "quite simply supernaturalism."
Where Ransom's ultimate pulling back from any consideration of actually becoming Eastern Orthodox was based on a sort of cultural "abhorrence," (which is understandable since his only personal contact with Orthodox Christians were with non-English speaking immigrants in a Wyoming mining town -- yet for all that he said that he admired them and their religion) Tate's objections to the Eastern Church were, to put it bluntly, based on an inadequate understanding of how the Eastern -- that is to say, Orthodox -- mind works, and that mind is hardly devoid of reason.
Tate observed that "the Western Church established a system of quantity for the protection of quality, but there was always the danger that quantity would revolt from servitude and suppress its master..." Very perceptive. He notes that "the Eastern Church never had to ... construct a plausible rationality round the supernatural to make it acceptable; it has never had a philosophy, nor a dogma in our sense; it never needed one." Again, very perceptive, and I think he would have seen that contrast right here on this thread.
And there are further parallels: Tate observed that "the South could be ignorant of Europe because she *was* Europe... and the South could remain simple-minded because she had no use for the intellectual agility required to define its position... The Southern mind was simple, not top-heavy with learning it had no need of, unintellectual, and composed; it was personal and dramatic, rather than abstract and metaphysical..." I could go on and on from that particular essay.
Tate's self-described "irreligiosity" in his treatment of the Christianity he saw in the West in general and America in particular was not something he saw as being desirable -- but simply unavoidable given this clarity of vision. Tate saw not only the deep contradictions within the Western Christian mind, but specifically saw that the religion of the South was fundamentally flawed. He said that "the South would not have been defeated had she possessed a sufficient faith in her own kind of God. She would not have been defeated, in other words, had she been able to bring out a body of docrine setting forth her true conviction that the ends of man require more for their realization than politics. The setback of the war was of itself a very trivial one."
Fascinatingly, Davidson asks the question: "How may the Southerner [or I would say, the "agrarian" in general] take hold of his tradition? The answer is: by violence."
He says: "The Southerner is faced with this paradox: He must use an instrument, which is political, and so unrealistic and pretentious that he cannot believe in it, to re-establish a private, self-contained, and essentially spiritual life."
What I am slowly getting at is that there are a great many "agrarians" -- whether they would recognize themselves as such, or have read Tate and Davidson and Ransom or not -- who have taken a very different kind of "violence" (a distinctly non-political or apolitical violence) to re-establish these "private, self-contained, and essentially spiritual" lives for themselves and their families. They have gone beyond the cultural "abhorrence" and discovered a way not to be "defeated" by the modern world -- which world is simply a finely honed version of what "the world" has always been for those who have sought God from the time of Adam and Eve outside the gates of Paradise down to our own Christian day. These agrarians have become Orthodox... There are a fair number of us around FR.
Sorry to have nabbed your screen-name, but first-come, first-served. :-) And indeed, "long live the green fields of Our Lord." I'm going to ping a couple of people who I think might be interested, and invite them to ping any others who might enjoy this turn of conversation (there are no rules on this thread other than that one make modest attempts at civility)...
Nice to have someone around here who has read Tate, Davidson, et al -- all too many of them have left over the years, primarily because it is hard to be an agrarian and blindly cheer for anything the Republican party happens to do on a given day... I primarily hide out on the religion threads now, because it doesn't seem that there is anyone to talk to about that other stuff these days on FR, unlike my early days on FR when we would have long threads discussing Cato, Cicero, Russell Kirk, the Agrarians...
Maybe we can re-establish an Agrarian thread or two, and try not to get banned in the process.
I must admit that I have not read much systematically in the area since college - at one time "I'll Take My Stand" was very dear to me.
Two of the professors I knew at Auburn, Dr Weatherby and Dr Allen, had been taught by agrarians at Vanderbilt, and both of these men became Orthodox Christians in the mid-1970s.
It's predictable but lamentable that Vanderbilt does its best to deny its connection with the agrarians, none of their poetry is taught today at Vandy. I suppose much of it can be laid at the feet of unthinking PC. To be fair to Vanderbilt, some of the agrarianism were openly racist, notably Davidson, who had the longest connection with the university.
