Finished reading: Twilight of Authority by Robert Nisbet (1975). Nisbet has long been an important writer for me, but this, the only one of his major books I hadn’t read, is a disappointment, vague and full of moot assertions. There’a a provocative point in the Preface, though: having made the familiar old-school conservative case that we suffer from a decline in civil society, in the various institutions that mediate between individuals and the state, he adds this:
Accompanying the decline of institutions and the decay of values in such ages [of decline as ours] is the cultivation of power that becomes increasingly military, or paramilitary, in shape. Such power exists in almost exact proportion to the decline of traditional social and moral authority. Representative and liberal institutions of government slip into patterns ever more imperial in character. Military symbols and constraints loom where civil values reigned before.
This is very much a book of the Vietnam era, so I’m sure it has no application to our own moment. 📚
One lawn down the street from us is filled this evening with fireflies! — or lightning bugs, as we called them in Alabama when I was growing up. It’s so wonderful to see them: they are rare now (I hadn’t seen any for years) but they filled the summer evenings of my childhood. Sitting cross-legged on the porch and watching the lightning bugs under the pecan trees was one of the defining experiences of my whole sensibility.
Gianni Benvenuti, illustration from Winny-Puh (the Italian translation of Winnie-the-Pooh).
British footy announcers identifying a player from the U.S. when he does something impressive: “the Fulham left-back,” “the Juventus midfielder,” etc.
British footy announcers identifying the same player when he does something wrong: “The American.”
From an earlier essay by Elizabeth on the alternative to thinking of every social/cultural political situation as a pitched battle:
Warriors are right that this world is certainly full of problems, and sometimes battles must be fought. Nobody can shrug them off or pretend that they don’t exist. But losers don’t in fact shun the active life. Instead, they are engaged in activity that takes place in a much deeper stratum of consciousness than political and journalistic warfare. They invest energy in existentially permanent activities, like loving and caring for other people: children, students, family, neighbors, colleagues. They work as musicians, educators, physicians, priests, and artists. Beautiful losers renew and pass on the art, literature, and manners that constitute the best of our culture.
My friend and colleague Elizabeth Corey:
Certainly the professoriate leans leftward. But it turns out that people from right and left can agree on many things despite our differences: for example, what to read in our courses, pedagogical practices, and how to care for our students. In short, we live and work among people who differ from us in all sorts of ways, yet it’s possible and sometimes even delightful to become friends with those we thought initially we wouldn’t like. The friend/enemy dichotomy doesn’t make sense here. We must bridge all kinds of divides, not search and destroy. Only within the rarefied environment of the internet or within certain think tanks can we surround ourselves with people who agree with us and echo our opinions. And that would be boring, or so I think.
Elizabeth is being firebombed on Twitter by Christopher Rufo, to whom she’s responding here. She suggests a drink and a conversation, but I don’t think conversation is something Rufo does. He follows Carl Schmitt while Elizabeth follows Jesus.
I say this every couple of years, and it’s time: The next time someone tells you that René Girard is a great genius, before you decide you believe it please read this essay by Joshua Landy.