Davidson, was, however, a great thinker, writer and poet. Great art should not be shunned merely because the artist is an SOB. If that were the test many museums and libraries would be nearly vacant.
Have you read "Crunchy Cons"? To be sure, it's not on the same plane as the primary agrarian works you mentioned, but Rod Dreher hits on many themes that agrarians hold dear. I understand that Rod is seriously considering becoming Orthodox. His chapter on Religion includes an interview with an Orthodox friend of mine.
I believe there is a connection between the world-view of Orthodoxy and agrarianism. Both share a conception of ordinary things as sacramental. The environment we live our lives in is important. There is more to life than materialism and efficiency.
There you go again, adding to my reading list.
Indeed, I am no Rhodes scholar. That they would appreciate the discussion (with the possible exception of Tate who could belittle even a brilliant writer like Andrew Lytle), I most certainly concur. After all, they weren't born with PhD’s, and the best of them never bothered taking one.
When reading the backgrounds and biographies of the fugitive group, what's most striking to me is the classical education and intellectual encouragement available to bright young minds in even the most rural parts of the South, before state schools triumphed over such frivolous pursuits. Before they were known or published, they were gathered in living rooms and arbors listening to their elders recite stories and poetry, and learning Greek and Latin from the widow.
Though these kinds of discussions are perhaps less frequent on FR than they used to be, the best argument for an open forum like this is that it allows worthwhile intellectual pursuit free of professional sanction. Save for a few discrete freepers, we're not trained academics; but I think some smart German said that leisure is the basis of culture.
I have attempted in vain for several years to find a copy of God without Thunder I can afford, and so must subsist on what I can glean from Ransom's essays in I'll Take my Stand, Who Owns America, and those portions of The World's Body I find at my level.
I know more about the agrarians' flirtations with Roman Catholicism than Eastern Orthodoxy, but a story has been passed to me about the very question, in which another somewhat-known southern lit. critic delivered his answer to a drawn-out discussion with an air of finality: "We're not from over there." (my html is off, so imagine italics in the appropriate places). A cruder version than your explanation, but both demonstrate on some level the intractability of culture and community in the practice of faith.
I believe "Remarks on the Southern Religion" was the essay in I'll Take My Stand that I found least satisfying (of those I read eagerly). Admittedly, my greatest difficulty was that I'm not sure I like where he's coming from at that particular moment. But I can't argue that in his South there was an intellectual contentment derived from certainty, which can be dramatically contrasted to the hyperactive experimentation of New England. There is strength and weakness in this. Strength of faith is a virtue, yet the South never could have born an Orestes Brownson or a G.K. Chesterton. The indispensable polemic is the special craft of the convert.
As a would-be agrarian, I can’t ignore that so many of my icons were adult converts and geographic wanderers. As a cradle Catholic, I tend to avoid deep theological debates knowing my rhetoric will be found lacking. This renders me an odd parasite, feeding on late arrivals (a true American capitalist?).
I am moved by one last point you quote from Davidson: "The Southerner is faced with this paradox: He must use an instrument, which is political, and so unrealistic and pretentious that he cannot believe in it, to re-establish a private, self-contained, and essentially spiritual life."
I have spent far more of my life working in politics than any healthy, rational American should even consider. Without getting myself banned, I can’t begin to elaborate the complexities and contradictions I find inherent to my “vocation.” At its best and most noble, it is an attempt to carve out a space for “people like us” to live as we would, through means we find absurd. The greatest impediment is a growing conviction to live in accordance with belief. Increasingly, it occurs to me that the best we can do is to pull back, and faithfully tend to our own little corner(s) of the world. Struggling to decide if this is realistic, defeatist or perhaps both? Is that good?
One contemporary writer I’m going to give more time to is Rod Dreher. He’s no intellectual on the level of those you’ve mentioned, but he is trying to find practical ways for “people like us” to live in the world we find, consistent with our loftier notions.
You’ve given me much to think about, and little to disagree with, so rather than restate in my own words, I’ll draw mine to an over-due close with gratitude.